Welcome to The Bonebell 2012 Program!
Here you will find phases of a ride program designed to get you cycling fit to meet new off-road challenges. The program is designed around a periodized schedule that breaks your riding activity into phases. Each phase is a total of six weeks of riding. The first five weeks are rides and workouts that are done in a consistent schedule, while the sixth week is always either a complete rest week, or rest after a hard challenge prescribed in the 5th week. This program also will utilize a lot of off-road suggestions, we are encouraging the use of off-road avenues to get fit instead of the typical paved road routes, in addition to incorporating trail riding to reinforce bike handling skills. As the year unfolds, all the opportunities you’ve read us promote in 2011, will also be incorporated into the program so that the year can tie together with opportunities.

The program is broken out into three levels – beginner, intermediate, and advanced. You will first want to assess your own fitness honestly. With any type of excercise regiment, if you have any doubts of your physical capability – please see a physician for a true evaluation. We are merely providing guidelines for you to consider following to reaching cycling fitness goals.

Beginner – you are a weekend mountain biker, rarely ride during the week – total of 2-4 hours of ride time a week. You most likely have tried a race in the past, but do not compete more than once a year.

Intermediate – you bike regularly, most hours on the weekend – total of 5-8 hours of ride time a week. You may have raced at least a few times throughout the year.

Advanced – you most likely compete, and are familiar with training principles, you starve to ride – total of 8-10 hours a week on a regular basis. You most likely partake in series competitions throughout the year and like to push yourself to your limits through frequent racing.

Set Your Goals
You will then need to jot down some goals of what you’d like to achieve for riding off-road in 2012. This is very important as it helps give you definition to why you are embarking on this type of program. The phases have a ride built-in with The Bonebell Crew to challenge you (or you us!) at the end of the Phase Cycle that in of itself could be your goal if you are new to riding in a structured format. Setting goals is what helps to keep you motivated to continue riding to meet your goals and realize a positive outcome of your fitness gained.

Here are some examples of goal setting:

You identify yourself as a beginner rider and your goal is do the Palos Meltdown in August 2012 and finish strongly in the lead group with minimal to incidences on the racecourse.

You identify yourself as an intermediate rider and your goal is to complete a 12 hour solo MTB event in 2012 and to do a few Cyclocross races in the fall.

You identify yourself as an advanced rider and your goal is to win a 100 Mile MTB event in 2012 and enter the Cyclocross season in top form.

It is important that you identify at least a few goals for your entire year, and of greater importance, is sharing your goals. Make it known to a close friend or family that you want to achieve a goal. It helps hold you accountable for reaching that goal and also develops support from your friends and family to remind you that you wanted to achieve that goal. Don’t discount how great a support your friends and family can be in meeting your goals – if you have a family especially – this can help carve out the time you need to get the rides in when your family knows the importance of what you are trying to achieve. Greater goals take greater work and as a result more time. Start expressing the need for that time early on to avoid shortchanging your schedule as you approach your goals.

Nutrition
We will be advocating good nutrition, period. We will not be pushing gels, nutritional supplements, bars, or shakes in the program. The cycling elite have thrived strongly prior to the introduction of packaged foods and we are not in the least opposed to their use, but you’ll find a lot of our recommendation will be that if you eat healthily, and drink plenty of water before, during, and after your ride activities – you’ll be better off for it. We also encourage not spending more money than you have to.

Rest
If you’re an advanced rider, you should already know this, but for everyone else, rest is incredibly important. The paradigm we follow is rest as hard as you workout. The phases are designed to incorporate rest at the end of each cycle. Within each cycle there is rest built in as well. No one gets very far for long, riding every single day for weeks on end. Take the time to rest seriously – the rest actually builds you back up for more increased potential in every cycle. Be patient.

Effort
We will keep the measure of your effort simple. We will use what is called perceived effort. This is basically gauging your effort based on how hard or easy you feel it is. This is what was used in the days of yore, before there were heart rate monitors, power meters, and VO2 tests. This is a free and very much still, an effective way of measuring your effort out so that you know if you are riding within the range of what the program details. Here are the effort ranges from 1-5.

1 – Easy – no effort while spinning easily without breaking a sweat.
2 – Easy/Moderate – no effort still but you can work up a minor sweat in 30 min. You can breath through your nose easily without force.
3 – Moderate – there is effort but not difficult, boring pace where you can talk easily while spinning but have to catch your breath regularly. You can’t breathe comfortably through only your nose at this point.
4 – Intense – greater effort that feels difficult to maintain – breathing intensifies and you can feel your pulse in your neck and body while you spin, your body is uncomfortable and you shouldn’t be able to talk well while spinning at all.
5 – Extreme – this all out effort with breathing at it’s most intense and legs at their maximum output. These efforts can’t be held for very long and require a great deal of caution as the body is pushed to its limits and form and bike handling are compromised.

There are all the basics of what you need to know to get started. We will assume you have a bike in good working order to do this; if you don’t, now is a good time to establish a good relationship with your local bike shop! You can use a mountain bike or a cross bike for this program – it honestly does not matter the type of bike you ride. A mile is a mile no matter what you rode to complete that mile, be confident in yourself and the program to get you into a good fitness level. We will be posting up regularly Facebook updates throughout the phases of the program for extra tidbits of riding advice and information that will also help you out!

Good luck and see you out there in 2012! Phase 1 is to be published the first week of the New Year!