4 Days in the Dolomites – What I Learned About My Training

Training
1

Apologies if this isn’t the right place to post, but I wanted to share a takeaway from a recent trip that really highlighted a gap in my training. It would also be good to get a view on this from the TR team

I returned on Tuesday from four days of cycling in the Dolomites. The scenery was stunning, but the riding was brutal, at least for me.

We were based at Hotel Melodia del Bosco, which sits at around 4,340 ft (1,323 m) above sea level. Living on the Wirral in the UK, I’m essentially at sea level, so this was a noticeable change.

On Day 1, I really felt the altitude. Even relatively steady efforts felt harder than expected, and it definitely took some getting used to. That said, I had done a fair amount of heat adaptation training beforehand, partly in the hope that it would help with altitude. I do think it made a difference, I still felt the effects, but I seemed to suffer a bit less than others in the group who were experiencing mild altitude sickness.

There were eight of us riding, and we agreed to stick together on the climbs. That meant riding at the pace of the slowest rider and stopping whenever needed. In reality, this resulted in climbing at a much lower cadence than I’m used to, lots of slow, grinding efforts rather than spinning.

And this is where things really exposed a weakness in my training.

Most of my structured work has been on TrainerRoad, which emphasises higher cadence riding. I’ve spent plenty of time developing efficiency at higher RPM, but almost no time doing sustained low-cadence, high-torque efforts.

In the Dolomites, especially on longer and steeper climbs, the group naturally settled into a slower cadence. While I could have spun faster at times, it often meant riding away from the group, which I didn’t want to do. So I stuck with the group, and ended up grinding in a way I simply wasn’t conditioned for.

By Day 3, this really caught up with me. It wasn’t just the distance or elevation—it was the muscular fatigue from sustained low-cadence climbing that I hadn’t trained for.

Lesson learned:
My training prepared me well for sustained efforts and even helped me cope with altitude better than expected, but it didn’t prepare me for prolonged low-cadence climbing. Going forward, I need to incorporate more low-cadence, high-torque work to better match real-world climbing, especially in the mountains.

Ride Summary

  • Day 1:
    After arriving at 02:00, a few hours of sleep, breakfast, and building the bikes, we rode 46 miles (74 km) with 6,089 ft (1,855 m) of climbing. Altitude was very noticeable for me on this day.
  • Day 2:
    Sellaronda Bike Day – 42 miles (67.6 km) and 6,247 ft (1,904 m) of ascent.
  • Day 3:
    67 miles (107.8 km) and 10,129 ft (3,087 m) of ascent.
    This was my toughest day: long climbs averaging 10%+ for 4–5 miles (6–8 km), with three climbs like this. A lot of grinding at low cadence, which really exposed the gap in my training.
  • Day 4:
    Recovery(ish) day – 39 miles (62.8 km) and 2,925 ft (891 m) of climbing.
2

I have the feeling the workout instructions are not relevant at all for TR AI, please correct me if I’m wrong. The software picks them according to wattage only. I implement my own cadence drills and like to do some sweet spot and longer threshold intervalls at low cadance as prep for climbs.

3

Is there room for lower gearing on your bike?

I think that rather than investing time training for sub-optimal conditions, you should first try to improve riding conditions.

If that’s not an option, then maybe some specific conditioning could be useful, but would it regularly benefit your riding throughout the year aside from trips to the mountains like this? If not, then you may be pulling resources from other, more beneficial areas just to feel a bit better when muscling up really steep climbs the few times you’re in that situation.

The fact that you could have spun a higher cadence, but didn’t in order to stick with the group, makes this seem like something I’m not sure I’d personally spend time specifically training for, as it’s likely not a problem in any scenario other than trying to ride up steep hills at a specific pace with a group.

Nobody really enjoys low-cadence riding, and I’m not sure torque efforts would make them more enjoyable. :man_shrugging:

How did the effort feel? Which power zone would you say you were in on those climbs?

4

The software picks them according to wattage only. I implement my own cadence drills

The workout instructions often said try and keep a cadence above 85 rpm, often it says increase it to a few more rpm above your default

5

The problem I have is that when we go out as a group on a Sunday, our local climbs are nothing like those in the Dolomites, no where near as long. We tend to just regroup at the top, in Europe where the climbs are long the group tends to stick together, so my only option is to grind my way up. If a climb takes over an hour to ascend then you don’t really want to be waiting at the top getting cold on your own. Climbs in the UK tend to only be 20 minutes long and we aren’t that far behind each other tbh

It was more my observations really, I do believe TR has helped my fitness massively for UK climbs

6

Yeah, I’d still say that in those scenarios, lower gearing is the way to go. Don’t try to build yourself up to being able to pedal slower. Instead, try to allow yourself to pedal faster.

