For this installment of my little write up on the expanse that is the Internet, I decided to field a few questions from the Twitterati.

LarrytheFalcon asks “@christianmeier what is your key training tool in the off season? Heart rate monitor, wattage, speedometer, cadence, etc. or just feel.”

All of the above, more or less. While I do train mostly with heart rate, we do use wattage to gauge where we are in terms of fitness or fatigue. There can be a lot of variables that affect both heart rate and wattage, so the more information you can arm yourself with the better, I believe. At this point of the year we do pay more attention to cadence and keeping leg speed high, so cadence does play a role in my winter training. While being armed with all this data can help you gauge and judge your training better you must sometimes also rely on feel.  If you feel like total rubish, you may just need to go home instead of pushing yourself too hard to reach a certain heart rate or wattage.

TBooker27 asks “@christianmeier Do you make your own travel arrangements or does team? Do you get health insurance?”

Most teams these days at the Continental level and all teams above (Pro Conti and ProTeam) will have staff in charge of logistics. Their roll will be to book flights, hotels as well as organize which team cars, trucks and buses will go to specific races.  This is especially important when the team is doing two races at the same time. These people are usually the ultra organized types who handle stress well, haha.

Yes, when I start with my new team United Healthcare Pro Cycling in the new year we will be receiving a health insurance plan through United Healthcare, not a bad perk at all.

ekharvey asks “@christianmeier why did you got into cycling? Think you had an unusual entrance from MTB right?

I got into cycling by picking up a MTB magazine as a younger guy and loving what I saw, the cool looking bikes and especially the downhill bikes. From there I slowly worked my way into mountain biking with a local club and racing XC, but truth be told this was just filler until the I was allowed to get my DH racing license for which you had to be 16. Once I turned 16 I would race DH on Saturday followed by XC on Sunday, those were fun times. Eventually I started riding on the road to commute the 20km from my home to work at the local bike shop, and that's when I fell in love with the road. I sold all my MTB bikes and focused on the road and very recently just got a MTB after a 7 year hiatus. I still love the riding in the forest and trails, and when I retire I could really see myself getting into the Trans Alps kind of stuff.

I hope I answered your questions well and thanks for reading.
Christian