clasher

So I do like to ride outside in the winter but usually nothing more than 50K, at least with last winter being so cold. I do enjoy cross-country skiing a lot too. I do hope to keep a strict watch on my diet so as to avoid gaining any weight over the winter, if anything I hope to drop weight with my diet this winter.

I have rollers I like to ride and found them very helpful as much as I used them last year, I usually did some sort of basic interval riding for 20-40 minutes plus 10 minutes warm-up and cool-down. On a good week I would do that 3 times a week unless I was out for a ski or ride that week. I suppose my biggest goal for next year is to be able to ride a little bit faster. I did have a couple of DNFs but they weren't due to exhaustion, one was injury and the other time I quit because I didn't want to take a chance on hypothermia. I guess I have a decent capacity for endurance, or at least not riding too hard.

Any book recommendations or other resources that skew toward long-distance riders?

StephenH

Book recommendation: Unfinished Business by Dex Tooke. It's about his RAAM efforts. It won't help you stay in shape or anything, but still a good read.

unterhausen

every year, I have good intentions of staying in shape over the winter. I have Freil's book for old people
He has other books. There is also "the time crunched cyclist," which may apply

chriskmurray

For me this biggest problem is more time constraints than weather and I have a cross bike that can handle the worst snow we get here and the gear needed to stay warm. Since getting ready to ride in nasty winter weather takes a good deal of time I think I will be stuck spending more time on the trainer. For that I am going to use a combination of Zwift to try to keep things interesting and intervals to make the most of my time on that devil machine.

guidoStow

John Hughes book has lots of good info: Distance Cycling: John Hughes, Dan Kehlenbach: 9780736089241: Amazon.com: Books

As does this Burk & Pavelka classic: The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling: Build the Strength, Skills, and Confidence to Ride as Far as You Want: Edmund R. Burke, Ed Pavelka: 9781579541996: Amazon.com: Books

HkC01

I just ordered this - I had been interested in it before but picked up Friel's book instead. Thanks for the indirect reminder.

Going into the fall I thought I'd work on everything since that's where I need gains, but in reality it will be just piling on the miles and figuring out how to work lifting back in. Cycling took away more of my strength than I'm comfortable with. Planning to find a weightlifting approach I can integrate into my training year round.

Rowan

If you haven't already, have a poke around the www.ultracycling.com website.

I have say that I think I would prefer to be on rollers than a trainer. The rollers make the bike and the riding active, rather than just sitting and spinning.

chasm54

In my opinion the time-crunched programme is pretty much irrelevant to the needs of the long-distance cyclist. Carmichael himself acknowledges that it's a short-term fix that can't be sustained. Even doing the century (as opposed to racing) program there's a focus on tempo and threshold work that militates against one developing the sort of aerobic base that keeps one efficient over randonneuring distances.

OP, the rollers are good, as are the rides outdoors. But if you're into cross-country skiing, I'd say that was about as good as you can get interms of cross-training that is cycling relevant.

As far as reading is concerned, check out some of the websites devoted to triathlete training. They put a big emphasis on high volume, low intensity work because developing big aerobic capacity is crucial to being able to complete ironman events without running out of fuel. Highly relevant.

Steamer

I am not so sure that's true. Some successful ultra cycling coaches have noted that the rule of specificity falls apart after 5 or 6 hours, and big mileages aren't necessary, and are detrimental if they produce chronic fatigue and replace higher intensity efforts. Consider the fact that the same cellular adaptations that are made at high intensity training that raise the left side of one's critical power curve also raise the right side of the curve with it, therefore benefiting one's endurance at longer time scales.

chasm54

Yes to the latter point. But Carmichael's program virtually ignores base. I've done it, as a quick fix after missing most of a winter's training through injury. I could barely complete the program without burning out, and while it certainly made me fast, my aerobic endurance was very poor. And the program produced more fatigue than any base traing I've ever done.

Cycling, especially long-distance cycling, is overwhelmingly an aerobic activity. There's certainly no need to cover huge mileages, and incorporating some high-intensity work is undoubtedly a good idea, but there is no substitute for training your aerobic systems over an extended period. That's my experience, anyway.

RR3

I do not believe this is true. Do you have any research to substantiate? The energy pathways are not the same nor are the enzymes the same.

RR3

Winter is the best time to train your body to burn fat.

My long distance riding improved enormously after going to a fat adapted state along with following a polarized training approach. For instance, I am certain not to have done a sub 24 hour solo 600Km unless I was fat adapted because it is not possible (for me at least) to digest enough food to ride at that speed.

