Working towards 20mph

burnthesheep

I'll start out by saying I don't have any desires to race or compete at all. I'm at a decent weight but need to do some work on cardio and endurance for overall health. I wanted a goal and am shooting for 3 hours at 20mph average (flats).

I hate running so chose to repair the 1990's Trek aluminum I was given. It's got a newer cassette and chain, tune up on the indexed gears, grip tape, new 25mm tires/tubes, etc... I might have $150 in the whole thing.

I don't have time to ride that far daily, so devised the plan below. I don't trust the cars around here so it is a 20 min drive to the greenway by the river. I can only do that once a week for my long ride.

So far my plan is as follows:

Mon: Leg day at the gym with heavy weights - press, squat, curls, raises, and only a gentle and slow 10 min stationary bike warmup
Tue: Interval train on bike, find a plan online and follow it (30 sec sprint, recover, repeat)
Wed: Back and shoulder and bicep day at gym for 30 min, 30 min on stationary bike at maintenance speed
Thu: 1 hour stationary bike ride at a solid pace for 1 hour
Fri: Chest and tricep day at gym for 30 min, 30 min maintenance ride on stationary bike
Sat: 2 hours ride at strongest 2 hour pace
Sun: Rest

I may replace some of the maintenance rides with a 5k jog to mix up the routine sometimes.

I have figured that fitness wise, cycling or not, I need to improve to get to 20 mph. This will take a long time. I figure the equivalent of doing 20 mph on a bike for 3 hours is probably an 8-minute per mile half marathon.

I can't run 8-minutes per mile for a 5k yet! Lots to do. In the summer with more daylight, there will be less stationary bike time and more on the real one.

Right now I can do about 17mph in the flats for about an hour and a half.

I hope this goes well, and any advice is helpful. I'll update as I go along.

Dodger747

20mph for 3 hours is pretty good going - I don't think I've ever managed that apart from when riding in a group/racing.

Realistically, it will have to be pan flat to get anywhere near that...

imposter2.0

Presume you mean 20mph average - as 20mph in itself is reasonably straight forward to hit, if only for a short while. If so, you are going to need a lot more bike time and a lot less gym time out of that schedule.

burnthesheep

You are correct.

This is just a plan to get started. There will be lots more time necessary riding the trail once I get to a base fitness level. The gym is just to get to that basic starting point. Once I get in better shape the plan will need to change to more real riding.

I figure I will follow this for a few months then transition to more time riding once my basic fitness level is better.

imposter2.0

But your 'basic fitness level' is likely to improve faster with more time on the bike and less time in the gym - that's the point I'm making...

bluemoon17

Going to need to ride your bike more than that.

kajjal

On the flat, riding in the drops, on a well maintained / setup bike you would need to be very fit to keep it going at 20mph average for three hours. In reality the wind, hills, road surface and traffic would make this alot harder. In a pack much easier.

pinno

Err... why 20mph exactly?

How about building up your cadence, then trying to sustain it for a progressively longer length of time first.

apreading

If you dont trust cars enough then you are looking to cycle 60 miles without going through any busy areas? I think for long distance riding it would make sense to get comfortable with riding around cars as they will crop up somewhere on your journey. You are wasting cycling time by driving to/from the start anyway...

More importantly, all your training seems to be for short duration exertion - this is totally different to endurance and you really need to change the training for your goal. I do alot of 45min spin classes over the worst of winter but then at this time of year I have to retrain for endurance cycling which is easier because its what my body is overall trained for but I still need to switch focus to get back into it.

average of 20mph for 3 hours would be good going - I cant do that!

Depending on what your physical requirements are, I personally would set the first goal as a metric century then go for an imperial century, then try and up the speed.

pinno

A set of rollers may help. A mate with a moped could help too - you can get used to spinning the legs at a high speed for short bursts. However, go for steadily longer and longer rides - maybe up to 4 to 4 and a half hours and then peg it back getting quicker all the time. I still don't know why 20mph is the target.

Click here for a different perspective

jgsi

Thats a plan to be a relatively healthy fit adult ( in comparision to moribund fatties on a sofa costing the health service and blaming their genes ) ... it aint a plan to be a strong cyclist however.
Whats a rest day again?

