Improving Cycling

Ride more, lots more. After that ride some more.

X2!!! This is the best answer. Also i found Spinervals to be quite helpful.

See if your LBS or tri shop has computrainer classes, those can be helpful, IMHO. Good Luck!!

if you are going to be somewhere cold/hate riding in the cold, etc, for the winter,
check out local bike shops, tri teams, etc, and see if they have weekly trainer rides over the winter. these are usally shorter workouts (50 min to an hour and a half), very intense, and are a great way to kick start your season.

if you can at all though, get some cold weather clothes and get outside on your bike. dressed properly, without breaking the bank, you can ride outside easily down to at least 30 degrees if the roads are clear, past that it depends on how much you want to spend/can tolerate.

as for workouts to include, put simply, ride more, rider harder, and repeat.

there is no magic formula.

if you abe the time to ride say 4 days a week, i would schedule things like this:

one tempo workout where you go out and hold 80-85% of your hour (threshold) pace. google these two if you need help: tempo and functional threshold power (will explain in a bit more detail).
shoot for workouts spending 20-40 min at tempo pace.

one long ride- this is simply about getting on the bike longer right now, once you are comfortable with this start pushing more of it at tempo pace

one threshold/TT ride. i alternate weeks, one week threshold intervals like 4x10 min, 6x8 min, 2x20 etc, at threshold pace. alternating weeks i do some sort of short time trial, like a 20k or 30k.

now this 4th one would depend on how my legs felt, where i was in training, but if feeling good i would use this as a shorter interval/max pace type of workout, 6-12 by 1 or 2 min all out, shorter HARD hill repeats, something like this. if the legs are shot, this 4th ride turns into an easy spin to loosen things up.

if you can get in an 1:00hr to 1:30 for the tempo ride, 2-3 for the longer ride, 1:00-1:30 for the threshold ride and an hour ish for the last one, at least to start with this will give you some pretty solid places to start, and you can always change/tweak as needed.

this will give you the nessisary tools to build speed, power, endurance, and get you going fast. if you are doing longer races either add in another ride or lengthen stuff out a bit (not the intervals, but the total times).

more miles, more miles, more miles, more miles

that on its own is not really gonna do a ton in the amount most people can ride.........

There was just a thread about increasing running speed.  It basically stated that the more you run the faster you will naturally become.  I don't see why this wouldn't be true with riding.

Says who? Unless your season ends in two or three weeks I'd say yes, but you have enough time to add some watts if you are still racing in your area at the end of August into September. Time in the saddle counts, but what you do while you are in it also has an impact.

The beginning of this summer was shot for me with moving and doing house rental prep, I was working out less than once a week and I lost huge amounts of fitness, I thought this season would be a write off. So far only he first half has been, after a couple of super long days in the saddle and forcing myself to take my body well past what my mind wanted to, well I've gone from getting dropped off the B level group ride to just about hanging with the A's again in about six weeks. You'll have to beat up your body pretty good and rest well, but you can make noticeable gains in a month if you try.

As for off season, spinervals are great, specifically intervals and time trial focused ones. There is a three hour butt kicker called tough love that will keep your endurance up there as well. If you don't get much snow in your area then there is no reason to stop riding outside.

it's not too late to improve. we have people at our training centers nationwide that improve their watts an average of approx 12% over an 8 week period. That's a real number in a short amount of time. you just need specifically targeted and continually adaptive training. additionally, improving watts after a significant amount of bike base is even more effective; which might be the case with you as we are towards the beginning of the end of the regular tri season.

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Edited by Steve- 2009-07-22 2:20 PM

start doing the workouts mentioned, pad with as much extra riding as you can stand without comprimising life and other workouts, and you will see improvments.

Thank you to everyone for all your help.  My second and final tri of the season is in less than three weeks.  I begin my taper next week so I figure I've gained all the speed and endurance I will gain for this season. 

Newbz, I really like the workout you prescribed above.  I am going to implement those into my off season regimine.  I really appreciate you sharing your insight.  

Steve, I'm not aware of any computrainer programs like yours in my area.  I will certainly look around.  I may be moving to chicago in the next year so I may end up in one of your training programs.  I actually know people in chicago that have trained in your program and greatly improved.  Rumor has it your computrainer workouts are tough!  PS, I was actually in your area this weekend doing the harbor lights tri.