Cycling Workouts: Discussion/Encouragement/Sharing/Banter

[UphillSlowly]

Hi everyone, I'm new here and just beginning my road cycling journey. I've signed up for a 52 mile local sportive on the 16th September and roped a couple of friends in. I've mountain biked for a good many years but not for a while but have been a regular gym goer and Peloton user.

I went on my first ever road bike ride on Monday and completed 16.5 miles in 1hr 21 and it felt good (good weather helped!), I also did a 10 mile flat ride with my son last night on canal paths. I'm thinking of doing another 20 mile ride on Saturday morning.

Is this too much?

View attachment 699464
What would a sensible approach to getting me to the 50+ mile mark?

Lots of good advice already. Guess you are going to do the Purity Brewing Company Sportive? It is fairly hilly, >800m elevation 80km. May be worth trying to make sure you are doing similar in your rides? This shouldn't be too hard around Clent Hills.

Only things I would add, that if you have the time I would consider one short ride and one long ride per week, if you can fit it in. And make the long ride a little bit longer each week. Also, try to ride in bad weather at least once just so you have experience of it (and test your kit), as you can't guarantee the weather for your event.

Enjoy and good luck. May see you around Clent...

 

[dunclane]

As others have said it's likely not going to take anything too crazy to get you there other than sensibly increasing length of long ride and getting rest. Does depend a little bit on whether it's 52 flat miles or 52 hilly miles.

In a sportive you generally benefit from a bit of draft and ride the high as well.


View: https://youtu.be/IFXmvohNrP0
you are starting from a better base than this but some useful bits and pieces, particularly around fueling and riding in a group etc

Edit; do you have a road bike?

Thanks for the video, I'll watch this over the weekend. Yes I have a road bike, that's what I did my 16 miler on.

 

[dunclane]

Lots of good advice already. Guess you are going to do the Purity Brewing Company Sportive? It is fairly hilly, >800m elevation 80km. May be worth trying to make sure you are doing similar in your rides? This shouldn't be too hard around Clent Hills.

Only things I would add, that if you have the time I would consider one short ride and one long ride per week, if you can fit it in. And make the long ride a little bit longer each week. Also, try to ride in bad weather at least once just so you have experience of it (and test your kit), as you can't guarantee the weather for your event.

Enjoy and good luck. May see you around Clent...

Good detective skills! Yep Purity Sportive. My planned routes are around Chaddesley, Clent and Belbroughton at the moment.

 

[UphillSlowly]

Good detective skills! Yep Purity Sportive. My planned routes are around Chaddesley, Clent and Belbroughton at the moment.

I know the area well. Enjoy!

 

[HLaB]

Wednesday night's 3 up felt way harder than it should.

When I got home I noticed my RHR was 5-6bpm up on usual, I was coming down with something. That, a long day on Tuesday, last Friday's food poisoning and a wheel which wasn't spinning 100% (not bad but not 100%) was a little too much. So I skipped Thursday's threshold workout.

View: https://youtu.be/TSJE7Xres2g


Tonight was an opener for tomorrow's TT and whilst Im still a bit sniffly (a clean cold but sniffly) I felt good and so did the bike. I probably didn't push 100%, with tomorrow's race in mind, but I felt my compliance was not bad and I could have complied more if I'd wanted too.

The more observant of you might notice that my glasses are more lopsided than normal; thats because the right arm spring snapped and its held together with electrical tape

Another Lol, was the cool down through the park. There’s a 1km straight path (next to a rowing lake) and an e’scooter came up beside me. I let him go through as I wanted TT position practice in the nice empty for a change park. So I sat about 5m back from him not going fast. About 3/4 of the way along the path he came to a gentle halt, as he finally encountered pedestrians. I sat up and came to a gentle halt behind him. Some other muppet behind me despite being at least 15m back (we had been stopped for a bit) just about skidded into the lake

Edit: Oh well I should have went harder as I think I'm going to give the TT a miss. I've got about 20mins to convince myself otherwise but I don't think I will :-/

 

[Dogtrousers]

Hilly ride today. Clearly my training is paying off because, according to my Garmin my FTP has gone up bit. It's now 927W. Time for a change of career I think.

 

[IrishAl]

Hilly ride today. Clearly my training is paying off because, according to my Garmin my FTP has gone up bit. It's now 927W. Time for a change of career I think.

View attachment 699749

Nice. You should join the Splitters CCC zwift team (you know I’m only joking any CCC men 😇😅😃)

What model of Garmin are you using. I’m on an edge 810 (from around 2016) and thinking of an upgrade. I’m looking for something better for my outdoor workouts as I find the 810 hard to read what effort is coming up etc

 

[Dogtrousers]

Nice. You should join the Splitters CCC zwift team (you know I’m only joking any CCC men 😇😅😃)

What model of Garmin are you using. I’m on an edge 810 (from around 2016) and thinking of an upgrade. I’m looking for something better for my outdoor workouts as I find the 810 hard to read what effort is coming up etc

It's an Edge 530. Normally quite sane, I don't know why it came up with that madness. There's no weirdness in the recorded data to support it.

