Flatbroke

Looking for some tips
I've been riding for about 7 months after a few years off. I am a bit confused after reading all the thread about power meter and heart rate etc.

I've been riding about 100 miles a week and 4 days a week. But
May not be riding appropriately.

3 of the rides are group rides that I struggle to keep pace with.
All rides are the same loop 90% of the time 25 miles.

When I ride by myself I try to keep the cadence above 90 and my heart rate under 140 but with hills it's not the easiest thing to do.

I want to build a strong solid base, and have ridden approximately 2000 miles according to strava thus far. When people say go to stage 2 what are they indicating I peddle at. What's he best way to build the base. Just ride and take the look at the flower approach turning the 25 miles in to a 40 mile loop instead or continue hammering the 25 miles out but doing it 6 days a week instead. The roads I ride on are hilly and have grades a 20 mile ride typically base about 1000k total elevation. 40 miles 2000-2200 if I'm not looking for hills. Could be 4000k if I climb them

I could ride in the flat farm land if needed and would only encounter slight grades to and from.

Thanks in advance

chasm54

OK, here are my thoughts. I'm sure others will have different perspectives.

Best to train on time and intensity rather than miles.

If 3/4 of your riding is at a pace you struggle to sustain, that's too much. Training for longer hours at lower intensity will build a bigger aerobic base, and that will in turn help you to tolerate the really intense efforts you need (once or at most twice a week) to increase ftp and VO2 max. If you ride fairly hard all the time, as you seem to be doing, you neither build a sufficient base nor retain enough freshness to enable the really hard shorter sessions that drive the speed adaptations. The most common mistake, according to the coaches I know, is making the hard rides too easy and the easy rides too hard.

As far as I can see the evidence suggests you should spend 80-85% of your training time at lowish (Z2) intensities, and maybe 15% going very hard indeed, with not much in the middle. Obviously this only works if you can spend a reasonable amount of time on the bike, but if you could get up to eight hours a week, six and a half easy and one and a half very hard might be a good way to go.

Before worrying about the hard intervals, though, I'd suggest a few weeks just doing boring base Z2 miles. It'll improve your aerobic fitness and freshen you up for the tougher stuff. And the winter is the ideal time to build base.

Flatbroke

Thanks. I am fortunate right now as my work schedule allows me to be off between 2-3 in the afternoon. I am going to try and figure out a way to take the bicycle to work and ride 50 miles home as it is relatively flat, although I will have to travel on the shoulder of a busy 4 lane divided highway for most of it, increasing my o-**** factor, but elevating my aerobic fitness. I will try to do this on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, hitting the hills Saturday and free up a sunday.

Getting hit by a car will most likely mess up my plan though.