By Lee Rodgers

As the official coach and Media & Comms Director for the event, I do know a thing or two about the Taiwan KOM! If anyone is looking for advice or coaching for the event, please email me at lee@crankpunk.com.

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This article is for those who are second-guessing their preparation or those who know full well that they just haven’t done enough – but stick with me even if you do think you’ve done enough and that you’ve planned well – after reading this you may want to re-assess your plan for the last 4 weeks.

The Basics

Let’s take a look at what lies ahead of us. Yes, this is a big hill. A massively big big hill. One might think that all that is required to train for the Taiwan KOM Challenge is to do a lot of steady stamina work plus a load of climbing – yet that’s not quite right.

Yes, you need stamina, because all told this is a lot of cycling. And this year, with the event start being changed from Taroko to Yilan, the KOM is 140km instead of the usual 105km. And yes, you need your climbing boots on, because this is a lot of uphill, from zero meters to 3275 – but let me tell you something: it isn’t really 3275m… that’s just the height of Hehuan Shan from sea level. Because the route has descents in it – which means lost elevation – the real amount of climbing is 4,177m.

Wow!

The new KOM route has more descending than the traditional Taroko route – that had just 5km, the new Yilan route have about 24km. The new route is not as steady as the pervious in the run to the last 8km – which is the same in both – but it’s all doable, nothing too steep. But then it pitches up to and average of over 12% for the final 8 kilometers.

Yet a whole bunch of steady state climbing and stamina work isn’t all that is required to get up the KOM, not if you want to have some kind of control over the level of effort or if you want to ride it in a decent time.

The Jigsaw Puzzle Approach

With any race I have coming up that I am keen to do well in, I sit down and look at the route, which I’m sure we all do. Check the elevation, look at the profile, consider the distance.

But when I’m studying all this, small pieces of a jigsaw puzzle begin to form in my head. The jigsaw pieces each represent a different element of the race. So in my preparation for the race, I have to work to get all of those pieces on the table, and then I can start to put together those pieces to form the bigger picture.

For example, let’s say it’s a 50km criterium with a 500m 5% climb in the middle, and 6 sharp turns, all on a 5km lap.

First I look to set up the outer border of my jigsaw, as you’d do with a real jigsaw.

And the border – or foundation – for this race, is that I need to be able to do 50km. OK, I can do that anyway. But I’m going to need to be pretty fast for this 50km. I’d better be able to ride pretty fast, close to my FTP (sub-threshold), for 50km. That’s not easy, but if I get to work on this in training I can build up to that in blocks, increasing intensity and extending the interval blocks so I have that kind of powerful base this event will require.

Next, I have to be able to get up this 500m climb too – sure I can do that from the sofa, but this is 10 laps. A 500 meter 5% climb by lap 6 is gonna be painful at high speed, if you want to be up at the pointy end.

So, another jigsaw piece identified. I now have to find a similar hill – or a little harder, say 6 or 7%, even better – and get to work. First I’d be doing repeats at tempo (85-95% FTP), to get the legs used to that, then I’d add quicker laps, building up lactic threshold so that, eventually, I can handle multiple climbs at a high pace – as I’ll need to do in the event.

Then there are these sharp turns. 6 of them on a 5 km route run 10 times. 6 sprints x 10 laps… 60 sprints! Ouch. Now, I’m not going to go out looking to do 60 hardcore sprints, but what I do need to do is to add sprinting to my program, at first separately, and then to combine them with the hill work – and again, this is what I will be required to do if I’m going to have a chance to win this crit.

In the crit itself, not every sprint will be at full gas, nor will they all be 5 or 30 seconds long, so I have to mix it up in my training too. This event is going to require me to breathe deep – hit the VO2 – it’s going to load me up with lactate – I’ll need to be able to recover quickly from those shots on each hill – I’ll need 1 to 3 min high-end power to get into a break – and some of the corners will test my handling ability – and it will test my stamina too.

And these are the pieces of this jigsaw.

Over the course of my training, I work on each piece individually, and then start to bring them together, and them my puzzle taking shape, I can see the image of my potential performance in the crit. It’s becoming less off a puzzle with each good day of training.

The picture is becoming clearer.

On race day, all going perfectly (and it rarely does but you can get close): ‘click’ – there goes the final piece, and it’s a win, or a podium, or my goal of a top ten. So, the race is the last jigsaw piece to go in, and there you see the full picture.

And this is what we need to do with the KOM Challenge.

Training Specifically for the Taiwan KOM

So, the KOM jigsaw.

Super long, super high, so get out there and do 3 months of steady state super long – oh wait, only 4 weeks to go and we are a bit behind.

OK, so, we need to go a little mad here.

The foundation for this is longish but hard work, not the steady eddie stuff. Get out there once a week and work on pushing hard – RPE 7 or 95-105% FTP (imagine being in a breakaway) – for steadily increasing long intervals.

Long hard intervals are key to success at the Taiwan KOM Challenge.

You should include, in the first 3 weeks of your remaining, a long hard ride - starting at say 40km in Week One - with just very small on-bike rest periods (30-45 seconds). Flat or rolling terrain is best so that you aren’t freewheeling too much. Do this once a week and increase the distance each week - but not in the final week, when you will need to rest more. You may get up to 80km in the penultimate week before the KOM but you need not – 80KM at race pace is a bit much without proper base, as you will be riding steadier at the event – but the ability to go say 60km hard like this will translate into an improved ability to get up the KOM mountain. I used to do a 90km loop with some very hard climbs, and I knew that if I could do this in under 3hrs I was ready for just about anything - but that was with a lot of base in the legs.

