Carbonfiberboy 

I got a 406 last summer captaining our tandem on the STP one-day. We went pretty easy, though. I had a 630 on my single for a mountainous 400k in my early 60s.

Black wallnut 

So you ride recumbents and choose to be judgmental of others. You also see no need for athletic improvement. Hey we get it that you have no ambition or goals, Why must you keep replying to a thread that does not interest you? Do you even use Strava? Are you a premium subscriber? If the answer to both of those is no then explain how you are not a troll.

My highest was last year STP @379. My Knighthood of Sufferlandria was 336. Someday if I live long enough I hope to do something truely epic.

bbbean 

Out of curiosity, do you go to golf threads and tell them how stupid it is to chase a ball around a field? Maybe you could go to archery boards and tell them the Middle Ages are over. What the heck, maybe you could find a Scottish heritage board and tell them kilts are a waste of wool. There are just so many places to be self righteous and miss the point. What did we do to deserve your contribution?

RomansFiveEight

Highest suffer score is just 72 after an 11.7 mile ride. So does that mean a 6.15 SUM? I had 41 "points in the red" on that ride. But I'm a newbie yet.

And folks, try not to read into the word 'suffering' too much. It's just a word used to describe the formula that's been developed. Also, suffering is kind of like heat. Unless you live in some dark chasm of the deep universe that has managed to reach absolute zero, you are experiencing some level of heat. When it's below freezing, there's still heat. "Cold" is a relative lack of heat, but it's still heat. "Suffering" doesn't mean you're in pain. It's relative and it's scalable. You can suffer a lot in a short amount of time or have a consistent level of light-duty "suffering" over a longer period and get the same suffer score.

Gerryattrick

"Knighthood of Sufferlandria". Is that a joke or really a designation on Strava?

Edit: Just googled it and it does exist, but not really cycling, just sitting indoors watching some videos all day.

RomansFiveEight

While putting power down on a bike?

And, again, the suffer score is relative. A low suffer score didn't mean you didn't "suffer". It's simply a formula to determine where your heart was and for how long.

Black wallnut 

"not really cycling" Yeah, whatever. Go back to your couch before you embarrass yourself. Neal Henderson is a name you might wish to google. Read up on what he says about KoS. Much more than all day watching videos.

rydabent

Black

That is where you are wrong. Riding my bents in the summer, im in the snow belt, I get exercise, and lose weight. I get all the benefits of exercise on my bents, but I do not suffer. My strenght and endurance improves, my resting heart rate goes down, and so does my blood pressure. Bents give me all the gain of cycling but no pain.

Wether some here like it or not IMO it is my opinion that pain is for fools. Pain is the body telling a person they have done somthing to damage parts of the body. I find the group think that you have to have pain to gain is simply laughable.

Null66

I think my 961 shown is bogus. Max heart rate prior to this was suppressed by BP meds.


So next down the list are: 364, 269, 241...
Seem more realistic...

woodcraft

Thanks for giving your opinion on your opinion.

Are there fat tire 'bents?

Gerryattrick

Double post

Gerryattrick

He looks like a good coach. I wonder if he coaches how to develop a sense of humour?

Hypno Toad

Pain is not mutually exclusive with suffer. If I am biking, hit a patch of sand on a turn and go down; I will have road rash and bruises. This is pain and I will suffer the rest of my ride. If I ride 100 miles on gravel roads in driving rain and gale force winds, I am suffering, but I am not in pain.

I like the challenge myself and that involves some level of suffering. I highly doubt that you: 1) have no suffering on your 'bent' (WTF?!?) and 2) are as fit as a person that challenges themselves (suffers).

The form of my bike does not define the level of effort, if you have back issues, you need a recumbent (I know these people). If you find your back is in pain on a road bike; then by all means convert to a bike that does cause pain. But you will get no substantial gain without some level of suffer (a no suffer ride on your 'bent' is better than sitting on the couch with a beer, so tip o the hat to you).

Black wallnut 

You have once again missed the target. Enjoy what you do. Realize that you will never reach your athletic potential without subjecting your body to all out efforts. All out efforts cause suffering and sometimes pain, try it some time.

@Gerryattrick I know Sir Neal has a sense of humor as do I. What is your highest suffer score again?

Black wallnut 

dbl post

Gerryattrick

Rick@OCRR

I'm not real Strava savvy so please advise: Is there a way to search for your Suffer Scores? I couldn't find a way . . . but I could be looking in all the wrong places.

On the Camino Real double century I rode last Saturday I got a Suffer Score of 463, only 40 points in the red (3%) but on the Palm Springs century I rode the Saturday previous I got a 346, 168 points in the red, 25% (both were labeled "Epic"). Shouldn't more points in the red make a higher suffer score?

Or are there other factors to consider?

Rick / OCRR

rydabent

woodcraft

Yes, there several recumbent trikes with fat tires.

Rick@OCRR

Wow Curtis, I'm impressed. I checked and I only got a 494 for the Knoxville Double. You obviously suffered a lot more than I did on that ride.

I only got 705 on Devil Mountain and that's lots more difficult.

Rick / OCRR

az_cyclist

I will be getting a HRM strap to pair with my Garmin 500 soon, so I wlll join the suffer club... or find out how much I am suffering

PIPO_VV

After a closer inspection, I found out a lot of my rides have extreme suffer scores. The Chilly Hilly ride has a suffer score of 194 with 169 points in the red.

BlazingPedals

I've never done a suffer score, but this year I may need to pay more attention because my speeds were slower across the board last year. What do you need to get a suffer score -- GPS and an HRM?

