How Often? Far? Tips to get in shape?
 

Hey everyone:

Just wondering how often everyone rides and how far they ride each time?

I'm riding about 3 times a week, 10-15km each time...just starting out really.

Anyone have any tips / suggestions on the most effective way to become better trained / more fit?

Just go as far as your body feels up to..... and rest when you need to. As you try different distances and intensities you will get a feel for what days you can go hard and what days you must go easy.

Brendon

What really made a big difference for me was when I started to jog regularly in addition to my regular cycling. By jogging twice or three times a week, my cycling performance improved dramatically...

Basically you should build up gradually. Maybe try going a little further on weekends or when you have more time. And as NZLcyclist said, rest when you need to.

I think the best advice I got was to REST. So, I started out basically riding 3 days a week too, though I was riding a bit further than you (typically 12 miles, rest for a couple hours, ride back).

I would usually do a ride where I really pushed myself for speed and put the 2-day rest after that one. I did the same later when I sometimes tried to ride further than normal.

I now ride more like 5-6 days a week and more often take longer rides, but the rest time still matters.

Another bit of advice I got was to try to do a longer ride once a month and add about 10% to that distance each time. This makes the normal distances seem easier.

Bob

Thanks for the info guys!

I'll try it out!

Adding in 2 cents.

I agree with everyone else here- it's good, solid advice.

The rule of thumb for your exercising is that you don't want to increase your workload by more than 10% of your previous week. So (for instance), if you ride 10 km for 5 days last week, you can add in an additional 10% of distance. That means that this week, you can ride 11km. The next week, you can increase by 10% again, and you'd be riding (approx.) 12.1 km. And so on, and so on... hopefully this makes sense.

You want to get your body to adapt to increased load over time to prevent injury, burnout, overtraining, etc.

Good luck!

Koffee

Depends on what you want to do. I found this web site last week that has a chart to help you prepare for your first century ride, this is the same type of program that has been around for at least 30 years when I first used it. I hope it as some value to you. You could also shorten the miles listed by half or more depending on your fitness level, so you can alter it anyway you feel like. It is just suppose to give you a goal and a very real way of reaching it.

http://www.bikerideforthefamily.org/.../a0000038.html

1) Enjoy it. If you enjoy it, you will continue to do it. If you continue to do it, you will continue to improve and get fitter.

2) If you want to improve, alternate hard days with easy days (or rest days.) During hard exercise, your muscle fibers are "damaged." This is good, because if you rest them and feed them properly, they will repair themselves to be even stronger than before. This the recovery period, and it's during this time your muscles actually become stronger and bigger, not during the
intense ride.

3) To recover faster (but remember, your body is a machine and you can't expect miracles,) eat/drink lots of protein and carbs after a good hard ride. This speeds muscle recovery. You have a "window" of 2 hours during which eating/drinking recovery nutrients is most effective; the sooner, the better.

4) Be patient. Slow and steady wins the race. A lifestyle of exercise will be more effective than a summer of overtraining.

5) As important as developing your leg muscles is developing your heart muscle. You can't rush this either, but you will see improvements fairly quickly as you stick with it. Keep in mind the heart is part of a whole network of blood vessles that make the American road system look like child's play. It takes time to build more "routes" of more and larger blood vessels to service your muscles, brain, heart an body.

6) Have fun. (did i say that before?) You will get there just like on a trip, if you have fun along the way and don't get uptight about how fast you are getting there.

Everyone has given good advice..

In my case:

I ride everyday.. On mondays, wednesdays, fridays and saturdays twice..
I ride a minimum 15kms on morning rides(M-W-F-S) and a minimum of 20kms on afternoon rides..
So on Mon,Wed, Fri & Sat I have a minimum milage of about 35kms..
On other week days I only ride on the afternoon(20km min)..
On sundays, I ride a minimum of 20kms(in the morning only, have to go to church in the afternoon)..

That adds up to about 200kms minimum a week..

I'm not trying to increase distance right now, but I'm trying to increase my speed.. I have improved a little bit, about 2-3kmh faster now.. I hope I can keep this up..

My advice is simple.. Enjoy your ride! And just Ride... I try not to think of my average speed, distance and all, until after the ride..

Definitely rest when you need it. It is amazing. I Ride 8 to 12 miles on my normal days. Once a week I go longer, typically, 16 to 18 miles. After the long day, Ill take a rest day. On that day, I will work abs, and do push-ups, but I save my legs. The day after the rest, you feel so much stronger. Im gradually increasing my distance on both my short and long days.