As a general rule, cycling is a game best played outdoors. There’s more room to roam, sights to see and places to go. But there are also exceptions to every rule, which is certainly the case in this case.

Bad weather, short days and any number of other factors occasionally force even the most dedicated bike riders to stay indoors. You pull the trainer out from your closet, load up a Tour de France highlights DVD, and hammer away in the basement. It’s far from ideal but still better than running.

Since venturing into the world of the coached cyclist, I’ve found one more good reason to periodically forsake sunshine and fresh air for a sweat towel and the cool breeze of a portable fan. It’s the Wednesday afternoon Boulder Center for Sports Medicine PowerMax session, which I like to call spin class with a purpose.

The basic gist is that under the guidance of a BCSM instructor, usually my coach Neal Henderson, I line up side-by-side with four or five other masochists for a one-hour trip to Paul Sherwen’s pain cave courtesy of the CompuTrainer MultiRider system.

For the uninitiated, this system allows the instructor to input key data such as weight and lactate threshold, before turning his students loose on any number of workouts. CompuTrainer takes the inputted data and uses it to tailor a specific workout for each rider, meaning a completely disparate group of cyclists can get together and do a very similar workout.

Last time around we started with a 20-minute progressive warm-up before taking on six intervals that alternated between lactate threshold and VO2 max efforts. Each lasted between two and 10 minutes, with 3-4 minutes of recovery in between. I won’t bore you with all the details, but suffice to say it was a bitch.

But the real beauty of these classes is there is no coasting, no waiting for stoplights, no BS. You just get on your bike and pedal.

“I’m a big advocate,” explained Henderson, who usually runs class from the seat of his own trainer-mounted bike. “It allows you to do very specific and quality workouts and get real-time feedback in terms of power, HR, cadence and speed. And it would be almost impossible to work with all these people in a group-ride setting because invariably you have fast and slow people, and you wouldn’t be able to give them all same attention.”

As for my training, Henderson says that by putting me through specific spin workouts he can get a feel for how I’m responding and can see in my eyes what is going on while I’m doing the workout.

No doubt he saw a lot of crossed eyes the first few weeks, but last time around things actually felt pretty good. Afterward Henderson looked at my power numbers from the session, which are all recorded on a laptop stationed at the front of the class, then gave me the thumbs up to bump up my LT watts from 265 to 275. It was the first absolutely tangible sign that all this training business is actually paying dividends and that is pretty cool.

Most of my classmates show up to these lunchtime suffer sessions for similar reasons.

“I’m just trying to make sure I can get up all the big hills this summer,” said Mark Rumby, a 57-year-old recreational cyclist who’s slated to ride a handful of centuries this summer. “These classes really help.”

“I don’t think I could get myself to ride this hard outside,” added Sue Pruitt, 54, who’s also targeting some of the area century rides.

There’s also benefit for more competitive types. Bryan Reid, a 35-year-old amateur triathlete, is gearing up for this summer’s Coeur d’Alene Ironman.

“Cycling is the weakest of the three sports,” admitted Reid, who’s a project manager for Motorola. “It’s great to work out in a group. It definitely makes you push a little harder.”

Even local pros show up from time to time. Jelly Belly’s Scott Tietzel did classes all through January and February to get ready for the Tour of California, and was there last week getting prepped for the Tour de Georgia.

As for my own racing, it’s been a truncated early season. I tried signing up for a crit on Easter Sunday, but just as I showed up, the Cat. 4 field had reached its 75-rider capacity.

A week later, I was supposed to contest the local Koppenburg circuit race, but temperatures in the low 20s and light snow forced the event to be postponed. Unfortunately I didn’t find that out until after a sleet-marred warm-up ride out to the course that left my bike covered in ice and muck.

Finally, I got to pop the 2008 race season cork a week later at the re-scheduled Koppenburg, contesting the 4-lap, 20-mile Cat. 4 race. The good news is that I held on to the front group long enough to see the winning break roll away. The bad news is that the acceleration promptly blew me out the back, meaning a lap-and-half individual time trial effort just to hold on for an unceremonious 18th-place finish.

But truth be told, the race went a lot better than I expected, and for that I must give a least some thanks to all those Wednesday afternoons spent pedaling indoors.

Now on to this week’s Coach Neal Q&A. If you’d like to ask Henderson a question, please send e-mail to CoachNealQandA@gmail.com. He’ll answer select questions in ensuing columns.

