Fast Group Rides are Lousy Workouts - Page 2

For the flat rides I'm talking about here, my NP is only ~220w. When we use routes with more climbing, it's higher (depends on the ride).

I don't think I have any routes with right hand loops and "cut throughs" as you describe. But, I can throw in some climbing sections on almost any route. And, I think I can employ Woofer's suggestion of sending one or two off the front and forming one (or two) chase groups.

Yes, that's emerging as strategy #1. Looking at my ride files, the hills offer the chance for everybody to get in a good interval which is beneficial regardless of the overall intensity of the ride.

I agree. I know the strongest riders and I'll have a chat with them about putting in long, hard pulls when they're on front and I may ask one (or two) of them to get away and try to stay away. That's always good practice to work with, say, one other rider on a break. It's also good practice for the others to work together in a chase group (varying the pull durations as appropriate to optimize the group's speed).

My goal is to improve the workout for everyone (including me). There are some strong riders in my part of town and the only other fast weekend rides are on the other side of town. I ride with a non-racing club that has up to now had one ride per weekend day (and holidays). The rides vary from 30-40 miles and the average pace is ~16-17mph. The group sort of emerged from our main rides because I would go off the front on every ride. Then, a few others started going with me and eventually there were about 6-8 of us off the front. After talking with the others about what kind of rides they were interested in, the consensus was longer (~40-60 miles), more challenging (more climbing) and faster (20+mph) rides. So, I began designing and posting these "A" rides on our club ride calendar and soon the word got out and other good riders began showing up. So, now we're up to ~10-12 riders per ride and I began noticing that the APs and NPs dropped quite a bit (just due to being on front a smaller percentage of the ride). This past Sunday was the first ride that was almost completely flat and when I downloaded the ride file I was stunned at how low the average power was (low 200s). I haven't done rides with an NP in the low 200s in months. As I studied the ride file and reflected on the ride, I began to realize that it would have been almost impossible to raise the NP much without changing things up somehow. It wasn't as though we were loafing. I was doing 300-400w on front, as were the others. But, we would have had to be doing 400+w on front to raise the ride NP significantly. As I said above, I have lots of options to throw in some climbs so I don't have to use similar, mostly flat, routes very often.

interesting issue -- can't say I've noticed it here. We have weekly fast small group rides 4-8 guys. I'm the largest so I do much of the pulling on the flats, downhills, headwinds .. at least 50%. And the pulls are plenty long enough to show up on NP. And then the lighter guys set the pace up hills or long grades and the heavier guys cling to wheels. My NP PB's for durations of 10min to 3hrs have come on these type of rides. AP is often down a bit ...

If your group is too big .. why not just split into 2 or 3 smaller groups that can 'race' each other? Separated by 50-100m? Pretend you're in a Belgian x-wind ...

The other suggestion would be that folks not draft that tightly when you're stronger than the others. It's pretty easy to 'half-draft' IME ...

We usually avoid really hilly loops as the ability range is too wide and the drop in AP/HR during the regroupments frustrates the hell o/o some of us! Nothing like a minute of easy spinning to muck up a tempo ride.

rmur

If I were on front 1/2 the time, I'm sure my AP and NP would be plenty high. The problem is the low percentage of time on front.

That's a good approach, closely related to Woofer's suggestion of sending one or two off the front and chase them down. That might work.

Yeah, I can try that, or draft in a slight staggered position.

I can see that could be a problem, but an interesting thing happened on one ride. There was a 5 mile climb (~6%) and we broke up into about 4 groups of 2-4 riders each. Two guys were pretty strong because I made the climb at ~300w and they were pulling away easily. When they got to the top, they descended until they got below the last riders and then climbed back up so they arrived at the top with the slowest riders. Others just waited at the top. At least there were options. When the last ones got to the top, we continued on. It worked out pretty well.

Or you could just wear a really big flappy jacket. That'll up your watts a bit.

I really don't see what the problem is. Use your group rides as low ("easy") intensity workouts, and then go out and ride at a separate time or even continue immediately after your ride at a higher intensity, by yourself or with a small group of other riders who are at your level. Another alternative, is pull a U going up the longer climbs, go down the hill, and then turn around and hammer to catch back up to the group. That should give you some intensity.

Sounds like you're really improving your power Rapdaddyo, we going to
see you go cat 1 soon? Good work.

-Bikeguy

Looks you found the same answer. I must say this forum is a bit slow, I'm really having trouble posting stuff here, takes like a minute before it goes through, if I can even view the forum.

Of course the negative of this going down the hill and back up, is it may demoralize some of the riders so much that they never show up again.

This happened while I was with a small group ride, all of a sudden the strongest rider (several top 8 placings in elite RR's here in finland) decides to do hill sprints to 55 km/hr (not steep or long hills, obviously) but this new guy got dropped by about 500 meters within a short period of time (we had just gone up a 1 km long hill of about 3-4% before). Poor fellow, we never saw him again. I mean, we held up for him but never saw him again after that ride. Maybe he'll come back next year.


-Bikeguy

I think their server is underpowered, but it's hard to complain about the performance of a service that I don't pay for.

Yes, I am conscious of that. Actually, I want to encourage other riders to "move up" and try the faster group. For that reason, I design rides to overlap the main ride for the first 5-10 miles. If a rider starts off with the fast group and finds the pace is too high, he can drop off and hook up with the main ride when they come along.

This is the problem with group rides, even if all the riders are relatively uniform in their power. Even so, there are going to be pretty large differences in their sustainable power and especially their "climbing power" or w/kg. So, it's a tradeoff to plan routes that meet the group's collective needs. That is, until I finish my variable resistance front hub. Then, it'll be a piece of cake (at least for me).

Yeah, right. Actually, I've pretty much concluded that in the SoCal masters races it takes ~4 w/kg to "get in the game," ~4.5 w/kg to influence the race pace and ~5.0 w/kg to dictate the race. So, my strategy is to keep increasing my power until it flattens out, then lose some weight. The problem is, nobody is going to recognize me at ~150 lbs.

Yeah, I agree. Just meant to say I didn't see your post pop up till after I posted mine.

Sounds good to me.

Yes, I've noticed this very same thing. Our club has two "official" training
rides in april and september. A lot of people show up for those, but very few
on the regular rides. I don't show up either when there is snow on the ground, I'm not going on a highway with 23 mm tires! The main reason more people don't show up is that many come from several hundred kilometers away and a lot of riders live more than a hundred away from our ride meet point.
You don't like my flappy jacket idea?? I have to hand it to you though, I just bought some vredestein fortezza tricomps to make those long rides less tiring, and you're thinking of adding a dynamo to your front wheel. Jeezz..

-Bikeguy

Is the masters equivalent to cat 1? 5 w/kg for say, a 20 min climb during a RR is pretty high. I take it you're not going to make it to 150 lbs, but you've always
got the supply side to work on!

-Bikeguy

In Northern California 5w/kg for *five* minutes isn't going to let you out of the pack in the slow and old guys 35+ 4/5's in a hilly race.

Masters is typically age groups, 30+, 35+, 40+, etc, but the top masters tend to be succesful Cat 1 sandbaggers.

I don't know where these guys come from, but they're pretty fit. I may start checking birth certificates.

I don't know. I think I'll get someone to take a closeup picture of my face at the end of a max power L5 interval and put it on my refrigerator. I think that'll have the desired effect.

I agree. I meant 5 w/kg FT.