Maintaining endurance this winter
 

I am a little bit new to "training" and actually riding to get fitter and for racing (begin racing next season), so bear with me. I have been doing a lot of 100+ mile rides and now 100 miles is becoming easy to ride, but I fear that this winter with reduction of training time and less hours on the bike in a session that I am going to piss away all of my hard work to get to this level of endurance. I may do one 100 mile a month on the trainer but I really want to not do that as I think that could be extremely boring. i will try setting up a tv so I can watch some movies while I ride, but theres gotta be a way around this, no?

Also, winter is a time to reduce training and physically/mentally recap and get excited for the upcoming season, aka not pushing the miles and intensity like i do during season. is there ways to maintain fitness again? i think I may only be riding 7-8 hours on average from December-late March on the trainer and want to maintain my fitness, because this year so far I have worked really hard to get my speed up and endurance and i dont want to see if all go

It comes back in the spring if nothing else.

Carmichael says you worked hard all summer to get your watts up. Don't let those gains go away. Instead use them as a base to build on for next season. IOW, don't start over. Keep building. I think he's right. He says that the old tradition of taking time off in the fall is old. Even the pros don't do that now. I've tried it both ways and I'll never take it easy in the winter again. Disaster.

But you're right: you can't keep on doing like you've been doing. You have to change up because for one thing you don't have the time and for another, 6 hours on the trainer at a time is a bit much.

What I do is focus on technique and strength. I do a lot of roller riding, but not long sessions. I don't think I've ever ridden over 1:45. Usually 1:00-1:30. I focus on drills: high cadence, OLP, low cadence tempo, that sort of thing. And I lift weights, but only about 1/2 hour twice/week and multi-joint only. That's enough if you move your tush. I use Friel's weight workouts. You can also do HIIT on the rollers or trainer. And I go out once/week and do ~50 miles at a hard pace. If the weather really sucks, I can easily substitute roller and weight work on Saturday and Sunday for the outdoor ride. That's about 7 hours/week if I get all my workouts done.

So I maintain some aerobic base, improve my muscular strength, and maintain some aerobic endurance. It's surprising hard to sit there and maintain the upper end of zone 2 for 1:30 with perfect form on the rollers. The high end stuff goes away the quickest and also comes back the quickest, so I don't concentrate on that. I work on base, skills, strength, and injury prevention. I've been using my winter schedule for 2 weeks now, and I'm already surprisingly stronger in the gym and better on the rollers. I've also been using Danielson's Core Advantage. It works.

The really fit guys in my club ride through the winter- that's gonna be my plan this year. Just have to learn how to dress for it and invest in the kit. Also need some lights if you're riding anywhere like I am where most of the daylight is spent at work.

Where do you live? With the right clothes, fenders, and lights, you can keep riding outside all winter.