Commuting / Training

Ok, as mentioned on the other topic I find it a bit hard to increase the hours of training a week required to go longer.

I know others on here have commuted to work and drastically increased their bike kilometres by doing so.

I'm going to be looking at commuting using bike paths and therefore the roadie isn't appropriate (some gravel paths) and will be on the Hybrid. Will be roughly 30kms each way - roads are not an option as will be primarily Springvale road for those that know the route - plenty of trucks and I'm not looking to take big risks with a young family on that road. At present the bike seems to be my most lacking discipline.

When does this not make any difference to training and become junk miles? Haven't thought ahead to how many times a week etc as yet either.

Junk miles is an interesting topic. I get the gist of some of the arguements but not all.

There are still heaps of benefits. Weightloss, recovery, intervals, tempo, threshold, endurance.... etc pretty much everything except VO2 max as it is just too dangerous to do it properly on a commute. My point is that over that 30km/1 hour (done twice) you have so much potential to work all of those systems. My work commute is 29.6km eacch way and I do various things with it and it makes up anywhere up to 50% of my weekly kays. Having a power meter really does help but yoou can very easily do some pretty good stuff with that amount of time. That is potentiallly 10 hours a week in the saddle. 10x 1 hour sessions of anything executed around some form of plan willl be gold. For something way different, you could ride to wrok, run home then have the next day as rest and drive in to get your bike. Maybe catch the tram and have a recovery ride back.

So many options.

i am new to the work commute but funily enough i also work on springvale road, assuming you mean melbourne.

i have been trying to commute twice a week the last few months. is it better than normal training, probably not, but it is the best you can do with the time available.

i can ride 90mins to get there, but i stretch this out to 2hrs with a couple of hill reps, then i do 3 hrs on the way home. remember if in a rush you can always cut it short. so this is a 5 hour bike day, then swim at lunch, 6hrs. twice a week and you are cutting some serious kms before the weekend even comes around.

i would recomend using a straight out mtb - with mtb tyres. you will travel slower, but your hr will be higher, making it safer for bike paths, but ensuring you are still working. reliability in terms of punctures etc can be massivly increased over a road bike, if you go tubeless tyres too. it will also increase the length of time the ride takes.

ive always been amused at triathletes attitude towards "junk miles". if your body's working, it's adapting

In my opinion (not that I really know anything), I think that unless you're doing decent volume exactly as prescribe by your plan/coach, those so called 'junk miles' are still money in the bank !!
Especially if you're saying you struggle to increase training time.

I have a short commute comparatively and still think it's beneficial for me. just roll the legs over, recovery. I personally now have to work on extending the ride a little I guess for even more benefit

First day of doing the commute this morning after the weather of the last few weeks showed me up as being soft. Found the pathway isn't as straight forward as I hoped (Eastlink bike path for those that know it), but is giving me a good chance to doing some accelerations etc, probably more so than if on the roady. Feeling it in the legs a small bit sitting here at work so figuring it must be doing some good, will keep at it with gradual increases in number of days per week slowly.

No plans to run the whole distance as yet though, will work back up to it, public transport is severely lacking around this area with only slow buses so going to take a bit of thinking to incorporate it into it. Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Hi Joe..

I've just started with the occasional work commute as well..
What I'm finding works is driving to work Tuesday morning with bike in car, then I ride to Sandown, do a crit, then ride home, leaving my car at work.. The next morning I can ride either straight to work for an easy 1/2 hour recovery ride, or I can extend it finish at work. That way you've got the car there the next day to drive home if you wish, and you're seperating the rides by a sleep.
Then depending on your work, you could possibly leave the bike @ work the night you've ridden in, and alternate riding & Driving to and from work.. You could start it on a Monday so you drive in that morning with as many work outfits and food in the car as you need for the week to save carrying too much in a backpack..

big gain for me was starting to ride to/from training sessions.

riding to run club
riding to swim club
riding to cycle groups / bunches etc

if your driving you should be riding IMO. this leaves your specific bike sessions for quality training instead of 6hour epic weekend rides...

It's all money in the bank for the average athlete.

As long as you survive!

I was thinking about this topic this morning.
I had an out and back ride to Cleveland Pt.
The first 20 odd kms were OK, but the last 25-30 or so were pretty crap with spurts of slighlty less crap.
MY HR actually got back down to 80 at one point.
Hopefully, the "money in the bank" sentiment is right.