How to ride faster?

On Fri, 20 May 2005 17:27:38 GMT, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:



If you want to get faster without spending a lot more time on the bike, I'd
suggest getting a hear****ch and doing intervals. Steady-state riding
probably isn't going to push your body enough to really improve, especially
if you don't have a heart monitor (or a gnarly climb that you can time) to
judge how hard you're actually working. I used to think I just wasn't very
good on the "flats" while I could do very well in the hills. Turned out that
I was just really poor at judging my effort on the flats. When I got the
heart monitor, I found that I could ride half an hour at 165 bpm... while on
the flats, I was at maybe 140. Now, riding the flats with a heart monitor, I
can motor quite well. I know where the limits are, what I *should* be
capable of. And when you know that, you're there. Confidence is everything.


The Garmin Forerunner 301 is in my future. Thanks.


Intervals are simply the best way to get speed and strength in a limited
amount of time. As mentioned before, if you don't push yourself, hard,
improvement is going to be a much longer, slower process. You can get there
either way. You need to figure out for yourself what your motivations are,
and what you're trying to accomplish. There's nothing wrong at all with
cruising along at 16mph; there's nothing that says you can't have just as
good a time doing that as you can with a faster group that's sprinting at
every city limit sign.

Except that the guys that I want to hang with are doing 20mph.

wrote:

Except that the guys that I want to hang with are doing 20mph.

And that is a very common condition. All of the suggestions above are
valid-- more miles, intervals, spinning, increasing intensity--all is
good advice. As is the need for some rest or easy days.

But I'd add one more thing. Go ride with these guys at 20 mph for as
long as you can. Sit in the back of the group and draft all you can.
They will eventually spit you off the back-usually just after a climb
of any sort starts.

But your goal should be to stay with the group just a little bit longer
each time. Eventually you will stay with them. 20 mph is fast but on
the flats with a group I think it within the reach of most riders who
are motivated- at least for some distance.

On Fri, 20 May 2005 13:38:57 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 20 May 2005 13:21:54 -0400, wrote:

I ride 2-3 times/week. Usually 20-40 miles per ride.

By rough calculation, that means to me that you've only ridden the bike
about 50-70 times since last July. If you're able to ride 20-40 miles with
your friends at an average speed of 16mph that's nearly phenomenal!

I'd put my number of times riding at about half that. It was a
miserable winter and sometimes I have to travel and can't ride during
the week.

Dude! If you're able to ride 16mph for 20-40 miles on only 25-30 total
training rides over the past 10 months, then you are in a class by
yourself!

You should be giving -us- tips on improving speed, lol. ;-)

jj

Roger Zoul wrote:
: Peter Cole wrote:
: Forget all the talk about technique, it's meaningless.

I think I disagree with that, to an extent. You never trust the experts, do
you Peter?

Disagree all you want, but I've actually done what the OP wants to do,
have you?

Besides, I don't distrust experts, I just carefully pick which ones to
trust.

Seems that if can force yourself to do 85% for 2 hours 2-3 times a week,
that doing shorter intervals would be easier. It takes a lot of discipline
to ride as you describe. I'm currently trying to do exact what you
describe, though. However, I'm looking at my average HR compared to my max
(guesstimated based on monitoring with a HRM) over the length of the ride.

I'm not claiming my technique is better than "formal" intervals, I have
no idea. I just think I'd rather give up cycling than do intervals.

Bill Sornson wrote:
:
: As soon as I finish this bacon cheeseburger, I'm going to read that
: again.

Yeah, skipping that bacon cheeseburger might be a better place to start!

Or not.

Excellent place to start, shedding significant poundage makes a huge
difference. Also, clogged arteries are not a recipe for great
cardio-vascular performance.

Fri, 20 May 2005 08:42:27 -0400,
, queried:

This is probably a stupid question, but what can I do to improve my
speed?

Recalibrate your cycloputer.
--
zk

But I'd add one more thing. Go ride with these guys at 20 mph for as
long as you can. Sit in the back of the group and draft all you can.
They will eventually spit you off the back-usually just after a climb
of any sort starts.

But, be prepared for more flats & smashed wheels. It took us a while to
figure out why some guys destroy equipment so much more than others, even if
they weren't all that strong. This one guy in particular. I finally happened
to be on a ride with him, and figured it out. He was riding a bit over his
head, just hanging onto the wheel in front of him, always at the back. He
didn't get a chance to see most of the road junk before he hit it, plus he
was so much in the red zone that he really wasn't all there mentally.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
But I'd add one more thing. Go ride with these guys at 20 mph for
as
long as you can. Sit in the back of the group and draft all you
can.
They will eventually spit you off the back-usually just after a
climb
of any sort starts.

But, be prepared for more flats & smashed wheels. It took us a while
to
figure out why some guys destroy equipment so much more than others,
even if
they weren't all that strong. This one guy in particular. I finally
happened
to be on a ride with him, and figured it out. He was riding a bit
over his
head, just hanging onto the wheel in front of him, always at the
back. He
didn't get a chance to see most of the road junk before he hit it,
plus he
was so much in the red zone that he really wasn't all there mentally.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

Interesting point! I agree with being in the red zone and probably
hitting more road crud. So, why is it I get most of my flats when I'm
all alone and have alrady used my spare tube? :-)

"Zoot Katz" wrote in message
news
Fri, 20 May 2005 08:42:27 -0400,
, queried:

This is probably a stupid question, but what can I do to improve my
speed?

Recalibrate your cycloputer.
--
zk

put 2 magnets on the wheel, you go real fast and far. :)

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

But, be prepared for more flats & smashed wheels. It took us a while to
figure out why some guys destroy equipment so much more than others, even if
they weren't all that strong. This one guy in particular. I finally happened
to be on a ride with him, and figured it out. He was riding a bit over his
head, just hanging onto the wheel in front of him, always at the back. He
didn't get a chance to see most of the road junk before he hit it, plus he
was so much in the red zone that he really wasn't all there mentally.

I'm not sure which is worse, being in the red zone or being surrounded
by people who are (or both). There are times on pace line rides where
everybody is a little over their heads -- scary. I went out with the "A"
group a couple of years ago, just trying to hang on. Looked at my speedo
on one flat section -- 31 mph, I thought: too fast for my skills, just
then a guy's chain skipped and the whole bunch nearly stacked, I think
it was too fast for everyone's skills...

It's great practice to go out with a faster group and just hang on, but
you have to know when to let go. Stay in the back & don't try to take a
pull.

Peter Cole wrote:
It's great practice to go out with a faster group and just hang on,
but
you have to know when to let go.

oh! I know- and it isn't usually my decision

Seriously, Other than simply logging lots of miles, which obviously
increases fitness, I can't think of anything that has helped me gain
speed over the years as riding with faster riders. On the flats I am
pretty comfortable at 22-24 mph and this is up from 15-17 mph a decade
ago.
But I also agree that there are limits to this. A 16 mph rider hanging
on a 20 mph group seems very doable. A 16 mph rider trying to hang on
to a 25 mph group will create all sorts of tensions.
In the club I ride with a number of the very strong A riders make it a
point to go on B rides and pace and pull those that are interested to
faster speeds. We do this mainly on the flats and slight descents and
climbs. On real climbs its every man for himself- but that doesn't
matter as while pacing helps in climbing drafting is negligible.