SS - MTB help to improve speed
spacemonkeys
Posts: 32
Hi all
I've got good stamina (80 miles) but don't have a great top speed and always get dropped in the burn ups, I'm improving but still not their yet, I've just started commuting on a SS'd MTB with a 44x16 year ratio and 2.1 tyres, but not sure if it's going to help or hinder my speeding , my commute is about 10 miles each way, but I up it to 25 at least twice a week... thoughts ?
Ta for u time
I've got good stamina (80 miles) but don't have a great top speed and always get dropped in the burn ups, I'm improving but still not their yet, I've just started commuting on a SS'd MTB with a 44x16 year ratio and 2.1 tyres, but not sure if it's going to help or hinder my speeding , my commute is about 10 miles each way, but I up it to 25 at least twice a week... thoughts ?
Ta for u time
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Comments
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Thought I'd better reply since I messed up the maths on the 'gear and know how forum'
IMO singlespeed for the road is a waste of time. It's neither here nor there.
There's arguable benefits riding fixed. Gears means you always at the right cadence. But on the road, what does single speed give you?
Also for me, I mentally don't see the point of having bike parts that are purposefully going to slow you down, the big tyres in this case. If you want to train speed then ride at speed is my personal view (NOT scientific)
I'll stick 2.1mtb tyres onto my mtb for my commute tomorrow (expecting bad weather) and you know I'm absolutely dreading it. I know it's going to take longer and It just becomes a grind. Mind you I normally ride in on my tt bike complete with disc wheel and aero helmet. Much quicker and I get to have 20 mins extra in bed. :roll:0 -
Increasing your weekly mileage alone will help up to a point, but to increase sustainable speed beyond the plateau that you will inevitably reach at some point you will need to do some shorter, more intense efforts (typically interval training).spacemonkeys wrote:my commute is about 10 miles each way, but I up it to 25 at least twice a week... thoughts ?
Your choice of bike will not be ideal for this as you can't vary the gearing/resistance, but you could do hill intervals which if you can find the right gradient of hill could be a good workout on that gear. It's either that or get a turbo trainer with variable resistance and do some interval work on that.0 -
yes but surely as my 10 miles commute (just tulking commutes) is a bit stop start (traffic lights round abouts school runs) but has several good climbs (more long inclines) anything that makes me spin on the flats and then push it up the inclines is going to be good for when I get out on the the lighter geared bike at the weekend ? OK maybe I need to do more speed training sessions, but riding with people faster than me at the weekend (on my geared bike) is some of the way there .. yes ?0
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You've made your mind up anyway so go for it.
For me personally anything involving spinning is a waste of time. You say you're going to push it up the hills, well if your ridding ss then you're going to end up spinning out on the flats and in particular on the down hills. If your commute is 10 miles you're probably going to end up ridding 5 of them at a crap intensity, result you're only working for 5 miles!
As an example, as I said above I rode a mtb to work yesterday. 17 miles home of which I pretty much spent the full time in the 46x12. I thought I was going quite hard. When I got home and looked at my hr I'd spent most of the ride at level 1 i.e. for me a waste of time.
What I'm trying to say is that with that gearing on a ss it's just too easy to take it easy.0 -
chrisw12 wrote:You've made your mind up anyway so go for it.
Actually what it is that after reading all the stuff on the net saying "ss will increase your fitness" I built up a ss in order to catch those are fitter than me and are riding ss through the winter, and now that I've ridden it to work a couple of times I'm a little dubius about the benefits, think it will make me work on bits .. but rest on other ... maybe I need share commuting between the two
But suprised by the lack of opinions as well ... thanks both, taken on board0 -
I didn't mean that being funny, just pointing out that sometimes if you believe something is going to work, try hard at it, then sometimes you might see gains. Faith can be a powerful tool.
Can you provide any links to where you've read that ss training is good? I'm genuinely interested.
As I said, I can (under some conditions) see the benefits to fixed as it forces you to do things, but in my mind ss is always a compromise and it's just too easy to switch off.
