How Bike US: Deprivation Training

For any of those of you who have never done any multi-day long distance touring, the best time to start preparing both your mind and your body for any long distance trek is two seasons before you hit the road. Toward that end, here is what I recommend:

Try to replace as many of the car trips you may make with bike trips. As you do so, the inconvenience you may experience will be nothing compared to the abrupt change in your flow, if you are not prepared, once you do head off.. Carrying extra clothes for work and having to take more time to get to your place of employment or learning, for example, will pale in comparison to the demands that your trek will require of you.

Here is where your hauling a trailer will work in a powerful way to get you extra ready for your journey. The extra weight will make you work harder so you will not have to go as far to get the workout you will need. This can become a powerful ally in your training as a trailer also lets you perform other tasks on your way to and from work or school and even during any of the longer breaks you may be able to take during the day.

The added maneuvering it will require of you, where to park it, how to lock it, backing it up, the greater clearance needed for your path, etc, will all stand out as a daily reminders of what lies ahead. To see a comparison of the trailers we feel are best for the job at hand, see our Trailer Matrix page.

Whether you run a trailer or not, start off with weekly mileage goals. You might even do well to invest in a journal for this application or make your own out of a spiral bound notebook. Such a way of tracking your time in the saddle will give you the encouragement you need to keep increasing your distances.

Keeping in mind that success of any dimension is about many small victories that add up to the one large achievement toward which one may be striding, you will want to ride a certain amount of miles each and every day. You must be honest with yourself as you figure out what is realistic for you for your first week.. Some may want to get a hundred miles or more in their first week. For others just finding the time or the where-with-all to reach the 45 mile mark can be a big accomplishment. No matter what distances you are able to make time for, I do guarantee, that if you keep at it, as I show you in the table below, your mileages will surely increase.

The key, here, is to make a habit of riding. Whenever you can. Wherever you can. And on a daily basis so that you get into the habit of making the bike a part of the lifestyle your cross country ride will soon become for you!

Here is where pacing yourself is important. There is no need to race, just a need to keep moving along at whatever pace is comfortable for you. On your longer weekend rides, be careful not to overdo your time in the saddle such that it may take a you a few days to recover. To keep from overtraining in this way, make sure to always leave yourself with a small reserve on to which you can build upon each succeeding day. As you plan your riding, know that however far you may head out, is often how far you will have to then return.

Making appointments to do so is a good way to discipline yourself to be on the bike. Establish a specific time slot for your ride, and like arranging to have your hair cut or your teeth cleaned, build your day around such prime time. Make certain not to let anything or anyone else encroach upon this period. If there is no other way around something else that may compete for this time, move your biking to a different part of the day so you can still be sure to get your mileage. And try to plan such change on the day before

When you know ahead of time where your biking exists in the day ahead, you are able to direct more of your mental and physical energy to it. In this way, it will never become a hardship or for that matter a chore, but something you can look forward to each and every time you begin a new day. As you make it the centerpiece of your day, your thoughts will change from trying to figure out how to fit it in to your schedule to how to improve on certain aspects of your riding, where you will go or what you would like to achieve once you do head out.

Set up a training loop. Work out a network of roads that will take you an hour to ride. Know how to modify it so that it will also work if all you have is half an hour or 45 minutes to ride. Try to include some hill work in the route you choose. In time you and this course will get to know each other pretty well and you can use it to gauge your progress.

It can become a snapshot for your longer weekend rides where you will also have to work in the pacing for your eating and drinking. It will begin to give you a working understanding of the:

Cyclists Creed

Eat Before You're Hungry

Drink Before You're Thirsty

Shift Before You Have To.

Be careful not to let yourself think that your training loop must only take place on quiet country back roads. If you do, your experience of cycling can become highly fossil fuel dependent. If you use a car to get you to your riding, you may very well find getting the miles you need to lose their purpose, to get you ready for your TransAm.

In addition, instead of being able to use some of your biking to unwind from your day, by introducing an intermediary step between you and your ride, the car, there is not only less time for your cycling effort, there is a new unneeded degree of distraction. Suddenly your mind occupies itself with parking considerations, how well your vehicle is or isn’t running, even what’s on the radio, etc, instead of how you plan to get the most out of your day’s pedaling. Often such Car Mind will also make the visualization exercise you will need to be doing to prepare your mind’s eye for the mountains and deserts of your TransAm ahead, far less effective and focused.

For almost all of us, our training ground is right out our front door. If you plan your riding so that your miles don't take place on busy rush hour arterials, anywhere that there is asphalt is a worthy place to ride your bicycle. Especially if you can remove the car from your training equation.

