Originally Posted by
ls01
Let me save you some money and time. Go ride your bike, alot. Ride hard, push yourself. Recover. Then do it again. Harder. Go climb mountains. You have those, right? Attack, Attack, Attack!!!!!! Every climb, every rabbit. Dont forget to rest and recover.
To get faster you need one thing. A higher power to weight ratio. So lose some weight, on you or the bike,both would be better. and increase the watts. Get stronger. Hill repeats suck but are hugely effective. Its not easy but it can be done. Its hard and it hurts some times, learn to enjoy the suffering.
Find a test hill, something close to home, should be easy. Warm up then hit the hill see how far you make it and how fast you do it. do a couple weeks of repeats with your riding. Hard all out efforts, as hard as you can till you pop. then coast back down till you are at 60% heart rate and do it again. over and over till you cant. rest and then repeat. you'll get stronger. Then after a couple weeks of that go hit the test hill.
Heres the issue: you are actually saying opposite things. Ride my bike alot. Ok, last week I rode 250 miles. Go climb mountains- sure, did that- 18,000 feet of them last week. Attack, attack, attack. Sorry no can do in the context of a 250 mile/18000 ft week. Yesterday, however, I could attack the hills because I start this taper week, I have nothing hard coming up. So my options are intensity vs volume, it's a basic cycling dilemma. I actually need them both- because I still need to build to the 200 mi distance for my double century & I'd like to pick up the pace so I spend less time riding in the dark on that ride. It's more of safety thing than a desire to ride faster.
Everything you suggest I know. My problem is in striking the correct balance, I can do it through trial & error or I can hire a coach. That's what has prompted me to consider it.