Jshort’s bike thread

stb222 said:
That resonates with me regarding the ftp being one part. As a person who focuses on skills and technique more than fitness i feel like some times fitness is all people worry about (not you).
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That’s always been the case, right? Fitness is easier to track progress with. I fell into that trap many times.
One great thing about having a coach (who is an ex national champ in XCO, as confirmed by @Pearl when I had doubts lol) is that I told her I wanted to make a point of getting time on dirt. And every week there is at least one workout on the MTB on single track. (sometimes structured sometimes not).
 
jShort said:
That’s always been the case, right? Fitness is easier to track progress with. I fell into that trap many times.
One great thing about having a coach (who is an ex national champ in XCO, as confirmed by @Pearl when I had doubts lol) is that I told her I wanted to make a point of getting time on dirt. And every week there is at least one workout on the MTB on single track. (sometimes structured sometimes not).
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You need an eeb for Z2 singletrack rides 😎
 
Cassinonorth said:
This is the inherent issue with tests. Some people are bad at testing indoors... I can't even think of a decent place to do an outdoor test in NJ. Maybe the Columbia trail at 5 am or something.

I'm still doing plenty of suffering doing 20 minute over unders using my AI FTP. no need to do an arbitrary (mostly inaccurate) 20 minute test
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I have the opposite issue where I test very well and have a really high 20-minute power but if I used that FTP to set my zones I’d die IRL.
 
stb222 said:
That resonates with me regarding the ftp being one part. As a person who focuses on skills and technique more than fitness i feel like some times fitness is all people worry about (not you).
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at some point you gotta go after the low hanging fruit, this being a MTB forum, i imagine most people are more tech savvy than fitness savvy

i always said that getting better at riding a mtb is easier than trying to gain more fitness, its also more fun. i think just about everyone would rather ride an mtb as fast as they can versus doing intervals. now a roadie trying to become a MTBer, that is a different story...

also true about the FTP not changing but bumping up different parts of your powerband, i know my sprint sucks and i should practice it, but i dont care to lol
 
Pearl said:
i always said that getting better at riding a mtb is easier than trying to gain more fitness
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You think this is still true? It seems like there are a lot more resources to help you get stronger. A novice rider who rides 2 times a week but never trained…. They do a low volume trainerroad plan for 6 months. They will see huge improvements in power. I don’t know if they could make the same skill improvements.
 
jShort said:
You think this is still true? It seems like there are a lot more resources to help you get stronger. A novice rider who rides 2 times a week but never trained…. They do a low volume trainerroad plan for 6 months. They will see huge improvements in power. I don’t know if they could make the same skill improvements.
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More mountain bikers are willing to go out and ride Creek a couple times a week than spend 2 days on the trainer. They're both low hanging fruit for novice riders but one is fun and the other is not.

I run into far more group riders that are proficient skill wise and have bad fitness than the opposite. It's a part of my "everyone thinks they're intermediate" theory.
 
jShort said:
You think this is still true? It seems like there are a lot more resources to help you get stronger. A novice rider who rides 2 times a week but never trained…. They do a low volume trainerroad plan for 6 months. They will see huge improvements in power. I don’t know if they could make the same skill improvements.
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yes, i think people would rather ride creek/or sourlands and session bits than doing 2 hours of intervals on a saturday morning

if you remove your emotions/feelings from it, of course the 6 hours of proper workouts would see huge gains for a noob. but which is more fun to do?

i argue with kevy about this all the time, tracking fitness is easy, but tracking gains in skills is pretty tough... are you just trying to get better at a downhill strava segment or something? a lap around a certain trail?
 
jShort said:
You think this is still true? It seems like there are a lot more resources to help you get stronger. A novice rider who rides 2 times a week but never trained…. They do a low volume trainerroad plan for 6 months. They will see huge improvements in power. I don’t know if they could make the same skill improvements.
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i definitely think its easier to gain fitness than skill, its just a matter of working, its not as much fun as gaining skills, but certainly easier especially from a time commitment/convenience standpoint (can roll out your back door with a road bike). Also easier to measure
 
jShort said:
You think this is still true? It seems like there are a lot more resources to help you get stronger. A novice rider who rides 2 times a week but never trained…. They do a low volume trainerroad plan for 6 months. They will see huge improvements in power. I don’t know if they could make the same skill improvements.
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You have to apply the same lens to both. Your premise is the guy riding 2x per week, maybe 3 total hours? Maybe 2?

A structured training program is going to work to get you 8-10 hours a week in the saddle. Yes you will see fitness gains. But apply this to trail riding. If the same person rode 8-10 hours off road, they would see similar gains in skills. But how many people ride 8-10 hours off road a week?

It's not possible to quantify skills though, so you can't really make an objective comparison.
 
Norm said:
A structured training program is going to work to get you 8-10 hours a week in the saddle.
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That's why I mentioned a trainer road low volume plan which is like 4-6 hours a week, which would equal 2 MTB rides (elapsed time. 🙂 )
Norm said:
It's not possible to quantify skills though, so you can't really make an objective comparison
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true you can't quantify it like fitness, but you can still make noticeable improvements.


shrpshtr325 said:
i definitely think its easier to gain fitness than skill, its just a matter of working, its not as much fun as gaining skills, but certainly easier especially from a time commitment/convenience standpoint (can roll out your back door with a road bike). Also easier to measure
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this was my way of thinking. Skill are way more fun to work on, but I think a low volume training plan will yield a ton of low hanging fruit for a person who has never done a structured plan.
Pearl said:
if you remove your emotions/feelings from it, of course the 6 hours of proper workouts would see huge gains for a noob. but which is more fun to do?
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well, you got to make sacrifices to get fit. If it was easy, everyone would do it.
 
jShort said:
That's why I mentioned a trainer road low volume plan which is like 4-6 hours a week, which would equal 2 MTB rides (elapsed time. 🙂 )
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You'll still see a lot of skill gains in 4-6 hours a week. Well...you can. If you ride Lewis Morris you may not see the same.

Which also brings up a good discussion. You can make tremendous skills gains at Lewis Morris as well, but you need to go faster. Which begs the need for more fitness. If you're out of shape, the skill gains will be less because, well, you don't go as fast and will need less developed skills.

So it's probably good to develop both.
 
Norm said:
You'll still see a lot of skill gains in 4-6 hours a week. Well...you can. If you ride Lewis Morris you may not see the same.

Which also brings up a good discussion. You can make tremendous skills gains at Lewis Morris as well, but you need to go faster. Which begs the need for more fitness. If you're out of shape, the skill gains will be less because, well, you don't go as fast and will need less developed skills.

So it's probably good to develop both.
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great points. Riding very technical trails gets much easier when you're not gassed. When people dab or crash, there's a good chance they're out of breath and HR is probably redlined.
 
jShort said:
great points. Riding very technical trails gets much easier when you're not gassed. When people dab or crash, there's a good chance they're out of breath and HR is probably redlined.
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That was me for many years. Skills were good, fitness was shit. Lost some weight with a fitness program, while following an off-season cycling plan, and have been seeing results I never thought possible at this age. I can easily sustain longer efforts with lower HR now.

But I also SS full-time now, so there's still something wrong with me.
 
saw a little kitty walking around my backyard this morning

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