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I currently feel pretty fit by my standards. In the last month or so I've done a 125km gravel ride, 100km MTB ride and this weekend we walked about 55km. I'd like to maintain this fitness but won't realistically have the opportunity to repeat those kind of distances due to DIY projects, holidays etc. But what kind of riding would help me maintain that level of fitness should I have the opportunity to do more long rides later in the year. I really enjoyed the 125km gravel ride as it felt relatively comfortable and didn't involve cramps which is pretty unusual for me.
Presuming those rides involved little to no big efforts, you can keep endurance fitness pretty good by doing weekly long rides of approx 3+ hours. Shorter duration/frequency rides without other influencing factors like illness, will simply mean a gradual reduction in your endurance fitness.
Shorter duration, and more of it, if time crunched. I'm back commuting by bike after a broken pelvis. Managed a 3 1/2 hour gravel ride this weekend, but I don't normally get that amount of time. Il not be upto all day efforts/bike packing this year as I've some work to do on endurance after four months off.Â
Shorter and more frequent seems to be a formula that's working for me. I rarely do any rides more than a couple of hours, but I can still crank out multi-day bikepacking things without too much worry.