pakk

I ride 4 miles daily to work. I get a night ride in once or twice a week for about an hour. Then I ride on the weekend for about 2 hours each day, I could ride longer. Yesterday I got 32 miles in and I just got back now and did another 28 miles.

I've been working on my cadence and I'm pretty comfortable around 85-90 now. Past 90 is difficult for sustained periods.

So both yesterday and today, right around 1.5 hours, I'm pretty beat. My speed and cadence drops considerably. I get some short sprints here and there, but nothing sustained. I tend to end up cruising around 12mph or so. Or I find my self peddling to get speed then coasting. At this point in the ride, I get pretty bored and end up wanting to go home, so I do.

My questions is, should I just continue to ride at slower speeds? Or maybe should I take shorter sessions at higher speeds more frequently? I could ride in the morning and evening. I'm guessing I should just take longer rides at slower speeds. I just feel like I'm not really doing much except for cruising around on my bike.

What about rest? I'm not going to the extreme and saying my legs were beat from yesterday, but the definitely did not feel as strong.

Bluechip

What are your desires? Do you want to get faster or just want to be able to ride longer distances? If you want to go faster then try some type of intervals. Sprint as hard as you can for a short distance, fully recover by just cruising around and then repeat as many times as you can. If you want to go further then find some place interesting and make it a destination ride. You have to keep yourself motivated in either case. Have a goal and once you reach it then find another one. Good luck!

practical

Sounds like you'd enjoy riding with others. My sense from reading your OP is that you want your biking to be enjoyable and fun with just a dash of competitiveness thrown in. Look for groups to ride with about once a week as it will keep things fresh.

12strings

Ditto on groups...it's amozing how much faster they go than when I'm out by myself...I recently did my best ever average speed for my 9 mile commmute: 16mph. But my Monday night group ends up averaging 18-20mph on flat sections...(still averaging 15-16 mph total due to some long hills)...I'm always pushing to keep up, even with draft help... but it makes me faster, and shows me what I can do with good motivation.

datlas 

What are your goals?? We need to know in order to give advice.

pakk

That's pretty impressive of you. You got me fairly spot on. I'll have to look into it. I have noticed other groups riding when I do. Some smaller, some bigger. Not exactly sure about meeting these groups. Should I just follow them as I see them riding by?

My goal is fitness.

datlas 

Join a local bike club.

gregf83 

Could you please start one thread with an appropriate subject title rather than adding this same request to multiple threads.

Thank you and good luck with you survey!

diphthong

since when has that been a requirement for bf?

wphamilton

To recap, you like to ride for general fitness and you'd like to get a bit faster. You have a daily 4 miles to work, and then a couple of hours on each weekend day.

My questions is, should I just continue to ride at slower speed? This could help improve general cardio fitness but I don't think it would help much in your general goals.

Or maybe should I take shorter sessions at higher speeds more frequently? Short sprint intervals with about a minute recover in between will yield quick improvements. Or so they say.

I'm guessing I should just take longer rides at slower speeds. I don't agree. Although polarized training advocates long low-effort rides with one or two days of high intensity intervals. It takes a lot of the longer, slower rides though.

What about rest? It doesn't matter with a short commute, or with low-intensity rides. People tell us "you get stronger during the rest" and "one or two days per week" and can be pretty adamant about it, but unless we're training pretty hard or putting in a lot of miles (like 200 per week), just taking a day now and again when we're feeling fatigued is enough.

caloso

The time tested way to ride faster is to ride with faster riders. But don't just latch on to groups that pass on the road. You can ask at your LBS; they should be able to point you to the local group rides.

ColaJacket

How are you handling hydration (pre-ride and during the ride)?

Are you eating anything before your ride? With that short of a ride, you shouldn't need nutrition during the ride, but if you just wake up and go for your ride without putting anything on your stomach, you could be bonking. If so try eating some fruit or some yogurt about 30-60 minutes before your ride.

It's also possible that you're starting out too quickly and you're burning out at the 1.5 hour range. Do you want to ride longer or ride faster. If faster and longer, then you need to decide on one, and work on the other.

And a lot of people do recommend mixing up your training where you have some HIIT days (to get faster and build power), and some days at a much lower HR BPM, but you do longer rides to build up your aerobic base.

GH

pakk

Here's an update,

I quit riding daily to work. After going on several 50 mile rides, a 4 mile ride just isn't appealing to me.

I ride pretty much every sat and sunday solo. I have not been able to meet with the local group. Their group ride hours just don't work well with mine. It would pretty much take up half of a weekend day to ride with them. With that being said, I think I'm going to make it this sunday with the local club.

On sat/sun, I ride as long and as far as I can. I like to change it up and ride to different places. Unfortunately, I'm running out of new sceneries. So I just rotate where I go. I do have a plan for a place I haven't ridden this weekend. Typically I end up with a nice 40-50 mile ride.

During the week at night, I do "quick 20 mile sprints." I worry less about my speed and more about cadence. I took the damn cadence monitor off my bike. I found myself too fixated on it.

My rest days aren't needed as much as before. In the beginning I was keeping a low cadence in high gear which was killing my legs. I had a much higher mph, but I didn't feel the cardio work out I get out of a higher cadence.

My cadence seems to be better and my mph seems a bit better, but not by much. I've lost a few pounds, but nothing worth being an infomercial over.

I've changed my goal to winning next years tour de france.

TheLibrarian

you should do mountain biking, doesn't have to be dangerous stuff but medium level keeps it interesting. I also worry about actually losing muscle from riding and it making me weaker doing two hour rides. I don't need cardio and for reasons I read elsewhere it may be eating my muscles.

pakk

I actually wanted to get a mtn bike before the road bike. Then I realized that I would have to drive my mtn bike to a location before I got to ride it. That turned me off, so I got a road bike.

alexaschwanden

Do about 400-500 miles a week like me, but I don't have job though.

caloso

Psssssst! Let me let you in on a little secret: there's no requirement to ride directly to/from work.