# Difference between riding and training?



## redcard (3 Mar 2012)

Just read this on Cycling Weekly on FB:

"I am still recovering from the kicking I received on our lunch time ride. Despite weekly mileage of 150-200 miles I am a long way from fit. Riding is no substitute for training however much you kid yourself."

Is there really a big difference between regular riding and structured training for the regular cyclist?


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## amaferanga (3 Mar 2012)

Yes.


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## dodgy (3 Mar 2012)

Absolutely 100%.


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## MattHB (3 Mar 2012)

I think that if you just regular ride you don't necessarily set yourself high enough targets as you would do with proper training.


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## GrasB (3 Mar 2012)

redcard said:


> Is there really a big difference between regular riding and structured training for the regular cyclist?


Riding; going for a nice ride on the road not to hard not to easy just banging in the miles, in a scheduled training regime they would be called 'base miles'. This keeps your base line fitness up & you can do it in a social context. Most people will be sub-consciously working in the average power range between 50% (train term: recovery ride) & 80% (training term: hard base miles ride) maximal effort, which is typically faster than you'd think, for that ride length. 

Training; you go out with a specific agenda to achieve specific things. Sure it may be a base miles ride or even a really easy recovery ride. However more often than not you'll have very specific things to do like intervals - 2 min hard pace, 1 min recovery & do that maybe 10 times. It will hurt - your lungs will be gasping for oxygen, your legs will burn & anything vaguely social will be impossible.

Taken to the extreme some of the really high power training would be simply unsafe on the road. Somewhere I saw a picture of Hoy doing a training session that ended up with him falling off the bike onto a crash mat at the side of the bike. For me it's normal for me to get blurred/tunnel vision & disorientation to the point that I need audible alarms to tell me when to stop & I'm struggling to remember to stop going at the very loud beep! Some times on the really short intervals the only thing that is keeping me upright is the turbo trainer, had I been on the open road I've hit the deck at >40mph well if I hadn't disappeared of the side of the road in one direction or another.


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## cyberknight (3 Mar 2012)

MattHB said:


> I think that if you just regular ride you don't necessarily set yourself high enough targets as you would do with proper training.


+1
I can cycle all week to work at a reasonable pace and see no benefit in the terms of increased fitness , the last month i have given it the beans and start to add sprint intervals and power work and i can already feel a bit stronger on the hills .


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## MattHB (3 Mar 2012)

cyberknight said:


> +1
> I can cycle all week to work at a reasonable pace and see no benefit in the terms of increased fitness , the last month i have given it the beans and start to add sprint intervals and power work and i can already feel a bit stronger on the hills .



I need to be doing far more of this too


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## Alien8 (3 Mar 2012)

redcard said:


> Is there really a big difference between regular riding and structured training for the regular cyclist?


 
If day-after-day you ride x-miles at y-intensity you will become very comfortable at riding x-miles at y-intensity.

If you want to become fitter, stronger, more powerful, you need to up the intensity in some way in your riding, eg by structured training.

At the end of the day it's all horses-for-courses but there is no getting away from no-pain-no-gain.


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## amaferanga (3 Mar 2012)

Training is about overloading your body to trigger adaptions. You intentionally do too much over a period of weeks to trigger the adaptions (and then you rest up for a few days doing easy 'regular riding'). The intensity of the training will determine which system (e.g. aerobic, anaerobic, neuromuscular, etc.) is targeted. 

There's no need whatsoever to take training to the extreme of almost passing out as suggested above - you can get the same adaptions from a more measured approach and probably spend more time at intensity X than you would do from pushing yourself that hard. The aim is to get the most from the session while not forgetting that you'll need to do more training the next day and the day after that....

And training isn't just about doing some random intervals every few days. To get the benefit from training you need to plan it at least a few weeks in advance and build up the stress from doing slightly more time in the saddle or the same time, but at a higher intensity. Of course you need to be flexible and be prepared to move things around based on how you feel and when everyday life gets in the way, but there needs to be a plan. Such plans can be put together yourself if you're prepared to do a bit of reading and research or can be bought for not very much. Or if you want to get really serious then pay a coach upwards of £50 a month to do it all for you.


