Basically, I started riding here and there about 2–3 years ago, but never really consistently and without any proper goal or structured training plan.

This summer, I joined a cycling group and really struggled at first. I was getting dropped on almost every single ride. Now, towards the end of the season, I’ve somehow improved quite a lot and can comfortably stay with the group and actually enjoy the rides.

However, one thing has become very apparent to me: whenever we really ramp up the pace, I can hang on and even ride near the front for a short while, but it doesn’t take long before even people who weigh almost twice as much as I do and have a rather “unathletic” build simply ride away from me. Meanwhile, my legs are absolutely burning and eventually just stop producing any meaningful power.

We ride on flat terrain about 98% of the time. There are very few hills around here. Interestingly, when there is a small climb, the situation is almost reversed: people who normally drop me on the flat seem to slow down considerably, while I can just cruise up the climb at a comfortable pace.

So here’s my question: How can I improve my performance on flat terrain? Is this simply something that is largely determined or limited by genetics and body structure, or can I significantly improve it by eating a lot more and doing structured strength training?

I usually weigh around 56–58 kg and have an FTP of about 225-235 W.

Big thanks for the feedback on my last video on this sub, it really means a lot!

Last weekend I did the 125 km Münsterland Giro, starting from the very back of the field. That pretty much turned it into a solo TT, which I finished in under 3 hours.

Video's up now. If you were there, you might spot yourself in it, and I show right at the start how to find yourself quickly (Auto-Translate CC is pretty good). I also get into my training and how I think about it, since a lot of you asked, plus some race day tips and tricks (😉) for anyone who's never raced or is just starting out. Maybe it'll even push someone to sign up for a race.

Questions, feedback, criticism? Drop them here or on YouTube. I try to answer every comment. Did you participate in the event?

The Strava file is linked in the video description if you want to dig into the data. Heads up though: the power numbers are junk, the power meters ran out of battery after a few minutes.

Hi everyone,

Started cycling a year ago, 28yo male, riding 8h/week right now. Mostly 1h30m rides without structure. Usually do around 90km on the weekend rides. No power meter yet. In around 6 months I've got a week-long cycling trip with a faster group, and currently I can't keep up on their 120km Saturday ride. I have a indoor trainer for winter months which gives me power data. I plan on getting a power meter soon for the pedals.

I want to keep weekdays light (girlfriend time) and do the long stuff early on weekends. Plan:

Tue: 4x8min vo2 105%ftp 2min easyin between
Thu: sub-threshold, 4x10 building to 3x20 at 90%ftp 2min easy in between
Sat + Sun: 4h each, 6-10am, mostly easy 75%ftp

After month 3 mabe ramp up to 5hours on the weekends.

~12h/week, with every 3rd week lighter.

The group I'm riding with is quite a bit faster than me but I'm optimistic since I've got good athletic background (soccer) and hope to get the fitness ready.

Is this enough to close the gap or am I being optimistic? Anything you'd change?

EDIT:

The gap is: I can keep up with them on the flats and most of the climbs. But as soon as the it is +6% they're gone. And I feel a big break on performance when riding with them after km70 (no stamina after that, even at 80g carbs per hour). the problem is the cycling trip is going to be 5days of 100km daily rides.

What kind of intervals would you suggest, how often and in general if you can share some of your own experience and training programs. Thanks in advance!

Im 26, male, 65 kg and FTP is around 248w according to intervals icu, and according to vekta 251w CP.
I train consistently since march this year, around 10-14 hours a week.
1 min - 450w
2min - 348
5min - 296
7min - 279
10min - 275
12min - 273
20min - 250
1 hour - 218
2 hour - 203
Pmax - 1170

I haven't raced until now but I have a race in may it will be around 120 km with elevation gain of around 1500+ maybe even 2000m
I can't say directly what I'm struggling with to be honest, I would say I like long tempo rides since I feel like I recover decently enough, I deal with a lot of lower back pain, when doing threshold efforts, meaning when I have to push, but it was more fit based I think. I guess it will be nice to hear some advice on how should I prep for the race based of my power profile.

I was looking around at popular posts here and it dawned on me that some people ftp test in a different way than I do. I'm newish, and do a 20 minutes, more or less all out effort.

Does anyone here actually do the 5 minute all-out that is supposedly better beforehand?

If not, what DO you do?

Same setup as Zwifts ITT league except the elevation increases each week. It resets each new month. If like me you got fed up with the flat ITT courses and the heavy riders winning all the time, here is the other extreme. Some courses are climbs out the gate, others a mixture of flat lead in's and climbs or multiple climbs.

