moscafj

I've been bitten by the clycling bug. Since May I have been riding regularly. I'm now at 25 miles 2X/week and a 40-50 mile ride on Sundays. I am amazed at the improvements I've been making. I usually ride alone, but I am interested in group rides. I'm planning on an organized century in early September.

Because of my enthusiasm, I've encouraged a friend to begin riding with me. When we ride together, my average speed over my typical routes decreases by 3-4 mph. This is typically because I out climb him and wind up waiting for him to catch up. I then feel like I am not getting the workout that I've gotten used to.

I want to encourage him, but I also want some benefit out of these rides. Any thoughts about what I can do at a slower pace to continue my improvement? I am concentrating on my pedal strokes, but that is the only thing I've come up with so far. Oh, the other thought was to just add additional rides alone to my routine, but it is sometimes hard to fit that into my schedule.

BlessedHellride

Work on intervals during your ride. Do some sprints, then slow down and wait. Attack the hills, slow down etc.

chadbryant

I would just ride with your friend one day of the week and designate that as a fun ride day and not worry about the workout. I'm new to cycling so I don't even know if 3-4 mph is that big a deal. I run though and have faced this same thing in my running. I know in running I get very caught up in every workout having a purpose (VO2Max, tempo run, long run, etc) and sometimes it is nice to take it easy and just enjoy running, seeing things I usually don't notice, and having fun with a friend. It also shows me how much I've improved when other times I run with faster runners and get discouraged, running with someone slower can actually make me feel good and like I'm on track. I'm sure this would be the same with cycling. I know you said it was hard, but if you've improved that much then maybe it is time to add a 4th day of riding anyway.

Keith99

Is the weaker rider already drefting you on the flats? If not then he shoul be and then you can pick up hte pace on hte flater sections, with you in front doing more of the work. If the climbs are long (or at least if some of them are you can hammer up those and loop back down. He on the other hand can climb at his own comfortable pace and if you time it well you reach the top toasted and he is fairly fresh. Of course that takes some planning.

Hambone

Oh, I know this one.

When you get to the top of the hill, turn around, ride to the bottom again, climb up the hill, repeat as necessary until friend is waiting for you at the top.

(Intervals is a good answer, too but you swould still wind up waiting somewhere.)

Hambone

OK, Keith99 said it purtier.

jschen

+1

Enjoy your ride with your friend. A 3-4 MPH difference in average speed means such a huge drop in perceived effort that you're not going to get much of a workout anyway. If it doesn't discourage your friend, tackle some of the hills faster than you otherwise would since you should be fresher. But otherwise, sit back and enjoy the ride.

0810

indian riding

mollusk

I concur with the suggestions of just having an easy day when riding with your friend. If you can arrange your training schedule to have an active recovery day for teh days you ride with him it will be perfect. If that is not an option you could go out for a very strenuous ride BEFORE meeting your friend, and then go out for an easy spin and work on your stroke when riding with him.

botto 

dude - let's be honest: you're not exactly a fast rider, nor are you an old salt.

now that we've established that for all intensive purposes that you too are a slow rider/newbie* i can give you some advice. it's really very simple: ride more, i.e. add an extra day and ride with your friend, just like you were thinking.

got it?



* ride through a winter, then maybe i'll consider you something other than a newb

PCS2

wow, some good responses in this thread, and some really dumbass arrogant ones too......

My thought is that you definitely don't want to discourage your friend from riding, of the suggestions so far i'd go with riding before and meeting up with your friend halfway through, or do some interval work before you meet. That way you will be more tired and hopefully on a similar level.

good luck!

rknj

Not sure what kind of cadence you keep, but you could spend that ride grinding in a higher gear to build up your legs some. That always slows my speed down just because it tires me out faster.

slowandsteady

This is exactly what I do when riding with a weaker rider. Or if there are flats, I do intervals. Also, I ride far more often than 2x a week, so I sometimes consider it a recovery ride or add it to the end of my real ride.

asgelle

If you're riding to the top and waiting, then it sounds like your average riding speed isn't changing at all, and waiting for 3-4 minutes isn't going to change the quality of your workout. Still if you're worried about it ride down to meet him coming up and finish the climb with him. But you might want to keep in mind what a professional rider (who did a lot of our local group rides) once told me. Group rides are for getting in unstructured miles where the purpose is just time on the bike and having some fun. Hard training is done alone.

banerjek

Absolutely. 3-4mph is so much I don't think there's anything you can do to erase the difference. I think that if you follow some of the suggestions here where you go tearing up hills, working on intervals, etc, you are likely to depress your friend because it will highlight the differences and show that his hard work is essentially boring you.

