[Total Heckler]

I normally try and do 2-3 road rides a week only like and hour or two for each, then on the weekends do long hours on the DH bike. Maybe sneak a dirt jump session or two in.

I have made some huge improvements.

 

[SBDownhillRacer]

running or riding a lot with out stopping. SOunds easy but trust me the way to do it is to when your riding or running and you feel like you cant go any farther, go farther. Going to the gym as well and doing many reps on a leg press with an average amount of weight will help as well.

 

[DHCorky]

You have to practice/train like you race.

When you are out riding DH at a resort the chairlift is for resting. If you keep stopping on the way down your body is not going to learn how to ride when you are tired. Learn to relax and recover in the smooth open sections of a DH course. A small part of endurance is pacing yourself. If you use everything you have in the top sections of the course you will have nothing for the bottom. You have to split your energy over the whole course then work on making yourself faster.

Your training should be structured around what you race. Some long XC or road rides are good for recovery/base but you need to focus on short runs. You need your body trained to use everything it has in the time of a DH race. Intervals and sprints are key, work on short sprints like others have said. Then do some intervals 2-5 minutes in length. Get a nice warm up then go all out for 3 minutes, rest for a couple then do it again. If you can do more than a half dozen of these before a significant decrease in performance you are not going hard enough.

 

[jus]

Like someone said earlier, take all of this advise and do what will work for you. But I would say that one thing you need to do for sure is to build up a base.... what ever your routine is, don't start into it full on the first day. You will more than likely burn out quickly and there is more possibility of getting hurt. Do your own thing and HAVE FUN!!

As for no stopping on a DH run. Are you guys talking about just doing shuttle runs? Or actually at a race? I've found that at a race if i mess up in a section, i'll stop, go back up and do it again until it's fast enough.... I guess you could say that it's bad to stop because if it happens in your race then you won't be able to recover.... but if you don't stop then the nxt time down that section it will be hard to member your line, and if you didn't do it right in the first place.... then maybe it's better to look it over?? But again, what works for some, might not for others. Good Luck!

 

[atrokz]

Theres a saying about army training up here:


Train like you fight
Fight like you train

 

[Sandwich]

stop smoking the reefer

 

[sayndesyn]

The more you sweat in training
The less you bleed in combat.

Theres a saying about army training up here:


Train like you fight
Fight like you train

 

[LukeD]

play net in hockey 2-3 hours a day 5 times a week haha thats squats for about 15 hours a week plus it increases your endurance and reaction speed. that's what i do plus the gym (running, lifting)

 

[Jm_]

IMO, "endurance" is a misnomer.

You can be the best at "endurance", but as soon as a little steep climb comes along that is above your aerobic limit, you're anaerobic and on your way to bonking.

The key to endurance is being able to recover from these anaerobic sprints, and that takes a lot of leg power and strength. If you can do this, then you can survive tough rides without bonking, otherwise you push over your limit too often and bonk easily.

Strength training, sprints, riding in higher gear combos, etc. That's what makes you faster and allows you to hang longer on rides. While you're recovering from your sprint, everyone else is still huffing up the hill, and then you give them no time to recover and keep killing em!

One way that I've gotten WAY faster is by riding always in the middle ring on my "all mountain/FR" bike. One of my buddies is a body builder and he is insanely strong. He rides up every climb in the middle ring, and rides up on the single speed pretty darn fast too. If he can do it, and if he can ride a SS up these climbs, then I can at least to the middle ring too. Stuff that I had to ride in the granny gear a couple years ago I now do in the middle ring, sometimes 3 gears higher in the back as well. Besides me and my friend, I don't really see anyone else doing this on these trails, but we can straight up kill people that come up here to ride because of it. The more that I've done this, the more I've been able to see it's a big mind-game. We have ourselves convinced that we "can't" do a certian climb in anything but the easiest gear, and it seems darn near impossible to get into a higher gear, but when you ignore this (and it's really hard to do at first) you'd be amazed what's possible just with your mind. I know this sounds stupid, and you have to kind of see it in action to understand, but it goes back to getting faster and having more endurance, and you simply HAVE to increase resistance to get stronger, and this is a great way to do it. You'll be going faster than your friends(drop the 34t cassette for a 32), and you'll recover faster due to the strength training that it will impose on you.

