Machka 

I would like to know if there are any cyclists here who were at one point what might be termed a "slow cyclist" and then somehow became what might be termed a "fast cyclist"


By way of definition (my personal definitions, nothing "official") ...

Slow cyclist: anyone whose average pace over a longish distance (like a metric century or an imperial century) was 22 km/h (13.5 mph) or slower.

Fast cyclist: anyone whose average pace over a longish distance (like a metric century or an imperial century) was 27 km/h (16.5 mph) or faster.


If you were a slow cyclists who became a fast cyclist ........ how did you do it? What steps did you take to make the transition? How long did it take you?

Or have you always ridden at roughly the same speed?


I want to know if I'm genetically destined to remain in the slow cyclist group ... or if there is any hope at all of making the transition into the fast cyclist group.

botto 

as Greg Lemond said (more or less) - it doesn't get any easier, you just get faster

Machka 

And for some of us it doesn't seem to get easier OR faster.

Dick Rhee

Hmm. I'm not quite at the "fast cyclist" category, although I've found that crashing your car and being forced to commute a very hilly 35 mile commute each day over the summer helped bring my speed up pretty drastically. Over the winter I also took spin classes twice a week and tried to hit the weights at least twice a week as well (not to sound like a meathead. I'm still a shrimp at 6'1 and 150 pounds) which helped bring my power up. Thanks to the gym I honestly think I'm better this spring than I was at the end of last season. Still have a ways to go though.

mingsta

I was a "fast" cyclist last week, when I averaged 19+ mph over 50 odd miles in Richmond park. To my dismay I woke up this morning to find that I had become a "slow" rider when I averaged only 13 mph over a surrey ride that was basically every hill in the area linked up in a loop.

How long have you been riding? If its less than a year, you should be able to expect plenty of big leaps over time. If you're new to endurance sports I think it probably takes a good 3-4 years of regular riding to reach your full potential. Muscles grow fast, but it takes a long time to develop all of those extra capillaries and blood vessels. You also need to train right as well.

Az B

Last year I pretty much rode every ride at 15-15.5 mph. Long, short, flat, hilly, it didn't make much difference. I did manage a rolling 30 miler at 17mph one time, but I was wiped out afterward.

I started a 12 week training program based on Carmichael's book back in November. I've since done 2x 75 mile rides at speeds between 18.5 and 20mph. And feeling great at the end of the ride. Not even any soreness the next day. I've also noticed that I can sustain 20+ mph for an hour and a half on my indoor trainer rides.

I'm hoping this will be the year of the sub 5 hour century for me.

I think the key is to find a program and stick to it. Something that uses overreaching and periodization seems to make the most sense. These plans make you train your weakness, and build overall ability in a balanced way. So if you've got great endurance and no speed, for example, the plan will provide you with what you need to get faster, as well as develop your endurance. In my case, just going out and riding I simply wasn't getting any faster because I wasn't training for it. It may have come eventually, but it's obvious that this training program made the process far more efficient.

Az

CdCf

Machka, from reading your posts, I think it's pretty obvious that you're the epitome of an extreme endurance athlete. Your leg muscles are probably all type 1 fibres.

I envy that, personally, as going far is so much more useful than going fast, except maybe for going far fast, but that's in the realm of freaks of nature.

My definition of fast would be a bit different from yours. I'd be able to do a metric century at an average of 27 km/h if the course was flat, and there was no wind. That would be at my current limit, and I'd be very nearly dead afterwards, but I'm pretty certain I could pull that off.

But that's still pathetic in absolute terms. Almost all of my fellow club members (I'm a member of a recreational bike club), regardless of age (currently 18-67) or sex, are able to do a 300-km ride in less than 12 hours (effective time on the bike). That's an average of 25 km/h, and that's in less than perfect conditions.
And most will be able to do it in less than 11 hours as well, which is up there at the 27 km/h you call fast. Granted, they're riding together, but having ridden with most of them, I know they're often far too loose to benefit significantly from drafting.

My definition of fast would be somewhere around 33+ km/h for at least 100 km, or 30+ for over 300 km or so. And I'd classify myself as a very slow rider. I'd probably require about 15-17 hours to cover 300 km, if I could even make it at all.

I haven't improved my average speeds in the short time I've been riding. I'm just able to go farther really. And not very much farther either, sadly.

I do think you're destined to be an "LSD" rider, so to speak.

markwebb

From many rides over these last few year, I think that 65% of the casual recreational cyclists ride at 14mph average or less. Then the is a middle ground of about another 25% that ride between 14 and up to 17. The other 10% average above 17-18mph; those are the fast cyclists on recreational rides. In there are the racers and hammerheads that get well past that, and the fast recreational cyclists.

