just tours really, maintaining fitness

inaperfectworld

i really only cycle to tour, but do longish day rides (~50 miles) now and again in summer. i hate winter and do an odd 10 miles a week, just a bit of commuting/shopping. having done 3 tours this year and i wondered what it would take to maintain a level of fitness so that i'm not starting from scratch next spring; a 20 mile brisk ride once a week perhaps? or is so little a waste of time and effort?

nosmo-king

I first started touring in 1983, doing about three tours per year and quite a few day rides at weekends. Through the winter I did about 30 miles once a week and it seemed to work for me.
At the first sign of spring I stepped it up to 50 miles with no problems, so you should be ok.
p.s. nice to see there are some tourers out there rather than all these chain gang types!

Mettan

inaperfectworld wrote:

and i wondered what it would take to maintain a level of fitness so that i'm not starting from scratch next spring; a 20 mile brisk ride once a week perhaps? or is so little a waste of time and effort?

IMHO, once a week is stretching it a bit (although clearly better than nothing) - if you could up that to 2 rides per week (maybe a 20 miler once every 3 or 4 days) you'd be ticking over quite nicely come February/March.