MrClyde

I'm starting the time crunched cycling program next week. Instead of being old, fat, and slow I will be old, fat, slow and tired!

How do you in SoCal find your interval training grounds? The problems I have are stoplights, traffic, and hills. I'm not afraid of climbing hills, but it is hard to maintain the target HR on the downhills. So I am considering two options, and am going to go test ride them, but wanted to know if any of you have any other types of riding areas I should be looking for.

Option 1 - a 2 mile rectangular loop, all right hand turns, only one stop light, and 3 of the 4 roads are fairly light traffic. Speed limits are at least 40. Only about 60 ft of elevation change per lap. This will probably be my go-to area when I ride after work.

Option 2 - I've been scoping out some of the mall parking lots around here, and have one picked out. Not sure if it is going to be too tight, or if I will get dizzy! This would be used when I ride before work, around 5am. Will I get arrested?

How have you dealt with this? I posted it here because I don't think people in Kansas have the same challenge, no offense to Kansas.

tbrown524

I used to do intervals at a mall also.. Perfect place at 5am. Also, bike paths are good also - at 5am!

agarose2000

I feel your pain. We live LA folks in an area that has ideal riding weather year-round and yet traffic (especially in downtown or the Westside) makes doing structured work near-impossible.

I'm a big fan of interval work, but even I admit that I only do my hard interval work on a bike trainer. It's actually not bad - if you have a good bike computer, you can get your HR / cadence / speed (analogous to power on a trainer) data and get objective feedback on how you're progressing.

I otherwise will join the AM local racing roadie club on their weekday morning hillclimb so there's safety in numbers as we hammer it to the top - I otherwise wouldn't do this on my own especially in the darker months of the year.

And yes, I'm sometimes found riding my trainer when its 70F and beautiful outside, because of time constraints and safety issues. Ironic.

atmdad

The San Luis Rey River Trail along the 76 is not too bad if you get out early enough, but it is still a MUP so YMMV. There are also some decent stretches of road through Camp Pendleton heading up to San Onofre.

Edit - just reread you post, the Pendleton ride is probably not a good option if you're time constrained.

MrClyde

Sounds like I'm not the only one with this challenge.

I don't own a trainer, might have to start considering one......

SLR and Pendleton are good suggestions, SLR is a bit far from my house for a weeknight ride. Looking for something closer. The bike paths here don't have more than 1/2 mile before the next street crossing, train crossing etc. Great for casual rides with the kids, bad for intervals.

calamarichris

I was so excited when I got my powermeter and began the training schedule at the back of the Hunter/Coggan book. Then the reality of stochasticity kicked in--it was IMPOSSIBLE to do the intervals, sprints, sustained wattages anywhere around here, (and I live right on Pendleton's doorstep ANND am not even time-crunched.)
But I soon found out that rollers with the Killer Headwind fan are perfect for focused, specific workouts. I can easily remain within 5% of my desired wattage or HR goal.

Might not be the only way, but it is the best way.

umd

I do most of my intervals on the 101.

calamarichris

Where the days are longer, the nights are stronger than mooooooonshine?

South of Carp, on the way to Ventura along the coast? That is a great, uninterrupted road. Wide & smooth too.
Or North to Gaviota?

bitingduck

Velodrome

d4c4c8

You mean the 1 right?

an excellent ride is the 1 from the park by the big rock just south of Pt Mugu head south to Mullholand Hwy. that's 8 miles. so you can shorten the out leg by as much as you need to to give you a good ride. Or if you're feelin really freaky you can turn left at Mullholand and go to Westlake, then up through Thousand Oaks to Moorpark and back around to Camarillo to get to your car... oh ouch that's now almost 60 miles not to mention a bump or two between the beach and Westlake

umd

Both, but I live near the west edge of Santa Barbara (just east of Goleta) so north from Goleta to El Capitan/Refugio/Gaviota is a common route for me.

