Looking to take my riding a bit more seriously and maybe get involved in a few events towards the autumn. I currently ride at the week end 10 to 15 miles.

I would like to get some training in during the week. Can anyone give me an idea of a plan to follow? I also have access to a gym so weight training is a possibility.

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to come across unsarcastically.
So please take this in the spirit it is intended.
Ride more often,ride further,ride faster….buy a rode bike.

Tell us the events that you plan on doing

Joe, I am an exercise physiologist and cycle coach… email in profile should you want some professional assistance.

😀

Got a Road Bike.

Looking for someone to provide an example of their weekly/monthly plan.

I hope to take part in a couple of 2 lap/ 20 mile events and take part in 24hr team event.

I would do 2-3 hour rides during the week leaving a day or 2 for rests, then do a long ride at the weekend somethine like 5-6 hours

Using these principles I need to know

* Frequency – decide how often to train?
* Intensity – choose how hard to train?
* Time – decide for how long to train?
* Type – decide which methods of training to use?

It’s easy to say spend longer in the saddle but I need to work out rest periods and build in other forms of training to help injury prevention and avoid tedium/over training

No expert but I do short high intensity rides during the week and long low intensity at the weekend.

How long are your rides during the week? What sort of events do you do Shorty?

Hey Joe,

There is a pro trainer guy on eBay (in the UK) who will make you a custom training plan for about a tenner a month. There is a lot of information on the web (and a bit in this forum) about building your bike specific fitness up.

I found BikeRadar.com had a lot of really good information on building up fitness levels.

When I was young – we ‘raced’ just for the crack – I guess these days with 3.5k bikes commonplace there is a high probability of elitism – I do not know (I guess there is good and bad to be found everywhere).

When I raced – there were only really xc races and downhill. There were point-to-points and they were the big mileage xc’s using maps. These days there are as many different types of races as there are of mountain bikes – some that go all day and all night and all sorts…

Make no mistake I think most people in the forums are not really supermen / uber fit athletes they just looove bikes and biking – although there are plenty of experts about – and they want you to ask a specific question (with appropriate detail).

Probably most find that after a while in order to get most enjoyment out of biking they need to train themselves up a little so they can enjoy the ride more. Most that I know try to ride as much as they can – and they is all the training they will ever need.

I can recommend getting a cheap heart rate monitor from eBay so you can learn a bit about your body and how it copes as you ride (I bike as part of my physiotherapy and swear by the HRM).

There are loads of books down the library to assist. Get on your bike go out and enjoy.

If you go to your local bike shops – ask them – down with us nearly all of them do weekly guided rides – and although the group may be a bit fitter than you stright away – get out with the lads and absorb it up directly (best way to learn is doing… right?). HTH. Enjoy! 🙂

Don’t do much events atm , but gonna do long distance kinda things

2 sessions a week = maintain fitness
3 = fitness gain
4 = lose weight
5+ = over training

3 month plan:

Sunday >3 hour ride – aiming 5-10% gain in distance a week.
Tuesday 1 hour turbo – 75%? HR
Thursday 1 hour turbo intervals – 3 mins 60%, 3 mins 85% MHR.

That’s the general idea innit.

2 sessions a week = maintain fitness
3 = fitness gain
4 = lose weight
5+ = over training

Rubbish.. You can ride six days a week or more, provided you throw in a couple of recovery spins. How did you come up with 4 a week to lose weight and 5 as over training??? I’m baffled 😐

OK, so this might not be what you’re looking for, and might be entirely useless – but this is what I do for a medium intensity week at the beginning of the season.

Warning – I race Elite XC and have been training for >3 years at this intensity. Don’t dive right in:

Sunday – 6 hours base miles. Little worry about intensity

Monday – 1.5 hours recovery

Tuesday – 1.5 hours zone 3 (HR). basically a good aerobic tempo on flowy fast trails or on the road

Wedneday 1.5 hours recovery

Thursday – Lactic Thresold intervals. Something like 15 minutes hard with 15 minutes recovery. Repeat x 3.

Friday – Off

Saturday – 4 or 5 hours high zone 2 or low zone 3. Long and steady, but not easy.

I hope this gives you an idea of how you might fit specific rides into a week, even if the intensity and duration is less to begin with.

Your goals are what will drive you. Write them down and make them specific, its the only way to work out how to train.

I don’t think it would do any harm to just enter a low key race just to get an idea of what’s expected.
Or can you get out with other racers?

Specific training is great, and you might think that in your little bubble you’re doing well, but racing is about being better than the other bloke on the day….your stats suddenly become irrelevant.

Sorry if it’s not of any help. In your position I’d get out and get as fit and fast as I can. Then go for specific training.
Get that mileage up as well or keep it low but very intense.

I’m off in a few minutes 85 miles fast road.

Good luck.