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## amaferanga (3 Mar 2012)

Alien8 said:


> If day-after-day you ride x-miles at y-intensity you will become very comfortable at riding x-miles at y-intensity.
> 
> If you want to become fitter, stronger, more powerful, you need to up the intensity in some way in your riding, eg by structured training.
> 
> At the end of the day it's all horses-for-courses but there is no getting away from no-pain-no-gain.


 
+1


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## lukesdad (3 Mar 2012)

Hang on a minute, the quote needs to be taken in context. It all depends on what you are trying to acheive.


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## GrasB (3 Mar 2012)

amaferanga said:


> There's no need whatsoever to take training to the extreme of almost passing out as suggested above - you can get the same adaptions from a more measured approach and probably spend more time at intensity X than you would do from pushing yourself that hard. The aim is to get the most from the session while not forgetting that you'll need to do more training the next day and the day after that....


That is measured, scheduled & carefully balanced with other training. The sustained duration single pull 15min runs aren't close to passing out but rather the mental stress of the run, dealing with the pain means distracting my self but also keeping the effort level up, causes certain symptoms. This mental fatigue basically shuts down certain sensory input, for me it's visual input for other riders it's other things (a friend says he has to look at his feet & hands all the time because he shuts out his sense of touch). The disorientation is an artefact of self distraction & forgetting to stop is because I'm so focused on keeping my power up that I forget there's a finish line.

My power sessions are close to passing out but they're is once every 4 weeks with scheduled build-up & build-down days. The results have been very good & over the last 10 months have seen my sub-30s maximal power production almost double. At some point the gains will tail off & it will become wasted training time but until then it's worth doing. Every session produces noticeable changes in the following 3 weekly tabata interval sessions & in the ability for me to blast up short inclines. Yes it's extreme & yes a lot of people aren't willing to put the effort in but if you are willing to take it to the extreme there are gains to be found.


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## totallyfixed (3 Mar 2012)

GrasB said:


> That is measured, scheduled & carefully balanced with other training. The sustained duration single pull 15min runs aren't close to passing out but rather the mental stress of the run, dealing with the pain means distracting my self but also keeping the effort level up, causes certain symptoms. This mental fatigue basically shuts down certain sensory input, for me it's visual input for other riders it's other things (a friend says he has to look at his feet & hands all the time because he shuts out his sense of touch). The disorientation is an artefact of self distraction & forgetting to stop is because I'm so focused on keeping my power up that I forget there's a finish line.
> 
> My power sessions are close to passing out but they're is once every 4 weeks with scheduled build-up & build-down days. The results have been very good & over the last 10 months have seen my sub-30s maximal power production almost double. At some point the gains will tail off & it will become wasted training time but until then it's worth doing. Every session produces noticeable changes in the following 3 weekly tabata interval sessions & in the ability for me to blast up short inclines. Yes it's extreme & yes a lot of people aren't willing to put the effort in but if you are willing to take it to the extreme there are gains to be found.


 
Given the amount of high intensity training you do [I coach], what are your best time trial results for, 10's 25's & 50's and how long is your tapering period for a targeted event?
If you don't mind me asking, what age category do you come under and if you don't want to answer that, can you say if you are a vet?


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## amaferanga (4 Mar 2012)

GrasB said:


> My power sessions are close to passing out but they're is once every 4 weeks with scheduled build-up & build-down days. The results have been very good & over the last 10 months have seen my sub-30s maximal power production almost double. At some point the gains will tail off & it will become wasted training time but until then it's worth doing. Every session produces noticeable changes in the following 3 weekly tabata interval sessions & in the ability for me to blast up short inclines. Yes it's extreme & yes a lot of people aren't willing to put the effort in but if you are willing to take it to the extreme there are gains to be found.


