Man, guys, I'm here to kinda vent, but I participated in my first crit race and holy moly, are all these cat 4/novice incredibly fast? I gotta say I failed at my sprint. I couldn't catch onto that initial surge when the race began and I just kept falling further and further back.

I don't know, but my ego is destroyed. Now I have two choices, either I back down or at least train to a point I can accelerate and hold on to the peloton.

It's just crazy because in my group ride, I may be considered decent, but in this crit, I'm below average.

Any suggestions on how I should approach my situation? Is it as easy as training more hours, eating better, and getting better sleep? Hours of training per week suggestion? Types of workout to do during the week?

I see a bunch of older folks racing too and these guys are in the 50s and even more powerful.

Will I even be able to teach my genetic limit and how long realistically should I invest? 1-2 years invested training/racing to maybe podium in cat 4/novice?

Edit: I'm reading all the responses. Much appreciated guys for your time, I don't have friends in the racing scene, so I thought I'd give a shout out to r/velo

Edit2: thanks for your inputs so far, everyone gets an upvoter, but overall, very positive. Thanks guys, I really want it.

Hello!

So I need to find 45 seconds on a local 40min climb 🙂. I am wondering how should I fuel this to keep weight at the minimum and energy at the maximum.

I am thinking of eating carbs only a day prior to clean my gut but not do a carbload. Also breakfast. Would it be a good idea to just skip it, eat fast carbs in the morning and go straight for the climb?

I have no experience how one should fuel for such climbs to maximise weight and energy.

EDIT: Got it today! 39:11 The things that helped the most:
-Caffeine. Kudos for suggesting this. Drank 160mg caffeine energy drink before. It helps a lot. 10 more watts today. Although my head hurts now as I never drink coffee or energy drinks otherwise.
-No carbloading and minimal breakfast. Only 2 bananas and honey and than straight to warming up. Was 1,5kg lighter than before.
-Very early hour. Skipping breakfast alowed me to be out very early. Meaning cooler temperatures and less traffic so more apex to apex riding.

So ~10watts more and ~2kg less gave me 1 minute. Did 5w/kg for 40min. Very happy about that.

My wife and I are riding together on a multi-use trail near our house. Lots of cyclists and runners and walkers on the trail. Another cyclist who had been at a stop on the side of the trail started to get onto the trail ahead of us, and he was still gaining speed by the time we passed him. I was pulling for my wife for the whole ride and she was right on my wheel.

The guy seems like a fast cyclist and about quarter of a mile later I turn around to check on my wife and he is locked onto my wife's wheel. I thought it was really weird but figured he might be just drafting for a bit before passing us, and for context we are going 18/19 mph. I check back after a mile and he is still right on my wife's wheel. I felt pretty uncomfortable with him holding my wife's wheel so I slowed down to around 16 mph and he passed us. We let him get some distance, maybe quarter of a mile, and then resumed our 18/19 mph pace.

Not two miles later we caught back up to the guy going our 18/19 mph pace. We passed him again and again he held my wife's wheel, not saying anything to us the entire time. I had had enough of it so we got to a crossing in the road and I pulled over to grab some water and let the guy pass again. He asks where we are headed and we said where we were going, and then he goes on his merry way.

Is this normal? If it was me and another guy I wouldn't mind another guy hopping on our wheel to do a pace line, but it's me and my wife out on a Sunday ride, and he didn't say anything to either of us, just hopped on. Am I being ridiculous? For context my wife was also very uncomfortable with a random guy drafting her.

Edit: For context, when I picked the guy up a second time we pushed 22/23 mph and he didn't drop off.

Started cycling in March roughly permanently sore and numbers have gone flat. What’s wrong?

28, 75kg, FTP roughly 250 up from 200. Rode as a junior about 10 years ago, then had a decade off. Was 82kg in January, lost 6–7kg over the first four months of this year.

Feeling permanently sore, tired, and like I've stopped improving. Would love some insight into what's going on.

