nycphotography

Actually ewang power to weight comparisons make more sense, but only over sufficiently long enough distances such a time trial or a climb over 15+ minutes long.

TimothyH

People talking when they should be listening.

What the OP describes is not training.

69chevy

I believe you and @Dan333SP have answered what I was asking. Thanks for that.


So my choice will have to be (when I reach my plateau)... Keep riding at the pace I'm stuck at, or restructure my life to find more saddle time in an attempt to continue gaining.

Dan333SP

BF fast is dialing it up to 400 watts and droping the hamer.

IMO, real people fast is averaging 250+ watts for an hour (measured watts, not estimated).

There is an e-wang chart specifically for power numbers, I'm sure it's floating around here somewhere.

GuitarBob

One of the ways science helps us to understand how the world works (including humans) is by studying collections of individuals from target populations. There is always some variation in responses among individuals in those collections, so information from a single individual is not a reliable basis for statements about the larger collection of interest.

That said, when general patterns emerge, we've learned something about how the world works in general. Might there be special cases? Sure, but they are exceptions rather than the rule, so if you're thoughtful, you'd bet that you and I are probably like the others and not so special as our mothers might have said.

So training plans that have been around for a long time continue to exist because they have proven to be effective for many. Might one work well for you? Likely.

WhyFi

You're not paying attention. With structured training, you could have had better gains with less saddle time.

Kevindale

The world of athletics is full of both traditional lore, which is often nonsense, and carefully developed, empirically tested regimens that are approaching some physiological optimum. When I was young I was repeatedly told not to drink water when the weather was hot and I was wiped out, because "it'll make you sick." I didn't get sick when I drank to quench my thirst, but I tended to believe these older, wiser guys. High school football coaches limited summer water breaks to toughen us up, until enough kids died that they were forced to rethink things. The vast majority of the junk sold at places like GNC are high priced placebos that end up in the toilet. So, yeah, there is a ton of pseudoscience and misinformation in athletics.

Just like there is in life. How many people believe that vitamin C or zinc will prevent a cold, or yet conversely are sure that flu vaccines don't prevent the flu (or that they cause the flu)? How many people think that there's some scientific proof that you need to drink 8 glasses of water a day, or that anti-oxidants are good for you?

On the other hand, in recent decades elite athletes and their trainers and coaches have spent a lot of time and money carefully measuring optimal training regimens and their overall effect on performance. In some sports, it's pretty easy to do this kind of empirical experimenting. If you want to believe that the elite riders are full of it when they say they don't train hard every time they go out, it's your choice, but it doesn't seem likely that you're right and they're all wrong.

As others have noted, if you want to perform better and better, you can keep doing what you're doing till it stops working. It might not be optimal, but it's working well enough for you, until you hit a plateau. And you will hit that plateau. The biggest risk is that you do something that injures you before you get there, forcing you to stop exercising and training. But you also risk never reaching your theoretical maximum limit.

If you plateau without injury, doing what you're doing, then you can either accept that you're the absolute best you can be, or you can give up believing that you know more than everyone else and try something different in your training. If nothing changes after you make changes, then maybe you were right all along, but I'd be surprised if that turns out to be the case.

nycphotography

Ironically, when you hit the plateau and are ready for the benefits of structured training, you will probably be doing less saddle time, not more.

Interval workouts will wring your legs to rubber in an hour, tops.

Then add in a little (little) gym time on leg presses and/or squats, plus general core and light upper body... stuff you can do in 10 min a day at home without any special equipment.

And your longer outdoor rides start to move towards endurance (lower intensity).

merlinextraligh

Not necessarily more saddle time (depending on how much you're already riding) But more efficient use of your time.


For example, one hour of targeted intervals can be much more valuable than sitting in the back of a fast 2 hour group ride.


Bunch of fast group rides are good for you now as you're learning to ride, progressing toward racing. After you've raced some, and you get to the point you're not improving, you may well find cutting down on the group rides, and adding targeted intervals will get you more out of the time you have available.


Also you don't have the time of riding to the group ride, waiting for it to start etc.

