Ramping up volume, working in club rides and commutes

Training
1

Hi all,

Been using and altering my custom plan since Dec ‘25 but I believe that as I’ve not been consistent TR is warding me off stepping up volume (time and intensity). Battery issues on my roadie PM, now resolved,

I’ve also suffered a load of random issues, bad bike saddle position ruined by threshold workouts most of the year. Random health issues, but nothing serious.

This years bike :frowning: But happy my FTP is fluctuating around 250 with so little input. It’s been a few years since I held 260. And a few more since I held 270.

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However, it’s my hypothesis that club rides and commutes breed consistency, and I have a long ultra endurance history so I’m giving myself a pass to move up from 4hrs to 5.5hrs to 6, to 6.5hrs over the next two months.

Also pushing up avg TSS to 300+ without blowing the doors off with random 500, 600 weeks should do me good in the long run.

Tactically, I’m using fatigue mgmt, AIFTP prediction, and Garmin training readiness to guide decisions.

Strategically, I know my peak fitness came in the seasons I worked up to averaging 6-6.5hrs cycling and 300+ TSS the majority being indoor hard days 3-4 per week.

But it’s no guarantee, last year I worked up to six hours and my FTP never got beyond 240 for six months. In other years I’ve made 250, 260 off a six week avg 250 TSS.

Right now my challenge is;

  1. Every time I try to include commutes in the plan, my FTP is predicted to drop

  2. my club rides are a minimum 3hrs tempo/sweet spot - it’s not possible to put these into a custom plan, and any kind of group ride sends me to negative FTP prediction.

  3. It’s easy to advise others, but really hard to heed one’s own advice :slightly_smiling_face:

Thoughts/prayers?

2

Tell us more about the commute, like duration and number of times per week?

3

Thanks Spinnout. It’s not straightforward as there is an estuary (river) in the way. I usually ride 45-50min to a cable car that gets me across the river, then 20-25mins to get to the office. Being a metropolis, there is no chance of any kind of structure to the ride or even vague parameters to stick within, I focus on riding safely and efficiently and so the power graph is a random jagged thing to behold.

If the cable car is closed on the way home, I add 3km and carrying a bike up and down the stairs of the foot tunnel, which feels like it’s never ending but Ecosia AI tells me is 126 steps at the north entrance (down) and 94 steps at the south entrance (up). I don’t know of a way to track the impact on my calves in cleats for this, but let’s just say I’m never commuting on my steel tourer this way again it’s carbon all the way :slight_smile:

Overall; downhill am, uphill pm.
Approximately 45 TSS am, 55-65 TSS pm.
Roughy, 1h -1h15 moving time in, 1h15-1h30 back

I only want to do this once per week this year, on Fridays or Mondays, depending on whether the group ride is Sat or Sun. Or as public transport strikes and work dictates.

4

And there was me thinking Putney bridge was an irritating Thames crossing :sweat_smile:

Steel tourer = ~50 TSS each way

Carbon race bike = ~35 TSS each way

Carbon is the better choice when trying not to trigger a yellow card, steel tourer better for winter base :sweat_smile:

Are you adding these commutes as Solo ride and is the drop the result of yellow days knocking hard workouts down to endurance?

Presumably, to add the Group ride, you need to drop a key session? If, for example, your Sunday TR session is threshold and your mid-week has a Sweet spot, I would drop the Sweet spot and keep the threshold - as the Group ride will cover this energy system.

Have you scope to add volume by extending existing turbo sessions too? I’ve been adding duration/TSS to indoor workouts, 60 min workouts to 75 and now 90mins. These changes often do little to nothing to the prediction but it has a short window - I’ve still been adhering to RLGL and think the benefits will come later.

Not easy but I would ignore the prediction for a bit and see how it copes as you feed in real data.

5

I’m leaning towards this. I convert endurance rides to solo rides for commutes, but this happens:

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FTP Prediction losses every time I convert indoor to solo until I’m gaining nothing. +4W isn’t much in the first place either.

Next week I’ve jiggled it about to this:
Switched from Masters to non Masters, converted two workouts to threshold. No commutes, and stacked a tempo and solo ride Saturday when I’ll do a group ride.

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I was losing FTP so moved the endurance rides earlier in the week. One commute the following Friday, no group ride

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6

Good moves - (as I’m sure you know!) you need to gradually spend time showing the App and your body that you can do the extra work.

It might seem wild to think this, as it is only May and the sun came out for a minute earlier but I would work on this as a long term thing, and think about how you can add the work during base next winter.

I was actually commuting more Jan-March this year, it was the wettest ever but got lots of endurance in. I started the year on a master plan and 2-3 commute days, recently switching back to 3x hard trainer sessions and 1-2 commute days.

7

The model is not trained on low intensity volume with a sprinkling of intensity. It does not know what to do with it, thus lowers ftp predictions.

8

Could be, could be a few things.

If it’s analysing my work outs and gains, then historically my best gains were with lots of intensity and no easy rides. Sweets spot was my ‘easy’.

Some people’s commutes are flat, straight lines so they may get more quality than I can from cross London traffic and river crossings.

Group rides, I’d normally advise to go with an easier group, but there isn’t one at the club and other clubs with easier rides have, what I would call, ride competence issues. So these avg out in the 0.75-0.85 range for 3-5hrs.

But I’ve decided this year to just work with it, as I’ve been 13yrs a no group ride guy. And as I said earlier, itould help with compliance.