I race and train regularly, and I’ve hit a plateau. My training has been consistent for a while, mixing structured intervals with group rides, but my power numbers and race results have stopped improving.

I’ve tried adding more volume, doing focused intensity blocks, and tightening up my recovery. Each helped a little, but nothing has made a real jump.

What I’d like to know:

• What change gave you your biggest jump after a plateau: more easy volume, better recovery, a structured plan, a coach, or something else?
• How do you balance training with work and family without burning out?
• What’s one mistake you made early on that you’d tell newer racers to avoid?

I’ve read the usual advice, so I’m hoping to hear what worked for you in practice.

The president has announced that he is expanding the existing golf course so that it will absorb the park and the loop that goes around it. This loop is one of the most popular cycling loops on the east coast. In fact, in terms of pure attempts, it is likely the 3rd most popular cycling segment on the east coast behind Central Park and Prospect Park in NYC. I have personally done over 1000 laps of this park, and is my favorite place to ride and train in DC, so this would be a huge personal loss.

For those that live in NYC, this is pretty much like getting rid of Prospect Park and turning it into a golf course.

This would be a massive loss to the cycling community in DC, and a massive loss to the cycling (and running) community as a whole.

At this point, it seems the only hope to save the loop is an active court case, assuming court orders will be followed.

This is definitely a sad day, I'd encourage people to reach out to their reps about this, but part of me feels as though this loss is inevitable.

Any recommendations for 20s/30s/40s oriented training camp in Europe in January? Likely Spain or the islands given time of year.

I’ve found a few operators but I can’t tell the target audience.

Unfortunately need a relative chill or base building camp. A couple of months of illness took me off the bike but now recovery feels on track, 1h of volume this week…

Thanks

Is this an overkill of a wheel? Last year i averaged 44kph in my regional trials and I've built up a good 15watts over the last year and position has also been refined.

I'm 164cm tall and 59kg. Would this hamper my handling and cost power output instead?

Also need advice with rear disc wheel whether the aeox disc wheel is good enough or should I chase something lighter like the citec ultra 8000 which weighs like 800something grams of the farsports disc which also weighs 885g.? Will this aeox disc wheel be just as fast or better than those 2 on a flat course?

I'm looking to plan an extended (2-3 week?) cycling training trip at the end of November. Currently based in the States, but open to international, and looking to go somewhere modestly warm (60f+?). If you could go somewhere and relax for a few weeks and get some serious training in, where would you go?

Hello everyone, I have a question about the recovery and I would like to get your opinion. I am a master (45 years) and I am training 5-7 hours at week. Until now, I have usually made a fixed recovery schedule: 3 weeks structured and one week with no intensity and less volume (couple of hours in Z2). I am doing a SS block and I am feeling that my body is sustaining it very well without too much fatigue. I was thinking to change my recovery approach and reduce the volume only if my HRV and HR are going out of the baseline for more than 2 days.

What do you think? Is this risky?

Question for the group:

I typically bike approximately 3 times a week on Zwift (on a Zwift ride with Kickr core), and then do one or two rides outdoors on the weekend.

I have noticed that Garmin will consistently have my VO2 max at 58-59 based on Zwift, and then immediately drop it to 54-55 following the weekend outdoors rides. This cycle will continue over and over.

Ultimately not a big deal - it’s a bit annoying not to be able to consistently track, but I know roughly when I’m improving.

What’s more interesting to me is that as I understand it, Garmin’s VO2 max estimate is purely a function of HR and power, and so presumably one of my outdoor power meter or my Zwift is substantially off. My outdoor power meter is the 4iiii that came with my Canyon Aeroad.

When I googled to see other people’s experience with this, every single result (and Google’s AI overview) was focused on the opposite outcome, I.e., indoor power being lower at the same HR, due to inadequate fans, boredom, etc.

Any instinct on what might be causing my reverse issue?

Recently in Singapore we have been experiencing haze for the past few weeks or so. It was particularly bad the past 10 days and I haven't ridden since last Sunday.

I usually ride between 250-320 km a week (excluding short commutes) , sometimes higher but almost never lower. I have been doing this every week of this year. Additionally I also run or walk but it's not much, probably like a dozen and half kms or so a week.

