Originally Posted by
datlas
So I have a question. Maybe I should ask the marginal gains podcast gang, but I will start here. My suspicion is it doesn’t make much of a difference, but the question involves whether you should pedal downhill when going medium pace, say at 25MPH on a 3-4% downhill. I usually do soft pedal at maybe 50-100w, and I expect that gets me only 1 MPH faster than just coasting. It’s easy to calculate the gain/cost using an online calculator to estimate the aero benefits of coasting vs pedaling and the speed difference at coasting vs soft-pedaling. The harder part is figuring out if the modest power output “costs” anything from future output needed when the inevitable next climb starts.
Anyone have some evidence based answers?
Definitely pedal, unless you're in endurance mode on a really long ride. Maybe everybody is different, but to me, it's torque, not watts, that really burns matches; the fatigue of 300w @70 rpm is going to accumulate more than that of 300w @110rpm, simply because those slower grinds are shifting away from the cardio and on to the legs.