Road Cycling

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4,734.7 miles / £709.78

My target was to beat last year's mileage (3,200 odd miles). I set 2016's goals a couple of months back, the main one being 5,000 miles for 2016. It looks like I'm going to beat that goal earlier, so not sure what to make my target for next year (perhaps 5,500 - 6k)

Climbing is also a lot higher this year (+100,000ft more than last year).

I'm also 2 stone heavier.

Infact, the only statistics that haven't gone up, are my average speed (slightly slower), and my average heart rate is a lot lower.
I'm not too concerned about the reduction of average speed, as I suspect that is down to the increased mileage, and climbing.

My other targets for next year:
5,000 miles for the year
Complete an imperial century (solo)
Take part in 1-2 sportives
Cycle around the Isle of Wight
Cycle for atleast 100 days consecutively
 
FrenchTart said:
Average heart rate going down is probably not a bad thing :p
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Probably shows my body is becoming more efficient, but I miss not being able to get close to my max anymore (190ish). I used to strangely enjoy coming home after a ride sweating like a pig, and collapse in a heap :)
 
I've not spent that much on Wiggle this year as I've started using other stores which offer a better deals or had stock of what I wanted at the time.

All in I guess I've spent around £1000, of which £500 of that was for a second hand carbon Felt F5 frame which my old ultegra groupset was fitted to.

Goals for this year are all but completed.

5,000 miles (another couple of hundred to go)
150,000 ft climbing (currently on 200,0000 ft)
200 hours of cycling (currently on 244 hours)
150,000 calories burnt (aproaching 200,000 as of today)

I've not done as much weekend riding as I would have liked, most of this years rides have been after work between 30-50 miles taking a couple hours.
Only managed to squeeze in a couple of 100 mile rides in this year, but altogether this year has been shorter but more consistant rides.
 
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I've switched to the MTB but I don't know why... it's a pain in the ass. I might ride the Bianchi in tomorrow. Just a bit more forgiving on the MTB.

I've spent like nothing on wiggle I don't think... other sites mind :p
 
I'm just hoping someone else has spent similar to me on Wiggle so I don't feel like a complete tool! ;)

All the gear, no idea, hey? :p

janp said:
Probably shows my body is becoming more efficient, but I miss not being able to get close to my max anymore (190ish). I used to strangely enjoy coming home after a ride sweating like a pig, and collapse in a heap :)
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Good work on your weight gain along with the increased miles/climbing! Quite an achievement as I know that was 1 of your aims. Also the average drop is fairly small considering the increase in elevation.

I'm quite inefficient as my HR is usually very high (170BPM even commuting) with a max around where yours *was*. I sweat like a pig but don't generally collapse after a ride (even a big one). I'm always pushing so until my efficiency gets better (increase power?) I probably won't see my average drop...!

tedmaul said:
And was only doing about 400 miles a month between Jan and May, the majority of which was just commuting.
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That in itself is around 1/3 of your mileage so makes the other numbers much better (and mine not look quite so poor!) ;)

Robzere31 said:
Goals for this year are all but completed.

5,000 miles (another couple of hundred to go)
150,000 ft climbing (currently on 200,0000 ft)
200 hours of cycling (currently on 244 hours)
150,000 calories burnt (aproaching 200,000 as of today)
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Completed? I'd say you pretty much smashed them! Well done! :D
 
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Roady said:
Good work on your weight gain along with the increased miles/climbing! Quite an achievement as I know that was 1 of your aims. Also the average drop is fairly small considering the increase in elevation.

I'm quite inefficient as my HR is usually very high (170BPM even commuting) with a max around where yours *was*. I sweat like a pig but don't generally collapse after a ride (even a big one). I'm always pushing so until my efficiency gets better I probably won't see my average drop...!
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Cheers Roady.
My advice for lowering your average HR, increase your miles and climbing. I started extending my commute around September time, and ever since then it's dropped like a stone. I think the fact I increased it so much, my body just couldn't work at the same high intensity.
Either that or work on your lower zones (Z1-Z2), take a lot of discipline, that I don't have!
 
janp said:
Cheers Roady.
My advice for lowering your average HR, increase your miles and climbing. I started extending my commute around September time, and ever since then it's dropped like a stone. I think the fact I increased it so much, my body just couldn't work at the same high intensity.
Either that or work on your lower zones (Z1-Z2), take a lot of discipline, that I don't have!
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That sounds quite weird. I would expect your heart rate average to drop as you got fitter, but you should still be able to work hard. e.g. doing intervals to exhaustion or doing a hard ride that had you needing to sit/lie down to recover afterwards. You'd just maintain a slightly lower heart rate whilst doing those kind of efforts.

If you genuinely can't reach an effort level that hits those intensity levels, that would suggest something isn't right - most likely that you're fatigued.
 
totals for me this year -;

Distance 5,028.7 mi
Time 316h 40m
Elev Gain 178,022 ft
Rides 516

will get to 5.2k or so! and maybe 200k ft
 
janp said:
Cheers Roady.
My advice for lowering your average HR, increase your miles and climbing. I started extending my commute around September time, and ever since then it's dropped like a stone. I think the fact I increased it so much, my body just couldn't work at the same high intensity.
Either that or work on your lower zones (Z1-Z2), take a lot of discipline, that I don't have!
Click to expand...

