How to get quicker on road?

[boolay]

I currently doing two rides a week, one mid week and one at the weekend. The mid week ride is around 20 miles with my average speed around 17mph. The weekend ride is 25-30 miles, and has my average fall to 16.5 mph.

If I want to get quicker, is it length of ride I need to increase or frequency of rides? I guess ideally it's both but as always, time is an expensive commodity!

Edited by boolay on Monday 12th July 13:56

[Rolls]

Much as time may not be on your side, only way to get quicker is to ride more IMO!

[DrMekon]

Lose weight, do intervals. Lost a couple of stone, but I hate doing intervals, so I remain pretty slow.

[hullbilly]

DrMekon said:

Lose weight, do intervals. Lost a couple of stone, but I hate doing intervals, so I remain pretty slow.

This is probably a dumb question, but what are intervals?

[Rolls]

1 - Find steep / long hill.
2 - Drill yourself up it.
3 - Ride back down very slowly.

See 1. repeat until you can't repeat any more!

[boolay]

DrMekon said:

Lose weight

I'm only 75kg, and 6ft1 as it is!!

[hullbilly]

Rolls said:

1 - Find steep / long hill.
2 - Drill yourself up it.
3 - Ride back down very slowly.

See 1. repeat until you can't repeat any more!

sod that for a game of soldiers

[TheDetailDoctor]

boolay said:

DrMekon said:

Lose weight

I'm only 75kg, and 6ft1 as it is!!

coughchubberchough

[DrMekon]

BMI of 19 is my current goal. For you, that'd mean being 64kg.

http://www.whathealth.com/bmi/chart-metric.html

[boolay]

Rolls said:

1 - Find steep / long hill.
2 - Drill yourself up it.
3 - Ride back down very slowly.

See 1. repeat until you can't repeat any more!

How would be best to incorporate this into my schedule? This mid week, then a long ride at w/e?

[Rolls]

Not too sure on that -
I try to do intervals to a certain degree on my commute - in the bus lanes / uphill sprint like mad for as long as possible, and then rest until my heart rate is down to 150ish again... and then repeat (if space allows...)

[Nick_F]

Try to fit in two mid-week rides each week?

Ride to HR: keep it aerobic for the weekend ride and push hard on the midweek ones - might be good to treat one of the midweek rides as an interval session, but I'm not sure I'd do that if it was the only one I was going to fit in that week.

[boolay]

Ok, say I do interval ride Tuesday, normal ride Thursday and normal ride Saturday/Sunday. What kind of distances should I be looking to achieve on the normal rides?

[Rouleur]

Intervals are great, and can be worked into any ride, but I'd say that the best thing you can do is simply to push yourself harder on every ride you do. You really do get out what you put in.

[Uriel]

Get a cheap fixed gear bike. The whole interval training, cadence variance, smooth and improved pedaling etc that everyone recommends to improve your fitness and speed are unavoidable, natural aspects of riding fixed and you can't avoid them.

[Nick_F]

boolay said:

Ok, say I do interval ride Tuesday, normal ride Thursday and normal ride Saturday/Sunday. What kind of distances should I be looking to achieve on the normal rides?

15 - 20 for a hard one, 35 - 50 for a steady one. Depends on how big a hole you can make in your day, really.

[PintOfKittens]

im currently horribly out of shape, dont normally have time to cycle during the week (get home from work at 10pm) so iv taken waki g up 30 mins eaelier and getting on a turbotrainer. Its really boring, but its bearable, esp with mobile phone like now

[boolay]

A weigh-in last night saw a bit of a surprise, 71.7kg. So a BMI of 21.

Intervals it is to build up my power then!

[Nick_F]

boolay said:

A weigh-in last night saw a bit of a surprise, 71.7kg. So a BMI of 21.

Intervals it is to build up my power then!

I had the opposite surprise yesterday morning: 95.0kg.

You're going the wrong way to get faster downhill...

[BliarOut]

Get a mountain bike?