I've seen a lot written on short / fast versus long rides. I'd appreciate comments on training for bike rides during the off-season to enable me to get started quickly in the Spring. Here's my situation. At 68, it's increasingly difficult for me to get back in shape so I try to avoid downturns. However, living in Connecticut, I'm not a big fan of winter biking. Instead, I switch to my indoor rower and some running. My goal is to be ready for rides (usually 2-4 hours) as soon as the weather improves.

Typically, I do 30-40 minute easy rowing sessions or similar runs. I'm considering instead 10-15 minute sessions more than once a day, with a day off every 3-4 days.

Any thoughts on weather short /fast training during the off-season will better prepare me for Spring than slower sessions?

I like fast long rides, myself. 2-3 hours of tempo/sweetspot. Gets you nice and strong and a lot of bang for the buck.

I don't do any long, slow rides. It's either long with a solid workout in the middle, or it's just long and steady-fast.

Buy a set of resistance rollers. See the Rollers thread over in Road Cycling: https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...2-rollers.html

Put your road bike on them and do an hour of zone 2 say 3 X week. Then one hour/week where you do some FastPedal (high cadence work as described in that thread). Then 1 hour/week where you do some low cadence work in zone 3, biggest gear you have and just pedal. You'll be set for spring, no problem. Nothing keeps you in shape for cycling like cycling. Rollers are as close as one can get to riding outside. And they are really interesting, because you can do stuff on them that's impossible to do outside. So that's what I concentrate on. A couple of visits/week to the gym is good, too. Get in some full-body workouts which you also can't get on the bike.

the best training for cycling is cycling, even if it's just indoor cycling. but if you can't cycle somehow then anything will be better than nothing. I go to a gym year round & try to do a variety of things but obviously any leg stuff will have a bigger impact on my cycling, especially the indoor cycles, they have 4 types. breaking up your long routine into shorter routines sounds like a fun way to keep things interesting. and if it's interesting you might be more consistent with it.