Can you effectively train for cycling only riding once a week? (But running other times)

[J-Boogie]

Hi everyone! I am a complete newb when it comes to the concept of structured training, so please bear with me. I participate in a challenging weekly 30 mile group ride, but unfortunately, it is the only bicycle ride I can't commit to during the week.however, I do on a treadmill and a heart rate monitor. For the last 3 months, I have been running an hour at the time at around 80 percent of my maximum heart rate. I have seen a marked improvement in my running and cycling during this time, but I wonder if my efforts could be put to a more efficient use.this past Saturday, I was able to run 10 miles on the roadin 1 hour and 29 minutes. Before January, I had never run more than 1 mile consecutively.my weekly group ride has increases average speed from 18 miles an hour to roughly 21 miles an hour over the 30 mile stretch during the last 3 months. It seems that others in this group art at the same level as me, trying to improve. Any advice you guys could offer to help me get better faster will be greatly appreciated, and whatever advice you give me I promise to follow exactly. I will keep you guys posted as to my results.

 

[daveryanwyoming]

No

Get on a bike, even a gym exercise bike at least 3 if not more days a week if you want to ride effectively.

Sure the running or any activity will help at the beginning but if you want to get past the very beginning stages of cycling you'll want to be on a bike several days a week at a minimum. If nothing else you'll likely need that just to toughen up your rear end for longer rides but there's also specific training from cycling that isn't the same as running. Ideally quite a bit of that riding, at least as you're learning, would be outdoors on an actual bike as you also have to develop a lot of riding skills in addition to pure fitness and you won't learn safe riding, dealing with bad roads, fast corners, wet conditions, when to shift, how to stand efficiently or a host of other important skills if you don't actually ride a bike.

 

[danfoz]

I can only offer my feelings and one observation. My feeling says not much 'improvement' (reads no improvement) can be had from one day a week on the bike, however you are also talking about training cardio a few times a week. Cycling specific fitness may not go anywhere but your heart will still be getting stressed and be in a generally robust state.

My observation is that of an old teamate (a young guy) who rode his bike only once a week on Saturday but did centuries (100 mile rides). If he occasionally did two rides on the weekend it was usually two centuries. Not usual, I know. He was a Cat 5 and he was able to hang in the races and not get dropped. He also recorded better lap times then every other Cat 5 on the team when we did a short TT (3.5 miles), i.e. better times than guys who rode a few times a week but only around 1/5 of his mileage a pop (20 miles or so), by quite a large margin (over a minute for the 3.5 mile distance).

Completing a 100 miles can be done by many folks with conservative pacing and liberal re-fueling. What I like to call "walking on the bike".

Whether he progressed at all is another argument entirely.

Studies have shown that riders who move from 3 days a week on the bike to 4 days a week can show a 50% improvement in fitness. The research shows more rides is better. Consistency is key.

 

[danfoz]

Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming .

No

You beat me to it /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

 

[J-Boogie]

Wow! Thanks for the definitive advice, guys! I guess a stationary bike is in my future! Is pro form any good? There is a pro from spin bike on Craigslist for $250

 

[danfoz]

Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming .
Ideally quite a bit of that riding, at least as you're learning, would be outdoors on an actual bike as you also have to develop a lot of riding skills in addition to pure fitness and you won't learn safe riding, dealing with bad roads, fast corners, wet conditions, when to shift, how to stand efficiently or a host of other important skills if you don't actually ride a bike.

Interesting you mention this Dave - the fella on my team who did the big miles once a week didn't have the pack experience all of the realtively weaker Cat5's did (even at the very entry level). And although he could ride the pants off them in a TT, his drafting and tactical skills were weaker, and the rest all usually did better in the local races.

 

[daveryanwyoming]

Originally Posted by J-Boogie .

Wow! Thanks for the definitive advice, guys! I guess a stationary bike is in my future! Is pro form any good? There is a pro from spin bike on Craigslist for $250

I'm sure that's a decent spin bike and you could certainly train on it. But I'd go out and buy a decent trainer like a Kurt Kinetic or Cyclops trainer and put your actual bike on it for indoor training. The training won't really be any better or worse but you'll be riding your actual bike and getting used to things like the saddle and seat height setup, gear shifting and all of that while training indoors.

 

[danfoz]

Originally Posted by J-Boogie .

Wow! Thanks for the definitive advice, guys! I guess a stationary bike is in my future! Is pro form any good? There is a pro from spin bike on Craigslist for $250

I dunno aboou the pro-form specifically but the main thing is having your indoor solution mirror your bikes riding position pretty closely if not 100%

 

[jhuskey]

I agree and have had this debate before. The guy that rides 250 miles a week is better off than the guy that rides 100, generally speaking and all else being equal. I own a ProForm TDF model that I like very much. Other models I have no idea about. Between the trainer and road training, it's all about being on the road but running is a lot better than sitting any day of the week.

