Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

It’s difficult to define a Road Cyclist’s true limit with any precise number.

Humans aren’t machines, after all. Their daily condition fluctuates, with frequent highs and lows.

Even psychological and emotional factors can affect a cyclist’s actual performance.

Of course, no top-tier cyclist would ever just publish their core data for the world to see.

For example, Pogačar, Vingegaard, and others would never publicly share their power data on the cycling app Strava.

At most, they might post the total time, average speed, and cadence of their rides.

Although Huang Chong was still a long way from reaching the level of these top-tier cyclists, he wasn’t reckless enough to go all out and reveal his full power data in just any tryout or race.

Learning to hold something back is actually quite important for a Road Cyclist.

It effectively prevents opponents from devising specific tactics and strategies against you in advance, and from using their team to wear you down and burn you out prematurely.

But even though Huang Chong deliberately held back, his performance in the team tryouts was still miles ahead of everyone else.

This led to the first-string team members starting after him feeling an inexplicable panic when they saw his data on the timing board, and they all started complaining:

’Why is this kid, who started first, riding so damn fast?’

’He’s making us all look like we’ve got old, arthritic legs—’

Especially since Zhang Guowei was sitting right by the timing board, his stern presence radiating a cold glare in their direction.

It felt as if that tiger would devour them alive if they couldn’t ride faster than Huang Chong.

The second cyclist to start after Huang Chong was a young rider from the Ningbo Team who had competed in the Provincial Games.

This guy had it better. Although his final average speed was only 42.6 km/h and his time was over 28 minutes, his start time was only three minutes after Huang Chong’s.

So, by the time Huang Chong’s results were posted, he was already on his final lap and couldn’t see the real-time data.

This spared him a lot of psychological pressure; all he had to do was ride his best.

But for the cyclists who started in the fourth and fifth positions after Huang Chong, the situation was completely different.

This was because they could see Huang Chong’s real-time results as soon as they finished their first lap.

When they saw his lap time was just over 12 minutes, they’d look down at their own bike computers to see they had already taken a full 14 minutes. You can imagine the pressure. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Worst of all, one of the first-string members had already finished. Forget comparing his time to Huang Chong’s—it was even worse than the rookie from the Ningbo Team who started second. His total time was 29 minutes.

This made Zhang Guowei’s expression darken instantly, and he couldn’t help but curse under his breath:

"A bunch of useless freeloaders! Getting a free ride on the first-string team with no pressure, they’ve eaten themselves into atrophy!"

And so, the first-string members who drew later start times, who had initially felt lucky thinking they could observe others’ results and adjust their strategy—

—now found themselves in an unexpected situation. With Huang Chong setting the bar impossibly high right from the start, the later they started, the greater the psychological pressure became.

Soon, more than half the cyclists had finished. Among the first six, only Huang Chong had reached 47 km/h. The second-place time was a distant 43 km/h.

The gap was enormous and painfully obvious.

Thankfully, that second-place time was achieved by a veteran team member. Otherwise, if the veterans were getting completely trounced by the rookies, Zhang Guowei really would have jumped out of his seat and ripped them to shreds on the spot.

As the director of the cycling program, Zhang Guowei was in charge of athletes across several different cycling disciplines. But with so few spots on the provincial team, he knew in his heart that the road cycling group had been slacking off and getting by for the past two years of "rest and recuperation."

But what he hadn’t expected was this: it was one thing for their skill level not to have improved, but it seemed to have actually regressed.

This was a 20 km flat ITT, without even a 2% grade.

As first-string cyclists, how could they possibly justify a best performance of only 43 km/h?

The thought made Zhang Guowei so furious he could spit.

He was thankful for his own wise decision to expand the number of spots for the annual provincial team selections from the top three city-level riders to the top six.

If he didn’t orchestrate a major shake-up now and sent this bunch to the National Road Cycling Championships at the end of December, they would surely come back with a last-place finish for the whole country.

And then, all his career achievements as an old hand who’d been with the provincial cycling team for five or six years would be ruined in one fell swoop.

Fortunately, the new generation surpasses the old. The five rookies he had selected from the Provincial Games were all performing well.

The riders from the Ningbo Team and Jinhua Team who had already finished both had average speeds above 42 km/h, and were just a hair’s breadth from 43 km/h.

While their results weren’t better than the veterans’, they were young. The youngest was only 20. With proper training, they still had huge potential for growth.

The tryouts continued. By the time Zhou Zitong, who drew the tenth starting position, took the stage, the assessment was nearing its end.

At this point, the only cyclists who hadn’t started were one veteran and the final rider, Wang Bao.

