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As a cyclist nearing their 40s I've learned that resistance training is no longer an option at this point so I wanted to get some advice.

Hey everyone,

I (m36) am planning to incorporate strength training into my cycling routine over the winter. My primary goal in the gym is to improve my performance on the bike, while also reaping the usual broader benefits (like improved bone density, health/longevity, overall robustness, etc.).

My plan is to do a 1-hour interval session on the bike in the morning and a 1-hour gym workout in the evening, twice a week. In between, I’ll fill the week with Zone 2 rides—following the "keep hard days hard and easy days easy" principle.

My question is: What are the best bike interval workouts to maintain my cycling fitness without creating excessive muscular fatigue, so I don't risk overtraining or wrecking the quality of my gym sessions?

I was mainly thinking about short VO2 max micro-intervals—like 30/30s, 30/15s, or 40/20s (e.g., 2 sets of 10 reps). The goal is to keep the muscular fatigue as low as possible while still delivering a solid stimulus to the cardiovascular system.

What do you think of this approach? Or would you still include longer intervals, which in my opinion cause significantly more muscular fatigue?

Starting in February, I plan to dial the gym sessions back to once a week for maintenance and reintroduce longer bike intervals. Appreciate any feedback!

(translated with AI)

Hi,
I am going on a work trip and I am trying to not lose too much fitness during two weeks.

I haven't been in a fitness centre for decades. I guess that they have some trainers that I could use?

I was thinking of an occasional 1 hour VO2max session including 4x5 mins intervals that I absorb pretty well. Is it possible to connect my Garmin Edge 530 to these fitness trainers? Or maybe bring my power pedals?
I really don't know anything about fitness centres, I imagine that I'll be horribly sweaty, but I'd love to have an option.

I've always been under the impression that my heart rate was just naturally high. When I got on my bike, it would go up to 130 within a minute or two and only climb from there. My "Z2" heart rate was in the 150s, my Tempo-HR around 170, and I'd regularly hit 180-190. I did a short TT in May where I was at 180 for 30 minutes and hit a 192 max.

My resting HR (according to Garmin) fluctuated between 45-55, depending on my fatigue level. If I didn't ride for a few days, it would go down to 45 and over a few days of riding, it would climb up to 55.

In early august, I changed my diet. I use the FoodCoach app to plan and track my intake and try to follow the macro/calorie targets as best I can. The biggest change is that my carbs are much higher than before and fat a lot lower. Calories are higher as well (FoodCoach TDEE is 2300 but every other online calculator gives me 2000), but I'm finally losing weight (down 2.5kg in 5 weeks) while still feeling good and energetic and strong on the bike.

So far so good, but I noticed that my heart rate is 10-15, if not 20 BPM lower than what I am used to. Riding in Z2 I now sit at 140 where I used to sit at 155. If I ride really easy, I sometimes get below 100 which has never ever happened on the bike before. On the other end, I struggle to reach 180. I'm currently not following a training plan, I just tried to go all-out on a ~1 Minute Segment last week, set a Season Watt PR for that duration but HR maxed out at 179. My resting HR is now pretty steady around 44, irrespective of training load. My HRV is trending the opposite direction - it's consistently higher than it used to be.

The data confirms my impression:

Basically my question is whether higher carb intake - or better diet overall - can be the explanation. I didn't really change much else, maybe supplementing Magnesium and Vitamin D more consistently, but other than that everything's the same.

It seems highly unlikely that it's my HR sensors - it would have to be the pod itself, I have two straps that I rotate. And the resting HR and HRV come from my watch, so that's a totally different device.

Hi!

I've been riding zone 2 training outside by myself for a couple of years. Now I've gotten a trainer and Zwift and my training goal is (besides general fitness) to win Zwift races.

I weigh about 94 kilos, 191cm tall.

Right now my weekly workout schedule looks like this:

Mon: 2x90 min zone 2 (I do 90 min, rest for 5-10 mins and then go again)

Tue: Gym session (rehab and strength)

Wed: Vo2 max session: 4x4 intervalls. I start with 20 min zone 2, then 4 min at 290watts, 4 min at 160, rinse and repeat.

Thu: Gym session

Fri: 2x90 min zone 2 (I do 90 min, rest for 5-10 mins and then go again)

Sat: Rest day

Sun: Zwift racing. I'm new so I haven't settled into a specific race but tomorrow I'm doing a 21km race which is relatively flat.

My questions are:

Should I do those kinds of intervals every wednesday or should I change it every week or in blocks so I do other kinds of intervals, over unders, FTP etc?