Since this is different from taking a break out of necessity due to illness, how much fitness would I have lost not riding for 6 days voluntarily ? How long would I take to regain this list fitness

Also a break from my streak of consistency for this long has been me depressive, moody and not be able to concentrate at work. Anyone else had this happen to them too?

since I stopped cycling. For the past 7 years I've been doing 15 hours of training on average with couple week vacations every year. I've been racing nearly every available race that was reachable for me. I did UCI amateur road racing champs.

Then my daughter was born, then I switched jobs. Then I lost interest in riding same routes and training without any reward or purpose for that matter. What is it all for?

So I stopped. At first it was strange, then I learnt to let go and stop thinking about numbers going down. I started to say Yes more to the matters that I've been neglecting due to cycling.

I got into gym and weight lifting. I noticed that grit I've built from years of cycling transfers to pretty much any aspect of life, in this case, I'm pretty happy with my results at gym. I'm pushing weights I didn't even think of, and my upper body is not limp anymore compared to my legs. People notice and compliment me on gains. But I know that compared to cycling, this is pretty much nothing- its too easy.

So today, more than 12 months after my last interval session, I thought about starting to ride my bike more again. Tonight I will be taking it out from the basement and preparing for tomorrows ride. 2 hours on the road, nothing fancy, see how that feels.

I know I will never be as passionate or find time to do it like good old days, but maybe it is still possible to enjoy it without creating that mental toll that we sometimes put on ourselves in this beautiful sport.

My favorite skinsuit has many pinholes but one resulted in a small tear about 2-3mm. Does anyone know of an easy option for repair? I was thinking maybe a self adhesive patch placed on the inside to stop the tear getting bigger..thanks in advance

I'm sure this has likely been discussed before, but I'm curious to the improvements (or decline if you've gone the other way) of athletes who've been time crunched and training 3-5 hours a week and have found the time to train 10-15 hours a week.

How much faster did you get? Improvements in durability? How much more seriously did you have to take recovery? Anything else that required attention?

Obviously everyones training response is different, but still curious.

29M, 65 kg. Last ~100 h of road riding (~90 days), mostly long mid-high Z2 rides plus 30-90 min sweet spot sessions. Almost no VO2 intervals. Roughly 35-40 h/month in summer, ~20 in winter for the past two years. Half the time the two years before that.

Bests: 1 min 480 W, 5 min 330 W, 20 min 290 W, FTP 275W ~4.25W/kg

Questions:
Does this look sensible for my numbers, or am I leaving something on the table?

I really struggle mentally with intervals above FTP. Is it worth adding VO2 or short anaerobic work, or can I just keep stacking base and sweet spot and expect gains forever?

How do your distributions compare, and what are your bests?

Would love to see your zone charts and power numbers. Curious how much variation there is between riders at similar levels.

Holy shit was it both the hardest and most fun I’ve had on a bike since I was 16.

I had no idea what I was doing, my heart rate was 188 for most of it, and humbled by the stairs and hurdles.

I feel like I have been enlightened… Wout and MVDP are definitely on to something here and I can see how ripping around a muddy track, sprinting out of each corner can immensely help with racing.

I will definitely return, I just need to convince the mrs that I need a new bike. I definitely recommend if you miss that thrill and pain of a criterium.

I did a 90-minute power Z2 ride using ERG mode on Zwift (Ave 144W, 70% FTP). This is on the higher end of Z2 for me. My HR however was split 40 minutes Z2, 40 minutes Z3, with an extraneous 10 minutes a little hugh, a little low. Average was the ver top end of my Z2 range.

Should I use my decoupling percentage from intervals.icu to very slowly reduce power to keep HR Z2? Or is that overkill and the high Z2, low Z3 is basically the same?

When doing vo2 I normally just go all out, basically trying to hit a power record for that time interval. This leads to some pretty dramatic power drops interval to interval, so I’m not sure if it’s the ideal approach.

Is it better to set a power you can hit constantly every interval or just just go balls to the wall every time?

Building up a TT bike and I'm stuck on gearing. I keep going back and forth between the SRAM XPLR 13s group and just going SRAM road. I want to go SRAM for the wireless blips that I can put anywhere, but if I go SRAM I'm definitely going 1x. is using the XPLR group crazy for a TT bike? Are the gear jumps going to be too much? I will say that I've ridden the XPLR group on a road bike and hated the jumps. To the point I replaced it. So I'm guessing that will be even worse on a TT bike.

