Talking off road here, but probably applies to any riding.

Fast rides. Now okay I’m not as fit as most of the fast group I ride with but generally I cope well on the flat, descents and gentle or long climbs. Because they ride flat out non stop, as soon as I hit a short sharp climb, they’ve shot past me and within a short space I’m getting leg burn.

Yet on a slower more social ride I’m ticking along with energy to burn and can happily charge up the same climbs.

Any tips on how to cope with / improve this?

Though I’m far less of a sprinter and more long distance. Give me a long steady climb and I’ll chug along quite happily at a reasonable pace.

Partly genetic, partly training. Peeps with more short term power are probably posting somewhere about how to improve their stamina. Your legs have different types of muscle (genetically proportional). To improve stamina ride longer, for power hit the gym. More intense riding will also engage more of core muscles groups too, again gym strength work required to improve. Having said that someone will be along in a minute to say practice hill riding, although you will never see anyone in the gym doing 50 squat reps.

You’re riding friends have got a higher lactate/anaerobic threshold than you. You need to get training on the side 😀

Basically, on the fast ride you’re close to you limit all the time, close but not over. As soon as you hit the steep stuff you have no where to go except into the red hence you get the burn then get dropped. On the social rides you’re not at your limit so when the steeps come you can accelerate up them as you have somewhere to go.

To train to be better at this intervals are good as they push you into the red or simply rider more rides like that and get used to the suffering. And lose weight, it wouldn’t be a thread about climbing without mentioning it but it’s true, so think about it.

Thanks, yeah does seem to be I’m just on that limit. Depends where the group goes on the fast rides too. One of the local areas I prefer is more up and down twisty where I can often cope, whereas some are a longer flat out, mix of singletrack and then hit the climbs (and they don’t stop at the top 😀 ).

Weight – might help though I’m 11st which isn’t huge, but then I’m 5’7″. BMI says top end of healthy for age, weight and height. Only takes half a stone more to go into overweight territory. But then BMI is balls anyway. British Heart Foundation looks at belly size. Oh dear! 😀 Sorting that out may mean cutting out the beer!

Other thing is I’m on old school 26″ wheels, 1×10 and flats, trying to keep up with 29ers, clips and some with more gears (though some with only one, and some on fat bikes!).

Are they roadies ? They are generally fitter and less used to stopping. Training for that type of ride will help but as above there is a genetics/talent angle too.

I think a lot do road as well. A lot of bike commutes too judging by Strava. Sadly current client is too far away to ride to. It’s an hour’s drive as it is. A number of them race also.

Main thing is just to be able to cope better on the fast rides. I’m not intending to become a racer. Funny thing is for some of them this is their social ride. I’ve been on ones at their even faster pace and just got dropped. The social pace ride I find a little slow, depending who turns up, though fun.

This is night ride group. That’s all different to my weekend rides which are just super social. Far too much really. Though it’s more about mucking about 😀

Some people are better at short grunty climbs some on longer tempo climbs. The guys I was with on thursday were powering along on the flat making me struggle until we went up a couple of longer climbs and I dropped them, they then calmed down a bit. Atvthe end of the ride theres a series of short drops and climbs where I was spinning like crazy to hang on while they were turning big gears.

Go out with people that love MTB’ing and you’ll enjoy it more – rides with converted roadies are never going to be fun

Ha! 😀 Nah, they’re a great bunch really. Certainly generally off roaders than converted roadies, but like so many I know some are getting into road riding as well. Some though are just very fit and train for xc races. We do multiple group rides at different paces and some mix it up doing different rides. I tend to do the more social one, but I like to push myself with a faster one at times. I enjoy it all. Fast can be useful when doing the occasional drop as you’re all just going for it and no time to hesitate.

I did some research on this recently. Apparently your type 1 muscle fibres produce power and also pump out lactic acid, type 2 fibres absorb the lactic acid, so you need to develop both to increase the amount of time before you get leg burn which is when more lactic acid is produced than can be processed, the excess causes the burn.

To increase type 1 fibres, do interval and power based training, but you also need to develop type 2 fibres to process the lactic acid and these are your endurance fibres, so you develop these by doing low zone (zone 1-2h stuff for a long time. Muscle fibres can change from one type to another depending on the type of riding you typically do, so if you’re regularly riding at upper level/zone, you might not have enough type 2 fibres to absorb the lactic acid build up.

You need a balance of both, so just doing intervals won’t help the overall picture although it will definitely improve the situation that you describe.

There’s loads of stuff written on this that can describe it much better than me.