Originally Posted by chaadster

Well, training is doing things specifically to build skills and competency on the bike.

The way I approach cycling, many of my rides are training rides, because I usually head out with a purpose, such as to improve my climbing, develop my ability to ride at the top end of my capacity, or work on transitioning back and forth from hard efforts to easy ones.

I ride with a club as well, and we work on similar skills, as well as group riding techniques. I've just joined another club specifically dedicated to racer development. Both of those are primarily training rides.

My training also takes place on both Cycleops' "turbo trainer" and stationary bike, where I train with power in order to develop and sustain power output. I occasionally ride with power on the road, but most often not, as that phase of training is focused on deploying what is built on the stationaries. If I had the right power meter, though, (specifically a crank or pedal meter rather than vintage Powertap hub), I'd certainly use it more often if not all the time, though I doubt I'd train power building specifically on the road.

Aside from that, I don't, at this time, do any off-the-bike training because of time constraints and believing that the best training for riding is riding, so I channel my little time into that, including non-training, or fun rides (solo, with friends, or organized).