So

Out riding at the weekend, ended up hooking up with a few guys and was utterly dismayed that my fitness is actually worse than a three legged asthmatic donkey!

I’ve always known that I’ll never be a xc whippet and in all fairness I’m not trying to be but I would like to be able to ride further than 16 miles (yes that is correct 16) at an average pace above that of snails in treacle without feeling like my legs are going to fall off. (My only excuse being Sunday was the third time out on the bike in about 6 months). Also I do ride a dialed alpine, single ring up front with 150 mm forks and super tacky tyres so its not the quickest thing on peddally sections.

So my question is what do people think is the best way to improve my endurance / fitness? I know I need to increase my riding duration but living in West London and working lots means time is limited and getting to any trails mid week is a faff so I figure my options are:

a) buy a road bike and start riding after work.
b) buy slick tyres for my mtb and slog away with that and do swaps at the weekend
c) Admit defeat and go from a single front to a double till my fitness improves.

Assuming I go down route a or b is there anything specific worth trying or should I just ride increasing my miles as I go?

Cheers

LOL… I could have written that myself!

I ride to and from work each day. Probs 6km each way. Smooth tarmac and cycle paths. This weekend was my second time off-road in 6 months and I thought I’d be fine, but I wasn’t. Obviously I’m just cruising to and from work and not putting enough effort in. Today I decided to do a sort of “spin” class on the bike and blasted it for 30 seconds or so, then cruised and just repeated the whole process. I’m sure there’s a technical way to do it but I just felt increasing my cadence and effort in, increased heart rate and blood flow and in my tipsy head reckon this might go some way in stopping me wheezing like an asthmatic emphysema ridden old fart and getting me /some/ degree of fitness that a slim 37 year old should have.

I’m sure there are better ways but I’ll see how it goes. I’m not going to change my bike, tyres and I don’t need an excuse to buy a road bike, turbo trainer etc. More effort, that’s all. And perhaps a bloody big hill to ride up (which are somewhat sparse at sea level in Western Australia!)

Good luck though eh?

Riding breeds fitness, but if you can’t get on the MTB much I’d recommend option (a) if you can afford it, but then I love road riding. Get a turbo trainer as well for those moments when you really should do some riding but can’t actually get away from the house for whatever reason. I’m no fitness coach but if you really are as unfit as you say you are I reckon there’s nothing better than just riding*. Only as the returns begin to diminish should you consider specific training regimes. All IMHO etc

Can you commute on bike?

*[EDIT] – but don’t cruise all the time…push yourself 🙂

(My only excuse being Sunday was the third time out on the bike in about 6 months).

The usual predictable STW answer would be ‘ride more’, which isn’t often very helpful, but is probably exactly what you need to do. Road bikes are great for getting in the miles from your front door. Changing tyres is a pain in the backside, as a halfway house, you’d be better off getting some spare wheels for your mountain bike and fitting fat slicks or semi-slicks so you swap wheels rather than tyres. At which point you may as well buy a cheap secondhand road bike, imho etc.

Can you commute by bike? That would be an obvious call?

if time is a factor then

spin classes some are aimed at cyclists some are dire
crossfit classes or military boot camps…develops overalll fitness and strength
running….aerobic
swimmiing….aerobic

Running would probably be the quickest way to improve, as vondally says any kind of aerobic exercise will be a massive help if you are as unfit as you claim to be.

Apart from that: how much time do you have? A quick 1hr spin on a road bike will do nothing like as much for you as an hour on a turbo doing a Sufferfest workout, for example – but if you can realistically get in 2-3hr rides the road bike would be a lot more fun.

One final suggestion: sign up for a race sometime in summer. Give yourself a target. Perhaps even download a training plan. It’ll help with the motivation.

If you could commute on your bike it will make a massive difference to your fitness, depending on distance obviously. You build your fitness in dead time which is an added bonus.

I started commuting on the bike in 2006 and its the best thing I’ve ever done. I do it at least 3 times a week all year round and I love it.

Ride more hasn’t worked for me, I’ve been out almost every Sunday for at least two years and everywhere we tend to go has a medium to hard climb at the start. Every week i’m the same three legged asthmatic donkey by about halfway up the climb, it never seems to get much easier. If anything it’s slightly better if I’ve had a skinful the night before?? Maybe beer in the camelbak is the way forward 🙂

where would you down load a training program from, I would be interested in one of those as I am in the same boat trying to increase my fitness

Ride more hasn’t worked for me, I’ve been out almost every Sunday for at least two years

Being out “almost” every Sunday may not be enough. I ride almost every Sunday but I know for a fact that many of the guys I ride with are out riding several times a week and getting on the turbo trainer. Maybe – like me – you’ve reached the point where your fitness has peaked and to move on you need to do some more riding/training than just Sundays

Ride more hasn’t worked for me, I’ve been out almost every Sunday for at least two years

To be fair I don’t think one ride a week will make that much difference to fitness, you really need to be getting in a couple of midweek rides too. What sort of distance do you do on your Sunday ride?

