Training & Nutrition - Mtn Bike Training Plan -- NO ROAD MILES!

Hi guys.

I'm new, so if this topic has been discussed, just gimme a link to the other post(s). :)

I am training for a race in July. I've done the race before, so I know what to expect as far as that goes. I am looking for advice on some ways to get in the miles without road miles. I HATE road miles. I don't mind biking around to do errands or get a cup of coffee, but I'm totally not into squeezing myself into a tacky spandex outfit to yell "CAR BACK!" with a bunch of Lance wanna-be's. Not my thing.

Any ideas? What do road miles in a training program actually DO, anyway? What's the goal, cardio? Pedal rotation stuff? :)

Fast=Fun!

Hi guys.

I'm new, so if this topic has been discussed, just gimme a link to the other post(s). :)

I am training for a race in July. I've done the race before, so I know what to expect as far as that goes. I am looking for advice on some ways to get in the miles without road miles. I HATE road miles. I don't mind biking around to do errands or get a cup of coffee, but I'm totally not into squeezing myself into a tacky spandex outfit to yell "CAR BACK!" with a bunch of Lance wanna-be's. Not my thing.

Any ideas? What do road miles in a training program actually DO, anyway? What's the goal, cardio? Pedal rotation stuff? :)

Fast=Fun!Well, we usually squeeze ourselves into tacky spandex outfits and yell "CAR BACK!" with a bunch of Lance wanna-be's and get in some road miles. Seriously, most of the x-country MTB guys I know do about 80% of their training on the road. During the winter though it's trainer time - even more boring than road miles.

Two options:

1) ride your mountain bike on the road...or

2) ride more trails, faster.

Hi guys!

Hey, I didn't mean to make fun of roadies. My little sister's a roadie, and she rocks. Plus, you're right, Doc. Moribus, most top xc racers do a ton of road miles.

It's just not for me, though. Do you know what "road miles" are supposed to accomplish? I mean, if I knew what they DID, then I could maybe find an alt substitute.

Cheers,
Fast=Fun

well, road miles can give you a longer, more consistant workout. you could accomplish the same thing with a trainer, which is horriblly boring. if you go the trainer route, you could try the spinervals video workouts, they are tremendous workout for fitness. you could also do what i do for mountain biking. find a park where you live that is a short drive or ride. i'm sure you could make a decent loop with minimal paved trail/road miles through the park. i bet you could also figure out a time that not many people are out with dogs and kids and rollerblades and crap. It may not be trail riding, but i'm sire you could get some miles in and find some technical sections of steps, rocks, and logs to hone those bike handling skills on

Road work allows you to keep a constant level of effort for extended periods of time. Road work is where you get your endurance with long rides of 4 to 5 hours.

I supose you could find a rail-to-trail route and use it or find a nice flat trail somewhere and ride around in circles for a hundred miles.

Your comments regarding spandex and hating road work shows that you are a long ways from being serious about your racing. There are reasons why the pros where "tacky spandex" when they race x/c and why they do so much road riding, try being a bit more open minded towards your training.

You simply cannot put in enough mtb miles to properly train. Your body will bet beaten up more (and quite possible injured), but you will be in no better physical shape. You need to ride the road if you want consistent training. ALL good MTB XC racers spend about 4 times as much time on the road as they do in the woods. This is done for the reason stated above.

So, my advice is to cram youself into some spandex, and get the heck out on the road to train! You will be SO MUCH more faster in the dirt if you do, and who knows - YOU MAY ACTUALLY LIKE THE EXPERIENCE! :D

Try commuting, you don't have to 'dress up', you generally ride alone and it is a way to get in bonus miles during the week. I have a 9mi ea. way commute and ride it like a workout. I find riding trails much easier and now can outclimb most other mtbers on the trail.

Al

Thanks everyone!!! You guys rock.

Dont forget that in addition to building base and endurance by riding on the road, you just cant do a recovery ride up the side of a mountain the same way you can on the road.

All of the attributes roadies work towards are applicable to Mnt. biking. Spin, cadence, smooth pedal stroke, body position, etc.

Do a month on the road with at least 9 hours a week (preferably more) and tell me you cant spin farther and faster in the big ring on your mnt bike. =)

Bottom line is this, its just not that hard to get on a mnt bike and go fast, but its a life time pursuit to increase fitness and form. The later just doesnt come easy on a mnt bike on dirt only.

