Originally Posted by DannoXYZ
yeah, no need to spend that much time on the bike unless you're interested in distance events. To get the spurts of speed needed to do those group rides, you need just 1.5-2.0 hour rides with sprints & intervals. Longer than that and you'll interfere with how hard you can do the sprints & intervals.
Yeah, that makes sense. When I started to ride, I concentrated on getting enough power just to be able to clear some local hills and then increased distances slowly. I think I need to increase the intensity now that I can climb and go pretty far without issues.
The group ride is about 50 miles and that is about my max training ride distance too.