My observations: on this forum you have a majority of pretty serious and dedicated riders, hence the feedback you get here in no way represents the majority of cyclists. It's skewed torwards the fast end of the spectrum.

merlinextraligh

intervals. If you want to get fast, you have to train your body to go fast. Lots of recreational riders put in tons of mile and wonder why they never get faster. If the goal is long moderate paced endurance rides that's fine . but if you want to race or just be faster, you need a program with high intensity work, interspersed with rest and recovery, and not very much just moderate endurance miles (after you have a base)

Machka 

I've been riding "seriously" for 15 years, and I've been very seriously into the endurance stuff for a little over 5 years now. I'm a fairly experienced randonneur.

I have no trouble at all going the distance. Those 1200K randonnees don't worry me a bit with regard to the distance I cover ...... my difficulty is that I'd really love to become faster on them, so that I can get a bit more sleep, and to lessen the panic situation that arises when I ride very close to the control time limits.

I'd also like to ride my centuries faster just simply so that they take up less time in the day ... which would give me time for other things ... like another century! For example, I currently do a quite comfortable 8 hour century (although I have pulled off 6 hour centuries twice in my life), including all breaks, but if I could do 6 hour, or slightly sub-6 hour centuries all the time ... I could do more double centuries!!


CdCf might be right about the Type 1 fibers ... I've had friends call me the "energizer bunny" ... I can keep going, and going, and going, and going .......... but ask me to move briskly down the road, and my legs just don't feel like they have it in them.

Machka 

OK, so here's probably something that sounds like a really stupid question ...

How do you do intervals?


I've been told that because I'm a long distance cyclist, I should do "long distance intervals", which, I was informed, consisted of riding easy for 10 minutes or so, riding flat out as hard as I could for 5 minutes, riding easy for 10, hard for 5, etc.

The only problem is that after the second 5 minute flat out bit, I'm exhausted, frustrated, in screaming pain, hacking up a lung, and have no desire to do anything more.

Is there a better way?

Starclimber

Hmmm. Interesting question. I think I've always been 'fast' by your definition. Last Sunday I did my first metric century in years, and averaged over 27 kmh. That was over a semi-hilly 21 km circuit repeated 5 times. Most of my rides are considerably shorter than that, with long warm-ups and cool downs and some serious self administered misery in the middle. I wonder if you could increase your speed by cutting down the length of your average ride significantly and incorporating maximal effort intervals, etc. Save the long rides for...long rides! and see if your average speed goes up a notch or two.

Starclimber

Shorter intervals, higher speed. When you feel exhausted and like hacking up a lung, cool down and go home. This may seem very alien to a long distance rider. 'But I just STARTED!!'

merlinextraligh

The best way is to get a HR based program. For your goals, steady state intervals will do you the most good. These are longer intervals at your lactate threshold. They are not as hard as you can go (more around 8 out of 10 on a percieved exertion scale). These are longer rintervals. You want to work up to 10-15 minutes each and sets of 5 or so. (start at 2 or 3 for 5 minutes) By working your system at your LT threshold (which is essentially the level you could time trial at for a 40k), you'll both raise your LT threshold, and increase your ability to put out more power at threshold, and increase the time you can work at LT threshold. The folks that are telling you to do your long intervals at maximal effort are about 10-15 years behind.

adxm

If you want to be faster on long rides, it's really pretty simple. You just need to ride fast on your training rides. You said you feel horrible after doing long intervals. That's GOOD. Getting faster isn't something that's just going to come comfortably. I like the pain of pushing my speed limits, and it's part of my competitive nature to always try and better my times. It seems like you're wanting to go faster primarily out of practicality: more time to sleep, more wiggle room in time limits. At least for me, this would be much weaker a motivation than the somewhat primal instinct of wanting to be the best.

On my double yesterday, (in which it did rain for about an hour and a half - in the low 40s!!!) I was able to solo the second century (~5,000 ft climbing) in 5:05 (elapsed), with a total rolling time of 10:19, overall 11 hours for the ride. I did NOT get this speed from riding long training rides: in fact, I had only ridden one century since mid-November. What did it (in addition to aerobars ) was regular intensity and power workouts that I've been doing for the collegiate racing I've gotten involved in. Here the pain of training is something you strive for, not only because it's a great rush, but because that's what you need to be faster than the next guy. The adrenaline high you get from intensity rides is much different from the more pleasant accomplishment of ultra-distance rides, though both are enjoyable in their own way. Now when you get a mixture of both, it's awesome.

I know you've gotta be a bit of a masochist to enjoy 1200k's...just channel this into hard, shorter efforts, and you'll start seeing speed gains. They don't need to be excruciating like intervals just yet; this may burn you out and turn you off to the whole idea. Just begin by pushing the pace past comfortable in your training rides.

Duke of Kent

Hell, my longest RR this season will be 80miles or so, and I'll be doing 2x20min, 2x25min, 1x40min and 3x20min. Obviously I'll be doing shorter intervals to sharpen my legs for sprints and shorter, faster efforts.

