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Here's a 'how long is a piece of string' question, but I'm genuinely struggling to get my head round MTB miles.
Quite familiar with local road miles, and how many to ride (and how fast) for training/recovery etc... how many days to have off depending on how I feel. Been doing that for 13 years, so I'm in tune with it.
Last week I covered about 70 miles on the MTB, and 40 on the road... I took three days off riding to let my RHR drop again but I'm still rather slow and sore.
Is it fair to say 10 MTB miles = 20 road miles, or is there a loose guide to follow? Anyone here do both?
Just use time. Mileage is too terrain dependent. If effort is similar - a similar average HR - a 3 hour road spin is equivalent to a 3 hour MTB spin for me.
You can get fancy with TSS and intensity factors if you have a power meter but I feel they underestimate load from MTB rides where you can be working very hard on a technical descent, without actually pedalling.
Is it fair to say 10 MTB miles = 20 road miles, or is there a loose guide to follow? Anyone here do both?
This question has popped up on here before although I'm not going to wander off and try and find it in amongst new-forum-world.
I think it's very terrain dependent both for road and MTB. 10 MTB miles in the Lake District is much harder than 10 MTB miles around Cannock for example.
I seem to remember from previous threads on this sort of thing, the general guesstimate was about 1 MTB mile = 3 or 4 road miles. Or in terms of time / effort, about 15 - 20 mins off road = about 45 - 60 mins on-road.
Now we can introduce gravel and make it even more complicated! 😉
I’d go by time and average HR. TSS and relative effort on the various apps can be useful as a rough guide.
Just use time
This. I'd argue that even comparing road with road, unless they are in similar terrain and done at similar intensity, it's pretty irrelevant.
For me on local rides total ascent is a useful measure a 1000m of up off road, on bridleways is like a 1000m of up on road
But a lap of woburn is like 130m of ascent and it’s much more energy than that ascent on bridleways
I hate to say it but the strava training tool does an ok job adding up how much you’ve done in a week based on time and pulse
By my experience, get 10 hours a week of mtbing in for a few weeks and you're gonna easily be fit enough for 24hr events, long distance and multi day events
I use the Strava fitness thing. It feels about right with a heart rate monitor.
Beasting it up/down the climbs feels similar to me on any type of bike.
I find road rides are more continuous steady efforts, while MTB rides are more closer to short intervals.
Thanks for the replies - I'll try to make sense of it.
I might just base it on average 'watts' (Strava estimate) x hours. That partially takes away the terrain element, though as rightly pointed out, some descents are more challenging/fatiguing than others where zero watts are effectively being pedalled (but I guess the recorded HR would indicate effort). 🤷♂️
By my experience, get 10 hours a week of mtbing in for a few weeks and you're gonna easily be fit enough for 24hr events, long distance and multi day events
Adaptations for riding 2-2.5h+ (constant efforts, no breaks) are different to 1-1.5h rides. So 5x 1h rides aren't the same as 2x 2.5h rides from what I gather.
The first 1-1.5h of intense exercise mostly relies on glycogen stores (old research quoted from memory - not sure what the latest thoughts are), so if it's still deemed true, one would need to adapt to using up that glycogen and pushing on.
Once past that, 2.5h isn't too different to 5h or 8h - it's just a case of building stamina and consuming the right fluids/foods to keep going.
But anyway, a 24h event seems a bit scary. Longest I did on the road was 140 miles and I was Donald Ducked. 😂
@oms my proposed 10hr training time is based on zero scientific research haha, it's just worked very well for me. Even though I haven't managed to maintain 10hrs every week since November, I do feel like I could cycle forever at the moment without fatigue.
@oms my proposed 10hr training time is based on zero scientific research haha, it's just worked very well for me. Even though I haven't managed to maintain 10hrs every week since November, I do feel like I could cycle forever at the moment without fatigue.
I was my fittest when I just went riding... for the fun of it.
Paralysis by analysis can happen quite easily, so heck, if something works for you keep on doing it! 🚴♂️💨
PS In this weather, I'm building plenty of arm chair stamina.
Another one who goes by time. I can do 16 miles on the MTB that can take 3 hours on the MTB, or just over an hour on the road bike.
TBH it's not even possible to equate MTB miles with other MTB miles.
If anyone disagrees with you on this then send them north on the trail from Fords of Avon Refuge....
As others have mentioned its hard to say as it depends on terrain and how hard you push.
My rule of thumb is MTB mies are twice as hard on the rides I do so a hard 20 mile MTB ride feels the same afterwards as a 40-50 mile road ride.
As many said, time / intensity in the saddle. Intensity in relationship to threshold HR or FTP.
I would suggest that unless you use power, heart, FTP etc then it is pointless bothering. Maybe trying to judge how knackered you are when you get in might be as good as it gets. I would say that road is the hardest as I go for maybe 4 hours without stopping unless it is for a slash or a junction. A day might see a quick lunch break. MTBing means stopping all the time, even if it is for a few seconds. Point is that it isn't really possible to say unless you are riding and recording at pro level . Maybe.
I could go on a four hour road ride and work really hard and suffer a bit and come back knackered. But when I go out say to Glentress or something I can feel just as knackered after 4 hours, but it doesn't really feel the same doing it because it's more in the moment fun.
