LSD

[natepac]

when doing these long slow rides for endurance how imporant is cadence in the equation. Rode the other day and tried to keep HR at 120, ended up being 128 for the ride. Does it matter what cadence shoud i be using? i could mash and keep that same HR or could spin and keep it too.

[gtkillerv]

when doing these long slow rides for endurance how imporant is cadence in the equation. Rode the other day and tried to keep HR at 120, ended up being 128 for the ride. Does it matter what cadence shoud i be using? i could mash and keep that same HR or could spin and keep it too.

I'm assuming that you are trying to ride easy, right? If you are trying to make it an easy day try to keep your cadence somewhere between 85-95. That is about an average cadence for a rider. Of course, like with nutrition, everyone is different.
I don't know what your conditioning is so I can't really tell you what you should be doing as far as heartrate goes, but at 120 I would think you are in the easy recovery ride. A ride that you are looking for after a hard ride, or after a good week of trainging.
How long is your ride? How slow of a ride? One riders long slow ride might be the anothers longest, just trying to stay in the paceline, ride. Again, everyone is different, and this goes back to your conditioning.
A group of us may go for a long easy ride and that will consist of 60 to 75 miles while trying to keep the speed down around 22ish. This is not the average speed, but the speed actually ridden. A lot of riders can ride in the front of the pack at 22 mph without taxing their bodies, while there may be some that can sit in the pack at that pace, but can't pull at that speed without putting themselves into oxygen debt.
Look, there is a lot of information that I can keep typing out, but it sounds to me like you are interested in improving your fitness. If you are looking to become faster on the mountain bike. Then ride the road bike, but don't ride by yourself unless you have a structured training plan. Riding alone is better than not riding at all, but you will have nothing to guage yourself off of. Better to ride with other riders. Faster riders. A faster rider will usually be willing to back off a little as long as the slower rider is willing to put forth the effort to pick it up a little. Remember, you can ride faster with less effort while drafting behind a faster rider. I ride with my niece a couple of times a week on the Blackwater Heritage Trail, and she is a newbie to the sport so she is still trying to get her bike legs under her. She is a lot slower than I usually ride, but I am more than willing to back off as long as she proves to me that she is trying to improve and she's not just out for a Sunday cruiser ride. Although, nice just out for the ride ride's are a good thing too. You just can't expect to become a faster rider with only easy rides.
There are enough road riders on this forum that you should be able to find someone to ride with. You are more than welcome to show up on Saturday morning at the Blackwater Heritage Trail to ride with the group. They leave at 0830, and there is every kind of speed represented in the group. From the riders that ride 35-45 miles and only average 14 mph. The group that rides longer distances and average 16-18 mph, one that averages 18-20 mph, and the faster riders that will always do the longer distance and average 20+.
In other words, you will not ride alone.

[natepac]

well rode the "Maygarden mile" firday night, wanted to ride for 2hrs but could only ride for 1hr cuz it was soooo cold. my fingers were killing me, thought i had frost bite. dunno about riding with on the weekend, only got a $100 road bike, curently set up as 1x7 with flat bars, probably get left in the dust. my avg speed was 14mph and i wasnt putting too much effort into it. would proably ride at the same pace if i was just cruizing aroung the neighborhood. basically trying to bump up the endurance. will try again tomorrow night after work and try for 2hrs, just wear 2 pairs of gloves if its cold

[nrsed]

thats a good ride for you Nate. do those slow road rides interspersed with the hard MTB rides and they will do you a world of good. Just bump up the time whenever you won't get frostbite.
Keith , Nate is not afraid to get his heart pumping. He scares me, I feel like I need to don that blood splatter gear like on ER.

[natepac]

Tried again tonight and failed. only rode for 1hr35min. got beat by boredom and hunger, the wife made white chicken chilli, mmmm. its pretty tought to ride that slow (keep HR down)for so long. its like trying to drive the speed limit while driving through century/flomaton....just cant do it.

[streetcornerguru1]

what is the maygarden mile? i want to do it.

[natepac]

jerry maygarden drive behind the airport, bout 1.7mi each way.

[gtkillerv]

Again, everyone is different, but if you do not train at your lactic acid threshold you are not doing much more than just training you butt to be in contact with the seat. So what is your lactic acid threshold? Don't know. Only you can find that out, or you can go off of the 220 minus your age formula to find out what you max heart rate is. From there you want to ride at 70-80 percent of you max. That will have you in the range to produce enough lactic acid for you body to process, but will not put so much in your system that it floods your body and your legs lock up on you. Of course you will want to do this pace at different cadences for different lengths of times to be effective. Lower cadences will build leg strength, while high cadences will build cardio.
Will it still hurt? A little. May even hurt enough that you think your riding too hard, but it's nothing compared to 90 percent or more. The best part is that you will see a different in as little as a months time. You won't be ready for the tour, but you will feel the difference on the road bike as well as in the woods. If you riding a geared mountain bike then you will notice that the gear you are use to riding in isn't enough so you will shift to a higher gear. Of course, translating into a faster speed. Hope you have the skills for your new found speed. If you are riding a single speed then you will notice that those climbs are a lot easier than before. Translating into a faster lap time. And if you do those high speed cadence excersices then you will even increase your speed on the flats and downhills.
There are a lot more training rides to do to cover the whole spectrum, but this will get you that endurance that you are looking for, as well as improving you speed, but you will still feel the pain when the pace gets really fast and you are having to sprint from corner to corner. That's where intervals come in, but that is for a later date.
As for being boring? Sorry. There is not cure for that other than get your head into it, and the time will go by a lot faster. Of course, at the pace you are riding you aren't really covering much distance so you are not feeling a since of accomplishment. Plus, you not going to see a lot of improvement so you will get discouraged with what you are doing.
Just remember. You always feel better when you have completed you 90 minutes of solitude.