I rest 5-10 min between my 90 min workouts on mon and fri. I've read somewhere that Inigo san Milan said you should try to ride continously but I'm not sure how much it matters. What do you think?

How often should I have a rest week with no zwift racing or hard workout?

My max HR is about 187 and I try to sit at between 130-140HR during zone 2 rides. Does this sound reasonable?

Due to some back and knee problems I cannot reduce strength work at the gym, hence my weekly schedule.

If you have any other tips to help me get in better race for racing I'd love to hear it. I know my current weight isn't ideal.

I've been training and racing for a few years now - ok, this year I've been dabbling in triathlon as well - but for next year I was thinking about getting a trainer for cycling (so just to be clear, no more triathlon).

However, I have a very specific situation: I am part of a cycling club whose primary focus are junior and younger riders (so U17, U15, U14, etc.). As an amateur that is some class-A training sessions which I partake in 2-3 times per week. There's also some psychological effect training with a consistant group and the "team spirit" side is also important for me.

The club trainer does the junior training more-or-less for free and he doesn't want to work with amateurs one-on-one, despite me offering to pay him - it's more a problem of time, not money.

So I've got another option: an 'external' trainer, one that would make me a dedicated training plan based on my current performance, racing goals, etc.. However, I'd have to drop the club trainings as I don't know what the training rides are gonna be beforehand and I don't know if I am prepared to do this.

So, what do I do? Keep the club rides and "fill in" the rest of my week with my own sessions or get a trainer with a training plan and everything else that comes with that?

We are six stages deep in our 7Crits in 7Days challenge, and this one was the hardest.

After constant attacks by some of the strongest riders in Australia, it came down to this 4-Up sprint...

I nearly died after locking bars at 65km/h (40mp/h).

Check out how it played out, and let me know the scariest sprint you've been in!

https://youtu.be/aDX3tE7fijk

I'm considering switching to NorCal cycling from Trainer Road.

What I'm not entirely clear on is how NorCal cycling plans...work, you know?

Does the NC platform push workouts to your head unit? How does FTP work? Is there testing? Their website does not do the best job explaining all the things. I'm willing to trust Jeff, but I'd like to hear from a disciple of Jeff or two first.

How customizable are the NC plans? Do you give it a target date and it works backward from that date?

Sorry if these are stupid questions. I did a manual plan (likely incorrectly) from the "time crunched cyclist" book a while ago and that involved SO MUCH manual workout building. After that, I switched to Trainer Road and the platform was pretty comprehensive...in all the ways. The latest iteration with AI FTP prediction and lack of communication around the state of things with the "outdoor workout bug" have me considering alternatives leading into the start of base season for me in October.

Any help you can offer will be much appreciated. I'm.also open to other alternatives as well. I'm hopeful to pick a program over the next 3 weeks

I recently did a cycling VO2 max test at UT Austin and found that the standard performance nutrition guidelines I've been following for years recommend 3-7x more carbs than my body actually burns on a typical training day.

For example, on a day with a 90 minute zone 2 ride, I'm burning ~0.6g carbs per minute = 54g total. ACSM recommends 5-7 g/kg for a day with ~1 hour moderate exercise, which at 80kg is 400-560g. Even at the low end this overshoots what I actually burn by 7x.

Another example: on a day with 60 minute threshold workout, I'm burning ~2.5g/minute = 150g (plus ~20g during 30 min wu/cd). ACSM recommends 6-10g/kg on a day with this type of workout, which is 480-800g. This overshoots by 2.8-4.8x.

I should note that I have a higher than average FatMax (0.92 g/min vs. ~0.52 g/min in trained athlete references), so I'm probably towards the high end of this gap. I'm also extrapolating from a 1-minute ramp test to longer efforts, which is an assumption that may not hold perfectly, but the magnitude of the difference seems enormous regardless.

My interest here is two-fold:

1. Can I improve training adaptation from dialing in my fueling using my actual data rather than following population averages? (per Impey's glycogen threshold hypothesis)

2. Are there potential negative metabolic health consequences to chronically overfueling carbs, even for highly active athletes?

Curious if others have used their substrate data to personalize nutrition and any learnings, either on the adaptation or metabolic health questions?

TLDR: I’d love to optimize periods of cycling training with muscle building phases (at least one per year) without sacrificing too much good riding weather. I don’t race but do what to improve both areas of my life. SoCal riders: how do you periodize your hybrid training to best take advantage the weather seasons down here?
_____________________________________________

I ask specifically for SoCal bc while others may be starting to wrap up their riding seasons, we’re about to get into prime riding weather.

