Kostas: amateur cycling base — recreation, tactics, teams and races in St. Petersburg

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Useful from the issue

1. Off—season - two to three weeks

   If the goal is progress, rest after the season should be limited to two to three weeks. Longer — and a significant part of next season will be spent on getting back in shape.

2. A pause is better than leaving

   If motivation is gone, take a break for a month or two or switch to skiing and running. Racing non-stop for several years in a row is a sure way to quit altogether.

3. Don't pull a group without a goal

   Working in front of the peloton without a team and a plan simply brings rivals to the finish line. Ask yourself what you are spending your energy for.

4. You can train by feel

   Readiness changes from day to day, so Kostas rides road without a power meter: it's important to understand which zone you are affecting.

5. Team — 10-15 people

   So much is needed so that several people come to a particular race and to a particular cluster. A larger composition risks falling apart into groupings.

6. Learn tactics on broadcasts

   It's hard to understand what's going on during a race at a high heart rate. Analyzing professional races from the outside helps to see the patterns.

7. Iron is not the main thing

   Rim brakes do not limit flat races: Kostas rode a selective race in Tartu on an aluminum bicycle with heavy wheels without any problems. The main thing is the racer himself, not the upgrades.

8. Shave your legs

   Shaved legs are easier to wash after dirt and treat with an abrasion. The fastest way, according to Costas, is a regular razor.

A second-generation amateur

Kostas's father raced back in the late nineties, was also involved in triathlon, so his son grew up at these starts. Kostas didn't have a professional sport: at first they didn't take him to the cross-country skiing section, he broke through there himself and eventually remained the only one from that set, but he didn't reach a serious level. Then there was swimming, amateur speedskating on roller skates and the first MTB marathons in the mid-noughties.

Around 2010, he was dragged onto the track, and this made the training year-round, and since 2015 he has been training systematically. All this time Kostas trains himself: He is interested in understanding physiology and methodology, and not following someone else's recipe, although he admits that he could progress faster with a coach. He works in the family bike shop, which his father has been running since 2006, which allows him to combine work and riding.

Rest, volumes and wattmeter

Is it possible for an amateur to rest all winter? It is possible, but if you need a result, preparation should be year—round, and rest - two to three weeks. Longer — and the form sags so that it takes half a season to return. On the other hand, amateurs are not professionals: if you don't want to, you don't have to force yourself. It is important not to burn out: it is better to pause for a month or two than to quit altogether after a few years. Kostas himself had not skated for a month at the time of recording.

His legendary 30-hour training week happened only once. He normally trains for up to 15 hours, occasionally 20 in summer. His only power meter is on the indoor trainer. On the road, Kostas trains by feel because his form varies from day to day and target watts often do not reflect how he feels. Runners and skiers, he points out, train without watts too.

The main mistake of amateurs and tactics

The most common sore is the desire to work without understanding why. The amateur pulls the group, takes everyone to the finish line, and then complains that he was dishonestly overtaken. Road racing is determined by aerodynamics: sitting in the shade, you spend much less energy, and all tactical schemes grow from this. You should always ask yourself why I'm here and what I'm doing.

You learn tactics through experience: watch what others do, analyze the race, watch professional broadcasts. Kostas recalls a race where eight riders from the same sports school were in the breakaway: they attacked in turns, and the weakest of them, whom nobody bothered to cover, almost won. The best success of his team was winning 'La Strada' strictly according to a plan made in advance, with an attack from the start and a breakaway without the main favorite.

Why do we need commands and what size

When strong riders unite, it becomes very difficult to confront them alone. But for amateurs, the level gap is huge, so a strong loner can still win without a team. Because of this, our races, according to Kostas, are not like flat group races, where everything is decided by a sprint, but by classics: the peloton splits, breaks reach, and even the sprinter has to invest in order not to fall into the dump.

The optimal size of an amateur team is 10-15 people: some will not come, some in a different form, and there will be two or three in your cluster. More — the farce and the split begin. Kostas considers situational alliances between teams to be normal. There are few girls in the club: the women's peloton is tiny, and it offers part of the women's races to be held together with the men's.

What's wrong with road cycling in St. Petersburg

In a city with a population of one million, there are almost no group races: there are no service roads, it's difficult to close 100 km of highway, and locals get upset when they are locked in the settlements. But in the city, it is quite possible to hold criteriums on short closed sections of streets, as was once done. Kostas advises not to miss the race at the Igora racetrack. Gran Fondo, according to him, has a problem with small groups: in group A, ten people remain on the climb, and it's no longer a group race — clusters A and B should be combined up to 60–70 people.

The Tour of Vyborg is a training race together with the Vyborg sports school, where amateurs and children get racing strain. Over time, the number of participants had to be limited and switched to invitations: a pack of more than a few dozen people on an unblocked highway stops fitting into the lane and goes into the oncoming lane. The same reason, explains Kostas, closed Ilya's Tour de Selishchi: with a hundred racers on an unblocked road, the pack occupies the entire highway, and a serious incident is a matter of time.

Big packs, gravel and triathlon

In a pack of a couple hundred people, Kostas describes an effect similar to a rip current: the center slides back, people are squeezed out at the edges forward, right up to the curb, and a dangerous struggle for position begins. That's why he's cautious about the Garden Ring: it's a wide straight road, high speed, turns, and many unprepared participants. You can sit in the back with a low heart rate, or you can fail to break away with any effort. He finds races in the Moscow region, like in Dubna, more interesting.

Kostas isn't organizing a gravel ride yet: it's more convenient to train on the road or MTB, and 250 km on Tsar Grader at racing intensity is too much for an amateur, in his opinion, and two distances would split up the strong field. Triathlon isn't close to him because of the rotation: two-thirds of the participants change every season. His own plan is to be stronger at 60 than at 30.

Timestamps

1. 0:00Start
2. 1:04Who is Kostas
3. 8:51Who motivated
4. 10:16Is it possible to rest all winter
5. 14:2830 hours a week
6. 16:22Where is the wattmeter
7. 17:58What nonsense do amateurs do
8. 20:20Cycling teams
9. 28:57Strong singles and team tactics
10. 34:53What's wrong with racing in St. Petersburg
11. 40:14Tour of Vyborg
12. 46:18Road races in 2025
13. 53:15Gravel and Tsar Grader 2025
14. 57:37Triathlon and cyclocross
15. 1:02:36Blitz: Zwift, indoor trainer, road cycling, and shaving legs

Mentioned in this episode

Amateur Club · Vyborg Tour · Grand Fondo · Cycling Race · Garden Ring · La Strada · Tsar Grader · Tour de Selishchi · Zwift · Igor