General Cycling Discussion - is there really such a thing as junk miles?!

i used to think that the term junk miles were miles where you were just going out for a light spin, but i later found them to be called recovery miles. we are often accused of going too hard on hard days and too easy on easy days. but is there really a time when you aren't 'improving' on the bike?
every time i am on a bike i call it training. is there a thing as 'junk miles' where you aren't doing yourself any good (or actually harming your progress?)

If your rides following interval work are so intense that your muscles cannot recover, then one would have to classify those workouts as junk miles. Workouts like this are doing you absolutely no physical good and even worse are leading you to an overtrained state that can have adverse psychological impact to boot.

Maybe the first time it happens these shouldn't be considered junk miles since it will be a learning experience, but continuing to train in this manner is just dumb.

To me, junk miles are those ones on the outskirts of cities, full of unsightly industrial developement and big rounderbouts.
Since I only ride, not train, I dont really think about how hard I "work".

I've never heard the term "Junk Miles" before, but then I don't train or hang out with riders that do. Speed, on a bicycle, has never been one of my goals. Unless you are seriously into racing, I don't think I'd worry about it. Enjoy your rides without carrying all the excess pressure of "am I doing it right?" As far as I'm concerned, that's an irrelevant game played to bolster egos.

i guess i should have asked about junk miles as they pertain to training - as in training to get faster and stronger. i have a local racing club that i want to keep up with and i am working towards this. i don't test my limits every time out, but i am working towards faster centuries, faster club rides and faster training rides.

i hear the phrase junk miles every now and then. i suppose that riding in your zones properly eliminates any discussion of junk miles, but....

well if your just out for a spin, you may consider that as a junk miles, coz' your not actually exerting any effort to improve your biking stamina or strength,....

The truth is that some of the most important training you can do happens below 70% MaxHR. Even if you're not building muscle mass or adapting your anaerobic threshold, you ARE improving your overall CV endurance by just getting miles at 60-70%. Are there junk miles? Yeah... when you hop on the bike for 20 minutes, eat a pizza and a sundae and ride home. LSD [long steady distance] rides are not junk miles.

I'd say the relevance of the concept of "junk miles" is entirely dependent on what cycling goals you are pursuing. If you simply want to be out on the bike enjoying the outdoors and keeping a base level of fitness then I'd say junk miles do not pertain to your situation. Every mile you ride is good and valid.

If however you have a desire to improve your performance as efficiently as possible then nearly all of the books and articles I have read indicate that yes, you can wind up racking up miles that are doing very little in terms of helping you progress to your next training milestone. You avoid these junk miles by following a training plan that mixes hard and easy days and gives you your muscles adequate time to recover and adapt to higher work loads.

Speaking purely from a racing/training perspective, there are two types of junk miles, AKA garbarge time.

1) 80-85% of max HR. This is considered to be the intensity that is too light to raise anerobic threshhold, and too intense to do the volume necessary to build endurance.

In other words, if you want to raise your AT you need to be at 85-90% of max. To increase your endurance you need to lots of miles and at 80-85% of max you cannot ride long enough to build endurance. For that 1 to 2 hour ride I try to spend as much time as possible working at threshold, but I ride a lot of the ride at 80-85% since I'm not working on endurance and I'm getting my threshold intervals in - and I like to go fast. If you're going on a 3-4 hr ride then the 80-85% zone will probably be too hard to maintain for the ride, so you will fade on the last half and your HR will drop below the endurance zone, negating endurance benefit.

2) <65-70% of max, other than recovery. Long rides at this intensity except for recovery are not considered to be of great benefit and is known as garbage time.

However, I would argue that for most of us there is NO garbage time. Every minute on the bike is well-spent. We ride for pleasure, fitness, mental health and competition. I enjoy riding with my kids at 10mph. I enjoy hammerfests. Yes, a programmed training schedule may make you faster, but will it make you happier?

