Harvieu25

My first year of cycling I felt like I peaked in June, second year in July and this year in Sept. Each year, or after the peak it feels like the knees are weak and the legs feel hollow, even when fresh there's nobody home. Tried to take a few days easy each time but they don't seem to come back without a larger break. By then, fitness is down and it's time to start again. This year while paying attention to my Strava stress score, HR only (no power meter), I built upon each month and tried to accumulate about a 10% gain each month. I did this by getting a basline in the winter riding 3-4 days a week (6 hrs a week) then slowly ramped up frequency and duration while trying to keep intensity down. Then as summer came the miles peaked and I worked on intensity as I decreased the mileage. I was trying to peak in October when my last ride will take place, but instead I think 6Gap (Spet 30) was the peak because everything since has been terrible. No power, speed or stamina. The day after 6Gap I did a 30m Z1 roller spin. Day 2 I did a 1h Z1 roller spin. Day 3 I rode 31 miles at a Z2 pace with a couple of efforts on hills. Week 2 brought the same as the initial week after 6Gap, weak feeling knees and empty legs.

Sept. brought 202 PR's and I far exceeded my expectations for the year with the big increase in fitness and I am humble, amazed and delighted by this years results. I surpassed all my goals, some by a huge margin, but I believe the rest of the year for me is gonna be endurance level rides.
How do you change your workouts (ie: bike gym run) to maintain as much biking fitness through the winter?

rubiksoval

The longer you ride, the less the fluctuations in your fitness, I've found. It seems as if you've found similar by how much longer you're able to go into the year before needing to take a substantial break.

Generally after 1-2 weeks of little to no riding, I'm ready to get going again, though the level of intensity will be different. While race season and peak fitness has tons of maximal efforts across durations, winter time will have much more structured intensity focused in the region of 85-120% of FTP. I can do that all winter long and come out quite strong in the spring, though lacking the higher-end/maximal efforts that I'll get through the latter months from races and group rides.

So anyway, I wouldn't worry so much about cross training as adapting your training to provide the base for what you want to do next year.

Also, why were you riding every day after 6 gap? Days off are good. Multiple days/weeks off at the end of season are also a huge help. Fitness comes back pretty quickly after a break, and always better to plan it rather than have it forced upon you.

Harvieu25

Was just trying to stay in the groove for the Hincappie 3 weeks later. Wasn't able to make any gains in that time, but wasn't trying. Took 2 days off this week and will do little this week as the ride is next Saturday. If i would have paid attention to the dates I would not have entered the Hincappie. Oh well, if anything it will be a nice social ride.

Thanks for the advice.