The training schedules of professional roadmen are now fairly well known to us. Whatever their role in the team, most of them will expect to compete in 150-mile classics and a number of stage races, at least one of them over three weeks, averaging 100 miles or more per day. Under the guidance and supervision of the team manager or coach and his staff they will prepare with a couple of months of long daily rides of up to six hours at reasonable speed but low intensity, in a warm climate, before the early season races begin towards the end of February. Some will get in as much as 38 hours training in a week. Of course, they have the benefit of being able to ride in a group, which keeps the perceived speed up but the effort down.

In the UK, in what remains essentially an amateur sport, the hands-on coach tends to operate pragmatically. That is, although science underpins everything he or she does, they will tend to modify their approach virtually from day to day according to their riders' requirements. At one end he or she may be dealing with the future superstar capable of riding a short-distance TT at over 30 mph, at the other end the guy who will never beat 25 minutes for a 10ml time trial.

Generally speaking, his/her riders' training schedules will have to be very flexible, because they will be constantly adjusted as to length, volume, intensity and frequency depending on the rider's past rides and future needs. The coach's experience working over a period of time with riders covering a range of abilities will tell them that different riders require different training. Not everyone can support the same workload. In addition, some have physically demanding jobs carrying loads up and down ladder, so they have done most of their training before they get on the bike. Some riders appear to reach peak condition on much less training than others. The identical schedule which might make one rider fit could kill another.

Few training rides will be longer than 3 hours - not forgetting that an elite rider may well average 24 mph during that three hours, where a good club rider will be at 18 mph. During that three hours two 15second flat out sprints are built in early and late. Other rides will merely incorporate a number of flatout sprints of only 5 seconds with 2-minute recoveries. The rider will find these short sprint sessions very easy but surprisingly effective. The message seems to be that high-intensity work is essential but that it needn't be very long; indeed, shouldn't be very long. The short sprints seem to produce all that you need in the way of speed, but without the damage to muscle fibres, with consequent discomfort and the need for extended recovery. Power and lactate tolerance are achieved as the season progresses by putting in hill intervals of 2 minutes at maximum sustainable effort in a high gear, followed by two minutes riding back down again. These are increased from only two the first time by one per week up to an absolute maximum of six. These sessions are best described as murderous, but the effect on sustainable power over short distances is dramatic.

Recovery rides will be at 'village policeman' pace, very slow indeed, and no more than an hour, spinning very easily indeed, with the aim of removing that stiffness from the muscles that even relatively light training seems to provoke. The idea is that it's a kind of massage for the legs. Indeed, in some research published in this Journal (Coaching News 1/94) it was found that the most effective way of giving ease and comfort to the legs after intensive exercise was not massage, but a 20-minute slow spin on the bike. At the same time it burns fat but does not significantly deplete the glycogen reserves - you're using almost no glycogen at that pace. If you feed yourself throughout on carbo fuel, you may even get back with slightly higher glycogen stores.

Throughout the winter there is a 20-minute ride on the turbo indoors at 10-mile TT pace. It's important to include at least this one session of intensive work during the maintenance period. The major difference between older and young riders seems to be that the vets tend to miss out the Level 3 rides in the off-season.

Then there is putting the icing on the cake by getting the sheer speed behind a motor bike on a closed road. Alternative pragmatic approaches have necessitated using cars with or without rollers on deserted roads. These motor-paced sessions have even been used to increase the speed of the lower effort sessions for road riders unable to find a group of comparable ability riders for long rides.

Coaching riders is all about making the best use of the means and time at the disposal of riders and coaches. The training methods used by full-time professionals are very different from those which are possible for someone with a normal job and a family. Good riders are unfortunately inclined to have obsessive temperaments: it's what makes them so good, but it also means that they can be quite incredible equipment/heart-rate monitor and computerised record freaks. Things with which they can switch themselves off include: pulse rates that do not conform to their tidy precision; a speed which is down despite the fact that it was blowing half a gale; and having to ride a 'normal' frame because the super-aero carbon-fibre job got lost in the post. Telling them that the frame has practically no effect compared with their position on the bike and their wheels and tyres is rather too rational for them. When we are racing and training we are none of us the most rational of beings.

This brings us to the overriding importance of the rider's mind and sheer and determination. All the watts measurements that come off those masterpieces of test rig engineering that Uli Schoberer designed for SRM cranks are completely irrelevant without the need and will to win. Someone who does not quite meet the required criteria because he is in no mood to raise his game for an artificial test can nevertheless be quite capable of driving himself through lactate levels which seem superhuman, and run closer to maximum for unbelievable lengths of time in real races. Contrast this with the rider with superb test wattage who remains incapable of forcing himself to ride until it hurts, and then go beyond.

Test rigs, pulse monitors and power cranks are superb tools, and we use them as and when appropriate; but when it comes to the crunch we ride on feel, judgment, strength of mind, and the ability to tolerate pain. We are getting more sophisticated in measurement, but there is still nothing terribly clever or innovative in the different ways we can ride bikes in training to achieve results in racing.

I often hear it said that a top rider must do 20 hours per week; and it is true that riding lots of miles will still make the rider better than most contemporaries provided that there is adequate rest. However, most riders do not have that amount of time available, and it is debatable whether UK racing needs that amount of time anyway. For most riders we are concerned with how to get the maximum training effect from the minimum of time. Top ten placings in UK races can be achieved with a maximum of ten hours training per week. Training more than this, with a fulltime job, would create the risk of overtraining, since overtraining is the sum of all of the stresses that a person experiences.