I'm not totally against ss as it does have benefits for off road stuff.0 -
Yes..................but your question seemed to be "I keep getting dropped, what can I do about it?". If you plug away with the weekend group rides, after a few more weeks you should stop getting dropped, and who knows, you may eventually be the one dishing the pain.spacemonkeys wrote:OK maybe I need to do more speed training sessions, but riding with people faster than me at the weekend (on my geared bike) is some of the way there .. yes ?
But if you want to accelerate this progress, do some more speed work outside of your weekend rides. Your commute doesn't really sound ideal for this (traffic lights = recovery) and "spinning" sounds too easy although without wearing a heart rate monitor and knowing your zones, you probably won't know for sure how hard you are working. As Chris said, sometimes rides can feel harder than they really are.
Not sure about SS as I've never tried it, but I think fixed wheel has it's benefits (teaches you how to pedal smoothly and forces you to maybe use a bigger gear than you would otherwise on climbs), but it also has it's disadvantages (gearing is always a compromise between being able to climb on it and spinning out [being too easy] on the flat / downhills).0 -
it's just too easy to switch off
that really does sound like a personal thing rather than a rule of thumb...
and remember, there's no such thing as spinning out. You just need to learn to pedal faster
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What you need to improve is your FTP. Do you have access to a power meter? If so start riding to it and read something like "Training and Racing withA Power Meter'.
If not I would look to have some structure in your commute rides in other ways e.g. Maybe twice a week choose a route where you could have something like a decent 20 - 40 minute time trial effort (as a general guide heart rate should be approx 85%). Your gearing might mean that you are spinning far too much which would be an issue as I'd look to find a gear which would enable you to have a cadence around 90 - 100. Try that for a few weeks each week changing the duration/intensity of the interval so you are stressing the body more to adapt.
Just adding extra miles to your commute will have some but little benefit from being able to hang with the bunch when the hammer goes down.
John.0 -
Is it not a little bit overkill to recommend training with a PM just so you don't get dropped on a club run? You don't have to have a PM in order to improve your power.JohnWilky wrote:What you need to improve is your FTP. Do you have access to a power meter? If so start riding to it and read something like "Training and Racing withA Power Meter'.0 -
Bronzie wrote:Yes..................but your question seemed to be "I keep getting dropped, what can I do about it?".
?? How right you are, hadn't though of it like that or about the big picture (how do I impove) was more intent on improving what I was doing ... I've always enjoyed commuting BUT never feels like a training ride, and your always weighted down with something.
As you guys have already pointed out, maybe need to take a step back and look at what I want to achieve, think it's probably going to be continue commuting BUT rather than just going further, use that time to do sessions / TT practice instead ... god where's my heart monitor !!!
Can't really justify a power meter for improving on club runs
Cheers guys, glad i asked the question even if it was just to make me stop and think about what I am doing
Cheers0 -
spacemonkeys wrote:Bronzie wrote:Yes..................but your question seemed to be "I keep getting dropped, what can I do about it?".
?? How right you are, hadn't though of it like that or about the big picture (how do I impove) was more intent on improving what I was doing ... I've always enjoyed commuting BUT never feels like a training ride, and your always weighted down with something.
As you guys have already pointed out, maybe need to take a step back and look at what I want to achieve, think it's probably going to be continue commuting BUT rather than just going further, use that time to do sessions / TT practice instead ... god where's my heart monitor !!!
Can't really justify a power meter for improving on club runs
Cheers guys, glad i asked the question even if it was just to make me stop and think about what I am doing
Cheers
No problems.
You make a good point, it's good to ask questions just to have a think about what you are doing. Do you have a training partner that you can talk to and bounce ideas off? This can also be invaluable as well.
I see the commute a lot different to you, I do see it as a training ride and I'll try to ride it as fast as I can and will also try (weather permitting) to use a fast bike with decent wheels/tyres, in fact the opposite of what your ss mtb would be.0 -
Bronzie wrote:
Is it not a little bit overkill to recommend training with a PM just so you don't get dropped on a club run? You don't have to have a PM in order to improve your power.JohnWilky wrote:What you need to improve is your FTP. Do you have access to a power meter? If so start riding to it and read something like "Training and Racing withA Power Meter'.
?? Of course not - but if you want to improve yourself in whatever field you look to use whatever techniques and tools you can. Likewise, I see many guy's out on club rides with a £2.5k bike yet I don't tell them it's a bit overkill for a rider of their limited ability to have one..... it's all horses for courses.