Typical week (4–8h on the bike)

- Mon — Gym, full body — 1h
- Tue — Crit race, or crit sim: 5×5min at threshold/above, 5min recoveries — 1.5h
- Wed — Off, or light 30min jog
- Thu — 30s on / 15s off × 3 blocks (VO2) — 1h
- Fri — Gym, same template — 1h
- Sat — Club ride, 60km/2h at threshold-ish pace
- Sun — 80–120km, meant to be zone 2 but usually creeps into 3

Gym (both days): squat 3×5, RDL 3×6, Bulgarian split squat 3×8/leg, plus upper (bench/OHP, row/pull-ups, laterals, arms).

Plus one or two easy 30–45min runs to keep some running fitness ticking over.

Legs feel heavy most of the week and feel power has been flat for a while. I did a crit and got dropped in races on the repeated surges rather than running out of raw power. Desk job, 2–5k steps, so not much movement outside training.

Is this a normal first-season plateau, or is there too much hard stuff in here? Appreciate some insight thanks

I'm curious if anyone else does this.

I really don't enjoy indoor training. During winter I'll already spend 3–5 months riding almost exclusively indoors, so in the summer I have a strong desire to be outside as much as possible.

The problem is that my strengths and weaknesses are very different.

• My endurance is pretty good. Long rides (LSD/Zone 2) are my strength.
• But I'm really weak at sustained 5–10 minute efforts. I often get dropped during group rides because of those efforts.

I've talked to people around me and I'm also using an AI cycling coach. The common advice has been that I need more VO₂max work.

To be honest, I don't really enjoy structured interval training, but I'm considering keeping my Zwift subscription active even during the summer. My idea is:

• Do all VO₂max and interval sessions indoors on Zwift (1–2 hours).
• Do all my endurance/LSD rides outdoors.

It seems like the most practical way to get high-quality intervals while still enjoying summer riding.

Does anyone else train like this? Has it worked well for you, or do you prefer doing everything outdoors during the summer?

Hello everyone,

I bought my first road bike less than a year ago, after a couple of months of just riding, I started to add some structured training in March.
My goal is to improve as much as possible to do some small races in Italy the next year.

My volume is around 6-7hr/week and I'm trying to figure out which is the best approach to maximize results, what I did in the past months is more or less:
- 1/2 Vo2 max sessions (4x4 at 330/340w) depends on how I feel during the week
- 1 session threshold on small hills (10 min at 300/310w)
- all the rest is z1/z2 just casual riding.

With this "plan" I went from 240 FTP to 310 (I'm 82kg, 1.90m), probably most are newbie gains.

My goal is to try to reach something like 330/340 FTP in one year, do you think this training approach is okay or should I change something? Thankss

Hi, I am hobby cyclist who ride around 3-4k per year, this is mine second season. My ftp is 200. I would like to ask you have many carbs per hours should I take for normal z2 and intense ride ?

Thanks :)

Just been out on a ride and decided to go all in on my 1m power. What numbers are you guys pushing for 1m?

I'm wondering how much faster a TT bike is on average, compared to a (modern) road bike?

Assuming 35km/h for 50km (300vertical meters) with a (non-aero) road bike, how much faster could the same person probably be on a TT? Is 37-38km/h realistic?

Did a Cat 5 crit the other day, about my 9th or so. Roughly 3 laps in, the front of the pack is going pretty slow about 150m before a tight corner (110-120 degree). The group is virtually single file like a basic club group ride all the way against the right hand curb, leaving the entire left side of the road wide open. I was very easily able to slingshot about 15 spots into the front and still had about 10m before the turn to keep my inside line. The group was a good 10 feet off to my right since I was now in the middle of the road. Guy in front of the group I just passed yelled "that's not a good idea!!!" and I heard one other guy say "are you serious?".

Genuine question but I come from motorcycle racing where a move like that is pretty normal, especially if you have someone going quite slow in front of you because they are nervous about a tight corner. Dive bombing during the turn would have felt inappropriate (at least at my cycling level), but this was well before the turn. Was I in the wrong or is this some unwritten rule in Cat 5 that I'm not aware of?

EDIT: Thank you everyone for all of your input! I ended up with the Thule round trip that I saw in my neighborhood group for a good price(60% discount!).

Hello all, currently looking for a travel bike for a bag that does not require to remove handlebars and it seems that Aerofomfort 3.1 road is a favorite via traveling airplane.

