A keen cyclist can easily spend 15 hours a week training. That’s a long time to be riding.Whether you want to ride on your own or with other people will depend on your training routine and personality type. These are some advantages of riding on your own and riding with other people.
Benefits of Cycling on Own
- Stick to own training schedule. This means you can cycle the distance you want at your preferred speed. When you cycle with others you are often obliged to cycle too quickly or too slowly.
- Waste Time. The more people you cycle with, the more likely you will get detained by punctures, technical problems, waiting for people to turn up. (In 15 years of cycling, I have never know a bike ride leave by appointed time. – Average is 15 minutes late.
- If you feel tired, you can turn back. With others you feel obliged to complete ride. Alternatively, if you get inspired, you can go further / harder than you anticipated.
- You can go out when most convenient to yourself. This is the main reason I cycle on my own. My flexible hours allow me to go cycling during week at 9am (after first rush hour) or 2pm before second rush hour.
Benefits of Cycling with Others.
- Learn group riding skills useful for road racing and general all round riding skills. For example, riding in a chain gang is great experience for would be road racers.
- Benefit from drafting. Riding with others, you can save 25% + of your energy by drafting, enabling you to cycle further than you would have done otherwise. If you get really tired you can sit at back for the rest of the ride (useful in headwind)
- Can be useful for learning new routes, if new to the area (and assuming you ride with experienced people)
- Social aspect. Riding on your own can be a lonely pursuit, with just your own mind to keep you occupied. If you are doing alot of hours training, riding with others can brake the monotony of cycling on your own. This is especially useful if you can get into a negative mindset whilst cycling.
- If you get into real difficulties injury or technical problems, other riders may be able to help you out.
- Riding with others can help your motivation. When your training in mid winter on your own, it is more tempting to cut rides short, If you ride with experienced / fit cyclists it may encourage you to train at a higher level than you would if you were on your own. This is simply the competitive aspect of our nature. Riding with others we have someone to impress, riding on our own we have no one.
Conclusion
- It depends on our personality type. Generally, I don’t mind riding alone, it is what I am used to. But, I still welcome opportunities to ride with others.
- It depends on your goals of cycling. If it is to have fun – social cycling, you won’t mind waiting and cycling a bit slower. If you have a very ambitious training schedule, you will need to either find someone of similar abilities and goals or train on your own. There will be some interval training sessions, which just have to be done on your own.
Winter base mile training is a good time to train with others. Interval sessions in the summer, go at your own pace and intensity.
What do you prefer – riding alone or riding with others.?
It is just as well not to expect a reply when waving or smiling to passing cyclists, because my experience is,that is they are the racing variety, they will ignore you. I still call hello anyway.
them we can all have a good time.
Emily
Hi
I’m home educated (and thirteen) so when I go for ride’s it’s normally in the middle of the day , and there none of my friends around so I enjoy going for harder ride than I do with my friends.
but on the weekends I like to go on nice rides that we can all manage and
I’m currently retsricted to the perimeter of a base in Sinai, where it can be very hot and sometimes windy. The joy of sharing the ride with somebody else is rare, but chatting and riding two or three abreast has no risks attached, we have very little traffic and a 35 kph limit, so no boy racers. Mixing it up, here or at home, is the key.
I seem to ride on my own most often, for the reasons you state–I can go when and where I want to. But I find that a group ride can challenge you to improve, keeps you on your toes, introduces you to new routes, and the social aspect is quite enjoyable. Nice post.
Hi Orph,
Thanks for thougtful comment. I agree it’s good switching places with another cyclist. I enjoy training for 2up and 4up time trials. It’s great to be able to work on teamwork as well as own fitness.
Don’t worry about English, It’s much better than all my students (I’m Economics Teacher)
Hi Tejvan. Nice Blog! I’ve been following it for some time and I find it very well written and informative.
When I ride alone I feel more tired in the end and the recovery usually takes more time. I think I have a tendency for pushing myself a bit too much. I have trouble controlling my effort and I end up almost always by doing the majority of the trip above the recommended level. I never turn back earlier than planed or take any shortcuts when I feel tired, I always do the trip that I had in mind even if I have to suffer a lot during the final kilometres.
I find that riding with friends at the same fit level is more relaxed. I also like the teamwork aspect of switching places in the front. Moreover, one of my cycling buddies and I have this sort of game where we sprint to see which one passes first by those road signs that have the town’s name written on, so there is also a bit of friendly competition there that I enjoy.
So I guess I like to mix up a little of both. Sometimes when I do several consecutive trips with others I feel the need to try the same course by myself, but the opposite is also true: after a few trips all by myself cursing the headwind I try to invite someone to cycle along with me.
Just to put things into proper context: I don’t compete, so I do not have training schedules to worry about. Cycling is a way I found to blow off steam and now I feel very strange whenever I miss my weekly bike ride, like it is some kind of (healthy?) addiction.
Sorry for the lousy English. Keep up the good work.