The British Cycling Free 3-week Taster Training Plan is designed to give you a taste of the structure and workouts that are typical of the rest of the British Cycling Training Plans available on TrainingPeaks.

The plan and the workouts within it are most suited to power users but can be adapted for heart rate. All of the cycling workouts are fully built within the plan and so, it’s compatible with smart trainers and many head units. They are also scripted for use on Zwift.

To try following this plan, you should have been consistently riding three times a week, be familiar with structured training and be capable of riding for 2 hours. If you’re not currently at this level, you should consider either our 12-week Sportive/Gran Fondo Plan or our 12-week “Real Life” Winter Training Plan.

If you’re completely new to cycling, you should head to the British Cycling Insight Zone where you’ll find a free to all users Sofa to 50km plan https://tinyurl.com/y78d98dl .

The peak week’s volume of training is 6 hours. If you’re already familiar with TrainingPeaks and its metrics, the peak week’s TSS is 270.

The cycling training is typically broken down into three rides; two mid-week and one at the weekend. The mid-week rides are more suited to an indoor trainer but can easily be completed on the road. In this plan, one of the mid-week workouts focuses on threshold/Sweet-Spot intensity and the other is more sprint based. This is predominately to illustrate some of the workout variety in the plans. The weekend rides focus on building your endurance and allow you to practice and refine your fuelling and hydration strategies.

There is also an optional session that gives you the opportunity to do some cross training. Cross training, although optional, should be part of your training. Don’t worry if you can’t manage dedicated sessions, even doing regular mobility work at home will benefit your riding. Cross training helps to prevent boredom, provides options if you are unable to ride and builds all-round injury preventing robustness.

The Flexible Day gives you the opportunity, should you need it, to juggle the week around if work, family or other commitments mean you can’t follow the prescribed schedule. If you do have to shuffle the sessions around, try to keep the structure of one day of training followed by a rest day or alternative activity, rather than riding on back to back days.

At the end of the three weeks, you should factor in an easier recovery week. This three weeks of build followed by a recovery week is consistent throughout our plans.

The plan is fully supported by content on the British Cycling Insight Zone, where you can find advice on skills, training, nutrition, equipment, clothing and maintenance.
www.britishcycling.org.uk/knowledge