OK I am sure the collective STW mind can help me out here, due to personal circumstances I cannot get out and ride the fatbike as often as I'd like but do have regular access to excercise bikes of various resistance based types at home and away.
Anyone got any advice on how best to use them to up my general fitness for fat biking? What sort of riding, how often or other all good.
At present I tend to do intervals for 30 minutes on a pre programmed setting which reduces me to sweaty mess but I am doing this with little (read none) knowledge of what might add to my cycling fitness.
Any experiences or advice you can share? Or even point me at any resources or books all good 🙂
Thanks in advance
James
Haven't ridden an exercise bike so don't know how relevant they are. I'm presuming you're thinking about snow riding. (Fatbikes are great almost anywhere though)
However I have ridden extensively in deep snow where the pedals are scooping chunks out each rotation, and it's like riding in molasses, so I suspect your regime is probably ok.
Just need to step it up to a few hours if you want the fitness to actually get anywhere in deep snow. 3-4 miles can wreck me if it's deep enough - but it's great to be out in it.
Snow that's not deep enough to be scooping is not much different to any other soft surface IMO.
Crusted snow can be faster than tarmac, but there's always the chance of breaking through. 🙂
That said there's about a million different types of snow, and there's no perfect method or system.
Thanks Epicyclo, I actually fat bike all year around, it's my only bike and I love it.
But I do want to get a bit fitter, for the good and bad weather rides, I can't get out with it as I am often away from home without it but I can often get an exercise bike in a gym or whatever hence I wondered if there was anyone with any views on how best to use it to help with the general (which will include snow if we get any!) riding 🙂
Thanks again
James
Put a couple of bricks under the front and it will be like you are going uphill all the time.
I like the GCN videos. They are based on perceived effort so can move between bikes and are called things like 'strength and endurance' 'fat burning' etc. Make it go quicker than just the program on the bike IMO.
Don't know how accurate they are but I feel like they work 😐
Getting fitter is good for any cycling!!
7 Day trial https://thesufferfest.com/pages/app
Give it a go, and see how it is
Oversized red glasses and mustard socks will exercise your need for attention.
Other than that its the same fitness rules for all 8 billion of us.
thelinkedinman - Member
Thanks Epicyclo, I actually fat bike all year around, it's my only bike and I love it...
Ah, sorry. Wasn't intending to teach you how to suck eggs. 🙂
Guessing you're in hotels a lot and have access to gym bikes, or something like that?
No ideas on fat bike relevance or what you'd like to improve but I have to use static bikes at times when in hotels and ime the ones I see most often are generally crap for a lot of what you'd do on a turbo - bad positioning, wide saddles, poor pedal/straps etc, seems to make working hard on them more difficult. Sounds daft I know, it's not meant to be easy, they're just not that 'efficient'.
Luckily ime 'bad' gym bikes suit longer steadier intervals better than short sharp max-out intervals. I'd tend to aim for longer intervals as a way to maintain mid-level endurance fitness anyway - I don't do much sprint/road-race type of short max-out interval work, focus on endurance and power instead. I guess it'd be similar to what you want for XC on a fat bike, ability to power a heavy bike uphill and ride as far as you like.
= 15 mins warm up in Z2-3 with a few 30 second sprints to get everything working, then something like cross-overs - Z3 then high Z4 alternating for 4 mins in each zone, 5 times, so you never really get a break but you don't max out either. Or, 2x15 mins in Z4 or close to 'threshold' with a reasonable cool-off in Z2 in between. Either way do 10 mins or more easy-pace to cool off. Basically, aim for longer periods at less than full-on sprint pace instead many short reps of very high intensity.