+1 for road, frequency, turbo and in my case gym. Off for fast 3 hour 80km road ride at 10 am with mates in the Cotswalds should be brilliant in this weather. I think gym is a must to strengthen core to support fast legs and back for endurance and speed. Gym can be very useful for targetting power increase in legs.

One 10 – 15 mile MTB ride a week isnt enough really. You will get fitter quicker on road or turbo because its a constant effort. I do 2 x hard 4 hour sessions a month in the winter to keep it real at Afan.

Try changing life style approach. Commute to and from work or get a turbo set up in front the TV? A polar heart rate monitor is ideal for turbo and gym work.

Rubbish.. You can ride six days a week or more, provided you throw in a couple of recovery spins. How did you come up with 4 a week to lose weight and 5 as over training??? I’m baffled

http://www.roadcycling.com/training/overtraining.shtml

Most training programs include at least one (and sometimes two) rest days per week as well as a day or two of easy spinning. This reflects the practical experience of coaches who have had to deal with the results of pushing too hard for too long.

That’s 3 or 4 days easy & rest days leaving 3 or 4 days training days a week? Personally I don’t think easy / recovery spins count for much but be interested to hear what the benefits might be.

http://www.cptips.com/trnoptn.htm

TRAINING FREQUENCY
Studies indicate that maximum aerobic conditioning (measured as an increase in VO2max) occurs with 3 workout days per week. So unless you are trying to burn Calories to lose weight, or are working to get the musculoskeletal system (back, shoulders) in shape for a long endurance event by increasing mileage on the bike, it is better to take 2 to 3 days per week off the bike to allow for muscle and ligament repair and decrease the risk of cumulative stress resulting in an increase in training injuries. Interestingly, it appears that the 3 days per week will maximize aerobic conditioning equally in any combination – i.e. 3 days in a row with 4 off, alternating days of exercise/rest, etc.

So any more than three sessions is just burning calories? I’ve read scientific studies with control groups that back this up, also that 1 hour sessions produce same results as two hours or more but can’t be bothered to spend an hour googling.

Obviously there are going to be variances dependent on age, current fitness levels and what you are training for, all of which is all a bit vague here. And training is not the same as riding.

So are you saying there is no point training for more than 5 hours a week?

So are you saying there is no point training for more than 5 hours a week?

If that were the case then I’ve over trained today.

Interesting to hear peoples different views.

Chris that was exactly the post I was looking for. I can work on my own training plan but needed a example of the level I need to reach in order to be competitive.

With regards to recovery rides. Many sports including football incorporate recovery sessions. Combined with a appropriate cool down it can help remove waste products and DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness).

Ride hard, ride fast, ride lots. But don’t over do it.

That’s what got me race fit. Now I just maintain it with lots of rides of whatever pace I want.

Intervals will get you fitter faster.

Sure the pros would be interested to know they are wasting their time training over 5 hours !

If you only have 5 hours then intensity is the way to go, if you have more time then longer / slower is good but you need to mix in some intensity otherwise you just end up being able to ride slowly. I am riding 10 hours a week at the moment and am a good deal quicker than when I was doing 5 hours. I make sure I have a rest week every 2 weeks and make sure I get the right mix of easy and hard sessions.

This week was

M – weights
T – cruise intervals (hard for 2.5k x 4)
W – easy ride + easy run
T – off
F – easy Z1 ride
S -fast MTB
S – slow MTB + run

Total time = 10 hours.

This week rest to absorb the load. Will still train but a lowe intensity but will do 2 weight sessions.

Very roughly through winter I ride for 1hour a day commuting. 3 hours easy on Thursday nights and 4 harder hours at the weekend.

During summer I do

A race or long ride one day at the weekend so 80-100 miles on the road or 40-50 miles offroad. Obviously variation in distance and intensity.

Rest Monday.

I race on Tuesday which is normally about 60 miles including riding to the start. 30 miles of intense riding (averaging 25mph+)

Wednesday I rest or go horse riding.

Thursday is a three hour easy ride (20ish miles offroad)

Friday is a rest.

I commute for an hour each day regardless on top of that.

Some weeks I do more, some I do less. For stuff that I really care about I will ride hard two weeks before then cut back a lot in the week before to recover and rest. I will still do a little bit of hard riding but no racing.

I should really focus as I can hit 250miles of riding in the week but don’t have the ability to show for it a lot of the time.

October to April looks like this:

Monday to Friday 20 minutes core strength every morning.
Tuesday – 30 minute high intensity Tabata session
Wednesday – 1 hour Sufferfest session
Thursday – Run, intervals, normally something like 4 *4 off 2 minutes
Saturday/Sunday – Road session as long as I can get away with, so ranging from 90 minutes to 4 hours

2 sessions a week = maintain fitness
3 = fitness gain
4 = lose weight
5+ = over training

😆

5+ = over training

Shit I’m doomed then. About 12 hours for me. I guess the massive improvement showed in today’s race by a structured training schedule through the winter has been a waste of time. 🙄

Mon – rest
Tues – 90 mins l2
Weds – 60 mins interval turbo
Thurs – 90 mins l2
Fri – rest
Sat – 30 mins l2 check bike
Sun – 90 min race.

