Wanting assistance for improving my riding.

[DC Pedal-Pusher]

Hi, haven't really posted on here much, but im after some advice to better my riding.

I have been riding relatively consistently 2 times per week for around 40-50kms for the past 14months.
I am a confident and comfortable in doing St.k-Mordi and back, and Dandy 1in20 trips and rode up Mt.
Hotham last year over Easter etc etc. (wouldn't consider 3Peaks...yet!)
I ride an 07 Giant OCR running 105 and am about 65kgs.

My question:
When I ride say beach rd I feel fine, I can sit on 28-30km/h consistently, climbing the inclines I will drop to around 22-24km/h. I feel that his is too slow and struggle a bit. Eg: rode Fri arvo caught another rider I sucked his wheel, then pulled to the front for my turn. We got to an incline and I upped a gear and popped out of my seat, no probs. Did the same on a second climb and I died. Had to let the rider go, HR completely blew up but not full maxed. (191 (195max))

Im kind of ranting and it's hard to describe where I'm failing to gain some advice.

The best way to put it I guess is that I feel as tho I have plateaued.
I hate as anyone does to loose a wheel or get passed, I know that there are always ppl that will be better, younger etc.
Any advice, articles to read, ppl to talk to would be greatly appreciated. And I know I need to do more climbing training and get out there more often

Thanks for reading

[Mustang]

I think you best described it yourself in the first sentance "riding 2 x days a week". Unless you are cross training,then more kms are required.Judging by your HR you must be young, so its all there for you to get.

[trailgumby]

PM me with your email address for a training program. It's mountain bike specific, but you can readily do the distance on the road instead. It works well for the time-crunched cyclist.

[gururug]

If, IF! hr is the issue, common training methods would suggest some intervals. If it's too much to monitor yourself that closely ( is for me ) choose a route with rolling/frequent small/medium hills. A cuople of weeks on these and you'll find it much easier to maintain that sort of exertion.

i.e. 2min sprint 5min cool then repeat

Try adding something of this nature for 1 day a week ( short ride if your going to push yourself ) and see if there is an improvement after three or four weeks.

With this sort of training a 10min cool down slow ride and extensive post ride stretching is recommended.

You seem to be doing some long rides, which is cool but after a few months with the same routing your body will not "improve".

You should always mix up your training.

It's ok to push yourself from time to time, but never expect your body to do something outside of it's limits.

[foo on patrol]

I think you need add another day to it and do some interval training as well.

Foo

[DanielS]

Like others have said, ride more often. Don't go straight into intervals, just let your body adapt to riding 3 or 4 times a week at first. If you can then extend one of these rides to 3+ hrs, then you will see a big improvement in all areas.

Just remember to make changes to your routine gradually. But increasing your overall volume will be the best way to go, i think.

[DC Pedal-Pusher]

Greatly appreciate the assistance so far...

[chill]

What everyone else is saying, more rides and with variation; distance, hills, intervals, recovery rides.

Don't forget to have fun.

[DC Pedal-Pusher]

Thanks for all the support here. I just wanted to finish this off.
I have upped the riding to 3-4 times a week and I'm switching it up.
Needless to say there has been an improvement with more to come.
Again thanks for all the tips.

[copa2251]

I started riding last September mainly so I could have a got at a triathlon but now want to concentrate on my riding to bring it up to something nearer my swimming/running standard (not that great really but ok!!).

I'm training for an Olympic distance tri in 4 weeks and then I've got a few months until the Noosa Tri in October.
What I'd really like is to get my cycling up to the stage where I could join in on bunch rides locally to make the whole training thing more sociable, swimming endless laps and doing long runs can be a bit isolating...

Currently my longest ride has been 75km and I seem to be able to maintain over 30 km/hr on the flat but with hills etc my average is about 26 km/hr for my regular rolling routes, 28 km/hr for my flat rides.
I'm riding 3-4x per week: 1-2 x 40km, 1 x 45min easy spin, 1 x longer ride 50-75k

At what stage do you think you can join group rides and do you think they help to improve your speed and endurance compared to tarining on your own???

Thanks,

David

[Pete]

Adding more riding will help you improve but you will get to a point where your fitness will plateu while riding 3-4 times per week. The body is amazing at adapting to whatever training load we apply to it so it needs to be stimulated to continually build fitness. You can do this by adding volume or alternatively you can add some intervals to your rides. By changing the duration and intensity of these intervals you will net you the best gains with the limited time you have available.

Don't be afraid of intervals as they are not always lung busting in intensity and you would be best starting with sub-threhold to begin with to build some base fitness.

You can start by doing any of the following each ride:

2x20min (AT) 85-92% THR (threshold heart rate)
3x12min (AT) 90-100% THR
4 x 10min (AT) 86-96%THR

You can workout you THR by doing a 20min TT and recording your average heart rate during the TT. Make sure you're thoroughly warmed up before the test and are well rested.

I hope this helps you to begin with. Enjoy.

[jules21]

the World Tour pros reportedly do 35k a year. once you're at that sort of level, you need to be careful about not riding yourself into the ground but for the rest of us, the more km we do, the fitter we'll get.

[Pete]

the World Tour pros reportedly do 35k a year. once you're at that sort of level, you need to be careful about not riding yourself into the ground but for the rest of us, the more km we do, the fitter we'll get.

If only it was that simple. To beat the next guy i just need to train more?? Fortunaltely that methodology is no longer part of even pros training structure and if it was they WOULD need drugs to prevent them from constant sickness. Lucky for us training is a bit more scientific.

By adding structure, planning and recovery to how we traing we don't need to ride ourselves into the ground to get fit and be competitive. This is especially lucky as life doesn't give most of us the luxury of 25-30hr per week training.

Having competitvely raced a bunch of 24hr solo races on 15hr training per week i'm happy to say more doesn't necessarily mean better.

[fly spray]

For hill improvment I'd reccomemend getting into doing some jump squats, bench jumps and dead lifts..... Well I do these for bmx (racing) training and I find it helps with hills.

[zero]

the World Tour pros reportedly do 35k a year. once you're at that sort of level, you need to be careful about not riding yourself into the ground but for the rest of us, the more km we do, the fitter we'll get.

If only it was that simple. To beat the next guy i just need to train more?? Fortunaltely that methodology is no longer part of even pros training structure and if it was they WOULD need drugs to prevent them from constant sickness. Lucky for us training is a bit more scientific.

By adding structure, planning and recovery to how we traing we don't need to ride ourselves into the ground to get fit and be competitive. This is especially lucky as life doesn't give most of us the luxury of 25-30hr per week training.

Having competitvely raced a bunch of 24hr solo races on 15hr training per week i'm happy to say more doesn't necessarily mean better.

If I was training 15 hours a week, I'd be getting on towards 28,000 kms covered in a year, (I've presumed my average speed would stay the same, because I'd be faster from having a higher threshold from all the training, and slower because with the need to do 2 hours+ a day, less of the riding could be above threshold). Not convinced your example is doing much different from whats explained above.

[toofat]

Hi DC
To get the most out of any of the training methods suggested, you first need to build a base ( if you google base building for cyclists there is even a book dedicated to it)
This base give you the endurance strength to improve climbing etc
imo you are not going far enough or often enough to build a base
or put really simplistically, in order to ride 40km with inclines fast, you must first train yourself to ride 80km with inclines at a moderate pace

[Sweeper59]

OK, I'll add my 2c worth of advice....
1. Find a group to train with - you're more likely to train harder with a group than on your own. You may also pick up a few tips, or just observe how others ride.
2. Don't avoid hills.
3. Have you considered RPM (spin) sessions at the gym to help with your fitness and leg strength ?