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.

[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.

[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

[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!