7 Ways to Keep Indoor Cycling Challenging
Indoor riders often flaunt their ride milestones — 100, 200, 500 rides. But not every ride is created equal. Instead of repeating the same rides and workouts, it’s best to look for new ways to challenge yourself. Try one (or a few) of these seven ways to mix it up on the indoor bike.
1
WEAR A HEART RATE MONITOR (OR OTHER WEARABLE)
Wearable devices, according to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), are the number one fitness trend for 2025. Whether it's an Apple watch, a Whoop band, an Oura ring, or a Garmin-like device, wearables provide data once only available in lab settings. Take the time to understand the metrics on your device and use these results to inform current and future efforts.
2
RIDE LONGER
While most classes are 45–50 minutes long, many studios offer 60- and even 90-minute classes. See what you’re made of and find your weekend-long ride. And, yes, back-to-back classes count, too. A recent Japanese study shows cycling may help you live longer.
“... (in a ten-year study) cyclists at baseline had a lower risk of incident functional disability and mortality than non-cyclists”
3
TAKE A PERFORMANCE TEST
The functional threshold test, VO2 max and lactate test are a few of the protocols for tracking performance.
4
EMBRACE DISTANCE
Cycling is an aerobic sport. Competitions like Race Across America, where participants ride from Oceanside, California, to Annapolis, Maryland, test the human will. Regardless of the class length, set a distance goal. The average speed for a recreational cyclist is 12-15 miles per hour. 15-18 MPH for weekend warriors and 18+ for those who put in miles during the week as well as the weekend. For comparison, the average speed in the women’s Tour de France in 2024 was 28 MPH. Twelve miles in 45 minutes is a respectable pace.
Strava tracks your lifetime stats. Pretty cool.
5
TRACK YOUR RIDES USING STRAVA
Many cycling studios capture your ride statistics. Others use bikes where a thumb drive can be inserted to save data. Besides offering a grand sense of accomplishment, Strava summarizes your efforts and provides advanced metrics on your performance. Follow me on Strava or join my Strava Group the DruCru
6
VARY YOUR CADENCE
Everyone has their happy place when it comes to cadence. If you’re one to favor higher cadence — 90-110 RPMs (Revolutions per minute) — work on sustaining similar efforts at a lower cadence (70-90 RPMs). Visualize a change in terrain. Sand, mud, gravel or cobblestone should elicit varied cadences. If you are only pedaling at 90+ RPMs and then lsing your breath, you may be pedaling too fast.
Controlling your intensity on the bike is essential to finding your sweet spot.
7
FIND YOUR SWEET SPOT
Your sweet spot is a difficult, yet sustainable, pace. Getting there requires a focused effort and is essential to get the most out of your time on the bike. Sweet-spot training is the perfect balance of cycling intensity and ride volume. Your sweet spot is about 84 - 97% of your functional threshold power or 75 - 85 % of your maximum heart rate.