Hi Mel,

I'm ramping up the intensity of my training since my races are fast approaching and I'm wondering which training options I should go for. My cycling team has a fast group ride once a week that I was doing in the spring but stopped a couple months ago because I didn't feel that training on a road bike for crit-like conditions would help with my Xterra training. Instead I figured my time would be better spent on the mtb doing hill repeats since it's more sport specific. But is that the right choice? I can see the benefit of bridging gaps and holding on to a chase group by my fingernails, but I wonder if that's going to help me with my climbing endurance on a mtb that has a different geometry. Granted I'm still on the mtb over the weekend, but I'm trying to decide what's the best use of my Tuesdays.

I would alternate the workouts weekly. You can benefit from the sprinting to stay on a wheel and you can also benefit from more steady, aerobic hill climbing efforts. Alternating the two means you can keep mixing up the training so you won't stop improving.

Try to make your road and mtb setups more similar if they are quite different. You do sit on a mountain bike differently but you can increase the stack height on your road bike so it feels a bit more like your mountain bike.

Thanks, that sounds like a good idea.