Roadbike + hills + regularity + stopwatch = fitness (motivation is taken as a given).
I have a route that’s a loop that combines a long, steady climb (a few km), with three short, steep climbs and then downhill all the way back. Do it 2-3 times a week when wanting to get fit and simply try to beat my fastest time (without jumping lights and being silly). It takes me about 45 mins (+ 5 mins there and back). I enjoy it and it gets/keeps me fit.
To get slightly technical, there is little point in anyone just trundling x number of miles in on a bike at a slow pace (beyond getting a basic level of fitness). If you want to get fit fast, then combining hills with short bursts of maximum effort cycling (followed by short periods of more relaxed cycling) over a 45min to 1 hour ride will make a big difference very quickly.

You’ve just got to build intensity and amount of riding up. Buy a cheap second hand MTB and stick some slicks on it and get out at least twice a week monday to friday, + your weekend rides. When you do ride increase he intensity gradually, get your heart rate up and keep it up at a comfortable level for a decent amount of time. Do some Fartlek training on the bike, sprinting for objects in the distance and then recover then sprint again. Lamp posts work well on the road, sprint for 3 lamp posts, recover, then sprint again.

where would you down load a training program from, I would be interested in one of those as I am in the same boat trying to increase my fitness

Google “12 week riding training program” or similar, there are loads out there. Most are probably road based, but that shouldn’t make much difference. Pick one that you think is achievable, given the amount of time you have available. (They’re all fairly similar, a combination of rest days + intervals + tempo + long ride, here’s an example).

Buy a cheap second hand MTB and stick some slicks on it

Buy a cheap second hand MTB and stick some slicks on it roadbike

I’m also looking at the couch to 5k thing. Gonna start that tomorrow night when I get back from work. Seems like a good idea. Used to do muay thai and they always said they best way to improve your fitness and conditioning was to run.

The way to get more fit is to do more exercise. HTH.

If you can’t commute by bike and want to get fitter, you have to build in riding time before or after work as much as you can. Say three times during Mon-Fri.

It will make a noticeable difference in a few weeks.

thanks for that mogrim

If you could commute on your bike it will make a massive difference to your fitness, depending on distance obviously. You build your fitness in dead time which is an added bonus.

I started commuting on the bike in 2006 and its the best thing I’ve ever done. I do it at least 3 times a week all year round and I love it
+100

A simple 10 mile commute has caused 2 stone to fall off me without trying, and helped me get to a reasonable level of fitness. Even better if your work has a shower in, so you can go hell for leather without worrying about stinking all day!

thanks for that mogrim

You’re welcome – and if you do decide to follow a plan, some tips:

1. Rest days are critical. If you really want to do more exercise, do something else. Swimming, for example, or a long walk. The rest days after the tougher rides are particularly important. Similarly the lighter weeks (usually every fourth week).

2. Don’t try and make up for missed workouts. If you miss three or four from a week, repeat the whole week. You can change the days around if you know in advance that you can’t do something, but be careful to get enough rest – you probably shouldn’t be doing hard intervals one day, then a 3 hour ride the next on a regular basis.

3. Hard rides should be hard – a HR monitor is good for this, it keeps you honest. (Note that HR monitors have a lag, they take a while to catch up with your real HR. This can be a problem if you’re doing shorter intervals).

Do some Fartlek training on the bike, sprinting for objects in the distance and then recover then sprint again. Lamp posts work well on the road, sprint for 3 lamp posts, recover, then sprint again.

+1 Fartlek/interval training

Tis a great feeling to progress from sprinting 50-75m to a lamp post on the flat to speeding 100m up a sharp climb … and to recover … then do it on the next little hill … and so on.

commute and take the long way and keep expanding it which means getting up early you will soon get fit 😉

weight will fall off, MTB riding is more fun when your fit bike makes a little difference.

you rode 16miles on super tacky tyres!

ST is for DH only IME. The only ‘mixed’ ride i did on a pair of 2.5″ ST Minions….. resulted in me selling them

Going to do the C25K think myself I think – I am told I am doing a 10k at the back end of the year so need to start getting myself running soon! Given I am an 18 stone, late 30s kinda guy this is going to hurt, but will probably do me some good too!

Otherwise/as well as/ I am going to try and get riding more. I was getting onto 3 times per week and will get back to that, then 3 runs a week… and one rest day.

Or that is the plan!

I want to see the weight come off, been battling with it for years – and things were starting to go well prior to a brutal chest infection/pneumonia type thing that took me out for 2 months!

2 options (IMO)

1) ride more, this takes time and effort, but is ultimately the best thing for making you faster on a bike.

