winston63 

Never heard the term before now.

Now that I've heard it, I don't believe there's any such thing, especially not while on the bike.

OldTryGuy

I bike 2 to 5 miles to the food stores, 4 miles to Home Depot, 6 miles to Post Office, to my doctors and longer instead of driving and I do not record those miles. For me they are an alternative to using gasoline and wasting money and as such they are just miles, junk miles.

TimothyH

Junk miles is a training and coaching term.

They are miles ridden with no other purpose than to increase mileage. Most people do this in zone 3 or "moderate" riding.

• Recovery rides (zone 1) help you recover after an intense workout.
• Base miles (zone 2) increase aerobic endurance.
• Intervals, tempo and threshold workouts (zone 4+) increase power and speed.

Everything else is junk because there is little training benefit and significant recovery is required.As the article states, if you are not training with a specific goal and are just riding for fun then there is no such thing as junk miles. If you are training for a specific goal then you need to be careful about your intensity because moderate riding really serves no purpose and can hurt you in the long run.


-Tim-

drlogik 

Taken in the context of training to race and racing to be competitive and competing to win then, yes, "junk miles" can be self-defeating in a training regimen. I don't race so I don't consider those miles I ride to be junk miles. The post was asking for an opinion not a right or wrong answer.

I think TimothyH is correct when he stated this is a training and coaching term.

10 Wheels

Junk Miles seems to come from the racing riders.

If a mile gets one away from the TV it is Not Junk.

OldsCOOL

In the dead of winter here in N Michigan, any ride is a struggle beyond reason. Even then, at night and in a lake effect snowstorm, there is no such thing as junk miles. A 7mi ride may take you nearly an hour but is very effective for maintaining fitness.

gringomojado

Back in the pre-electronic stat-crazy day, you never heard of "junk miles"

gm

FBinNY 

Junk miles are whatever the speaker looks down on. He may be a roadie who prides himself on his speed and endurance and so thinks of a half mile jaunt to the market isn't really riding. So, to him, those may be "junk miles", but it's simply his perspective.

The concept of junk miles only matters if you consider miles important. To those of us who ride when and how the mood strikes us, and don't care about metrics, it's a foreign concept.

BluesDawg

Miles you ride while trying to find your heroin connection.

bobwysiwyg

FXjohn

I don't feel anywhere near that old

OldsCOOL

Dang, wish I'd said that in the OP.

BlazingPedals

If you don't train by heart rate, then "junk miles" is a term that means nothing to you.

OldsCOOL

Is a recovery ride in the class of junk miles?

BlazingPedals

No, if you keep it in zone 2. Recovery rides are just as important as hard rides for training purposes. The whole concept of training is to stress the muscles and then rest them. You get stronger when you're resting, as a reaction to the previous stress.

wphamilton

But both "base" and "recovery" miles are also "Miles added into your training plan with no purpose other than to increase your mileage".

In this old iconoclast's opinion, the whole concept of "junk miles" is along the lines of buzzwords with no other purpose than to inflate the value of advice by a coach or training program. It's arbitrary, without sufficient justification either in theory or heuristic data to be convincing.

TimothyH

But just because you don't know they are junk miles doesn't mean they don't exist. Lots of guys who train with power spend time doing junk miles.

I would say that if you don't train at all but just ride then there are no such thing as junk miles.

Many amateur/recreational cyclists have vague and unmeasurable goals such as "get faster" or "increase fitness." Many of these "train" by doing lots of junk miles - miles that require significant recovery time but do little to increase speed, power or aerobic endurance.

Workouts that increase increase speed/power are done at very high intensity and require adequate recovery time - time that most people are not willing to spend off the bike recovering or riding recovery rides. Workouts that increase aerobic endurance are typically done at a pace too slow for most riders tastes. They are just not willing to ride that slow, at a zone1 or zone 2 pace.

The result is splitting the difference, riding "moderately", never really recovering and total miles on Strava becomes the primary metric for performance and fitness.

