Tempo Ride: Sustained Effort Outdoors

Session Overview

This 75-minute outdoor tempo ride develops your ability to sustain a moderately hard effort over time — exactly the kind of pacing required in triathlon bike legs. It is suitable for intermediate riders who are comfortable cycling outdoors and want to build their threshold power and aerobic capacity before the race season.

What You’ll Need

• Road bike or tri bike
• Helmet (essential)
• Cycling computer or GPS watch
• Water bottles x2
• Snack for during (gel or bar for efforts over 60 minutes)

Warm-Up (15 minutes)

Roll away from home at a comfortable Zone 2 pace (60-65% FTP). Spin at 85-95 rpm and let the legs loosen. Include 3 x 30-second pickups to 80% FTP at the end of the warm-up to prime the system before the main effort.

Main Set

The main set is a 45-minute continuous tempo block at 75-85% FTP (Zone 3-4 boundary). Choose a route that is relatively flat or rolling — avoid major climbs that force you out of tempo into full threshold or above.

• 45 minutes at 75-85% FTP — this is the bread-and-butter sweet spot/tempo zone
• Target RPE: 6-7/10 — you should be able to speak in short sentences but not hold a full conversation
• Target HR: Zone 3-4 (70-85% max HR)
• Cadence: 85-95 rpm — avoid grinding big gears at low cadence

Cool-Down (15 minutes)

Ease off the effort and spin home or complete a loop at Zone 1-2 pace. Drop cadence to 70-80 rpm if you like. Aim to arrive back feeling tired but not wrecked — a good tempo ride should leave you pleasantly fatigued rather than destroyed.

Coaching Notes

• Pacing is key — start conservative and build slightly through the 45-minute block rather than blasting off hard
• If you have a power meter, aim for a normalised power within 5% of your target — avoid big spikes on climbs
• Beginners: reduce the tempo block to 2 x 15 minutes with 5 minutes easy in between
• This session pairs well the following day after a swim — bike tempo after swim technique is a common training pattern