Carla Ryan talks Wattbike, Cadel Evans and living in the sun

Posted by Matt Moran on Jul 29, 2011

We caught up with Team Garmin-Cervelo’s Carla Ryan on the phone last week where she gave us the lowdown on life in Girona, her season so far, the impact of Cadel Evans’ Tour de France win on Australian cycling and, of course, her use of the Wattbike.

Carla spent the early part of July racing at the Giro Donne where she provided a supporting role in helping her team-mate, Great Britain's Emma Pooley, to a 2nd place finish. After the high of this Grand Tour she now has a few weeks without a race, explaining that “The women’s calendar has reduced quite a bit this year due to financial difficulties for many of the race organisers. A lot of the races that suit me as a rider have disappeared and with such high quality talent on the professional road team of Garmin-Cervelo there’s a real need to ensure each rider gets a fair amount of racing in.”

Up next for Carla is the Tour de l'Ardeche at the start of September, a race which she has good memories of from last season. She told us, “Last year I won a stage at the Tour de l’Ardeche so I’m really looking forward to racing there again this year. I’ve got really good form coming out the Giro Donne so I hope I can keep it through the next three or four weeks for the race.”

With just under a year to go to the London 2012 Olympics we wanted to get Carla’s thoughts on Australian cycling, especially with Cadel Evans’ recent Tour de France victory. Carla said, “Cadel’s win has definitely increased mainstream awareness and knowledge of cycling Australia and that can only be a good thing. The response has been huge”. I’m fairly confident that the Australian track squad will be a major force at the Olympics and Carla confirmed that Cycling Australia is gearing up for the London Games, she said “The Australian team is very motivated, we have a lot of backing and investment in cycling in Australia now and we’re seeing the results”. Asked about her own Olympic ambitions she told us, “The quality of Australian road riders is coming back after the likes of Oenone Wood, Sara Carrigan and Olivia Gollan retired. It’s still a long way out but like anybody involved in sport I would be proud to represent my country at the Olympic Games if given the chance.”

Turning our discussion to the Wattbike I wanted to find out where Carla first came across the bike and how she’s using it at her base in Girona. She said, “The Australian Institute of Sport has Wattbike’s at their base in Varese, Italy, they do their testing on them. It’s great to have a Wattbike here in Spain though, I like to mix my training up and of course I can carry on training when the weather turns bad – it’s great for that.”

We’re always getting asked what kind of training the pros do on Wattbikes and we know that some riders, like Robbie McEwen, can be found posting their sessions on Twitter. Carla gave us some details on her own training schedule, “I tend to do a lot of free weights and core stability work in the off-season but during the season I like to mix up longer road sessions with high quality sessions on the Wattbike. My Wattbike is set up to replicate my road bike position and at the moment I’m doing a couple of high quality sessions per week on it. It’s really a combination of strength work and short power sessions but it’s just the quality of the sessions you can do on the Wattbike that makes it so great.”

You might think that a pro cyclist will have their pedalling technique ironed out but Carla said that the Wattbike has helped her to monitor a problem she used to have with her riding position, she explained, “I used to a have a problem with getting the right saddle for my road bike, to the point where it was causing an imbalance in my pedal stroke. I’d be favouring the right leg, sometimes as much as 60%-40% over the left leg. I’ve finally found a saddle that suits me and the Wattbike confirms that I’ve fixed this problem, most of my sessions show either a 50%-50% or a 51%-49% split. I tend to check the data from the Polar View at the end of the session to ensure that I’m keeping my pedalling technique in good shape.”

Sitting in the height of the UK summer at a temperature of around 14C I just had to ask Carla what Girona was like, it only made me jealous by the end of the call, she said “There are a lot of English speaking riders down here in Girona, from Australia, New Zealand, Britain and some Americans, it’s great to be able to meet up with other rides and you’re never short of someone to go for a ride with, but I also have friends who I just like to relax with and meet for dinner. It’s important to have friends away from the cycling scene to release the pressure.”

We’d like to thank Carla for taking the time to speak to us, we’re really proud at Wattbike to support womens cycling through the likes of Carla and track cyclist Sarah Hammer. We’ll be keeping an eye on Carla’s performance at the Tour de l’Ardeche and hope to catch up with her later in the season.