It's actually both the 101 and the 1.

OUC

One of my favorite forms of pain.

I'm lucky to have a nice .8 mile hill near work that is perfect when on my 40 lb. hardtail. 3-4 power intervals and about 6 hill repeats on the same hill, 1 hr and I'm good to go. The heavier bike makes it possible.

calamarichris

SB's geography is pretty limiting, but I admit those are both GREAT training rides. The best we have down here is Pendleton, which has less traffic, but your scenery & asphalt quality (N&S) beats Pendleton like a rented mule.

grrlyrida

I've been doing intervals in Griffith Park on trash truck hill and Mt. Hollywood. Mt. Hollywood is fortunately closed to vehicular traffic. Both reach 10% at their summits, but other than that they're not steep. Both climbs get your heart rate up. I see a lot of cyclists training there.

You can also add the Hollywood sign climb and Nichols cyn for an extra workout. I call it the Hollywood triple crown loop.

Mr. Beanz

.......................intervals, what's that?

boniek1982

Intervals? Try SART. In particular the flat section from PCH to the Adams Street bridge is perfect to let it all hang out.

efficiency

Fiesta Island.

MrClyde

It may come to that. Fiesta Island is farther than SLR for me, so I would go try SLR first.

I tried the first half of the first workout last night on my rectangular course. One corner is a little tight, and a second corner turns onto a pretty busy road, so I had to slow down quite a bit to make a safe turn.

I'm going to go try a couple of the mall parking lots tomorrow or Friday morning.

I've done hill repeats before, no problem finding those. This training plan calls for intervals up to about 12 minutes, and recommends not using above 3% grade unless they are specifically hill intervals. It is amazing how difficult it is to find an uninterrupted 12 minute ride. Maybe I'll just put size 32 tires on that rub the brakes and frame. Then I'll only need a couple blocks!

socalslowguy

Maybe go up into Bonsall and try Camino Del Rey? 4.3 miles of gently undulating road between Hwy. 395 and West Lilac with no stop signs or lights. I'm not sure how traffic is during weekday mornings however.

https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sour...,0.061111&z=14

OUC

you can try a bike rack in the back and use a sack of beans to add alot of weight, 25,30, or 35 lbs. I don't use beans now since my 40lb. hardtail still has the winter training front and rear fenders. I'm wanting to see if I can leave my rear fender on and still squeeze the rack on top, just haven't had time.

A good guide to know whether your intervals are good is to monitor how high your heart rate gets and how long. If you can meet those criterias, your ok. I do agree you do need to focus 100% on the effort and 0% on traffic, street lights, curves, hence the importance of finding a good place.

good luck.

grrlyrida

Wow. That sounds incredibly boring. I guess for us would be the LART. 7.24 miles no cars or going around in circles at the Rose Bowl. Yawn.

atmdad

Yea, but what are his chances of seeing a tank or have one cross the road in front of him.

MrClyde

Ive ridden Camino Del Rey, great for a ride with no lights, but some of the downhills I think it would be hard to keep the HR in the desired range. Might have to go give it another try.

I always thought I was doing "intervals", because I would ride along, then push myself for a couple miles, take it easy, then push up a hill, etc. Completely different experience since I've started trying specific intervals. The first one, keep the heart rate between 162-167 for 8 minutes. It took much more concentration than I thought it would. I even missed one of my turns!

Someone needs to invent a heads up display for sunglasses.

After some playing with Bike Route Toaster, I found a .7 mile loop in a college parking lot close to my house. I think it might work. I'm not to excited about going in a circle, but it beats the trainer in the garage.

MrClyde

Yea, what we do for fun!

The concept of the plan is, the entire ride takes 60-90 minutes. The interval portion takes 28-36 minutes of that time. So I plan on riding around for 1/2 hour to warm up, arriving at my "loop of pain", doing the interval portion, then take 20-30 minutes to return home.

GP

Elfin Forest.