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Regarding your comment about making hard days really hard and easy days really easy, I read where Greg LeMond advocates the same thing. My question is how many days apart should your hard days be? I'm 47 and train between seven and 10 hours per week
Unsigned

Typically I advocate two to three days between hard days, which means two to three hard days at most in any given week. A lot of times I like to have people work in blocks so they do a hard day and follow that with an easy day. Following intense days I also like to use higher volume but lower intensity, steady base work. Then we’ll have a true rest day or easy day before another hard day. That means at least two easy days and sometimes three or four between hard days. It also depends if it’s early season and whether you are used to doing a lot of intensity. All in all two days a week of high intensity is good; three is the max.

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I’m wondering if you have elite level power-to-weight numbers for partial paraplegics or partial quads. I am a partial quad recreational road rider in my early 40s with a PowerTap. I have no delusions of grandeur but I would be interested in power-to-weight numbers at lactate threshold and five-minute power. I think I would be categorized as LC2. I have a weak left leg and arm with decreased sensation, walk with a limp, etc.
Scott Mabee

I don’t have a lot data, just from the athletes I’ve worked with. In that case five-minute peak power is 2 watts per kilogram, 20-minute power is 1.6 watts per kilogram, 1 hour max power is 1.4 watts per kilo, 4 hours is 1.25 watts, and at 8 hours it was 1.1 watts per kilo. One athlete I work with, Trish Downing, is an incomplete paraplegic at T4, meaning her spinal cord is severed at the T4 level.

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I’m a reasonably fit 58-year-old recreational cyclist and may have the opportunity to take a cycling tour in a mountainous region of China. The route would take us over passes at 14,500 feet and to towns where we would spend multiple days at 13,000 feet. The entire trip would be four weeks. It’s been 20 years since I skied at altitudes like that in Aspen and I am concerned about whether the trip is reasonable for me.

I have pulmonary sarcoidosis, which requires no treatment and was only discovered by accident due to surgery from a serious auto accident. I have modest scarring in the lungs and reduced lung capacity (FVC at 93 percent predicted normal, total lung volume at 88 percent normal.) The PFT effects seem to be entirely due to the accident and surgery, as they haven’t changed since the discovery of the sarcoidosis. Lung diffusion tests are essentially normal and I live and ride at altitudes between 100 to 1200 feet. I have finished four long-distance races with hours to spare, the longest of which was 600 kilometers, and the most challenging had over 12,000 feet of climbing.

All that said, I am wondering if a cycling trip like this reasonable to consider for me? Is there any reason to believe my performance at altitude would degrade more than “normal” people with comparable power/weight and performance? And assuming a green light for the first two questions, how can I best prepare for the fitness and altitude challenges, given that I cannot realistically move to Colorado for two months to build up my hematocrit?
Valle Schloesser, Plainfield, New Jersey

I consulted with Hunter Smith, an MD and pulminologist here at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, and he said that it is reasonable for you to consider this trip as long as you can reach a reasonable fitness level. Smith also said that coming to a higher altitude, say somewhere in Colorado or Utah, to do a training camp for a week or so could be a good idea. The idea would be to see you’re your body reacted trying to go over higher passes – 8000, 9000 even 10,000 feet. You might even try riding up Mount Evans here in Colorado, which tops out above 14,000 feet. The bottom line is that there is no reason why performance at altitude would degrade more for you than for other folks.

Typically response to altitude is quite variable and individual. Some people see greater effects than others even with similar fitness levels, though those who are more fit will have a higher tolerance.

Some other options you could consider are using an altitude tent, though that is quite expensive and probably would yield only minimal improvement in hematocrit. But doing things like pulmonary lung training with a PowerLung or SpiroTiger might have be helpful.

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Editor’s Note: Jason Sumner is a 37-year-old, 168-pound freelance writer and Cat. 4 bike racer who is working with a cycling coach for the first time in his life. Sumner underwent a full battery of lab tests at the beginning of the season, producing a 250-watt lactate threshold, a 3.2 watts per kilogram score and a VO2 max of 51.5. His 2008 goals include improving on his usual mid-pack finishes, not getting dropped on the weekend group rides, and learning something along the way. He’ll be documenting his experiences for VeloNews.com is this twice-monthly column.

Neal Henderson is sports science manager at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine and a well-regarded elite-level coach. Henderson’s clients include Slipstream-Chipotle’s Taylor Phinney, Jelly Belly’s Scott Tietzel and Trish Downing, a nationally ranked paraplegic athlete. Henderson is also the winter triathlon coach for the U.S. national triathlon team, and likes to mix it up on Colorado’s amateur road scene. He finished 33rd in the 35+ class of the Koppenburg race. He is working with Jason Sumner on a pro bono basis.