My former commute was 35 minutes each way with a big climb one way. I found that I could push hard and take a couple minutes off if, but it was seldom worth the extra effort because the fatigue would really add up.
Instead, I kept the rides as easy as possible. This, plus 2 or so interval workouts a week and I was in the best bike shape of my life (so far).
Now my commute is a flat 15 minute ride each way and I’m just getting back into training. Haven’t been in this bad of shape in a long time lol
I commuted to work and back alot for a 2-year span. I had a 40-60min commute depending on route choice. I would sometimes put in some hard intervals on the climbs on the way, some climbs were 2-6mins long. Also, sometimes I just rode strong and steady (80-85% ftp) one way in. I had really good fitness off of doing that for a few months. Never felt like jumping on a trainer afterwards, but I had good rural type roads to do whatever training I wanted. However, I did hit the gym and lifted legs heavy once or twice a week once I got into work for a while.
I commute 9 miles each way (18mi round trip). This adds about 80min per day of riding, but it’s predominantly “junk miles”
However, I still do this because it’s either 45 min riding my bike or 35 minutes in a cage driving through traffic and cussing at everyone. Sanity.
Try to keep the intensity down and don’t sprint and I think it’s fine. My problem is I’m either rushing to the office or rushing home for dinner so really need to make sure I don’t go too hard.
As others have mentioned, the extra volume definitely adds to the fatigue so make sure you are listening to your body!
I have a similar commute…30-40 minutes each way. I found that when structured training is added in you must be extremely sensitive to building too much fatigue. Keeping the commute low intensity as others have said is important. Here are two other things I do on my low volume plan:
If fatigue is getting high, I skip one of my trainer sessions. Usually it’s the lowest intensity session scheduled.
I use workout alternates often and select a similar workout (progression level) with a shorter duration when I feel like it. Usually the shorter version just skips the zone 2 or tempo.
On nice days with Vo2 scheduled I will often do those on the commute since I have a route option that works for that (stupid hilly)
Great points Dylan. I’ve just got to work here. This morning I actively made the effort to soft pedal. My route is very hilly to be honest so it makes it a challenge. I wasn’t using a power meter so I don’t have the data in that respect but RPE was a solid 2 I’d say. Pretty low avg HR. And feel super fresh. Had a little extra breakfast. This evening it will be mostly downhill making the ride home very easy and I will attempt a 45 minutes interval session and see how I feel. Many thanks for your input man. Really want to use my car as little as possible without digging myself in a massive hole.
I appreciate that statement! for my hilly commute I had to change the gearing on my bikes. My main commute bike now has a 46/30 front and 11/42 in the rear. I can JUST keep under my zone 2 cap in my 30/42 low gear so long as I choose the flatter option. My other bike is 1x so I use a 36 front and 11/50 rear.
I do feel silly spinning 90 rpm going a brisk walking speed but that Is the price of keeping burn out at bay.
Totally, I’m using the hardtail at the moment. So doing the crazy spinning too, and normally I’ve been grinding and probably doing 250w + however I reckon I maybe kept it under 200 this morning. Feel like it made a big difference. Perhaps this is the trick!
I personally wouldn’t commute to and from work, and then get on the turbo. See the commute days as endurance rides, keep them fairly easy, and count them towards the weekly riding.
I always like doing the hardest ride at the beginning of the week, and then doing whatever rest needs to be done. I rest Sunday and Monday, so Tuesday is my hard ride for the week.
I commute two days a week to work (the rest I work from home) and my weekly schedule looks like this:
What’s the difference between commuting and structured training if you’re doing workouts while you’re riding? Are any of you able to do 10 sessions a week of structured training? It’s a different strategy of fatigue management for sure.
I live where I can ride year round and would bet few people here are putting in the consistency I do.
Edit: Forgot this is the “trainer road” forum so you guys probably think you have to do workouts on a trainer with erg mode for them to work but that’s not the case lol.
If you’re doing workouts during your commute then that is structured training. But that’s not what you said. You said Instead of structured training
I rarely train indoors or use TR. I use to only do my intervals outdoors after my commute back from work. So this topic is quite relevant.
It all depends on your goals and how competitive you wan’t to be. If i stopped structured training and only commuted I will lose a lot of fitness. Particularly specific fitness that I need for XC racing.
At peak fitness I am closing in at 5wkg - I am not gonna get there by just commuting. Commuting is like walking to work; you might go for walks 10hours a week but its not gonna help you run a fast marathon…
Yeah I guess I meant using the commute time for doing structured work, that was poorly phrased on my part. I’m just saying nothing is stopping anyone from doing intervals or whatever on their commute, and if you have to do it (commute) anyway, why not? Otherwise it’s just extra fatigue that isn’t helpful.
The only drawback is not being flexible with workouts. Depending on the route one needs to be more opportunistic about what you can do. For example in the morning I can really only do one short and one long vo2 or threshold interval, then on the way back I have a longer ride on a different route that presents different options.
What I meant about consistency though was it seems to help a lot, even if I’m not doing a workout that’s supposedly specific to a particular goal.
I commute by bike 1, 2 or max 3 times per week : 21km each way
I have a powermeter on the bike and do a planned TR workout during the morning ride in. For the ride back I usually set a Recess or steady endurance TR workout running, as a reminder to keep the power low - either adding Z2 if I’m feeling OK, or staying really low for recovery if not.
I can’t actually remember the last time I did an indoor workout.
I do accept that always doing outddor workouts probably isn’t quite as effective as doing indoor trainer rides, and I’ll happily go way over/under power target for roundabouts or red lights respectively.
Dealz (which is a poundland store) used to have both, but not since brexit.