Spoonrobot 

As always; if you ain't pinning on a number most weekends, it doesn't really matter what you do.

nycphotography

here ya go.

Just How Good Are These Guys? | CyclingTips

woodcraft

Yikes!

therhodeo

Wasn't really specifically calling out your post but I see alot of guys who carry around guts who talk about being strong on the flat and how their weight doesn't matter.

Also I'd prefer to leave out any comparison using professionals as there is alot going on there that is completely irrelevant to this discussion pharmaceutically speaking.

Dan333SP

What makes you so sure posters here aren't doping?

silversx80

This. A 200W FTP should be easy enough to gain and maintain without any significant structured training... maybe even 250W, which is about max what I can hit without structure. It's taken me almost a year of dedication, and structure with both training and diet to hit my current power (high enough on the e-wang), and there is no way I could keep it without structured training.

therhodeo

Their e-wang brags would be more impressive...

wphamilton

250 watts is blistering fast for an hour but I'm looking at it from the other side. Blistering fast from a fitness rider perspective, only "real people fast" from a dedicated racer's perspective.

So it's probably as good a dividing line as any, for about as much progress most people can make without real training.

CliffordK

As far as science vs pseudoscience.

No doubt there is a lot of real science with training, fitness, and bicycle design. Look at the spectacular speeds attained by professional racers.

Whether that science trickles down to the forums is another question.

Perhaps we should term another term... FORUM SCIENCE.

bruce19

The question is...is it really "help?" Not sure what your age is but mine is 70 as of this past June. And, a lot of what people on this forum say works for them does not work for me.

There is one thing that happens here that I find fascinating. I am not generalizing but often I see someone post a question or asking for advice. And, often, I see people respond not specifically to the question but with some bit of information they have. Something along the lines of "I can't respond to your question but here's what I know." Sometimes this is just not helpful. You just have to know how to sort out the responses.

wphamilton

There is regular internet forum science, and then there is the road forum perspective of science which is a whole 'nuther realm. It's sometimes beyond pseudoscience. So I propose Science-41.

69chevy

I do something similar to interval training when I ride with the "slow" group.


I like the people who ride in this group and go just to hang out with them for a couple of hours.


When the pace gets too slow, I dial up 400 watts (forum calibrated) and sprint way ahead. Then I sip water and coast until the train catches up.


I also do "easy rides" with my wife, my 10 year old and my 12 year old. I pull the 12 year old around the 4 mile loop until I drop him and then I slow until he latches back on.


He hasn't ridden much this year, but he can hold my wheel for an 18.5 mph lap.


So I guess, without much structure, I do some of the things people religiously incorporate into a plan, but mine isn't so much a plan as just trying to have fun and get faster.

grolby

The OP's anti-training program and spirited defense thereof is kind of silly, but so are the BF denizens presuming to know more about his riding and fitness than he himself does.

For @69chevy: modern training methods haven't been pulled out of thin air, there is empirical research demonstrating the benefits of certain types of training programs. There are ways to do this that aren't A-B testing on identical twins. This doesn't mean you can't get fit with your current approach, even fit enough to race. I got into racing by simply riding a lot, and I was initially reasonably successful at the beginner level. Move up even a little and it gets harder, for sure. That may eventually require a different approach. It did for me.

To be honest, if you're doing these rides and hanging on much of the time, you might as well sign up for a local Cat 5 race and see how you do. That will be much more informative about how ready you are for racing. Even once I started, depending on the rides I went on I would be crushing the front, or dropped. It really depended on who showed up. Yet I was racing and hanging in on those races. These days I'm a better racer than I ever have been (still not too great, though), but I don't go on a lot of group rides. Anyway, I think you'll find racing a fair bit different from a fast group ride, in that it's easier to hang but harder to succeed, if that makes any sense.

As for everyone else, the defensiveness is amusing. If you know what you're doing works, who cares what some BF rando thinks? Keep on doing your thing.

grolby

Ugh. Don't do this.

bakes1

Your 12 year old child can do a 4 mile loop at 18.5 mph?
Even being pulled that is very impressive imo

bakes1

I like grolby.
He makes sense.