I should add most of mine are short, so the efforts are anaerobic

I have anaerobic efforts on the road which are totally do-able. Either you aren’t pushing hard enough, or you are tired and can’t get anaerobic (which i have recently experienced) in which case its time to give up and go home to rest! There’s often a big difference between how hard you are willing to push in training vs a race IME.

define fun. Some people enjoy racing.

Here here! I live for my weekends filled with racing atm, its such a buzz. 8) Except possibly Sunday’s race…just an ordinary 112km race in city centre Glasgow with Olympic medalists and me…. 😯 😯

Also, OP, +1 for night riding on the road, its totally different and a lot of fun.

Yep, but I bet they don’t ONLY train on road.

Actually, the majority of their time is spent on the road, because training of the type they need is best achieved that way.

I had a really good chat with Oli Beckingsale about it recently.

Road generally means longer hills that are less steep

Big ring, stand up, go till you can’t go any more, that’s my take on it, but I know what you mean, it’s a load easier to do that off road.

Either you aren’t pushing hard enough

Clearly, it’s all just pedalling in theory, but what I am saying is that it’s easier (in my experience) to get better short term efforts in on my local trails than on roads. MTB is a slightly different physical challenge imo.

The way I see it is that road = exercise and mtb = fun. If I didnt need to lose weight or didn’t feel like improving/maintaining my fitness I probably wouldn’t bother with a road bike. Dont find it particularly fun but its the funnest type of “fitness” exercise that I can stick to, and more fun than riding mtb locally. Sometimes it is really nice to go for a long road ride on a still, sunny day though 🙂

Tbh I am just happy riding bikes and a road bike lets me get outside, get my bike fix for the day and burn off some energy without having to drive to the nearest half decent trails.