97th choice

I would ditch the gym and ride the bike more, lots more. Unless your 60 miles is pan flat with a tail wind it's a serious target. Try aiming for a sub 30 minutes for 10 miles first

simon_masterson

Scrap all of that. Ride your bike as much as you can. Medium intensity, keep cadence fairly high and constant. A few hours of that a week and you should see results.

ugo.santalucia

You are wasting your time in the gym.
Nowhere is completely flat and even in flrat areas you will climb around 400 meters in 3 hours. Lose weight if you need to, that'll give you the edge to keep the speed on those slight inclines. Work on your position on the bike, you can easily increase the average by 1 mph riding on the drops.
Ride more, you are not riding enough

fenix

As they've said an awful plan. The gym won't help you.
You need a lot more miles and endurance.
Three hours is a random target too. Your average will largely depend on how well you plan your route too.
No idea where you live but if the traffic is so bad that you can't ride then I can't see that you can find a three hour route without traffic.

20mph is fine for time trials but nobody runs 60m ones.

A 50m tt would be a better test and the course would be more conducive.

Scrap your plans. Quit the gym. Go check out trainerroad and choose one of their plans to help you.

Vslowpace

Your plan doesn't have you riding nearly enough.

To get good at something you need to train doing it.

I would suggest looking at the workouts on Trainerroads sustained build plan as a starting point. You can replicate the workouts on the road using either a HRM or perceived exertion. Whilst not perfect would be an improvement over pumping iron.

philbar72

get out there on the bike and find a 3 hour loop you can do at a fairly brisk pace. 60 miles at around 20mph solo is tricky to achieve on even the flattest of loops. you'd really need to be averaging nearer 22mph and hope for decent traffic.
also go out with groups for that kind of distance. its more fun...

ManiaMuse

Forget the gym, look at pro tour cyclists, do any of them look like they have big legs? Even the 'sprinters' and TT specialists have tiny legs compared to the pro track sprinters and the likes of Cavendish made their name doing the 'endurance' events on the track. Their training regime consists of them just riding their bike every day, even on 'rest' days, weights are wasting your time, you need to be building endurance not power for what you want to achieve.

20mph for 3 hours also seems pretty abitrary to me as well. You need a decently flat route with minimal traffic/traffic lights, no wind, a good road surface to reliably tell if you are improving or not. So you'd probably have to find a short circuit and go round that a million times which seems pretty boring to me compared to just riding your bike and enjoying it (and the best part about cycling imo is going up hills so you can wizz down the other side again).

But if you want tips, buy a TT bike (1-2mph average speed), sort out your bike position on the drops (1mph), get all the aero gear (0.5mph), pump up your tyres and lube your bike (1mph), join a club with like minded cyclists to chaingang with (2mph+ depending on how fit).

fenix

Hire a few good racing dudes and get them to ride at 20mph. You can draft off them. Does that count for your target ?

(personally I'd aim low. Do 10miles in 30 mins first. Then 20 in an hour. After that progress will be harder.)

BrandonA

I'm not a coach but I would suggest that 5/6 of the days "training" you are doing are pointless if your goal is to ride for 3 hours at an average of 20mph.

In 2014 this was my goal too and I achieved it. In 2015 my goal was to do 75 miles at 20mph and I achieved that too.

I find that in order to achieve a high average over a long ride you have to keep your effort consistent throughout, i.e. do not burn too many matches putting in big efforts on hills. I therefore think your indoor sprints workout serves no purpose in achieving this goal.

Doing the type of gym work you are doing means that you are like your muscles. When it comes to cycling excess muscles can be a hindrance as it is extra weight which isn't being used to push you forward. The more you weight the more power you will need to generate to ride at 20mph. Think about it, you might do <100 lifts in a session when you rain your legs. If you maintain a 90 cadence you will do 16,200 reps, these reps are clearly not the same as the ones your are currently doing as they are high volume low intensity.

You need to get out on your bike as much as possible. I didn't attempt my 75 mile challenge until I was able to 60 mph rides are 21mph or faster. I didn't attempt 60 miles @ 20 mph until I was able to do 40 miles at 22 mph. I did this as I used the shorter distances to build up my fitness which meant that I didn't need to ride the at 75 mile ride at the 100% it took me to ride a 40 mile ride.

singleton

I don't think this is a serious thread.
It appeared very shortly after someone on another thread was asking about weight training, and surely no-one can seriously expect to be on a bike once a week and be able to do 60 miles in 3 hours.

burnthesheep

I think there's a bit of misunderstanding about how to start versus how to get to the end goal.

Yes, the end goal does require exactly what you're saying about more and more rides for endurance. However, you can't start out on day one rolling 40 miles after work everyday.