I think my body is just conditioned to high intensity from my commuting - on longer rides I naturally find my HR 'settling down' to lower levels after the initial 20-30 mins. I also find my pacing up hills much easier with miles in my legs...! I think more of a training plan with hard intervals is the way forwards - I quite enjoyed the (short) Zwift FTP test I did as I hadn't done much 'hard' turbo riding before that point. Bring on the pain! :D

Hopefully Zwift have my account sorted (I've ended up with 2 riders on 1 account which shouldn't happen). Their support (Eric!) is great but it took nearly 2 weeks to get a reply to my ticket... Guess they're very busy! :eek:

I need a good training mat though as I've 'progressed' from Turbo'ing outside to now doing it in my 2m x 2.5m conservatory with a tiled floor... (very cosy)! Although a different riser block might be enough as most of my noise seems to come from that - I tried a basic floor mat under it last time and it made a big difference. Thought for a while about getting 2 of the OcUK Mega Mouse mats to use - but they're slippy on 1 side and rubbery on the other, ideally I want rubbery both sides. An old piece of a cover/lounge mat might get used as I know there's one in the garage...! ;)
 
Did anyone here get a bike in the last few years and basically start cycling from scratch?

I biked as a kid but apart from the odd bit here and there I haven' cycled in 20 years. Recently I got a road bike and I am just surprised how hard cycling is relative to my fitness (recently did a marathon in 3:27:27 so have good CV fitness and endurance).

10 miles feels like surprisingly hard work and I am never maintain a particularly good seed (averaging around 14 MPH but stop Strava for long red lights). What surprises me is I don't feel like I am getting much better, albeit it I only go out 3-4 times a week and 2 of those will be 30 minutes or so) and having only been doing this for 3 weeks. I was just thinking yesterday in the swimming thread that coming form almost no where swimming wise I can cover an OK distance in an OK time for a newbie but my cycling sucks.

I'm just interested in peoples experiences, how long it took them before they could cycle 30 miles say in reasonable shape, and 60 miles collapsing at the end?
I'm mostly interested in people that were not massively unfit before hand but had minimal cycling experience because people who were unfit in general and loosing weight will obviously see big gains and those who have say commuted to work every day for years before taking cycle racing seriously already have a solid background.
 
D.P. said:
Did anyone here get a bike in the last few years and basically start cycling from scratch?

I biked as a kid but apart from the odd bit here and there I haven' cycled in 20 years. Recently I got a road bike and I am just surprised how hard cycling is relative to my fitness (recently did a marathon in 3:27:27 so have good CV fitness and endurance).

10 miles feels like surprisingly hard work and I am never maintain a particularly good seed (averaging around 14 MPH but stop Strava for long red lights). What surprises me is I don't feel like I am getting much better, albeit it I only go out 3-4 times a week and 2 of those will be 30 minutes or so) and having only been doing this for 3 weeks. I was just thinking yesterday in the swimming thread that coming form almost no where swimming wise I can cover an OK distance in an OK time for a newbie but my cycling sucks.

I'm just interested in peoples experiences, how long it took them before they could cycle 30 miles say in reasonable shape, and 60 miles collapsing at the end?
I'm mostly interested in people that were not massively unfit before hand but had minimal cycling experience because people who were unfit in general and loosing weight will obviously see big gains and those who have say commuted to work every day for years before taking cycle racing seriously already have a solid background.
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pretty much me! end of 2012 :)

just bought a triban 3 and started cycling to work - 13.5mi each way until I found some back routes and shortened it down to 9.7 and then moved to south and now do 11.5mi/each way :)

I used to BMX before tho, once or twice a week, different kind of cycling tho.

first two weeks on the roadie were quite hard, I felt very tired but soon got used to it and it's still hard but I go faster haha :)
 
https://www.strava.com/athletes/3305124

I'm in the middle of what you're probably looking for - first cycling around 3.5 years ago in a fairly unfit state (~100kg) when I hadn't touched a bike in 17+ years. Did no other exercise.

I cycled my 4.4 mile commute 2-3 times a week on a hybrid for most of a year, switched to a road bike July 2013 and still only cycled my work commute until summer 2014. I started to then commute all week and do some leisure rides/loops. My first club/group/social rides were early 2015 on a newer road bike. I can now comfortably do a ~30 mile ride @15-16mph avg, (can do faster on a flat course if you exclude stops/junctions like you are hinting at? Setup your Strava to auto-pause and forget about it!).

Late summer 2015 I could do a couple of hard/pushing 30 mile rides a week and still not overly impact my commuting. I've done a couple of ~50 mile rides (furthest was a hilly 90km sportive) and I'm nowhere near 'racing' or finished yet!

