having just bought a garmin with hrm i came across this article

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interested in the riding in zone 2 part, tried it at the weekend but it seems so slow as the guy in the article said
has anyone tried this method with any results,
or how do you use yours? interested in dropping weight really in the most effective way

thanks

It does seem slow and quite hard work if you live anywhere that isn’t completely flat as your HR goes up quite quickly when you get to even a small hill.

It got to be quite frustrating in all honesty, fine for winter/early spring rides on your own – you really can’t do it as part of a group, but once the warmer days arrived I didn’t feel like I was making the most of the weather or my time.

Losing weight? I found that a combination of the 5:2 diet and long rides on the fasting days was pretty effective – I lost 2 1/2 stones in four months (15 1/2 down to 13) – you won’t find it easy though.

Tried riding in zone 2, lasted about 10 minutes. It’s deathly dull.

Don’t think I could even walk at zone 2.

Heart rate training can be a bit of a minefield.

While its true that working out in the fat burning zone burns a higher percentage of fat compared to glycogen, working out at a much higher heart rate simply burns more of both. So rather than sticking to a fat burning zone try riding before breakfast, as hard as you can for 30-45 mins daily. Have you ever seen a fat cycle commuter?

I lost 15kg over 18 months doing this.

Not all zone 2s are made equal. If you go off max HR you can get some miserably low numbers. Go off your threshold HR and you get a more reasonable number imo.
http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/heart-rate-monitor-training-for-cyclists-28838

Also if you’re doing say three hours or less of riding a week (and no other exercise) zone 2 probably isn’t doing you much good. You’ve got plenty of time to recover, so go hard. Zone 2 only really makes sense if you’re doing a larger volume of exercise.

The GCN guys have some interesting views on long and slow (based on expert advice). Basically it can work if you are a pro who has all day to plod around in the Majorca heat but for us normos it’s bunkum.

The best way to lose weight is fasted rides and the best way to get fit is intervals and sweetspot training. You can do both in the same ride.

Zone 2 can work for the pros as it enables them to keep the training low while burning fat rather than glycogen. But they need the high intensity rides as well to increase indurance and power. But AFAIK they prefer the fasted ride route to teach the body to burn fat these days. Normos don’t have time for both and long and slow is cold and miserable.

Set your zones based on 20 minute threshold using the British Cycling calculator.

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/membership/article/20120925-Power-Calculator-0

Then set the zones manually on your device and/or strava, and memorise the numbers or paste them to your stem.

Then train. For fastest performance, sweet spot (boundary of 3/4) for 20 minutes times two. That will be very tiring but will show very fast results.

For recovery use zone 1. Use the inner ring and keep spinning with low force. Recovery rides should not be longer than an hour.

You can train in zone 2 (endurance) but will need to log the hrs and this is often not feasible.

For me, threshold at 47 is 170bpm. I can hold this for 20min, and the test is a LOT nicer and reproducible than maximum. See what yours is on a hard 30 minute effort.