What is a 'hard' ride and what is not?

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by tanggoman
To the experts here, how do you gauge if you had a hard ride or not?

Do you base it on how long you have stayed on the 80-90% HRmax? Or you only can know the morning after the ride upon measuring the morning 'waking up' HR?

Thanks

I'm not an "expert", but I use 85% HRmax as my intensity point, and roughly track the time at and above that point. Also, like to know any time I spend at 95% and above. Morning HR doesn't seem to be reliable for me; it seems to vary based on non-training related issues.

I've found from experience that if I spend an hour or more above 85%, I'll be tired the next day, and need a couple of recovery days of easy riding. I can breathe fine now at 85-90% max HR level, and the legs don't get sore anymore....just get an overall tiredness from hard training that demands recovery.

I only feel like I've done a really hard ride when I've done a super fast group ride or race. Adrenalin gets your legs to do things they can't do when you're training on your own 😄

In my opinion, you should know it if you've done a hard ride; your legs should be a bit sore after the ride, and sometimes the day after.

Sometimes I plod along for a few weeks training alone, thinking I'm working hard because I'm at 90%, etc...then BANG, a fast group ride, and I really feel the difference.

umm, all my rides are either hard/training or easy/recovery.
it sounds like you do a lot of "medium" days, which is not good for improvement.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by tanggoman
To the experts here, how do you gauge if you had a hard ride or not?

Do you base it on how long you have stayed on the 80-90% HRmax? Or you only can know the morning after the ride upon measuring the morning 'waking up' HR?

Thanks

I don't claim to be an expert but I have some experience and I think that using just a heart rate monitor can be extremely misleading. Use a power meter along with your heart rate monitor, and watch your level of perceived exertion and you should be able to get a more accurate depiction of how hard your workout really is.

Get a good warmup also...make sure not to go out too hard on the warm up...keep telling yourself "slow, easy, slow,easy"

90-95%HRMax for more then 30minutes.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by nutbag
I only feel like I've done a really hard ride when I've done a super fast group ride or race. Adrenalin gets your legs to do things they can't do when you're training on your own 😄

In my opinion, you should know it if you've done a hard ride; your legs should be a bit sore after the ride, and sometimes the day after.

Sometimes I plod along for a few weeks training alone, thinking I'm working hard because I'm at 90%, etc...then BANG, a fast group ride, and I really feel the difference.

Totally! Riding by yourself is a good way to get out and mash the pedals. Monitor your HR, blah blah blah, but if you want to put some pop in your legs, get out and do a group ride.

Plus, it's a cool way to meet people!