Cycleman1958

I keep hearing this term, and it seems to be associated with a day after ride of shorter duration. If anyone really knows or has an opinion I would like to hear.

Personally, I consider a recovery ride to be that ride home in the car following something like a century.

botto 

a bike walk.

an easy spin where your HR never goes out of zone 1.

for some it's for an hour, for other longer. i generally keep mine at around 1:30

the idea is to get the blood flowing just a bit, to help keep the legs supple and flush out the crap left in your legs from the race/century/whatever that you did the day before.

not only is it good for the body, it's good for the head.

Panic

I need to do more of these. Damn rain.

branman1986

Gets nourishing blood flowing to the legs which aids in recovery without having them incur any additional stress

Dubbayoo

Flat as can be, small ring only, HR below 70%

Pizza Man

For me it's 1-2 hours with HR < Zone 1 (120 bpm).

GuitarWizard

I had all intentions of doing one yesterday, but was in the mid 70 percent range at times....but then I also did all my climbing while standing, to hit different muscles - never got out of the big ring actually during the ride, but I didn't kill myself. Taking today and tomorrow off, and hopefully a nice long ride on Monday.

Typically for a true recovery ride, I don't ride outside with a HR monitor, but I keep the overall effort easy enough so that I breathe comfortably through my nose pretty much the entire ride (except obviously on some hills)....for me, that's a good indicator of where my HR is at, without wearing my monitor.

my58vw

Recovery ride - low gears - no climbs - zone 1 only - no stress on the legs - easy ride

Opposite of hammer fest

SpongeDad

A recovery ride is any ride where my buddy is faster than I am - as in, "you didn't beat me up that hill, butthead, I was on a recovery ride."

UmneyDurak

Ultra easy ride below zone 1, under 130 bpm. Listen to some music enjoy the weather. People slowly passing you with triumpant smiles on their faces. he he.

krazyderek

Length can vary greatly depending on your current fitness and trainning, if you're doing 4 or 6 hour rides, a recovery might be 1-2hours, if you've been doing alot of sub 2 hour workouts with intervals, then 30-60mins is fine.

Along with light pressure on the pedals (120w-170w power) (115-130bpm HR) it's often a good time to play with your speedskills, do some spin ups to work on your cadence, and/or break up the recovery ride into intervals where you pedal 5-10rpm faster then you normally would but in such a slow gear the only thing your impacting is your nervous system, teaching it to move your legs faster and smoother in conjunction. Other times it can be more relaxing to pedal at a lower cadence then normal. Usualy i just try for my normal 95rpm though.

531Aussie

mine's the same as other guys: less than 90 mins at HR <60% max. Riding this slowly obviously could mean that is takes nearly 90 mins to do 35km (22 miles)!! On days following REALLY hard ride, I'll doless than an hour at 50 to 55% max HR

If i'm doing 2 easy days in a row, I'll probably do about 60 to 65% on the second day, and a littel bit longer. I'm now 40, () and I don't recover like I used to.

Artmo 

<< I'm now 40, () and I don't recover like I used to.>>

You poor thing; wait till you're 66!!

Rich22

WHat if you dont have any trully flat roads. And if you go anywhere you need to climb? Then how do have a recovery ride?

merider1

Assuming you have a triple or equivalent...spin up the hills in your granny gear.

bbattle

Walk/jog. Go to the gym, ride a stationary bike or use your trainer at home. Play basketball.

Retro Grouch 

If you're out riding your bike and you happen to see me up ahead for longer than a minute or two at most, you're on a recovery ride.

Snicklefritz

at what power level?/ lol.

DrPete 

Pizza Man zone 1: Keepin' it under 560 watts.

StalkerZERO

LOL nice! I've got to remember that one.

StalkerZERO

Serious question though:

How long after a big long ride should you do a recovery ride? The day after?
I'm planning on doing a little over a half century in October to train myself to be able to do an actual century. But in the meantime the half century would be a real decent effort for me. I estimate (from my previous 3 incidents of bonking) that I would need my 50 oz. camelback, two water bottles, a pre-load of muscle milk, two clif bars, 4 gel packs, 3 pills of amino vital, and a re-load of water somewhere down the route.....just to survive the day. :\

When the ride is over I will definately be spent so I can't do another hour for recovery on the same day. The day after I should do the recovery? Actually, can you break it down in hours how long I should wait? 12 hours perhaps? That way I can get some sleep time in?

DrPete 

If it's a really hard day, you can also just take the next day off. Otherwise, I would do the recovery ride the day after the hard ride.

ericgu

The next day would be good. Getting out that day will loosen up your muscles considerably and make you less sore. My experience is that the first ride after a hard ride, my muscles will be sore for 30 minutes, whether I do that ride the day after or four days after.

And remember to keep the ride really light. Really really light. You just want to tickle the bottom of your aerobic zone.

On the food side, I did a hilly (1800' with some steep climbs) 57 miles today. Took me around 4 hours (lots of city riding/stops/turns/etc). My HRM estimates that I burnt about 3000 calories.

During that 4 hours, I drank about 30 oz of accelerade, ate one newton, half a bagel, half a bag of clif-bloks, and half a small bag of pretzels. Given my level of effort, that was about all I could stomach.

Your goal should be to get around 250-350 calories from carbs per hour during your ride, and perhaps a little protein at the same time. Most beginning riders both eat too much, and don't eat the right stuff.

I've found that a good sports drink makes a huge difference - water and food at the same time.

Oh, and recovery drinks can make a big difference in how fast and how well you recover.

Reynolds 

Recovery ride for me: 1 hr, easy, small chainring.

here and there

The only way I could do a completely flat ride would be to drive a couple miles to a MUP and start there. I don't mind driving there, but I'd rather take the day off from cycling and do another activity. That's been my formula since I started cycling and it works well for me.