For someone like you, who is used to longer, steady state efforts, I think the best way to get faster would be to throw in some tempo rides and some longer intervals. The tempo should make you a little uncomfortable but you should be capable of going faster for that distance, and the longer intervals similar to what I described above. This way, you won't shock your body by doing something thats very unnatural to it, i.e. intervals 5min in length, which are kind of pointless for an endurance cyclist (or at least until you've done the longer intervals).

DieselDan

I'm slow and don't care what you think.

Az B

Keep doing those. I would start with maybe 3-5 of those, once a week. The rest of the week train the way you're used to, or try something different like Tempo training.

Az

ovoleg

Going long distance like Machka is much more desirable than going "fast".

Plus most people that go "fast", can only do it for awhile.

The turtle always win the race

patentcad

Good God Machka, don't get Euro started on THIS one. Heaven help us all.

I got faster after I got aspirations of racing in my early 30's (I'm 48 now and training to race once again). Many recreational cyclists make the mistake of focusing on their average speed- with the (seemingly logical) notion that if they can make this number higher on given rides they'll be getting faster. But they never get faster.

So what works? INTERVALS.

That's the key in cycling. Worked for me. That's getting your heart rate up to 90-95% of its max # (which isn't hard to determine, varies with individual/age etc.) for fixed intervals of time - allowing your HR to recover - and going again. It's sort of like weight lifting with your heart. It also gives you the speed/'snap' required to elevate your group riding to the next level. That's why competitive track athletes do interval workouts - 10 x 400 yard sprints in under 60 seconds for instance like we did in HS track (that was the goal, often a dance with Mr. Ralph preceeded the workout completion).

What else works?

MILEAGE. Not 100-200 mile rides every other week per say (which your cycling would seem to encompass) but consistent high mileage training weeks of 250-400 miles if you can manage it. But that will tend to make you fitter more than FASTER - which does make going faster easier (sometimes much easier) but it's not a prerequisite. I ride/race with plenty of guys who can't put in 200+ mile weeks - and one friend of mine who trains most of the time on a Computrainer (stationary trainer). I'm using high mileage now (probably 10K+ miles in 2006 is likely) to try to offset my age/lack of natural talent. Generally I do suck at this sport compared with good racers. I've always had to ride/train harder than other guys I compete with. And now that's gotten worse. And so far it does appear to be working. Check with me in May/June of course.

It boils down to HOW you ride/train. Can you get as fast as racers? Maybe not. Can you get faster and move up from the 'B' or 'C' ride to the 'A' ride? Absolutley. Is it easy? Hell no. That's what makes it GREAT. If it were easy EVERYBODY would/could do it. And what fun would THAT be?

I may bust the Freds here, but anybody who rides a bike is doing themselves and the world a favor. And we're all in the same boat essentially. So FREDS and FAST GUYS/GALS of the world UNITE!!!

MrCjolsen

If I am going slower than 16 mph, there is a hill or a wind that is slowing me down. If I'm going faster than 18-19 mph, there's a hill or a wind helping me along.

ovoleg

Whats a Fred?
I never got this analogy

GuitarWizard

I was never a typically "fast" rider.....I'm still not, but I have improved myself a great deal through intervals, as many others have mentioned. As patentcad stated, trying to increase your average speed doesn't do much....if you're just starting out, over a period of a few months, you'll pretty much "plateau" at where you'll ride if you basically stick to one speed all the time.

Let's take me for instance.....before last year, I never did a structured interval workout in my life. Now, I basically judge how much my interval training has helped me on my longer rides where I'm hovering right below my LT....I have gained nearly 4 mph on my average speed compared to last October to now, and can maintain that speed for a much longer period. I am still improving, and I definitely feel like there's at least another 1-2 mph easily left in the 'ol legs.

Now....would I maintain that sort of speed for a 250+ mile ride.....no. But...elevating my "long distance pace" by 1.5 to 2 mph....that is the result I am after, as I suspect you're after the same thing.

Intervals, a CycleOps Fluid 2, and a HRM are your friend. For me, the Chris Carmichael DVD's have worked well.

patentcad

What you don't know won't hurt you. In this case, oblivion IS bilss. Trust me.

Machka 

I've got the mileage thing down. Right now I'm not doing as much as I would like because of educational and employment commitments, but for 4-6 months during the summer I do anywhere from 250 to 400 miles a week on a regular basis. Of course ... some weeks, those are single rides ....


In response to some of the other comments ...
Hmmmmmm .... I might have to take another look at this interval thing. And I've got a heart rate monitor, and I know its got a bunch of features, but I've never used it for anything other than looking at my heart rate soar into the 190s every time I exert myself a little. I might still have the manual somewhere which might tell me how to use some of the other features.