Of course, you could train at home on your rollers or trainer, but most of us don’t have the amenities of the Breakaway Training Center: a fun, competitive atmosphere with a dozen other riders to push you, industrial fans and A/C units to cool you (and you’re not paying the utilities), and computrainers to simulate real course conditions like drafting and hills both up and down, track your speed, distance, heartrate, and, importantly, your power, and even more importantly, a coach on hand to guide your workout and answer your training questions.
In other months though, the choice might be less obvious: why ride indoors when the thermometer starts creeping up out of the nether regions? The answer is that an RPM class is all about efficiency. RPM is for people who value their time, because they don’t have a lot of it to spare. Few of us are professionals (though you are apt to meet a few from time to time if you train at breakaway), but most of us have lives—jobs to work, errands to run, families to support, people to meet other than those wearing spandex. Yet, just like other aspects of our lives, we want to be good at what we do, and that means approaching our training in a serious manner. That is where RPM comes in.
Weekday RPM classes are 1 hour long, and those on weekends last 2 hours. When you sign up for RPM, you’re getting 2 hours worth of class per week. As an instructor, I do not allow that any of that hour is wasted .Classes start on time, and you are working hard right away. (You’re welcome to come 15 minutes early to get in a warm-up.) I have written in the past about what sort of riding “counts” as training, where power zones 2 or above are breaking your muscles down in order for them to rebuild—thus making you stronger after recovering from those rides, while zone 1 is for recovery or “garbage miles.” There are no garbage miles in RPM. Contrast this to a typical workout outside, one even done solo:
This is from a ride I did while preparing for my peak race last year, about three weeks out. This chart shows the amount of time I spent in zones 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5-5b on a typical endurance ride—one where I was continuously conscious of my power effort. It was a 3.5 hour ride. If you consider what I said about zone 1 not being training, then you can see I spent nearly half the ride wasting time; I did in 3.5 hours what I could have accomplished in 2 hours inside. This is not atypical for a ride outside, and group rides are usually much worse.
This is from an actual weekend RPM class:
See how little time is wasted in zone 1? That’s because you can’t coast on a trainer. You don’t wait at stoplights. You don’t have to regroup. You don’t have to stop to refill bottles. You don’t have to slow down to see your cue sheet. You get on your bike, and start training.
Of course, you can do indoor training workouts on your own. But do you have the will to constantly push yourself? Remember, riding in z2 is essentially going just hard enough to be pretty uncomfortable, and then staying there. The coaches and the competition in the training center will keep you there. Plus without a power meter, you don’t know for certain what zone you’re in; our computrainers tell you your power.
Simply put, there is no better way to get a good workout in with as much time to spare as possible. And RPM classes are structured so that you can do your interval workouts during the week, then maybe go outside for your long ride. Or do your interval workouts at home, and come in on the weekend for your endurance ride, particularly if the weather is lousy. Or maybe—why not just sign up for both?
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