8 Tips To Ride Your Bike Faster

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[massimoserafini]

My non cycling friends: “you rode 40 miles?!? That’s crazy”
My cycling friends: “you rode 40 miles? So it was a recovery ride?”

[sellinwood]

It's funny - I just recently adjusted my hood inwards as discussed at 4:13 and it's made my riding position immensely more comfortable. I think my hands/wrists naturally want to pronate inwards so it feels great, and it's easier for me to hold a more aero position for a longer period of time. Your mileage may vary but I'd say give it a shot if you're curious!

[owensnicholas]

‘Gradual changes’ is such a great piece of advice. I spend a lot of time with the pace partners in zwift, doing zone 2 bulk miles. I wanted to build up to the next pace partner, so I started adding in 10min here and there, increasing the time each week or so.

It took a couple months, but now my zone 2 is .4w/kg higher than it was. Totally worth it, it gave me a medium-term goal, and I’m faster for it.

[oneofthelastmen]

How about a video on how to ride your bike further? Not all of us want to ride fast, especially us oldies. I like to ride long distances (Audaxes usually) nice and slowly - Zone 1 and 2 all the way, set using a heart rate monitor and the little LEDs on my Wahoo Bolt. If you do that you don't need the constant refuelling. My usual diet is very low carb, almost keto, and I do my long rides with minimal eating. I recently did a 165km (100 mile) Audax ride eating a small bacon and egg breakfast and one small flapjack with my mid-day coffee stop. 8 hours of riding, 20.5 km/h average speed, 130bpm average heart rate, no bonks and I felt absolutely fine afterwards

[milankrajnik]

This new Van Rysel looks really neat. Very informative vid btw

[tommurphy]

I feel that tyre pressure is a big one. When I started out, I was running 23mm tyres at 120psi as I remember being a kid and that being the done thing. At the moment I run 43mm tyres at 35 psi and feel more confident and controlled on the bike, thus I feel I can push myself more. It's not necessarily the faster of the two set ups if you were testing both back to back at the same effort but for real world riding that most of us actually do I feel like this confidence matters a lot more than we normally give credit. Love the vids btw! 😊

[BadTanLines]

4:39 Bike fitter here: Many people, I would say most of my customer's find a little inward tilt to be MORE comfortable than straight levers. I put this down to most bikes coming with bars that are too wide for their body. I find for myself once I came down to some narrower bars I don't need to inward lever tilt. Also the Shimano 12 speed line does have some natural inward tilt so that if you install the lever straight, on the bar, it will tilt in. Give this a try for comfort alone, it's a nice bonus that it's aero too.

[Esbbbb]

For beginner riders like myself, my tip would be to adjust your bike to fit comfortably (Cade Media videos with James are a good starting point :D) Once you are comfortable, riding more will be more enjoyable and you'll start to develop into these other habits Francis showed here :D

[erikmmartens]

High quality tires with the correct pressure, light weight butyl inner tubes or better (aerothan, latex or even going tubeless) → usually starting at 70-80 quid for a full set when shopping on local online bike discount sites. Fairly reasonable price/gains ratio.

[shepshape]

For those looking to bring carbs and calories on the bike with you, here's a free tip: Make your own. You will need sugar, lime juice (buy the big bottles at Sam's Club or wherever you buy things in bulk), and salt. That's it. There are 13g of carbs in a tablespoon of sugar. I mix 6 tablespoons of sugar along with a few tablespoons of lime juice and a quarter teaspoon (a pinch) of salt. It actually tastes really good and will give you the carbs and electrolytes you need for pennies per bottle. If you look at all the expensive sports drinks, you'll find that the three main ingredients are just what I listed. If you're going out for a slower ride, maybe do less sugar. But anyway, there you have it. I also make my own energy bars from oats and seeds and nuts, but that's for another time.

[jonadevitt]

That intro was scarily accurate that I’ve been cycling a while and signed up for an event in a few months. Great vid as ever.

[stevekelly]

A squeeze tube of cake frosting actually sounds like a good idea!

[ridingflats]

I'm a one ride at the weekend guy, need to start doing more shorter ones midweek. Can confirm there's very little progress with just the one longer ride.

[kenmoum]

Re. Angled brakes, my bike fitter told me that he talked to a Shimano engineer at Interbike and was told that they intend for the levers to be turned in as it's more ergonomic for most people. I turn mine to match my flared bars

[andrewking]

Proper maintenance of your equipment to include optimized tire pressure!

[DavidMartin-tkfs]

4:45; personally I have found tucking in the hoods a little improves comfort by reducing outward wrist flexion.
Used to do this back in the 90's and recently did it again on my main road bike and the relief was instant.
The other day I hopped on my fixie which is set up square and it felt horrible. In fact I going out to the garage to tuck them in right now!

[willball]

On goals - alongside outcome goals (e.g. ride 100km, 250FTP) it's good to have process goals too (e.g. train 4 times a week, drink x litres of water etc).

To an extent, the outcome goals aren't fully in your control, but the process goals can be and are more short/medium term so not as daunting.

[sazridesbikes]

Is that Mrs Cade I see??? Lovely video Francis. Are you moving to LA? 😊

[declanfaughey]

I will use my commute home from work as a training session it is around 35km, I also use the challenges on Strava to keep my motivation as it is fun and rewarding and very satisfying to see that you are faster than your mates over our favourite segment.

[Trailblazers]

Very Helpful videos. I ride 5 times a week @ 2 hrs at a time and I feel the increase in power and AVG (16.5). Looking to take it to the next level.