I'm pretty skinnny (don't weight much) but that has no correlation to fitness level. You can be small and not have a very good aerobic fitness level. I don't see what's wrong with spending a month or two getting to that level before trying to take on longer and longer riding distances.

The other reason for the running mixed in is that it would be nice to once in a while do a local tri instead of just ride only. You can't do a tri with swimming and running but never train to run or train to swim. Our local city sponsors a full, half, and mini Iron man once a year. The mini would be a fun diversion at some point.

The trail I speak of is about 30 miles in one direction, paved. So round trip is about 60 miles. Dead flat by the river with a few small hills that go over a dam or two. Absolutely zero stops or obstacles. I'm not sure where you folks are located, but cycling in traffic where I live is absolutely horrendous. Heavy traffic at about 45 to 55 mph speeds, no lanes, no shoulder on the side, and very very very inept drivers. The stop and go also from intersections, road construction, and other issues would mean that no matter how fast you are that your 20 mile ride will take you probably two hours.

It would take me about 20 minutes to go the 2 miles on the bike from my house to get anywhere close to less busy roads and intersections and make any progress. At that point, you might as well just drive to the trail. 2 miles at a pace that slow is worthless.

https://www.usacycling.org/encyclingped ... hp?id=7089

This is where I saw articles about strength training, one example, but there are many examples stating that riders who only ride long distances are missing out by not strength training also. I've also read a lot of stuff expressing that interval training can raise your aerobic fitness (running or biking). You're in the aerobic zone for most of your long rides. My wife interval trains for running in 1/2 marathons. It seems to work well.

I was adopting a similar approach to how we trained for the last 1/2 marathon. We followed the Galloway plan.
http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/ha ... -training/

I was trying to adopt this plan to cycling. Notice how the plan has the 30 min during the week like I did, and the long distance on the weekend. With the 1/2 marathon I used "off" days in the gym with weights.

imposter2.0

A plan for running a half marathon will have absolutely no relation to cycling. If you want to get good at cycling, then cycling is literally the way forward. Just jump on a bike and start doing it for a few months, then start thinking about structure after you have at least some base/CV fitness.

fenix

Well

1. THere was no mention of Tri in your original post ?
2. Without knowing exactly what this trail is - if you tried that in the UK you'd not be well thought of. Presumably this is a shared use path ? Haring along there trying to do 20mph is a bit stupid. Alsp the surface of most trails is not conducive to speed.
3. Cyclists the world over ride on the road - with traffic. Even in America I'm led to believe.

apreading

You started with an express statement that you had no desire whatsoever to race or compete. Now you are doing triathlons and iron man.

surely the events are on roads?

and +1 to what Fenix says - ride like that on a path and people are gonna hate you.

SimonGoesSideways

Echoing other posts above it would be difficult to average 20mph over 3 hours if you are riding on the road.

Around Enfield, North London, I did an 11 mile ride where most of the time I was riding at 18 - 22mph and up to 28/29mph with cars in flowing traffic. But throw in traffic lights, zebra crossings etc, my average speed for the ride was 12.8mph.

To get a 20mph average you would need to hitting close to 40mph in places to counter for times you are stopped.

Anyways, good luck with the training and hope you manage to achieve what you want.

ManiaMuse

I think part of the problem is you're not sure you really know what you want...

But as above, if this path is a shared use path with pedestrians then it really isn't the place to be time trialling.

Part of being a cyclist is learning how to deal with traffic safely. If it's good enough for the pros to train on the roads then it is good enough for you.

I'm assuming you are American because you used the words 'intersection' and 'shoulder'? Also I fail to see how 2 miles would take you 20 minutes to get there even with the worst traffic and in that case driving wouldn't be any quicker anyway so you might as well cycle!

I just get the feeling something doesn't add up here and now you've started linking to stuff starting to think this might be a troll/spam.

fenix

I don't think the OP is a troll or anything - just that he has a trail that's 30 miles long and he's plucked the 20mph out of the air.

Where do you live ? There must be cycling clubs around. You'd do well to hang out with them and ride their routes. I'd go mad if every ride I had to do was along the same path.

20mph is a big goal and you'd be better off attempting it as an organised time trial. That way its something to aim for - there will be a date and a course and they're usually a decent route. It can be done but I don't think you're going about it the right way.

burnthesheep

Definitely not trolling.

I see saying "I want to go 20mph" kind of like being "I want to break 80 in golf". A very lofty goal for a beginner, but absolutely achievable in two years time.

