Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
IME simply riding one's bike introduces intensity. OTOH, I don't live in Florida. So maybe in Florida you have a very good point. However most places have hills, and my advice "See hill, ride up it" is the natural, organic way to introduce intensity without burdening the rider with researching the many different systems for increasing intensity. Many riders find that latter approach foolish and unnecessary. I actually know few riders who practice structured training as it is understood on BF. None of the fastest riders in my group do so, they simply "ride lots," as someone once said. My point with riding that century is to create an adequate base on which to build intensity, if that's desired. One can't do anything interesting without developing endurance. Being able to ride for an hour is not endurance. Maybe talented young riders like yourself don't get that, but you're a small minority.
Let's not confuse fitness/enjoyment riding and "training". If you want to win the point with "fitness and enjoyment", go on ahead. But your ideas just make zero sense, as I take it, that you think someone needs to be able to ride a century to have enough base to build fitness with intensity. Bikes have these things called gears. Folks new to riding don't go out with a 53/39 and 11-25 combo to learn. No. They probably start out with a triple or generous double with enough range to get up.....uhmm........hills. So that kinda defeats that whole idea.
There's a difference between "riding lots" and "riding lots while having structure". Even in the days before anything computerized, structure was riding base X days a week for X hours, then doing repeats of your local TT loop or local climb on the other day. Those folks timed themselves on that stuff. They knew. That's structure. Pros don't just randomly "ride lots". Never have. Lots of BS is lots of BS. Lots of good structured training is lots of good structured training.
We've a ton of folks in town that "ride a lot" for a century every weekend who can't crack 250w for 20min if their life depended on it. You simply don't need a century ride's worth of base to be a pretty darn fast amateur. Grand tour riders have massive bases because grand tours last 3 weeks. Pros need massive bases that don't do grand tours so they can do more intensity.
I hear this all the time "these weak wannabe racers who couldn't even finish a century". Interesting. I know probably a dozen local racers who probably only do one a year and a long ride is maybe 150min that can do a century alone well under 5 hours. Including them all having weekly volume of less than 7 hours. I've done a metric under 3 with 100ft per mile of elevation, by myself. Not doing more than maybe 150min long rides during the year. On probably only about 6.5 hours a week.
Nice try a crap little jab.........but I never claimed an hour was endurance. I said it was a good place for a from the couch beginning rider to get to before getting into intensity.
Nah, I get it just fine home slice.