or girls…
This is probably the most common suggestion that riders give when asked how to get faster. I know that I got it, and it led me to head out on a lunch ride with some co-workers. At the time, I’d been riding for about a season, and had only done a small amount of riding with other people.
The “slow warm up” consisted of a 20MPH ride on a slight uphill, and then continued through a flat section. I spent the first 20 minutes dropping off the back, chasing, dropping off the back, chasing, and soon after that…
well, I’m sure you all know what happened then.
So, what is the training benefit of something like that? To do that, I’ll correlate it with some of the better approaches to training.
Riding with the fast guys is like doing intervals. Poorly. It can definitely make you faster, but the pain/reward ratio is higher than a lot of other approaches.
Speed Improvement:Low/Medium
Coolness Factor: Nil. Being dropped is not cool
Cost effectiveness: Low, for the amount of pain you endure
So, what do you think ?