getting faster/stronger?

I have been riding now for 1 year after 25 years off the bike smoking and eating badly. getting fitness levels back, skills never really left.

been riding with a local group and started off at back most of time but now am always first to top of every hill, go out on my own more now as I dont need to keep stopping and waiting. Entered a xc few races and came middle of the field but want to be near the top or first even. I am using a garmin and strava to track rides and am using energy gel on every ride, protein shake after, drinking plenty of water and watching my diet.

Am I being impatient or missing something? as want to be faster stronger, any ideas? perhaps cadence training or HR training? or should I just keep riding?

Am doing about 150 to 200 miles per week at medium to high intensity on and off road pretty much every day, sometimes twice a day.

any advice or guidance would be much appreciated.

EPO?

er no lol

Entered a xc few races and came middle of the field but want to be near the top or first even

It takes a hell of a lot longer than a year! You’re racing against people who’ve been committed training athletes for decades.

If winning races was easy, everyone would be doing it.. oh.. wait…

Am I being impatient

Yes.

Get a full year of training under your belt, focus on next year. Virtually everyone’s getting stronger at this time of year, you’re starting from further behind.

Sounds like you are in a fairly decent place already. Mid pack is pretty good, it’s taken me 3 years to move from bottom third to top third. The proper fast guys are still much much faster than me. The only way to try to take them on is to be seriously committed in terms of eating (not fun) and specific training (not really fun either) and ride lots. Depends on the rest of your life really if you have that spare time…I don’t.

Buy time crunched cyclist. I found it useful.

ok so I’m impatient but what can I do to improve power and speed, I am chasing KOM’s on strava set by a sponsored grand vet racer on a 29er lol

njee20 – Member
Am I being impatient
Yes.

Get a full year of training under your belt, focus on next year. Virtually everyone’s getting stronger at this time of year, you’re starting from further behind.

Absolutely agree with NJEE here. Just finished my first XC series having been top 3rd throughout and finishing 14th of 50. As I learned tactics and how to manage the riding stress/to put myself through my paces/to manage the effort over the course time I got better results each week (22nd, 20th, 16th, 17th, 14th).

Can’t wait til next year where this series is now flagged as a “A” race for me.

xcretro – Member
ok so I’m impatient but what can I do to improve power and speed

Train to raise your overall endurance and power. Google “raising FTP” race more, ride with people who are better than you, buy Joe Friels book, get a turbo for “indoor” days, invest time in a training plan, don’t ignore “rest” periods (the latter has been a downfall for me).

ok so perhaps I just need to be patient and do a bit more riding, need to ride with faster people to get faster and set myself challenges, may look at the west drayton/beyond mtb club?

That’s who I ride for, decent club, huge membership these days. They do race training sessions (MTB and road), quite heavily based around Uxbridge/West Drayton. There are social rides around Cranleigh/Beyond, but not so much of the training stuff. Whereabouts are you?

don’t ignore “rest” periods (the latter has been a downfall for me).

yeah I know what you mean, I have had a period of 2 or 3 days when not able to get out on bike but then felt really strong when I got out after that short break.

perhaps I need to rest more like now whilst sat on sofa typing here on stw.

will check out raising ftp too thanks

Don’t ignore road riding for huge fitness / aerobic gains. You probably think you’re fit, until a roadie twice your age shows you otherwise.

You already do a LOT of riding. You could perhaps improve by reducing quantity and increasing quality. It’s quite likely you do a lot of mid paced riding? Think of a couple of very hard high quality interval sessions a week instead together with longer base level rides which will help you aerobic fitness and give you riding to do when your legs can barely turn because of the intervals you did earlier in the week.

IMHO using Strava to time rides isn’t a help as when training you should be measuring time and effort – speed doesn’t matter at all. As an example if you’re doing a base ride (say Zone 2) then you are probably going to have to pedal against your brakes when going downhills to maintain your heart rate in Zone 2.

Then again I’m mid pack after 3 years riding (only 1 racing though) so who am I to talk.

That’s who I ride for, decent club, huge membership these days. They do race training sessions (MTB and road), quite heavily based around Uxbridge/West Drayton. There are social rides around Cranleigh/Beyond, but not so much of the training stuff. Whereabouts are you?

I am in Reading, i notice that they do a thursday evening 6-8 training but work commitments mean I cannot leave till 6pm so thats out the window.

Plan. Have a serious think about the demands of the events you want to be good at. Then have a serious think about your strengths and weaknesses against those demands. Then work out what you need to train, and figure out ways of measuring where you are, set goals, and measuring progress against that. Friel’s book is quite good at helping with this if you think you can do it yourself, otherwise may be worth thinking about some coaching. If you are out on your bike you should be able to say what you are working on.

