Please tell me about my group ride (analysis)

Probably the sweet spot Sunday ride. I love the group ride and it paints a picture on how my training is going, what still needs work, and just getting my handling, drafting, riding in a group down again. I usually do our ‘A’ group which is usually tempo (for me) with a spirited climb towards the end. And by spirited, I mean a drag race. If I could, I’d never do the Sunday ride and do a group ride or ride sweet spot/endurance for 3-5 hours with minimal stopping. Sometimes I’ll do the B group if I really am looking to just do slow endurance, but even then, our pace is still pretty quick.
I’m one of the few on our team who trains inside majority of the time. Odd work schedule and weather makes it tough for me. Most of my teammates are out doing the work outside and riding 8 or so hours over the weekend. And, they’re not slow.

One one of the rides I do, I actually can make it harder by doing the B ride instead of the A. On the A ride, I’m just hanging on at the back doing serious drafting and 9 times out of 10 I get dropped on a particular climbing section which results in either my cruising around at 50 watts for 10-15 minutes waiting for the group to loop back around or, I head home in Zone 2.

But I can be one of the “kings” of the B ride which does the same route. With the B’s I can take good pulls, contest all the sprints and climbs, etc.

I usually go with the A’s out of ego but, If done right, it is actually harder and better training for me, to do the B ride.

Ok so having read through the comments, thank you so much I have taken a little deeper look into the ride @tshortt I hope this maybe helps you.

The moment I got dropped, 6 minutes at 0.88 IF up a slight incline 2 hours into the ride. After that nearly got back to the group then on another incline 7 minutes at 0.79 IF at 2 hours 20 minutes into the ride.

I presume I am right in saying it isn’t unreasonable to think I should have been able to push harder at those points and stayed with the group.

Am I doing this right???

The fact that you couldn’t ride at your threshold for 6 minutes would suggest a lack of muscular endurance, or not enough energy. So longer intervals may help, and eating more before and/or during the ride, not sure what your nutrition was like.

1 Like

Obviously getting fitter is goal #1 but don’t forget about technique, tactics, and strategy.

For example, look at the 30 minutes before the first effort. Are there ways to ride that more efficiently at a lower power output but still be with the group? For example, better positioning in the group, getting on good wheels with better drafts and who ride at a steadier pace? Are you being as efficient as possible with your drafting technique? (e.g. positioning, judging cross winds, etc). Are there little climbs in the miles before the big ones where instead of powering up at the group pace you could move to the front beforehand then drift back through the pack? Are there spots where 30 seconds of serious work will make it easier to stay with the pack for the next couple minutes?

A huge trick to bike riding in groups (race or ride) is not just getting stronger, but learning how to use the least energy possible. Cycling is actually a lazy man’s sport, not a tough guy sport :wink: Being lazy is a skill not a character defect.

Nutrition when riding was one drink with Torq in it so 30g carbs off top of my head. Meal 2 hours before the ride.
I’m ready to be schooled on nutrition, hit me with it please!!!

So you burned 1500 cal, and took on 120 cal during the ride. It was pretty intense ride so it would be safe to assume that most of the 1500 cal comes predominantly from carbohydrate (about 80-90%, this is complete guess to be fair). So if you had about 1200 calories, from carbs consumed in the previous 5-6 hours you should be good to go, this is about 300g of carbs, assuming they are coming from low gi sources as well. Note, I am assuming there is no glycogen in your muscles because you did a session the night before and it makes this a bit easier to work out.

As I said, most of the paragraph is conjecture and there are so many variables it is hard to say.

So what did you eat before you went out cycling, because if your nutrition was good it is likely muscular endurance that was the cause of the issues.

Also, nutrition isn’t my strongest point, the above is just my understanding of it, so if anyone can correct or expand upon anything I have discussed please do.

I’m almost embarrassed to say what I ate, but definitely not 300g of carbs and not all low Gi, think more a sandwhich and some crisps.

I need to get my shit sorted with this. Cant hold threshold for 6 minutes after 2 hours, starting to think how many of my previous rides been plagued by this? Although not ruling out endurance but this is easier to rule out first presumably.

Just a quick question is there a trainer road workout that you can use to test muscular endurance. I know people recommend Lamark for checking FTP is there anything similar or is it more longer outdoor rides?

Given what you ate beforehand I would say nutrition is the likely culprit.

As regards to muscular endurance, there is no test for per se, as far as I am aware, but if you can consistently get through long sweetspot intervals (4x15s and 3x20s) then muscular endurance probably isn’t an issue.

1 Like

THREAD REVIVAL! (maybe?) :man_shrugging:

I asked this a few years ago. I know more now and I have a little strategy I use to analyze hard group rides (I think B races fall into this category as well). Anyone willing to kick this discussion back up again?

Ultimately I’m trying to answer: if I “interrupt” my training plan with a hard group ride, how can I ascertain what session(s) it replaces? I find that simply looking at time in zone distributions for these sorts of rides (unlike structured sessions) is very misleading.

I have a manual process that I go through that I’d like some feedback on.

  1. look at coasting/near coasting and subtract that from total ride time (this was actually the first light bulb moment I had when I got a power meter years ago. Not FTP, not other metrics. It was very basic, and we all take it for granted now: “boy, a lot of time here where we simply don’t pedal our bikes”. In racing, the higher the number the better (typically). In training, obviously not. I like Brendan Housler’s “10% rule”, except I needed to baseline it and modify for my locale.

  2. add up Z2 + Z3 time and just combine them (same system/adaptation). I throw this into the “endurance” bucket.

  3. look for sustained efforts at sweetspot and threshold (this is the first time the zone distribution charts can be misleading…essentially, did I do a bunch of 30sec, 1 min efforts at .9 IF (for example) that added up to 15mins or a “countable” sustained amount of time? So looking for hills and little inclines or use HR to hone in on these areas. Use power to determine whether or not they go into the bucket. HR is simply used to navigate around the data

  4. look for sustained efforts above threshold (but not Zone 6). This is where Peak HR and Peak Power in TrainingPeaks (or whatever you use) can help you hone in on those areas. Zoom in, highlight the area and see if it’s Z1/Z2/Z3 + anaerobic spikes (common) or is in fact a sustained effort of more than 1-2mins in Z5. Basically, were we coasting then slamming or putting out fairly consistent power? (attack, climb, etc.)

  5. total the time in the respective buckets (Endurance, SS/FTP, FTP/FRC), presumably giving me my main way of substituting for a structured session (e.g. “oh look, 30min TiZ for FTP/FRC. Looks like I covered that Tues workout”)

  6. realize all that time in Z6 and above is wasted fatigue…oh well, I had fun. Or maybe not, is there a way to tease that out, and if so, is it even worth it? What does it tell me?

  7. look at kJ to gauge overall effort (as opposed to NP). These rides are >100km/60miles minimum. They are so stochastic (VI > 1.15) that I think it artificially inflates NP.

What else? What am I missing? What am I doing wrong or misunderstanding?