mtb/road conversion factor?

[sundial]

I'm curious about mtb training. Is there information somewhere about the amount of time in the mtb saddle and it's equivalent time to being on a road bike? If I ride 12 hilly/techie miles, how would that equate in road miles? Does this make sense? I noticed that my road riding hasn't suffered from me spending more time in the mtb saddle.

[SheFly]

I once heard that you could take your MTB miles and multiply by 4. I, personally, think that's a bit high, but it's a good starting point. On a technical ride, I can usually only bang out about 12 miles in 2 hours. Now, I definitely CANNOT do 48 road miles in 2 hours, but I could likely do 38 - 40...

SheFly

[divingbiker]

My personal multiplier, with absolutely no scientific data behind it, is that about 3 MTB miles = 1 road mile. This is based on how tired I am after riding.

[SheFly]

My personal multiplier, with absolutely no scientific data behind it, is that about 3 MTB miles = 1 road mile. This is based on how tired I am after riding.

Are you sure you don't have this backwards? It makes more sense to me to be 3 road miles to 1 MTB mile...

SheFly

[velogirl]

for training purposes, why not just use time as your metric? time is the one constant in all training (hilly road, flat road, mtn bike, running, etc).

[lph]

Except for me, 75 minutes whomping up and down the hilly gravel roads on my mtb (and that's not even technical, except for loose corners) has me wobbly-kneed for hours, but I have to ride twice as long on my road bike for the same effect. I don't think it's really possible to make a general conversion, except maybe time multiplied by perceived effort, make up your own scale . Depends so much on the weight of your bike, the terrain, how fast and hard you are going.

[divingbiker]

Are you sure you don't have this backwards? It makes more sense to me to be 3 road miles to 1 MTB mile...

SheFly

Uh, yeah. Makes no sense the other way. Thanks for doing my thinking for me!

[sundial]

for training purposes, why not just use time as your metric? time is the one constant in all training (hilly road, flat road, mtn bike, running, etc).

Time is a constant, but I figure I'm working harder on the mtb so I thought if mtb miles converted to road miles, say Xmtb is = or <Xroad miles, I figured I had more gains on the road bike than the mtb. I was thinking along the lines of maybe the road gains were at least twice that of the mtb. This is beginning to sound like an algebraic word problem.

[SadieKate]

Velogirl has a point about time, but the intensity of my mtb rides is far more than my road rides due to steepness, technical terrain, entire body in use (including more gray matter), etc. I've always used a WAG of 1 mtb mile = 2 road miles which also seems to be about the equivalent ratio time wise.

Two hours on technical singletrack is far harder than almost any two hour road ride I've done unless I've purposely gone out for repeats on a steep hill.

I do use time as my primary measurement when I'm using mtb rides as training for a road century, and then factor in the other stuff, but in general 1 mtb = 2 road.

[spokewench]

for training purposes, why not just use time as your metric? time is the one constant in all training (hilly road, flat road, mtn bike, running, etc).

Yep, +1 - I haven't kept track of mileage in years. I always keep track of my hours and intensity instead.

spoke

[sundial]

Sadie, I kinda think the same thing too.

What got me to thinking about this was a friend's dad bought his first *real* road bike. Prior to this he used to ride an old mtb around the neighborhood and would ride 12 miles or so on occasion. On his first ride on the new road bike, he did 30+ miles the first time. I've noticed too when I started riding longer distances on the road bike this spring, I was much stronger than I anticipated and could go further distances with less fatigue.

[SadieKate]

A couple of reasons to track your miles - 1) if you are going on an organized tour or ride, you need to be able to compare your fitness against the tour/ride company's measurements. If the brochure says X miles of technical terrain, you better know if you can ride X miles of technical terrain. 2) If you want to share routes with friends or use in another sport. Because we knew the miles from our house to a local trailhead via bike, we knew that we could translate that to XC skiing. The use of miles for measurement is the common denominator for guidebooks, maps, trip brochures, etc. If you do none of the above, time-only is fine. I also tend to pay attention to miles so if I need assistance from law enforcement or a friend, I can say "I'm X miles" from such and such.

Last winter I went to a panel discussion with Chris Horner, Adam Craig, Carl Decker, Chrissy Ruiter and Megan Elliot. It was interesting to hear them talk about how they train. For the mountain bikers, they measure in time as in "races are no longer than X hours" so they train based on time. The women road racers talk about time and miles, but their road races are shorter than the men's and about the same time as the mtb races. Chris Horner talked about miles, but then he trains for 2,100= miles in 20-some days, a whole 'nother world as far as most of us are concerned.

[SadieKate]

Oh yeah, this is one reason why the jibber-jabber about rankings and total miles in public cycling logs boggles my mind. It's time and intensity on the bike that give you true comparisons but, as a culture, we fixate on miles.

[bluebug32]

Question: Do you track actual time or just time spent riding? I've been debating which one to log lately (I log miles too). Often, esp. on the mtb, I'm off of the bike stretching or walking back to hit something again.