These training drills will get you faster on the cyclocross bike and designed to be done off-road. Keep in mind they are hight intents drills. So make sure you are nicely warmed up before you start.
If you think about your efforts of a cyclocross race. You have flat out sprints, you have longer efforts and there are times when there is no power applied to the pedals. So short 20 second efforts would be beneficial. For this you want to find a short hill, about 20 seconds long part of a small loop. Ride into it then run up the hill and jump back on and sprint for 10 seconds. Try to do 3 sets of 8 and build up from there. This will depend on your level of fitness.
Being specific by setting up your own mini cyclocross course. This will not only improve your fitness but will help you with your cyclocross skills. So we want to do is make a lap that will take about 5 minutes to complete. On that lap we want a run-up and anything that would be in a cyclocross race. One Lap flat out and a Half a lap to recovery then Repeat 3 to 8 times.
Drill number 3 we will also help with clipping in. Let find a flat area put one foot in and start and clip in and sprint for 30 seconds and then hold 10% over FTP for 90 seconds after that turnaround and go back to the start and repeat 5 to 8 times. This will prepare you for the effort that you will need at the start of a race.
This final session can be done on the indoor trainer or outdoors. We will hold ramp up our heart rate threshold and hold for 20 second and then let off but just to let the heart rate drop off about 10 beats per minutes and back up for 20 second. We will repeat for 20 minutes.
for these drills you will need a 5 to 10 minute warm-up and cool down.