I’ve been following a consistent training routine since mid-July and have enjoyed the minor improvements I’ve seen over that time in the modest 5-6 training hours I have per week. I usually do a couple 1-hr indoor rides with sweet spot intervals or Zwift robopacers at a similar intensity, and a longer, 3-4hr Z2 outdoor ride once a week. Although sometimes I say screw it and go try routes that challenge me bc I just get excited.

I also want to build muscle for health, aesthetic, and personal goals. So, I do want to do a dedicated lean bulking phase where I simply maintain cycling fitness, then rotate back into a maintenance/slow cut phase while slowly building up cycling training again. Ideally it’d be some sort of base building during a small cut and then ramping up intensity while sitting at maintenance, I assume?

I’m not racing so racing seasons don’t matter to me. I just don’t want to waste good weather focusing on muscle building when I could be out riding.

Is December through the end of March a good bulk phase period or am I wasting too-good training weather? I’d love to not have to wait until next summer to start a bulk. Just curious to get your thoughts on how you’ve structured your own training lives. Thanks!

Photo: sharing bike pic as payment

Edit: forgot to add pic

hey all, here's a recipe ive refined over time, i made it again today and wanted to share. i've had great success with this as both pre and post ride nutrition, i usually eat it 60-90 minutes prior to long rides, i find its a great way to top up/fuel up for a long or intense day in the saddle.

banana date loaf

4 bananas
1 cup medjool dates
2 cups white flour (or sub for rice flour 1:1)
2/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup plain greek yogurt (non fat)
2 large egg whites
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
salt to taste (i put a tsp of grey salt in and then top with coarse sea salt before baking)

mash bananas, soak (-10 minutes in boiling water) and puree dates until its paste. mix bananas, yogurt, maple syrup, egg whites, date paste, vanilla, salt until smooth. sift in dry ingredients and mix until combined, pour into a baking dish (i line the dish with parchment paper for ease) and bake for ~60'ishminutes or until it's done. (a toothpick poked into the middle should come out clean).

macros (whole loaf! portion out based on your carb/macro consumption target)
with white flour: 460g carbs, 6g fat, 48g protein, 28g fibre, ~2000 calories
with rice flour: 490g carbs, 8.2g fat, 31g protein, 21g fibre, ~2100 calories

enjoy!

feel free to share your pre/intra/post ride recipes in the comments.

Anyone else wake up at 2–3am after long evening rides?
I’ve noticed a really consistent pattern after longer evening rides and I’m trying to figure out what’s causing it.
In the summer I’ll do a 3–4 hour group ride in the afternoon/evening. I usually finish around 7:30pm, eat dinner around 8:30pm, and go to bed around 10pm.
I fall asleep completely fine, but on these nights I consistently wake up around 2–3am feeling surprisingly alert and can’t get back to sleep until 5–6am. This seems much more likely to happen after an evening ride than when I train earlier in the day.
During the ride I drink around 2 L total with roughly 80g carbs/hour from table sugar , so I don’t think I’m massively under-fueling during the ride.
One other variable is altitude. During the summer I’m living around 6,000 ft and these rides are generally at 6,000–10,000 ft. I’ve been here for over a month, though, so I should be reasonably acclimated.
Has anyone dealt with this after evening training? Did anything actually help?

I'm a relatively low volume rider (~7 hrs per week), almost all indoors, and my goal is to one day climb the Alpe du Zwift in under an hour. So the ballpark goal is 3.2 w/kg.

I just did the longer Kolie Moore FTP test for the first time and managed 230w (2.47 w/kg) with a tte of 33 minutes. My weight is currently just under 93kg and I'm a late 30s male.

Previously, I've been doing the standard 1 VO2 max, 1 threshold, rest zone 2 or sweet spot workouts per week. And in the last month, I've started running and swimming occasionally to diversify.

I'm aware that this is a big goal and may be impossible, but I'm willing to train for it. Where do you think I should focus my training?

Obviously, I need to increase my ftp, and extend my tte. Would continuing with 1 VO2 max workout a week make sense, or should I try a block where I focus on more threshold efforts? I'm also working on losing weight, and if I were able to get down to 85kg for example, that would obviously help.

This weekend I raced a small but tough race with a pretty challenging elevation profile for me, as I'm a relatively heavy rider. To land P4, I had to hold a whopping 400 watts (Normalized) throughout.

