Some advice needed

FriendlyFred said:

I need some advice. I'm frustrated about my cycling. I'm riding every day (12-20 miles) and am not getting any better at it. I'm doing hills and flats during the rides, but seem to continue to struggle on the hills (I sound like a spaivened race horse and never get any better at climbing) and am not increasing my endurance or speed on the flats. I have a trainer (cycl-ops fluid trainer) that I ride every morning (30 minutes) before work, as well.

What can I do to increase my endurance and get better at this? I'm not a racer, and I know compared to many of you here I'm not riding great distances, but I love riding and want it to be enjoyable and not a chore every single time I'm out there. Any suggestions or ideas would be great.

bike: Trek 5200
trainer: Cycl-Ops fluid trainer

thanks!

I guess my first question would be "How do you know you are not getting any better?"

I usually always struggle up hills, though I know how I am doing because I measure the effort. If you are timing yourself or comparing yourself to other riders, you will know if you are improving or not.

Now, onto the subject of how to improve.

Intervals aren't just for racers. If you want to get better/faster you need to do some kind of semi-structured intervals. On some days, hammer the hills and noodle the flats. On other days, hammer the flats and spin up the hills. On still other days, take it easy over the whole course.

Try to shoot for longer intervals with shorter recovery over the flats to improve your cruising power and shorter intervals with longer recovery to improve your climbing. Try hill repeats with a full rest coming down getting ready for the next interval.

Jim

I can also say that I always feel like I "struggle" up my key hills. The only difference is that a year and a half ago I was struggling on the 30x25 combo of a triple and now I struggle in my 39x23, 21, or 19 on the double. I still hurt as much when I get to the top.

But to answer your question, as said before - intervals aren't just for racers. They're for people trying to get better. Do them, and you'll improve.

FriendlyFred said:

I love riding and want it to be enjoyable and not a chore every single time I'm out there. Any suggestions or ideas would be great.

You have a couple options: 1) incorporate some higher intensity periods as otb4evr suggests, which will make *some* of your rides seem very much like chores (but not *every single* one 😉 ), or 2) just take it easy, enjoy the rides, and not worry about trying to improve since you love riding and are just having fun.

Nothing says you have to be going a certain speed in order to be doing it right. 🙂

Thanks very much for the suggestions, I will try them 🙂

I think I'm just frustrated because I find I'm trying to push myself on these rides and I get home and find I didn't enjoy the ride, I endured it. And I'll think I'm doing pretty good then someone will just blaze past me. It's frustrating.

I like the idea of alternating really cranking on the hills and flats, and some days just taking it easy. That makes a lot of sense. I've been trying to do it all as hard as I can all the time, and have just been wringing myself out and not accomplishing much.

Thanks for the ideas!

FriendlyFred said:

Thanks very much for the suggestions, I will try them 🙂

I think I'm just frustrated because I find I'm trying to push myself on these rides and I get home and find I didn't enjoy the ride, I endured it. And I'll think I'm doing pretty good then someone will just blaze past me. It's frustrating.

I like the idea of alternating really cranking on the hills and flats, and some days just taking it easy. That makes a lot of sense. I've been trying to do it all as hard as I can all the time, and have just been wringing myself out and not accomplishing much.

Thanks for the ideas!

If you're riding 1.5 hours a day or more, every day, that's a fair amount of training every week. First thing to do, depending on your age, might be to take one or two days a week off.

When you say you're "trying as hard as I can all the time", you may be going too hard every day, and never recovering as a result. Suggest you force yourself to slow down and enjoy your daily rides for at least a week. If you're like me, you're better riding alone for true recovery rides since it's hard to resist the friendly competition when you're with buddies. You may need to use an HRM to make sure you're going easy enough to really recover.

When you're feeling rested and strong again, try a harder workout one day a week. You could do some hill work, or intervals on the flats; 20-40 minutes to start would be plenty. Even these shouldn't be "all out", but at a pace you can sustain. Believe you'll be surprised at how much speed you have once you're fully recovered.

Finding the intensity, frequency and volume you need for optimum training progress is the big topic of most of the threads here. Many people buy HRMs, powermeters and software packages to help them measure and document intensity to learn exactly what they can tolerate long-term, and what loads give them optimum progress.

Higher intensities are easier to maintain on an indoor trainer so when the weather is bad that is a good time to get quality training. I tend to stay in lower intensitiy levels while outside and just enjoy riding probably because I don't want to try and control the bike with sweat dripping in my eyes or bonk 25 miles from home.

Check you bike fit too. Back when I was riding a bike that was too big for me I struggled plenty. I rode a lot, but never felt like I was getting any faster or stronger and I definitly struggled up hills - slow, knee pain, could not stand etc. When I got a bike that fit me properly I was astounded to find that I was not only immediately 2mph faster, but I was able to make fast progress. I used to have a triple with low low gearing on it - a lot like mt bike gearing, but on a road bike and I needed it too. Swapped that out for a bike that fit with a standard triple and found pretty quickly that I didn't even need that. I now have a standard double and am doing fine - well heck more than fine. I've improved my hill climbing so much that I was 3rd at my last hill climb race.
24.5 mile hill climb
2004 Old bike - too big (24lbs) 2:44:18
2005 New bike - fits! (21lbs) 2:04:25
2006 Newest bike ;-) (17.5lbs) 1:52:33

Oh yeah - and it certainly didn't hurt my speed on the flats either!