Being pretty new to the bike world I just can’t help being blown away by some of the bike splits I see by pro racers.
Looking at results I see Lieto ran 26.0 avg mph in Kona and over 27 at Vineman 70.3.
Andy Potts ran 25.9 for 40K at Lifetime Fitness ( I assume lower speed due to ITU bike???)
He ran 26.0 at Vineman 70.3 and 24.2 at Kona.
My question is this. How is this sort of talent honed? Is it all about big mileage on the bike and years and years of experience or is there lots of God given talent SPECIFIC to bikes.
For my personal example. I literally started riding this summer. I can average about 22.0 ALL OUT for 20 miles on local terrain. That’s simply laughable compared to these guys running 25 for 40K in ITU races. I’m not sure I could hold 25mph for one mile on the flats.
So does one develop this incredible amount of power over time then by racking up miles become able to hold this sort of power for long distances? I’d think with sub 16 5K type running talent that I would have the pump to be able to bike pretty well properly trained. Yes I realize these pros are probably more like 14 flat 5K talent (or maybe some even 13’s), but I’m certainly pretty gifted as an endurance athlete.
So by training more / harder what can I expect? This past summer I biked only 3 times a week and only about 40 miles per week total. If I doubled that would it be realistic to expect another mph? It just seems incredibly hard to pedal a bike at 24-25 mph let alone hold 26 mph for 112 miles…lol. I simply feel I lack the power to go real fast. Let alone the endurance.
All my biking is done on my stock SC7.5 and yes I even wear my funny hat often while training.
You biked 3 times a week and only did 40 miles total?! Umm there’s a problem there, you have plenty of people who are running more then that. More riding will help, base miles, ftp training, ect. If you’re already going “22” for 20 miles on just 40 miles a week you see improvement right away.
You don’t have to but lots of people here will say get a powermeter, get the training and racing with a powermeter book and start putting things into practice.
As for the pros they have gifted athletes who have been busting their ass for years.
Don’t worry about what Lieto is doing, for you it’s all about volume. Get out and ride your bike LOTS. If you can work up to around 250 miles a week consistently, then you can start worrying about other specific things like structured intervals, bike setup etc.
yeah, on a more serious note, i’d agree with this. more than swimming or running, i think, cycling is often just about volume. plenty of riding and lots of it. bike to work, to the grocery store. . . ride MTB, track, whatever. just bike all the time.
yeah, on a more serious note, i’d agree with this. more than swimming or running, i think, cycling is often just about volume. plenty of riding and lots of it. bike to work, to the grocery store. . . ride MTB, track, whatever. just bike all the time.
-mike
Running is actually probably more about volume than cycling. In cycling, you can definitely do shorter by higher intensity work to compensate in large parts for not riding long distances. Chris Carmichael is a big proponent of this, and has had a lot of success with it even with elite athletes. I’d agree given my own results, in which repeated hard interval sessions on the bike <1hr translate surprisingly well even to 4 hr big mountain bike rides.
In running, if you attempted that type of all-speedwork/low volume regiment, you’d invariably get injured. It’s far better to do a lot of easy miles with a sprinkling of hard speedwork in running due to the injury risk. In cycling, you can just do all speedwork (with rest days in between) since there’s only a low risk of overuse injury without the pounding.
40 miles per week is well not much. 22 mph for 20 miles shows pretty good talent given your back ground. Work up to 5-6 days a week at over 200miles a week then check back. Thats what the 13 year old girl next store does and she’s pretty fast.
At the top end of either sport the best do lots. Plenty of high school cross country studs have done very well with high intensity low volume running, but if you want to be national class or world class in either running or cycling you are going to be doing a lot of volume.
Yes. Really. I generally did (2) 10 mile rides and a 15 miler then later in the summer changed to a longer 20 mile ride…lol. I realize it’s not much, but for me it was being new on the bike.
I did 9 workouts this summer / week. 3 swims (my worst discipline), 3 bikes, 3 runs. I know I need to focus more on the bike since it’s by far the most important.
I plan to purchase a Kinetic trainer shortly and log some bigger miles during the dead of winter. Powermeter and race wheels are not in my budget unfortunately. I’m already at my s-1 limitation with my wife And she SBR as well.
At the top end of either sport the best do lots. Plenty of high school cross country studs have done very well with high intensity low volume running, but if you want to be national class or world class in either running or cycling you are going to be doing a lot of volume.
True, but in cycling, even joe average can succeed to a large extent by cranking up intensity without volume. Joe average will almost invariably get an overuse injury or strain if he tries that with running due to the impact. High school studs can get away with it, but even they often built up to it over years. You can take a rookie cyclist right out of the gate and make them do intervals, and while they’ll get very tired and need rest, their risk of a stress fracture or tendon rupture is almost zero, as compared to running, where it’s quite high.
if you are going to ride 3 times a week
make each ride at least 2 hours
and one of them 4 hours =)
Yes. Really. I generally did (2) 10 mile rides and a 15 miler then later in the summer changed to a longer 20 mile ride…lol. I realize it’s not much, but for me it was being new on the bike.
I did 9 workouts this summer / week. 3 swims (my worst discipline), 3 bikes, 3 runs. I know I need to focus more on the bike since it’s by far the most important.
I plan to purchase a Kinetic trainer shortly and log some bigger miles during the dead of winter. Powermeter and race wheels are not in my budget unfortunately. I’m already at my s-1 limitation with my wife And she SBR as well.
I’ll agree that its higher with running, but not really quite high. A lot of people do “too much” intensity too soon with running and just get sore. Most people that get stress fractures or ruptures ignore a lot of warning signs.
I often have a bit of a chuckle on here about the obsession with the IM bike splits and how some of the really fast cyclists in triathlon get a lot of notice and praise. Let me be clear, Chris Lieto is an amazing cyclist and for sure, one of the fastest and strongest cyclists in the sport of triathlon, but the event and the riders that should really wow the ST Bike Fans are the true long distance TT experts. There is a sub-cult in the UK for this sort of thing and this is where the real heros for the ST Bike Fans should be:
Granted he does not have to swim before nor run after, but for purity of long distance TT’ing you have to be impressed by the performances of people like Michal Hutcinson and others.
And she SBR as well.