Phenomenal advice so far guys, keep it coming! I feel like I'm much more educated in this subject now and some answers have given me search words to use to find some really good articles.

So what do some of you think a typical beginner-intermediate training week should look like? Here's what I am thinking:

Sun: 1 hour of lower intensity. Enough the get to breathing fast and feel a little burn, but that's it.

Mon: 30 mins of moderate intensity. Something I can maintain the whole half hour, but would not be able to maintain for a full hour.

Tue: rest

Wed: 30 mins of high intensity sprint intervals

Thu: 1.5 hours of lower intensity. Enough the get to breathing fast and feel a little burn, but that's it.

Fri: 30 mins of moderate intensity. Something I can maintain the whole half hour, but would not be able to maintain for a full hour.

Sat: rest

What do you think?

My take? See your doctor, first, and then:

Sun: 2-6 hours of lower intensity. Enough the get to breathing fast and feel a little burn, but that's it.

Mon: 1-2 hours of moderate intensity, with a couple of pretty serious climbs. Something I can maintain.

Tue: Lift, swim, walk, racquetball, etc.

Wed: 2-6 hours of lower intensity. Enough the get to breathing fast and feel a little burn, but that's it.

Thu: 1-2 hour of moderate intensity, with a couple of pretty serious climbs. Something I can maintain.

Fri: 2-6 hours of lower intensity. Enough the get to breathing fast and feel a little burn, but that's it.

Sat: Lift, swim, walk, racquetball, etc.

What do you think?

There shouldn't be any burn on recovery days. There shouldn't even be any hard breathing. You only get stronger when you're resting. Going too hard on recovery days is one of the most common mistakes you can make.

You can also do fewer, but longer rides.

This is my typical week during the warm months. I just about never ride 7 days a week, and more than 4 days is unusual.

Tues: a fast group ride, about 2 to 2.5 hours.
Sat: a longer ride, anywhere from 2 to 5 hours.
Sun: a (mostly) moderate paced group ride. 1.5 to 3 hours usually.
or sometimes,
Two group rides during the week instead of one. Sometimes back-to-back, but usually tues-thurs.

This adds up to 30 to 45 hours of ride time (moving time) a month. And add a few long "event" rides in the summer.
It's not an optimal training method, but it fits my schedule, and I like doing it. I've been riding like this for about 10 years now.

Well my first thoughts are "no free time" lol, which I could probably deal with for a while albiet not permanently and my second thought would be "what about rest days"?

This. When I started out, my easy days were too hard and my hard days were too easy. Or rather, my "hard" days did not put enough stress on my systems to force the adaptation; my "easy" days were not easy enough to allow for recovery, which is when the adaptation occurs. It all gets lumped into a mushy middle.

Now, on an easy day I never touch the big ring, never exceed 15mph or 150w. It's just to spin the legs very easily and enjoy a little time on the bike. I get passed by little old ladies on beach cruisers. I'm happy to be the guy that lets anti-lycra guy go on BF and post about how he dropped a fully-kitted out racer on a CF bike.

(But I still think it's too soon to start doing high intensity or even much of a structure at all.)

Yeah, free time is the hardest thing to come by. You have to change your lifestyle to change your life.

It depends on your actual goals, of course. If you're a large person who needs to lose a significant amount of weight, then, riding hard and doing HIIT isn't what you need. If you're already pretty fit, and are trying to improve your cycling, and not lose weight, then you'll need more HIIT, and less cardio.

You can rest when you're dead, lazyman! Just kidding. Swimming is resting. Walking is resting. If you've seen me play racquetball, you know that it can be done with a minimal amount of exertion! You can do upper body workouts on cycling "rest days". Just keep the heart rate down, and don't go at it like Michael Phelps. Take the kids to the park, and chase them around. Throw a Frisbee. Play some pickup basketball. "Rest" isn't just lying on the sofa, catching up on "The View"!

I don't think you need that much structure, just a month into it. Just work on different things. Even on a "recovery day" you can work on cadence, bike handling, pedaling techniques, distance. Formalized heavily structured workouts are good for improving specific performances. In the beginning we're improving everything, rapidly, so I don't think it's really necessary.

I think, ridiculous. On the basis of what you have told us so far, you couldn't sustain this. Your Monday, Wednesday and Friday sessions are all high intensity - a 30 minute threshold onterval, which is what you are talking about on Monday and Friday, is not "moderate". And the Sunday and Thursday sessions are not low intensity if you feel "burn".