 
What is your 30s power (W and W/kg)? What are you measuring it with? You'd probably have seen the same gains from doing more regular sessions without trying to push quite so hard. You don't need to be setting power bests to see improvement in your best power over a given duration. So riding for (say) 5 hours a week at 85-90% FTP will see significant gains in your FTP. Maybe you know all this, but its not clear from your posts?

Also, what are you training for? 30s power gains can be made quickly, but you also lose them quickly so there's really no point in working on it through the winter (in fact youd' probably expect to lose most of the gains over a period of 4 weeks). Best wait until you're about to start racing and do some sessions to put the icing on the cake so to speak. But if racing for you is time trials then probably best to focus on FTP and VO2max.


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## GrasB (4 Mar 2012)

totallyfixed said:


> Given the amount of high intensity training you do [I coach], what are your best time trial results for, 10's 25's & 50's and how long is your tapering period for a targeted event?
> If you don't mind me asking, what age category do you come under and if you don't want to answer that, can you say if you are a vet?


I'm in my early 30s & as you know I don't race/TT in the UK. I'll drop the HIT session the week before I leave the UK. Once I'm out in Italy my training is chaotic at best. I'll do solo rides throw in MTBing 1 or 2 days/week, a ride with my wife plus a hard club ride on once a week. 

Best times? Well being european they do things in km not miles & I've not entered a TT over a nominal 40km
10km hill climb: 9.83km, 7.2% ave gradient - 27m 46s
20km 'flat' TT (<0.75% altitude gain): 20.65km, 138m altitude gain - 27m 2s
20km 'hilly' TT (0.75%<>3% altitude gain): 19.88km, 412m altitude gain - 32m 28s
40km TT: 41.28km, 381m altitude gain - 1h 2m 31s

amaferanga, This was the state of play when I joined a very competitive club near my in-laws in Italy - I basically had a pursuiters power profile but it was just too extreme. Fast forward to now & the whole profile has stepped up a notch with FTP & sub-30s not so massively down on my medium duration power levels. The big shift for this was going for high power intervals & the maximal effort 15 min sessions but there were also shifts in my circuit training. I'm working under his guidance & things seem to be going well.


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## totallyfixed (4 Mar 2012)

GrasB said:


> I'm in my early 30s & as you know I don't race/TT in the UK. I'll drop the HIT session the week before I leave the UK. Once I'm out in Italy my training is chaotic at best. I'll do solo rides throw in MTBing 1 or 2 days/week, a ride with my wife plus a hard club ride on once a week.
> 
> Best times? Well being european they do things in km not miles & I've not entered a TT over a nominal 40km
> 10km hill climb: 9.83km, 7.2% ave gradient - 27m 46s
> ...


 
Thanks for that, interestingly those times are within a few percent of my better half's and her training bears no resemblance to yours.


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## italiafirenze (4 Mar 2012)

redcard said:


> Just read this on Cycling Weekly on FB:
> 
> "I am still recovering from the kicking I received on our lunch time ride. Despite weekly mileage of 150-200 miles I am a long way from fit. Riding is no substitute for training however much you kid yourself."
> 
> Is there really a big difference between regular riding and structured training for the regular cyclist?


 
If any of that lot above answers your question I'd be surprised.

My choice of answer would be "For the regular cyclist?". Not especially. Sounds like the quoted gent was riding with some folks above his level; ride with them long enough and you will approach their level. 200 miles a week and the man will be fit by comparison to the average person; unless he's walking with his bike.

It's about enjoying it and getting out of it what you want. If you want to race or be competitive in TTs then you can take on the "structured training programs". You do need to go harder to get faster and a lot of people do get to a plateau and stay there, mostly because that's where they are happy.


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## totallyfixed (4 Mar 2012)

italiafirenze said:


> If any of that lot above answers your question I'd be surprised.
> 
> My choice of answer would be "For the regular cyclist?". Not especially. Sounds like the quoted gent was riding with some folks above his level; ride with them long enough and you will approach their level. 200 miles a week and the man will be fit by comparison to the average person; unless he's walking with his bike.
> 
> It's about enjoying it and getting out of it what you want. If you want to race or be competitive in TTs then you can take on the "structured training programs". You do need to go harder to get faster and a lot of people do get to a plateau and stay there, mostly because that's where they are happy.