Excellent point. Few of us are purely pursuing a training regimen. I enjoy the casual rides quite a bit- I just don't kid myself into believing I am pursuing more than simple pleasure when engaged in them. Hard, easy, in or out of target zones, any riding is to be enjoyed.

It really sort of depends on what your condition is, what your goals are and how much time you have.

First off, if you are not really fit, I would think just about any miles you put in will help some. Some miles will improve you more than others of course.

Getting really technical about training is OK if one of two conditions apply: you have limited training time available and want to maximize its effect (to the nth degree) or you are in superb shape and want to achieve the maximum degree of cycling fitness your body can achieve.

But I think people can get too wrapped up in this. The realities are:

1) 99.9% of us will never ever make 1 cent bicycling - so it is a form of recreation.
2) 99.9% of us just do not have the physical ability to compete at a high level. This is not to be confused with the fact that a person with very ordinary physical abilities can with semi intelligent training do things on the bike (like centuries) that seem almost supernatural to the lay population.
3) Getting too involved in rigorous training can become to grueling and cause burn out.
4) Having fun on the bike is probably the best way to continue cycling for the long term. Fun miles are often "junk miles". Who cares?

Originally posted by RiPHRaPH
i used to think that the term junk miles were miles where you were just going out for a light spin

is there a thing as 'junk miles' where you aren't doing yourself any good (or actually harming your progress?)

Are you having fun? No junk in fun!!

I beg to differ, Woody. The value of a ride at a given intensity has a lot to do with the time of year in which you're training. I'm kind of whith Davis Phinney and Connie Carpenter on what they call "light endurance" training, at <65%. I find that a three-hour LSD ride at that intensity a couple of times a week is quite useful, aprticularly when building base miles. I also find that a short ride [say, 2-hours] at that intensity the day before a hard ride is much better than a 70%+ ride or a day off.

No miles are junk miles, even in structured training, if you know what you're doing and why.

[Remember, I'm talking averages here... if you want to talk time in-zone, that's something else. The vast majority of my rides average @ 70%.]

Originally posted by velocipedio
I beg to differ, Woody. The value of a ride at a given intensity has a lot to do with the time of year in which you're training. I'm kind of whith Davis Phinney and Connie Carpenter on what they call "light endurance" training, at <65%. I find that a three-hour LSD ride at that intensity a couple of times a week is quite useful, particularly when building base miles. I also find that a short ride [say, 2-hours] at that intensity the day before a hard ride is much better than a 70%+ ride or a day off.

No miles are junk miles, even in structured training, if you know what you're doing and why.

[Remember, I'm talking averages here... if you want to talk time in-zone, that's something else. The vast majority of my rides average @ 70%.]

'pedio,

I am talking about time in zone. A 70% ave. ride with 5, 100% intervals is not the same as a 70% continuous effort. I contend that, generally, the person who did the intervals got more out of the workout.

My understanding is that one endurance ride per week is adequate after a base is in place. Endurance can then be improved by adding miles to your weekly endurance ride. Adding another endurance ride (more endurance time) does not necessarily provide additional benefit and would be better spent elsewhere.

Recovery can mean different things. Maybe today it's a 30 min spin the day after intervals. Next week it's 3 days of 60 min spin before a race. If you are not building power or endurance, you should be recovering.

My recovery days are spent off the bike to maintain marital bliss. Not ideal in the bike world, but it's a compromise I'm willing to make. My ride days are, therefore, intense. Part of this is I cannot ride at low intensity, every ride day is a climbing day and as much time at threshold as I can bear. My average HR is around 75-80% for a 1 to 2 hour ride. Before a race I try to ride one or two days at recovery pace, but I'll ride an hour or so.

I'm not sure I like the expression, but if I were to qualify junk kilometres (I'm Canadian), I would consider as such distance I have to do through bad environments such as suburban wasteland, ugly industrial neighbourhoods, etc. These are typically stretches one has to endure while touring, and there is nothing interesting about them: neither scenery, nor historical perspective, nor nice people to talk to, etc.