Building speed and endutrance

crom7

I recently did a 40 mile (very hilly) route.

Felt knackered but held my own on the hills but struggled to maintain speed on the flat towards the end of the ride.

any suggestions on how i could build my stamina and improve my speed in general. Should i focus mainly on bike work or would weights be of any use?

cheers

Bronzie

Ride your bike more often / longer is the siimple answer

jgsi

If you want to get into 'training' mode, just dont go out on the bike for just a ride - have a plan in your head what youwant to get out of your ride....
hill repeats
accelerations
longer threshold intervals

Fo me too many distractions on the road for training purposes.

An easy going club ride is nice to have though.

Pokerface

And for the love of all thing holy, stay away from the weights!

ozzy1000_0

crom7 wrote:

I recently did a 40 mile (very hilly) route.

Felt knackered but held my own on the hills but struggled to maintain speed on the flat towards the end of the ride.

any suggestions on how i could build my stamina and improve my speed in general. Should i focus mainly on bike work or would weights be of any use?

cheers

ride your bike alot, but rest enough... take a day off after really hard efforts.. set yourself goals, one the best things i do is find a loop, ride it and time it, then try to beat that time.. try listening to heavy music of your prefered genre. to develop power/speed you need to push youself hard...

crom7

Thanks, some good advice.

I'm going to start doing hill repeats and will give intervals a go on the turbo trainer. Have a couple of good loops so will see how my time progresses on these.

Ozzy1000_0, well done of the 100 mile, brilliant time considering only 10 weeks of training. Was thinking about getting the Time Crunched Cyclist. Do you recommend?

Cheers