For me it's been steady progress as I've continued to be a mostly commuting/enjoyment/interest orientated rider, rather than having big racing aims/aspirations. I just like to ride!

I got down to 76kg late summer and only a kg or two above that now, may go around 80kg over Xmas but will soon lose it in the spring with increased mileage again. The weight loss is minimal over the changes to my body (dropped over 4" trouser waist size) and the enjoyment I have found through a more active lifestyle with only slight changes in diet (which wasn't bad before). I didn't notice the biggest changes to my riding until I was regularly doing more than 70-80+ miles a week (did several weeks of 100+ miles with some bigger group/sportives), that average has now dropped to around 80.
 
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tedmaul said:
That sounds quite weird. I would expect your heart rate average to drop as you got fitter, but you should still be able to work hard. e.g. doing intervals to exhaustion or doing a hard ride that had you needing to sit/lie down to recover afterwards. You'd just maintain a slightly lower heart rate whilst doing those kind of efforts.

If you genuinely can't reach an effort level that hits those intensity levels, that would suggest something isn't right - most likely that you're fatigued.
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I think your probably right about fatigue. I took a week off last year, and could higher HRs again. Trouble is I need to do exercise to keep me sane, if I take more than 2 days off, I'm itching to get out.

I've been to the docs, and checked out fine. Kinda just learnt to accept it now.
 
My jaw dropped when I watched that video.

What a **** head. :eek:

And as other people actually checked, here's mine :p (April 27th - Present)

1542 Miles / £549.90

Although, I've had to buy a lot of clothing as I started from nothing!
 
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D.P. said:
Did anyone here get a bike in the last few years and basically start cycling from scratch?

I biked as a kid but apart from the odd bit here and there I haven' cycled in 20 years. Recently I got a road bike and I am just surprised how hard cycling is relative to my fitness (recently did a marathon in 3:27:27 so have good CV fitness and endurance).

10 miles feels like surprisingly hard work and I am never maintain a particularly good seed (averaging around 14 MPH but stop Strava for long red lights). What surprises me is I don't feel like I am getting much better, albeit it I only go out 3-4 times a week and 2 of those will be 30 minutes or so) and having only been doing this for 3 weeks. I was just thinking yesterday in the swimming thread that coming form almost no where swimming wise I can cover an OK distance in an OK time for a newbie but my cycling sucks.

I'm just interested in peoples experiences, how long it took them before they could cycle 30 miles say in reasonable shape, and 60 miles collapsing at the end?
I'm mostly interested in people that were not massively unfit before hand but had minimal cycling experience because people who were unfit in general and loosing weight will obviously see big gains and those who have say commuted to work every day for years before taking cycle racing seriously already have a solid background.
Click to expand...

I started in end of June 2012, having barely ridden a bike in years. I can go the distance, but I'm still not very quick. I was doing 40 miles or so within a couple of months and I did my first metric century the following March, and an imperial century in July 2013, which is the longest ride I've done to date.

I say keep at it. 3 weeks isn't very long at all. You'll get quicker, particularly if you're in decent shape for other sports, like your running and swimming. Your body probably just needs to get used to cycling. A runner's physique is different to a cyclist's, and a swimmer's is different again.
 
D.P. said:
Did anyone here get a bike in the last few years and basically start cycling from scratch?

I biked as a kid but apart from the odd bit here and there I haven' cycled in 20 years. Recently I got a road bike and I am just surprised how hard cycling is relative to my fitness (recently did a marathon in 3:27:27 so have good CV fitness and endurance).

10 miles feels like surprisingly hard work and I am never maintain a particularly good seed (averaging around 14 MPH but stop Strava for long red lights). What surprises me is I don't feel like I am getting much better, albeit it I only go out 3-4 times a week and 2 of those will be 30 minutes or so) and having only been doing this for 3 weeks. I was just thinking yesterday in the swimming thread that coming form almost no where swimming wise I can cover an OK distance in an OK time for a newbie but my cycling sucks.

I'm just interested in peoples experiences, how long it took them before they could cycle 30 miles say in reasonable shape, and 60 miles collapsing at the end?
I'm mostly interested in people that were not massively unfit before hand but had minimal cycling experience because people who were unfit in general and loosing weight will obviously see big gains and those who have say commuted to work every day for years before taking cycle racing seriously already have a solid background.
Click to expand...

my initial assumption on reading this is that you're mashing the pedals over in big gears. With handy CV fitness like yours, if you shift down a couple of gears, let your legs spin faster and your lungs do the work, you might find you move forward quickly

try to turn over somewhere between 70-90rpm (try different ones for a few rides) and see what feels best
 
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I only really started biking again this year. I mean, I got my MTB about 3 yrs ago and lost weight riding to work every day, then ate my way through France and got lazy.
This year, only about August (I think) I got the bianchi and started riding more.
I've also been away far too much in the US for my bikes liking. Even so, I've still managed 1100km and 3200m climb this year. (I don't do hills on my commute, or in general :p most of you guys climb like mad)
Will get those right up next year!
 
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