Okay, I think you missed the point: I am not going to do any road miles. Maybe I will ride my bike down the hill to the gym and back --- wait, I can get there and back on dirt, so, no, I won't ride to the gym and back. I don't own a road bike. I don't own slicks. I don't own a jersey covered with "sponsor" logos.

I totally understand that road riding has benefits, but I'm not going to DO any road miles, so...

Here's what I'm willing to do: I currently take a spin class once a week. (It's really tough, taught by former pro mtn biker Sara Ellis.) I could potentially do the class 3 times a week... I just don't because I'm usually mtn biking instead. I will trail run up to, say an hour and a half non-stop for cardio. I'm willing to do bike-specific weight lifting, and I will cross train (although I can't swim in my area... no public pools unless I want to swim at 5:00 am in an unheated pool).

So that said, let's pretend I absolutely cannot possibly do any road rides. Any suggestions? Surely there must be another way to combine activities to get some good benefits! I'm just tryin' to kick ass at a race (a very technical race, too, not a road-biker-friendly Sea Otter type of course)... but I don't have any grand illusions of going pro.

:) Thanks!
Fast=Fun

Find the least technical single track (or fireroad if you can lower you standards ;) ) and train fast and hard on it. The aerobic strength you gain will also help you on technical courses as you won't be fatigued.

Al

Surely there must be another way to combine activities to get some good benefits! I'm just tryin' to kick ass at a race (a very technical race, too, not a road-biker-friendly Sea Otter type of course)... but I don't have any grand illusions of going pro.

You wanna kick ass, do what EVERY pro racer that wins has done, ride road miles. Nuf said. Do it in a tee-shirt with your nipple rings and tatoo's showing, so everyone on the road can tell you are anti-establishment.

run

You wanna kick ass, do what EVERY pro racer that wins has done, ride road miles. Nuf said. Do it in a tee-shirt with your nipple rings and tatoo's showing, so everyone on the road can tell you are anti-establishment. ;) Thank you! That is the funniest thing I've read in a while. Perhaps a hemp shirt would be more suiting than a T-shirt.



Fastequalsfun, even the tatooed peirced up freak Missy Giove does road miles. Ned Overend does road miles. All of the great MTBers have one thing in common... they all do freaking road miles.

im new but i was thinking u said fast=fun but y dont u do off roadin 3 day do a off road hill another then do 1 day of roadin a week that is 5 days of trainin idk just a thought

Oh, okay. Since I totally want to be like Ned Overend, Missy Giove and every other pro racer out there, I should ride road miles. I didn't realize I wanted to be a pro racer so badly. Thanks for pointing that out. I thought I just wanted to kick ass and have fun at a local mtn bike race in my area, but boy was I wrong.

Didn't the majority of you read the title of this thread? In case you missed it, in capital letters, it says "NO ROAD MILES." That means that I personally do not want to ride any road miles. At all. None. I'm not anti-establishment, I'm anti-ROAD MILES.

But apparently, you all have your heads buried so deep in Lance Armstrong's discarded sweaty jersey that you can't even offer a suggestion that FITS THE THREAD. (Except noisebeam, Bolo, and gastroc... Especially you, noisebeam. Thanks for being so helpful.)

Cheers,
fast=fun

You don't need the road and it's obvious you don't want to do that. So, ride your bike more. Period. For starters, take whatever your normal ride is now and double it. And don't stop to rest during the ride. Seriously. Long consistent rides.

And if you really want to get in shape, get a single speed and do all of the above.

But apparently, you all have your heads buried so deep in Lance Armstrong's discarded sweaty jersey that you can't even offer a suggestion that FITS THE THREAD.

Lance is a god, he doesnt sweat!!!!!!!

How painful are those nipple rings btw??

Our point is that you CAN NOT reach your potential by not riding on the road. So you say, you are willing to hold onto some non-road deal for personal reasons and as such are willing to not be all you can. Ok.

Ride on dirt in such a way that it mimicks the steady non-traumatic, form-building, base-establishing, aerobic increasing training that road riding gives. Do at least one ride a week of moderate to long duration (3 hours or so), building up to 6 hours or more a week (split over two rides). Use this to build up a base to launch harder and more difficult specified training as you get closer to your event. Keep your HR in check and under your AT during these rides. The goal is to keep your HR in its aerobic zone for a couple a few hours at a time. This will build your aerobic capacity. MNT biking is not conducive to this type of training since it is up, wait, down, up, wait etc.

