Hi there, as title says, I’m going on a bike ride from Copenhagen to Stockholm in a month’s time. I’ve been riding for a long time and have done many centuries but that’s a while ago now. Last year I biked through the Alsace and into Germany and averaged 50-70km a day over 8 days. That was tough (wine made it better), mainly because I’ve not been on a bike for a couple of years until that point.
I’ve got an hour a day in between all other commitments to ride. I’ve just recently signed up to zwift. How can I best use the program to help me train? What should I train? Who wants to ride with me? So many questions!
This is less about doing intervals in Zwift and more about doing consistent riding as much as possible. You need hours on the bike, day after day. You cannot really shortcut that.
Are you sure you really only have 1 hour per day? Can one of the other commitments be dropped?
At least if you can make 2 hours per day and ride only on Alpe du Zwift or Ventop, that will help. And don’t use workout modes, use your gears and learn to enjoy the steep gradients.
I do ride Alpe du Zwift twice daily around 5pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, beginning from Temple Trek starting location. Happy for people to join if they want to do hills.
Yes I was thinking of squeezing in lunchtime rides, but that is work dependent clearly. Start and end of days are kids dominated (Im a single dad), but I can possibly do an hour on each end.
Denmark/Sweden is pretty flat so I do agree that my biggest challenge will be time on the saddle.
I’d probably be looking at a few weeks of sweet spot training for a quick boost but I would characterize the approach as “just getting through it” and making sure you don’t start the big trip with a lot of fatigue, so you don’t have 4 weeks of training time.
That’s good that they are pretty flat, getting the strength in your legs will make the 100km rides go faster. The rest is saddle/bike comfort, going slowly can sometimes make that worse.
Do what you can, but the focus is getting in the time and working your legs and not worrying about racing others or intervals. Sweet spot and going flat out isn’t what you want to do, that’s just going to run the risk of getting injured if you haven’t done anything much already - so ignore that suggestion.
You just need to get your base, which means just riding, getting a bit of strength but not at super intensity.
Too late to panic train, you should’ve started a few months ago!
Get as much time on the bike as you can in the next 3 weeks, do some longer endurance rides if you can find a few days where you have more than 1 hour. Do at most 2 days a week of higher intensity with some sweet spot like Paul said for your 1 hour days. Make sure to rest a lot. One week before dial it back and just do some light recovery rides. Take an extra rest day or 2. Try to get extra sleep.
Practice your nutrition strategy. On the 100km days trip make sure to eat and drink a lot (not too much wine!). If you can handle caffeine make sure to drink extra during the trip. Mid ride coffees, red bulls, carbs, pastries. Have fun!
I would say not to worry about intensity, but focus on time. Time in the saddle will get your whole body used to being in a riding position with weight only on those contact points. The slower you are the more hours that will be, but if you only train for one or two hours at a time then by hour three and four your arms/hands are likely to ache, your butt will be in need of frequent stops, and anything that doesn’t fit absolutely perfectly will be making itself known.
In terms of Zwift, I think you would be advised to try some pace it rides to find a balance with comfort and speed, that generally roam around flat or rolling courses. Try to work in a couple of 100km rides late in week 2 and into week 3 - pacer rides or group rides of a suitable category.
On the funny side, I was thinking it might be time to learn a few quick invocations to the Greek gods:
a) Hermes, god of travel, roads, speed, and athletes.
b) Atlas, the Titan condemned to hold up the heavens for eternity. If that’s not endurance, I don’t know what is.
c) Hephaestus, god of the bike shop and emergency mechanical repairs.
On the serious side, I’d probably pick up some OTC lidocaine spray, because that’s a serious amount of saddle time if you’re not used to it. At some point, everything starts to hurt and you still have to keep going.
If I had to do something like this within a month, and assuming I was already reasonably fit, I’d focus on a few very long rides, indoors or outdoors, with plenty of recovery afterward rather than stacking a bunch of 1-hour rides. The goal would be to expose both the body and mind to the discomfort and duration you’ll actually face. In Zwift, you can take on some of the longest routes and go badge hunting, making it both an exciting and grueling experience.