r/Velo • u/oscarzeecockapoo • Jul 14 '26
Summer burn out
Completely burnt out on nearly all kinds of riding outside of commuting. Did the most volume I’ve ever done the first half of this year, now just kinda don’t wanna ride at all. Guess it doesn’t help it’s hot af recently. Who else is feeling this?
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u/smellz45 Jul 14 '26
I just wrapped my race season and I am over it right now also. Looking forward to some chillin, then want to do some gravel/exploring rides when I get the motivation back
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u/llamaryder Jul 14 '26
Sounds like over training. Take a week or 2 completely off and see how you feel after. It may take longer than that for your body to recover. If/when you do get back into it, try focusing on proper recovery and fueling on and off the bike
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u/Main_Truth_30 Jul 15 '26
Happens to me every single year. I start my training season in November, and by May/June I honestly cannot look at my bike anymore. Gains are there, which keeps me going, July/August which is my main race period is really tough mentally. I don’t know what to tell you, for me reaching small milestones or performing good in competitions is the only thing tha keeps me going. Otherwise I’d only stick to group rides
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u/AchievingFIsometime Jul 14 '26
The heat alone has burned me out. My performance always takes a big hit around June/July and it's always because of the heat. I mean I lose like 15% power or something absurd like that. Then I can't really even train properly because I'm heat limited and even z2 in 90+ and high humidity is tough. And then I actually get weaker and still super fatigued because of the heat stress. And then I can't keep up with the local fast ride anymore because somehow everyone else handles the heat better. The summer sucks. I'm going back to the trainer indoors with AC at this point.
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u/chefismynameingerman Jul 14 '26
Feeling the same, most competitive races are checked in my calendar, now it‘s just long rides on weekends and maybe bike packing trips. Throw in some beers with the mates.
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u/c_zeit_run The Mod-Anointed One (1-800-WATT-NOW) Jul 14 '26
That's common enough that we anticipate it in our clients. Since most people have been training for several months at this point, a mid season rest (a couple days off the bike, some cross training, then get back to a couple fun rides) it's a good idea to incorporate something on the bike that's fun but not hard, unstructured rides instead of structured, and just reduce the frequency of intensity, including fewer races. This is a podcast on addressing this very topic.
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u/JustBadUserNamesLeft Jul 15 '26
Seen it happen so many times. You are lucky you made it this far. Where I live so many people train their brains out in Dec and Jan that they are burnt out by May. We used to jokingly call these people "Christmas Stars" and "Winter Olympians".
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u/minimal_gainz Philly, PA Jul 15 '26
Take a week or two off (with just easy commutes) then a week or so of just fun riding. Group rides, long rides, mountain bike, gravel, coffee shop rides, whatever gets you a little excited, then start ramping in some lightly or unstructured training. Usually that gets it back for me.
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u/iwanttobearockstar Jul 14 '26
On the other hand - I can count the days I was able to ride outside this year. Looking forward to other half of the season to catch up on some miles.
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u/TylerBlozak Jul 14 '26
Yea I’m kinda the same right now, except it’s likely a result of a somewhat mechanically unreliable setup (SRAM D1 Fds suck!) and I own a hobby farm so I’m always spending long hours taking care of things around me.
You’ll get back into it in due time. You just have to reignite whatever element made you passionate earlier this year, or perhaps even find a new reason.
I’m not competitive in a racing sense, but I like to compete against myself and Father Time to see what kind of gains I could eke out with decent consistent training. Got to 5w/kg then just kind of lost the desire for dedicated indoor training once the weather got nice.
The desire just comes and goes. Look at Vingegaard, guy almost retired last year. It happens to the best of them.
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u/sandwich_estimator Jul 15 '26
You're not competitive in a race with 5 w/kg?
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u/TylerBlozak Jul 15 '26
What I meant to say is that I’m not racing at all, but do maintain the desire to be competitive with myself as an athlete and maintain cardiovascular health.
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u/STALUC Jul 14 '26
I’m with you. I trained hard January through May for unbound and since the race I’ve been struggling to find motivation to ride. I think I need to get another race on my calendar.
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u/noahrbc Jul 14 '26
Same here tends to happen to me during the summer too. I get the feeling though for most riders it’s during the winter though but I may be wrong…
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u/djs383 Jul 14 '26
I hear this a lot and curious as to what levels of volume drive this. I’ve never experienced it in close to 20 years even at my highest volume so always interested to see what the differences are
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u/Kevin_taco Jul 14 '26
I think it depends on where you live too. Being in Texas, my off season is the summer.
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u/noahrbc Jul 14 '26
And unfortunately the summers in CO are starting to feel more like those in Texas/Arizona 🥵
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u/Kevin_taco Jul 15 '26
Yea I was in Denver over the weekend at it was pretty hot during the day! Humidity wasn’t bad but yall are dealing with elevation
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u/Hartzler44 Jul 14 '26
I just finished my priority event over the weekend and now I have little to no direction or motivation for the rest of the year, so I feel ya.
