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Being a low-impact endurance sport means that cycling is conducive to really large training volumes relative to other sports. I recall reading that pro cyclists

Being a low-impact endurance sport means that cycling is conducive to really large training volumes relative to other sports. I recall reading that pro cyclists will spend 30+ hours a week on the bike. Triathletes are even more crazy, though.

asdff 4y ago
Honestly after a week or two riding a bike you will get to that point. You crank out 30 miles in two hours and you will go "well that felt like a jog lets do another 30 miles right now"
- doliveira 4y ago
  Try a year or two, and even that is quite a stretch. I don't think you quite realize how uncommon your level of fitness is
  - asdff 4y ago
    Just try it out biking and see how far you get before you feel absolutely cooked, you'd be surprised at how much mileage you just covered. Charity bike rides usually have the lowest mileage at like 15-20 miles or so and you can do that in any shape, they advertise that distance route as such, then they might have a 50 mile one that does take some training and will probably leave you cooked, then the more serious ones.
    - doliveira 4y ago
      I used to cycle to work (about 3 miles away from my place) and after 6 months I still felt absolutely cooked after the uphill trip back, and the inclination wasn't even that accentuated. So unless you live in a cold and flat-as-a-pancake area there's really no way to classify 15 miles as easy for anyone but seriously fit people. Even then, it's not something a non-athlete (amateur or otherwise) can just pick up in two weeks.
- freetime2 4y ago
  30+ hours a week? Did you read that right? To put it in perspective, Jonas Vingegaard averaged well below 30 hours a week at the Tour de France this year. (He rode at a pretty impossible pace, but still… it’s the Tour de France!) That would be an enormous amount of time for anyone to spend on a bike - especially anyone with a full time job and other obligations to attend to.
  - sva_ 4y ago
    I think 4+ hours per day isn't too bad. I cycle 2-3 hours per day and I'm not even a professional by any means. The Tour de France isn't really useful for this comparison, as the riders have to perform at top speeds for several weeks so the riders have to not overdo it and risk not being able to perform well in the following days.
    - freetime2 4y ago
      Does your 2-3 hours per day average include rest days and HIIT workouts? I think when you factor those in, 30+ hours a week really is a lot of cycling. And absolutely not something that somebody will jump right into after one to two weeks, which the parent claimed. To be clear I am not saying that the average person couldn’t build up to 30+ hours a week of cycling. Much the opposite - the point of my initial post was that it’s relatively easy to rack up long hours on a bike, especially if you go at a slow pace. But rather that most people do not have the time or the motivation to spend that many hours on a bike, unless they race professionally. Looking through Strava, there is nobody in my area who has averaged more than 15 hours a week over the last 4 weeks. My weekly average is well below that. Do you log your workouts in Strava or some other app? What is your actual weekly average time spent? I think the TdF comparison is useful because it gives a rough idea of the sort of distance you can cover in 30 hours/week. Something on the order of 3000 km per month, which again I just don’t ever see any amateur riders doing in my area. If you’re really riding that much, or even half of that, then kudos to you. I would love to be able to put in those kinds of numbers. But I still think it’s really rare for amateurs, and requires an obsessive dedication to the hobby.
      - 4y ago

asdff 4y ago

Honestly after a week or two riding a bike you will get to that point. You crank out 30 miles in two hours and you will go "well that felt like a jog lets do another 30 miles right now"

doliveira 4y ago
Try a year or two, and even that is quite a stretch. I don't think you quite realize how uncommon your level of fitness is
- asdff 4y ago
  Just try it out biking and see how far you get before you feel absolutely cooked, you'd be surprised at how much mileage you just covered. Charity bike rides usually have the lowest mileage at like 15-20 miles or so and you can do that in any shape, they advertise that distance route as such, then they might have a 50 mile one that does take some training and will probably leave you cooked, then the more serious ones.
  - doliveira 4y ago
    I used to cycle to work (about 3 miles away from my place) and after 6 months I still felt absolutely cooked after the uphill trip back, and the inclination wasn't even that accentuated. So unless you live in a cold and flat-as-a-pancake area there's really no way to classify 15 miles as easy for anyone but seriously fit people. Even then, it's not something a non-athlete (amateur or otherwise) can just pick up in two weeks.
freetime2 4y ago
30+ hours a week? Did you read that right? To put it in perspective, Jonas Vingegaard averaged well below 30 hours a week at the Tour de France this year. (He rode at a pretty impossible pace, but still… it’s the Tour de France!) That would be an enormous amount of time for anyone to spend on a bike - especially anyone with a full time job and other obligations to attend to.
- sva_ 4y ago
  I think 4+ hours per day isn't too bad. I cycle 2-3 hours per day and I'm not even a professional by any means. The Tour de France isn't really useful for this comparison, as the riders have to perform at top speeds for several weeks so the riders have to not overdo it and risk not being able to perform well in the following days.
  - freetime2 4y ago
    Does your 2-3 hours per day average include rest days and HIIT workouts? I think when you factor those in, 30+ hours a week really is a lot of cycling. And absolutely not something that somebody will jump right into after one to two weeks, which the parent claimed. To be clear I am not saying that the average person couldn’t build up to 30+ hours a week of cycling. Much the opposite - the point of my initial post was that it’s relatively easy to rack up long hours on a bike, especially if you go at a slow pace. But rather that most people do not have the time or the motivation to spend that many hours on a bike, unless they race professionally. Looking through Strava, there is nobody in my area who has averaged more than 15 hours a week over the last 4 weeks. My weekly average is well below that. Do you log your workouts in Strava or some other app? What is your actual weekly average time spent? I think the TdF comparison is useful because it gives a rough idea of the sort of distance you can cover in 30 hours/week. Something on the order of 3000 km per month, which again I just don’t ever see any amateur riders doing in my area. If you’re really riding that much, or even half of that, then kudos to you. I would love to be able to put in those kinds of numbers. But I still think it’s really rare for amateurs, and requires an obsessive dedication to the hobby.
    - 4y ago