In last Fall to Winter, I tried to do 5 exercise sessions per week and no less than 6 hours per week. I did everything in my power to get one long ride (5 hours min) per two weeks. OP: three sessions per week of 30 minutes each is not much. You will lose tons of fitness. You must get at least one 3 hour effort every now and then.

I followed Hughes book in 2014 and it did not work for me but it might for you.


The Emerging Science on Fat Adaptation | Ultrarunning Magazine

Steamer

Research? Not so much. But the concept has been successfully employed and is the training advice of people I respect, such as Chris Kostman, Jim Verheul, Craig and Kurt Willett.

https://www.ultraracenews.com/2011/11...ycling-events/
The Endurance Path Revisited by Chris Kostman
Ten Steps on the Endurance Path by Chris Kostman for Marathon & Beyond
Base: A New Definition
Stripped Down
Strippped Down: Raise the Left
Stripped Down: Fill the Right

chasm54

I haven't read all of that but I have read some, including "base-a new definition" and there is stuff in there that I believe is just wrong. For example, the author says that one's ability to burn O2 only indreases through adaptation if one trains at a level above one's current capacity. That's close to tru if one is talking about VO2 max, but false with regard to increasing aerobic efficiency, which is key to endurance cycling. My own experience is that long periods in zones 1and 2 make a very significant impact on the power I can sustain at a given HR, which pretty much by definition means that my aerobic efficiency has improved. And my understanding is that a substantial component of aerobic wfficiency is the increased capillarisation of the muscles so they can receive and burn more O2, and that intense efforts actually break down capillaries, while long steady efforts stimulate their repair and growth.

Read some of the leading triathlete coaches advice. There's a big consensus there that worrking for long period at below VT1 greatly improves the pace their athletes can maintain while staying in zones 1 and 2, therefore allowing them to perform at higher levels with much less fatigue.

If you can be bothered, here is a long article from sports science on the training patterns of elite athletes. It's all interesting, imo, but the most relevant bits for the purposes of this discussion are the case studies. Elite athletes performance seemed to improve most when they moved to higher-volume training with a reduced percentage of time spent at high intensity.

RR3

Thank you, I did read them.

Kostman can get by on 3-5 hours of HIIT training per week because he has already developed and adapted physiologically over decades of being a Cat 1 racer. For a time crunched or seasoned endurance athlete, his approach is a good way to go at it; however, well designed trials with crossover have shown greater benefit with lots of long, lower intensity rides with periodically doing very hard rides. I do not believe intervals improve one's ability to ride very long distances although they raise the cruising speed as one coach likes to say. I did find one of the coach's (the electrical engineer) view that rides more than 6 hours plus or minus one hour are unnecessary when preparing for RAAM and other ultra endurance events. Pete Penseyres did weekly 24 hour 400 mile rides while training for his 1986 RAAM record setting ride. Scott Dickson finshed first (won) PBP several times and he rode 24,000+ miles per year with upwards of 550 miles per week leading up to PBP. Both Dickson and Penseyres did plenty of interval and speed work on top of the huge volumes. I think I have read that Haldman would do a double century the week before a ride like PBP. Christoph Strasser also did huge volumes.

I am genuinely interested in this topic. My N = 1 data suggests that I can recover and build fitness as long as the training rides are 400km or less and no more frequent than every other week. This is just my personal experience. 600km and 1200km are destructive for me and there is no fitness benefit to them for me as the recovery takes so long. I am going to test this 6 hour ride theory. That is about as long as I will be able to ride during the winter before doing a planned 24 hour time trial in February. I question whether 6 hours is sufficient training for a 24 hour race but it is interesting to see or shall I say encouraging given my training limitations over the next 4 months.

ThermionicScott 

I've begrudgingly started working in some Zone 1/2 riding as of late, so this kind of thread is timely as winter approaches. I say "begrudgingly" because I'm usually much happier attacking every hill I see and riding balls-out on every commute. But I keep reading more and more stuff like this about how high volumes of low-intensity riding provide a good foundation for long-distance riding and higher-intensity bursts, so I'm doing it.

It occurs to me, though, to wonder if Zone 1 riding is really possible with 2" studded tires on a fixed-gear bike. Just going at any pace has me breathing a little harder than on my summer tires, and it always seems to get much windier in my area over the winter, so on a fixed-gear it gets you coming and going. Maybe I should start taking walks for my Zone 1 training.