Agree with most of that but IME a plateau is reached more often because other things get in the way of training like work, children, etc. We do a lot of TT's and some hill climbs and the one thing that stands out amongst the top few percent is the greater time available to train and to a lesser extent the cash available for the best equipment, wind tunnel testing, it all helps.


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## italiafirenze (4 Mar 2012)

totallyfixed said:


> Agree with most of that but *IME a plateau is reached more often because other things get in the way* of training like work, children, etc. We do a lot of TT's and some hill climbs and the one thing that stands out amongst the top few percent is the greater time available to train and to a lesser extent the cash available for the best equipment, wind tunnel testing, it all helps.


 
I agree and think this is what I said. It gets to the point where you can't get better without giving more (be it time, money or physical effort; often all three) and the plateau occurs where the balance between what you'd need to give and the cost of giving it doesn't work.

I could spend a lot more hours training than I do, I could spend more money on faster bikes and a coach. I could probably give a bit more effort on the bike with the help of a dedicated training regime. But, right now, I choose not to; for any number of reasons. As you have chosen and as we all will eventually have to.

Of course there is the exception of the person who is literally as good as he is ever going to be, but I think that must only apply to a very small fraction of all the world's athletes, elite or otherwise.


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## GrasB (5 Mar 2012)

totallyfixed said:


> Thanks for that, interestingly those times are within a few percent of my better half's and her training bears no resemblance to yours.


Quick n' dirty calculations for ave power:
Hill Climb = 447w
Hilly TT = 449w
Flat TT = 442w

What's her flying 200m time? Mine is 10.14 seconds


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## amaferanga (5 Mar 2012)

GrasB said:


> Quick n' dirty calculations for ave power:
> Hill Climb = 447w
> Hilly TT = 449w
> Flat TT = 442w
> ...


 
Blooming heck, that's a lot of Watts. What do you weigh? If I could put out that many Watts at my weight I'd be a Pro!


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## totallyfixed (5 Mar 2012)

GrasB said:


> Quick n' dirty calculations for ave power:
> Hill Climb = 447w
> Hilly TT = 449w
> Flat TT = 442w
> ...


What a strange time to come up with, even supposing we all had access to a velodrome which most of us don't, though I think you should come and have a go at one of the forum organised sessions at Manchester. I have ridden in the team pursuit which I thoroughly enjoyed but from what I remember I was over 12 secs for the flying 200m.
Where did you get these times from and where did you do them? This is up there with Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny and considerably quicker than Anna Mears and Victoria Pendleton!!!
I on the other hand have an apology to make, I have been doing some number crunching and you are considerably quicker on a 7.2% hill climb. I looked at the figures for The Glossop Velo Kinder Hill Climb up Snake Pass which is almost exactly that gradient touching 8% in places but only 3.2 miles and this would have put you in the top 5 of specialist hill climbers.
I really don't know what to think, if you are actually producing this wattage then your time for the 41km TT should be around 55mins, this working on an average weight of 75kg and a bike weighing 9kg, giving an average speed of over 27mph


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## GrasB (5 Mar 2012)

totallyfixed said:


> What a strange time to come up with, even supposing we all had access to a velodrome which most of us don't, though I think you should come and have a go at one of the forum organised sessions at Manchester. I have ridden in the team pursuit which I thoroughly enjoyed but from what I remember I was over 12 secs for the flying 200m.
> Where did you get these times from and where did you do them? This is up there with Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny and considerably quicker than Anna Mears and Victoria Pendleton!!!


