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Most of us don’t ride for a living. Between work, family and everything else, a good week might leave room for four rides, and some of them barely an hour long. This calculator is built for that: it takes the time you have and makes every minute count, mixing easy endurance rides with short, focused intervals.

The idea isn’t mine. It comes from a well-known coaching approach for cyclists with busy lives, which proved that a few hours a week of well-structured intensity can take you a long way. I adapted it to the numbers most of us already have: the FTP from a ramp test and, if you train with a heart rate monitor, your threshold heart rate.

Enter one or both, pick a plan for your goal and you’ll get every workout of every week with your own watts and heartbeats. Your numbers stay in your browser, and you can print the whole plan or save it as a PDF.

The zones

EM · EnduranceMiles (50–81% FTP)

The base pace of every ride: moderate, always below threshold. The range is wide to allow for hills, descents and wind. Stay in its middle rather than at the top, so you’re fresh for the intervals.

T · Tempo (89–94% FTP)

A sustained pace still below threshold, in big gears at a low cadence (70–75 rpm), building strength and aerobic endurance. It isn’t used in the 11-week plans: it’s meant for endurance blocks.

SS · SteadyState (96–100% FTP)

6- to 20-minute intervals just below threshold, at 85–95 rpm, on flat or gently rolling roads. They are the core of threshold training. They should feel like 7 out of 10, a little easier than time trial pace.

CR · ClimbingRepeat (106–111% FTP)

Like SteadyState, but uphill, where the same effort takes a little more power. Cadence 70–85 rpm, an 8 out of 10. In the plans it’s mostly the “Over” part of Over-Unders.

PI · PowerInterval (above 112% FTP)

Short, maximal intervals, from 30 seconds to 3 minutes (10 out of 10), at a high cadence above 100 rpm. Recovery is kept short on purpose, often as long as the interval. They are the key workout of the method: they raise VO2max and, with it, threshold power.

The workouts

• SEPI · Steady Effort PowerInterval: bring the power up over the first 30–45 seconds, then hold it high and steady to the end.
• PFPI · Peak-and-Fade PowerInterval: an explosive, all-out start. Power fades after about a minute, which is expected: keep pushing as hard as you can, above 90 rpm.
• OU · Over-Under: long intervals alternating the SS zone (Under) and the CR zone (Over), always ending with an Over. “3×12 OU (2U, 1O)” means three 12-minute intervals, 2 minutes Under and 1 Over, repeated.
• TL · ThresholdLadder: an all-out PowerInterval followed, with no break, by the CR zone and then the SS zone. “TL 1/3/5” is 1 min. PI, 3 min. CR, 5 min. SS. It mimics an attack followed by a breakaway.
• FP · FastPedal: light gear and a very high cadence (108–120 rpm), seated and smooth. Cadence and fluidity matter, not watts.
• RBI / RBS: easy riding between intervals (RBI) and between sets (RBS).
• Week 8: the end of the progression, the best time to race. Weeks 9–11: holding on to the fitness.

A note on heart rate

Heart rate reacts slowly to short efforts and drifts upward with heat, fatigue and long rides, so use power when you have it and heart rate as a guide. For PowerIntervals especially, go by effort: your heart rate won’t catch up in two minutes.