70sSanO

If you are not struggling, or hurting, you are not putting out enough effort.

There really is a camp that knows the splits on a ride and will push hard to make up, or exceed, where they want to be.

I’m old and the light bike crowd would laugh at my bikes, but once upon a time they were light and I remember sprinting over the crest of a hill because I could pick up time and I had a downhill to recover.

John

Eric F 

There are also riders who have a foot in each camp. It is quite possible to enjoy the scenery while suffering.

70sSanO

I agree that there are more than 2 groups. I haven’t quite mastered, “I wonder if I should call 911 for an EMT... Oh look at that deer.”

John

Edit added: It’s more like... “I’m dying, somebody shoot that thing.”

SpeedyBlueBiker

It's ok people, and original poster. Some cyclists just want to replicate what the top professional riders are wearing. Just like some cyclists like to wear whatever happens to be in the closet that day. The main thing is that they are out there riding and making themselves more visible. It lets local government know we are out there and helps in urban planning and more bike lanes. Well hopefully anyway. Me? Nope, I don't dress as a pro cyclist wannabe. I usually wear ride jerseys or some event jerseys with very generic bike shorts.

Eric F 

Funny that you mention deer. Twice now, on a local climb that is one of my targeted Strava segments, while in the midst of trying to set a new PR, I've seen deer on the side of the road. Most recently, it was a momma-deer and her baby. Momma watched with amusement (probably) at my suffering, while baby deer bounded across the road ahead of me with that 4-legged bounce thing that deer do. As I crested the hill, I looked out over the valley shrouded in morning fog. Sometimes that view point is worth stopping to take a pic. I will say that I'm better now about observing the world around me when I ride than I was 20 years ago.

surak

Max effort on a lighter bike is not equal to max effort on a heavier bike over the same distance, people. Max average power decreases as time increases. Yes it does almost plateau many hours into a ride, but that's a base endurance ride, not a max effort workout.

This is how you know that people talking up heavier bikes for training haven't a clue about what training actually involves.

Eric F 

I see a lot of cyclists, but very few who wear replica kits of professional teams. That said, I guess to the unknowing eye, the kit of a local club or race team is undiscernible from a pro team kit.

Sy Reene

Using the 50 mile ride scenario. On a lighter bike, you're say done in 150 minutes. On the slightly heavier bike (+5 lbs), you're done in 151 minutes. Doesn't the max avg power differential between light and heavy bike, only then start during the last minute of the ride? The 151st minute on the heavy bike is still incremental to the 150 minutes done on the light bike.

SpeedyBlueBiker

True that! To the non-cyclist the local kit might look like that. Sure hope I'm not perceived that way!

livedarklions

Huge stretch--how do we know someone doesn't see an accomplishment in pushing the heavy bike as fast as it will go? Maybe they're a high speed achiever who can't afford a lighter bike.

Besides, the idea that a heavy bike "forces" you to do anything is a complete fallacy. One can ride such a bike with minimal or maximal effort, just like they can with a light bike.

These aren't two distinct and different camps based on the weight of their bikes, that's just silly. We all have different priorities and preferences when riding, and you've just identified bike weight as being some sort of vital fault line between two completely different approaches to riding. I think that's simplistic and silly. For example, I think there's at least a 12 pound difference between the running weights of my heaviest bike and my lightest. I don't suddenly take on a different philosophy of effort just because I switched bikes for the day.

surak

1) that scenario is stupid and not what training entails (training stress score is literally defined as effort X time, I know of no serious training metric involving distance- Strava bragging doesn't count), and 2) you're wrong because if you are at max effort for 150 minutes you would have, by definition, no energy left to complete the last minute except by freewheeling. Had you the ability to continue for a minute, you by definition would have exerted less effort over the first 150 on the heavier bike.

70sSanO

That is very cool. I will say that I enjoy nature on my mountain bike when I’m not dying or trying to keep from eating it.

Also everything I refer to is in the vein of the word “workout”. Some of my best rides were just riding to see what was around the corner or just to ride somewhere. That is a different from working out.

And then the numbers are the miles, not the speed, when I check them.

John

SpeedyBlueBiker

You mean like this? I was just down in Arizona two weeks ago and rode Mt. Lemmon. Luckily I did not have this experience.

livedarklions

Here's where I think you're going off the beam--there aren't two groups at opposite ends of the spectrum, there's a whole range of people between those two "camps" and we shift between them all the time. I don't ride like I'm pushing hard on my commute to work, or example.

Eric F 

I struggle with the ability to "just ride". The intent might be to take it easy after a hard couple of days, but my years of being a racer-boy programmed my brain to always ride with an intent - always get better. I tend to ride with people who are also riding with a fitness/workout intent. Maybe I need some different friends - LOL.

Eric F 

Thankfully, my deer encounters were while I was going uphill.

livedarklions

So basically, you're saying that a person who rides max effort for 2 minutes has expended less energy than someone at max effort for 1 minute?

Sy Reene

So your argument is that training means you ride til you're comatose? That the 151st minute can't exist? And unless you're on a track going in circles, even if you're now talking about running some type of specific structured training plan, it would be awfully coincidental if that time expended resulted in your ride ending right where you wanted to be. Or is their van support in your world? Anyway, conversation wasn't really about structured training plans, but rather the more general notion of volume of exercise.

Distance is the typical goal for most riders -- eg. to complete a group ride's planned route, a commute from home to work, or to win/complete a bike race. Doing any of these, on a lighter vs heavier bike -- all else equal, which bike will take more overall effort (calories or kilojoules if you like)?

caloso

Over the years, my team's kit has had the logos of some very large international companies (teammates were regional execs), several LBSes, some bike and equipment companies, dentists, realtors, political data consultants (it's a Sacramento thing), a pizzeria, several local brewpubs, and my wife's business. Some seasons we looked more pro than others.

surak

If someone's max average power for 2 minutes is greater than half their max average 1 minute power, then no they would have spent more energy over 2 minutes. To my knowledge there's no one who can average the same max average power for 1 minutes as they can for 2, just like no one has the same max 1 second power as 30 second.

Eric F 

Why? When I see a rider decked out in a full club/team kit, I tend to perceive them as someone who is serious and enthusiastic about riding their bike.

Eric F 

Sounds like a pretty typical local team kit to me.

caloso

I don't know anyone who is serious about training who pays any attention to distance other than as just a secondary or tertiary metric. It's time and effort.

surak

Can't tell if you're doubling down to stay true to your self-professed nickname, but you're throwing around terms like training volume while clearly missing where the holes are to your argument.

As people who actually train and understand what it means to do so have already pointed out repeatedly, one can achieve the same workout on a lighter bike as a heavier bike as a completely stationary bike, because training effect is effort X time. That by itself should show you how pointless using distance is as a measure of exercise.

A person who is bizarrely forced in your ill-conceived thought experiment to only ride a particular fixed distance can go harder on the lighter bike because they will finish their workout in less time, whether they choose to go all-out or not. They won't magically find extra power to go harder on a heavier bike unless that power is from the heavier bike's battery pack.

SpeedyBlueBiker

I guess because that's just not how I roll. My "glory days" are all in the rearview mirror and in a different sport.