Experienced trainers with thousands of miles in their legs tend to do only a couple of high-intensity sessions a week, because if they do them hard enough they need more than 24 hours to recover and get stronger. So they'll spend about 80% of their time on the bike going quite easily.

You're a beginner, a training schedule like this won't make you fit, it'll just make you tired. Don't overthink this, just spend as much time as you can - much more than the four hours you are suggesting here - on your bike at a manageable pace. You'll find that your endurance, and your cruising speed for a given effort, will improve. After another couple of months, start building in some harder efforts. When you go hard, go VERY hard but keep it brief. And don't schedule two hard sessions for successive days.

I like to go for walks on my rest days. I still get out, enjoy the fresh air and go through some parks in my neighborhood, more importantly I still feel like I'm doing something. But walking is really easy, it doesn't stress your body much and it doesn't take a lot of energy.

Sometimes I'll go for a "recovery ride" which for me means staying below 100 watts. That has me going really slow, watch me go up a hill on a recovery day and you'll think "he's not going to make it." Again, it helps me deal with my cabin fever, and it isn't a strain. Well, mentally it's a strain, I don't want to be going that slow, it's not fun, but my body needs time to recoup after a hill repeats day.

Okay so more riding, less thinking. Got it. It will be interesting to visit this thread in a year

17MPH is a lofty goal and might be a bit much in the first year, doesn't mean you shouldn't go for it. FWIW I rode over 6800 miles last year and averaged 14.26 mph. I did a century in May where I averaged 17.1 for it.

Build your base then worry about speed. Ride more get faster.

17 MPH for one hour is not a lofty goal - that's not even 150W out-and-back on a "flat" course.

Sort of depends on the course. Oklahoma and Colorado courses might not be equivalent.

I'd kill for stats like this!

Count your blessings.

I found that riding a bike is great to build ab muscles

For an out of shape person with only a month of bicycling under their wheels and less than that at bicycling efficiently, and depending on age and terrain a 17 mph average speed for one hour is a fairly lofty goal. That's 27.35 kph which is pretty good to mantain alone on a flat bar bike.

Cheers

It would be for me.

Just to clear things up I am talking about maintaining 17mph on mostly flat, or about as close to it as you're going to get ground. Here in Houston, we don't have many hills.

I also may have misrepresented myself as being "out of shape". "overweight" yes, but no stranger to exercise.(I still have 20+ lbs to lose to be at my ideal weight, which will come off quick since I am 6'4" and I am hoping this contributes to my speed)
while it has been a while since I have worked out regularly, I grew up very active(did lots of biking and inline skating) and for the past 3-4 years I have been working out on and off.

For some reason I think I have pretty good cardio fitness in spite of never having specifically focused on it. I recently got a fitbit and was shocked to find my resting pulse rate at 55-60. I'm not really sure if that's a good or bad thing. It is kind of hard to believe it would be that low considering how sedentary I have been for the second half of my 31 year old life...I'd get it checked out, but I did have a stress test about 4 years ago which came out normal, plus I have no problem reaching an exercise pulse rate of 170+.

You're a grown man, and can make decisions for yourself. Just be careful, and ease into the more intense training effort so that your body can adjust to the new requirements. Better to spend an extra week, or month, attaining a goal than to end up in the CICU!

Hah, that's weak. When I started exercising again I had no trouble hitting 230 ....


then I got surgery to correct that.

And now we're beginning to see why average speed is such a lousy metric for most things. Black Wallnut couldn't find a flat course if he wanted to.

Well I can get it up over 190, but that's pure torture so I tend to avoid that They did require 190 for the stress test.

Heart surgery?

yeah ... minor. I can still kick my heart rate up that high If I am not careful (or drink an extra half-cupof coffee and try to ride) but mostly I am fine. My resting rate was 140-150, now it is 80-90.

Good reason to lose weight

Speed is a byproduct of watts per kilo.... if you have too many kilos or not enough watts or incline 17mph might be out of reach. Speed is also hindered by aerodynamic drag and your ability to get aero. Frankly having a goal of an average speed for an hour is a good goal, how realistic will depend on you and where you set it. As #Seattle Forrest hinted at flat is something I can't really relate to as most of my flat rides are 2% and into the wind half the time.

Build your base, include long rides. Once you have a solid base add intensity and distance. Rest and recovery will play as important of a role as hard days.