The trail is made for cycling. It's in the US. It's about 30 miles in one direction, paved, and as smooth as can be. The speed limit on it is quite high. I often get passed by a group of cyclists at some point all wearing matching outfits that are part of some kind of club.

It's not possible in my neighborhood to cycle without getting killed in traffic. If you don't believe me there's a news article of 4 cyclists hit in town just a week or two ago.

As for the Ironman locally, they close the roads that you run and cycle on to traffic. It makes it inconvenient to drive in that part of the city for that day, but it's what they do. They keep the long roads way out of town open to traffic, but you may only see a couple cars way out in farm country over your trip. Remember, I mentioned only wanting to try the "Mini". The mini events are a 250m swim, 15 mile ride, and 5k run or something like that. That level is not a "competition" but just something you can try to finish/accomplish or whatever. I'm not sure the Iron brand events do a mini, but locally here they have several groups who put one on each year.

I could go swim in my neighborhood pool, then ride, then go on a run by myself, but it would be nice to do it with a few friends. Hence the mini events.

You might be totally right about trying to adapt a running plan like Galloway to cycling and having so much mixed gym time. It might not work at all.

I just find it hard to believe that a participant in any sport will only do one exact activity to improve in the sport, the sport itself. To an extent this works, but I highly doubt the only thing Tiger, Michael Phelps, or any pro at their sport only does that one thing to get better. I know for fact both Tiger and Michael do lots of focused gym work when not on the course or not in the pool.

The below is a bunch of wordy BS just to explain that I wouldn't tell someone "just go play lots of rounds of golf" to be able to break 80 for 18 holes. Same idea for cycling. Yes, more cycling helps. But there has to be more to it than only miles.

---

Bunch of random crap begins here:

If you're interested, my intro advice to someone on how to "Break 80" in golf is nothing at all like saying "just go out and play a lot of holes of golf". I started the game at 5 and never followed a formal training, and never got much better. I played with no training and ill fitting equipment. The moment I stopped "just playing" everyday and did the below.......my game changed dramatically. I could pound the ball 300 yds or more, I could look at putts and make them on command, I'd never played better. And I was actually playing fewer rounds than before!

1. Buy and read "Five Lessons" by Hogan. Focus on the primary initial lesson of learning the proper grip and stance. Practice this grip and stance in the mirror 5 minutes every morning and evening while getting dressed. Keep a club by your desk, pick it up properly and practice the grip/stance when waiting/bored.
2. Get properly height fitted clubs after doing #1 for two weeks. They will fit your height and posture.
3. Now, starts actually holding the club and using it! Read the next chapters in 5 Lessons and then go get a formal lesson about the first components of the swing. Repeat this lesson once a month for 3 months.
4. During those 3 months do the following weekly:
Mon: Gym work
Tue: Driving range 30 min of 50 yard short swing shots matching the lessons from #3 above. 30 minutes putting practice, start at a long distance to get the feel then work towards the hole.
Wed: 45 minutes putting only
Th: Gym work
Fri: Repeat tues
Sat: 20 min chipping, 20 min putting
Sun: Off
5. After 3 months read the rest of the book. For the next nine months schedule a swing lesson for once a month. Repeat the plan below. After 6 months, make Sat playing 9 holes at a par 3 course. After a year, 9 holes on a full course.
Mon: Gym work
Tue: Driving range 50-100 yd shots, 1 hour
Wed: 1 hour putting only
Th: Gym work
Fri: Driving range 100 yd and longer shots, 1 hour
Sat: play on course
Sun: Off

6. Year two begins! I expect a very frustrated person at this point who can finish 9 holes on a full course. Maybe shooting about 50 for 9 holes. Take a lesson on the Pelz method of putting. Pick a pro-coach that publishes guides or books on short-game, pick drills for chips and pitches. Integrate these methods into your short game practice. This year get a video-swing lesson. They will highlight the faults on video and suggest drills. Do these drills on the driving range on the same schedule above. Take a phone/laptop to the driving range. Video tape your swing every other week and compare to the lesson video. Make adjustments. Make Saturday a full 18 holes all year. If you can break 90 by the mid-way of year two, drop Thursday gym day for 9 holes after work during the summer.

webboo

Either you were just posting to big up your great training program or just maybe you may have been enquiring to see if people with more experience had an opinion on it. If it's the later how come you don't want to,hear what anyone has to say.

97th choice

Cycling is remarkably simple. Just go ride your bike. Ride it at a pace that doesn't kill you but taxes you a little bit. Ride up hills as much as possible. Repeat.