Got a bloody puncture in todays race, really disappointed as it was completely my own fault for picking the fun line with drops…

DT78, how’s your training going with Andy?

Got a bloody puncture in todays race, really disappointed as it was completely my own fault for picking the fun line with drops…

Was that the drops at the end of the lap?

Got a bloody puncture in todays race, really disappointed as it was completely my own fault for picking screwing up the fun line with drops…

FTFY! 🙂

OP – try the Time Crunched Cyclist book, get fit and fast on <6 hours a week. To be honest, coming from one hour a week anything you do to up your duration will pay dividends.

Ride more… Just as much as you can. Do some leg presses/squats down the gym. And some intervals. Pyramid intervals are good on a spinning bike and short too – 10secs on, 10 secs rest, 20 secs on, 20 secs rest etc… all the way up to 1min on 1 min rest then repeat all the way back down to 10 secs on again, doing 2x1min ones at the top. Takes 20mins if you include warm up/recovery and you should be licking the bars by the end. If not, you didn’t have the resistance hard enough. Go flat out as hard as you can for the intervals.

Don’t do too much – if you feel dead have a rest.

I really think that thinking too much about all this just makes you miserable and frustrated. HR zones probably matter if you are really, really good but for the rest of us mortals who really cares? If it’s sunny, go ride your bike for hours and don’t stop for a chat every 5 mins. Group rides suck for training for this reason. If it’s crappy weather go to the gym. I do alright with no training plan at all – I just ride my bike lots and lots in hilly places and one ride a week is a “hammer the hills!” ride. Other than that, I do one structured session a week down the gym. If you want to do better than top 20 in Elite then maybe you need to think more carefully but for 99% of riders the “just ride your bike without stopping” method would be great. For example, today I was out for 7hrs 15mins door to door and was riding for 6hrs 44mins of that. I stopped in Peaslake for a cake and a couple of times for the loo and that was it.

To give you an idea, in a typical week I do:

M – Off (but depends on weather. My day off gets swapped to whichever day Mon-Fri is the crappiest)
T – 2hrs Gym – intervals, weights, stepper machine, cross trainer.
W – 3.5hrs road bike, hills.
T – 2hrs road bike, hills.
F – 3.5hrs MTB, no stopping/faffing. Sometimes I just go to the pub instead.
S – 4hrs MTB, no stopping/faffing.
S – 4-6hrs MTB, no stoppinf/faffing (apart from in Peaslake as you need to stop for cake).

This changes depending on work commitments/weather/wife/races on Sunday. In the racing season April-July I will have one more day off in the week and usually not ride for 4hrs the day before a race, unless it is really nice weather and it’s a race I don’t really care about. Overall I ride 15-20hrs a week between October and March and 10-15hrs a week March-October.

One thing I would advise is creating A/B/C categories for your races – A are the ones you really care about and will rest the week before. B are the ones that matter a little bit, maybe you’ll rest for them if it’s not nice weather. C don’t really matter and are for experience/competition/bike testing etc.

Just enjoy it. If it’s sunny, ride, no matter what your “plan” says or you’ll end up miserable when you only do 1hr on the only sunny, warm and dry day in February because that’s what your plan said…

GB

MM – just completed week 1, finding it very very hard to keep in L2 off road. Might have to buy a road bike 🙂

Yep towards the end of the lap, some of those were reasonably big when you hit them at speed. Managed to pinch despite having 40 psi in the rear.

And yes, there was a much safer, smoother and obviously faster line over to the left. Got carried away…..must take races more seriously….

Got my head bitten off last time for suggesting that someone in race training should stick to pedalling. Therefore I shall suggest you take up the following activities as a means of training :

* Football
* Jogging
* Golf
* Climbing
* Hockey

😉

Nah in all seriousness, aim for 15hours + a week. So evening/weekends. Add hill reps and find a local chain gang.

You could try my luddite approach.

Turn up for a club run or reliability trial and roll out with the 1st cats.
Silly beggars aside, nothing beats having the ante upped.

I nearly stacked it on the last lap on the second drop off while racing someone to the finish. Flew over the first one but my front wheel dug in on the second, forks bottomed out with my rear wheel coming off the ground about 18″. just managed to hold it. Managed to beat him to the line though 😀

I can tell from your typing that you need to worry less and just sign up for Mayhem. No doubt you are already far fitter than anyone else in the team, I mean, the theoretical team. 😉

Wondered how long it would take you…. lol

Chaps, He’s currently riding 10-15 miles per week (nothing wrong with that) – cut it out with the recovery rides and 15+ hours a week turbo talk 😆 Mate: Just get out and ride as much as you can, race your friends and enjoy your bike. That should give you big enough improvements for quite a while.

oh and sign up for Mayhem – it’s ace! Having a goal like that will really spur you on to get out riding 😀