Go riding on additional days, and the day (or even a few hours) before you go out with your friend, ride as hard as you can. With your legs blown out, you may find that a slower pace with you leading the way is just what you both need.

Workouts are important, but it's more important to be there for your friend (and also to hook more people on cycling). If he sticks with it, you may find that he can drop you soon enough....

caloso

You just need some ballast. Here's what I do when I ride with my wife: I ride my mountain bike and pull the kids in their trailer. Instant equalizer. (If you don't have kids or a trailer or a second bike, this might not work for you.)

How about one of Lance's old tricks? Just set the rear brake to rub.

Little Darwin

In stead of riding on your own before meeting your friend... you could do it afterwards, and treat your time with him as an extended warm-up. Depending on schedule this could be more appropriate.

Or as I think someone has mentioned, do your fast rides on the days you aren't with your friend, and use the time together as your recovery ride. This would in effect give you more weekly miles, and keep your more intense workout intact.

merlinextraligh

Use your ride with your friend as your recovery ride. Riding slow once a week or so will help you to improve. Rest and recovery are as important to improving as hard training rides.

GuitarWizard

+1

I rode with my buddy last weekend who doesn't ride, and on a 20 mile ride with about 600 feet of total elevation gain, we averaged 14.8 mph for the ride. For me, it was essentially a recovery ride with hill sprints thrown in......as soon as a hill would come up, I'd just stand up and sprint like mad. Managed a personal best....23.5 mph up a fairly short 8-9% grade of a few hundred yards. I'd stop at the tops of the hills and wait a few minutes for my buddy to show up (he was usually far enough back to where I couldn't see him).

Average speed doesn't really matter much. Even though it was one of the "slowest" overall rides I've been on, it was one of the most fun.

KevinF

I guess since I always take the winter off to go enjoy some skiing that I'm still a "newb" despite doing this for , oh, about 15 years now.

ericgu

I suggest you ride for an hour by yourself and do whatever planned training you have - intervals, tempo, whatever - and then meet up with your friend. The pace that he is riding is good for endurance training, where you shouldn't really be working that hard.

g4dhatch2

wow this is som egood advice all i did when i had this problem (after the rear brake thing (with no avail)) was pick on my friend untill he no longer cared to ride w me. but i meen he would go painfully slow and like really really slow i couldnt go that slow withuot loosing my ballance slow. we still ride together caussaly at the sore or somthing where its flat i i dont give a **** about the work out but you gusy s have better ieas than i did

johnny99

My girlfriend and I have comparable road bikes, but I ride 3 times as much as her, so even when she is drafting me, I am near the bottom of my aerobic training zone. To get a good workout, I use a heavy mountain bike with the fattest knobbiest tires that will fit; inflated to the minimum air pressure (30psi). With that bike, we are pretty evenly matched and we can both get good workouts while riding together. If I want an even harder workout, I'll ride an extra hour before and/or afterwards. She likes this a lot better than before when she felt like she was slowing me down all the time.

I also ride my mountain bike with some roadie co-workers after work. Except there, I try to drop them

JLauren

Depending on your route, you might be able to add some distance to what your friend would be riding.

Often, when I'm trying to stay with a slower group, I'll go out and back on some side roads or do a loop back to get back behind the group. In fact, being "behind" and trying to catch back up sometimes seems to motivate me to ride faster/harder.

Biggziff

I'm in the same boat, only I use the other guys to assist me in riding recovery rides (not that I need to recover from anything, really) I have 2 guys that can kick my ass all over the place and I ride with them once each a week..bigger miles, faster pace, me trying really hard to keep up without having a heart attack. My other buddies are bigger, fatter and slower than me, but they really want to ride so we go a few times a week (like tonight) and do 8-15 miles at a slower pace, with less climbing and really get time to enjoy the scenery and each other's company. I just ride fast enough to keep them working a little but not fast enough to discourage them. I get out and ride and they get a workout. WOrks for me...