Should I ride everyday?

rumptis said:

I have only been riding a few months and I try and ride every other day. I'm doing usually 20 miles on each ride about 80% flat with a avg of 17 mph. I'm wondering if it would do me any good to ride everyday if I have the time. I do notice that the day after I ride I don't feel near as good as I do the 2nd day when I ride again which I figure is normal. I just don't want to over do it since I'm still new to this.

Thanks for any Advice.

You can ride everyday, but to be on the safe side, put some variety on your rides. What I mean is that, do your 17mph ride every other day and on, say, Tues and Thu, do it below that speed. You dont want to hit a plateau early. Enjoy your ride, the scenery and be safe.

what do you mean by hitting a Plateau early?

Thanks for the quick responce.

Read Lances book "7 weeks to the perfect ride". He is adamant that active recovery in between races and / or hard training rides is better than sitting on the couch. The key is to do +70% of your rides at 60-65% of your max HR. Recovery rides only need to be 45mins long too - I find them very enjoyable as they are low stress and you know they are making you stronger for your next race 🙂. In saying all this I think that throwing in maybe 1 day a week as a complete rest day is not too bad a thing either.

rumptis said:

I have only been riding a few months and I try and ride every other day. I'm doing usually 20 miles on each ride about 80% flat with a avg of 17 mph. I'm wondering if it would do me any good to ride everyday if I have the time. I do notice that the day after I ride I don't feel near as good as I do the 2nd day when I ride again which I figure is normal. I just don't want to over do it since I'm still new to this.

Thanks for any Advice.

As has been mentioned, active recovery (<70% of max HR for 30-60min) is generally better than complete rest, and should be included in your schedule more often than not. However, you should absolutely include complete rest days into your overall program as well, as it does have benefits for cyclists of all levels.
You've noted the fatigue you experience the day after your 20mi ride, so it seems that for now, you are doing enough to build your fitness on those days. Just be sure to keep including the recovery into your program to balance things out.

Smartt/RST said:

As has been mentioned, active recovery (<70% of max HR for 30-60min) is generally better than complete rest, and should be included in your schedule more often than not. However, you should absolutely include complete rest days into your overall program as well, as it does have benefits for cyclists of all levels.
You've noted the fatigue you experience the day after your 20mi ride, so it seems that for now, you are doing enough to build your fitness on those days. Just be sure to keep including the recovery into your program to balance things out.

Hi Guys,
Hope you don't mind me joining this thread...I really haven't much to offer however as I've only been riding again for 1 year and around 2600 miles, but I've been trying to learn as much as I can....

I spend 90% of the time riding by myself, and sometimes go out with the intention of having a nice easy Ride, such as yesterday...I was strolling along..maybe 17mph...a nice tail wind, when two road bikers came flying past me...then, as always, I think "I'm gonna catch and keep up with them"...I always use other Riders as a Goal to motivate me...so I stood up on the Pedals and caught one of the Riders rear wheel...so much for my recovery ride...

Then, on the way back, I noticed 3 Riders about 100 yards behind me, so my motivation then was to ride as hard as I can to stay in front, and I did...

A year ago, 10 miles would really hurt, now it take 35-45, depending on the wind, hills etc....

I'm worried now that in another years time I'm going to have to start doing centuries every time I ride to actually feel any benefit...

My question is, what can I do during my rides so I don't have to spent all Day on the Bike (I'd love to but I have work and family commitments etc) and still improve??

By the way, I don't feel any kind of aches and pains the next day...maybe I'm not riding hard enough?

I hope all this makes some sense...

Jaguar27 said:

Hi Guys,
Hope you don't mind me joining this thread...I really haven't much to offer however as I've only been riding again for 1 year and around 2600 miles, but I've been trying to learn as much as I can....

I spend 90% of the time riding by myself, and sometimes go out with the intention of having a nice easy Ride, such as yesterday...I was strolling along..maybe 17mph...a nice tail wind, when two road bikers came flying past me...then, as always, I think "I'm gonna catch and keep up with them"...I always use other Riders as a Goal to motivate me...so I stood up on the Pedals and caught one of the Riders rear wheel...so much for my recovery ride...

Then, on the way back, I noticed 3 Riders about 100 yards behind me, so my motivation then was to ride as hard as I can to stay in front, and I did...

A year ago, 10 miles would really hurt, now it take 35-45, depending on the wind, hills etc....

I'm worried now that in another years time I'm going to have to start doing centuries every time I ride to actually feel any benefit...

My question is, what can I do during my rides so I don't have to spent all Day on the Bike (I'd love to but I have work and family commitments etc) and still improve??

By the way, I don't feel any kind of aches and pains the next day...maybe I'm not riding hard enough?

I hope all this makes some sense...

You've got duration (amount of time for each workout), intensity (how hard you're going) and frequency (how often per a set amount of time, for example, a week) as variables to play with. Increasing any of these will increase the overall training load/effect.
If you're willing to push hard enough, you should be able to get in everything you need within 1-2 hours (not that you have to limit yourself in this way, of course). There are countless ways to do this, especially if you are riding for fun/fitness/the experience/etc without eg a goal of being able to race for 100 miles.
The trick is to find what motivates you (eg: chasing racers) to push to an intensity you are not familiar with or not usually motivated to train at (once or twice a week) and fit it into your overall program. Some people find specific interval training mentally motivating, others hate it and need to just "hammer".
If you have trouble sticking with the planned recovery ride, try staying on the rollers/trainer from time to time. Active recovery without hills or the elements can be priceless.

It's not very scientific, but I have found on my weekday commute that if I push hard every day I actually get slower. When I'm sore after a few days of this it can hurt just walking around, but back on the bike the soreness is gone. Last week I reached the conclusion that instead of days off, I should do more easy days.

Normally I start out with a warm-up cadence of about 90 for the first mile and a half, then try to keep the cadence over 100 for the rest of the ride. I think what I need to do for my easy days is a warm-up of about 80 and then hold a cadence of about 90 for the rest. Tried this slower pace on Friday and it seemed to work pretty well, but the next day being Saturday I didn't do a consecutive day ride. But I did get to see a bunch of stuff in the towns I ride through that I don't normally see when I'm trying to push hard.🙂

Smartt/RST said:

You've got duration (amount of time for each workout), intensity (how hard you're going) and frequency (how often per a set amount of time, for example, a week) as variables to play with. Increasing any of these will increase the overall training load/effect.
If you're willing to push hard enough, you should be able to get in everything you need within 1-2 hours (not that you have to limit yourself in this way, of course). There are countless ways to do this, especially if you are riding for fun/fitness/the experience/etc without eg a goal of being able to race for 100 miles.
The trick is to find what motivates you (eg: chasing racers) to push to an intensity you are not familiar with or not usually motivated to train at (once or twice a week) and fit it into your overall program. Some people find specific interval training mentally motivating, others hate it and need to just "hammer".
If you have trouble sticking with the planned recovery ride, try staying on the rollers/trainer from time to time. Active recovery without hills or the elements can be priceless.

Thanks for the great advice Michael, I really appreciate it!!