Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Nothing Beats a Nice Loop

In life, familiarity can breed contempt but in cycling I believe it breeds confidence and strength. A great training ride is a key element to a happy cycling existence. Luckily, I just found mine on Long Island. I've pieced together some sections from a few rides I've done to create a nice 12 mile loop. The good news is it's twice as long as my prior training loop (Central Park) and the better news is it's 1% as crowded. On the downside, I need to drive 20 minutes to get to it and I'm still a bit skittish about parking at NYIT (although I was successful yesterday).

This "Old Westbury Training Route" as I've named it, gives me some nice options as I can create 24 or 36 mile training rides depending on my mood and what my upcoming ride schedule is looking like. Generally speaking, your mid-week rides should optimally be about 1/3 the distance of your longer weekend rides. Thus, 24/36 mile rides are perfect training for my typical 60-80 mile Saturday rides. Additionally, I've found a few nice hills just off this route if I want to do some hill training.

1 comment:

firSSt said...

no, it still breeds contempt