Yesterday Steve Marshall visited the YST National Talent Orientation Camp at Loughborough University. As ever he was impressed with the British Cycling team there and the way that the athletes adopted the Wattbike and gave it their all. Steve’s short report is below:
YST National Talent Orientation
“Over the past week, around 100 of the UK’s best under-16 athletes have been working with top coaches and equipment at the National Talent Orientation Camp in Loughborough. A variety of sports are represented from sailing and wheelchair basketball, to canoeists, rowers and cyclists.
British Cycling brought 12 of their Wattbikes to do some intense training with their athletes. Gary Coltman, Performance Manager Olympic Talent Programme British Cycling, explained that the usage of Wattbikes has been extremely useful in training for all cycling disciplines. During this week track cyclists, bmx and mountain bikers have all trained together, it would have been difficult to effectively coach outside with a range of bike speeds, traffic and weather conditions. With the Wattbikes and using their own bikes on rollers, the athletes have been able to really push themselves. The bmx coaches have also found the Wattbikes very useful, the simplicity to set up and the ability to accurately compare performances across a time period being the biggest advantages.
It was not just the cyclists who were using the Wattbikes as later that afternoon many rowers were brought across by their coaches to be taught how to use the bikes by the cyclists. They raced over 1000m with Chris Hoy’s time as a target. Quick, but not that quick …yet!”
