Easy rides are "active recovery" rides for me where I focus on staying in zone 1 or below 55% of FTP, when I'm actually following a training plan. Tempo rides are easier than the days where I'm doing a bunch of intervals or hill repeats...for sure. But, tempo isn't a recovery ride, it's more of a paceline ride with the club 76-90% of FTP.

Anyway...some riders I see have a hard time doing recovery rides and they tend to push themselves harder on those days than the effort they want to stick to to actually recover.