This will be ideal as one of your weekend rides. Avoid the temptation to do 6 hrs on Saturday and the same in Sunday – it’s 4 weeks to go and if you do this you will get fatigued quickly and your performance at the KOM will be worse than if you did no training.

Now, 40km hard as you can go does not really take too much time on flat or rolling terrain and neither does 60km, if you are up to that, so the other ride on the weekend should be a steady ride with lots of elevation. These could be 100-120km with 2000 – 3000m+ elevation, ideally. If you are going for a big ride, go easier the day before to allow this.

One day in the week (preferably Tuesday or Wednesday with Monday and Friday as rest days), get out and do hill repeats, the steeper the better. This steep ascent doesn’t have to be 10km long – it could be a 300m or a 1km section of road nearby that is steep (preferably up and over 8%). Just get used to going up and up and up. This will hammer your legs with lactate, hurt the back and the arms – exactly what you’ll experience at the KOM in the last kilometers, and is another piece of the puzzle. If there’s nothing like that near you, do it indoors. You’ll get more used to this, and try to do around 4km of these on the Tuesday in the penultimate week before the KOM.

This will also be hitting your VO2 max – you’ll need all the help in the breathing department as you get over 2500m, so this will help there.

That’s three days a week covered – hard breakaway riding for that deep upper base power, longer ride for stamina, and steep hill works to build strength for the closing kilometers of the KOM.

If you have one more day in the week and the energy for it, do shortish intervals, preferably on the flat, for speed, to increase to ability to recover on-bike and in-race. These could be anything from a series of 20-30 second sprints, up to 3 and 5 minute hard, TT-like work. Mix them up each week to keep the body guessing and you on your toes.

Not convinced that sprint training will help you climb the KOM hill? Let’s look at the benefits of high speed power training:

Better cardiovascular health: Intervals are a great way to improve heart and lung health by pushing these organs to their limits and making them stronger in the process. Studies have shown that cardiovascular health is a very important predictor of life expectancy.
Improved endurance: Interval training might seem counterintuitive for building endurance, but the short bursts of intensity actually help your body produce energy more efficiently, leading to better endurance.
Neuromuscular power: Short intervals of 15-60 seconds are highly effective for increasing your top-end anaerobic power, allowing you to sustain better speed for longer periods.
Faster overall: Interval sessions are key to becoming a faster athlete. They improve your V02 max, lactate threshold, and pain tolerance, making it easier to perform fast efforts.
Improved exercise economy: Doing intervals reduces the amount of energy required to perform at the same effort level, improving your exercise economy.
Increased fat burning: Super high-intensity intervals are highly effective for burning calories, even after the workout is over, due to post-exercise oxygen consumption. These may be short, but they have lasting benefits for your health and fitness.

With 10-7 days to go before the event, get out and do a KOM ‘simulation’ – not a full 140km all out and then 40 intervals up the next door neighbour’s 15% incline driveway – but a 50-60KM smash with say 800-1200m elevation, and finish with 3-4km of steep intervals. Tongue out, nose on stem, proper, proper hard work. You want to totally tire the body within its upper limit – this is called super-compensation – then take 2 days off , and then a very easy ride, to let that hard work settle. Your body will recover from the hard work and come back stronger.

One of the things that the majority of people who take part in a big event say a week after the event is “Wow, I feel great on the bike today!” And that’s because they should have done a ‘race pace’, very hard effort 1-2 weeks before the event, then rest well, and reap the rewards from that hard work in time for the KOM.

In the final week, be sure to ride more or less within yourself. Long rides are ok if they are properly controlled, so beware the temptation to go smash two days out from the race.

Try to fit at least some of this in, keep an eye on fatigue and rest well, and your ‘KOM jigsaw’ might just turn out to be a good one!

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Example Plan:

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Monday / Rest

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Tuesday / 60-90 mins / Steep Hill Repeats

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Wednesday / 60-90 mins / Zone 2 Flat Riding (60-75% FTP)

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Thursday / 60-90 mins

Short Interval Work: A mixture of 20-30 second sprints and 3-5 minute hard intervals, such as this below.

Easy for 10

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4 mins 85-95%

2 mins 96-105%

1 min 106-115%

and repeat, no stop

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3 mins easy

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SPRINTS 25 secs x 4

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50 secs rest between each sprint

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3 mins break easy ride

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3 mins as hard as you can go, like Van Der Poel! 105-130%

2 mins easy recovery

3 mins as hard as you can again 105-130%

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3 mins break

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Repeat sprints 25 secs x 4 50 secs break between each

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2 mins easy

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3 x 1 min BLASTER – as hard as you can go 110-140%

2 mins rest between

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2 mins rest

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3 x 15 sec seated high cadence sprints

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and cool down

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Friday / Rest

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Saturday / Long Ride at Zone 2 with 2000-3000m elevation

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Sunday / Shorter Race Pace ride, not too hilly route: aim for 92-100% FTP for this rode. 40-60km.

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Good luck!

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For coaching enquiries, please email lee@crankpunk.com.

TRAIN FOR THE TAIWAN KOM CHALLENGE: THE LAST FOUR WEEKS