OldsCOOL

I’ve been there. Finish the ride and brag up on rule #5. Finish the ride then ride home.

dennis336

Junk miles are when you sign up for a century and find out at the end it was, like, 98 miles. So ... you ride around the parking lot for 2 miles so your OCD brain can truthfully say you rode a century. Those 2 miles are, IMO, junk miles

AlgarveCycling

Junk miles for me are only applicable to training, in context. If I do a hard training day followed by a Zone 1 active recovery day, that is fine. The easy day serves a purpose. If I follow that however with a day that doesn't really do anything to progress my fitness/strength/recovery and I'm not just wanting to maintain at that point, then that is a 'junk' day.

But that 'junk' day while doing nothing for me in terms of training could be great just as a day for enjoying cycling with friends/taking in the views of the beautiful part of the World I live in. In that respect, it isn't 'junk'. I therefore only use the term in the context in which it is meant; training.

IronM

When I was still racing, I'd avoid the 'junk mikes' (always hated that term), except maybe the odd Sunday ride where I was just horsing around with friends. But now that I'm not competing, I don't see the point to put myself though the pain of targeted training. So; yeah - probably most of my riding now is now 'junk miles'. Just riding for the sake of being out in the road or trail. Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all

canklecat

Normally I'd say there's no such thing as junk miles.

But a couple of years ago my conditioning plateaued. I was stale, making no progress despite lots of group rides. Yeah, I moved up from 10-12 mph casual pace group rides to 15-18 mph rides. But I was still stuck.

After getting a heart rate monitor and checking ride data more carefully, I realized the problem was ... group rides. They were effectively junk miles for my purposes. Casual rides were too easy. Most MAMIL roadie groups always turned recovery rides into tempo rides or ad hoc races. Always the same pace, not enough variation.

With typical roadie groups, any plans for a recovery or tempo pace quickly evaporated as the strongest riders (usually MAMILs) kept pushing the pace and turning group rides into makeshift races, blowing through stop signs and red lights, gapping the group, forcing sprints to regroup, etc. Instead of training for a race, it *was* the race.

So last autumn I skipped all the group rides. I got more methodical about training, especially doing proper zone 2 recovery rides based on *my* physiology, rather than trying to match guys 10-30 years younger.

I got stronger, faster and better stamina.

I'd like to find a compatible group some day, but that's tough with typical roadie MAMILs in the 30-50 age range.

SurferCyclist

Unless you are specificially training for an event or a pro etc then junk miles don't exist. For 99.9% of cyclists, myself included bikes are ridden for fun or transport. Any ride is good and usually fun...