IME with MTB - at least the "go out to a venue with your mates and ride" type rather than a fast XC loop - there's a lot more zone 2 chatty spinning up big hills with some eyeballs out technical/steep climbing parts sprinkled in, and then when you go down it's a whole other different type of effort that also takes its toll on core and upper muscles, with the effect increased the more technical it is.
Road rides when descending (which can be half the ride in some areas) is not really much of an effort unless you're like, chasing MVDP down the Poggio or something. At least not in my case. But it's easier to sit at a threshold effort for a very long time and get a much more focused workout in.
IME with MTB - at least the "go out to a venue with your mates and ride" type rather than a fast XC loop - there's a lot more zone 2 chatty spinning up big hills with some eyeballs out technical/steep climbing parts sprinkled in, and then when you go down it's a whole other different type of effort that also takes its toll on core and upper muscles, with the effect increased the more technical it is.
Road rides when descending (which can be half the ride in some areas) is not really much of an effort unless you're like, chasing MVDP down the Poggio or something. At least not in my case. But it's easier to sit at a threshold effort for a very long time and get a much more focused workout in.
I was going to say the opposite, but I'm heavy. I find I'm pretty much going hard on the flats all the time and then maxing out when the road goes up. There's probably only 10% of the ride that's a 'rest' if that. Although I've friends who find the opposite, they're light so struggle more on fast/flat sections and descents, but enjoy the climbs as they're relatively doing less work than the group. Looking at my HR from Sunday it's pretty much 150bpm and flat for the whole 4 hours. Except the steep climbs are at 170, and there's a few very short rests where it drops to 130.
I don't think there's any universal comparison you can make.
Gravel feels like it's about 0.75-0.8 of road average speeds and I've done long gravel rides.
But a 2 hour MTB ride can be really tough if it's short sharp climbs and a group that's going quicker than you're comfortable keeping up with.
2 hours group riding on the road is much smoother and less fatiguing.
12 hours on the road is do-able. I just couldn't do that off-road, I'd crash both from mental and maybe upper body exhaustion.
People may have individual differences, but for me the 'fun' amount of MTBing is somewhere between 2 and 5 hours riding time. More than that and it just becomes grinding out the miles. On the road I'd be contemplating breakfast after that......
OTOH crits, track racing, formal chain-gangs are a completely different kettle of fish to club-runs, like comparing gravel to the Golfie.
I would suggest that unless you use power, heart, FTP etc then it is pointless bothering.
Sort of this.
But I'd suggest that road riding is inherently about base, sweet spot and threshold riding. MTBing is VO2 max and NM power. As such if you wanted to 'train' then the optimum would be a winter/spring on the road bike and then lots of MTBing in the run up to You
You can do base miles on an MTB, and you can do sprints on a road bike. But IMO that would require going out with that as the plan not just going for a ride.
You can do base miles on an MTB, and you can do sprints on a road bike. But IMO that would require going out with that as the plan not just going for a ride.
I think this is the key point. The bike and terrain lend themselves to a certain type of riding that is inherently different and is a differing type of fitness.
As someone who has exclusively MTB'd for the last decade, I've got a fairly decent but nothing to brag about FTP based on a 15-20 min ramp test. A short effort that ends in a high level exertion - ideal for the MTBer.
No way could I hold my alleged FTP for an hour. Find a roadie with the same FTP and weight and make us do a chain gang together and they would wipe the floor with me.
As a rule of thumb I use 1 road mile = 3 off road miles (all Peak District). And of course in km 😀 . But as above the road rides are more likely to be steady efforts while MTB is more 'sprint' style exertion between periods of Z2 on climbs.
Longer road rides seem to take more recovery for me though. I presume this is because my body is better adapted to the start-stop nature of MTB.
How your body will react to road vs MTB miles is quite personal.
Out of interest, I just looked up two recent rides (within a week of each other). One was a road ride on my road bike the other was a "gravel" ride which was a mixture of road and "champagne gravel" (very fine, smooth surface) on my gravel bike.
(The "gravel" ride also included about 3.5km of singletrack, though with a good surface. Overall, the tarmac was probably 70%).
I was wearing a heart rate monitor both rides, and both bikes have power meters.
According to Garmin, these are the stats:
Road ride
100km
577m ascent
4:17 riding time
151W average
2771 Calories
215 TSS
226 Exercise Load
Gravel ride
86km
746m ascent
4:48 riding time
134W average
2849 Calories
187 TSS
161 Exercise Load
So, fairly similar amount of calories consumed but the road ride was "harder" (TSS, Exercise Load and avg power all higher), yet I felt a lot more knackered after the gravel ride (I was fresh as a daisy after the road ride!). Just for sake of comparison, the "gravel" was exceptionally smooth - I could have easily ridden it on 23mm race tyres.
I guess my only conclusion is that tarmac is a LOT less effort than any unsealed surface 🤷
As someone who has exclusively MTB'd for the last decade, I've got a fairly decent but nothing to brag about FTP based on a 15-20 min ramp test. A short effort that ends in a high level exertion - ideal for the MTBer.
No way could I hold my alleged FTP for an hour. Find a roadie with the same FTP and weight and make us do a chain gang together and they would wipe the floor with me.
Haha, yea same for me, my ramp test FTP is ~240, my 20minute test *0.95 is 190W
Although I think I've also got that normal untrained problem of doing lots of junk/base miles and lots of sprinting, but no VO2max type 3-6 minute intervals. Compared to the quicker roadies I struggle to deal with those prolonged flat out climbs.