Watching Huang Chong, who had finished long ago and was now enjoying the show from the sidelines like a curious onlooker, Wang Bao thought for a moment before deciding to approach him.

"Brother Huang, your performance now seems to have improved a lot since the Provincial Games. Could I ask how you usually train? Do you have any secret tricks?"

Huang Chong was rather surprised to hear Wang Bao actively asking for advice. He could also tell from his tone that he wasn’t as arrogant as he had been at the Provincial Games.

’This kid has really grown in the past ten days!’

’At least, his mentality has clearly matured.’

For an athlete, it’s a good quality to always maintain a positive attitude and the will to improve.

But being stubborn, refusing to acknowledge others’ excellence, being completely unreceptive, and not taking the initiative to analyze others’ strengths—that would definitely not work.

Now that he was able to admit the gap between them, humbly ask for advice, and even call him ’Brother,’ it was clear that Wang Bao had moved on from his previous defeat and adjusted his mindset.

Huang Chong wasn’t the type to hold a grudge or put on airs. Even if they’d had some unpleasantness between them, as long as the other party was willing to reconcile, he was ready to accept it.

Besides, it wasn’t like he and Wang Bao had some major feud. After a moment’s thought, he replied in an equally friendly tone with a smile:

"Bro, we’re about the same age. You don’t have to call me ’Brother’; just use my name.

"As for training secrets, there really aren’t any. I just do conventional training. Piling on aerobic and interval sprint training is usually enough.

"But if you’re asking about race methods, I personally feel that maintaining a stable mindset is very important.

"Especially in an ITT, you need to maintain a high-power Zone 4 threshold ride the whole way. That’s the peak zone, right between aerobic and anaerobic.

"This requires a completely clear head for the entire race to precisely control your power output.

"If you’re always focused on others’ results when you ride, it’s easy to get carried away.

"And once emotions get involved—like feeling indignant or unwilling to accept defeat—you’ll likely increase your power output without even realizing it.

"As you know, once a cyclist goes over their threshold and enters the anaerobic zone, the body produces lactic acid. Fatigue builds up rapidly, which in turn hurts your overall efficiency for the whole race.

"So, I guess you could call this a small piece of my own experience and insight!"

These words from Huang Chong were completely genuine, spoken from the heart without holding anything back.

For him, his mentality was naturally perfect—after all, someone with a cheat system doesn’t need to worry about their own limits. As long as he worked hard, he could always stack more power. But he had often thought about how he would approach cycling if he *didn’t* have his cheat.

The experience he had summarized was this:

Maintaining absolute mental calmness is the foundation of victory.

In fact, this was even more important than the raw level of one’s own power.

After hearing this, Wang Bao had a sudden epiphany.

It was true. During the previous road race, he had been fixated on Huang Chong’s performance, riding out of pure spite, thinking only about how he absolutely had to beat him.

So, in the middle of the race, to compete with Huang Chong, he had pushed himself to the limit prematurely just by stubbornly trying to keep up with him.

At the time, he hadn’t cared about fundamental issues like power output, aerobic versus anaerobic, or anything else. He just charged forward recklessly.

This led to his final race result being even worse than his usual training times.

That’s why he couldn’t help but cry after the race. When he got back, his coach, Liu Jialiang, had even given him a harsh scolding.

Now, hearing Huang Chong’s guidance, he finally understood. To achieve peak performance in cycling, you had to keep a clear head.

"So, in a race, a cyclist is essentially competing against themselves, while an opponent’s performance is more of a long-term goal to chase and strive for in daily training?"

Wang Bao summarized Huang Chong’s meaning. A joyful expression of sudden understanding spread across his face, and he thanked him sincerely:

"Thank you, Brother Huang, for your guidance! I think I know how to face this tryout now!"

And as it turned out, he had indeed benefited greatly from Huang Chong’s words.

When he started his run and completed the two laps, he maintained an extremely stable power output and speed the entire time.

His final average speed reached 43.8 km/h, with a total time of 27:03.97.

This was a whole level up from his average speed of just 42 km/h in the Provincial Games ITT. His time was still second only to Huang Chong, placing him second among the twelve cyclists.

When Zhang Guowei saw that Wang Bao, the last to finish, had made such great progress in just ten days, his cold expression—which had been soured by the first-string members’ poor performance—finally softened a little.

But ultimately, he was still very dissatisfied with this year’s tryouts.

A quick glance at the results showed him that the first, second, fifth, seventh, eighth, and ninth places were all taken by rookies. The first-string members only managed to place third, fourth, sixth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth.

This meant that, excluding the monstrously talented Huang Chong, his six veterans were still getting completely trounced by this batch of rookies.

And they were being beaten so badly they couldn’t even fight back.