Cycling Fitness / Training Advice

Spend the money down the pub instead. Just ride your bike a lot, mostly steady. And occasionally hard for durations of 4-15mins, with rest around 2 min between efforts. Efforts dont need to be over 95% hr max but around 90-95% avg is good. With total duration around 40-60 min HARD work a week.

That's helpful, thank you. I'm riding TCR this year so feel I should add a bit more structure.

Racing*

Only do it if you enjoy it. Bikes are about fun, so train how you find fun. And also keep it sustainable, so many people do too much, only to burn out. It's a fine balance. It's only January so don't worry till like April.

Spend the money down the pub instead.

Last 20 years of my training plan.

Tried four weeks of 7 hours a week on the turbo (up from 2.5ish) - from ~350 TSS a week to 550 TSS.

TR Ramp test this morning and got the same FTP as four weeks ago (actually 1w less). I’ve literally never plateaued before. Always tested higher after a block of training.

Annoying. But I guess it means I don’t benefit from increased training load / hours. 7 hours isn’t really sustainable anyway so fuck it, back to the low volume plans.

Your concluding that after 4 weeks?

Do it for 8 more then see.

How are you doing 350tss off 2.5hours? Not possible

True. Last year I was doing 2 or 2:15 on the turbo during the week for ~180 TSS, then a 4 hour weekend ride between 150 and 225 TSS, but not “quality work”.

I injured my hand a month ago and couldn’t work in the workshop (or ride a bike) so decided to bump up the turbo training, 7 hours and around 490 TSS (next four weeks are 550 but fuck that). I’m bored of it now, demotivated by the test and my hand is ok enough that I can’t use it as an excuse to “work from home” and train every day.

4h ride between 150-220 is decent work.

Fitness takes time. That's the beauty it only rewards those with dedication. It's also the curse.

I could train better, but like you it would kill me mentaly. so I do about 90% of what I could, but I can sustain that, with all other factors.

That said 4 weeks isnt really much time, so an improvement will come you just need to plug away at it. And hope the hand is improving!

Riding for 2:15 hours to get 180tss is riding steady at 90% of ftp. I've not tried riding at that intensity for that long but just looking at the numbers makes it look daunting. Which might suggest that your ftp was set too low previously?

Something like this is 100 TSS in 1:15

https://www.trainerroad.com/career/david%20lfgss%20cc/rides/60970339#.XjBGzA8GWOY

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It’s not that bad. This was Sunday.

Edit - ignore distance and speed, this was a turbo session.

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You FTP is set too low.

Your max HR is around 190 i guess?

So 142 avg hr should be around 50-60 tss/h not 90ish

I could not earn 90tss/h on the turbo. Perhaps the road, during a road race is the only way.

Max HR is about 180, maybe 181/2

This was a session of a few long sprints and lots of tempo work, with a few pushes up to threshold . I was very fresh on Sunday too, if that makes a difference?

I'd still say you FTP is higher than you have it set.

Maybe. Its more the HR that makes me think you're working at a lower aerobic rate than compared with TSS rate.

IF you were nailed after it, then maybe it's OK.

It doesn't really matter, but maybe your FTP is 20W higher than thought. Or you just were super motivated and killed a session.

Hmmm. I’d better test then.

I was certainly happy to stop pushing the pedals.

Anyway, not going to complain if I’ve stuck 20 watts on FTP.

How did you manage 489ft on a turbo?

Front wheel is obviously a bit higher than the back wheel. Obviously.

Bunny hops to keep things interesting

It was Zwift

Ah ok. Never tried it.

20w wouldn't be an unusual increase depending on how well trained you are. When did you last test?