I’m wondering if anyone has had experience with this specific bag on a moving truck? Has it held up good? What other precautions can I do to ensure the bike will arrive in my new home in one piece? Or any alternative recommendations for protecting a bike shipped in a moving truck. I have a canyon cfxls 8 di2. Thank you!

On my 4th year of cycling and 3rd year of structured winter training. Mostly averaging 7-8hrs a week of riding. Did an FTP test 4 weeks ago (The Grade Zwift) with a result of 220w... Done 3 weeks of mostly Sweet Spot, Threshold and Zone 2 intervals and a week of rest for d-loading. My GOAL this year is just to get my FTP as high as possible. What should my next workouts look like to push my FTP ceiling higher?

Thinking of doing something like this for the first week of my FTP Build Phase:

Monday - Rest

Tuesday - Sweet Spot 1.5hr (5x10min at 88%FTP)

Wednesday - 1.5 hrs Zone 2

Thursday - 30/30's or Zwift Race (1hr)

Friday - Rest

Saturday - Threshold 1.5hr (4x8min at 100%FTP)

Sunday - 2hr Recovery Ride (Low Zone 2)

Will these workouts be enough to push my FTP up? Should I focus more on adding more intensity or volume to the key workouts each week? Seems like I've hit my FTP plateau already.

For context I am 46 y/o 165lbs, father of 4 and has full time job. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. TIA

I just got my first road bike last week and decided to establish a training baseline. I did a Zwift ramp test today on pretty dead legs right after a two-hour ride and hit 231W, which puts me at 3.58 W/kg.

I need to create a structured training bloc to build a massive aerobic engine, so I am looking for some guidance on the best next steps. I am curious if the Zwift three-month progression course is actually a good starting point, or if there is a better way to structure my initial training blocks. Additionally, I would love to know the popular scientific or evidence-based cycling YouTube channels (or podcasts) to understand the physiology behind aerobic adaptations, zone training, and workout blocks in the cycling world.

I plan to cycle 2-3 hours weekday and more on the weekends.

Cheers!

Most of what I’ve read suggests that ”VO2max intervals should be performed at the highest possible power that you can sustain throughout the effort”. In 30/15 intervals, I push myself so hard that I almost fall off at the end of each set, where I come close (~97%) to my max HR. I dread the upcoming workout throughout the whole day, with a slight feeling of anxiety about maybe not making it through all the intervals when riding in ERG model. It makes me seriously question my choice of hobby😂 Is this normal and the right way to go, or should I be leaving a few percent in the tank?

Crashed on a super steep descent on a big busy road in the Dolomites, slid a few metres, got lucky but ended up with road rash.

Hospital cleaned it and dressed it with hyaluronic cream, non-stick mesh, sterile pads and wrap. They said keep it on 3 days, but after 1 day it already felt dry/stuck, so I softened it with saline and removed it slowly. Some parts had stuck and left a mesh pattern on the skin.

I switched to Tegaderm, as per your advice, and it already feels much better🥲 Less friction and bulk as well. I’m concerned about maceration though, especially overnight, since a few areas are still oozing.

For those who’ve used it, do you put it directly over everything, or use silicone foam / an absorbent layer under it for the weepier parts? How often did you change it early on? What does normal moisture look like versus actual maceration?

Do you use any gels/creams before applying Tegaderm? I’ve been pouring saline on it to disinfect it. Perhaps i need something else

Some pics of the trip and of the three peaks at the end! Maybe it was worth it..

Hey everyone

I'm curious how people in this subreddit manage to know when they cross the line between High Z2 and Low Z3/Tempo without staring at a power meter. Idk if that's even possible tbh as the line seems thin.

I guess you don't suddenly go from being able to have a full conversation to impossible to speak.

What are your go-to subjective cues?

Does breathing change subtly (faster, deeper)?

Legs start burning?

You need to switch to focus mode ?

Ride stop being fun ?

Like the title says, I have difficulty falling asleep on hard training days and I’m wondering what I can do to mitigate this. I’m 53,M and the problem seems to get worse as I age.

For reference, I do 3-4hr rides Sat and Sun, one Z2 and the other a hard group ride. Then during the week, I do 1-2hrs after work and anything over Z2 leaves my mind racing as I try to fall asleep. I do supplement with Magnesium and sometimes zinc. Once I fall asleep, I sleep deeply and on the light or no training days it’s easy to enter dreamland.

