Has anybody here ever thrown in Mountain biking into your Ironman schedule, and if so, how did it work out for your bike leg? I ask because I absolutely love Mountain Biking and would love to put it into some of my smaller rides. I’m doing IMFL this November but also wanted to be in decent MTB shape for the off season. Obviously my long rides, tempo/interval rides and brick workouts will be on the tri bike. I also have a group ride in which I ride my road bike. But for the days that I have to bike up to an hour on my long run days I was thinking of throwing in MTB’ing. Or throwing in an extra day for an hour ride each week. I figure it has to help me get stronger a little bit, and help out my handling and burn calories to hit race weight. How did it work out for those of you that have tried it?
I love MTB’ing but have yet to figure out a way to realistically work it into IM training. I’ll throw it in every once in awhile during a recovery week for some fun but nothing on a regular basis. Perhaps it would be easier if I had trails reasonably close to the house. As it stands the closest trails are a 45-60 mins drive away. Hard to do that during the week and don’t want to give up the weekend long ride.
I do however do alot of MTB’ing when I’m not in IM mode and have had my best sprint tri bike splits based almost exclusively off of MTB riding.
Lots of people do it with great results including a few good pro’s…Among my favourite sessions when I’m in Penticton are long intervals on the KVR (disused rail bed) in thick sand and rocks at about a 2% grade…I don’t do too much technical stuff because those bloody trees tend to jump out at and attack me.
MTB rides are perfect interval rides, rest on the descents and kill the climbs. Teaches great bike handling skills in the process. I do at least one 90+’ MTB per week while training for road triathlons. I have really started to enjoy the Xterra races I have done so now I do about 50/50 riding on dirt/road. Same with my running, I have left the road for the trails and don’t really intend to run on the road unless it rains and the mud prevents me from running trails or its race day.
Sounds like you should move closer to trails, I couldn’t handle it if I was that far away!
If MTB gives you pleasure, do it!
Dave
Here’s one of mine, but I’m not riding much until the off-season. The injury risk is too high. Doesn’t take much of a spill to throw your training schedule for a loop. I look at this bike like it’s an evil drug.
That said, I really recommend the DH. The high front end keeps you more level on the downs. So you’re not as high risk for that collarbone wrecking over-the-handlebars spill. The Downhills are where you’re most likely to get into trouble.
It’s basically the majority of my rides in IM training. The IM I did was at the end of a MTB season, so I raced 8 times, and would go for a short run after most of the races. Makes riding on the road with aero bars much easier(by comparison).
I signed up for IM Zurich this year (July 15) and then got talked into signing up for the Leadville Trail MTB 100 (August 11), so I spent a lot of my training leading up to the Zurich race on my mountain bike (mostly because I’m fairly new to mountain biking and was more worried about the Leadville cut-offs). I assume you’re not talking about simply riding your MTB on the road (which I’ve done a lot of and which seemed like good IM training). The limited amount of trail and singletrack mountain biking I did seemed pretty useless as IM training, but that’s likely because I’m not skilled enough to push it (or even stay at a useful heart rate) on tough terrain. But the simpler MTB I did (riding up long gravel road hills/simple trails) seemed to be, as the prior posts suggest, fairly good interval work and/or just good aerobic base. This worked out fine for me in Zurich. It remains to be seen how it works out in Leadville!
Where is this??
Hither Hills, Montauk. That pier in the background, is from a WW2 Seaplane complex. Now it’s called a “fishing pier”, though I don’t hardly ever see anyone fishing there.
Nice, thanks… Maybe I’ll get up there to ride next time I visit my sis in Sayville, LI!
I think it depends what your trails are like, if you are riding wide non technical stuff then I guess it’s not so different to riding on the road. Where I live its definately not like that though and rides tend to be slow technical outings and getting long rides in is hard mentally and physically (>3 hrs).
Has anybody here ever thrown in Mountain biking into your Ironman schedule, and if so, how did it work out for your bike leg? I ask because I absolutely love Mountain Biking and would love to put it into some of my smaller rides. I’m doing IMFL this November but also wanted to be in decent MTB shape for the off season. Obviously my long rides, tempo/interval rides and brick workouts will be on the tri bike. I also have a group ride in which I ride my road bike. But for the days that I have to bike up to an hour on my long run days I was thinking of throwing in MTB’ing. Or throwing in an extra day for an hour ride each week. I figure it has to help me get stronger a little bit, and help out my handling and burn calories to hit race weight. How did it work out for those of you that have tried it?
I always do one MTB ride per week. It’s usually one of my shorter rides and I always throw in a swim afterward. This year, I’ve transitioned to a lot more indoor riding on my tri bike mainly for safety reasons, so when I do venture outside, I prefer the mountain bike, the dirt trails and the lack of concern about traffic or having to stop for lights. As I get into my build for IMAZ this fall, I’ll see what more mountain biking and less road riding does for my IM prep. Should be interesting.
Doing an IM is (I assume) just a hobby for you. If mountain biking is more fun (it is) then go do it and have fun.
Used to use it for the hill repeats. It is a great way to get an extremely hard efforts in a short time and for a change of pace it cant be beat. That is the good.
Here is the bad. I do not MTB anymore because a concussion, a separated shoulder and a torn other shoulder from wipeouts (going for air). It pretty much derails all the other training. So if you want a MTB, I got a race rig for you that is just lying around now 
If you can keep from wiping out and hitting stuff it is a fun alternative to mindless road riding.
Absolutely. Great for late winter, early spring when weather is less than optimal. Great for recovery rides, changing up routes, intervals, hills, handling skills and working slightly different muscles (position). More dirt road/fire/rail trails than technical single track due to potential risk (crashing)
One of my toughest weekly workouts is a 2-3 hr tempo ride on dirt roads.
Ever heard of a guy named Steve Larsen?
Okay, I’ll be less cryptic: back in 2001, Steve Larsen won Ironman Lake Placid mostly off of cross-country mountain bike fitness. He was running (seriously!) about nine miles per week, but otherwise, he was competing as a world cup mountain biker. Nine weeks later, he blew past Normann Stadler (the current Kona bike course record holder) on his way to a top 10 finish at a very windy day at the Ironman World Championship.
So yeah, it seemed to work for him.
Mountain biking is soo hot right now. So hot.
This is supposed to be fun. If you like Mnt. biking and it makes your training more enjoyable, by all means, ride your Mnt. Bike once or twice a week. Any perturbation in your fitness, if there is any, will be more than offset by maintaining a fresh mental attitude.
I gave it up when I paid my first IM entry fee. I tend to crash when mountain biking, so I decided to play in safe on stay on the asphalt with big trucks, texting idiots, and going 50 mph down hill.
After not mountain biking for almost 5 years and now living in Chattanooga, I think I’m giving up long course racing…
Just for those safety reasons I took one of my cyclocross bikes, put on some clip-on aerobars, a forward seatpost and matched my road tri bike’s geometry…now I do most of my rides on it on rail-to-trail paths. Once a week I’ll jump on the road, a wide road, with huge shoulders and ride as far to the right and still just barely, remain on the pavement. This is for IMTX so the lack of hills on the trail shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.