Er, after actually doing the maths that's wrong, very wrong! 1.5kW over 10 seconds, that's about my absolute 5s maximal. According to the data that was a 728w run so that's either miss-filed under upright (I'd guess it should be semi-faired low racer 'bent looking at the kreuzotter calculator) or the power meter comp barfed, but I usually pick those up & don't save them as they're garbage. Times came from lazer trips on an enclosed outdoor velodrome & looking back it's about 1s quicker than anything else I've got on my laptop, 11.2 being the next quickest



> I on the other hand have an apology to make, I have been doing some number crunching and you are considerably quicker on a 7.2% hill climb. I looked at the figures for The Glossop Velo Kinder Hill Climb up Snake Pass which is almost exactly that gradient touching 8% in places but only 3.2 miles and this would have put you in the top 5 of specialist hill climbers.


I ride with Cat 1/2 riders in Itally, only the light weight riders can can drop me up hill as long as as the climb takes no longer than 25 min, after that I'm mid Cat 1/High cat 2



> I really don't know what to think, if you are actually producing this wattage then your time for the 41km TT should be around 55mins, this working on an average weight of 75kg and a bike weighing 9kg, giving an average speed of over 27mph


My problem is W/kg over long distances I'm too damn heavy.


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## GrasB (5 Mar 2012)

amaferanga said:


> Blooming heck, that's a lot of Watts. What do you weigh? If I could put out that many Watts at my weight I'd be a Pro!


77-77.5kg. 5.75W/kg ish around 30min, but falling fast. I can maintain about 4.5W/kg for 1 hour if I get the pacing bang on but I'm basically too heady. This is part of the reason I have a pursuiters profile. Even as a VO2max monster at my weight I'll never have a great endurance & have to manage my pace very carefully. Climb a fraction to hard on a longer TT & I'm down at 3W/kg for the run, too much muscle to ever get back the oxygen without dropping my power well bellow FTP.


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## amaferanga (5 Mar 2012)

GrasB said:


> 77-77.5kg. 5.75W/kg ish around 30min, but falling fast. I can maintain about 4.5W/kg for 1 hour if I get the pacing bang on but I'm basically too heady. This is part of the reason I have a pursuiters profile. Even as a VO2max monster at my weight I'll never have a great endurance & have to manage my pace very carefully. Climb a fraction to hard on a longer TT & I'm down at 3W/kg for the run, too much muscle to ever get back the oxygen without dropping my power well bellow FTP.


 
If you lose a few pounds you could be deadly 

That's a huge drop off from 30min to 1 hour though. By comparison I'm around 67kg and my best FTP last season was about 320W so 4.8 W/kg. But my best 30min is only about 330W so 4.9 W/kg. My profile is pretty much that of an all rounder, except my 5s is rubbish. Currently racing as a 2nd Cat in the UK but aiming to drop a couple of kg and gain a few Watts and have a crack at getting 1st Cat.


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## Riverman (5 Mar 2012)

Just reading this on my phone. You are averaging over 40km/hour on the flat over 20km? To the average cyclist like me that seems a bit nuts


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## GrasB (5 Mar 2012)

totallyfixed said:


> What a strange time to come up with, even supposing we all had access to a velodrome which most of us don't


Flying 200s seem to be an important part of performance 'bent riding. So it seems logical for me to look at that figure. I think part of this is down to Battle Mountain where they do flying 200m records. The numbers are mind blowing;
Sam Whittingham knocking on the door of 83mph in '09
Barbara Buatois obliterating the 75mph marker in '10
Greg Westlake managing to do over 43.6mph using his arms!
Forget about the Olympics, forget about the TdF for me this is the pinnacle of cycling. It's what inspires me to do more, to push harder & see what I'm capable of.



amaferanga said:


> If you lose a few pounds you could be deadly
> 
> That's a huge drop off from 30min to 1 hour though. By comparison I'm around 67kg and my best FTP last season was about 320W so 4.8 W/kg. But my best 30min is only about 330W so 4.9 W/kg. My profile is pretty much that of an all rounder, except my 5s is rubbish. Currently racing as a 2nd Cat in the UK but aiming to drop a couple of kg and gain a few Watts and have a crack at getting 1st Cat.


At around 35min of sustained effort I hit a wall where I'm unable to sustain my power levels & then drops fairly quickly. It flattens out around the 75 min marker & falls off in a much more expected manner.




