Even gotten by without Base Training & have been Fast?

[JTE83]

Has any one of you bikers ever gone through a season without base training / base miles and you ended up being fast ?

Like how many miles did you do during the season, and what avg speed / avg HR did you have in peak form? Also what was your max top speed in the flats with no winds?

 

[whoawhoa]

Has any one of you bikers ever gone through a season without base training / base miles and you ended up being fast ?

Like how many miles did you do during the season, and what avg speed / avg HR did you have in peak form? Also what was your max top speed in the flats with no winds?

Sure. I didn't do any "base miles" this winter and had a great season. I didn't track heart rate during races, but I averaged 26ish mph late in the season for a 20k time trial. (I might have been capable of 21 the same time the season before)

Won a couple races, had some good placings, etc.

 

[whoawhoa]

Sure. I didn't do any "base miles" this winter and had a great season. I didn't track heart rate during races, but I averaged 26ish mph late in the season for a 20k time trial. (I might have been capable of 21 the same time the season before)

Won a couple races, had some good placings, etc.

I should add this-all winter I was doing 13-15 hours per week, which isn't insignificant. That was the most my schedule allowed, and my philosphy was, if I can do 15 hrs a week with intervals, then why do 15 hrs a week easy?

 

[frenchyge]

Has any one of you bikers ever gone through a season without base training / base miles and you ended up being fast?

Depends on what you mean by 'base training.' For example, I never restrict myself to "nothing over 75% for 1000 miles" or the like, but I do start off a little easy after taking a few weeks off the bike. I'm typically ramping up the intensity and volume within a couple (2-3) weeks and including intervals within a couple more weeks after that, but I still maintain a mix of longer endurance rides throughout the winter and racing season. Technically I'm still working on/maintaining my 'base' all year round, and that approach seems fairly common.

I've only been able to manage ~5-6 hrs/wk before this year, so that doesn't leave a lot of time for base miles. This year I'm determined to be in the 8-10 hr/wk range, and I expect to see much better results (although still no formal 'base' period ).

 

[park]

You are describing my winter project. It never made sense to me that you had to spend most of the off season spinning easy and building up this mythical base. I understand recovering from the stress of a racing season, but if you have been riding or racing throughout the previous year, or for years, don't you have a base already built? Instead, I'm working with a coach who has me doing lots of intervals on a computrainer. I'm not riding the rivet at this point and many of the intervals now are of short duration with long rests. I do some longer rides outside on weekends and some running and swimming crosstraining. As the season approaches, the intervals will become more intense with shorter rest periods between. We'll see.

 

[JTE83]

Sure. I didn't do any "base miles" this winter and had a great season. I didn't track heart rate during races, but I averaged 26ish mph late in the season for a 20k time trial. (I might have been capable of 21 the same time the season before)

Won a couple races, had some good placings, etc.

Yeah - if you're in really good condition I don't see a need to do base training during winter. I'd rather keep up[ with regular training. But isn't base training what the pros do ?

I don't even do 13 - 15 hrs per week during the summer, so you do a lot of winter training compared to me. But I guess I quit racing as I placed last place in the last criterium I raced. I guess my speed sucks but at most I trained 130 miles a week for the race (not enough).