I really enjoy riding bikes and it takes up a fair amount of my leisure time. I really like going fast. Im not talking exclusively about down hill. Im pretty happy with how i ride my enduro and dh bikes, but i want to be able to pedal harder for longer, with the ability to dig deeper when required.

This dark art seems to be fitness, but although i ride my bikes xc and trail and dh and on the road, i never seem to really improve unless its by accident whem i have put a few more quality miles in.

My twins have just gone to college so i have some me time now. I would like peoples recommendation for conditikning that will make me fast on both the road and trails.

I understand that training is going to be less fun than just riding my bike and im ready for that. I have access to wattbikes at the local gym and some good hilly riding locally.

Im 50 and im hoping this new found fitness will help me with the bike leg of triathlon, some audax rides and being an uphill nuisance when i ride with my mates.

I know there are some conflicting requirements….sprint, max 1hr power, endurance etc but im asking as i just dont know how to start.

Thanks

Might be some ideas here

Thanks, i hadnt seen that book. Has anyone any experience of it?

Not read that one but I have read other stuff from Joe Friel. He definitely knows what he’s talking about.

Ride alone or with someone who knows its a training session not a ride. Use a hr monitor or power meter if you can afford it. The key to getting faster is quality riding time over quantity (unless you can afford the time for quality and quantity of course!). Read the training books but also identify your weaknesses and focus on those. Try trainer road and / or training peaks.

Edit. It’s not just quality riding time, it’s quality recovery time, think about your nutrition, no point beasting yourself in an interval session and then going off and doing chores or whatever with no food. If I have a hard session planned I try to also plan having an easy hour chilling after and make sure I have protein sources (ideally a meal but if not a bar) to hand for after the session. Stretching and foam rollering are useful if you are really upping the hours

+1 for Joe Freil’s books

There’s also Chris Carmichael’s time crunched cyclist (although he is Armstrong’s ex coach).

As for getting quicker, not much to it other than riding. If the idea of structured training doesn’t appeal then just going out for rides in groups that will push you is 90% as effective (made up stat). Join a road club and do the Sunday club run, couple that with a few mid week MTB rides with faster riders (not slower stop-start groups, find some quicker ones, stalk local XC racers on Strava and see what club/shops they ride with). Relegate rides with mates to just ‘social’ recovery rides, you’ll need some recovery if you ride enough.

Ok. I have found some stuff in British Cycling website and i am investigating the wattbike programme too. I am thinking of a power meter and already have a garmin with hr

The thing with a power meter is that it’s completely useless (bar giving you numbers to look at) if you don’t test your ftp (functional threshold power) on a regular(ish) basis.

Not going to lie, ftp tests are hard! But they do give you the best (in my mind) measure of your current fitness and how you’ve improved. I’d thoroughly recommend using trainingpeaks as it can give you some really interesting graphs and metrics.

I’d also say that having a goal like an event etc is really worthwhile. I’d personally find it hard to stay motivated in my training if I was doing it just to be generically faster.

You can get really complicated about it but you basically need to do lots of easy miles and a moderate amount of really painfully hard sessions. Exactly what form the hard sessions take depends on the aspect of fitness you are trying to improve.

Strava and a competitive ego. 😆

I only discovered today that the £20 cadence/speed sensor sold by Aldi earlier this year works with the Strava app on my Nexus tablet, let the segement scalping begin (on a fatbike)! 😀

Ride more.
Eat less.
Ride more.
Drink less alcohol.
Ride more.
Buy a road bike.
Ride more.
Buy a singlespeed.
Ride more.
All things I’ve failed to do over the last couple of years. 😐

Buy a singlespeed.
Ride more.

This would most definitely work.

The biggest mistake most people make when training is not making the hard bits hard enough and the rest bits easy enough. On an effort scale of 1 -10 they train at level 6 and rest at level 5 or maybe 4. What they should be doing is training at level 8 or 9 and resting at level 2.

Beyond that, figure out what you want your fitness/strength for then work on your weaknesses that prevent you achieving that and play to your strengths. Don’t do the classic of going all guns blazing straight away or you will likely get injured, work yourself into the training regimen but at the same time give your body a shock and make it adapt.

It never gets easier you just get faster.

Join a club. Try to get out with the faster group, get spat out the back, ride back home alone, committing yourself to stay with them longer next time.

Drink less alcohol.

pfffft

Drink less alcohol.pfffft

This is the really hard bit.
Specially after 100K on a singlespeed…

T.U.E?

Wookster – Member
T.U.E?

Probably S.A.T, S.U.N, T.H.U too. 😛

I really *want* to have a structured training programme but with two very young kids it just isn’t going to happen. Having said that, this past year I’ve really upped certain aspects of my riding and I’ve got both stronger and faster. In discussing my progress with fellow roadie club members (who all follow strict regimes) they’re of the strong opinion that what I’m doing is very similar to what they are doing:-

– Fixed gear rides: I commute 50 miles a week on my fixed gear; this has really helped my strength
– Club road rides: 40 miles one night per week at a steady pace (19-ish)
– Speed session: I have a 20-mile road loop where I just go as fast as I can for and hour https://www.strava.com/activities/687502518
– Saturday club run: generally 60 miles or so with plenty of efforts
– MTB ride: every two weeks for three hours

I’m on target for 7k miles this year versus 4k last year, so I’ve significantly upped my miles too. I’ve just turned 50 🙁

– Fixed gear rides: I commute 50 miles a week on my fixed gear; this has really helped my strength
– Club road rides: 40 miles one night per week at a steady pace (19-ish)
– Speed session: I have a 20-mile road loop where I just go as fast as I can for and hour https://www.strava.com/activities/687502518
– Saturday club run: generally 60 miles or so with plenty of efforts
– MTB ride: every two weeks for three hours

You are dead to me.

I am dead to me, Scotroutes

😆

I have a fixie…i will get it out! Thanks for the advice and encouragement guys. The FTP stuff sounds a great idea too…

+1 for the power meter options. Defintely a plus as you can see your effort in real time and aim to increase your functional threshold power (which should help you go faster). Technique is often overlooked- As silly as it sounds I recently found out I was faster powering out of the saddle on the last steep section of a short climb than staying seated and/or clicking down a gear. There’s lots of ways to get faster it just depends on what youre willing to try out.