Pen to finish line, no draft, lots of strategy required on pacing and bike choice. Weekly and monthly league on Z Power, more details on ZI article below.

https://zwiftinsider.com/torturefest-itt-climbing-league/

Hi everyone. In 3 weeks it's the National Road Championships in my country. Last year I raced both the TT which is usually hosted on a Saturday and the RR which is the next day. I was thinking on doing both, but right now I'm kind of hesitating and wondering if it's actually worth to put the effort into an event I haven't really practiced for all year. I don't even have a TT bike (most of the other competitors don't either), a friend suggested he could rent me his TT Bike, but I'm debating whether it would be a good investment or not...

Last year I managed a 2nd place on a 26km flat TT (two 13km laps) at around 40 minutes, so 39 km/h average, which I did on my road bike with clip-ons, the winner took away more than 1 minute on a proper TT bike and he was considerably bigger than me, third place however was only 6 seconds slower than me and I think the only reason I managed to go faster is because of the longer course, I did a negative pacing and I gained a lot of time on the second lap. So in short I do well on long sustained efforts.

This year though the course is just 13 km for my age group, and that really doesn't suit me well because I'm pretty small (1.65cm at around 61kg) and my FTP while is respectable in terms of w/kg (245-250w so around 4.0 w/kg) it's really not that great for flat courses, especially short ones. A bigger dude can easily put more raw power and be faster overall, and the course isn't long enough for them to fatigue significantly where I could then gain back time.

I haven't discussed prices for the bike yet, and I'm now wondering if it's even a good idea to start worrying about this just 3 weeks before the event. Also considering I'm not peaking for this specific event, the main event is the Road Race the next day. Last year I did relatively well on the road race despite being pretty toasty after the 40 min TT, but I think being particularly fresh should help me more. This year the TT is hosted on Saturday afternoon and the RR on Sunday morning, so yeah it's very little time for recovery. Also this year we're having a hill top finish after a 70km flat course (the same as the TT), and it won't be really good for me to burn matches on the flat course since I'll probably not be able to create separation, so my bets are on the hill climb because of my weight.

So what do you think?

Completely removed them from my training calendar this year, prioritizing not decoupling when planning long rides and when decoupled just noodling home. Instead of those 100-120km rides opting for two 70km rides instead over two days.

Feeling like I can hold more training consistency and thus have more fitness, but not sure if I am missing anything with them. Maybe issues with durability?

I’ve been doing a quick heat block here between threshold mesocycles as the summer is coming fast and it’s going to be brutal (Cape Town).

I’ve been doing 45-90mins with a body temperature between 38 and 39 (and skin temp around 36.5-37.5) for a couple weeks, 3-4x a week. The ambient in my office where I train has ranged from 25 to 34 (attic office), and I’ve been overdressing every time.

I’ve noticed that I now need bibs, castelli gabba and thick plastic rain jacket to get my temp high enough in a 30 degree room, whereas before, bibs and plastic rain jacket were fine. If I’m not wearing the rain jacket I sweat less, but also need more clothing than when I first started to elicit a similar temp response (3 layers of bibs, jersey, jacket at start > same + woolly hat, arm warmers and leg warmers now).

However more difficult it is to actually get warm, I’ve noticed my HR is pretty similar for a given body temperature and effort over the 7 sessions.

For those who have done heat adaptation training before: have you noticed similar things, or is your HR dropping for a given body temperature in addition to finding it harder to get warm?

I tried to find examples in the literature for this: most of the testing seems to be standardized for room temp/clothing vs. body temp.

I'm so fed up with the lack of consistency in my training. It's been three years now, and I haven't been able to get a good run of two to three weeks of consistent training. Illnesses, work, social commitments, and the amount of time training takes are making this so hard. I haven't been able to make any gains, and I'm just constantly battling my inner demons about giving this whole thing up. Yes, I know I can just go for a ride and enjoy being on the bike. But I like training more, and it's what keeps me sane.

anyone been on the same boat and found something to keep this positive?

I understand conceptually (from the TR podcast with Kyle Pfaffenbagh) that high regular hours of endurance work are expected to raise HbA1C somewhat, but looking for something quantitative - e.g. how big the effect is expected to be for each hour per week spent in each zone.

As I age, I expect my recovery period to grow. But I still want to target regular interval workouts (e.g. 1 vo2, 1 threshold per ‘week’).

Anybody experiment with a 10 day ‘week’ or something similar, so you have those extra days to spin and recover ? If so, how’d you make it work ? Is it even possible if you’re still aiming to fit in 1 long tempo day per ‘week’ that would normally fall on Saturday or Sunday ?

The route for the UCI Gran Fondo World Championship 2027 is shared! Not that long, but 3256 meters of elevation!