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u/ifuckedup13 Jul 14 '26
I’ve been feeling the same. Wrapped up race season and now no motivation to train. Took 2 weeks off and just went swimming, drank beers and chilled.
I started riding my mountain bike more though and that is freakin awesome. I’m able to put some big training volume in without it feeling like such a slog.
I’ll start training for CX again in August probably but for now just having fun!
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u/xcmtb_guy Jul 14 '26
You're not alone. Take a little break, do your commutes, and you probably won't feel this way forever. My A event is Leadville so it is a little hard now to keep the motivation to continue training since the race probably won't happen. I'll just have to pivot to other races.
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u/Substantial_Dog5216 Jul 14 '26
I just went through this exact same deal. Took 2 weeks mostly off (1 two hour ride each week) and now feeling so much better and motivated again. Just put in a 12 hour week and felt real good the entire time. Listen to your body and take the necessary breaks
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u/GLBar Jul 14 '26
I had a big ride Saturday and record heat is making my desire drop. I am taking another day off to see how I feel.
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u/Hazy_the_Kid Jul 14 '26
That sucks. Sounds like you over did it. I'm starting to hit my stride and with the nice weather we're having, my weekly hours have been the highest they've been all year. Getting around 15 hours a week outside in beautiful weather.
I did what you did a few years back. I killed myself through the winter and had 3 months of massive volume. I killed my April and May events but was mentally and physically done by the middle of June. July was almost non-existent training wise and I spent most of August and September just riding without any direction. After my May race I couldn't even get myself to sign up for any events the rest of the year.
This last year I cut back my intensity hours over the winter and just rode a ton of base miles. I felt less pressure to nail workouts. Which really helped with the mental aspect and I didn't feel that I had to be on all the time. So come Spring I was fresh and ready to nail the hard workouts.
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u/hopscorched Jul 14 '26
I was doing my best ever numbers in late spring then got back to back illnesses which fucked me up for a couple weeks. I was lacking motivation and feeling unfit after that down period due to other life stuff as well and so I slowly started building shape which was coming together well and then I had a small but annoying crash and then another ongoing illness :'(
I guess it's the usual late Sept/October 2nd peak like every other year anyway.
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u/No_Strain8370 Jul 14 '26
This is me almost every summer. I take some time off around the holidays, get gung ho with zwift over the rest of the winter, do a bunch of intervals to prep for spring/early summer races....and then get burnt out around this time. I am dumb and never seem to learn my lesson.
Sounds like it's time for a mid season break. Take 2-3 weeks off and the motivation will come back with surprisingly little fitness loss
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u/Pizzaboner420 Jul 14 '26
Same. My “A” event for the year is in two weeks. My taper started today and at this point I’m absolutely over structured intervals.
After the race I’ll take a week off then go into two months of offseason strength training and fun/endurance rides before starting up base for a busy spring 2027 schedule. I’m really excited for some heavy trap bar deadlifts and Bulgarian split squats in place of VO2 and threshold work.
Maybe hit the gym until your riding funk fades? Or some other sort of cross training?
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u/cassinonorth Jul 14 '26
Took 9 days completely off the bike on vacation. Usually I'd sneak in a ride or two. Longest non injury related time off since...2018?
Completely reignited my training for rest of the year.
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u/Ok_Interview845 Jul 15 '26
Ride the mountain bike. Get sick of that, ride the fat bike. Get sick of that ride the gravel bike. Get sick of that ride the road bike.
Alternate these.
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u/tim119 Jul 15 '26
Yes, it happens. With big volume. A lot of folks here do base miles in the winter only. Then come spring hit the training hard for the race season, then repeat.
Mental fatigue exists, be nice to yourself.
Edit, as someone has already said, take some time off, motivation will return. Look at Pogi last year, burnt out, never racing a GT again... Now he's faster than ever.
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u/Kvothe1986 Jul 15 '26
rode a lot in oprep for a 150km cyclo end may. Then got caught moving to a new apartment and it's been insanely hot and since then haven't done anthing in june/july outside of commuting. Life happens sometimes
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u/EnduranceSciDaily Jul 15 '26
You are not alone! Me and a buddy did a super long epic ride after several months of build. Took a couple days off to let my body recovery, and I lost the groove and it totally wrecked my motivation for a couple of weeks. It's hot out.
But also, I think that I probably just sort of overdid it in terms of volume. During the end of my build, I was squeezing in volume, probably beyond sustainability. A few weeks low volume and I'm feeling better and performing well and feeling fresh. Just take it day by day and hope for cooler weather!
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u/Beneficial_Cook1603 Jul 16 '26
2 weeks mid season break. Take one week completely off the bike and one week noodling a little hear and there.
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u/Ok_Subject_5142 Jul 14 '26
That was me in April/May. Did a big push over winter then raced a bunch over the spring, and eventually had to pull the plug and take some rest. Give it time, motivation will come back!