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Hills or intervals?

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msurads06
msurads06 Posts: 66 Member
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I am currently training for a 23 mile ride in 3 weeks (4/18). I almost have the distance. Rode 18 miles yesterday. But I am not quite half way on the elevation. Only 400 ft vs 900-1000. I the town I live in is fairly flat and I really had to look for that 400 feet. And while the distance wasn't too bad I really struggled on some of the hills. What would be the best way to get ready for the ride? Doing climbing intervals on the spin bike or riding back and forth along the same 1/2-1 mile stretch of road? My ultimate goal is to ride a metric century in August but I want to get a few smaller group rides in before then. This 23mile ride has almost the same elevation gain as the century I will be riding.

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  • Archon2
    Archon2 Posts: 462 Member
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    If there are any way to do hill repeats on a section of road, I think that will help. A good way to deal with climbing is to just do more of it.
  • Just_Ceci
    Just_Ceci Posts: 5,926 Member
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    I'm no expert, but I'd say hill repeats. The only way the hills get easier for me is to ride more hills.
  • wildtxn
    wildtxn Posts: 97 Member
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    I think interval training would help quite a bit or specifically some decent cadence training. I started riding based off of power instead of just heart rate over the last year and knowing your functional threshold power FTP helps a ton. I found that lowering my gear set and riding at a higher cadence thus lowering my power output helped me tackle hills a lot easier. Riding at a higher rpm kept me from blowing up and just feeling my legs burn by mashing the peddles. Interval training or cadence training should help a ton. I ride a 26 mile loop several times a week usually when weather permits and it honestly doesn't take me a long time to build up to it each year even when I've had taken a year or so off from riding. as long as your rear end doesn't feel pain too much in the seat because you've gotten some riding time in, I wouldn't worry tremendously about that distance if you've already gotten up to 18 miles.
  • msurads06
    msurads06 Posts: 66 Member
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    I actually found the hills I rode yesterday using the ride with GPS website to plan/modify my route. Unfortunately I live in a small town and the nearest overpass is 40 miles away. I have been working on keeping up my cadence but there have been some hills I shift into the lowest gear and still feel like I'm mashing the pedals. Not too concerned about making the distance of my ride if it wasn't so hilly. Still working on getting used to the time in the saddle. My goal yesterday was 2hours but I stopped 10 minutes short b/c my hands/rear literally could not take any more. Right now yesterday was my fastest average speed @10 mph.
    When I first started riding we were having a string of bad weather so I was only able to ride about once a week so I did a spin workout at the gym and it seemed to help with hills but I wasn't sure if just riding back and forth over hills would be better. Yesterday's climbing was almost double my previous max but only about 2miles more distance

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