[Closed] 2 hr endurance ride on turbo

I've done an hour and a half on a structured workout, which wasn't too bad as the changes to the workout along the way kept me fairly engaged.

For a straight 'just riding along', I'd stick a film on to be honest.

The only way I’ve found is to watch movies, but even then I pedal for what feels like 1/2 hour, I’ll look down and I’ve done another 2 minutes. Hateful

I reckon you could use it as a pretty effective form of psychological torture

Why would you want to?

You need to buy my KickrSnap from the classified and do a RGT course while you watch the scenery pass by. New Zealand has a couple of nice routes

You can't, go outside and brave the elements.

Structured workout, broken down into small chunks of 5-10mins. Even if it’s just varying cadence or power a bit, meant 90-120mins were bearable.

The only way i can stick being on the turbo is to do either group rides or races on zwift so i have something to focus on. Then putting on tunes i really enjoy at full volume. Most rides tend to be 1hr though

I can recommend the new Turnstile album for the later part of this.

If the 2 hour endurance ride is part of a program, with targets and presumably all in zone 2, then a Zwift race or TT probably wouldn't be a good idea.

I use Sufferfest/SYSTM and they have "inspirational videos" for long, boring rides. These are always cycling related and generally pretty interesting first time around. I use those sometimes, but also have a TV and sky box in the garage so more often than not will watch a movie, box set, or time the ride to coincide with a footy match.

"Pace partner" juggernaut peleton might help.

You could also look at longer erg workouts and if need be, fudge your FTP to get the workout you want.

There's some multi hour group rides, must be something near your planned W/Kg.

I've done 4 hour rides in the past, watching a couple of films. That was pre-Zwift, more recently I've done 2-2.5 hours ticking off some of the longer Zwift routes, or one of the longer events.

Sunday morning Newbury Velo race is 70km - Big Foot Hills route. There are various other longer events, e.g. 100km ones. You don't have to finish so just quit when you've done enough time.

some of the longer sufferfest videos are pretty engaging and make the 2 hours pass more quickly.
Cobbler (1h 46) and It seemed like a good idea (1h51) (also It seemed like thin air (2h 27)) are my favorite long films. They're not easy cruises though, with IF of over 0.8 and TSS of about 70 per hour.

If you want to just sit and turn the legs at low intensity for a couple of hours, then i'd watch a noncyling film.

if you want a two hour workout, i'd use one of the sufferfest films.

for something in between, i'd look for a gran fondo style Zwift group ride. people to "chat" to and the pace/effort will vary a little as you try to stay with whatever group you end up in.

ISLAGIATT (comparable to a brisk group ride) or the Long Scream (a TT) on sufferfest (I'm refusing to call is SYSTM)? Or even Team Scream (Team TT, so threshold intervals with kicks to make them hurt) which is similar but worse.

I'd set ISLAGIATT or Team Scream to ~95% if you want to do more intervals than they prescribe, or 97% for Long Scream as it's already sub threshold.

As someone said the constant variations in cadence and effort give something to break up the time. Mines a dumb trainer though so it takes a degree of concentration to balance the watts/cadence/gear, so it might be worth switching ERG mode on or off to see if that helps.

I frequently do 90 min rides (well, 10 min warm up, and then 90 min) at 185-195 watts...
I have zwift on the laptop, and netflix from the laptop on a second screen....

Time flies, and i quite enjoy sitting at Z2 for a long time!

DrP

I never used to do it. Then I got a Zwift setup. That didn't help doing long rides, but the fact that I have a computer on a Zwift table right in front of me means I can now watch Netflix. Now I can do 2 hours. It's definitely the way to do it.

cafe ride

It won't be any less of a workout if after an hour you stop get off the trainer and have a coffee before doing the second half of the workout.

Prior to our very lengthy down under lockdown in Melbourne I'd limited turbo to short Hit efforts dumb style but when we were only allowed out for 1hr max managed to get a wahoo kickr and have been using Kinomap to do alpine passes as I am slow generally 2hr plus efforts with music and fan blasting Kinomap is pretty variable on quality but a bit different if zwift doesn't attract

I did a few 3 hour endurance rides on the smart trainer during lockdown. There are some great zwift events, but they do get a bit dull. I have also used RGT, creating a magic road with a loop I know, and then adding bots to it so I can use the draft. Sometimes prefer this now to braving the elements

As someone who's done their fair share of IM training long rides (>6hour) on a turbo, just pick a YouTube playlist and get on with it.

Once you get to long rides, I found I was watching whole TdF stages which worked quite well. For shorter 2 hour sessions then a couple of race highlights programmes also worked well.

Watch a film, and climb the Alp (or whatever big mountain you fancy) on ZWIFT.

during lock down we did them as a club every sunday

100km in zwift as a group with a whatsapp chat on the go with sprints for landmarks etc.

Was good considering.

doing it on my own - would rather sit jamming my nuts in a cutlery drawer repeatedly.

I've tried watching movies and stuff but find it hard to concentrate on what's going on.

What works for me is a combination of Zwift and something to listen to, like a podcast or audio book. That way I can put my head down and just listen, while Zwift keeps me awake following wheels and maintaining a steady pace.

The first 30 minutes are the worst. Strangely I find it easier to tolerate the longer I'm there. Once you've done 2 hours another hour is a doddle...

You could do a zwift group ride - not a race. There are lots to choose from, at different powers etc. Just find one with lots of riders last time out (zwiftpower is your friend here...) and you should be guaranteed company.

Breaking it down in to smaller workouts helps although not sure how much variety you can achieve at Z2!

