rumrunn6

we find our own equilibrium. but on Monday, I had an interesting occurrence, heavy breathing. I don't know if I was eager to meet a goal, so was riding harder than normal, or if it was the excessive heat. it was a dirt trail so I can't judge my performance by the computer stats. by the end of the ride I had a mild case of laryngitis, which never really happens to me from a ride. maybe I was dehydrated?

TimothyH

@DrIsotope, I could have written your post.

I did a century Monday and could not get my heart rate up on Tuesday during a 30 mile fixed gear ride. Legs felt like lead and cadence kept falling off, bogging down. The flip/flop hub came in handy with a larger sprocket on the other side but it was clear that I was too ambitious the day after a big ride.

I want to get on the bike today as well but did 50 miles last night and am planning on attending a fast group ride tomorrow.

The idea about slower club rides is good. Going out with the slower groups early in the season used to be standard practice for some guys I ride with.


-Tim-

rumrunn6

rest is good

AlmostTrick

Same here. Most of my riding is on my work commute, where I'm often taking my place in motor traffic so I like to keep up the pace simply to better fit in. Then too, I often ride fixed gear, where slowing down means lugging the one and only gear at a low cadence... which can feel harder than spinning it up to a more efficient pace.

Maelochs

As an experiment .... i have read all the posts here and am not going to bicker with any posters.

If the world ends tonight, you will know I should have bickered.

DrIsotope

The depressed HR is a real bear, especially when you get to any sort of incline. The low HR makes clearing waste from the muscles really difficult, so after even just a few minutes of climbing, my legs feel like sandbags.

For most of 2016, I was riding 7 days a week, with an occasional day off, usually due to scheduling. In 2017 I consciously dropped to 6 days a week, not riding on Tuesdays, and was really good about it-- I only rode on 7 Tuesdays.

This year, I'm trying to ride only 5 days a week, not riding on Mondays and Fridays. And it really, really helps. I had a perfect August-- 22 rides in 31 days, did not ride on every off day. Did 11 rides over 100km and ended the month with 1,065 miles.

It took me almost 4 years, but I now recognize that the recovery can be as important as the riding, physically and mentally.

fietsbob

At 70 my usual pace is slower , but I just stay within town, now, anyhow..

@ 50 I spent most of a year, 9 months on a bike tour , not hurrying, thru Ireland, & Scotland.

livedarklions

The minute I feel an urge to buy a heart monitor or measure my cadence is the time I will quit biking. I do this instead of other fitness activities because it's fun to ride fast when I feel like it, which is most of the time, and fun to ride slow if I want to savor something. If I need recovery time, I just take a day off.

If I'm going to have to pay attention to monitors and schedules, I'm going to do it in an activity where I don't have to worry about getting hit by a car. The reason I chose biking is because I can have fun being spontaneous, and because it's fun, I do a lot more of it than I would do any other fitness activity.

OP--if someone who has never met you starts outlining the "right" training regimen for you, ignore them. They're just like someone telling you your shoe size without measuring your feet. If you're enjoying riding fast, don't worry about it--if you were overdoing it, it wouldn't be enjoyable.

livedarklions

For some reason, there was a day this summer when the entire town of Dracut MA smelled like a giant dog turd. Seriously, it smelled awful for about 5 miles. I decided to ride through it as fast as I could, but then found I was getting more disgusted by breathing hard. I just kept going fast though because I figured if I slowed, I'd still be breathing pretty hard but be immersed in the smell longer.

No idea what happened, I've ridden through there many times since, and no hint of that smell again.

clengman

I always ride slower than my normal pace...

u235

I too ride almost exclusively solo. I can only "slow down" if I am with someone who rides naturally slower than me and I end up surging ahead and than crawling. My "high" pace only becomes a problem on unfamiliar or less frequently taken routes that are > maybe 60 miles. It becomes unsustainable but let I still drift up putting unneeded stress when I shouldn't have too. In the past I had an app that would announce the time of every previous mile and I would force myself to slow down to a soft target. Can't say it helped because I didn't know of an actual target to plan for. The problem for me is there are no physical/mental triggers that gradually come into play, they seem to come suddenly after a 10 minute break at the 75 mile point for example and by then it is too late. I don't have an answer but as time goes on and I ride more and longer, I am getting better at long day pacing and getting better at just riding longer in general but I still fail occasionally on very hot or when I underestimate the impact of the roughness of a gravel road.

ptempel

OP, I use the "one gear lower" method to try and conserve some energy. Whatever gear you think is ok just shift down and spin a little more. I needed to do that on a particularly windy day riding up the Hudson Greenway MUP, for example. Also, if you see anyone pass you, then let them go. You ride your ride and they can ride their ride. Actually, I ended up catching the guy that passed me on the MUP later on after crossing the GWB. So maybe he was burning too many matches for that ride and needed to do the same. This technique let me leave some in the tank especially on the return trip home so I have enough energy to play with my 5 year old kid later on. I also take the weekend off. So those are my rest days.

