I will say, it’s possible to do workouts in the Boston area, just check Adam Myerson’s strava feed for his loop where he does interval workouts. Further west, the ‘charlie baker time trial’ loop is one that provides a good 20min uninterrupted loop for interval work. It’s possible to ride outside and ride structured all year, I do a lot of my stuff inside for convenience but I definitely have done my share of TR outside workouts during the summer
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I had decent FTP bumps using AI after extended weeks only riding outside…Spring Break being one example.
speak for yourself, I did 14 and 15hrs indoors the past couple of weeks lol
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Nothing nefarious was implied. You guys have a great marketing palatiform in the podcast and it will be business malpractice not to use it. I keep seeing more blue rectangles in my Strava feed so it seems to be working. I actually found Nate’s take balanced and measured. Cheers!
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I find it’s really about looking at the terrain available to you outdoors and working out what works best to replicate a workout.
For instance if indoors you would be doing 4 x 10 min threshold. But the longest uninterrupted hill near you takes you 5 mins to ascend at threshold. Then do 8 repeats of the hill at threshold to accumulate an equivalent time.
If you need to be doing a 3 hour Z2 ride then look for a loop that doesn’t include any really steep hills etc.
Got a VO2 workout, go back to your 5 min hill, but go harder than you did for your threshold workouts.
Don’t like hill repeats. Maybe you have a a series of hills you can connect in a loop that enables you to accumulate time at the intensity range you are targeting.
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If you’re losing fitness riding outside over the summer months…
You’re either just riding for fun, or doing it incredibly wrong.
Obviously, you can continue with structured training while riding outside. In fact, the best riders on Earth do exactly that.
Here’s a surprise… the indoor focused structured training company says that indoor structed training works best for most of their athletes. Which, I’m sure it generally does.
However, I’ll counter. Virtually every strong cyclist I know, and EVERY professional cyclist on Earth say the opposite…
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This misrepresents the context of the conversation, and we did not say that.
The question was coming from an athlete that was asking for help to improve the quality of their outside workouts.
We stated that if riding outside compromises the quality of your workouts, then consider doing them inside to help you maintain the quality of your workouts, or consider other adjustments to your training so you can still ride outside and fit your structure in.
We’re proponents of structured training first and foremost, not the context in which it happens 
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Slight tangent, does anyone else get slightly fed up with snide comments about their indoor training? How do you deal with this? I’m generally passed the point of caring what others are doing compared to me, but I’m never sure exactly how to respond.
Even during summer I do all my intervals on the trainer. Then I hop straight on the MTB for endurance/volume.
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There are people who ride outdoors?!? On actual bikes?!?
I thought we were all like me and just riding a Wattbike in the spare bedroom!
This changes everything!
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Listened to that portion of episode 362 at lunch. The original question from Zach included a description of having completed short power build and replacing half of the weekend threshold/SS rides with a) short hard races, and b) 3 hour group rides at low sweet spot average power.
Nate immediately replied to the question “what impact on progression would that have” and the answer was good. Taking races out, its easy to agree that dropping threshold/SS structure for unstructured group rides is likely to decrease threshold/SS fitness outcomes. It was a narrow question without a lot of information about the 3 hour low SS group rides (which you flagged while reading the question).
I was expecting some color commentary on the possible benefits of doing a 3 hour group ride at low sweet spot average power. Something vague like “the more you can make it structured, for example by taking long sweet spot pulls” and would have been welcome. This is when I want to post a non-TR podcast or two. The TR answer was essentially “levels 2.0” and “we are working on it.” Which comes across as a bit partisan.
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I’m generally passed the point of caring what others are doing compared to me, but I’m never sure exactly how to respond.
Drop them on the climbs. 
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If you can do the same ride inside as you can do outside, you’re almost certainly going to get a better workout on the trainer than outdoors. Where the problem comes in, as you note, is that you’re way more likely to spend four hours in the saddle outside than on the trainer (and for good reason!).
I think I’d argue that you train for fitness inside as much as possible; train for performance outside enough. But if you’ve got a 4-hour aerobic ride planned and you’re just not going to do that on the trainer, of course it’s better to do it outside.
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Maybe I’m biased. I have threshold in the calendar for tomorrow. Unfortunately indoors. If it was outdoor, I would be looking forward and actually enjoying the effort, likely would do more or longer intervals. I have tons of climbs to choose from……Can’t imagine anybody in my position actually gaining more from indoor training.
Like I said, if you’re able and willing to do the same workout indoors as you are outdoors, the indoor workout will usually be superior. You aren’t willing to do that, so of course, riding outside is better for you. But that’s just your case and probably not broadly applicable. Many people prefer to do quality/interval training indoors and their long/free rides outdoors.
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Superior how?
I’ve got a different opinion based on my own data.
Desired time in zone vs. ride time. Essentially, the efficiency on the trainer relative to the same ride executed outdoors. It’ll vary based on where you live, terrain, etc. And why I said I don’t make broad general sweeping statements. If someone living in San Diego tells me they’re going out to do 40 min of threshold riding in a 1 hour ride, I’ll wish them luck and I bet I know exactly where they’re going to do that because there’s probably two places you can get that done outside.