TimothyH

With all due respect, you are ill informed.

Recovery miles are ridden to aid recovery from a previous, high intensity workout. Base miles are ridden to increase aerobic endurance. That is the purpose of these workouts. They are done at specific, measurable intensities to generate the desired result, recovery and aerobic endurance respectively.

There is plenty of data to back up the idea of a zone where training effect is minimal but recovery time is significant. Too much time in this zone risks overtraining and injury. It isn't arbitrary but rooted in research and backed up with real world results at Olympic and pro levels. Olympic level athletes do what works and junk miles don't get you to the Olympics.

Again, to be clear, if you ride for the fun of it then no mile is junk.

StanSeven

Great post!

I heard the term from running a long time before it came up in cycling. With running junk miles are the ones serving no purpose - not a recovery run or doesn't increase speed. Several coaches said people are often better off taking a rest day or cross training than putting in junk miles.

But even with intense cycling training, I think it's difficult to really put in miles considered as junk. Even easy riding keeps the legs loose and flexible. So as long as someone doesn't overdo easy spinning by riding a long time, I don't see any major downside.

Miami Biker

Timothy and BlazingSaddles have it right. In the beginning when we started riding all miles built up our VO2 and leg strength. Little junk miles then IMHO.

After a while we plateau unless we work harder such as doing high intervals and mixing up on our rides, like different intervals. Just like when our bodies sleep our muscles need recovery time after a hard effort to rest so the muscles can get stronger. Muscles only get stronger with hard and varying efforts then recovery.

Some coaches believe middle Heart Zones (forget exact level), neither make us stronger nor help us rest. This effort is call no mans zone or otherwise refer to a wasted effort--guess one could call them junk miles. The point is if you want to get stronger we need to ride at varying intensities including recovery times.

So, OldsCool if you are serious about getting ever stronger, best to learn about how to train or hire a trainer as I have and consider a power meter to help measure your effort.

Thanks for asking a great question.

Biker395 

Whoa ... I've always understood the term "junk miles" to refer to the miles added to an otherwise great route on an organized ride just so it comes to an even 100/200 miles/km. And yea ... sometimes they really are kinda junky in comparison to the other miles on the route.

OldsCOOL

I wasnt asking the question for my own knowledge, it was asked for the sake of conversation. I am doing well at getting stronger, my peaking season is coming in well this year. Hire a trainer? No.

wphamilton

No I'm informed of all that, and it doesn't relate to what I said was arbitrary and had no basis. I don't think we're on the same page about what I said has no basis. It's the concept of the "junk mile" (you're talking about all the other training miles, and all of that is well known to everyone reading, I hope). It is an arbitrary construct with no purpose other than to limit the total stress of training during a given time period. There is nothing intrinsic about these "junk miles" that makes them useless. I have seen no empirical data, anywhere, to support that conventional notion but I have seen training plans which specifically included the type of riding that people call junk miles. The concept relates to a specific plan, not to specific riding.

It's just wrong that "junk miles" - the actual riding, not the plan - can't perform the same function (recovery for instance). The only thing about the way you ride a "junk mile" that gives it different effects in training, that makes it "junk", is that it isn't one the trainer or plan told you to ride. The rest (no HR zone 3 for example) has no credible basis that I've seen.

Are you familiar with the more recent fad of Polarized Training?

Bob Ross

I've always heard the term "junk miles" used to refer to those sections of a ride that are A) ugly, B) densely trafficked by automobiles, C) heavily-laden with traffic lights or other interruptions that prevent a cyclist from developing and/or sustaining any kind of rhythm or momentum, or D) all of the above.

It's easy enough to proclaim "any miles are good miles" but when you have to ride 15 miles along Union Turnpike in close proximity to speeding cars with a stoplight every block and nothing but junkyards, auto repair shops, and bodegas on either side of you just to get to the pristine suburban roads, those are definitely "junk".

Garfield Cat

There are expressed specific goals and there are more like implicit. Riding has goals even if we don't say them.