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Harsh? I thought Mark was very engaging and obviously knowledgable....but his audience was, apart from a couple of 3rd cats, for the most part novice or 4th cats. In my honest opinion many in that room need a good base and to lose a few pounds before worrying about lactate threshold etc. I just thought a little more time could have been spent on the basics.

With comments like "all my riders are on Garmin 500", " pulse monitors/power cranks are excellent tools" and "bikefit would be beneficial" You'd think you were missing out if you didn't have £600 worth of gadgets stuck on the bars, which isn't the case.

Several hundred year ago the Normans arrived and build 'a small Church' in the centre of York, and a fine building it is too in many ways better than modern equivalents. With no power tools, hydraulic lifts or today's knowledge of building techniques or materials it took a bit of time and, I dare say, hard work.

If we were to build the same building in the 21st Century would we use the same methods? I doubt it. Could we ignore all the tools/knowledge we have access to now and build it? Probably...but why other than to prove we could.

"be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still"

Don't get me wrong Paul, I love gadgets..phone, fancy coffe machine, I've got the lot, I've even got a digital caliper which measures chainwear. But I've yet to find a gadget which turned the pedals for you.

Ahhh.. ..I never got on with coffee machines - far too complex. But there are some gadgets around that can help some people learn how to turn the pedals harder/faster than they would otherwise be able to, subject to them putting in a whole s***load of work too. Which just goes to show how different we all are....

Excellent discusson. Certainly very thought provoking. It is good to have those discussions even if they seem to have contradictory information at times.

Training and advice, experts, pub experts etc, its all like having children. Everyone has their own advice and opinion on how you should do it and what has worked/not worked for them.

In the end you have to find a path through that works for you that you can do. Even experts can be wrong or have a particular intepretation of something that can also be biased by ones own perceptions. In the end take it all in, educate, assess how reliable, accurate, doable you think it is then make a plan and try doing it. You do still have to ride your bike though and work hard, although you may get fitter faster if you have a good training plan. Just hard work can be detrimental as it can lead to overtraining and training to go slowly, but try a plan, evaluate it and see if you are improving. There is no one size fits all miracle training plan, but help and advice specific to your own situation/physiology will make you go quicker faster. Just don't take everything on face value and realise that everything must be assessed and thought about before applying.