All good points! Just to clarify and correct your assumption: I currently do 2 fasted rides a week, Wednesday is a shorter (60-90 min), carb depleted ride after an intensive Tuesday workout with just protein and a salad the night before (e.g. salmon and spinach). Saturday is a longer (2-3 hrs) fasted ride with moderate carb intake the night before. I already posted in another thread on how well it worked out for me 2 seasons ago and it’s really good to see how quick is it to regain the past adaptations.
Back in 2016 the first 4 weeks were a struggle, this time it all came back after literally 1 ride. The second workout was just fasted, not depleted - I was planning to do some easy endurance but legs felt great and I ended up spending 25 minutes above threshold out of 2,5 hours of total workout.
I definitely see the added value of fasted training and will keep doing it during my base phase, but I think I will just stick to clean food and normal meal schedule on the remaining 5 days of the week. I have quantifiable results that this approach worked for me in the past (that fat oxidation curve from my topic really speaks for itself), I was just hoping that IF would make even a bigger difference but that’s not really what I’m seeing in practice (based on my own example).