But isn't that endurance?Frigo's Luggage said:However, I am of the opinion that competitive cycling, at least amatuer cycling, is not an endurance sport. If you train for a race like an endurance athlete, you will not last more than five minutes. Cycling is about learning to produce power and then sustain that power.
Ride e.g. 2*20 min intervals with 5-10 % less of the maximum power for the duration. Is it then long and hard? Well, those are are pretty subjective terms.sogood said:I guess the question is, is there anything training strategy for endurance apart from long and hard rides? Or is blood and testosterone doping not a good idea?
I wouldn't call 2x20 long and hard. It may improve my FTP but I don't think it'll help to prepare me for a 250km ride.sidewind said:Ride e.g. 2*20 min intervals with 5-10 % less of the maximum power for the duration. Is it then long and hard? Well, those are are pretty subjective terms.
I think improving your FTP will surely help you on your 250 km ride. For example, I have succeeded in keeping an IF of ~0.7 for 7-10 hour events, with training of mainly 2*20...25 min during winter, and maybe one month in spring with riding up to 2-3 hours on the tempo zone. Another issue is then if FTP training is all one should do; the issues how to pace, eat, drink during multihour event are best learnt on a multihour ride.sogood said:I wouldn't call 2x20 long and hard. It may improve my FTP but I don't think it'll help to prepare me for a 250km ride.
Yes and no. My post is certainly not precise.Alex Simmons said:But isn't that endurance?
Frigo's Luggage said:Yes and no. My post is certainly not precise.
My point is that doing long rides will do nothing to increase your speed. In order to increase speed, you must train at a greater speed. Doing one minute intervals will do more for increasing speed than a long ride. Don't get me wrong. Cyling is a mix of endurance and power. However, if you are looking to get faster and endurance is not a problem, you should focus on power.
Ultimately this training stuff is like eating a balanced diet. You need healthy portions from each of the food groups....sprinting, AE intervals, lactate threshold intervals and endurance rides.
FTP and SST training was the vast majority of my training this year and I just finished my season with a 206 mile race with substantial climbing and did quite well. Yeah, I do more than 2x20s and by mid season was shooting for an hour or more in L4 and up to two hours in level on SST days but very few rides longer than that. I rode one 105 mile ride with a friend and my pulls were at Tempo pace but the whole ride averaged to mid L2. I also did a big all day event ride with lots of climbing with an old friend for the heck of it and paced the day to just enjoy it.sogood said:I wouldn't call 2x20 long and hard. It may improve my FTP but I don't think it'll help to prepare me for a 250km ride.
Thanks Dave and that info is very useful, particularly for someone who is relatively time restricted and would find it hard to find the time to ride for anything longer than 100km. Lots of 2x20 and I might consider entering that 220km Grafton-Inverell road race next year...daveryanwyoming said:FTP and SST training was the vast majority of my training this year and I just finished my season with a 206 mile race with substantial climbing and did quite well. Yeah, I do more than 2x20s and by mid season was shooting for an hour or more in L4 and up to two hours in level on SST days but very few rides longer than that. I rode one 105 mile ride with a friend and my pulls were at Tempo pace but the whole ride averaged to mid L2. I also did a big all day event ride with lots of climbing with an old friend for the heck of it and paced the day to just enjoy it.
Anyway, I'm totally convinced now that you can ride and even race events much longer than your typical long days if you get your FTP up high enough and can both pace yourself and feed yourself well enough during your long events. Yeah, some longer rides would have been a good idea if they'd been ridden with enough intensity and raising CTL in general is a good thing but you can definitely ride long events after SST/FTP training if you've done enough of it.
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