TimothyH

Some very good posts in this thread but also lots of knee-jerk posts. Some are clearly responding to posts they have not fully read.

No one is telling the OP how to train, or that he has to train at all. That wasn't said by anyone.

The OP asked for reasons why someone would ride slow. Athletic training is one such reason. The entire point of bringing up heart rate monitors was that it helps an athlete see when they are riding with too much intensity for their training plan. If a rider is not training then this is a moot point but that doesn't diminish the validity of the reason. Athletic training is a valid reason for riding slow - recovery rides and base miles.

Its fine if someone doesn't want a GPS or heart rate monitor but owning a heart rate monitor doesn't preclude anyone who does from going slow, being spontaneous or having fun.


-Tim-

Milton Keynes

I agree. To me it just feels silly to go slow but keep spinning your feet around when you can go up into a higher gear and get a bit more speed.

BlazingPedals

The hardest rides I do, psychologically, are the recovery rides where I am supposed to ride at an easy pace.

caloso

Exactly.

Flip Flop Rider

Maybe I'm different but I never consider riding to be "training"

jitteringjr

I am a big proponent of active recovery. I no longer have issue with being passed on a recovery day and definitely don't like working up a sweat on the ride in to work. Getting passed on a hard day, well that is another story.

livedarklions

You really need to look at how you express things before you accuse people of knee-jerk reacting to what wasn't written:

"Most people ride too long and too hard on recovery rides. Most people ride zone 1 and low zone 2 aerobic base miles too hard as well, or they ride zone 3 and think they are doing aerobic base miles.
This is one of the beauties of a heart rate monitor and correctly calculated heart rate zones. It helps with focus and discipline."

If you weren't intending to imply that there is a particular "right" and "focused and disciplined" way of doing things, you really shouldn't start with two statements about how "most people" are doing it wrong.

Hey, if knowing a bunch of data works for you, fine, but I really don't think you're being honest with yourself about how strongly you implied it was necessary to do things "right".

TimothyH

I did not imply there was a right way of doing things. I stated that there is a right way to train.

My concern is training specifically and exclusively.

There are surely incorrect ways to train and going too hard on recovery days or during base training are mistakes many make. It is not possible to understate how slow and boring a recovery ride or a base miles can be. Most simply go too hard and call it recovery because its Monday or base because it happens to be early spring.

To the OP's question of why, recovery and base miles remain valid reasons to ride slow. That hasn't changed.


-Tim-

Maelochs

There is no one right way to train, either. if there were .... we wouldn't have trainers. One trainer would make a video explaining every aspect of the "right" way to train, and everyone would buy it. End of story.

A lot of posters (but never Me, of course ) fall into the trap of thinking that what they spent years learning, and works really well for that poster, are the best way to do things ... when likely they are only best for that poster ... and maybe, in some cases, aren't even the best, but the poster is satisfied with his/her results.

There might be "incorrect" ways to train ... depends on the definition, but I'd say any sort of training that made you generally unfit to practice the sport for which you are training----generally unfit as in unable to compete, as opposed to tired the day after a hard session---could be called "incorrect" training ... but beyond that there are all kinds of ways and all kinds of goals/ Whatever you do and think you do really well, someone does better ... and someone else does worse. And even more people do Differently.

Abslutes are wonderful rhetorical gambits but don't hold up well under scrutiny.

I-Like-To-Bike

The OP said nothing about base miles or training or asked about the right way to train; that is all YOU and YOUR kneejerk arguing about something which was not said or implied by the OP.

Jim from Boston

Riding slower than your normal pace
I think that wanting to ride faster is a natural sucession after warming up (whether training or not on your commute). Furthermore, as a cycle-commuter,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

For the first few years when I started commuting to work, I would dream that I had to be there for a critical procedure the first thing in the morning, and I was too far away to get there on time.

Much like that paradigmatic dream of going for a final exam, and can’t find the room / didn’t attend the class.

Hiro11

Coaches in VeloNews podcasts have pointed out that high intensity training like intervals should be much harder than most athletes make them. Similarly, recovery rides should be much easier. I'm with the OP though. It's fricken hard to spin along at 14.8 mph and see any point to it. However, the physiological benefits to recovery rides are well documented and the drawbacks to not doing real recovery are equally well documented.

One tip I have for recovery rides: wear something less roadie. For example, I throw on Wayfarers, baggy shorts and a t-shirt if I'm doing a recovery ride. It's a subtle reminder that it's not supposed to be a hard ride.

Pendergast