PIPO_VV

A strava compatible device and an HRM...I think.

ctpres

402 and 3.95 https://www.strava.com/activities/137104904 and YES I did suffer. Ride was the Shiner G.A.S.P. 100 - mostly flat to rolling in TX hill country. I am proud of that ride - especially since it was my 75th birthday

RomansFiveEight

Or even just a smartphone. In fact, these days, you can also get a bluetooth speed/cadence sensor and have all the data you could want beamed to your smartphone.

It's interesting that you're critical of folks who use indoor trainers in the winter when you live in the snow belt. Lots of us don't want to stop cycling when the roads and weather don't cooperate, so in order to keep fit we hook our bikes up to indoor trainers with resistance and ride inside. The sufferfest is great because it's a good motivator to have the videos, and usually on the indoor trainer, many of us do high-intensity interval training. I also use TrainerRoad which calculates virtual power (which helps me measure improvement) based on speed and the resistance curve of my trainer, and has built-in workouts. One of my favorites for example is an hour long and has 6 minute intervals with 3 minutes of rest between them (where you spin an easy gear, but during the 6 minute intervals, you push against the resistance of the trainer by spinning a hard gear. By the last two intervals I'm sufficiently worn out! Great workout!)

Here's the deal. There's only one way your muscles build and become more effective, and that's through fatigue. Fatigue in the form of tiny tears and rips and damage in the muscle tissue. No, not huge surgery-needed tears across the entire muscle. But little microscopic ones all throughout the muscles. This causes discomfort. It's not supposed to feel comfortable. Then, when you rest, your body comes to the rescue with proteins to build fresh tissue to repair your muscles. Making them just a little stronger each time. And the cycle continues! If you neglect to push your muscles, your body will ignore them too.

Your heart and lungs, or the "aerobic engine", similarly need to be pushed. There's a lot more to it than resting heart rate; but the idea here is folks have a good idea of what's going on in your body at what heart rate given your heart rate zones. For example, at what point your body is in active recovery (still moving but rebuilding energy) or at what point it's at the lactate threshold, and you're training your bodies ability to continue working despite the presence of lactic acid. And even training the anaerobic zones which enable short, powerful bursts. It's important that your muscles are not only strong for this, but that your heart is able to provide oxygen quick enough.

Recumbent or "regular" bike doesn't make a difference here. Recumbents are a little more aerodynamic and perhaps more comfortable for some folks. But that has nothing to do with 'suffering' in this context. A recumbent still requires you to turn the pedals. And turning the pedals is where the 'suffering' comes in. Pushing those muscles so that they become fatigued, so that the body can rebuild them, so that they become stronger. It's not debilitating pain that leaves you in tears on the side of the road (that's bad!), but it's the discomfort and tiredness that comes from working out. As your body consumes energy it heats up and your body sweats to cool you down. These are all the processes of building fitness.

Lazily cruising around is fine, too. And you will burn calories and build a level of fitness. But the reality is, training involves discomfort. You'll advance faster and farther by pushing yourself. If you don't want to do that, that's perfectly fine. When I first started losing weight, in addition to nutrition (THE most important aspect); I started parking at the back of parking lots and taking the stairs instead of the elevator and that sort of thing. Far from 'training' and far from 'suffering', but it got the blood flowing anyway and helped kick my body into gear. Now, at this stage, my goals are a little different. I want to lose the last few pounds to get rid of what's left of my belly, but I also want to be fit. Which means I have to push myself so that I can go farther, and faster.

Also, once again I'll use the metaphor of heat. Ask a physicist or a chemist to define heat. They'll give you a complicated definition that includes the reality that there is no such thing as "cold". Cold is relative to your body. When it's below freezing outside and you step out in a T-Shirt you say it's cold because it's uncomfortable. Obviously, there's a difference between standing outside on a 50F day when it's brisk, and risking frostbite at 30 below. Which is the difference between suffering (discomfort) and injury. But even at 30 below, there's still heat. It's just a lot LESS heat. The colder it is, is the less heat there is, not the "more cold" there is because there is no such thing as cold; that's just a word to describe a relative lack of heat. If there were no heat that would be absolute zero. Atoms don't move and all kinds of scary stuff happens then. You certainly wouldn't survive it even for a fraction of a fraction of a second. That's at about -460F. So you've got to be almost 500 below before there is "no more heat".

In much the same way, the suffer score is relative. Even on your easy rides, you'll have a suffer score. You'll be suffering. You just won't be suffering a lot. I have lazy rides too (recovery rides), and there's still a suffer score. It's just much smaller because my heart rate stayed in a much lower range. Instead of averaging 145bpm with a max of 170 I might average 118bpm with a max of 140 on a recovery ride. People who are very fit, and have 'suffered a lot', could average much lower. And suffer scores don't mean an insanely high workout. These endurance riders who ride 200 miles a day and whose heart rates are lower than mine are when I'm just getting dressed have extremely high suffer scores; because it's cumulative. They spent 12 or 15 hours at xx% of their maximum heart rate, an it adds up. An extreme suffer score doesn't mean they are in pain, it means they did a lot of work. In their case, light effort over an extremely long period of time. Alternatively, the same scores could be had for a shorter 3 or 4 hour race of all-out performance.

So don't read into it too much. But yes, suffering is a necessity if you're going to advance. "Discomfort" might be a word you can wrap your head around more. And yes, that means your legs and your aerobic engine. It has nothing to do with whether you're in a saddle or a recumbent seat.