During the work or school week, even if your job or class is only a mile away, ride there. In such a way it will be much easier to cycle during any of the breaks you will do well to schedule yourself for. Doing so, whether you tow a trailer or not, will still help you to get used to the initial inconvenience of having to deal with locking your bike and carrying all of the things you will need.

If security is an issue as you go more places with your bike, get a beater. To find yourself on your two wheeler more, start moving your mind and the world around you toward a more car free existence. I talk about this mindset and explain what is meant by a "beater bike" as well as where to get one at our How to Car Free page . I highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the words this essay offers.

Make your ride a moving meditation, where like the tiger in the jungle, you are comfortably aware of all that is taking place all around you. For such an awareness to best be practiced, when in traffic, pretend that you are having a conversation in your highest unseen, unheard mind with all of the highest such selves of everyone else with whom you share this part of the road. Pretend that you are all mindful of one another. Trust that that person in the car next to, ahead of and behind you knows you are there and that you anticipate his or her every move and vica versa. Make it a dance of which you are the grand choreographer.

Whenever what a car ahead, behind or next to you does or may do to threaten your path, try to establish a telepathic conversation with its driver. Many long time cyclists that I know make this game of make believe a part of the sixth sense they have developed for the road. Many are not even conscious of the fact that they are doing so, but when asked, they will realize that this technique has subconsciously slipped into their arsenal of safety gear for quite some time. Even as a game of make believe, it still gives one a sense of security, however real or imagined it may happen to be.

Something else that has helped me over the years is to see my path as filled with light even before I embark upon it. Doing so, knowing where I am going, establishing purpose for my travels beforehand adds to my feeling of confidence. This also is a communication that other souls (I base this on the assumption that we are all spirits or unseen energy moving about in physical bodies) pick up on in their ability to predict my actions on the human level as they subconsciously listen to the dictates of the spiritual level that exists far beyond this one.

When your miles find you riding in the dark, imagine that you are a ball of blinding light going down the road. Whenever you hear a car approach, turn this awareness up to make yourself stand out even more. In addition to your bike lighting and any reflective gear you may happen to be running, you will begin to develop the sense that this is helping you to be seen. It is this confidence that goes out into the universe and additionally communicates to all of the other spiritual beings that are having the same human experience with you that you demand to be seen and made exception for.

City Air
If tailpipe emissions concern you here are a couple of thoughts. When the Olympics were held in Los Angeles in the 1980's researchers found that well conditioned athletes practicing their craft and sedentary persons doing nothing were both similarly affected by the poor quality of air that comprises much of the LA basin. This was so because even though those athletes they tested took in greater volumes of air, their systems were able to more readily expunge any of that which was potentially harmful.

You will also do well to use the process of transmutation. Similar to how placebos have been proven to remedy health problems, you can play the same game with bad air. Instead of thinking how harmful the intake of such fumes can be for you, pretend that they are like a noxious cough syrup that in time will make you better. And since foul air can be stressful to your body like certain bad tasting oral medications, you can even pretend that the load it is placing on your system is improving it in some way.

Here you can pretend that it is similar to the weights you lift at the gym to get bigger muscles or the bigger pedal load you may have to push to get to the top of a hill. Always remembering how much power the mind has over the body, whenever I get a good tailpipe whiff, for example, I automatically send such strain to making my legs stronger for the task at hand.

Minimize the Coasting
When the riding permits it, try also to make it your goal to coast as little as possible. Try to always keep the pedals turning unless you are coming to a stop.

From this example, by starting with just 5 miles a day during the week and then graduating to 12 miles a day during your work or school such period of time, you will have racked up a respectable 165 miles by the end of the month. Add a 10 mile Saturday and a 10 mile Sunday in week one to the 25 mile weekend days you will have graduated to in week 4 for 140 miles worth of weekend miles and your first month of training suddenly becomes a 305 mile month!

Stay at the week 4 level for the next few months until the rains or the cold hit and you will already have over a thousand miles in your legs. At which time you will want to begin the winter program I will soon be suggesting here.

But here, like everything else about your ride lies the key to success. Do it Now!! Start your training program as soon as Labor Day hits because summer will be over almost by the time you get into a groove. As the brisker temperatures of autumn hit, you will not be afraid to begin if you start when I am suggesting, but will have initiated a momentum that will carry you through into the cold of winter.

Hopefully, you will be able to ride year round and as you do the words from "How to Win an Argument with a Car Driver" , will serve to greatly inspire you. You might even do well to post them somewhere so that you will see them regularly.

Begin Now! If your bike is not the right one or if you don't have a trailer begin with what you do have. Borrow a bike if need be. Just begin!! Do it now.


