The long ride. How long, how often and with what energy?

Hello.
Tips for say a cat 1 road racer. How long should the long ride be? How often? With how much energy before and during the ride?
Thanks
Joel

Is this different, or the same question as this one?

Thought of it as a different question. More practical. How do you do and how would you want to do regarding the long ride in terms of duration, frequency and energy intake.

Typical advice is a long ride once a week, usually low intensity (zone 2) and in the 3-4 hour range, eating little and often. But, this is highly individual, you’d need to try your duration, intensity and nutrition out and see what works best for you.

This may give you some further guidelines:

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Why little and often, I would have thought just eating little to encourage fat usage as one of the standard benefits of the long ride. Definitely eat enough that you can finish the ride without undue stress, but this definitely seems like the kind of ride where “underfueling” is acceptable / desired.

Like I said …

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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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My long ride is usually 1/2 of the weekly volume.

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Thats not too far off from Couzans estimate (7/6 off to be exact, lol).

I think both calculations fall short at high volume though. If you do 20h/week, you do a 10h ride every week? On 30h, a 15h ride? I don’t think many people train like that. (Some ultra riders might ride like that for fun all the time).

Imo, anything under 4h is a “normal ride”, and anything over 5-7h is more like an event and only happens once a month or even less often. So a long ride would be 5-7h. Weekly volume does play a role, but I think going longer just takes too long to recover from (eat all the calories) to be of much use as a regular long ride.

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6ish hours for me generally. I usually get 15-20 hours a week(excluding recovery weeks). I could go longer, but I favor shorter to allow me more consistency(6 days a week). If I pushed it longer I’d need to work more rest into my weeks.

Always shooting for 90g/hr of carbs. Intensity varies, but more often than not, it’s usually around a .7if when I’m done.

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There is not a single (proper) pro who does 9h rides. Not even our notrious high volume Norwegians. I don’t think that even the Hellriegels, Stadlers and Al-Sultans of this world ever got close to this (regularily).

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I ride 7-10hpw and my long ride currently is 3hr at 60-65% intensity with 2 workouts per week . I used to ride 8hpw with 1 workout and my long ride had intensity and was 4hr. I have about 5.4 w/kg 20min power.
I’d do more if I could but I’ve got family / work constraints. I wouldn’t ride more than 12hpw tho even if I had the time. It just gets kinda boring for me after that

Yeah, doesn’t seem to scale. Once again, Couzens stealing fiction from the jaws of reality. Nice idea, I guess.

Who knows? Maybe Lachlan Morton does :man_shrugging:

(addendum: no, I’m no longer a “scientist”, nor am I a high level coach…but I do have Strava. And I can read)

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Are you saying you ride 7-10 hours and part of that is two 3 hour rides? (Not challenging, asking for clarity)

I’m a 7-9 hour a week rider and my long ride is usually a Sunday 2.5-3 hour ride @.65IF after a more intense ride on Saturday. Definitely NOT Cat 1.

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In the last 3 months two 7h rides (not sure about coffee stops, though). However, with weekly hours of far beyond 21h he should probably do at least 12-15h rides. But very eazzzzzzzzzy.

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Hours per week

I guess the top world tour pros need to do their long rides with a tent and sleeping bag lol

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Agree. That is just too much for most people on a weekly basis. As much as I enjoy riding my bike my sweet spot for long on the weekends is 3 hours unless I’m training for some ultra distance.

Being on the bike more than 6 hours doesn’t even sound fun.
My long ride is usually 3-4 hours at 60-65% with me at 7-10 hpw. Just a mid packer around 4 w/kg, cat 2 mtb, cat 3 CX.

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