Tips for keeping an easy ride… easy!
You know what happens. Your program says go for an easy ride but before you know it you are chasing personal bests on the local hill or another cyclist who had the cheek to overtake you! Or maybe it’s just windy or hilly so you feel like you have to ride at high power. Before you know it you come home and Strava says you have 3 new personal bests and Training Peaks is congratulating you on setting new power records. An easy ride went wrong.
One of the biggest differences between the training of professionals and amateurs is that pros go easy when they need to and hard when they need to. A lot of amateurs fall into the trap of going too hard on their easy sessions which stops them from achieving their potential on hard sessions. Often the reason your program says to go easy is you need to recover from a hard session or save yourself for an upcoming session.
So how do you keep your easy rides easy?
Use alerts
Set alerts on your watch/bike computer to remind you when you exceed your goal effort. Alerts will not prevent you from going too hard but will nag you to reduce your intensity when you do. On Garmin devices alerts usually take the form of a message on the screen as well as a beep and/or vibration.
Set a maximum power alert
I set mine to my Ironman Power. The goal is never to exceed this relatively easy intensity. I’m quite happy riding 10’s of watts below this on an easy ride but I do not want to exceed it.
Set a maximum cadence alert
If your gearing is too easy or you feel too good you may find your cadence creeping up. This is where a max cadence alert comes in. I set mine to 90 so I can comfortably ride at my self selected cadence of about 85 without going over this parameter.
Set a max heart rate alert
I prefer setting a power threshold but heart rate can be valuable too — especially as heart rate measures how much work you are putting into a ride whereas power measures how much work you are getting out. I set my heart rate threshold to around 145 but aim to keep my heart rate in the 130s.
Use your gears (even on the flat)!
If you find that despite your best intentions your power keeps creeping over your goal then switch to an easier gear. At the same cadence your power will drop right down and you’ll be back into your goal range.
If you find when you do this your cadence keeps climbing too high then set a max cadence alert and focus on riding at your normal cadence.
Create a new exercise profile called “Easy ride” with these alerts set
It can be difficult to set these alerts for every ride so if your device supports it (Garmins generally do) then create a new exercise profile called “Easy Ride” and set these alerts on that profile.
This way when you head out the door for an easy ride you can select this profile and all your alerts will be in place. Then when you want to do a harder ride you can select your normal “Ride” profile and not be nagged about your power in the middle of a sprint.
It’s as easy as that. Spend a few minutes setting up your bike computer before your next easy ride and you’ll be well on your way to impressing your coach!