Silly Commuter Stats

rolf_f

I'm actively NOT doing 1000 mile months. The target for them for this year is zero! I'm so much faster without them!

daxplusplus

Indeed.

I think it does depend on the amount of climbing, level of fitness, how riding fit's into your life style but overall going for big miles for no reason is bad for speed.

However, I do think they can be a good to target over the winter, they do get the body used to large work loads and it seems that if I don't push too hard I can get away with it during other parts of the year. So far this year I'm getting some massive improvements in speed .. I think that as long as your spending your time wisely on the bike then larger mileages can be had too. But they should not be the standard by which to measure yourself .. good speed is the new high mileage.

rolf_f

Well, I'm doing 5000 feet a week minimum on the commute before I've gone for a weekend club ride in the Dales so the climbing is significant.

I guess I'll end up somewhere between 8 and 9 k this year.

daxplusplus

I can see how that would be a problem .. hills are great but are a real killer if miles is your aim.

jzed

4,025 miles at the halfway point. With pretty much a month off pretty pleased and targeting around the same again for the rest of the year.

willy b

Much like Rolf i'm not targeting any monthly mileage at all. Which is certainly working, and i'm feeling good.

itboffin

I was on target for 1k in June until my little mishap

daxplusplus

Not sure if you guys use veloviewer but it has an interesting summary on this very subject:



You can see that compared to 2013 I'm doing a lot more miles (graph on left) but my avg speed has improved too (graph on right)

daxplusplus

.. and boff, I hope your leg is getting better. Sounded like a horrible injury.

willy b

After 2 weeks "almost" off the bike i'm being caught. :roll:

daxplusplus

Busy at work so having to use the motorbike more than I'd like (it's a hard life :-)) .. so the catch up is at snail pace miles wise this week (but speed wise - the ones that I am doing are pretty quick ones :twisted: ).

At this rate, 2nd/3rd and 4th places are going to get pretty close.

gbsahne001

If it helps I'm going to be off the bike for two weeks or so mid August...unless I can find a way of getting a bike to Bodrum cost effectively.

dyrlac

3000!

gingaman

well done You would have achieved that earlier if you didn't have a month off!

dyrlac

Yeah, a non-displaced fracture of my right patella wrote off the entirety of March. Suffered in the vicinity of (but embarrassingly not on) the slopes.

pollys_bott

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Not sure if you guys use veloviewer but it has an interesting summary on this very subject:



You can see that compared to 2013 I'm doing a lot more miles (graph on left) but my avg speed has improved too (graph on right)

Not wishing to sound argumentative, but how does that work when set against your earlier post that said big miles are bad for speed? Or have your miles in 2014 been better quality?

gingaman

66 active users on SC Stats have covered 160,000 miles this year (at just over halfway through).

daxplusplus

Pollys Bott wrote:

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Not sure if you guys use veloviewer but it has an interesting summary on this very subject:



You can see that compared to 2013 I'm doing a lot more miles (graph on left) but my avg speed has improved too (graph on right)

Not wishing to sound argumentative, but how does that work when set against your earlier post that said big miles are bad for speed? Or have your miles in 2014 been better quality?

Hey no probs - call me out if I'm talking rubbish.

Yep 2014 has been about smarter training\riding. Basically going all out for miles is a mugs game if getting "better" is your aim.

Instead you need to get the balance right between overloading your body but also allowing it to recover. Nothing too revolutionary about that but the key word in that sentence is "balance". Not only is it different for everyone but it's a moving target for individuals too.

If you get that balance right you'll be able to go faster and do longer distances .. over time your body adapts and gets better at doing both if you get your training\riding right.

Actually I may still be doing too many miles .. but I like cycling (funny that) so sometimes I will go out and do miles even when from a training\recovery perspective it's probably not optimal. Examples of this include - beautiful sunny days commuting through the Cotswolds can be very hard to resist. Also I go out on a club run every Sunday .. I don't consider it to be a training ride at all .. it's just good to meet up and have some competitive sprints\climbs for fun. Good for the soul. But hey - at the end of last year I reviewed what I like and want from my cycling and although I want to get better it's not at any cost. So I'm cool with that.

All of the above is in my experience.

So you can have your cake and eat it :-)

CiB

Stats is off air overnight tonight whilst the servers and with them the Stats web pages + db are all physically moved from somewhere up north to somewhere in the south, due to the hosting co having a masterplan of sorts. All should be back up & running by 7:30 Saturday morning but if this simple h/ware migration is like any other, don't be surprised to find it still being unavailable for a little while after that.

pollys_bott

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Hey no probs - call me out if I'm talking rubbish.

Yep 2014 has been about smarter training\riding. Basically going all out for miles is a mugs game if getting "better" is your aim.