 

[quenya]

IME, going from being essentially sedentary for a few years and putting on a lot of weight I made huge gains training for a marathon. Lost 40lbs, and YES improved my cycling a ton... But, those are begginer gains. You may be able to make some gains on the bike by running, for a little while, depending on your starting point. If you want to be competitive against cyclists though, you'll have to be a cyclist. I'm in pretty good cycling shape and I know if I go running in a mixed group I won't be the slowest guy but I wouldn't be top five in a 5-10k run/race like I'd expect to be in a 10-25 mile TT...

 

[J-Boogie]

I just scored a kinetic fluid trainer on craigslist for $175. My treadmill time is about to become trainer time! I also got a used copy of The Time Crunched Cyclist for four bucks, so hopefully my training can start to take on some structure.

 

[An old Guy]

Originally Posted by J-Boogie .

I participate in a challenging weekly 30 mile group ride. my weekly group ride has increases average speed from 18 miles an hour to roughly 21 miles an hour over the 30 mile stretch during the last 3 months. For the last 3 months, I have been running an hour at the time at around 80 percent of my maximum heart rate.I was able to run 10 miles on the road in 1 hour and 29 minutes.

I think you are improving at a reasonable pace.

I think the running is good for you. Perhaps you should push harder on the runs, but I don't know how you feel on the runs or after the runs. 9 minute miles are not really fast. But going from 1 mile to 10 is certainly good progress. Perhaps try to improve your speed on shorter runs - 15-30 seconds/mile is a lot of improvement. Then lengthen those runs. Then go back to shorter and faster runs.

Your 30 miles a week on a group ride will get you all the group riding skills you need. Again, I don't know how to participate in the rides or how you feel during or after the rides. But most likely you can do more on the rides - ride more at the front. Work harder on any climbs - set a goal like move from the back of the group to the front on the climbs. Keep up with the strong guys on the climbs.

The basic idea is to set reasonable goals - goals that you can hope to reach over time, and keep trying.

---

I have the same trainer you have. It works well, but I can only take an hour on it before I overheat. I would much rather be on the road for several hours at the same effort.

But seem to be doing well enough. When you stop improving, you might ask again.

 

[J-Boogie]

I did my first workout on the trainer last night, and I would have to say it is quite punishing compared to the road rides I am accustomed to. All I really knew to do was maintain my lactic threshold (once I reached it) for about 40 minutes. It was a 65 minute ride with warm up and cool down. I am interested in intervals training, but don't really know where to start. Can anyone make a recommendation?

 

[RapDaddyo]

A good thing about trainers is that you can get repeatable resistances if you set them up properly. To get a repeatable resistance, you want to have the same tire, same tire pressure, same press-on force and same tire speed. Most trainers have a press-on force adjustment knob that can be set in the same position from one ride to the next. Once you have those factors constant (and repeatable), then you just need a rear-wheel-based speedometer and you can obtain a repeatable resistance. Then you need to calibrate your fitness at different speeds. To do this, get the trainer warmed up (about 10-15mins should do it), pick a speed and ride at that speed until you can't hold it any longer. The duration is now your maximum duration at that resistance. For training, I suggest riding for about 90% of that duration at that resistance. Don't worry about "lactic threshold" because that is actually a pretty low training threshold and requires measuring blood lactate anyway. Don't worry about your heart rate. As to cadence, just experiment with different gears and find a cadence at which you can ride at your target speed with the least discomfort. Through trial and error, you can probably find a few different max durations (e.g., 20, 30, 40, 60 minutes). A good book on training is Training and Racing with a Power Meter by Hunter Allen and Andy Coggan. Even though the book is written primarily for training with a power meter, all of the training intensities are also defined by heart rate and perceived exertion. BTW, I have no financial interest in the Allen/Coggan book.

 

[StephanieIngram]

wow its really great...

 

[edd]

From some one who rides an indoor spin bike three times a week and gets out on the road once a week (for the past seventeen years) - indoor spin trainier is not the same as riding on the road, It is as close as you are ever going to get, but there are very subtle differences. Fitness is extremely velocity, action, activity specific. Most noticeable difference is hill climbing ability.

That said, a good training regime on a combination of indoor trainer and road bike can prove to be a lot better than a poor training regime just on the road. In a perfect world I'd be doing 90% work on the road and using the indoor cycle for super short super hard intervals and recovery spins infront of the TV.