chizlr40

been ridng quite a bit this year as I bought my first real road bike. have done 100 miles several times but always seem to be in the 6 1/2 to 7 hour range. i ride solo and the wind can be a factor. my base miles this year wre around 150 to 200 per week, including a daily 20 mile commute. what type of trainning should i be doing to get to my goal for next year. i.e. 100 under 6 hours thanks for any advise.

DannoXYZ 

You need to do sprint and intervals... Adding those two rides to your weekly workout will drop off over 1.5 hours from your century in a year...

slvoid

You need to work on more power vs. more endurance. Anyone can ride 100 miles given enough food and time. But to do it quickly requires a bit of power. Also, try riding in the drops more.
I don't really train but I do push pretty hard on my 25 mile commute every day, which helps. Maybe you should just try riding faster. Treat each commute like a time trial, if you're not completely out of breath, sweat pouring when you get home, you're not working hard enough. Do the same going into work if you have a place to clean up well.

Richard Cranium

Without considerably more information about your current status, it's not likely anyone could give you any accurate advice as to how to improve your Century times.

For instance, when you state your "finishing times" - do they include the time you spend off the bike? How much time is spent "actually riding" during a 6:30, 100-mile-ride?

What about you? Do you eat well? Are you overweight? Does your schedule provide enough flexibility to schedule 2 or 3 hour rides during the week?

How about your current cycling abilities? What's the fastest [or farthest] you've gone for an hour?
What gear ratio(s) do you choose (or need) when climibng a steep hill?

Describe some of your high-speed long ride attempts. Provides details about speeds, diet, road conditions and how you felt and approached these rides.

To get accurate advice, you have to provide an accurate description of how you ride.

jazzy_cyclist

I did 2 centuries this season in the same general ballpark, time-wise. But that was really my plan (just to finish), so I'm not too unhappy about it. My second one was 45 minutes better than the first; I assume that this improvement will continue, at least to some extent.

One thing that stuck out for me was that in riding with a higher cadence in the small ring resulted in a pretty decent speed - one that was more maintainable in the long run.

kf5nd

My goals are similar to original poster's... would like to get faster on a century, on-bike time is about 7 hours, stops of course add more...

I commute 3x a week, Mon-Wed-Fri 25 miles RT
Then I do a ride on Saturday, typically 40 miles

So total mileage 115 for the week.

I have a family and small kids, so I don't want to spend more time on the bike, unless I commute more days, but I think that would make me quite tired and cranky overall.

Do you think I should incorporate more sprints into my commute? There are moments when I have to sprint to get out of the way of cars, should I just lengthen them out? Sprint to near-exhaustion? How many times per commute?

How should I structure the Saturday ride? Periods of sprints, or long slow base miles?

DannoXYZ 

slvoid's right on. Anyone and everyone can finish a century within 2-months of hoping on a bike. Give them food and have them ride slow enough to complete the distance and it's not a problem. The trick is how to do it faster, and that requires improvements in aerobic-capacity/VO2-max, muscle-strength, energy-delivery efficiency (in roughly that order of importance). What is typically implied when people use the word "endurance" is a combination of all three.


You're fine on track to a 5-5.5hr century with 115 miles/week so you don't need to change your schedule at all. It's just a matter of restructuring how those existing miles are done. If you've been riding for over 3-months, the "base" is done and we can get on with the real training.

Usually you want to separate your aerobic/endurance workouts from the intense muscular workouts. Weekends are typically scheduled with aerobic hillclimbs on Sat. and a long endurance ride on Sunday. That works out well because you've got more time and you're looking at 3-5 hours on the weekends. If you've got only one 40-mile ride on the weekends, try to make it a hillclimb at your LT to work on the aerobic system. If not a hill, perhaps a hilly rolling course so you can push hard up the hills. If it's just a flat ride, then ride at a brisk steady pace that you can maintain the whole time (just below or at LT-lactate threshold). Follow jazzy's idea of pedaling efficiency by focusing on spinning easy gears and spinning smoothly. This allows you to maximize power-output at any given leg-strength; you can actually increase power-output by 20-30% without having to push any harder.

Sprints and intervals are usually during the week because they require no time at all and can be done on short rides like the commute. Yes, they are both efforts above your LT up to max-HR/complete-exhaustion. All you need is to add 3-7 sprints early in the week on the commute. Sprinting from cars or for lights is great, keep it up at 100% effort (as hard as you can) until you're completely spent, about 30-45 seconds. Then spin easy to recover. If you hit lights, time your sprints beforehand so you can use the dead time waiting for lights as recovery, your commuting time will actually go down.

Intervals are sub-100% efforts, but still above your LT. Find stretches of 1-2 miles that's uninterrupted, ride at 90-95% effort so that you're completely spent in 1-2 minutes. Find longer stretches to do 3 or 4 minute intervals at 85-90% effort. Usually short hills are good for intervals, you can pace yourself to get up the hill as fast as possible so that you blow up right at the top and can recover by coasting down.

This training stuff is pretty common, it's in Friel's book if you want more background info. The stat I like to analyze is ratio of time spent training below LT vs. time above LT. Maximum fitness-improvement rates are achieved at 25-35% of training time spent above LT; the pros are typically on the high-end of the range. Most recreational cyclists spend less than 3% of their time above LT. Basically if you want to improve your fitness-level, or improve faster than you are doing now, you just work harder.

chizlr40

thanks for the detailed reply.if i provide the answers to you questions would you be able to give some addtional advice.

Richard Cranium

Brilliant, I wish could understand how so much knowledge can be displayed in one post.

DannoXYZ 

Why thank you!

kf5nd

Thanks!

I'm a left with just a few questions before I dive off and try it... you mentioned 3 - 7 sprints per week, but did not mention how many intervals per week.

Also, I do not know what my LT is... can you point me to a prior discussion or website that discusses how to estimate this?

Is LT relatable to a certain HR %, or perceived exertion level, or is it more complicated than that?

Thanks again... there is so much to learn about the human body.

DannoXYZ 

You're welcome!

At this time of the year, I'm not doing any sprints or intervals really, but if you're not racing with on and off-season cycles, you can stay on a regular weekly schedule and get steady improvements. About 3-7 sprints per week, or even 10-12 would be fine for most people during the course of a week. About 7-12 intervals spread out across two days would be good as well. It's hard not to get them in if you ride on hilly rolling courses, just make-believe the top of the hilll is a finish line and you're going for the polka-dotted jersey in the TDF.

The LT can be found in various ways. The 2x20 test is posted here. You can also find it on a 10-mile time-trial if you've got a flat uninterrupted course somewher. Just ride hard and try to get the fastest average-speed possible. You'll get a good sense of your body after a couple months of riding and will know exactly how it feels to be at that point where you're holding the fastest pace you can for a long time. If you go above this level, you're going to start feeling anaerobic work and build up lactic acid in your legs and your HR will steadily increase.

kf5nd

I think all-out sprinting would be dangerous on my commute, much of which is in the dark. But intervals... those I could do. It would just mean looking for a long stretch without stops, and cranking it up for several minutes.

velocity

Saying that you have the training needed to be more fit ,next time you do a century consider this. In some centuries I can break into the 4 hour marks (more flat). Some centuries I do I may never get under 7 hours (more hill terrain) the fact is there are things that you can't control that add/subtract from the time of your centuries like Pace lines, traffic, wind, flats ect... So time is not of the upmost importance to me as much as quality of intensity put into one. Its weird because time is one veriable that gives someone an idea of how fit you are and maybe a goal. Fact is if I can do a century and not have to be sore the next day cause I pushed it or I can do a B2B then I think training was right on.
Velocity