I've done 20 minute British Cycling warmup (basically cadence drills, skip the 6 second max efforts at end) then used a 45 minute GCN sweetspot workout which consists of 2 x 15 minute efforts. After the first effort I just skip back to beginning and ride it till the end, so total workout duration is about 1hr 20. Should be easy enough to ramp down the effort to Z2 and they have a wee 'sprint' every 5 minutes where you could just drop a gear or two and raise cadence.

I guess then you'd just have to repeat the video again to make up the 2 hours!

Using rollers helps slightly, if you get bored you fall off!

Maybe a Zwift race

😂

The absolute polar opposite of an endurance ride. Every single Zwift race is absolute carnage as soon as it starts. 5 minutes absolutely flat out then trying to hang onto whatever group you've ended up in

I'm supposed to be doing zone 3.

When doing the indoor Rapha 500 last year I rewatched all of the original Red Dwarf series (1-8) and although they kept me occupied and entertained the limiting factor was my arse. Anything over an hour or so of steady or gentle pedalling and it's ruined, even with regular changes if position and standing efforts. Don't get that problem when doing a workout or race as there's enough variety in effort to keep it at bay for a while.

I'd use the 25 laps of the volcano achievement and use each lap to help with the motivation, go for the 100k achievement too. Stick a movie on while going round.

I’m supposed to be doing zone 3.

2 hours of zone 3, really? That could easily just be junk miles - not hard enough to get more top end anaerobic strength and not low enough to build up proper endurance.

On your death bed you'll look back at those 2 hours and think "I could have done something far more useful with that time".

Something I've been doing recently, while trying to ease myself back in after my ~4 week flu, is looking at the group workouts and then fudging my FTP to get the z1/2 power I'm looking for on easy days. Group workouts keep everyone together as long as you turn the pedals, regardless of the workout each rider is getting.

Yesterday for example I joined a group workout yesterday doing https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/zwift-academy-tri-2021/bike-3-703-development and fudged my FTP to 130W, then adjusted the workout to +5% after the warmup to average 102W and 99bpm for 62mins to get the z1 recovery zone ride I wanted with a little mix up of power.

Group ride on Zwift, stay on pace and don't get carried away...or maybe a structured hour in Erg with pedalling drills sandwiched by a couple of half hour free rides?

Echo the Z3 comments, assuming it's not the only training you do all week you'll get similar from Z2 and be less fatigued for the next one...

Get a couple of mates together and do spin classes in someone's garage. Take it in turns to be the instructor and devise sessions.
Makes turboing tolerable.

I’m supposed to be doing zone 3.

I've never heard a turbo based plan that does 2 session at Z3. Are you sure that's right?

I used to get 2hr sessions at z3 on the road.

If your coach is telling you to do z3, don't start farting about with the randomly non-specific Zwift sessions. It'll wreck the training plan.

Using rollers helps slightly, if you get bored you fall off!

Haha, true dat. I swear I used to be able to get a 2 hour session into about 15 minutes on rollers - the added stress and fatigue from just using them made for a pretty intense session. There's a reason mine are under a blanket of dust!

If your coach is telling you to do z3, don’t start farting about with the randomly non-specific Zwift sessions. It’ll wreck the training plan.

This.

On your death bed you’ll look back at those 2 hours and think “I could have done something far more useful with that time”.

I dunno, winter turbo endorphins maybe with some good tunes = extra summer mountain endorphins, win-win! Plus I don't think the argument gets made often enough that extra fitness really does mean extra fun in the real world, for me anyway.

I’ve never heard a turbo based plan that does 2 session at Z3. Are you sure that’s right?

I forget, but isn't 'sweetspot' really just mid-to-high end Z3? In which case, isn't it super common to get training programs with lots of it? (I seem to remember reading a training plan might be sweetspot or polarized with polarized basically avoiding Z3/sweetspot like the plague in order to lots of easy + a little bit of horrible)

Yup it's right:

"Active
2 hr @ 176-189 W
Zone 3"

Yeah, I'm planning to do them on the road, I just want a foul weather alternative.
Two hours of flat riding is my idea of hell, indoors or out.

When I used to race (pre-Zwift and smart Turbos) I used to watch three 40 min TV episodes back to back. I rode through all of BSG, 24 and a few other TV series over winter...

Done 2 hrs with just music on Zwift. Found some playlists of music I'd not listened to in a few years so the time went by fairly quickly.

There's always the 4 pace partners. If one of them rides at your zone 2 it's quite nice sitting with them. I'll sometimes do an endurance ride with them and do a few sprints ahead, then drop back to re group.

At the moment though, I quite enjoy the quiet time to just think about stuff. But then I'm introvert in an extroverts job.

I did 90mins on the trainer last night and found a podcast for the dull bits and some music for the harder efforts got me through.

Reminds me, I do need to create a playlist full of high tempo songs to help get me through efforts and tweak my data screens on my garmin

Yeah no doubt, I’ve done Ventoux twice on the turbo fro different sides, I couldn’t wait for it to be over but that wasn’t because it was on the turbo, it just really hurt.

There are some long routes on zwift that would be perfect for a long ride, might just have to adjust the feedback level if you’re tying to keep your HR down on the climbs.

I really need to do some longer rides on zwift over the winter I’ve really slacked off at the end of the summer this year.

I guess it really comes down to WHAT type of ride your doing??

If it’s a 2 hour workout with varying wattage/cadence etc, OR a 2 hour ‘free ride’ where the terrain/gradient changes, you’ll probably want to keep the zwift (or other app) screen as the main one, because otherwise the resistance changes will be an annoying surprise…

But, if it’s literally 90-300 minutes as a custom workout set at, say, 185 watts, then you can sit on the turbo spinning away, whilst watching a film or something else….

I did 1hr 45 workout today (purple unicorn) and though it was both long and hard (fnar fnar) it wasn’t boring as i was constantly awaiting the next interval change etc…..

DrP