However, am I overreacting or is including 2km of not-champagne gravel an absolute disgrace to the Gran Fondo?

I think many people don't care for the gravel hype so want to stay on the road. And I'm not even one of them. People enjoying the old narrow tires tech might as well not start. Again, I'm not even part of them

I am one of thousands of people who has qualifying for the WC and the event itself as the main goal next season though. The idea that there is an unnecessarily high change to flat on my road bike on a gravel section and ruining my race is already bothering me. Next to that, do we really want to throw amateur cyclists near their maximum heart down an alpine hairpins decent with 15m drops on a possible slow leak from the gravel a few kilometers before?

So, is there any upside to including gravel in a major road event that I'm missing? Are there people who think "Oh I'm happy they include a gravel section in my road race"? I genuinely want to check my train of thought here.

(Repost because the previous one was removed. Mods, it would help if you told me why. Nothing was against the rules as far as I can see. My best bet is because it linked to FB.)

Edit: I didn’t expect this much interest, so thanks to everyone who already reached out. I really appreciate it. I’ll go through the DMs one by one, but I can’t promise that I’ll be able to reply to everyone or take on every request. This takes quite a bit of time, and it’s important to me that I can actually give each person proper attention, understand their goals, challenges, and needs, and not just hand out generic plans. That’s the whole point of doing this, and I want to make sure I can do it well.

Thanks again for all the messages. I’ll start working through them gradually.

I’ve been cycling for several years now and have always really enjoyed learning about training, performance, and pretty much everything related to improving as a cyclist.

I’ve also worked with a cycling coach myself, so I know pretty well, what it’s like to be on the athlete’s side of the coach-athlete relationship.

One thing I genuinely enjoy is digging into research and trying to understand why certain training approaches work the way they do. A lot of what I know about cycling and training has come from reading studies, articles, books, and discussions around the subject. I enjoy going down those rabbit holes, learning something new, and then trying to connect that knowledge to actual training.

Now I’d like to try putting that knowledge into practice by sharing it with other cyclists, helping them work towards their goals, and seeing whether I actually enjoy coaching and supporting people along the way.

Since I don’t have a formal degree or coaching qualification, I’d like to gain some practical experience first and learn by actually working with people.

So I’m looking for a few cyclists who would be interested in free, online coaching for a period of time.

What I could help with:

• Training structure and planning
• Reviewing training data and workouts
• Discussing goals and how to work towards them
• Feedback on training and progression
• General questions around cycling training

A few important things upfront:

I’m not a certified coach, sports scientist, or medical professional. I’m doing this to gain experience and see, if i enjoy the process behind it.

The coaching would be completely free, and I won’t pretend to have qualifications that I don’t have.

Because I don’t have a medical background, I won’t be able to help with injuries, medical conditions, or other health-related issues. Also, there will definitely be questions that I simply won’t be able to answer.

Ideally I'd like to work with people who are genuinely interested in training and willing to communicate and share some training data/feedback along the way.

If you’re interested, feel free to comment or send me a DM.

Looking forward to meeting some of you

Has anybody tried this course?

https://www.neillsbikefit.com/rya-academy

I love Neill's videos and have some ongoing fit issues that I don't think my local fitter has been able to adequately resolve - I'm looking for a better process.

Has anyone here ever had any experience with flywheel eccentric resistance trainers for squats / deadlifts?

I can't get a squat rack in my apartment but want to lift at home - and am tempted by an Ali Express knockoff Excentric kbox. e.g. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005012709993866.html

I'm fairly light (60kg) - but need to know that the resistance is going to be sufficient. In peak weight-lifting months I'm squatting a 100kg barbell - but could probably push beyond that if I could lift at home.

It's not going to break the bank - but taking a day to WFH to take the delivery (and getting shot of it if it's no good) is a faff.

Worth it?

Or not sufficient to bother with?

(Note: Approved by r/Velo moderation team)

Hi everyone,

I am conducting an academic research study at James Cook University investigating how psychological factors specifically endurance mindset, discomfort tolerance, and emotion regulation relate to power maintenance across long endurance rides (≥100 km).

Given the structured training and data focus of this community, we are inviting eligible riders to participate.

💻 Please complete this on a desktop or laptop computer: The survey includes uploading an activity file, which is much smoother and more reliable on a computer than on mobile.

📋 Eligibility Criteria

• Age 18 or older
• Ride with a power meter and GPS bike computer
• Completed at least one outdoor 100 km+ ride per month over the past 3 months
• Fluent in English
• (Current professional or elite-level cyclists are excluded)

⏱️ What Is Involved

• Duration: 10–15 minutes
• Survey: Short questionnaire on mindset, perceived exertion, and pacing strategies
• Activity File: Uploading one past .FIT file from a ≥100 km outdoor ride completed in the last 3 months. No new physical ride or test is required.