Did I say you can only improve your power by using one?? I don't think so..... but it does help with understand what is happening and making progress quicker.
Maybe you ought to re-read the post.
John.0 -
John, I think where Bronzie may be coming from is that there's a bit of a power meter obsession going on. It seems that the answer to every question is now 'buy a power meter' and that any other methods are somehow invalid.
Honestly, you meed to hang around a bit here to see what I mean..
Obviously my frustration with the 'buy a power meter line' is made worse by jealousy as I (like others) can't afford one.0 -
I do so wish this forum had a one of those ROFLMAO smilies.JohnWilky wrote:What you need to improve is your FTP. Do you have access to a power meter? If so start riding to it and read something like "Training and Racing withA Power Meter'.
Ruth0 -
Intervals are the way to go. Whether you use a power meter, heart-rate monitor or just work on "feel" (does it hurt?).
Trying to do this on the commute to work is no good - if you do it properly you should be almost dead by the time you get off, certainly not in a fit state to do a days work straight away....! Maybe OK on the way home though? Stating the obvious, but the "effort" phases need to be properly hard, the "recovery" phases need to be easy.
Intervals are difficult to do properly on the road, always get a hill / traffic etc when you're supposed to be recovering, or a junction or downhill in the middle of the effort phase. I have a basic turbo-trainer (cost me £60 new on eBay) in the garage, do variations of three basic 1 hour sessions :-
10 min warm up at low resistance
1 minute max (top gear, max resistance, out of saddle at highest rpm I can keep going) then 4 mins recovery, repeat 8 times
10 min warm down at min resistance
10 min warm up at low resistance
10 minutes medium-hard (mid gear, mid resistance, level you can sustain for 10 mins if you grit your teeth!) then 5 mins recovery (min gear), repeat 3 times
Add 5 min warm down to last recovery phase to make 10 mins
10 mins warm up at low resistance
Increase to medium/high resistance and click up a gear. After 5 mins click up another gear, repeat til you get to 30 minutes elapsed, then come back down the gears one at a time every 5 minutes.
After 50 mins elapsed, 10 minute warm down at min gear & resistance.
These sessions are simple to do but if you do them properly leave you knackered, especially the last "pyramid" one. They don't take long though, so you can fit them around a busy lifestyle, on an evening when it's dark and snowy....
I find if I do one or two of these a week (along with ride(s) at the weekend and a bit of core/flexibility etc) my top-end power and sustained power take a big step forwards. Note: always remember to have an easy day after one of these sessions, and never do two on consecutive days.
Don't necessarily need a turbo-trainer, can replicate the efforts out in the real world, but it's easier to structure on a turbo. Also don't need to worry about being too knackered to get home, so can do the efforts properly.
Richard.0 -
I did.................it says:JohnWilky wrote:Maybe you ought to re-read the post.
"Do you have access to a power meter? If so start riding to it and read something like "Training and Racing withA Power Meter'."
Did you read the OP's original post?
I'm all in favour of using the best training methods available, but given the nature of the original post I suspected that a £1000 power meter was not likely to be sitting in SpaceMonkey's cupboard, gathering dust. Your advice just seemed a little "taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut" is all.
I think there is a danger that power meters are increasingly being viewed by inexperienced riders as the essential "go faster tool" when in reality a decent bout of good old fashioned structured training is likely to make as much if not more improvements for those relatively new to cycling.
Just my £0.020 -
It says.... "Do you have access to".... not go out and buy one. We all know you can hire one from Bob Tobin pretty reasonably for a month or so without paying £1k for one. It then says "if not I would look to have some structure......" I suspect the subtleties of the English language are lost on a few people.....
No worries.
John.0 -
JohnWilky wrote:I suspect the subtleties of the English language are lost on a few people.....
I prescribe....................
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I love that tablet.
What's the point of the 3 decimal places on the mass?
I 'm going to use that when I teach rounding.
Thanks0 -
No - it's a 250,000mg Chill Pill (250g)......................some may find this hard to swallow!chrisw12 wrote:What's the point of the 3 decimal places on the mass? 0
