Wogster

A short, intense, fire up both boilers ride (aka hammer fest), a long easy ride (snooze fest)? How about alternating between the two?

I'm still figuring out my trainer rides, thinking either:

Hammer Monday and Friday
Snooze Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
Off Sunday and Wednesday

DoubleTap

Definitely alternate. Your body needs an active recovery cycle after a more intensive ride. I'm no expert, but I have been studying some. I recommend a book called Ride Your Way Lean, by Selene Yeager, Bicycling's FitChick. Some of it is repeat for experienced cyclists, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I like her simple approach.

mkadam68

Trick question. They're both necessary and serve different purposes. One is not "better" than the other.

Sayre Kulp 

Both.

skilsaw

I may not be fast, but I'm slow.

chewybrian 

Your schedule looks like a good plan. Since you already have two days off, though, I would not tag Tue/Thu/Sat as 'snooze'. Say your hammer speed is 20; then I'd be going around 18 on the other 3 rides--nearly as fast as you can without distress, still able to carry on a conversation. It's a good opportunity to focus on your smooth pedal technique, cadence, etc., and lock in the speed gains you've made while hammering. Replace 'snooze' with 'fast but comfortable'. Of course, it depends how long you mean by long. You might shoot for 16 or 17 if you were going over 50 miles.

I was surprised at how effective the short hard rides can be at helping you train for long distance. In my experience, they are much more effective than long, slow training. But, like everyone has said, it's a good idea to do both. I commend you for your dedication on the trainer. I log about 200 miles a week on the road, but I doubt I could ever motivate myself to match that number on rollers.

Wogster

I couldn't match that on the rollers or trainer either, but I do want to extend out the distances. The problem I always had in Toronto is that you can go 40km straight north and still be in the city, and that is 40km that is essentially all up hill. I live in a more rural area now, so I can ride way out into the country on roads that might see fewer cars in a day, then Toronto streets see in a minute. Of course right now everything is covered in snow, so the trainer is the only option.

Well, I need to decide, do I do my workout now, or after Men's Group.... I'm thinking now, although the Sched says snooze, I have about 45 minutes to see how far I can get....

ScottStr

Alternating is good. Don't forget to work some intervals in too. They say that long, slow rides are better for burning fat. Short hammer-fests and intervals build muscle better.

Wogster

I've heard that, some say it's true, others say they are full of and that you can burn fat doing a hammer fest as well..... Wondering if the best isn't to simply ride for time, throwing in some intervals occasionally. For the record this mornings 45 minutes bought me 18.9km....

bassjones

You might throw in some cross training too. Swimming or even running if your knees can handle it. Maybe light weight training.

CliftonGK1

You will not get faster without practicing riding faster.
You will not gain endurance without practicing riding for endurance.
Riding a bunch of short hammerfests will not prepare you for a century.
Riding a slow century (8+ hours) will not prepare you for sprinty hammerfest rides.

For example: Before my surgery I was great at long distance. A metric was a warm-up. A Century was where I started to feel comfortable, and 200km+ was optimal. Just hope that no one asked me to pour on the power during those rides, because the speedometer was pegged at 14.5mph and wouldn't budge for nobody.

xoxoxoxoLive

Both