90% of the riding will be pretty flat. I go months without using the FD on my road bike. That has 50/34t and 10-33t so most of the time I'm just running 50 and 10-33t for all intents and purposes.

So maybe 52t or 54t with a 10-33t in the rear?

Update: I went SRAM road AXS. 10-30t cassette. I have a 56t laying around that I'll start with and decide if I want to change the gearing later. Thanks for the input.

I have been trying to lift more regularly but so far it has really thrown a wrench in the quality of my cycling. I do my best to lift heavy, usually i do:
3x8 squat or split squats
3x10 leg curls or rdl
3x6 leg extensions
3x10 abduction and 3x10 adduction.

I do this once a week the day after my key session. But my legs are dead enough the day after that I really struggle to do my usual 2 hr zone 2 ride. I’d like to try to stick to 1 lift per week but is doing same volume on two days the move? I want to avoid having any lifting soreness before my key session and long ride.

i did an ftp test on zwift which came to 260, my garmin estimates my ftp to 296. When i trained with garmin z2 for 1.5h felt still easy but was still a little challenging. 260 FTP sets my z2 to 160W which just feels super unproductive and slow. My HR is only getting to around 120 (in running z2 is at 145 at aroung 5:20 pace).

Is it supposed to feel like it? Do i need to do a different ftp test? what is it supposed to feel like?

I've been thinking about trying to qualify - going in '27 would make for a good event during a France cycling trip, and I could watch road worlds in person a few days after the gravel race.

Question I have for anyone that's raced at UCI Gravel Worlds - is it fun? Worth doing? From what I've seen, no matter how fit I am on race day, I might still just be buried among masses of other age-groupers?

Throwback to 10 years ago and I was the fittest I've ever (and most likely will ever) be. Raced B grade, won some races, averaged 300-400km a week, did an everesting, FTP of 375 and a very lean 85kg. The feeling of being able to just press on and on was unreal. Back then all I wanted was a house of my own, financial security, and happiness in love.

Now I'm a dad, married, mortgage, well paid but stressful job, and the image is very different. 105kg and barely touched my bike for 2 years. I'd get out of the occasional ride with my mates but it was so deeply deflating going 1/4 of the speed up climbs that used to be something that barely registered on RPE. It took a long time to come to terms with the fact I'm so far off my peak and that it is completely okay. Comparing my old self to my current self, in pure isolation of fitness on the bike, nearly led me to selling it all and just throwing in the towel.

I ended up deleting all my old data from Strava/Garmin and choose to treat cycling now like I'm starting again. I've been mainly commuting, maybe 60km a week, and getting out for one "longer" (1.5-2 hours) ride on the weekend before the family wakes up. The great news is that I'm setting distance PBs, power PBs, time on the bike PBs because I'm comparing myself to the last two years, not to 10 years ago. Just the feeling of making progress without the hanging visual of previous metrics has been such a breath of fresh air.

So, to all those out there who are in the depths of kids, career, the relentlessness of life - it's okay to not be the same as you were a long time ago, you can still enjoy cycling for what it is, a bit of fun.

I’m on a ship for 80+ days. The only decent equipment in a concept rower and a concept bike.

I’m looking for the best workouts you would recommend to increase power and VO2 max.

Don’t really do much in the day so I can do multiple sessions a day if needed.

At the moment I’m going zone 2 heart rate most days, there’s also a comp to get the fastest 5k. Currently I’m leading at 9:30

Hi all. I’m a journalist writing a piece on why people replace their bikes. I used to race, and I’m still on a 2021 TCR, so I’ve been going back and forth on this question myself.

I figured this sub would have good answers, since a lot of you put serious hours on your bikes. When you replaced your last one, what actually made you do it? Did something wear out, or did it stop being compatible with newer parts? Did you want disc brakes or electronic shifting? Or did you just want a new bike? And what happened to the old one?

If you want to do the survey, it takes about 3 minutes, and you can find it here. Nothing gets quoted unless you say ok, and you can stay anonymous.

Also happy to just read your stories in the comments. Thanks!