Why Do We Need Cycling Endurance Training? Does it really help FTP and VO2Max?

EVOQ.BIKE Cycling Podcast

This was a great Cat 4 Question emailed in. We've all heard the analogies about pyramids and foundations, but let's look at what is really going on, and then HOW it affects your FTP and VO2Max.
To be brief, yes, riding endurance will help you with those really hard efforts.
Here's his question:
Why does base, or endurance cycling, matter? All through athletics the answer I get has always been an analogy about building a house or a pyramid; something to the effect of, “the wider the base the higher the peak.”
I think I gleaned the answer from a 5 second trainer road podcast statement, “the harder an adaptation is to gain, the longer it takes to lose.” I take this to imply that aerobic adaptations take the longest to improve, but will be kept the longest. This in combination with a Stephen Seiler statement that almost all efforts over 60s are primarily aerobic leads me to believe: Base is important because almost every effort requires some combination of the aerobic and anaerobic systems with the former being the primary contributor. Therefore building a large base is critical to overall long term improvement in almost all levels of performance.
If I’m right - great, it would be nice to hear this stated plainly somewhere. Then maybe people will stop skipping endurance rides! If I am wrong - great! I am glad I asked. 12 years in endurance sport and I have always received an analogy as an answer, absent an explanation.
Here is my answer: https://youtu.be/4uld9mAlF7Y

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