How do regular people find time to train seriously for cycling?

I've been around a few good cyclists. They would train 90-120 minutes each day after work, and then 3-4 hours on Sat and Sunday. With plenty of intervals during the week.

Ones I know have typical family lives, but have sacrificed their social lives for this.

Can you commute to work? Are you interested in indoor training? Can you commit to 3-4 hour rides on Saturday or Sunday?

I get about 8-10 hours a week from 5 days of commuting - 10 x 25-30 minute rides. EZ in the AM, and moderate to HARD in the PM. I do a 3-4 hour ride on the weekend where it's mostly low intensity with hard sprints or some intervals thrown in. My training is unstructured, but I keep a ramp rate of 1-3 TSS/day.

I still run 2-4 times a week to get another 2 hours of training.

I train primarily on an ebike (superior intensity control on the road, especially with hills). I have Assioma pedals to track my power.

For most serious cyclists who work close to full-time (32-40 hrs/wk), having a spouse willing to handle the bulk of general household matters--meal prep, money management & bill payments, child care, laundry, home maintenance & cleaning, social and vacation planning, etc--is essential.

1. Quality over quantity. I train 10-12 hours a week.

2. Utilize the trainer (Zwift) do most of it.

3. Don’t waste your time

Depends on one's personal situation, but my social life has been almost entirely based on sports/outdoor activities my entire life, so there is zero sacrifice doing those activities many, many hours a week. The opposite in fact in my mid-50s: not going to races, not meeting people up for runs/skis/etc., dropping out of a club board, etc. has reduced my social life (which is fine).

1. Lots of time-short riders will will trade many hours at zone 2, for fewer hours at zone 3. This works slightly better when training for cycling than running, as cycling is a lower impact sport and the recovery time required between medium stress efforts is much less.

2. You keep a spare inner tube, puncture repair kit, allen keys, tyre levers, etc in a small pounch under your seat.

3. You buy an indoor turbo trainer and connect it to a platform like Zwift. The added benefit here is that you can also race against other people on this platform.

4. Cycling training is structured differently, in that you can do more hard efforts with less recovery time. However, I see the Ingebrigtsen training as a step in the direction of cycling - where you have very controlled, data driven training, that attempts to maximise the amount of intensity in a weekly structure.

I’d guess it’s a little bit the light and a little bit your sight. A mtb graded front light would probably make a world of difference for you.

Another thing I forgot to note: with cycling it’s a lot easier to get away with a 3-4 day training schedule with the days off being your rest day. Your on days will all need to be 2-5hr rides with plenty of intervals or hills, but you don’t get the “awkward stride” effect that leads many runners to over train because they’re scared of taking a day off.

I really like cycling but it is very time consuming. A lot more so than running. I don't like cycling in the dark so I don't. You may have the best light system but people in cars just aren't that smart to be trusted. The initial outlay for a good bike doesn't have to break the bank either. You don't need the best carbon fiber frame with Dura Ace components. It can be done because I was able to do it and I'm not what you would call rich!

This is the answer right here. I'm in the 12-15 hours/week group, and I'm pretty darn fit.

My friends that cycle a lot out on the opposite end of the vocational spectrum; they are in medicine and seem to have the freedom to get out during the work day to put in 40-60 mile rides on a regular basis.

For amateurs yes, for promising young riders…most are pretty poor

Frankly, it’s why I had to quit the sport.

I have a real job and I was having to balance that with training 15-20 hours per week for the majority of the year. I’d ride 2 hours most mornings (5-7 AM) during the week and then 3-6 hours a day on weekends. In the early spring I would take time off to do 4-5 day mega volume chunks in preparation for the season. You are also racing every weekend (sometimes multiple times) all spring and early summer (and fall if you race mtb or cx like a lot of people do). I did it for years but it became unsustainable for both work and eventually family. Also, nothing like showing up to work bleeding through your shirt or with road rash on your face, which isn’t totally uncommon.

the way the sport is set up (with upgrade categories) you kind of need to keep training at the level you are racing. You can scale it back and become pack fodder at some level, but when you get into the competitive levels of the sport you are just going to get dropped.

im nowhere near as competitive in running but the sport is set up in a manner where that’s fine. I can make my own goals and train based on my own realities. Injuries are bigger limitations to my running than anything else and that wasn’t the case in cycling.