Instead you need to get the balance right between overloading your body but also allowing it to recover. Nothing too revolutionary about that but the key word in that sentence is "balance". Not only is it different for everyone but it's a moving target for individuals too.

If you get that balance right you'll be able to go faster and do longer distances .. over time your body adapts and gets better at doing both if you get your training\riding right.

Actually I may still be doing too many miles .. but I like cycling (funny that) so sometimes I will go out and do miles even when from a training\recovery perspective it's probably not optimal. Examples of this include - beautiful sunny days commuting through the Cotswolds can be very hard to resist. Also I go out on a club run every Sunday .. I don't consider it to be a training ride at all .. it's just good to meet up and have some competitive sprints\climbs for fun. Good for the soul. But hey - at the end of last year I reviewed what I like and want from my cycling and although I want to get better it's not at any cost. So I'm cool with that.

All of the above is in my experience.

So you can have your cake and eat it :-)

I'm hardly qualified to call anyone out... all of the above makes sense and mirrors my experience this year. I got a place on the Fred and got into a "must do sh1t loads of miles" mode. Last year I did around 250 miles a month and a 300+ month was an achievement. First three months of this year I did 401, 450, 437. All felt good at the time but I think I paid for it in April as in a couple of weeks had a sore throat, cold and conjunctivitis Rode a bit smarter after that: made my hard rides hard and my easy rides easy rather than churning out pretty much everything at a steady tempo, and also gave myself more time off the bike. Got round the Fred fine - the steepest bits of Honister and Hardknott beat me but the ride in its entirety wasn't as tough as I feared.

Since then real life has meant less riding so even more recovery time: after four or five days off the bike I feel great first ride back but I'm not sure how gaps like that affect overall fitness. I'd like to do some more long rides but I'd also like to have a good crack at TTing - not sure if training for those simultaneously would be sensible! As you say, it's all about finding the balance.

daxplusplus

Pollys Bott wrote:

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Hey no probs - call me out if I'm talking rubbish.
..

..
Since then real life has meant less riding so even more recovery time: after four or five days off the bike I feel great first ride back but I'm not sure how gaps like that affect overall fitness. I'd like to do some more long rides but I'd also like to have a good crack at TTing - not sure if training for those simultaneously would be sensible! As you say, it's all about finding the balance.

My understanding is that you shouldn't feel great all the time when training ..the idea is that you will get fatigued but your underlying fitness is getting better. I would have thought 4-5 days will mean that your actually de-training .. you might feel great but your actually getting worse (sorry).

Rather than thinking of number of days riding\not riding think of the overall stress your body is having to endure over time. So you can still go out on the bike but just not flat out (and, as you say, not the same old tempo) .. better to take it easy and make it either an endurance ride or an actual recovery ride. The key is to ensure you are actually stressing your body more and more over time .. but just not too much (easy weeks can help with this too .. for me it's every 3 or 4 weeks .. otherwise the accumulated fatigue is just too much both physically and mentally)

Actually having some training software and data helps you quantify the running total of stress your body is enduring and can confirm\make you question what your expecting of your body.

As for training for, and actually competing in, both TTs and long rides .. don't worry about the clash .. for most of us it really isn't an issue and in fact I suggest that the mixture will be great for your body. Mixing it up also keeps the cycling interesting .. you'll certainly learn stuff about your body and cycling during the TTs that you wouldn't otherwise.

Good luck going forward.

willy b

Come on Dax... 2.2 miles between us now...

daxplusplus

Getting close but no cigar (or glass of champagne) as this week is a rest\taper week for me .. so no great number of miles.

However will be doing a 10m TT tomorrow, might be doing another on Thursday evening (itching to find out what time I'll get on a flat course) and then my first road race on Sunday.

I've then got Ride London a week Sunday.

So hoping all my training\commuting investment is about to kick in :-)

gingaman

I have been as accurate as possible with inputting my mileage, however my running total recently jumped by a few miles. Is it a case of just adjusting the total, or is it something I've done incorrectly? Could it be a disparity between updating via PC and via iPhone?

rubertoe

I stopped recording my milage this year when i realised it was going to be dismal, I barely even put the garmin on these days.

dyrlac

In the States for three weeks, so will have some work to do when I get back for august to be at all respectable.

gbsahne001

time to cut the miles back (or stop for a while) I think, as some research on the causes of my current pain suggests it could be IBS.

iPete

Did we all destroy each other last year?

The aim of the game seems to be not to win this year!

rubertoe

It appears we have all gone soft.

Hot Orange

For the first time in the 3-4 years I've been taking part in this thing, I've made the top 20. Yay!

I'm now going on holiday for two weeks and probably won't be going near a bike, so will be back in 30th or something when I come back. Boo!