1988. HMS Daedalus, RN base, Lee-on-Solent. Thirds and juniors road race around part of the runway. Short triangular circuit, 3 very sharp corners. The kind of corners you have to slow right down before you get to, while choosing (carefully) the right gear to accelerate out of. The kind of corners that put you into all sorts of agony if you aren’t ready for them……….

I arrived at this circuit with my mate. Neither of us had ridden there before but had been told that the wind was the main problem and that the circuit was wide and the corners didn’t present a problem as the circuit was a large rectangle. True, but that was for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd category race. Not the 3rds and juniors (I should explain at this point that before British Cycling introduced the 4th category 3rd was the bottom one and organisers used to put two events on – one for 1st, 2nd and 3rds (this was longer) and one for 3rds and juniors (shorter and everyone had to ride restricted gears – 52 x 15 maximum). It was often perceived that the 3rds and juniors (3J) race was easier. This wasn’t always the case – around this time in the Wessex division you had Juniors like Mark Armstrong (VC St Raphael – went on to become National Junior Road race champion), Scott Wheeler (Poole Wheelers – not sure what happened to him but he used to be in the same league as Armstrong) and a host of others. Also coming up at that time was Dave Rand (CS Purbeck) who went on to win the National (Senior) Road Race Championship. Apologies for anyone who I missed here. Anyway, all of these riders could show this particular coach a clean pair of wheels within seconds of the race beginning.

And so was the case in Lee-on-Solent. “No warming up on the airfield”. Security. So the warm up was, I think, around 5 mins or so. Result? The inevitable……….dropped. Lapped. And again. And retired. We couldn’t even leave the base until everyone had finished. Security.

So…….warm-ups! Do you need one? If so what? How long? How hard/easy? In this post I will attempt to give you an idea of what you can do for specific events. And you could try a new method – but only do it firstly in a race that isn’t important to you just in case it doesn’t work for you!

Warm-ups are, I would argue, event-specific. If your event is a 120 mile sportive then it is likely you are going to spend a great deal of time waiting to start in a holding pen and, unless you are going for a super-fast time, you are probably not going to start a bloc (full gas) but spend a few kilometres getting into the swing of things. Add the complication of doing this abroad with 6000 other people in a small town start and you have limited opportunities for any of the warm-up variations detailed later. So, turn your legs round as much as you can as you pedal to the start (having hopefully done a recce of some of the route a couple of days earlier).

Road races are different. If it’s on open roads you usually have the luxury of doing a lap (or part of a lap if the laps are big) of the course. If it is a circuit race (closed circuit) you may well not get this opportunity (especially if there are other events on the same day) so you should bring a turbo or rollers.

Road races need differentiated warm-ups depending on the type of event. I would contend that a long road race (2 hours plus) needs a progressive warm-up through 60% max heart rate (MHR), going onto 85% MHR over 10-15 mins. Then some harder (near your max) 10s efforts (preferably up a hill on the course) with 1 min between each one (say 4 efforts). This is probably enough, then pedal to the start and keep warm until the last moment, taking your jacket/leg warmers off then. Criteriums (like the Lee-on-Solent race), however, can go from the gun so you should do the warm-up above (on a turbo) and also include some (2-3) efforts @90% max HR over 1-2 minutes (with equal time between efforts pedalling easy, 1 min on, 1 min off for example) before the sprints – these should be 6s (maybe 4 of them) and have 20s between them pedalling easily. Then a steady pedal back at 60% MHR and up to the start line. I would also recommend this warm up for cyclo-cross – these races always go from the gun.

Time trials should, again, be differentiated based upon distance. The longer the TT the less of a warm-up is needed (think long road race).  But for 10 and 25 mile TT’s the Criterium warm-up is useful, with the 1-2 min efforts being at the intensity (heart rate or power in watts) that you aim to sustain in the race. The 6s sprints should be in medium gears and precede the 1-2 min rolling efforts.

Track racing is more complex given the type of event you will be riding but for a track league meet where you may well be riding 4-5 different events a similar type of progressive warm-up is desirable (more difficult on fixed gear and rollers) where rpm is used to increase intensity. Warming down between races/heats is also very important to prevent stiffening up. You will also often see riders at World Cup meets heading out of the velodrome on their road bikes to warm down. In a recent competition I noticed riders using Wattbikes for this part of their preparation track centre.

Riders like myself who have reached veteran (cruel word, isn’t it? I mean, can’t they think of a nicer term? How about you do? Find me on Twitter @timblackcatcc and tweet me your ideas!) status need longer to warm up. Add another 10 minutes reasonably fast (90-100rpm) pedalling working the HR up to 60%MHR first.

Don’t forget the almost maximal sprints in the warm-up – I advise my clients to do these mid-cassette or lower. The idea is that you “wake-up” the fast twitch fibres and recruit them for the effort you are about to make.

So – if you don’t warm-up like this, give it a go. If you are always dropped at the start of a fast race then try the Criterium warm-up. Whatever you do, get to know the sensations your body gives you in the first part of an event. You will learn how to “open up” your throttle without damaging yourself if you practise warm-ups in training and training races.

One photo today is from the start line of  a recent race (circuit race) where this coach arrived late and didn’t warm up enough. I was doing some team work for clubmates and got carried away, trying to get up to a break. Result? Yup, you guessed it, 1988 all over again although this time I was able to limp off home early…..the start line photo shows one of my clients, Rich McVey, who was also riding in the 1980’s but was winning races rather than climbing off in them. Rich attends my turbo training sessions in the winter, does testing with me and has me write training programmes for him which he attempts to fit in between his incredible amount of racing (usually 5 days a week when he isn’t working nights…). He also warms up diligently and is never dropped on the first lap and so I have pleasure in including a couple more action photos of him here. Incidentally, Rich’s dad Pip McVey is 80 and still beats 30 minutes for a 10 mile TT!!!!!!!!!!