How much to do?
#1
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How much to do?
Hi,
I just moved to a place at 2300 ft. Work is at about 650... Since I don't drive I have been taking the bikes. Sometimes I go down off-road on the MTB, and most often take the road bike. Options for getting back up:
1) Leave bike in office, take bus (this works twice)
2) Push/carry MTB up forest track (nice for a change)
3) Man up and cycle!
To give you an idea of my fitness, the road up is about 6 % for a little over four miles, and I can easily do it in about 28 minutes. The trouble is day three, day four, etc... Especially when you are hungry after a day at work, it begins to suck by the end of the week! I try to get in something longer (say 50 miles, 6000 ') on the weekends.
Any ideas on the optimum frequency to begin with? My ambition would be to get towards local top-twenty Strava standard of about 21 minutes for the climb. Experimentally, banging away at it every evening is non-optimal and leads to overconsumption of evening beer by about Thursday! It would be nice to learn something more scientific about recovery times etc.
cheers,
Jim
I just moved to a place at 2300 ft. Work is at about 650... Since I don't drive I have been taking the bikes. Sometimes I go down off-road on the MTB, and most often take the road bike. Options for getting back up:
1) Leave bike in office, take bus (this works twice)
2) Push/carry MTB up forest track (nice for a change)
3) Man up and cycle!
To give you an idea of my fitness, the road up is about 6 % for a little over four miles, and I can easily do it in about 28 minutes. The trouble is day three, day four, etc... Especially when you are hungry after a day at work, it begins to suck by the end of the week! I try to get in something longer (say 50 miles, 6000 ') on the weekends.
Any ideas on the optimum frequency to begin with? My ambition would be to get towards local top-twenty Strava standard of about 21 minutes for the climb. Experimentally, banging away at it every evening is non-optimal and leads to overconsumption of evening beer by about Thursday! It would be nice to learn something more scientific about recovery times etc.
cheers,
Jim
#2
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I'm no expert, but would consider doing repeats of that hill on a few weekend days - to make doing it just once seem like a trifling effort - before thinking about doing it every day.
#3
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I guess since we live only half way up, I could go to the top (about 3300') and come back down again!
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Take longer rides when you're not working- say, double the distance of your commute- then, the commute will seem like a piece of cake. Seriously.
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I second the weekend thing ... ride the route a few times on weekends to start to feel comfortable on it. Maybe ride all the way down and up 2 or 3 times on a Saturday and then do a longer ride elsewhere on the Sunday.
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Before getting too scientific, you need to realize that you're in a situation most of us DREAM about. I'd love to be four miles from work with the option of road or forest trails.
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But you need some recovery days. I don't think it's wise to do that climb 5 days/week and then more on the weekends. Take one or two days off/week.
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I'm anywhere from 15 - 18 km from work (depending which way I go) with a mountain range in between. It would take me near 2 hours each way.
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