Im planning on taking a year or two off from triathlon next year and just do pure cycling.
Will it help me improve my cycling?
anyone that went this route? Thank u
EDit:
They said they are not a racing club nor a social club but I rode with them and way faster than I am.
They also compete individually but not as a club.
thanks
Depends on what the club does.
Yes, yes and yes. As long as you listen and pay attention.
Climb, descend, ride in big bunches, race crits, race hilly courses, even stage races if you can. Find out how they train and see what you can include in your own training. It all helps.
A club or a team? Either can help, assuming they have activities that address what you want to improve on. Clinics, training races, introducing people to real races, etc.
I don’t know. What sort of “club”?
Aggressive spirited rides with racers are liable to make people stronger and better cyclists.
Team, yes.
Club, maybe. There are a lot of clubs that do easy, social rides that aren’t really going to help improve your fitness.
Cycling (racing, team training) is great for improving lactate threshold since races are based on surging and quickly recovering vs. just riding steady.
Regardless, try to run and swim 1x per week to keep your body adapted. Getting back into running with great fitness from cycling but no tolerance for the pounding is a great way to get injured.
Thank you for the tip!
They said they are neither a social club nor a racing club but they are way faster than me when I rode with them twice.
If they are faster than you then yes, trying to keep up will make you faster. If you eventually get faster than them find a new group.
Yes. A lot if you ride a lot with them.
I’ll make one suggestion, Keep your running up, even if it’s only15 miles a week. It will make a tremendous difference when you come back.
Depends on the club I guess. But just speaking from personal experience, I say yes. I am a member of a couple clubs here in town. A lot of the people don’t race, but are still in much better shape and are much better cyclists than I am. I make it my goal to keep up with them as much as I can. Sometimes I’m more successful than other times. But I can say that riding with them this year I have seen much bigger improvements than in previous years riding by myself or with just one other person.
It should but it does depend on what the club does.
Where I live, the A group rides are pretty much all-out races. The short rides are ridden like crits- fast, attacks up every hill/corner, and sprints at various segments. The longer rides are ridden like road races (not as many all-out attacks, but still strong surges and gaps that need to be closed down). You also learn how to ride close in groups and how to ride aggressively (including cornering, descending, super tucking, sprinting, etc.). In the last 2 years of riding this style I have boost my FTP by ~50W and it’s so much easier to repeatedly go into anaerobic efforts and recover quickly- something I could never do with steady-state focused tri training.
If your cycling club is just going to meander around at 16mph and stop at gas stations every 10 miles, it won’t do anything for your training. Might be a good social time and those rides re healthy on occasion, but you’re not going to do a thing for your results from that type of riding.
If the group rides you do with them push you and you occasionally get dropped, then yes, you’ll get faster. If some of them go road races I would go for that as well.
I am on a cycling team, we have both club members and race members. We do both “spirited” group rides and leisurely group rides.
With all this talk about the technical course in Nice, this hits home for me as I have gained a lot of bike handling skills riding with the race team.
I recently did a sprint tri on my road bike. The course was not overly technical but it has a lot of turns (2 laps course) and one big hill with a short descent with a sharp turn near the bottom.
It wasn’t a huge field but I ended up with the fastest bike split mainly because I took aggressive lines on those turns. 3-4 guys out there on TT bikes usually beat me in local races but not this one 
I credit all that to riding with road bike racers.
Doesn’t matter club or team, it’s all about the pace, experience, and leadership.
Team stuff is very misleading. Teams could include 5’s, 4’s, 3’s, 2’s, 1’s. Sure, you can run a workout session as a “team” but I’m going to be the skeptic about a 5 and a 1/2 being able to both get their workout in during the same paceline grouping. If they’re dropping everyone and regrouping, that’s no different than an informal “hammer” group. Just with matching jerseys.
I’d say find a big enough “weeknight worlds” ride. That way, there will always be several “drop groups”. There will be the front with the fastest racers, the middle of typical A-rider non-racers, then probably a dropped B-group also.
Our weeknight worlds is transitioning to that. Used to not have that tip of the spear, but about 5 of us are dropping the other 15 to 20 A’s routinely now. That’s OK.
Again though, make sure people are safe, inviting, and there’s a little bit of leadership. If people are running stops into cars and stuff to shave seconds, let yourself out the back and head home alone.
Oh, and don’t be “that guy/gal” who yo-yo’s out of position in the paceline because you want to even the pace into a more triathlon like effort. That’s annoying and unsafe AF to see on a group ride. If you do go, you better stay gone. Or you’ll be the new “Fred” of the group.
Done right, it should.
As others have hinted at, it needs to be the right club with the right group of riders.
If it’s just ounce a week for and easy ride to a coffee shop 30K away, a stop for a coffee and danish and then an easy ride home . . then this is not really going to be helpful.
You need to find a club and a group that is going to challenge you a bit, but not overwhelm you. If you are not up on this, you’ll first need to learn the ins and outs of group riding - good clubs and many larger clubs often have a “Learn to Ride” program for newbies - make sure to take advantage of this. Pf course you will need a road bike, and not a tri bike.
The larger clubs have a range of options for rides each week. My Club, one of the larger ones in the Toronto area, as an example has a Tuesday night Time Trial, Thursday Night Hammer Ride ((“World Championships”), On Saturday and Sunday, there are organized Group rides for riders of all levels from the fastest racers in the Club the A’s on down to the B’s the C’s - the last group, are just going to roll along to the coffee shop and back. Whereas the A-Group, we will knock out 100 - 120K at 35km/h average speed!
The best answer that I can give you is: it depends. If the club is such that they help members learn how to ride their bikes, be informed about the laws and etiquette of riding than yes, by all means, join and separate yourself from the Triathlete stereotype.
If you want to be a stronger cyclist and not a “better” cyclist than you might as well just join a bunch of Zwift events.
Are you with Morning Glory?
Ive been thinking about joining them but Im in ajax and its a bit of a drive.
Work schedule does not allow me to ride a lot with them either.
Thanks
Are you with Morning Glory?
Ive been thinking about joining them but Im in ajax and its a bit of a drive.
Work schedule does not allow me to ride a lot with them either.
My personal opinion about this is the cycling club that you will be riding with, needs to be proximate to where you live - makes things so much easier. Ride from your house to ride start-points etc. .
I don’t know for sure, but there may be a cycling club that is closer to you out to the east of Toronto.
Ontario Cycling Assoc. Club Directory is here - http://www.ontariocycling.org/clubs/
Thanks!
If you are in Ajax, Uxbridge has and excellent club with lots of different rides during the week.
I would definitely enter a Track class or club during the winter/off season. That’ll sure help your speed, technique, and many other cycling skills. You’re so close to the Milton Velodrome, you can’t pass that ;-).
Louis 