What type of gearing do you have on your bike?

7

I had a couple workouts in my training plan this year that encouraged lower RPM riding. May have only been two but believe one was sweet spot in the 70-75 range and believe the other was VO2/Threshold Hard Starts at like 60 RPM.

They were brutal.

This was on a marathon mtb plan.

8

If you were slowing down and lowering your cadence, how do you know that it was in fact high torque?

9

52/36 chainring, 11/34 cassette

10

So there is room there for more gearing if this were a regular occurrence. :gear: :+1:

11

Excellent hotel and Klaus knows his stuff. Beautiful part of the world. I do mountain trips every year and in many of my workouts I will alternate low rpm intervals. Need to be built up gradually to see is the knees are up to it.

12

Hotel was excellent, food was fantastic and staff really friendly. Would definitely recommend to anyone looking to visit the Dolomites. Just be aware that there is a steep ramp up to the hotel :rofl:

13

I guess I could go compact, 50/34 and 11/34 giving a 1-2-1 ratio for climbing but I’d have to swap back to 52/36 for the UK otherwise I’d end up spinning out on the flats. On club rides I often spend a fair amount of time on the front, especially the flat ones

14

Worth having low cadence high torque in your toolkit. Muscular endurance is a key aspect of ultra cycle training. But can be very useful in your scenario as well.

15

in 52/11? So you’re riding at 62kph (assuming 100 cadence, since you said you’ve worked to be good a higher cadences)

It’s possible but I’ve not found many people complaining of losing out when going to compact - even a compact in 50/11 gives 59kph @ 100 cadence, which is enough for most.

You can also fit a 36 cassette as either a double improvement or if sticking with the 52 chainset.

16

Personally I don’t pay a lot of attention to the drills. Well, none in fact, I turned them off. I adapt my cadence to my own needs and how I feel on the day of training.

Some days my legs are baked and I keep the cadence higher. Some days my lungs are gassed and I slow the cadence down and shift the burden to my muscles. There’s a time and a place for each IMO. Certain cadences match well to certain wattages for me as well and I tend to settle into those ratios more often than not. There is a particular torque that feels good to me which is slightly more muscular than cardio vascular. I’d rather have slightly heavier pedals and slower breathing rather than lighter pedals and huffing and puffing.

That’s just me of course, everyone is different. It’s all part of discovering what kind of rider you are. I’m a climber. Nothing I like more than the bow of the bike coming up and settling into metronomic plod upward. I just got the Masochist badge (25x Alpe de Zwift) on Zwift :laughing:

Its a good point you’re making about TR’s training though, it does generally tend toward the quick ‘n’ light pedals strategy which is probably optimal for most. Certainly easier on the knees!

17

I would disagree that you can use gearing to avoid having to do low cadence high torque riding. There are climbs that have long sections over 10% and you’re not gonna replace your crank for one climb.

Being comfortable at a wide range of cadences is an important skill to have.

Thankfully, it’s usually pretty easy to get better at low cadence work for climbs. I just do 20+ minute sweet spot intervals at 50-60rpm. If that’s too much do tempo instead. Honestly never found it takes much training for your body to figure this out - like even within a week I find I’ve adapted to it again.

18

I mentioned this is another thread but I’ll repeat it here:

A little training hack I use is to put on my favorite playlist on random shuffle during my endurance+ workouts (74% FTP or that ballpark) and try to match cadence to every song. I get a good mix of fast cadence spinning and slow cadence grinding depending on how the songs and zones happen to line up. Kind of a fun challenge and it will definitely work your legs a bit!

19

If it were me I’d just buy a 30t small ring and change that out, and keep the 52. It may not be optimal but it’ll work fine, and if it’s only for a week in the mountains you can live with a slightly poorer shift up front. And you could also chuck a 36t cassette on, but a 30t (Shimano, I guess you’re running) inner chainring is cheap as chips. Edit: I meant 34t chainring, but keep the 52t.

20

30x36 gets you to about 5,4 mph at 80 rpm. Seems like a great way to go. Personally I rode a 26 tooth ring during a high altitude mtb stage race that was great for my 86kg sea level self.

Joe