Empirical Cycling Podcast Ten Minute Tips #69: The Case For Riding Easier
Dec 31, 2025
Discover why pacing endurance and recovery rides easier could be the secret to better long-term performance! The hosts explore the pitfalls of riding too hard, including frequent failed workouts and burnout. They dive into managing fatigue and energy, discussing the importance of RPE over raw power numbers. Learn how to optimize training for time-crunched athletes, find your lactate threshold, and effectively balance hard workouts with recovery. Plus, tips on how to make those easy rides truly beneficial!
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Protect Interval Quality
- Training is a long-term project; chronic fatigue reduces future gains more than a single hard week.
- Preserve interval quality by keeping easy days truly easy to sustain progress months ahead.
Run A Short 'Ride Easier' Experiment
- Try riding noticeably easier for 1–2 weeks as an experiment to reset fatigue and gauge benefits.
- Expect better sleep, appetite, and workout quality if fatigue was masking progress.
The Hard-Work Fallacy
- Hard-work-as-virtue biases athletes to overdo easy days and accept chronic tiredness as proof of effort.
- That mindset often leads to burnout and non-functional overreaching.