Whats better to train on a heavy or light bike ??

[widowmaker]

I have borrowed my cycling buddy's Giant carbon bike and whilst It weigh far less, my steelie just feels 'right'

I did find that whilst I ride up hills in the saddle almost all the time, and only exceptionally get out of the saddle. The Giant I found myself getting out of the saddle almost all the time

I am getting obsessed with how much my bike and equipment weighs so got the kitchen scales out and weighed the equipment

Cage, bottle (full), lights, pump, speedo, tube, multitool and levers and it weighs 1.540 kgs :shock:

The bottle weighs 0.834 grams on its own :shock:

Time to employ a support car

 

[Midlife]

I used to ride in support cars.........we were no help unless you punctured or something broke

BITD I gave up the "training bike" in the end as I could afford to run my road bike all year long what drove the idea of a bike for training was the lack of money to run things and the idea that twiddling a fixed gear kept you fit over the winter.

Shaun

 

[wassertreter]

I like to train heavy and race light. Bucking all known advice I also mix up fixed gear riding, SS riding, road bike riding and a couple of different mountain bike riding. I think all the different positions and changes help my body from being to particular. It works for me.

Then the known advice is not entirely flawless ;-)
It's a well accepted approach in many different sports to start preparing for an event using a more widely spread variety of activities and workouts, and then successively over the months train more specifically for the event in question. Once you have a good base, you can more quickly put on the very specific "finishing touches" on your shape for the next race, be it TT, hillclimb, crit, or else.

 

[daugs]

Agree with the above posts that the training, particularly as build up to a race, should mimic the race situation so that all kit etc is the same to remove any variability and bring the focus onto performance and execution, should say not done this from a cycling perspective but when I rowed (when much younger) and had some very good coaches - far better than my ability warranted !

 

[unclechet]

Thank you gents! I came from a power lifting back ground if you can believe it. We used to train like body builders in the early stages of getting ready for a meet. As the weeks went by we dropped many of the body building exercises and ended up just doing the basic power lifting lifts. I adopted that to my cycling. The periodization part. I've now been racing bicycles 10 years longer than I power lifted but the training still works. Just this last weekend I won a Sport 50+ mountain bike race. All the folks that were shaking their heads when they saw me riding my 90's Fuji entry level mountain bike still think I'm nuts though.............they also think I'm crazy when I ride my coaster braked 1971 Schwinn Varsity as a winter trainer. I love riding it though and I think it's great training.

 

[widowmaker]

Thank you gents! I came from a power lifting back ground if you can believe it. We used to train like body builders in the early stages of getting ready for a meet. As the weeks went by we dropped many of the body building exercises and ended up just doing the basic power lifting lifts. I adopted that to my cycling. The periodization part. I've now been racing bicycles 10 years longer than I power lifted but the training still works. Just this last weekend I won a Sport 50+ mountain bike race. All the folks that were shaking their heads when they saw me riding my 90's Fuji entry level mountain bike still think I'm nuts though.............they also think I'm crazy when I ride my coaster braked 1971 Schwinn Varsity as a winter trainer. I love riding it though and I think it's great training.

You gotta post some pictures of those bikes

 

[unclechet]

Ask and ye shall receive. These are the bikes I've been training on all season. Fuji - long slow rides on the rec path and dirt roads. Also 1 minute intervals. I worked up to 16. Tommasini - primarily used for a twice a month 10 mile time trial. I was one of the few riding a normal road bike and it was easily the oldest there. And older than most of the riders. Steam Roller - tempo riding on the rec path. Karate Monkey - I used this bike on the off weeks of the road TT for my own 10 mile rec path TT. Always into the wind. Lots of weeks this summer it was over 100 degrees when I was riding so there wasn't to many other idiots out on the rec path for me to endanger. Besides the fastest I ever did the course I only averaged 18 mph or so. Heavy bike, low gearing (relatively) and into the wind makes for a good work out. Last is my winter trainer, my Varsity. Sorry, I loaded the pix up in reverse order but I think you can sort it.

 

[glpinxit]

I train on a heavy hybrid with slicks on MTB rims. It is comfortable and expendable in winter salt (and the beneficiary of hand me down upgrade parts from my full susser). But from March to October I try to get out at least once a month on the road bike to ensure the muscles that aren't adapted to its more extreme riding position do adapt. Also because I need to know how my body and the bike work together in different situations - especially on big hills.
For me it is obvious that you make training comparatively harder by riding something heavier as much as possible.

 

[vonhoolio]

Depends what your training for. If your going to race others on a light bike and you can put in some miles on a heavier bike during training, then within reason it should help. I know I ride a budget tourer most days to work and when I jump on a lighter road bike I deal with the inclines much faster than if I just ride the light bike all the time.
Might not work like that with the pro's but for me with my limited free time to train it seems to do the trick.