 

[Norry1]

I'm a bit scared of today's workout...

Roy hasn't said so but I reckon this is a Race Simulation ready for my "A" Race in 12 days time.

 

[Legs]

I slogged through what’s probably my last Zwift ride before my hols. Jo’s away for the weekend so I did 2 hours of Z2 after I’d put the boys to bed.

Perfect length workout to watch Rain Man, and I managed to tick off one of the long boring France routes (Petit Boucle, I think). I’ll save Laurence of Arabia for PRL Full!

 

[IrishAl]

I'm a bit scared of today's workout...

View attachment 699833


Roy hasn't said so but I reckon this is a Race Simulation ready for my "A" Race in 12 days time.

That definately looks like a workout to be scared of. I hope it goes well.

I'm sat looking out the kitchen window and with 12 hours plus of non-stop rain any thoughts of venturing out on the bike for me are well and truly dashed. No bad thing as I'm due a rest day but the rest days rarely fall on a weekend and its feels odd not going out on the bike on a day off work.


My session yesterday was a fitness test with efforts of 3 minutes and 10 minutes with a 15 minute recovery in between. Looking at my power curve for the last 2 years I knew what my targets were. I went really deep on the 3 minute effort...nearly brining up my breakfast on the roadside. The wheels almost came off on the 10 minute effort - you can see in the charts where I almost gave up (I did for a few seconds actually before I gave myself a shake). Really glad I pushed through as I hit PBs on both and intervals.icu tells me I've a new FTP of 306w (4.05 wkg which would put me back in Cat A in Zwift if they still use that system). I've a 20 min test due on Tuesday so that will tell if the FTP increase is real!!

 

[Norry1]

That definately looks like a workout to be scared of. I hope it goes well.

I'm sat looking out the kitchen window and with 12 hours plus of non-stop rain any thoughts of venturing out on the bike for me are well and truly dashed. No bad thing as I'm due a rest day but the rest days rarely fall on a weekend and its feels odd not going out on the bike on a day off work.


My session yesterday was a fitness test with efforts of 3 minutes and 10 minutes with a 15 minute recovery in between. Looking at my power curve for the last 2 years I knew what my targets were. I went really deep on the 3 minute effort...nearly brining up my breakfast on the roadside. The wheels almost came off on the 10 minute effort - you can see in the charts where I almost gave up (I did for a few seconds actually before I gave myself a shake). Really glad I pushed through as I hit PBs on both and intervals.icu tells me I've a new FTP of 306w (4.05 wkg which would put me back in Cat A in Zwift if they still use that system). I've a 20 min test due on Tuesday so that will tell if the FTP increase is real!!

Well done on the PBs - nice to see training pay dividends.

Do you find you hit the same powers indoors? I am always lower indoors.

 

[Norry1]

I'm a bit scared of today's workout...

View attachment 699833


Roy hasn't said so but I reckon this is a Race Simulation ready for my "A" Race in 12 days time.

Well I survived. It was pretty horrible and I had to MTFU mentally to complete it.

I couldn't hit the power target for the final 3 x 5 min all out efforts but I did push as hard as I could.

That completes a big week - TSS of 856.

 

[HLaB]

Well done on the PBs - nice to see training pay dividends.

Do you find you hit the same powers indoors? I am always lower indoors.

I'm one of the few who hit more indoors (at least for sustained periods) I can bury my self closed eyes etc indoors and devote energy directly to my legs; when I don't have to worry about traffic and falling off etc. But outside you tend to benefit more from aircooling (no fans can fully replicate that) and momentum, etc. With that I hit stronger short term power outdoors and the vast majority of people (probably me too if I could put my fears aside) hit longer power better outdoors.

 

[IrishAl]

Well done on the PBs - nice to see training pay dividends.

Do you find you hit the same powers indoors? I am always lower indoors.

Thanks Martin. It’s hard to tell - I always thought I hit better numbers on the turbo - less variability as the roads round my way are all up and down and/or just bloody bad condition. Perhaps an all out sprint would be higher as the turbo isn’t really ideal for that type of effort.

My plans for the week ahead have had a minor set back in that I check the chain wear on my good road bike - I’d been meaning to check it for weeks but kept forgetting. Anyway the chain was work beyond the 1% recommended so a new chain was fitted but a test ride proved my fears that the cassette is worn. Not too bad but the chain is slipping a bit when I put the hammer down and having had a bad fall years ago doing sprint efforts I won’t chance it for those big efforts. I’ve ordered cassette but it will be Friday before it’s here so I’ll be on the time trial bike for the week including my 20 min FTP test in Tuesday.