What I love about cycling is the more you put in, the more you get out. There’s a clear reward for the effort that you make. For me in 2008, that reward was my two gold medals in the Olympic and world championship road races.
Both races meant so much to me; I never realised what they meant until it actually happened. The feelings were something I never expected, even though these races had been my goals for years and years. Nothing prepared me for the emotion of winning.
I still experience new emotions each time I look back and think about it all. I loved ending the season as Olympic champion, and the world championship extended that high – in fact, I pull on the rainbow jersey of world champion every day to go out training (unless it’s raining), so there’s a tangible reminder of what I’ve achieved, sitting on my back.
I started out in cycling like anyone else. I was given a bike for Christmas and learned to ride on stabilisers. From the age of six my parents took me and my brother on tandem touring holidays, staying in youth hostels – I’d usually ride with my mum and Craig would be with dad, though we would swap around if I wanted to go quick, as my dad liked to have a few burn-ups.
Those holidays were just one big adventure, with a real feeling of freedom. We’d have an idea of where we were going, but it would be different every day. Sometimes dad would think he knew the terrain, but he would end up taking us up a giant hill.
I started racing on the tandem, doing weekly club time-trials with my dad, and I was gripped by the idea that you could come back and do better the next week. I’d always liked sport and had always wanted to do my best. Losing annoyed me. I wasn’t a bad loser – I just wanted to do my best.
There are less opportunities for discovery now, because a lot of my training is on set routes. But even on a circuit you know, you can feel the seasons change as you ride, watch things happening in the natural world. It’s not like being in a stadium, which never changes. You get misty days and clear days when the view just opens up in front of you.
I still have my favourite roads. In south Wales, where I come from, I love the hills that go up and out of the valleys because they are all a bit different; each has its own character.
In Lugano, Switzerland, where I’m based for most of the year, there’s one road that goes up a big hill into a high-up area where you follow a mountain chain up and down, up and down, with hardly any cars – as if it’s for cyclists only. There’s a waterfall on one corner and suddenly these great views as you go in and out of the woods. I still never quite know what I’m going to see and what may happen along the way.
There is one thing about cycling my titles haven’t changed: I still love the freedom I found when cycling as a child, the feeling of natural power. I’m always very in tune with my body, so I can feel when I’m going well, when I’m strong, which is a fantastic sensation. It’s all yours, all natural.
This year I’m setting up my own team with some young British riders, which is a rewarding thing to do. From here until 2012 I’m just going to enjoy racing; I have nothing to prove to anyone. The two gold medals have taken a huge weight off my shoulders – I’m still highly motivated, but I don’t have the pressure any more. That makes me a good deal more self-confident and I can just take pleasure in the whole thing now.
During the supremely successful Beijing games, Britain’s cycling performance director, Dave Brailsford, called for his sport to be placed on the national school curriculum, as swimming is. Cycling, Brailsford pointed out, is an important life skill as well as a sport, a simple way to give children freedom and a healthy family activity.
Parents feel, not unreasonably, that the nation’s roads are not safe for their children, but there are answers. Nationwide, there are schemes such as the National Cycle Network (sustrans.org.uk) and the National Byway (thenationalbyway.org), which direct cyclists towards traffic-free roads. Mountain biking, BMX and track cycling are all ways of riding a bike away from traffic, and also provide good pathways into competition.
Getting a bike for a wannabe Chris Hoy or Victoria Pendleton isn’t difficult either. Many of the bigger manufacturers offer scaled-down racing models, while some of the most interesting children’s bikes on the market at present are the brainchild of West Midlands company Islabikes (islabikes.co.uk). These feature components and frames that are sized to suit growing bodies.
There is currently a surge in the number of children racing bikes. British Cycling is pushing for the construction of more cycle-racing circuits such as the one that opened last year in Solihull. British Cycling is also beefing-up its Go-Ride scheme, which offers cycle training and racing activities for children nationwide using off-road circuits. Visit britishcycling.org.uk for more information.
How to measure your heart rate
Heart rate is the number of beats your heart makes per minute. At rest this may be 60-80 beats per minute (bpm), but this is individual and some highly trained cyclists may have resting heart rates as low as 30bpm. However, when working at maximum effort your heart rate may rise above 200bpm.
A basic generic formula for working out expected maximum heart rates is to deduct your age from 220 (eg for a 25-year-old the expected maximum would be 220-25=195), but this varies widely, and you should try to get an accurately measured value.
Early use of heart rates to determine exercise level simply recommended various percentages of that maximum. A more tailored method is to base your target heart rate on your “heart rate reserve” – the difference between your maximum and resting heart rate.
But there is an even more useful value – threshold. This is the maximum level you can sustain for an hour. The simplest way to determine your threshold is to ride as hard as you can for one hour, and then note your average heart rate for the ride. If you’re not ready for the whole hour, just ride at a pace you can only just maintain for 30 minutes. Use 95% of your recorded average heart rate as your functional threshold.
Test yourself at the end of the final active recovery week of each training block so that you can adjust your training to take account of improvements in your fitness. (Remember to warm-up with ten minutes gentle riding and warm-down with a gentle five-minute spin in an easy gear).
• Extracted from Cycle For Life, by Nicole Cooke (Kyle Cathie)
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