# Tempo rides



## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

Tell me about tempo rides. How long should they be and what sort of terrain? Is 80% - 85% max HR a good goal? 

thnx
i.s.


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## Andrea138 (Mar 10, 2008)

Duration- as long as you can go. 30 minutes isn't a bad place to start, but you can work up to hours if it's warranted. It's easier to maintain a constant effort on flatter terrain, but if you're going for a long time, that can be problematic. Concentrate on maintaining a constant effort- try to minimize how much you go anaerobic up hills, but don't coast down the other side, either. It usually means a lot of shifting back & fourth between the large & small rings. 

As far as intensity goes, take a look at Friel's training bible- especially the part about how to map out your training zones. It's more "accurate" to base your training off of threshold heart rate (or power) rather than max because 80-85% of your max may be too hard or too easy (depending on how well-trained you are).


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## Dopamine (Jun 2, 2009)

Search the archives and 'net for SST (Sweet Spot Training) and you will find a lot of good info.


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

Andrea138 said:


> Duration- as long as you can go. 30 minutes isn't a bad place to start, but you can work up to hours if it's warranted. It's easier to maintain a constant effort on flatter terrain, but if you're going for a long time, that can be problematic. Concentrate on maintaining a constant effort- try to minimize how much you go anaerobic up hills, but don't coast down the other side, either. It usually means a lot of shifting back & fourth between the large & small rings.


Good info. Thanks.




Andrea138 said:


> 80-85% of your max may be too hard or too easy *(depending on how well-trained you are)*.


I won't have to worry 'bout that.


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

Dopamine said:


> Search the archives and 'net for SST (Sweet Spot Training) and you will find a lot of good info.


I'll look it up. Thanks.


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## eddya (Aug 7, 2009)

Personally, I do 2 hour tempo rides (excl. half an hour warming up and warming down) at 150-155 bpm (my max HR is 174 bpm, making it 86-89%). I worked up to this over a couple of months, initially doing 2x20 at 150-155 bpm, then working up to an hour, then adding an extra 10 minutes over a period of 2 months. 
Flat terrain really does help keeping the effort steady, but you shouldn't worry too much about a couple of short inclines, it's not that that exact. My average for those rides over the same two routes have gone up from 17.7-8 mph to 19.6-7 mph and it's still climbing!


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## root (Sep 13, 2007)

You can do tempo rides up to 3 hours. It's a pace slightly faster than your endurance (6 hour) pace but slower than time trial (1 hour) effort. You can do it on hilly terrain as well (it's probably the best place to do it), just slow down and don't dip into threshold work or go anaerobic (nothing wrong with that for a few minutes either). 

If you are going by your HR max, then this is roughly 70%-80% of your HR max. It is better to go by your time trial HR though. 

Perhaps once a month you can do 1 hour best effort (as fast as you can go) time trial after warming up for 45 - 55 minutes and take your average HR rate for that 1 hour. This is roughly your threshold heart rate, and your tempo rate is 84% - 94% of this heart rate. This is usually considered more precise.


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## tone12 (Feb 4, 2007)

I really try to keep my tempo rides to no more than 2 a month once my base has been built up. I just think they end up adding junk miles for me. I try to spend a lot more time on intervals so I'm either riding all out, or I'm in recovery. When I do go for a tempo ride, 2 hrs seems to be about right.


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

Looks like my biggest problem will be stoplights. I'll just have to get myself out of the suburbs for the longer tempo rides. Thanks for the great advice.


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