Where you live it’s probably a lot easier. Where I live, what I said “usually” is the case, “usually” holds true.: the trainer workout is more efficient and superior. And yet, I do many workouts outside as I have out lined elsewhere… there are certain sessions I will almost always aim to do indoors in large part because of where I live and the roads I have easily available.
Conversely, there are sessions I will only do outside, too.
It really just depends on the type of ride and the location we are talking about.
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If you don’t train and “just ride”, then usually your abilities become blunt and you will lose fitness. I’m a member of a club, and I’m one of the stronger riders. You can clearly tell who is training regularly and who isn’t.
There will be some riders, where the lack of training doesn’t show as much since they have good innate fitness. Others who ride without structure might have an immense aerobic engine (Z2 endurance), but you can “kill” them with a few hard climbs.
I think a big one is to give your outdoor rides purpose. If I just choose a route, clip in and go, I will go either too hard or not hard enough. When I ride outdoors, I usually set myself a specific goal. Examples are:
- Keep my heart rate below 140 at all cost and below 135 most of the time. (When I get fitter, I might subtract 5 bpm from these numbers.)
- Practice cornering in specific sections that I know. I choose the route deliberately, knowing it is safe makes a big difference.
- I practice pacing at a particular level, e. g. I might ride high tempo to threshold, but make sure that I don’t back off power too much when the road gets flat or goes downhill.
- I might practice bunch riding when with others.
- I make sure to eat and drink a specific amount per hour.
In case you are willing to add a little bit of structured training to your outdoor rides, you can do a lot. You could mimic some workouts (which requires careful route selection). VO2max intervals should be quite easy if you have hills or small mountains nearby as they are short. I have done that in the past: I did a Z2 endurance ride and on three, four select points, I put the pedal to the metal for a few minutes each. (Short Strava segments might help here.)
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In many ways, e. g. indoor workouts are shorter and you may not be able to do certain things on the road (at least not safely). You also have no interruptions during intervals, and when it comes to structured training I can definitely dig deeper indoors than outdoors. On group rides I am not in charge of the situation (even when I am ride leader).
For example, I have to add 2 x 20 minutes to get out of the city. (Unless I want to do hillclimb repeats, then it is 2x15 minutes.)
Of course, indoor training has its limitations, for things like cornering skills and pacing you need to ride outdoors. But I would regard that as complementing structured training to improve my engine. And don’t get me wrong, there are other factors at play like motivation. If the weather is beautiful and my wife is willing to take care of the kids, then of course, I’d like to play outdoors. Other factors are motivation and general well-being. Riding offroad puts my mind at peace.
As far as I understand you have been doing structured (outdoor and indoor) workouts. You have had coaches and the like. Nobody disputes you can’t do workouts outdoors, you certainly can.
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This year I challenged myself keep some structure during the warm months and to do all my interval training outside as soon as the weather allowed it. Last year I tried to do the same, but couldn’t finish anything that even remotely resembled an interval. This year I consider myself successful and feel stronger than ever. Here is what helped me:
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The right course: I’ll admit that it takes a little bit of trial and error and route searching, but once you have found the right stretch of road for structured efforts, nailing an interval outside is one of the most satisfying things I’ve done on a bike. Of course, as others have mentioned, there may be areas where outside interval training really is impossible. But I found easy Z2 rides are a great way to “scout” for suitable roads.
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Practice makes perfect: I’ve started interval training on an indoor trainer in ERG mode. My first few intervals outside were all over the place, but now I’ve gotten quite good at hitting specific power targets outside. It also helps to let go of your inner perfectionist. With outside training, in my opinion you’re likely to make up for possible inaccuracies with the additional volume.
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Keep it simple: Not only do I drop the days with intervals sessions, I also pick quite simple workouts. In my case, I currently have two dedicated days for structure. My riding buddies know that and on these days I prefer to ride alone to achieve my goals for the day. And I get that there’s a time and place for more complex intervals structures, but I find that outside, the simpler the better. Maybe take a look at the polarized plans and see if they work for you.
This is simply what’s working for me. Maybe it’s not the training approach that yields the most gains (compared to highly structured, precise interval training indoors). But it’s the compromise between having fun outside and still get some work done that’s keeping me motivated.
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I’m curious about this, as I definitely lose fitness (or my FTP decreases anyway) after a period of unstructured outdoor riding. I don’t race. I train indoors in the winter, then ride outdoors for fun when the weather improves. Structured outdoor training doesn’t appeal to me at all.
I haven’t listened to the podcast yet. Was there a suggested minimum weekly dose of indoor structured training, and if so, what would it look like (VO2, threshold?).
My current workaround is to condense the 3 ‘work’ weeks of a low volume build plan (so 9 workouts) into a dedicated 2 week indoor block mid summer (which fits nicely into a period where riding outdoors locally for me isn’t a practical option). This gives me a bump, but by the time winter comes around again, I’m back at a similar starting point each year. It would be nice to find a way of maintaining more of those winter gains each summer (preferably with minimal indoor/structured riding) then start the next winter from a higher starting point.
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