Of course, the cheeky reply to "How many hours should I ride my bike?" is "As many as possible." That is not true, however truly. More hours on a bike does not always translate into better fitness, more weight reduction, better cardiovascular health, lower chronic disease risk, better mental health, or any of the other possible advantages of riding. If the activity isn't suited for your lifestyle or baseline level of fitness, "just ride more" could be a surefire way for catastrophe. Though there is no ideal amount of hours that would be optimum for every cyclist, these are some decent strategies for determining the ideal weekly training schedule for you.
Starting our discussion with a blank sheet of paper, let us imagine a circumstance in which you have unrestricted time for riding. That's obviously a ridiculous situation as you have other obligations in life, but I start there since it will help you see that infinite training time wouldn't make you much faster or stronger anyhow past a certain point.
What Are You Trying To Accomplish?
Your goals will determine how many weekly training sessions are ideal.
Health And Cardiovascular Fitness
The World Health Organisation's exercise recommendations for generalised cardiovascular fitness are really reasonable: 150–300 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise or 75–150 minutes a week if you include higher intensity efforts. Therefore, since cycling is usually a mixed-intensity sport, 3-5 hours a week is a reasonable beginning point for leisurely riders trying to get the fundamental cardiovascular and metabolic advantages of aerobic exercise.
Improved Performance
Once you choose to use cycling to improve athletic performance, especially your capacity to ride a bicycle longer and at higher speeds, the number of weekly hours you spend on the bike will need to rise and you will have to start organizing your rides to meet the physiological demands needed to reach your goal. Six to ten hours of cycling a week are plenty to get ready for the great majority of amateur cycling events with the right training architecture. This covers brief, high intensity activities including your monthly Tuesday Night World Championship group ride, criteriums, cyclocross, short-track MTB. Along with 2- to 3-hour events including most amateur and masters road races, cross-country MTB races, and medium-length gran fondos, Indeed, six to ten hours a week is plenty for training for longer events such centuries, lengthy gran fondos, gravel events ranging in distance from 100 to 150 km, and marathon MTB races.
Read Also: 20 Minute Cycling Workout Challenge
Competitions For Winning
If your objectives are to be at the sharp end of a competitive peloton, then training more than 10 hours a week becomes desirable. On six hours a week, could you win a city limit sprint or a criterium? Right. The Time-Crunched Cyclist books and programs are based on that entirely, and they are really successful. Looking at that 10-hour minimum can help you win the criterium at Masters National Championships. Similarly in a 150- to 200-mile gravel event, a sub-9 hour Leadville 100 MTB finish at the top of your age group.
Someone Who Rides Ten Hours Or More A Week?
If we're talking "need" rather than "want," however, at least not for most of the weeks of the year, there aren't many amateur cyclists who "need" to ride more than 10 hours a week. There will only be a few weeks in the year when you need to ride more than ten hours, even for elite amateur competitors and athletes getting ready for ultra-distance riding competitions.
Minimum Maximum Concept
Sometimes our trainers call this the "minimum maximum" idea—that is, the lowest amount of time you should spend riding during your period of maximum training volume. Stated differently, an athlete must be able to commit to a minimum of X hours per week for Y number of weeks within a designated time of training prior to a desired event. Applying this idea to, let's say at under 9-hour Leadville 100 MTB finish, a cyclist who can regularly train 8-9 hours per week throughout the year may need to ride 11-13 hours per week during a 4-to 6-week period roughly 2-3 months out from the race (notice, this is just a hypothetical example).
Kari Pettersen
Of course, the cheeky reply to "How many hours should I ride my bike?" is "As many as possible." That is not true, however truly. More hours on a bike does not always translate into better fitness, more weight reduction, better cardiovascular health, lower chronic disease risk, better mental health, or any of the other possible advantages of riding. If the activity isn't suited for your lifestyle or baseline level of fitness, "just ride more" could be a surefire way for catastrophe. Though there is no ideal amount of hours that would be optimum for every cyclist, these are some decent strategies for determining the ideal weekly training schedule for you.
Starting our discussion with a blank sheet of paper, let us imagine a circumstance in which you have unrestricted time for riding. That's obviously a ridiculous situation as you have other obligations in life, but I start there since it will help you see that infinite training time wouldn't make you much faster or stronger anyhow past a certain point.
What Are You Trying To Accomplish?
Your goals will determine how many weekly training sessions are ideal.
Health And Cardiovascular Fitness
The World Health Organisation's exercise recommendations for generalised cardiovascular fitness are really reasonable: 150–300 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise or 75–150 minutes a week if you include higher intensity efforts. Therefore, since cycling is usually a mixed-intensity sport, 3-5 hours a week is a reasonable beginning point for leisurely riders trying to get the fundamental cardiovascular and metabolic advantages of aerobic exercise.
Improved Performance
Once you choose to use cycling to improve athletic performance, especially your capacity to ride a bicycle longer and at higher speeds, the number of weekly hours you spend on the bike will need to rise and you will have to start organizing your rides to meet the physiological demands needed to reach your goal. Six to ten hours of cycling a week are plenty to get ready for the great majority of amateur cycling events with the right training architecture. This covers brief, high intensity activities including your monthly Tuesday Night World Championship group ride, criteriums, cyclocross, short-track MTB. Along with 2- to 3-hour events including most amateur and masters road races, cross-country MTB races, and medium-length gran fondos, Indeed, six to ten hours a week is plenty for training for longer events such centuries, lengthy gran fondos, gravel events ranging in distance from 100 to 150 km, and marathon MTB races.
Read Also: 20 Minute Cycling Workout Challenge
Competitions For Winning
If your objectives are to be at the sharp end of a competitive peloton, then training more than 10 hours a week becomes desirable. On six hours a week, could you win a city limit sprint or a criterium? Right. The Time-Crunched Cyclist books and programs are based on that entirely, and they are really successful. Looking at that 10-hour minimum can help you win the criterium at Masters National Championships. Similarly in a 150- to 200-mile gravel event, a sub-9 hour Leadville 100 MTB finish at the top of your age group.
Someone Who Rides Ten Hours Or More A Week?
If we're talking "need" rather than "want," however, at least not for most of the weeks of the year, there aren't many amateur cyclists who "need" to ride more than 10 hours a week. There will only be a few weeks in the year when you need to ride more than ten hours, even for elite amateur competitors and athletes getting ready for ultra-distance riding competitions.
Minimum Maximum Concept
Sometimes our trainers call this the "minimum maximum" idea—that is, the lowest amount of time you should spend riding during your period of maximum training volume. Stated differently, an athlete must be able to commit to a minimum of X hours per week for Y number of weeks within a designated time of training prior to a desired event. Applying this idea to, let's say at under 9-hour Leadville 100 MTB finish, a cyclist who can regularly train 8-9 hours per week throughout the year may need to ride 11-13 hours per week during a 4-to 6-week period roughly 2-3 months out from the race (notice, this is just a hypothetical example).