Originally Posted by
hhnngg1
Whaa???? Come on man, if you avoid hammering because it'll "burn you out", you've just doomed yourself to mediocrity or worse. Let's be real now - unless you've got godlike genetics, you've gotta hammer, and pretty damn hard and often, over a long period of time, to get better. That includes a fair amount of riding on fatigued legs. If you wait until you're "fresh" to hammer, you'll never improve as much as you could.
Cycling is a lot different from running where you can easily get an overuse injury from the pounding. You can ride a lot of hours, and get really fatigued, but bounce right back without getting injured.
I personally havn't ridden for the majority of this year because of work. I started riding consistently about 4 weeks ago, I can easily say that I am gaining on them and I'm able to hang on their rides, something I couldn't do 4 weeks ago. How did I get there? I rode with them and hung on till I got dropped, I didn't hammer to stick with them, not until recently when I started joining the hammerfest on Tuesdays. I think perfect cadence, building up your endurance and learning how to ride smarter makes a huge difference. I'm not saying you shouldn't ride hard, but hammering isn't something this guy needs to be doing unless he's doing intervals. he will get stronger, but if his endurance isn't up to par, you can guarantee that bonking 10 miles after pulling a 19avg is going to bring him down in a heart beat. I tend to make the first half of the ride the tempo setter, see where I'm at and figure what I need to do to improve my avg. I save my hammering for the end of the ride, when bonking and finishing coincide.