What to do when outdoor MTB season hits? Trail riding not really conducive to following a workout outdoors

Training
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In the winter I fat bike a lot but also make time for indoor and let TR prescribe a plan…which I try to follow because its not hard to find the days that work for trainer time.
Looking for some recommendations from MTB riders during outdoor season.

Ontario based…so very seasonal.

In the spring I bias outdoor single track riding and I don’t really have the time also for indoor training as well. I want to progress my FTP (long time plateaued) but again, I don’t want to plan regular indoor. Is there any sense in having TR come up with something that is outdoor MTB oriented? My sense is that road or gravel you can control terrain and actually do prescribed work. Should I just ride my summer through to fall and then go into the off season with a plan? I ride with power meter always so I have outdoor data when riding trails.

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Hey @Chuck_Tatham,

Good question here!

As a northern midwesterner, I have a similar yearly schedule to you, it seems.

Fat biking is pretty big where I live, but I’ve had a hard time embracing lugging around a big bike in the cold and maintaining it when things are frozen. :cold_face:

In the winter, I prefer running and using my indoor trainer. Because of this, my fitness usually peaks in the springtime.

It can be hard to balance riding for the love of it and constantly looking for fitness improvements, but I manage to do this as best as I can by simply ensuring that I get a good mix of ride types in as often as possible.

I live between two great MTB trails, and I can ride to either one in around 20 minutes. Depending on which one I choose, this usually consists of either paved bike paths and snowmobile trails, or bike paths and low-traffic, slow-speed roads, which are great for intervals.

I’ll often use little segments on my commute to the trail to do 10-15 minute threshold intervals, then get my trail laps in, and either head home or ride a bit further on the road/path to get in some more work on tired legs afterward.

That type of work isn’t all for nothing. It’s not as productive as pure structured training, but it’s still training stress. If you’re looking for a better way to turn MTB trails into a more structured ride, I’m not sure how possible that is at the moment. :thinking:

My advice is to ride as much as you’d like, try to get some variety in efforts in (get some sustained work if you can in conjunction with the punchy nature of MTBing), recover well, and enjoy the ride.

It’s all about enjoying the process. :raising_hands:

It’s not super realistic for most of us to be 100% focused and productive year-round, and if you’re getting trainer rides in over the winter, I wouldn’t hesitate to use some of the summer to enjoy your time on the trails. That’s what cycling is all about!

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Totally in the same boat. I find it a pain and annoying doing structured workouts on the road bike, much less mtbing. My mtb rides always wind up with much higher IFs and TSSs than the workouts in my TR plan. I was hoping the new Adaptive and AI aspects of TR could work with unstructured rides, but evidently, TR is not there yet. One platform that seems like it might be is “The Breakaway,” which just got acquired by STRAVA. It’s iOS only at this point but might be worth a look.

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Keep doing MTB rides when you can. Good for mental health, bike handling skills, etc. Use a power meter and find a training plan which allows you to plug in the MTB workout. Life is too short to not MTB when the weather allows.

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With MTB I have found the old school way of picking a segment about the length you want and timing it works great. Yeah your power will be punchy but the over-all effort is there. And if you are racing MTB that is exactly what you are going to experience in the races (specificity). Even for tempo stuff this works. For example… I have a loop which is about 30 min. I have done 3 x 30 on that loop before at about tempo/sweets spot RPE. If the power ain’t smooth no biggie.

Of course you need to be careful on the trails first, you will have coasting and will have some anaerobic mixed in. But again… you are preparing for MTB races!

Personally I still will jump on the trainer during the summer (not much though). The weather can suck in the summer here too and a great way to control recovery (make sure you are it easy) or do a workout.

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I’ll try and hit the trails on summer weekends, or an XCO race (why I’m doing structured training in the first place).

The trail isn’t where I’m going for a super structured interval session, though.