Do a search for periodization (sp). There have been many threads discussing the merits of event specific training here.

And if you dont like what I have to say, just reread riderx's post. =)

The thing is, you are throwing everyone off by saying you want to kick ass, but then you don't want to use one of the best techniques to help you kick ass. It's like saying you want to kick ass but you want to do it riding a tricycle. We are all so busy telling you that you need to be racing a mtb, that we are not helping you with your goal of how to be a better tricycle racer!!!

Why don't you ask the gal who has the spin class for ideas?

Just use a stationary bike, do spin for a long time.

this has been a funny thread

I'm totally not into squeezing myself into a tacky spandex outfit to yell "CAR BACK!" with a bunch of Lance wanna-be's. Not my thing.

Any ideas? What do road miles in a training program actually DO, anyway? What's the goal, cardio? Pedal rotation stuff? :)

Fast=Fun!

A quick suggestion...just don't wear the spandex or ride in groups. I got no problem with people that do that, but I ride between 200 and 250 miles a week on the road and have never done either. just T-shirt and coururoy shorts. It really all depends on the person, and to think that you have to dress like that, well then you're missing out on a great time if that's what's stopping you.

Just train in the gym and ride some trails in higher gears...

And your road biking comments were pretty gay....

Okay, I think you missed the point: I am not going to do any road miles. Maybe I will ride my bike down the hill to the gym and back --- wait, I can get there and back on dirt, so, no, I won't ride to the gym and back. I don't own a road bike. I don't own slicks. I don't own a jersey covered with "sponsor" logos.

Jeeze, are you a dork or somethin'? Ride yer knobbies on the road--more resistance. If you can consistently go 18mph on the road with knobbies, yer talkin good conditioning. Wear a t-shirt, a really big t-shirt--again more resistance. Ride in your baggies, more resistance. Oh, make sure to put a sign on your back that sez "I DON'T NEED ANY STINKIN' SPONSORS." I mean if an ol' fat lady like me can ride in spandex and t-shirt, what in Hell do you have to worry about?



I totally understand that road riding has benefits, but I'm not going to DO any road miles, so... Here's what I'm willing to do: I currently take a spin class once a week. (It's really tough, taught by former pro mtn biker Sara Ellis.) I could potentially do the class 3 times a week... I just don't because I'm usually mtn biking instead. I will trail run up to, say an hour and a half non-stop for cardio. I'm willing to do bike-specific weight lifting, and I will cross train (although I can't swim in my area... no public pools unless I want to swim at 5:00 am in an unheated pool).

So do those things, but I tell you (and I think everyone else here will tell you) road miles are different. Before I went out on my bike, I road in the gym to build some muscle, but when I got on the road--big, big difference.



So that said, let's pretend I absolutely cannot possibly do any road rides. Any suggestions? Surely there must be another way to combine activities to get some good benefits! I'm just tryin' to kick ass at a race (a very technical race, too, not a road-biker-friendly Sea Otter type of course)... but I don't have any grand illusions of going pro.

You absolutely cannot do any road miles? But you can spend outrageous amounts of time on spinning indoors, weight training, and trail running.

Let me rephrase what I said above: "You ARE a dork or something."

Or are you really just afraid to ride on the road with the reeely big carsy-warsies?

Come on, 'fess up.

And get out on the road, you turkey.

Go foehn

Troll.

Troll.

No troll. Just calling a turkey a turkey.

No troll. Just calling a turkey a turkey.
Not you!! The thread originator. The "I wanna kick butt at this race, but not put in the hard work" guy. Sorry for the confusion.

If you don't want to do any road miles you're going to have to find some kind of cardio workout that doesn't beat you up like MTB can. Running is pretty high impact, so you're pretty much stuck inside on a trainer, on a stationary bike, doing spinning classes, or on an elliptical trainer. There aren't really a whole lot of options.

If you really want to kick ass make a commitment and do something. Your current program just won't cut it.

Haha, this is funny :D

I'm a mountain biker, and I love really technical trails...but sometimes it's cool to just GO for miles and miles. What you should do is find a really popular road bike route, take your mountain bike, and try to keep up with the hardcore roadies. Yes, it's hard with 35 lbs of full suspension and knobbies or whatever you have, but it's a good workout and it's a challenge. Why are you against road miles? You say it's boring. But you seem to like racing. So try an impromptu race with a roadie. They don't even have to know you're racing them.

