Originally Posted by Trakhak

That's certainly one approach. Another approach (mine) is to ride hard, see what's sore the next day, and then do whatever rides I would have done anyway for the next few rides. Surprise! The soreness goes away. (Same thing for colds and flu---I just stay home and wait it out. Although I might still have some aspirin around somewhere. Expired by now, no doubt.)

Our different approaches clearly work for each of us. Mine probably reflects my having started bike racing in Connecticut in the mid-'60s. Back then, the only coaches I ever encountered were track-and-field and football guys. The state of the art at the time was telling players to train their bodies to do without water on long runs while taking salt tablets to replenish what had been sweated out. No bike coaching, obviously. Of the very few people who were racing bikes in New Haven back then (and I knew all 10 or 12 of them), the only guys who seemed to know what they were doing were racing for Yale. (Several of those were ex-military graduate students sharing a couple of dorm rooms and learning Mandarin. I wonder what that was about.)