Gravel climbing event plan design

Training
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Hello, new to TR and “cycling” in general. I’ve mountain biked most of my life, but last year picked up a gravel bike. I’ve been loving it. I decided at the beginning of the year that I would try to do the PMC Unpaved. There are two loops to pick from, a 30 mile with 2618ft ascent and 50 mile with 4844ft ascent. Signups are in a few weeks, and had planned to do the 30, but am trying to decide if it would be feasible to do the 50. While I think right now I could bang out 30miles no problem, the ascent concerns me. Yesterday I did an outdoor 22mile ride with 1677ft of climbing and that went ok, feel good today. I’ve never done any sort of organized ride like this.

The TR gravel program didn’t ask about elevation or distance, just estimated time. Should I change programs to some sort of road hill climb training plan? Also for you experienced riders how do you determine if the ride is rolling hills or short punchy climbs, just look at a map or is there some tool to help determine that?

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I just started TR about a month ago and had a similar question, because I find it ‘odd’ that TR doesn’t seem to take the course into account, only the (estimated) time. This, to me, leads to the impression that two people doing the same ride, with one estimating doing it in 5 hours and another in 8 hours, would end up in a situation with the person estimating 8 hours getting a ‘harder’ program, because they are planning to spend 3 more hours riding, when, in my estimation, the person trying for 5 hours needs the harder program.

When posing this question, the basic answer I got back was ‘it doesn’t matter, because the adaptive training plan will adjust to your fitness’. While my head is still having some difficulty wrapping my head around this, I’ve been trusting in the TR logic to design my training plan.

So far, after some initial concern (while TR was ‘learning’ my fitness level), I feel like it’s on the right track. The one place where I do feel like it will need to override the plan is to do some longer outdoor rides (as weather permits) because, while TR may be able to increase my fitness with training sessions that aren’t as long as my actual event, I feel that there are some aspects (nutrition, and just ‘being on the bike’ for an long ride) that just can’t be addressed with a shorter workout.

In the end, though, you’ll have to decide what works best for you (largely by just listening to your body). Be sure to rate your workouts accurately, as this will determine what TR prescribes for you going forward. And, as far as the specific distance to choose for your ride, just make a choice and go with it. Personally, I’d go for the 50 mile ride. Yes, it will be longer and harder, but it will also be more of an adventure. I think you might be surprised by the extra motivation that riding with a bunch of folks gives you. And you also don’t have to do the entire ride as ‘one ride’. There will likely be a few rest stops where you can refuel and recharge, and make it, effectively, multiple shorter rides.

That’s just my two-cents, and I’m sure there will be a number of other perspectives from other people. Whatever you choose, good luck, and have fun!

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Thanks, glad to hear that the plan has started to adapt for you. The first week or so of riding in the plan has been pretty easy and I have been ratting them as so, but just wasn’t sure if the adaptations would get me where I need. I put in for a three hour ride thinking I would do the 30, if I switch to the 50 I should definitely up the time. Did you change your event ride time to make the plan harder, did it work?

Is that typical there there are refuel stops on these rides? In that case I would definitely lean more towards the 50.

Thanks for your input.

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I debated changing (upping) the time, but then decided against it. This was primarily because I want to see if the app actually works. So, I suppose I won’t really know if it makes a difference until event day! :rofl: Also, I’m only a month in, and just finished my first ‘down’ week, so we’ll see how the next 3-week block treats me!

As for refueling stops, the PMC Unpaved website indicates 2 stops on the 30 mile route and 3 on the 50 mile route. (Looks like there’s a pretty stout fundraising commitment, too!)

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Yeah I just re-read everything on that page and saw that there are indeed stops. Honestly was more nervous about the fundraising commitment than the ride until I told my wife I was going to do it. She has assured me that I will have no problem raising that much. She’s done fundraising like this and is going to give me a hand.

Good luck with your ride, thanks for the advice!

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IIRC, the general consensus is to select the Gran Fondo plan to get the type of simulated climbing workouts you are looking for.

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Definitely some punchy climbs!

Are you local(ish) to the area? I think there’s some overlap with the B2G2 ride put on by the local cycling club. Might be worth riding to get a sense of the terrain. I’ve done this ride 3x and it’s fun but can certainly be a challenge :grinning_face:

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Welcome to the TR community!

If you used Plan Builder to set up your plan, then you’re probably already on the right track!

I think I answered @NigelTufnel11’s question about a month ago – basically, Plan Builder will use your event type (gravel, in this case) combined with where your fitness is currently at (measured on TR by your Progression Levels) and the amount of time you have available to train each week to create your plan.

Since gravel events are generally long and usually require a lot of sustained power efforts, the workouts you’ll see in the gravel plan will reflect those demands.

If you’re curious to compare Specialty Phase plans, you can check them out here (as long as you are signed into your TR account). The gravel plan falls under the “Gran Fondo” umbrella.

We’d also recommend choosing a plan/Specialty Phase focus based on how you plan to ride the event itself. If you plan to pace yourself and not worry so much about what other riders are doing, sticking with the Gran Fondo approach would be good prep. If you like to attack or respond to attacks when racing with a group, the Rolling or Climbing Road Race plans may work as well – both of those plans will incorporate more surging into their workouts to simulate those kinds of race situations.

To help illustrate what I’m describing, here are a couple of example training weeks:

Gran Fondo:

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Rolling Road Race:

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Hopefully that helps clarify things… I know it can be a lot to think about! Since this is your first organized ride, I think sticking with the Gran Fondo/Gravel plan would be a safe bet. It will do a great job of getting your fitness to where it needs to be for the event. It would also be a good idea to get out on some group rides if you are able to before hopping into the ride, especially if you haven’t ridden in pelotons very much before. That will help get you some experience riding in close proximity to others.

Good luck with the training and the event… And feel free to let us know if you have any additional questions or need any help organizing your TR Calendar/plan!

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I’m in central MA so not too far, I’ll try to get to that one, thanks for the info! Didn’t know about that bike reg site.

@ZackeryWeimer, so I will leave it as a gravel event since I did try to switch it to gran fondo and it seemed to generate an identical plan (only scrolled through a few weeks comparing screenshots. I did the same thing adjusting the intensity to 6, do those changes not affect the first block?

I plan to pace myself and just finish, I don’t expect to keep up with most (or any) riders, but would choosing a specialty phase plan help me prepare even more? How do you add that to the event? Or is this something that you would recommend in lieu of the event or adding as an additional event?

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Sorry for the confusion – the Specialty Phase will automatically be incorporated into your Plan Builder plan. The Gravel and Gran Fondo Specialty Phases are the same – I think this is something we can improve on for clarity’s sake, so I’ll pass some feedback along to the rest of the team on that point.

During a training plan, you’ll usually go through a Base Phase, a Build Phase, and a Specialty Phase. Here’s some more info on training phases if you’re interested:

Changing the Specialty Phase may or may not change your Base and Build Phases as well. It usually depends on how big the change is. Changing from something like a 40k TT plan to a Criterium plan, for example, would likely change at least your Build Phase as well as your Specialty Phase focus (you would see more short power efforts during the Build Phase to get you ready for the race-specific workouts of the Specialty Phase).

So, in short, the Specialty Phase is already in there as part of your current plan. :slight_smile:

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Got it, thanks.

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