CincinnatiKid

I'm still relatively new to cycling and I have some questions regarding a recovery ride.
I know you should go pretty slow, but what about cadence, high, low?
Should I avoid hills?
Is an hour recovery ride too long, short?
And what should I eat afterwards to help muscles recover even more?
Thanks guys/gals!

okpik

1. high to medium
2. big ones, yes
3. depends on what your recovering from, but more than likely yes
4. normal ratio of carbs and protein....balanced diet

real question should really be: when are recovery rides needed?

CincinnatiKid

Ok, when are recovery rides needed?

PDay

When you feel especially tired or sore, or after exremely hard workouts (i.e. intervals/hill sessions). Ive always heard a good rule of thumb is to get your heart rate when you wake up on days you have normal workouts, then, on the day after a hard workout, or when you feel overtrained, take your HR again. If its 5 beats above normal, take a rest day or recovery day. This is all assuming you have a HR monitor.

okpik

also depends on whether or not your actually past base mileage mode too, I get the impression many don't get enough base and then think "overtraining"

CincinnatiKid

Thanks for the replys guys, here's my situation. Usually I ride on mondays, wednesdays and fridays but I want to try to start riding everyday. My routes range from 30-40 miles and I try to push for 16+ average and sometimes the next day I'm pretty sore, I'm wondering if I do a small recovery ride <1hr will it help me recover faster or help me to get in better shape.

Carbonfiberboy 

If you do too much, especially increasing too much too quickly, you get tired. Then you do less. Not good. So you need to learn to sense when you need an easy day. It's better to ride easy than not to ride at all. If every day has to be easy in order to ride every day (or 5-6 days/week anyway) then that's where your training level is at that time. It will improve. OTOH, if you're not tired, you don't need the easy day.

I always ride easy one day/week. I need it. I also find that I can't ride easy enough outdoors, so I do that ride on rollers. I just don't have the willpower to ride that stupid slow outdoors.

No, no hills. Try to keep on the flat. I usually, but not always, do the easy ride at a slightly lower cadence. Depends on how your legs feel. Your legs must not feel like they are loading. "They say" that if you're doing it right, you'll be embarrassed to be seen riding that slowly.

I usually ride 30-60 minutes for an easy ride. Sometimes I'll combine FastPedal or one legged pedalling with the easy ride, if I don't need a full-on easy ride. Depends on your weekly hours. I'd say at 8-10 hours/week, a one hour recovery ride would be about the correct proportion for a well-trained individual.