Even gotten by without Base Training & have been Fast?

JTE83 said:

Has any one of you bikers ever gone through a season without base training / base miles and you ended up being fast ?

Like how many miles did you do during the season, and what avg speed / avg HR did you have in peak form? Also what was your max top speed in the flats with no winds?

Sure. I didn't do any "base miles" this winter and had a great season. I didn't track heart rate during races, but I averaged 26ish mph late in the season for a 20k time trial. (I might have been capable of 21 the same time the season before)

Won a couple races, had some good placings, etc.

whoawhoa said:

Sure. I didn't do any "base miles" this winter and had a great season. I didn't track heart rate during races, but I averaged 26ish mph late in the season for a 20k time trial. (I might have been capable of 21 the same time the season before)

Won a couple races, had some good placings, etc.

I should add this-all winter I was doing 13-15 hours per week, which isn't insignificant. That was the most my schedule allowed, and my philosphy was, if I can do 15 hrs a week with intervals, then why do 15 hrs a week easy?

JTE83 said:

Has any one of you bikers ever gone through a season without base training / base miles and you ended up being fast?

Depends on what you mean by 'base training.' For example, I never restrict myself to "nothing over 75% for 1000 miles" or the like, but I do start off a little easy after taking a few weeks off the bike. I'm typically ramping up the intensity and volume within a couple (2-3) weeks and including intervals within a couple more weeks after that, but I still maintain a mix of longer endurance rides throughout the winter and racing season. Technically I'm still working on/maintaining my 'base' all year round, and that approach seems fairly common.

I've only been able to manage ~5-6 hrs/wk before this year, so that doesn't leave a lot of time for base miles. This year I'm determined to be in the 8-10 hr/wk range, and I expect to see much better results (although still no formal 'base' period 😉 ).

You are describing my winter project. It never made sense to me that you had to spend most of the off season spinning easy and building up this mythical base. I understand recovering from the stress of a racing season, but if you have been riding or racing throughout the previous year, or for years, don't you have a base already built? Instead, I'm working with a coach who has me doing lots of intervals on a computrainer. I'm not riding the rivet at this point and many of the intervals now are of short duration with long rests. I do some longer rides outside on weekends and some running and swimming crosstraining. As the season approaches, the intervals will become more intense with shorter rest periods between. We'll see.

whoawhoa said:

Sure. I didn't do any "base miles" this winter and had a great season. I didn't track heart rate during races, but I averaged 26ish mph late in the season for a 20k time trial. (I might have been capable of 21 the same time the season before)

Won a couple races, had some good placings, etc.

Yeah - if you're in really good condition I don't see a need to do base training during winter. I'd rather keep up[ with regular training. But isn't base training what the pros do ?

I don't even do 13 - 15 hrs per week during the summer, so you do a lot of winter training compared to me. But I guess I quit racing as I placed last place in the last criterium I raced. I guess my speed sucks but at most I trained 130 miles a week for the race (not enough).