Base Miles for Competitive Cycling Training

Video Transcript

"So, the first thing we're going to talk about is base miles. That, in my mind, is the single most important aspect of training as a cyclist. What base miles do is give you a base that you're going to put all that other training on top of. It does things like give you muscle memory, gets your body used to the bike, gets your brain used to the bike, just getting familiar with riding a bike, and it sounds silly but it's really important. And another thing that base miles does is you're not necessarily going real hard. You're just putting miles on your legs, on your lungs, on your body. So, I recommend--I like to do my training programs in time instead of miles. So, for example, base miles would be a moderately paced three- to four-hour ride, and you could be doing that a few times a week. That's putting in your base miles. Now, usually, that is during end of the winter or spring when people are getting ready for the season. But, like, let's say you're doing cyclo-cross which starts in the fall, maybe your base miles are during the summer. So, base miles is just those miles you put on to get ready for your training, for your specific training that you're going to do for your events or your schedule. Whatever that may be, you have to start with base miles."