Ride High or Low Zone 2 Cycling?
Many cyclists talk about endurance training as if it is one thing: Zone 2.
“Just ride Zone 2.” “Build your base with Zone 2.”
“Keep it endurance.”
That advice is not wrong, but it is incomplete. Your aerobic system is not one narrow intensity.
And that matters, because not every endurance ride should feel the same.
Some days, endurance riding should feel almost too easy. Other days, it should feel steady and productive. And occasionally, especially if you are preparing for longer events like gran fondos, road races, gravel races, or big climbing days, endurance work can include time near the upper end of your aerobic range.
The key is knowing which intensity to use and why.
Endurance Is Not Just One Pace
A common mistake is treating all endurance rides the same. They pick a comfortable power, settle in, and repeat that same effort over and over.
For some riders, that means they ride too hard too often. Every “endurance” ride slowly creeps into tempo. They finish every ride feeling like they got a workout, but over time they accumulate fatigue without getting the intended benefit from their harder sessions.
For other riders, the opposite happens. They ride all of their endurance work very easily, which is useful, but they never develop the ability to sustain pressure for long periods. Then, when they get into a long event, they struggle with the steady muscular demand of climbing, rolling terrain, or sitting in a group at a pace that is not hard, but also not truly easy.
For most riders, the aerobic endurance range can be broken into three practical intensities:
Easy endurance: about 60–65% of FTP
Steady endurance: about 65–75% of FTP
High endurance / upper Zone 2: about 75–82% of FTP
These percentages are not magic. They are guidelines. But they are useful because they help you stop thinking of endurance as one fixed pace.
Low Endurance
Approximate range: 60–65% FTP
Low endurance is the low-stress aerobic gear.
This is the type of ride that should feel relaxed, controlled, and conversational. You should not be fighting the pedals. You should not be mentally negotiating with yourself to hold the power. Breathing should be calm. If you are riding with someone else, you should be able to talk easily.
This gear is useful for:
Recovery and aerobic training
Building low-stress volume
Improving fat oxidation
Adding aerobic work without creating much fatigue
Getting time on the bike when you are already tired
This is the range many riders should use more often, especially during high-volume weeks, recovery days, or periods when they are trying to absorb harder work.
Low endurance is not junk. It is not “too easy to matter.” In fact, for many amateur cyclists, this is the gear that allows consistency.
You can ride here frequently. You can add volume here. You can recover while still getting useful aerobic work. And because the fatigue cost is low, it is less likely to interfere with your next important workout.
That last part matters.
A lot of cyclists ruin their training not because they do one workout too hard, but because they ride all of the “in-between” days a little too hard. Over time, that turns the whole week into a gray zone of moderate fatigue.
Easy endurance helps prevent that.
Middle Endurance
Approximate range: 65–75% FTP
Middle endurance is the bread-and-butter aerobic gear.
This is still controlled and sustainable, but it has more pressure on the pedals. You are not coasting through the ride. You are working. It should feel like productive endurance training, but not like a tempo workout hiding in disguise.
This is the zone where many riders do a lot of their best aerobic development.
Steady endurance is useful for:
Mitochondrial development
Aerobic base building
Improving sustainable power
General endurance fitness
Long rides where you want a solid but manageable workload
For many cyclists, this is the default endurance gear. It is not as easy as recovery riding, but it is still manageable enough to accumulate meaningful time.
This is where you might ride during a normal endurance session when you feel decent, the goal is aerobic development, and you do not need the ride to be especially easy.
When we talk in terms of ranges. that does not mean you need to stare at the head unit and lock yourself into a narrow band, but it gives you a sense of what “steady endurance” should feel like. Glance down from time to time and make sure you’re riding at the right intensity. I like 30s average power and average power.
You are riding with purpose, but you are not racing the workout.
High Endurance / Upper Zone 2
Approximate range: 75–82% FTP
This is where things get more interesting.
High endurance, or upper Zone 2, is still predominantly aerobic, but it carries more cost. You will use more glycogen. You will create more muscular fatigue. The ride will feel more demanding, especially as duration increases.
This range can be extremely useful, but it is also where many riders accidentally turn an endurance ride into an unplanned tempo session.
That does not mean you should avoid it. It means you should use it intentionally.
High endurance is useful for:
Muscular endurance
Race preparation
Long climbs
Steady pressure late in rides
Building durability
Bridging the gap between endurance and tempo
The key is that this range should be used with context. If riding at 78–82% of FTP compromises your next key workout, then it was probably too much for that day. If you are already fatigued, under-fueled, or trying to absorb a hard block, this may not be the right gear.
But if you are building toward an event and you want to improve your ability to handle sustained workload and the capacity to really push on those pedals late into hour 3, 4 or 5+, this can be a valuable tool.
Match the Intensity to the Purpose
The point is not to make endurance training complicated. The point is to stop doing every endurance ride at the same intensity.
Before the ride, ask yourself: What is the purpose of today?
If you are tired, stressed, or coming off a hard workout, use Low endurance.
Ride easy. Keep the stress low. Let the aerobic work support recovery instead of adding more fatigue.
If you are building volume and want a productive endurance ride, use Middle Endurance.
This is your standard aerobic development pace. Comfortable, sustainable, and repeatable.
If you are preparing for a long event, big climbing day, or gran fondo, use High Endurance occasionally. Reread that bold word again ;-)
Include some upper endurance work, but do it intentionally and make sure it does not compromise the rest of the training week.
That is the difference between smart endurance training and accidentally riding tempo all the time.
Don’t Let Endurance Become Unplanned Tempo
This is one of the biggest traps for motivated cyclists.
You head out for an endurance ride. The legs feel good. The power creeps up. The climbs get pushed a little. The average power looks nice. You come home feeling like you did something.
But then the next day’s workout suffers.
That is where high endurance training can become a problem. Not because high endurance is bad, but because the ride no longer matched the purpose.
A good endurance ride should support the larger training plan. Sometimes that means going easier than you want. Sometimes that means staying steady. Sometimes that means adding controlled upper endurance work.
But it should not be random.
Fueling Changes Across the Gears
Another reason these intensities matter is fuel use.
At the lower end of endurance, the body can rely more heavily on fat oxidation, and the stress is relatively low. As intensity rises, carbohydrate use increases. By the time you are riding in the 75–82% range for long periods, glycogen demand becomes much more meaningful.
So if you are doing upper endurance work, especially on a longer ride, you need to fuel it.
A rider doing two easy hours at 55–65% FTP may not need aggressive fueling. But a rider doing four hours with long stretches at 75–82% FTP absolutely needs to think about carbohydrate intake.
This is another reason not to lump all endurance rides together. The power may still be “aerobic,” but the fueling demand is different.
The Takeaway
Endurance is not just one pace, and “Zone 2” is not a single magical number. Easy endurance, steady endurance, and high endurance all have a place in a good training plan.
The goal is not to make every ride harder. The goal is to make every ride more purposeful.
When you match the intensity to the purpose, you get more out of your endurance training without turning every ride into an unplanned tempo session.
We are nearly past the middle of the season...time to buckle up for the end of season racing!! Some great opportunities to capitalize on growth and wins as other riders tire out, or are already burnt out!
Hmu if you need help with getting faster. Email Brendan@EVOQ.BIKE