2) lose weight whilst getting fit in other ways. While the pro’s tread a fine line between light weight and power outputs, Joe Blogs doesn’t. I lived with a really shitty landlord for a year which meant little or no cycling. I got by going to the gym and doing long sessions. Startig with 5 minutes CT, treadmill, bike, rower, building upto 20 min on each (so that’s 1h20 of good quality varied cardio working just about every part of your body), ditto swimming, start with 10min front, back and breast strokes, then build up from there, and a simple weights routine, doesn’t need to be complicated, just work round whatever machines they have doing legs one day and upper body the next. If you get bored, do some classes like spinning. The trick was to keep it varied so it didn’t become “going to the gym” it was always something different, but probably added upto 10 hours a week easily.

Doing number 2 might not increase your power output significantly, but it takes about 10 weeks of very specific training with power meters to increase power by 10%, or you could possibly lose 10kg in the meantime without affecting power output, which on a power:weight ratio is far more useful and I managed 100 miles in 5 hours after barely touching a bike for 8 months.

I hate to say it as I never thought I’d do it myself but track your calories. It amazed me how easy it is to scoff 3-3500 a day and that, combined with a good sensible training regime will get you fitter than you are.

Well at least I hope it does as I’m in the same position as you currently and want to at least not die on a relatively short ride.

Cheers

Danny B

Kettlebells.

Find yourself a local kettlebell class. Seriously – you will smash yourself to pieces in a 1 hour class, both in terms of cardio fitness and core strength & overall conditioning. I can’t recommend it enough.

I would go with riding bikes more so yes a roadbike and then use it a lot. It does make you a lot quicker.

Also think about loosing those super tacky tyres and maybe loosing some weight off the alpine for uk riding.

As others have said have a look at diet – honestly weight watchers is quite good and going to the sessions is useful or a few weeks.

Ride more hasn’t worked for me, I’ve been out almost every Sunday for at least two years and everywhere we tend to go has a medium to hard climb at the start. Every week i’m the same three legged asthmatic donkey by about halfway up the climb, it never seems to get much easier. If anything it’s slightly better if I’ve had a skinful the night before?? Maybe beer in the camelbak is the way forward

Once a week isn’t enough. I find managing to ride 2-3 times per week (with little brisk walks on most other days) makes a massive difference.

Any kind of interval training is probably the best way to get fitter for MTBing in the least time possible. However, there’s nothing like pedalling a bike with super tacky tyres to make you feel unfit! I’ve only ever run a super tacky on the front and even that drags soooo much…

I think you should ride a slack DH hardtail with silly gearing on flat XC ride irregularly. You’ll be super fit in no time.

I do the commute thing – about 14 miles door to door.

In the evenings I sometimes add little more to it.

But the thing that has helped me get fitter this year has been the evil that is strava. Just the basic app gives you an idea of how you are doing and improving and any improvments I make act as a feel good for the extra effort I am putting in.

I am not racing the guys on my route – but seeing how you compare does give you something to aim at as well…….just don’t be a dick on the road to hit your pb’s……

I managed 100 miles in 5 hours after barely touching a bike for 8 months.

I want need your training regime. Seriously, this is fast. I rode the Lincoln GP 100 mile Sportive last year and not one rider managed this time (a handful were a touch over 5 hours). I guess they must have spent too long at the food stops 🙂

I managed 100 miles in 5 hours after barely touching a bike for 8 months

Swoon.

18 stone late 30’s, so about 6 stone too heavy which is the same as cycling with an extra 2 x DH bikes on your back?

Be careful you don’t do too much too soon. Careful regular exercise.

By the way, Capt. Kronos, if you want to lose weight, exercise is one of two things you need to change.

Each kg = 9,000 calories. So to lost one you either have to do a ridiculous amount of exercise or cut down significantly on your daily calorie intake. Ideally a moderate amount of both.

Then you will lost weight. Report back in 8 weeks.

Strava is certainly good motivation, particularly if you’re near the top of a segment or a friend you want to beat or something. You can’t beat utterly destroying yourself to get a KOM, even if you don’t get it it’s a good workout!

I got back into cycling about this time last year and was shocked at how unfit I was.

Running certainly helped – I did a half marathon this year in a semi respectable time (1:54) and thoroughly enjoyed it and will be doing another one later in the year. I like running because you don’t need too much time – an hour after work and I feel like I’ve done some proper exercise.

What does seem to have made a big difference is buying a road bike – I get out as often as I can mid week now and used it when the trails were too crappy for MTB. I’ve made a point of getting out of the saddle as much as I can, sprinting up hills etc. I was genuinely surprised how mich better I felt on my first good MTB ride in a while last week.

I lug a silly bike round too – SX Trail, 1×10 gearing, big grippy tyres etc.