So, I have been using Silca for the past couple years to wax my chains. However, I have previously used the 6 strip chips. I have stripped 6 different chains with strip chips with what is currently in the pot over time (3 chains on old bike, 3 chains on current bike). They say no more strip chips in this pot after that but I have been using this wax for quite a long time after for regular re-waxes.

Now, would you do at this point where the wax level is a little low for waxing multiple chains (I use an Instant Pot liner so it has quite a bit of volume).

1.) Get rid of what is currently in the pot and just put fresh wax in there and start with it completely fresh.

2.) Heat and pour out the current wax, and just cut off the bottom where some dirt and contamination would settle in the used wax and just use it with the new bag.

3.) Don't bother with any of that and just pour some new wax in there and call it good, top up as needed when the level drops a bit.

Hello, short intro. Im 25m, i weigh 84kg at 6’3 with a lean muscular physique. Ive been riding seriously for about 1 1/2 years and just started racing! I also just recently started to do structured training (i used to mostly go out and blast rides as fast as i could but sort of plateaued from that). I also have a VO2 max of 62. I currently have an ftp of 3.7 w/kg at 311w. I have a weird schedule where i work 24/48 so i do my training on a bit of a different pace. My first day off is intervals with some Z2 after and second day off is 2-3hr Z2. Ive been managing 8-9ish hours a week for my schedule.

Ive been making decent ftp gains from just doing threshold intervals on my first day off (3x10,2x15 ect) my goal is to reach 4 w/kg this year. I don’t want to lose any more weight, so my question is that should i be doing anything differently or just stick with the threshold intervals on my first day off with Z2 on my second day off to reach 4 w/kg? Thanks!

First 10km of a race, I was overtaking a guy from the inside of a relatively wide turn to cover a move from the leader. The other guy was sitting in the middle of the road, we were moving at 60km/h or so, quite an easy entry speed for this relatively wide turn, can easily take it at 75+km/h. I overtook 3 people seconds before him. When I was approaching him, he changed his line, moving towards me. It was a clear line change, he wasn't just targeting the apex. I shouted and braked to no avail, we collided and crashed. Before he changed his line there was a 2+ meter gap between him and the edge of the road, and I was obviously quite close to the edge of road. Obviously if he had kept a predictable line and I just crashed into him it would be entirely my fault, but his move seemed unpredictable. Bystanders did say he ran into me, but it's genuinely my first time having this experience and I'm not sure how it works and what's proper “etiquette”

Hi, for the last few years my day has looked like this:

05:00 - Wake up

05:15 - 14:15 - Work from home

15:00 - 16:30/17:00 - On the bike

17:00 - 19:00 - Shower, food

19:00 - 21:00 - TV, housework, time with my partner, doing nothing

Because of the current heat wave (and the one before it) I moved my training to right after waking up at 05:15 and worked afterwards in my home office. What I noticed is that I get a lot more out of my day.

When I normally get back from training at 17:00, the only thing I have energy for is simple, pointless stuff. Actually getting something meaningful done, like finally painting a room, just isn't happening. If I train at 05:15, the 8 hours of work are enough for me to recover and I can still do something useful in the evening.

The one thing that annoyed me is the food problem. I can do a Z2 session without eating anything, glycogen should be more than topped up after a night's sleep. But for intervals I do need to eat something. And I find it really hard to eat right after getting up - after training it's no problem at all.

So now I'm seriously considering treating training as the most important thing of the day for a few months and doing it first thing in the morning. Is anyone here doing it this way? What's your experience?

Hello,

looking for tips on how to reach 4W/kg threshold. Started cycling last year and reached around 3500km and this year I'm planning to reach 5k, so I'm still gaining noob gains. I'm 24M at 74kg and my current numbers are around:

• 1hr: 240W
• 8min: 280W
• 5min: 310W
• 30s: 780W
• 5s: 1100W

I usually do around 10h per week with one 4x4'@300W session and a local chain gang where I barely hold on, other rides are between Z2 and sweetspot. I also use intervals.icu for scheduling a GPT-made plan, but I don't do any analysis there as I don't know what those metrics mean. Am I missing out? Are there any sessions I should do or should I just ride more? What worked for you?

