This is at least academically interesting, since I have no practical interest in riding anything more than a comfortable 50 miles, especially as I just turned 71. But I’d like to know if riding a fixed gear vigorously, especially in rolling terrain or against headwinds, might in a modest way approach interval training. At any rate, riding 40 miles on the Roadeo with 11 closely spaced gears and a freewheel is certainly no harder physically* than riding a brisk (for me) 20 mile out and back in a 75” gear with a strong headwind or 3/4 side wind.
* Including the aftereffects a day or 2 later. On Mon, Mar 23, 2026 at 9:09 PM Toshi Takeuchi <[email protected]> wrote: > … In the case of training, it’s either time in the saddle or increased > pain while you are saddled. You can look up the peer reviewed literature, > but the ratio can be 4:1. That is, 30 minutes of painful intervals can be > worth 2 hours of endurance riding. > > Well, my only riding this year has basically been commuting to work and > back. I have a 7.5 mile commute each way, and with ~900 feet of climbing on > the way home, it takes about 45 minutes home. If I can achieve a 4:1 ratio, > then a painful commute can be worth as much as 3 hours of moderate > endurance riding. > > So far this year, I did a 200k and 300k with basically nothing other than > my commutes. 2026 was my 7th time doing the SFR Healdsburg 300k and it was > my fastest time ever by nearly an hour! > > What happened? Well, there was some luck involved, as there were no flats > or mechanicals. My friend with whom I rode the 200k, 300k, 400k and 600k > was much stronger this year and paced us quickly through the wind. However, > I think my biggest difference is the use of a power meter and Garmin watch > to do power-based interval training. > > My Garmin puts me through the wringer several times a week. The hardest > are the sets of 20 second, sprint intervals. However, doing the "threshold" > interval of 15 minutes gets me home a full 5 minutes faster than my fastest > previous time! > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgse9c4GcVH5hcXM2j_KrpBd0%3DegjDv3LrOxpSRMNPp%2B2Q%40mail.gmail.com.