	Training Overview (with Fall program and word on safety and tailpipe emissions)

For any of those of you who have never done any multi-day long distance touring, the best time to start preparing both your mind and your body for any long distance trek is two seasons before you hit the road. Toward that end, here is what I recommend: Try to replace as many of the car trips you may make with bike trips. As you do so, the inconvenience you may experience will be nothing compared to the abrupt change in your flow, if you are not prepared, once you do head off.. Carrying extra clothes for work and having to take more time to get to your place of employment or learning, for example, will pale in comparison to the demands that your trek will require of you. Here is where your hauling a trailer will work in a powerful way to get you extra ready for your journey. The extra weight will make you work harder so you will not have to go as far to get the workout you will need. This can become a powerful ally in your training as a trailer also lets you perform other tasks on your way to and from work or school and even during any of the longer breaks you may be able to take during the day. The added maneuvering it will require of you, where to park it, how to lock it, backing it up, the greater clearance needed for your path, etc, will all stand out as a daily reminders of what lies ahead. To see a comparison of the trailers we feel are best for the job at hand, see our Trailer Matrix page. Whether you run a trailer or not, start off with weekly mileage goals. You might even do well to invest in a journal for this application or make your own out of a spiral bound notebook. Such a way of tracking your time in the saddle will give you the encouragement you need to keep increasing your distances. Keeping in mind that success of any dimension is about many small victories that add up to the one large achievement toward which one may be striding, you will want to ride a certain amount of miles each and every day. You must be honest with yourself as you figure out what is realistic for you for your first week.. Some may want to get a hundred miles or more in their first week. For others just finding the time or the where-with-all to reach the 45 mile mark can be a big accomplishment. No matter what distances you are able to make time for, I do guarantee, that if you keep at it, as I show you in the table below, your mileages will surely increase. The key, here, is to make a habit of riding. Whenever you can. Wherever you can. And on a daily basis so that you get into the habit of making the bike a part of the lifestyle your cross country ride will soon become for you! Here is where pacing yourself is important. There is no need to race, just a need to keep moving along at whatever pace is comfortable for you. On your longer weekend rides, be careful not to overdo your time in the saddle such that it may take a you a few days to recover. To keep from overtraining in this way, make sure to always leave yourself with a small reserve on to which you can build upon each succeeding day. As you plan your riding, know that however far you may head out, is often how far you will have to then return. Making appointments to do so is a good way to discipline yourself to be on the bike. Establish a specific time slot for your ride, and like arranging to have your hair cut or your teeth cleaned, build your day around such prime time. Make certain not to let anything or anyone else encroach upon this period. If there is no other way around something else that may compete for this time, move your biking to a different part of the day so you can still be sure to get your mileage. And try to plan such change on the day before When you know ahead of time where your biking exists in the day ahead, you are able to direct more of your mental and physical energy to it. In this way, it will never become a hardship or for that matter a chore, but something you can look forward to each and every time you begin a new day. As you make it the centerpiece of your day, your thoughts will change from trying to figure out how to fit it in to your schedule to how to improve on certain aspects of your riding, where you will go or what you would like to achieve once you do head out. Set up a training loop. Work out a network of roads that will take you an hour to ride. Know how to modify it so that it will also work if all you have is half an hour or 45 minutes to ride. Try to include some hill work in the route you choose. In time you and this course will get to know each other pretty well and you can use it to gauge your progress. It can become a snapshot for your longer weekend rides where you will also have to work in the pacing for your eating and drinking. It will begin to give you a working understanding of the: Cyclists Creed Eat Before You're Hungry Drink Before You're Thirsty Shift Before You Have To. Be careful not to let yourself think that your training loop must only take place on quiet country back roads. If you do, your experience of cycling can become highly fossil fuel dependent. If you use a car to get you to your riding, you may very well find getting the miles you need to lose their purpose, to get you ready for your TransAm. In addition, instead of being able to use some of your biking to unwind from your day, by introducing an intermediary step between you and your ride, the car, there is not only less time for your cycling effort, there is a new unneeded degree of distraction. Suddenly your mind occupies itself with parking considerations, how well your vehicle is or isn’t running, even what’s on the radio, etc, instead of how you plan to get the most out of your day’s pedaling. Often such Car Mind will also make the visualization exercise you will need to be doing to prepare your mind’s eye for the mountains and deserts of your TransAm ahead, far less effective and focused. For almost all of us, our training ground is right out our front door. If you plan your riding so that your miles don't take place on busy rush hour arterials, anywhere that there is asphalt is a worthy place to ride your bicycle. Especially if you can remove the car from your training equation. During the work or school week, even if your job or class is only a mile away, ride there. In such a way it will be much easier to cycle during any of the breaks you will do well to schedule yourself for. Doing so, whether you tow a trailer or not, will still help you to get used to the initial inconvenience of having to deal with locking