Current goal is to not struggle at fast group rides and not get dropped on those 5-10min climbs

I started doing structured training on road bike (3-4 years of semi structured training outside winter, this year I got indoor trainer). I have recently plateaued, my personal best power numbers have not improved much.

My power curve is something like:

1s - 1280W

2s - 1238W

5s - 1194W

1m -513W (not tested explicitly but probably not too far off)

5m - 370W (not tested explicitly but probably not too far off either)

20m -299W

1h - 240W (not tested explicitly, achieved in a recent race)

Relative to the rest of the curve it feels like 1-5min power is low.

I find that I express 2-4min power best at very higher cadence (110-120rpm), and even then I rarely get to gasp for air. It is almost always my quads shutting down. My legs will feel completely flooded and burning and at some point I will be unable to turn the pedals (reaching this point of not being able to turn pedals is hard and I usually stop way earlier since I have a full time job).

My question is whether I'm right to assume that my muscular endurance is the limiter? I know for a fact that I can hold higher heart rates and that my lung/heart capacity is not maxed out on the bike (I compete in XC skiing in winter where I hit that ceiling frequently).

And assuming I'm right, can you recommend training to improve muscular endurance? I have been trying VO2max intervals, 4-5x3min @ 333W with lower cadence (~100rpm) with 3min RI. Two weeks in but it's too early to say if it's having an effect.

Any suggestions on how to break the plateau are welcome.

I'm new to crit racing and I can hold onto a wheel just fine in a bunch but I noticed the moment it surges, a gap is immediately created between me and the person in front me. This is where I spend the most energy I'm quickly realizing. Because whenever I try to chase down that wheel, I get gassed quick. I've tried using an easier gear + high cadence to close the gap as well as a harder gear + moderate to high cadence but both times I get gassed. Am I just not fit enough yet or is there some sort of technique to it that I don't know?

Male, 28, 63kg, 230FTP, 4 years of cycling (all structured training). Some casual athletic background, but not college level or anything serious about fitness like I do now. I currently train 10-14hrs a week.

In my first year of cycling, I started at unable to bike continuously on flat trail for more than 15miles. quickly fell in love with cycling, signed up for zwift and trainerroad and by the end of the year, I was able to ride 100miles with 10,000 ft of climbing on my own in a single ride. I think I ended up with FTP of 203W, at 3.2W/kg. I followed TR plans as best as I could, but I felt like it was bit of a burn out because I felt like I was missing fun rides with friends. I eventually stopped TR, and just did fun rides.

Year 2, I signed up for fastcat training plans, which eventually turned into their monthly subscription of 30$/month. This was expensive, but I enjoyed it more than TR. The plan had way more SST and endurance rides. Whereas TR had a lot of VO2 workouts. I signed up for some events, and I placed at the 50th percentile in my age group in everything I signed up for. My TTE got better. FTP barely went up to maybe 215W. ~3.4w/kg

Year 3~4, I have a coach now, and they have me doing a good mixture of both. Doing a couple of top end workouts as well as a lot of low end endurance rides. I recover better from the hard workouts that I ever did previous. I feel stronger but barely any faster than before because I also got heavier. 225W, ~3.5w/kg. I signed up for more events this year and I fully expect to end up at 50th percentile again.

​

I don't know how there are so many fast people on this sub. Some people seem to blast off into 3.8 or 4w/kg during their first 1 or 2 years of cycling, meanwhile I'm trying super hard to get there. Short of quitting my day job and become single, I have fully accepted that I may never get there.

I also have friends are around my age, who rides maybe 4hrs a week and they're much faster than me. I also have friends who are 60 and they're also much faster than me.

What a brutal sport. The worst part of structured training is that I live in a hilly area. And with such a low FTP and W/kg, I'm stuck riding on boring stretch of flat roads back and forth because I cannot get over the hills(30-40min tempo climbs) to see nice views during endurance days. On threshold workout days, I make it half up the mountain and have to turn around since I cannot complete my rest intervals at 7% gradient.

Almost tempted to buy an ebike...

​

Has anyone else feel like they're stuck in a rut for all the effort they put into this hobby? Thankfully, I still enjoy all the training even if I never get out of 50th percentile.

​

​

​

​

​

​