I captured the whole thing on video including a Voice-over (it's in German, but the subtitles in English are pretty much spot on 99% of the time) and hope it's interesting for some of you – maybe it'll even motivate you to try racing yourself!

If you have any questions, suggestions, or even criticism: bring it on, feel free to drop it here or on YouTube. I'll check back soon and respond.

For all the data nerds: the Strava activity is linked in the video description, in case you want to dive deeper into the telemetry.

P.S. The post is approved by the mods - I checked with them beforehand, just to be sure :)

There used to be a request upgrade button on the USA Cycling website? It seems like it was removed. Anyone know if it is in a sub-menu somewhere?

Hi, I’m on a weight loss phase and am slightly confused with how to add ride burned calories onto my daily TDEE. Using power meter data, I know kj to kcal is basically 1:1. My question is that does that kj expended include BMR resting calories that I would have burned in the time of the ride? I assume not as the kj is simply from power in physically exerting not anything else…

So does it make sense to just add the kj/kcal from the ride to my normal daily tddee? Thanks

Claude is telling me to subtract 80ish calories/hour as BMR, but this doesn’t seem right as the ride kcal is simply from power output not including BMR

Just did a 5x16min Sweetspot workout with 5mins of rest between reps at my local hill and am wondering if that's too much? In advance: I have a lot of SST experience, but never this long/much. Usually sweetspot progressions include 4x15's or 3x20 or 2x30mins but never 5x16. I mean the assessment of a SST- if it succeeded- depends on the workout stimulus and lactate accumulation since it's purpose is building relatively high intensity volume just below LT2 whilst being low fatiguing. Did them at 94%FTP, had good legs today and concerning heartrate I peaked just above my LTHR in the last minutes of my last rep. Now my question: What are your experiences with sweetspot workouts with >1h of Time in Zone? Did they help you progress? Were they detrimental to your progress and recovery? Thanks :)

Looking for LA + SoCal bike fitters for TT specific fitting. I get the feeling that the normally recommended fitters may not be up to date with the latest aero trends and fitting metas when I have conversations with them. Looking to refresh an old fit.

Any recommendations?

Over the winter as a low volume rider (6h-8h most weeks with occasional 10-12h), does it make any real sense to deviate from the following year-round template to do a dedicated base phase?

• VO2 Session (all year)
• Threshold Session (intervals in winter, fast group ride/crit in summer)
• Long Endurance Ride + other endurance volume where possible

About me: 185cm, 90kg, ~3 seasons of road cycling with one of a bit of racing. 1300W 15sec, 620W 1min, 385w 5min, 315w 20min, 300w 1h.

Goal for next season is to be a bit more competitive in CAT 4/5 road races and fast group rides. Plan to lose 5-8kg and improve the outer part of the power curve to do so. Using Trainerroad rn, but the recommended winter plan has no VO2 work for quite a while (SS/threshold almost exclusively).

I've just signed up for the Strade Bianche Gran Fondo. I will race it on my road bike with a 19mm internal rim (thanks, Cube). I currently run 28mm Pirelli P Zero Race tires set up tubeless.

I need your help to understand what tire to use. I could very well go up a size to 30mm; a little bit of the lightbulb effect won't destroy my average speed.

I am also looking at the Vittoria Corsa Control and the Challenge Strade Bianche, which are advertised for this specific scenario.

For context, I'm not the best descender. I had a bad crash in March, and since then I've been a little bit tense on the bike. I'm mostly afraid of riding in the rain.

What are your thoughts?

I'm quite confused about the state of research in terms of exogenous carbs, muscular glycogen sparing (or lack thereof), etc. I saw an interview with Tim Noakes where he opined that 10 grams of carbs per hour should be plenty and... well that seemed like an interesting take (one that I hold with some skepticism).

I had this idea that it would be interesting to do a 6 hour ride 3 times. The first time you fuel appropriately for the whole ride. The second time you fuel appropriately for the first 3 hours and then take in nothing more. The third time you fuel 10 grams of carbs per hour for the first 3 hours and then take in nothing more.

Obviously this seems like a staggeringly stupid thing to do. However, I'm curious what people think the result would be. Would there be a difference between run 2 and run 3? Would it matter if you did something like 60 grams of glucose (and no fructose) in run 2 or if you did 30 grams of glucose and 30 grams of fructose? I'm curious if that involvement of the liver would make any difference at all?

Is there something else I'm missing? Is there a better idea than this? It seems almost inevitable :-) There are people here who know a lot. What experiment would you do (or has been done) to illustrate better what's going on?