Training Rides

I'm sure a lot of you have started going to training rides again now that the weather has slowly begun to cooperate. I did my first today and it was so much fun! I forget how much I like riding faster and really pushing myself. Discovering that I really like hill climbing. I must be getting better at it because I can keep up on the B rides now on the hills. Quite a momentous event for a flatlander:)

Feel free to use this thread to tell everyone about your training rides!:):):)

So what makes a ride a "training ride"? I guess what I'm really asking is...would you consider a ride to be a "training ride" only if one were actually training for an upcoming event? Is a training ride just riding at a more spirited pace? Or is the definition of training ride more subjective? Just curious...

Linda

This time of year I consider most of my rides 'training' rides. :-) I do the trainer at the gym in the winter, but come spring, when I get back out on the road, I STILL seem to have lots of catching up to do to get back in shape for the longer rides of summer.

I do have a couple of favorite 'short' routes (11-12 miles) near home that I think of as mid-week training rides---I'll push much harder on those than I do when I go out for a longer ride on the weekend where seeing the sights is part of the pleasure.

I'm not training for any races, but I sign up for two or three organized rides between May and October, mainly to give me added motivation for getting out the door. I also have an annual mileage goal that nudges me to the gym or on to the roads. :D

At least in my neck of the woods (and Winding Road used to live in Indy, so I assume her experience is similar), our local training rides consist of a marked route--usually 20-25 miles long--where riders gather at a set time to ride hard as a group, typically in a paceline formation. The training rides are sponsored by the local club and maintained and led by a volunteers. There are any number of them all around town on each night of the week. Some are faster and/or harder than others, and some nights are faster than others. The one that's arguably the hardest attracts most of the local "racers." It's hard, not only because it's particularly fast, but because it's an urban route, so the stop lights and signs encourage sprints and some aggressiveness within the pack. They're fun sufferfests if you're into that sort of a thing. They'll make you stronger in a hurry, but you have to have decent handling skills and some grit to get through them.

I guess I've never really considered any of the rides I do as training rides...they're just rides to me. This time of year, I'm still in the "building up" phase from having 3-4 months off of riding...but my rides are still usually in the 30-50 mile range. I don't particularly set out to reach a certain average speed or cadence, because in my area the wind will generally dictate that. As I get further into the season, my rides will increase in mileage and normally settle in around the 75 mile mark, with a few 100-milers (maybe 1/month) thrown in as a test of endurance. I don't ride with a club (all too fast for me) or a group, well...ok, I guess I do if you call 3 of us "a group". I could never keep pace with the clubs that ride around here...I've seen them out on the road, been passed by them on dozens of occasions, and they are always riding at 20+mph. My average speed is usually at or below 15mph (lots of urban riding with many stoplights)...so they would be out of my sight literally within minutes. I'm sure the rides those clubs do would be classified as "training rides", since I'm pretty sure most of them are on a team (based on the matching team kits they all wear).

I find training rides are useful for pushing me a little harder than I would normally go. It helps me to gain fitness otherwise I am tempted to stay in my 'comfort' zone. I like to ride with people who are faster than me, it gives me something to work towards. I do plan to do a few races this summer:D It doesn't have to be that your are training for an event to go to training rides though. They typically are around 20 miles, some here are around 10 as they factor in the hill routes too. I haven't had the nerve to try one of those yet. Most of them are graded so you know what pace the group typically goes and pick one to match you mood. ;)

A few years ago I made a mental adjustment and went from thinking of my solo rides as "recreational" to "training." Once I did that I steadily gained improvement in my cycling skills. Any bike ride is fun, so changing my thinking to a bike ride being for training never lessened my enjoyment of the ride.

There are no cycling clubs in my rural county. However I now belong to two training groups, a local all-female group that rides once a week, and a charity group of diverse cyclists that rides on another day of the week. Both groups are beneficial for me. The members of the female group are faster than me, and I am generally riding tired anyway, so I have a good workout trying to stay on the end of the paceline, then trying to keep them in sight. The charity group is beneficial because the rides are in different areas, which exposes me to different terrain and different climbs, plus I love getting to meet such nice people. When a group training ride is over, if the weather permits, I will often go do another ride to get in the additional miles or climb more hills, and sometimes will have a group member or two join me.

The biggest change in me is that I no longer like the recreational rides with other people. I am not particularly fast, but I find it hard to bike with others when on each ride I have to wait to do a re-group, and I wait and wait and wait until they finally catch up to me. Or the other cyclists have a need to stop at every rural grocery store we run across to stuff thousands of calories of high sodium high fat food into their mouths, while I wait and wait and wait. Or a ride becomes even more about food and it has to be a trek to a restaurant in a farm town 30 miles away, and I don't digest a complete meal well while cycling so a long stop at a restaurant isn't beneficial for me.

I still do recreational rides a few times a month, but by myself, and it is when I go to have fun riding on the paved trails. Can't train that way because of the other users on the trails, but cycling on a trail is a lot of fun, so I will keep on doing it.

To summarize, thumbs up on the training rides, either with a group or solo.

For me, training rides are any rides where I'm pushing beyond a 'leisurely' pace- riding with people that are faster than me, climbs I know I'll struggle with, things like that.

Well...I guess based on some of the definitions I've read in this thread...every ride I do is a training ride. Because I definitely ride with a faster person and often struggle to keep up with him, EVERY hill is challenging to me, and I'm always pushing beyond a leisurely pace (have to in order to keep up with my cycling buddy).

It's all mental of course. Once the weather cooperates, I do a "casual" schedule of one hilly ride, one long ride, one fast ride, one recovery ride a week--everything else is "fun." DH is faster than me, so riding with him is "training."