GrasB said:


> According to the data that was a 728w run so that's either miss-filed under upright (I'd guess it should be semi-faired low racer 'bent looking at the kreuzotter calculator)


Yeah it's miss-filed. That was a semi-faired custom built low racer.



Riverman said:


> Just reading this on my phone. You are averaging over 40km/hour on the flat over 20km? To the average cyclist like me that seems a bit nuts


That's 45km/h & if you think that's nuts there are guys who are around 5km/h faster on that course than I am. I bet if you got on a clean TT bike & did a full effort run you'd be surprised at how fast you'd be. The difference between my late Boardman Hybrid & my TT bike was a 40.5% drop in the effective drag coefficient! That equates to a 3mph gain for the same power required to hit 20mph on the boardman.


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## amaferanga (6 Mar 2012)

GrasB said:


> At around 35min of sustained effort I hit a wall where I'm unable to sustain my power levels & then drops fairly quickly. It flattens out around the 75 min marker & falls off in a much more expected manner.


 
Pace it better then - set off at a slightly lower Wattage and build through the hour instead of going out too hard and losing your legs after 35 minutes!


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## GrasB (6 Mar 2012)

amaferanga said:


> Pace it better then - set off at a slightly lower Wattage and build through the hour instead of going out too hard and losing your legs after 35 minutes!


That's if I am pacing properly! Why do you think I know it's more like 3W/kg if I miss-pace a climb?


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## User16625 (13 Mar 2012)

GrasB said:


> Riding; going for a nice ride on the road not to hard not to easy just banging in the miles, in a scheduled training regime they would be called 'base miles'. This keeps your base line fitness up & you can do it in a social context. Most people will be sub-consciously working in the average power range between 50% (train term: recovery ride) & 80% (training term: hard base miles ride) maximal effort, which is typically faster than you'd think, for that ride length.
> 
> Training; you go out with a specific agenda to achieve specific things. Sure it may be a base miles ride or even a really easy recovery ride. However more often than not you'll have very specific things to do like intervals - 2 min hard pace, 1 min recovery & do that maybe 10 times. It will hurt - your lungs will be gasping for oxygen, your legs will burn & anything vaguely social will be impossible.
> 
> Taken to the extreme some of the really high power training would be simply unsafe on the road. Somewhere I saw a picture of Hoy doing a training session that ended up with him falling off the bike onto a crash mat at the side of the bike. For me it's normal for me to get blurred/tunnel vision & disorientation to the point that I need audible alarms to tell me when to stop & I'm struggling to remember to stop going at the very loud beep! Some times on the really short intervals the only thing that is keeping me upright is the turbo trainer, had I been on the open road I've hit the deck at >40mph well if I hadn't disappeared of the side of the road in one direction or another.


 
A lot of hills I work harder going down them than I do going up them, I just like speed. However I do frequently go like ^&*^&, pedalling as hard as my legs can physcially pedal until im forced to slow down coz I cant breath any harder. Does that count as training? I do this on most rides on my road bike.

On my mountain bike the rides are naturally harder and dont go all out at any specific moment. However I do sometimes return home feeling like I could lose a fight with an insect.


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## fossyant (13 Mar 2012)

PS folks GrasB is quoting bent riding, they are considerably quicker than a 'normal upright' and they have advantage of putting their back into it as well as aero advantage.

Am I right ?


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## GrasB (14 Mar 2012)

fossyant said:


> PS folks GrasB is quoting bent riding, they are considerably quicker than a 'normal upright' and they have advantage of putting their back into it as well as aero advantage.


Yes & no. Racing & TTs are done on uprights. Actually modern aerodynamic TT & road bikes are very close to bents, the course tuning of aerodynamics on unfaired bents is a long way behind that of DFs. My Road & TT bikes are very clean aerodynamically, the TT bike sits between my 2 'bents (one is USS the other OSS) for aero & my road bike with my road bike being a little bit behind the slower of my 'bents. It's only when you start getting into fairings & velomobiles that you start to see big gains.


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