Add a skewer mounted light to your bike, just like trail running the lower light position is good for highlighting terrain features (AKA: potholes). When I was racing my bike had a skewer light, a handlebar light and a helmet light, not only could I see, but cars could see me.

The answer is Peloton, of course! I do 30-minute rides most days, often intervals-and-arms workouts, and find it easy to squeeze in with my other life responsibilities

Of course, I haven't (bike) raced, but I do feel like I'm in shape to drop a sub-5:30 mile/sub-18:30 5k in a road-racing setting. Also, I haven't had any training accidents -- it's pretty cool!

When I was into cycling, it seemed the faster guys (and girls) were either: 1. Younger, worked part time at a brewery or bike shop and lived with their parents, then rode 17hrs a week. or 2. Actual responsible adults with jobs and/or family, but made it a priority. Structured training during the week, then a single long ride on the weekend. Same as training for a marathon. In reality, we all have time at night, in the morning or at lunch.. it's just a matter of making it a priority.

You can get pretty fit and fast by riding 60-90min per day during the week, then getting in your long ride on the weekend. You just need to make time for it in the evening or early morning, often on Zwift using the trainer, which these days is far better than randomly riding around a city anyways.

The good thing about cycling is you don't destroy your body like you do with running, so you can ride your bike seemingly as much as you want. Have a spare hour or two on Saturday? Go for a ride. Call in sick for work one morning, then go for a ride. You can squeeze in training when and where possible and leave things more flexible, unlike running, where your body just revolts when you run too much.

My former roommate was a pro (fully sponsored, not working another job) road bike racer. He would occasionally win regional single-day races and a stage in a larger race here and there (e.g., Cascade Classic). He put in A LOT of hours and I would see him come back from 6 hour rides in the cold and rain (Portland area) shivering and just depleted. One of his friends jokingly said "You have to train a lot just to be mediocre." As life got more complicated for him (girlfriend, trying to take classes, etc.), he switched to cyclocross because it was much less time-intensive for him to train for. He was sponsored in cross as well and won a lot. You have to do the math for yourself to determine what your goals are - it takes a lot of hours just to be pack fodder on the road.

“Regular people… train seriously” seems oxymoronic.

This is a good point. After doing a 5+ hour hard ride or race on the weekend, its can be hard to exist as a normal human. Lots of eating, napping and laying on the couch. It takes quite a while to dig out of that kind of a calorie hole. Since you are racing very often in the season you find yourself in that kind of state regularly.

Since I don't race as frequently, and I can't regularly run long runs at race pace, I don't really feel depleted in the same way from a long run as I did from a long ride (which can be high intensity) or race.

Truly serious riders ride outside most days and dedicate their life to it. Vingegaard was famously discovered through Strava while working in a fish factory.

The more "casual" cyclist does Zwift during the week and dedicates their weekends to the sport. I love cycling and I Zwift a lot but don't really have time for rides in excess of 50 miles. I have three kids including a 3-year-old, and it just doesn't seem fair to my husband. So I don't think I'll have the time to be a committed cyclist until my kids are grown and I'm old, at which point it'll be too late.

If you cycle enough outside, you WILL get hit by a car, especially if you're cycling during rush hour. It's not a matter of if but when. But most bike / car accidents are not fatal and many can be walked away from. Still, something to consider. On the flip side, commuting to and from work every day is a great option for some.

If you have a "mechanical" and don't have time / ability to fix it, call an Uber. Trust me, cyclists do it all the time.

The other issue with cycling is finding racing opportunities outside of triathlon. Also, bike handling is a skill that must be learned and practiced over a period of years and cannot be achieved on Zwift.