>>1216848>Most pros I know frequently average below 30km/h on training rides and dont care at all who pass them.This.
Solo training rides are not races.
When someone who actually trains for racing is riding alone and going slow, they're either:
A) On a recovery ride
B) Between intervals when you encounter them
C) They're "Just riding" (i.e. it's an endurance-level ride for several hours)
D) They're "Just riding for fun" and DGAF.
Seems like the most common misconception I come across among non-cyclists and recreational riders is that if someone races, they go balls-out as fast as they can 100% of the time. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You could be out doing 2 to 5 minute peak-and-fade power intervals, and when you get home and look at the data, your flat average power is in the Long Endurance range, and the average speed makes it look like you weren't even trying. That's because you're going slow between intervals, and you've got no reason to go balls-out on the way home when you're done for the morning because you've already beat your own ass during the work intervals. Or maybe some guy just got done with several long over/under threshold intervals and he's on his way home, and his ass is beat from them. If you knew, if you could feel in your bones what he'd just been doing, you'd feel like a punkass passing him and actually gloating about it. That being said if you poked those guys with a stick, the competitiveness would come out and they'd reach deep down and hand you your ass, just to put you in your place.
Some of you need to go to a bookstore and pick up a copy of The Cyclists Training Bible or Time Crunched Cyclist or Training and Racing With A Power Meter and sit there and read through it and get an idea what training for competition is really like before you criticize someone who actually does it.
