Cycling is a limiter. How to best use the off season months of Nov.-Mar.? Thoughts, opinions,theories?
bike 300 miles per week, or as close as you can come to that
make 100 of those miles HARD
even if you can only do 100 miles
=)
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Yikes, that’s a lot of winter riding.
Yikes, that’s a lot of winter riding.
You can probably make great strides with just 150 miles a week, I’m not sure what level you are at now, but if its a weakness, I bet you aren’t doing 150 miles a week.
Do you have a trainer? they aren’t very expensive and will let you log miles without going out in the cold. Make yourself get on it 30 minutes every single day, and go hard
find some local weekly roadie rides and hold on for dear life. do that once a week. do a long climb once a week. do a TT workout once a week. the rest of the rides are moderate pace. shoot for 200 miles per week.
Can you ride outside in the winter?
trainer workouts - work on raising the left side of the power curve
If you can, just ride a ton and do a lot of intervals BUT.
The people who I’ve seen over the years who have done the best over the winter did a LOT of indoor riding. Getting on a good daily indoor program will do wonders for your cycling ability. 60min a day is all you need plus whatever outdoor riding you can get in. With the limited sunlight in the winter, getting set up on the trainer works wonders.
Two stories:
#1. Super rich guy who started cycling came into our shop and picked up a custom Seven. He tried to ride with us weekly but just couldn’t hang. So he picked up a computrainer and over the winter followed a training program to the T. 60min a day, usually right when he got in from work. He liked it becasue there wasn’t any of the “how much should I wear” debate and he was able to just get on, work hard, get it done, all before dinner and still have a life. The next spring he came out to our regular ride and was crushing it. He stayed with the main group all the way up the canyon, and there were a few pro, 1, 2 riders there. It truly was amazing how fast he got over just one winter on just 60min a day.
#2 My Roomate did just about the same thing, but he just rented movies and watched half a movie a night. 45-60min every night like clockwork, plus a few outdoor rides when time permited and he catted up from a 5 to a 1 in half a season. Lots of intervals. On occasion I would hold the watch for him and tell him when to start and stop.
Indoor trainer. that’s my winter time cycling cure. Some kind of interval effort every day from 10min to 30seconds. There was a great article about Andy Potts in popular science that goes over some of this I think. Look that up.
Ride your bike a lot. Do some lifting of weights with your legs. Ride your bike a lot. Don’t eat too much shit. Ride your bike, a lot. F the roadies, they’re a holes. Ride your bike, a lot. Have fun!
I did alot of killer indoor trainer workouts. Sometimes I only did a main set alot of zone 4 work, not alot of zone 2 though. Just tough workouts, when it was nice(i live in st. louis) then I would ride alittle bit longer. I managed to increase my watts by 65 in 3 months. Im going to do the same thing next year. Some mornings I only put in 45 min, but I had 35-40 min of hard work in. Endurance Nation has excellent workouts for this. Another thing is I bought a powermeter last november, I found out my hard effort wasnt really hard enough, something to consider.
wow, I’m shocked that so many people ride indoors in the winter. I’ve never used a trainer, but I’ll ride outside if it’s more than 10 degrees farenheit. If you can get out while it’s still light, winter is an amazing and peaceful time to ride, out alone on the road and with nice fresh air. Just come back, warm up with some hot chocolate, and rinse the salt of your bike. If you have the right equipment it’s no problem. I feel like a gerbil if I work out inside, and with all that stale heated air.
There’s that ice and snow stuff on the roads often.
I ride through snow when the roads are relatively clear, or mountain bike. If it’s a blizzard or the ice is bad, I can run outside in pretty much any weather so that’s how I decide what I’m doing on a given wintry day.
try reading this gem
I cant believe noone has mentioned it yet… SPIN CLASS.
There is no other class that anyone at any level can get a great workout. You get out what you put in. 60 minutes, or some places even offer a 120 min class. My climbs were 100% better after a winter of spin classes.
I would focus on improving my functional threshold through 5 to 20 minute intervals.
jaretj
If you’re in the snow belt, get yourself a bunch of Coach Troy DVD’s, a good indoor trainer and take up skate style x-country skiing.
depend where you are living? do you have a real winter or can you ride all year long?
A few options… i hard canadian winter, deifnitly some trainer workout…working at higher intensity… and longer workout on the cross country skiing (skating style)
If you have a mild winter and can ride outside, the best option is to simple get a solid plan for the season. Depending what distance you are training for…
for a ironman athlete, winter is a great time to work on some threshold riding…some shorter high intensity set and build up gradually duration. This way…you go from general and get more specific to your race distance and intensity as the season start.
And the most important. Challenge yourself…what ever you use to do, get the frequency up and if you use to ride 3 times a week… try 4 or 5…including some key sessions…this will have huge impact on your riding next season!
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Great advice from all, thanks. I am able to ride in Winter many days, living in W. Oregon, we do get slop but rarely freezing. I also have a Tucson option that I can deploy. A few weeks here and there. Great Winter training site obviously. I am not a poor cyclist, just not a real strong one relative to my swim and bike in the AG. Always been this way relative to my group. I have qualified and done Hawaii 4 times. I’ve landed on the podium at three IM’s. But, when I review my races, it’s always cycling that drops me back in the overall. I tend to make up ground on the run, and usually have a decent but not stellar swim one that does not set me back too far. Once, on the bike I drift down in the standings only to pass back those folks on the run. I’m a lot stronger than I used to be, and use much of what is being recommended here. I suspect the culprit is lack of threshold work, and strength limiters. I do race some CX, and ride both off road and fixed gear. Don’t have a PM and don’t have a Computrainer. I do ride indoors 2-3 days a week in Winter usually to one of the Spinervals tapes.
just do 2x20’s until you don’t improve anymore 
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But, when I review my races, it’s always cycling that drops me back in the overall. I tend to make up ground on the run,
You should probably be giving advice rather than asking for it. You sound like you are pacing just fine. Right now I think my ride is stronger than my run for the first time in eight years, but I still rank lower in cycling splits than running, because proper pacing on the bike means I don’t blow my wad there.
When I spent the winter in 07-08 testing my position over an over again at a high aerobic pace I managed to put in more volume than ever in a four month stretch. No intervals. Unsurprisingly, my cycling was faster than ever in the spring.
Chad