Originally Posted by
63rickert
For the other person who says he's out of the conversation: Imagine a forum or publication in some other domain. Imagine someone writing for car enthusiasts and claiming he has a magic car that accelerates as well off the line in top gear as in first gear. Imagine the howls of laughter. Yet such claims are made constantly when the topic is cycling. It never ends.
Well, now you made me mad by making crap up, so I'm going to answer that.
No one said I accelerate from nothing in top gear. I'm not a moron, I just get back to high gear very quickly.
I spin when I first start pedaling, and then shift up when I hit about 15 mph, which I do very quickly. From there. it's about a couple seconds back to 20 mph.
You keep doing this "all or nothing" nonsense, and you appear to have a closet full of straw men. One gets a little tired answering junk you make up. I don't know if you pedal in perfect circles, but you sure do argue in them.
I did miss a couple of downshifts at some stoplights last Saturday (hey, I was tired after the first 120 miles), and I did start rolling in the 53x12 when the light turned green. It was a lot easier than I expected, but it takes too much out of me to actually accelerate slower.
For the umpteenth and final time, I vary my cadence a lot, and I don't bother measuring it. I don't start pedaling the same way I cruise in the flat, I don't climb hills the same way I cruise in the flat, and I don't "sprint" in the same way I cruise in the flat. You're the one with a fetish for a particular cadence which you are attempting to assign to everyone. All I'm saying is that I gravitate naturally to the high gears in most conditions because of the makeup of my muscles, and that my cadence follows from that.
BTW, I'm taking the fact that you tried this failed attempt at a cheap shot as an acknowledgement that you know I'm right that someone in slow cadence on a very high gear might have to recruit fast twitch muscles. Once you missed that doozy, you should have quit.