Just going out and blasting Strava segments will probably make you quicker but it’s very unlikely to be as effective as properly planned training. Oh and don’t neglect rest, your body only gets stronger when you rest after some stimulus.

Ride to a decent training schedule, probably more intensity less volume than what you are doing just now, keep going through winter, focus on next season.

Get a road bike. I find it very difficult to do any structured training on a mountain bike as the terrain/surface/weather can be so variable.

I’d recommend doing things like hill reps and intervals, either on the road or on a turbo. Sufferfest-type vids are probably the single biggest factor in my improvements over the past 3 years.

I ride mountain bike once a week and all other riding is roadbike – solo rides, group/chaingang, racing and TTing.

The weekly MTB rides keep my skilz sharp and the roadbike makes me awesomer. 😉

As a bit of inspiration we had a bloke join running club last year who’d had 25 years off. Used to be proper handy as a junior then drifted off, went drinking, took up fishing, etc. He’s pretty much the fastest guy in the club now, winning all sorts of V50 stuff and a few bits outright.

Do you ride in and around Reading? I do, are you on the STW strava group? (also interested to know if i’m also chasing someone who is a grand vet racer!)

I’m no racer (at the moment – quite tempted), but I do plenty of road riding because of the commute and state of the trails around Reading, and it really helps with my mtbing no end. They compliment each other very well. MTB gives you strength and good bike handling, while road riding (making an effort of course) does wonders for stamina and aerobic fitness. A good mix of both in your training will no doubt help.

As a bit of inspiration we had a bloke join running club last year who’d had 25 years off. Used to be proper handy as a junior then drifted off, went drinking, took up fishing, etc. He’s pretty much the fastest guy in the club now, winning all sorts of V50 stuff and a few bits outright.

Hear this quite a lot. There’s an interesting chapter in Michael Hutchenson’s Faster[/url] about genetics. Apparently you ask an athlete what it takes to succeed and they’ll say hard work, you ask a coach and they’ll say good genes! Sometimes never mind how hard you work you’re just not going to beat someone with “better” genes. Probably the next frontier of doping too.

Do you ride in and around Reading? I do, are you on the STW strava group? (also interested to know if i’m also chasing someone who is a grand vet racer!)

yeah ride all over berkshire on and off road, ride with ctc atm.

not on stw strava group, link to it would be good.

grand vet racer is jonesey sponsored by aw cycles….

Ah, thanks for that. My skills don’t stretch to posting a link to the strava group, but searching for ‘singletrackworld’ under groups tab it will come up. I went out with the ctc on a road ride a while back, but may try a mtb one – although I prefer mtbing alone.

Out of curiosity, who are you on strava if you’re willing to say on t’internet?

I do, are you on the STW strava group?

He’s not. 365 members now, crazy! Some massive mileages too. Greig Brown is raddogair isn’t he? Animal.

Sorry, as you were!

Out of curiosity, who are you on strava if you’re willing to say on t’internet?

His real name and location is in his profile, do some leg work. I’ll just say page 2 and a beard 😉

His real name and location is in his profile, do some leg work. I’ll just say page 2 and a beard

LOL that’s me……

Thanks – I never look at any of the other features such as ‘profile’ on this forum!

LOL that’s me…..

I only know because I looked (and followed you) about 10 minutes previously!

am now member 366 🙂 sent you a follow request Njee20

Not read all the replies, so apologies if i am repeating someone else but…

Specificity

I wouldnt be able to do much about my fitness at this point for this year but if i wanted to improve I would be setting goals and a strategy to achieve them for next.

Also without wanting to start the usual mtb v road handbags IME roadwork is much more effective at building fitness.

This is all getting cosy isn’t it?! Certainly putting the miles in…at least my playhatch downhill KOM is safe for now 😉 (I obv wasn’t on an mtb though)

Fitness is a bit of a vague term.

What metric will road riding improve?
Will that be useful in a short XC race?

I have zero experience compared to most of the replies but the road is a much better place to train. Far easier to set the effort level you require rather than what the trail is throwing at you and there’s nearly always a higher gear.
I believe though that it’s far better to road-ride your MTB than to do MTB training on a road bike. I seem to use a completely different set of muscles to power a road bike and therefore there is very little crossover. For reference, I can average 18/19mph when at peak fitness on the MTB and very little more on the road bike.

I believe though that it’s far better to road-ride your MTB than to do MTB training on a road bike. I seem to use a completely different set of muscles to power a road bike and therefore there is very little crossover. For reference, I can average 18/19mph when at peak fitness on the MTB and very little more on the road bike.

That’s what I found too (the muscles, not the average)

What metric will road riding improve?
Will that be useful in a short XC race?

These are good points. Short XC races are often bursts of high intensity followed by having to recover at around threshold. No reason you can’t train this on the road if you put together structured sessions to replicate these sorts of efforts. Really worth thinking about the demands of the event and how you can get better at them.