Originally Posted by
chasm54
Up to a point. But the issue turns on what you regard as "some base". There's no substitute, in my opinion, for building a big aerobic base through spending long hours on the bike. Trying to build endurance from the top down will work for a while but quite apart from risking burnout, the gains one makes will never be as secure.
You have a point there. But sometimes you simply have to invert things a bit in order to get most benefits out of training, especially with limited time. Of course, the risk of burnout is always present and one should be aware of that and closely follow his/her recovery and how does the body feel.
Regarding gains, they will be very secure if you build your speed which is related to the central nervous system and how muscles "fire" and how they are coordinated in the motion. Once you have trained this properly, the body never forgets it and the picture of the motion is always present in the brain. So, maybe we are just talking different things here because I'm not looking purely at the cardiovascular system gains. However, you do have a point that at a certain point the importance of long hours on the bike is very important and necessary. Still I would say that how much is required depends on ambitions, available time and type of races.