Workout of the Week: Cyclocross Fitness Tune-Up

So you want to “hop into” a cyclocross race? Sounds painful.  

Let’s do what we can to increase your smiles-to-suffering ratio because CX is unlike road cycling, criterium racing, gravel, or even mountain biking.  

Cyclocross is unique because it’s hundreds of short “sprint-adjacent” efforts with minimal recovery. Due to the event length and lack of recovery it’s not possible that these efforts are truly max-power sprints—although they certainly begin feeling like that.  

This week we’re going to modify a classic workout to be more CX specific. Typically, 20/10 or 30/30 workouts are done with the goal of consistent power: You ramp up and maintain the highest power that you can for the 20- or 30-second effort and then recover with an easy spin.

To make this more specific for cyclocross, you’re going to hit it harder (50% to 75% of your full sprint power!) for the first 10 seconds of each effort and then settle down to FTP as you finish the “on” portion of your interval. This is going to mimic the acceleration out of a corner and then a continued effort down a long straightaway. Your legs will be screaming as you maintain the mental strength to keep pushing near-sprint efforts corner after corner.  

Because of the constantly varying nature of this workout, it’s best to do these outside or with your trainer in “incline” mode (not ERG mode). Aim for your accelerations to begin at a low cadence, working up to 100 RPM. Shift as needed to maintain 100 RPM as you settle into your FTP later in the effort.  