If you’ve signed up for an inGamba trip but are worried that you’re not going to be ready for the climbs or the daily mileage in time, don’t panic.
Whether you only have a few weeks before the trip begins or you’ve booked it months in advance, you can still arrive feeling confident and ready to roll with only a few hours of training each week. We chatted with cycling coach Peter Glassford, who recently did inGamba’s Chianti Classico trip, to find out exactly how he would get a client ready for a trip like this if they were extremely time-limited.
Think Frequency Over Big Hours
Rather than getting out once a week for a few hours, Glassford would rather see someone ride a few days in a row for shorter durations. “What you want to think about in these last few weeks before the trip is trying to get on your bike more often,” he says. “Now, that may be something you’re already doing if you’re riding five or six days a week, but that’s the first thing I look for. Frequency is key so your body and your mind are used to the back-to-back-to-back days of riding that you’re going to see on these trips.”
Change Up Your Riding
Don’t just stick to the same one hour ride five days a week: Mix it up. “If you’re going to train a little more ambitiously, include one interval session and one longer ride each week,” says Glassford. “I would like to see at least one ride over 90 minutes—and it can be up to three hours long. We don’t necessarily need to stimulate the super long days, but getting rides up into this 90 minute to three hour window gets us a lot of the benefits of endurance training. You should also do one interval ride during the week. I like a set of four by 10-minutes done at just over tempo—you’re breathing hard but not gasping for air or struggling—to get ready for an inGamba trip. You can also include a second interval set with a 10 to 20 minute block of 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy. That’s always a fun one to do on the trainer.” Round out the week with as many shorter endurance-paced rides as you can squeeze in.
A sample 5-hour training week might look like:
- Monday: Rest
- Tuesday: 45 minute trainer ride at endurance pace
- Wednesday: 45 minute trainer ride at endurance pace (with an optional 10 minute block of 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy)
- Thursday: 60 minute trainer ride at endurance pace
- Friday: Rest
- Saturday: 1-hour ride including 4 sets of 10-minute moderately hard intervals done on a local climb or on the trainer (feel free to extend your warmup and cooldown if time allows)
- Sunday: 90 minute endurance pace ride (going longer if time allows—aiming for at least one 3-hour ride sometime in your build up to the trip)
Climb As Much As Possible
Many inGamba trips do feature big climbs, so including as many climbs in your outdoor rides or even on the indoor trainer if you’re using a virtual training platform like Zwift will be hugely beneficial. Prioritize meters of climbing rather than kilometers covered in a ride. And Glassford adds that the more you can do this outside where you’ll also be able to practice descending, the better. He suggests doing your intervals on a climb whenever possible.
Ride with Other People
A bike ride is a lot easier when you’re riding behind someone and taking advantage of the draft that they create. (It’s basically free speed!) Because of that, if you haven’t been riding with people much lately, it’s helpful to get out on a few group rides if possible, says Glassford. “If you do have access to a group ride, a second hard workout of the week could be a group ride,” he explains. “This gets you used to drafting and practicing giving everyone else space while also staying tight to the right side of the road.”
Practice Fueling
“When you’re out riding, you want to be practicing eating during the rides, even if they’re shorter,” he says. “On inGamba trips, you’re out on the bike for a few hours, so practicing the skills of riding and getting your body used to eating a bit as you ride is key. On the trip, you will need to fuel to keep yourself moving during these big tours, especially if your training hasn’t been overly vigorous. The ability to keep fuel coming in while you pedal can help in a big way.”
Add Extra Daily Movement
For the truly time-crunched, five hours a week on the bike is great, but it’s even better if you can also add in bonus daily movement. Glassford says that even walks are a great way to boost your overall aerobic capacity, especially if it’s been a while since you’ve stuck to any sort of training plan. “I think my frequency recommendation is the most important piece of the equation,” he says. “Try and do something every day, particularly on bike if you can. But if you can only fit in a walk or a gym session, I think just getting that daily movement is going to be a good thing.”
Start Training for Your Next Trip!
All of the above tips are much easier to do when you’re following a simple training plan that lays out a weekly routine of rides, including longer rides and shorter, harder efforts, to keep you on track until your big trip. Following something like the inGamba 3-Month Tour Preparation Plan from longtime cycling coach Peter Glassford can be extremely beneficial for any cycling trip. While many base training plans assume you have 12+ hours per week to train, this tour-focused plan focuses on the most efficient training schedule and assumes that the people joining the trip are busy and have minimal time to train, especially during the week.
You can access the inGamba 3-Month Tour Preparation Plan on Training Peaks for free using code INGAMBA at checkout.