 

[dG video]

Jm_

I get what your saying. Even though I am a big kid, I can still lay the pedal down when needed, Especially in a race. I'll work on a ton of stuff this weekend at Bromont.

 

[SirChomps-a-Lot]

stop riding with your friends.

I appreciate the need to be in shape, but let's all try to keep in mind why we ride. Because it's fun. Riding with friends is fun.

 

[Bicyclist]

I appreciate the need to be in shape, but let's all try to keep in mind why we ride. Because it's fun. Riding with friends is fun.

And to get in shape, I just try to climb stuff. I ride 3+ mile climbs that are really intense and I try not to dab. I now pass XC riders fairly regularly on my Demo 8 w/ a chainguide and road cassette.

 

[Jm_]

I appreciate the need to be in shape, but let's all try to keep in mind why we ride. Because it's fun. Riding with friends is fun.

True, and if you ride with friends that are faster, you'll get in shape, but if you ride with guys that don't ride much faster, you get stuck in the "group" and you don't realize how fast or slow you are relative to other people. I've had some interesting experiences doing this, and it's wierd how you can be way faster or slower than other people, just based on the group you ride in.

 

[JRogers]

True, and if you ride with friends that are faster, you'll get in shape, but if you ride with guys that don't ride much faster, you get stuck in the "group" and you don't realize how fast or slow you are relative to other people. I've had some interesting experiences doing this, and it's wierd how you can be way faster or slower than other people, just based on the group you ride in.

Definitely true. A slow group that rides for 5 minutes, waits around, has a "safety check," walks up climbs etc. will not help. But NOTHING is better than being in a group that is pushing you just to keep up.

When riding DH, I often go it alone (meaning by myself at Diablo...not "alone" really). I find that most of the people I ride with stop a lot and riding with others (if they fall behind or something) makes me want to stop and wait all the time. By myself, I can do a million runs one after another without resting too much. Riding like that all day (or for multiple days in a row) wrecks me like nothing else.

 

[dhkid]

dan, from what know about the trails you normally ride is they are really short? why dont you ride longer trails, maybe not fast dh trails but really tech freeridish trails, where you have to mussle your self around, get your front wheel over stuff... use your legs to adsorb impacts. and emphasist of what you should be doing in dh to stay smooth but maybe dont because everything is happening soo fast. its a darn good work out. and for sprints what i do is go to a not too steep fire road with nice nice flat corners. so you get to pratice drifting and cornering but still sprint on the straits. love it. oh yea, even if you have short trails, you could just continue doing more runs for a longer perioud of time then you normally would.
as lee mc cormack puts it, think of your training and racing as a bubble.
http://leelikesbikes.com/Stories/032104/
there is a tread i started with loads of good information in it.
http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143745
good luck, no paint no gain.

 

[dhkid]

The best training for racing DH is riding DH. It's also the most fun! When riding hard DH runs 3 days a week isn't an option, as it is for most people, it necessiatates other means. Do you own an XC bike?
When you can't ride DH a few times a week XC training races (most towns have a weekly 45minute to 1 hour race), and a few hard XC rides are great.

Honestly, a DH racer should train pretty much like an XC racer, but with a slightly increased focus on technical training, and a bit more time in the gym.

this was a REALLY REALLY good peice of advice, pretty much sums it up!
oh yea, just remembered about going to gym to improve your sprinting ability. some ppl would disagree but it is supposed to be better if you just do sprints on your bike. the reson being even though gym migh build strenght well, actually praticing pedaling would help your legs get better at it while building strenght too.