My Morning Commute
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I want to ride faster on my commute. There are many times, especially in the afternoon, when I don’t feel fast enough to jump out on to the Sligo Creek Parkway. So I take the path, which is slower (but safer if I can’t maintain a faster speed).
So, what are ways to increase my commute speed? I don’t do too many non-commute rides, but am seriously considering buy a trainer for the evening/cold times when I wouldn’t mind spinning mindlessly while watching TV. I also need to be careful not to completely kill myself on my commutes. Back in the hotter days, I did that a couple of times and had to metro home
@Certifried 33294 wrote:
I want to ride faster on my commute. There are many times, especially in the afternoon, when I don’t feel fast enough to jump out on to the Sligo Creek Parkway. So I take the path, which is slower (but safer if I can’t maintain a faster speed).
So, what are ways to increase my commute speed? I don’t do too many non-commute rides, but am seriously considering buy a trainer for the evening/cold times when I wouldn’t mind spinning mindlessly while watching TV. I also need to be careful not to completely kill myself on my commutes. Back in the hotter days, I did that a couple of times and had to metro home
For better or worse, I cannot bring myself to do any sort of organized training regimen, so I struggled with this too. A big part of my problem is that I almost always ride alone, so I tend to dawdle unless I stay really focused on my speed. Getting a good cyclocomputer definitely helped with that, especially combined with tools like Strava, where I can see how my performance stacks up against others, and set speed goals for different sections of my rides/commutes.
Another thing that helped was spending more time in bigger gears. Since both my current bikes are triples, that meant spending more time in the big ring. My goal doing that was to gear up and keep my cadence up as well, resulting in higher speeds. What I noticed was that, in many instances, maintaining a higher speed in a higher gear doesn’t take much more effort than going moderately fast does. After I started gearing up, I realized that I had more gas in the tank (so to speak) than I thought, and I could actually crank out some decent speeds for longer distances. Before, I was always afraid that getting into the higher gears would burn up all my energy, but now I realize I can push decently hard on my commute without actually wearing myself out.
@Certifried 33294 wrote:
I also need to be careful not to completely kill myself on my commutes. Back in the hotter days, I did that a couple of times and had to metro home
How about killing yourself on the way home? Breathe hard. Make it hurt. Turn yourself inside out. Make your vision go blurry.
If you always ride at a moderate pace then you get good at riding at a moderate pace. If you sprinkle in high intensity efforts you’ll get better at riding faster. Look at doing intervals. Have a good section between stop lights that you can
“Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it’s absolutely cleansing. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain… Once, someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. ’Pleasure?’ I said. ’I don’t understand the question.’ I didn’t do it for pleasure, I did it for pain. -LANCE ARMSTRONG”
Commute this morning was AWRRRRRRRRRRSOME!
I missed you, commute! (I shall miss you again next week when I have to work in Fairfax! Nooooooooo!)
It was a mite brisk out – I wore a short-sleeved running shirt with a short-sleeved jersey, armwarmers, and my full gloves. Regular shorts, socks & shoes. I was cold for about the first 15 minutes and then I was pretty happy as long as I was in the sun. A helmet liner or cap might have been nice. I definitely need to get some more cold-weather kit!
I discovered that I can’t really ring my bell because my gloves are a little too big
Oops. I switched to my regular gloves once I got over the bridge as my hands were too warm by then anyway.I only saw 4 other cyclists out on the trail – where was everyone today? The bike rack at work was stuffed full of bikes so people must have gotten here somehow
Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Commuting:
So I’m cycling along, thinking about a friend of mine who mentioned she was running the Army 10 Miler, and thinking that I’d like to run that some day. Then I got to wondering what day it actually was on and such-like, and started thinking how convenient it would be if she got in touch with me and asked me if I wanted to run it with her.
Got to work, pulled out my phone to finish my ride on Strava, and there was a message from that very friend asking if I wanted to run the 10 Miler.
I CAN PREDICT THE EXTREMELY NEAR FUTURE!
@Tim Kelley 33302 wrote:
How about killing yourself on the way home?
Tim
I thought you liked me Thanks for all the suggestions! I kind of figured “intervals” would be a primary reply. I’ve read about riding at the same pace makes you really good at riding at the same pace. I try to push myself harder each time, but my average speed is only barely going up. I know some people say the best way to get better at riding is to ride heh. So, as hard as it is for me to make myself slow down, I’ll do that. There are some nice spots on my commute where I can ride hard, followed by spots where I can transition to a recovery speed. How about ‘recovery days’? Am I at the level where I actually need many recovery days? I know that sometimes (some days) I’m a bit sore, not so much that I can’t walk like when you first start a new workout, but enough that I worry I might need a little recovery time.
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