Beginner looking to improve
CentralACcyclist
Posts: 4
Just finished the Dartmoor classic sportive recently. I was very pleased to get a bronze medal, with a time of 5:48. This was despite it being my longest ride by over 20 miles and only the 15th time that I had been out this year on the bike. My other sports are running and swimming.
Whats the best way to improve that next year? My total ride time was a shade over 5 hours, due to having to wait on the others in the group. At half way 2 of us made a breakaway and made the cut. Halfway split was 3:35.
It will come as no surprise im sure that I struggled most on the hills. So aside from the obvious "getting out and doing it", is there something else I can do, IE, long ride nce a week, tempo ride and intervals? Hill repeats?
CHeers in advance.
Whats the best way to improve that next year? My total ride time was a shade over 5 hours, due to having to wait on the others in the group. At half way 2 of us made a breakaway and made the cut. Halfway split was 3:35.
It will come as no surprise im sure that I struggled most on the hills. So aside from the obvious "getting out and doing it", is there something else I can do, IE, long ride nce a week, tempo ride and intervals? Hill repeats?
CHeers in advance.
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Comments
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difficult to tell you what else you could be doing, without knowing more about what you do already....
Although the fact that you have only ridden your bike 15 times in six months is probably a bit of a giveaway....0 -
Ride more miles, thats the only way to improve.
More rides, more miles, with time between to restRichard
Giving it Large0 -
Pseudonym wrote:difficult to tell you what else you could be doing, without knowing more about what you do already....
Although the fact that you have only ridden your bike 15 times in six months is probably a bit of a giveaway....
Generally, Ill decide to go out for an hour, or to do a long ride of up to 3 hours. Very unstructured. I have now decided I want to ride 3 times a week, with at least one ride being longer than 3 hours, possibly anything up to 5 hours (now i know that I can do it).
So would one ride of 3:30, one of 100 minutes at a harder pace effort and an interval session do the trick. For the intervals I was thinking that alternate weeks I could do hills and normal intervals. Or even add on a short session of hill sprints.0 -
Long rides plus 2x20 threshold intervals. Forget about sprinting up hills unless you're training to race up hills.More problems but still living....0
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generally, there are four main factors to improve your riding ability:
1. ride often (to improve conditioning)
2. ride longer (to improve endurance)
3. ride harder (to improve speed and effort tolerance)
4. lose weight (to ride better everywhere)
A regular three hour +/- ride will improve your comfort and strength on the bike over longer periods. Shorter, harder rides of up to an hour will improve your ability to sustain effort. None of this will happen overnight though.....
I'm no coach, but in simple terms I would suggest those are the areas to focus on.0