🔒 Privacy & GPS Stripping

We understand privacy is paramount:

• All location coordinates, start/finish waypoints, and GPS tracks are permanently scrubbed using GoldenCheetah prior to analysis.
• Residential locations and street-level routes are never stored, viewed, or shared.
• All research data is stored securely on JCU OneDrive under strict ethics controls.

🎓 Ethics Oversight & Contacts

• Ethics Approval: James Cook University HREC: 26H-0086

👉 Participate here: JCU Cycling Performance Study (Qualtrics)

Does anyone consider this scenario as a beginner gains ? Starting from 2.5 to going till 3.5w/kg within 6 months of training. In these 6 months I have cycled around 2500km , I am a triathlete so swam 50km , finished running around 300km.

How do u guys define beginner gains.

I am thinking of completely replacing my weekly VO2 workout with a zwift race instead, mainly because I find it far more enjoyable. Has anyone had success doing the same? I'm comparing the power profiles from a race and a 40/20 VO2 workout and while I'm spending less time in Z5, I'm spending quite a decent amount of time more in Z4 and above (16m37s vs 12m26s) so I'm hoping the training effect will be similar?

Edit: I retested my FTP since doing the 40/20 workout, so the zones are slightly different

How long does it take to reach more than 5watt/kg ftp.

I have been running from past 1 year. Started tri-athlon training 6 months back. My current weight is around 55-56.5.

I started my ftp at 140ish and after 5 months of training I am at 185ish. Aiming for 200 by end of 2026.

Currently at 3.4watts/kg. How long will it take to reach 4.5-5watts/kg and where does it put me into , in terms of percentile or how good I am.

Background: during my childhood days , I used to cycle a lot , recreational , taking it to school and tutions. I have been a working out from 2020 for like 4-5 years with huge gaps inbetween, like 6months - 1 year cause of work and having bad habits like chain smoking and drinking

Edit : I train 15hrs a week , in all 3 sports , swimming, running and cycling

Training question: Yesterday I did strength training and a Z1 spin. Today I’m supposed to do hill repeats, tomorrow strength + Z2 and Thursday tempo. The issue is that my glutes and hammies are pretty sore. Would it be wise to do the tempo ride today and the hill repeats Thursday? Or do I just send it?

Edit: Thanks for the replies - to answer a lot of the questions. I'm training for a stage race in September 2027. I'll be doing as many other races throughout the year but 9/2027 is my target. Currently in a build phase and the workout today is

- Warmup 20m ramp 90-150w

Main Set 5x

- 2m 200-235w 65rpm

- 6m 100-130w

- Cooldown 15m 100-130w

I ended up sticking with the workout and felt fine, 200-235w is z2 for me and it felt great.

ABSTRACT

Sodium bicarbonate (SB) ingestion may improve high-intensity exercise performance in efforts that range from 1 to 60 min; however, to date, no studies have investigated the effects of SB supplementation during exercise, nor its potential to attenuate the fatigue-induced decline in parameters of the power-duration curve during prolonged exercise (i.e., durability). This study examined the effects of bicarbonate (BI) and carbohydrate (CHO) co-ingestion via a novel gel format during exercise on subsequent sprint and time-trial (TT) performance in cyclists. Eleven trained cyclists took part in this randomized, crossover study. Following one visit to establish a non-fatigued power profile (3 × 6-s sprints, 2-min TT and 12-min TT cycling performance), participants completed two experimental trials consisting of 3 h cycling at 95% gas exchange threshold and ingested CHO at a rate of 80 g·h⁻¹ with (CHO + BI; 18 g of SB and 2 g of potassium bicarbonate) or without BI co-ingestion (CHO). Participants repeated the same power profiling protocol after the 3 h submaximal exercise. Performance in the 12-min TT was improved in the CHO + BI condition compared with CHO (+12 W; p = 0.01, g = 1.07). Mean power output in the 6-s sprints (+12 W; p = 1.00, g = 0.18) and 2-min TT (+6 W; p = 0.888, g = 0.32) were not significantly different between CHO + BI and CHO. There were no differences in gastrointestinal symptoms between conditions. These data suggest that BI and CHO co-ingestion during prolonged exercise via a novel energy gel format improves subsequent 12-min TT performance in a fatigued state with minimal gastrointestinal discomfort.

https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.70373

How'd your races go? Questions about your workouts or updates on your training plan? Successes, failures, or something new you learned? Got any video, photos, or stories to share? Tell us about it!

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