Okay, okay, okay. Let's start over. I just realized a few things, one being that you all are much more serious competitors than I am, and another being that I didn't give you near enough information to help me out.

So let's start over. Okay.

I am a 30-year-old female, who works 8-10 hours a day sitting at a desk. I race sport class, but I usually only do one (MAYBE two) races per year, mostly because I'm busy and I don't make the time to enter races with any regularity. The race I want to start training for (starting January) is the Downieville Classic. And when I say "kick ass," I don't mean WIN (although that would be fabulous!) I mean finish the race in under 3 hours. You guys have probably done the Downieville XC race before, but for anyone who hasn't it's basically 3000 feet of climbing (mostly non-technical, but some spots are tricky) followed by 4000 feet of downhill (starting out VERY technical, but getting easier and easier until it finishes on swoopy, buffed-out, sloppy-grin-inducing singletrack).

The reasons I don't want to do any road miles mainly boil down to the fact that I don't have a lot of time to ride, so when I DO go out and ride, I don't want to spend the bike time doing something I don't enjoy. Also, I live in a very traffic-congested area, with narrow roads that have no shoulders, so it's dangerous and scary, and not that much fun. For me, personally.

My main issue with the Downieville race is technical skill. I have great cardio, and although I've only done the race twice, I didn't bonk either time. I know I still need to ride a lot and put in the miles just because it's a long, tiring race (30 miles), but I'm going to spend most of my training (as soon as it gets warm/light enough to ride outside) working on technical skill. Which leaves me with a base to build. A base that will not include road miles.

So I guess my question is two-fold: Part A) Will riding longer rides on easy dirt do what I want it to do for this particular race? Part B) Should I really get my nipples pierced?

Thanks!
fastequalsfun

Part A) Yes. Base building/cardio work will ensure that you have more then enough aerobic capacity to hammer the whole ride without running out of gas. Never seen someone over conditioned for a race. =) As for the technical parts of the race, do you do weight work in the gym to strengthen your upper body?

Part B) DEFINATLY!!!!!!!!!

Should I really get my nipples pierced?

http://www.cripplefight.com/smileys/needpics.gif

http://www.cripplefight.com/smileys/needpics.gif

I just spit up my drink! :D :D :)

I believe that non-technical riding improves technical. Here is what I have found. I used to ride only trails. I took a break from that then rode only on road, a hard and fast 9mi commute x2 each day. I started riding trails again and found my biking handling to be much improved. It is hard to explain, but I think even though riding on flat pavement with stop and starts and corners of course you still develop a tight feel and the sub-concious reactions and balance for bike handling that translates to better dirt trail riding. Part of it too course is core strength. All I know is that I can ride the same trails very well now that I had trouble with before (not endurance or strength trouble) and the only training in the interm was on the road.

Maybe the roads are not as scary as you think?

How do you get to your desk job each day?

Al

Hey noisebeam.

You know, that is kind of true. I used to ride my bike twice a week to a job I had a few years ago. It was only maybe 4 or 5 miles each way, but I entered a very technical race that year and rode it better than I ever had before, and actually podiumed!! (first and only time in my life), and most of my bike miles consisted of only that commute. Very odd.

Currently, I work from home. Occassionally, my whole company meets about 12 miles away in our HQ office for a meeting or two, but that really only happens maybe once every 2 weeks, so I don't have the same regular commute anymore.

I agree with the other poster who asked me if I did weight training for upper body. (The answer is no, but I will definitely start in Jan, because my arms are w-e-a-k.) But what is this "core strength" you speak of? Like situps and stuff?

Thanks,
fastequalsfun

Some here have mentioned doing core work. (think of the core as torso muscles). These work to keep your entire body stable and in control thru all activities. I mentioned working on your upperbody strength since these muscles tend to fatigue rather quickly when doing technical downhill's. The Olympic marathon bronze medalist (female) attributed part of her making the podium on her upper body work in the gym and its ability to help her keep up the turn over she put out. Imagine how much more work your arms, shoulders, back and chest go thru during a 3 hour mnt bike race. =)

Time in the saddle pays divedends even when you dont realize.