your bike and carrying all of the things you will need. If security is an issue as you go more places with your bike, get a beater. To find yourself on your two wheeler more, start moving your mind and the world around you toward a more car free existence. I talk about this mindset and explain what is meant by a "beater bike" as well as where to get one at our How to Car Free page . I highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the words this essay offers. Safety in Traffic If cars worry you, any ride you do across the US will not be an escape from them. Learn to love them. Learn to love being that part of traffic that is not being slowed down by the gridlocked reality of modern day driving. Make your ride a moving meditation, where like the tiger in the jungle, you are comfortably aware of all that is taking place all around you. For such an awareness to best be practiced, when in traffic, pretend that you are having a conversation in your highest unseen, unheard mind with all of the highest such selves of everyone else with whom you share this part of the road. Pretend that you are all mindful of one another. Trust that that person in the car next to, ahead of and behind you knows you are there and that you anticipate his or her every move and vica versa. Make it a dance of which you are the grand choreographer. Whenever what a car ahead, behind or next to you does or may do to threaten your path, try to establish a telepathic conversation with its driver. Many long time cyclists that I know make this game of make believe a part of the sixth sense they have developed for the road. Many are not even conscious of the fact that they are doing so, but when asked, they will realize that this technique has subconsciously slipped into their arsenal of safety gear for quite some time. Even as a game of make believe, it still gives one a sense of security, however real or imagined it may happen to be. Something else that has helped me over the years is to see my path as filled with light even before I embark upon it. Doing so, knowing where I am going, establishing purpose for my travels beforehand adds to my feeling of confidence. This also is a communication that other souls (I base this on the assumption that we are all spirits or unseen energy moving about in physical bodies) pick up on in their ability to predict my actions on the human level as they subconsciously listen to the dictates of the spiritual level that exists far beyond this one. When your miles find you riding in the dark, imagine that you are a ball of blinding light going down the road. Whenever you hear a car approach, turn this awareness up to make yourself stand out even more. In addition to your bike lighting and any reflective gear you may happen to be running, you will begin to develop the sense that this is helping you to be seen. It is this confidence that goes out into the universe and additionally communicates to all of the other spiritual beings that are having the same human experience with you that you demand to be seen and made exception for. City Air If tailpipe emissions concern you here are a couple of thoughts. When the Olympics were held in Los Angeles in the 1980's researchers found that well conditioned athletes practicing their craft and sedentary persons doing nothing were both similarly affected by the poor quality of air that comprises much of the LA basin. This was so because even though those athletes they tested took in greater volumes of air, their systems were able to more readily expunge any of that which was potentially harmful. You will also do well to use the process of transmutation. Similar to how placebos have been proven to remedy health problems, you can play the same game with bad air. Instead of thinking how harmful the intake of such fumes can be for you, pretend that they are like a noxious cough syrup that in time will make you better. And since foul air can be stressful to your body like certain bad tasting oral medications, you can even pretend that the load it is placing on your system is improving it in some way. Here you can pretend that it is similar to the weights you lift at the gym to get bigger muscles or the bigger pedal load you may have to push to get to the top of a hill. Always remembering how much power the mind has over the body, whenever I get a good tailpipe whiff, for example, I automatically send such strain to making my legs stronger for the task at hand. Minimize the Coasting When the riding permits it, try also to make it your goal to coast as little as possible. Try to always keep the pedals turning unless you are coming to a stop. With all of the above in mind here is a sample training schedule Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Mo Total Wkday 25 30 50 60 165 Wkend 20 30 40 50 140 Total 45 60 90 110 305 From this example, by starting with just 5 miles a day during the week and then graduating to 12 miles a day during your work or school such period of time, you will have racked up a respectable 165 miles by the end of the month. Add a 10 mile Saturday and a 10 mile Sunday in week one to the 25 mile weekend days you will have graduated to in week 4 for 140 miles worth of weekend miles and your first month of training suddenly becomes a 305 mile month! Stay at the week 4 level for the next few months until the rains or the cold hit and you will already have over a thousand miles in your legs. At which time you will want to begin the winter program I will soon be suggesting here. But here, like everything else about your ride lies the key to success. Do it Now!! Start your training program as soon as Labor Day hits because summer will be over almost by the time you get into a groove. As the brisker temperatures of autumn hit, you will not be afraid to begin if you start when I am suggesting, but will have initiated a momentum that will carry you through into the cold of winter. Hopefully, you will be able to ride year round and as you do the words from "How to Win an Argument with a Car Driver" , will serve to greatly inspire you. You might even do well to post them somewhere so that you will see them regularly. Begin Now! If your bike is not the right one or if you don't have a trailer begin with what you do have. Borrow a bike if need be. Just begin!! Do it now. Or in the words of the successful businessman Charles Schwabb: The best place to succeed is Where you are with what you have Or there is this from Theodore Roosevelt Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
		To How to Bike the US Index