Big Gears
06-10-18, 11:29 AM
#76
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Why flying 50s?
EDIT:
Are you doing that internet thing where people purposely post wrong information in order to get someone to post the correct information? You've been doing that a lot lately.
Last edited by carleton; 06-10-18 at 11:32 AM.
06-10-18, 11:37 AM
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06-10-18, 01:12 PM
#78
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06-10-18, 01:57 PM
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You know I have multiple high level coaches, right? ...because if you're testing gears, the top speed/cadence from a flying 50 is enough data and you can do more of them than flying 100s.
06-10-18, 02:31 PM
#80
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I also know that you are overconfident in your abilities and conclusions.
Several of us have had high level coaches. Several of us have watched athletes and the sport (including politics) very closely to understand what is reasonable and unreasonable.
Describe a “flying 50”. How is the leadup different than a flying 100?
Are you simply testing entry speed on a 250m track?
Where do you start and end the 50m trap?
EDIT:
You offered the advice to Juice. You have to do more than name the title of the thing (s)he is supposed to do, especially if it’s not clear. Explain what it is to express the complete recommendation.
Last edited by carleton; 06-10-18 at 02:50 PM.
06-10-18, 10:47 PM
#81
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Firstly, within a couple gear inches up or down, you'll probably ride a similar time. You can easily calculate approximately what gear you need given an avg cadence and a target time. For example, if you want to go 12.0, and avg 130 RPMs, you need to ride approximately a 99" gear. This of course assumes you ride exactly 200m along the black line, which isn't realistic.
Everyone's target cadence is different.
Perfect F200 gearing (and wind up) comes down primarily to training, rider physiology, and taking advantages of your strengths. If you're some one who is very good at being "snappy" and developing force rapidly, you're going to want to be riding smaller gears and shooting for peak cadences in the 130-140 range. If you're not as good at being snappy, you're going to want to shoot for bigger gears and lower target cadences, maybe only as high as 125. Some very strong people will ride at peak cadences even lower. There's a video of Ed Dawkins riding a 9.9 F200 on 60-12, staying seated the whole time, and his peak cadence was under 120 RPM, but he's strong as all get out.
The first gasp of the crowd is at the Flying 100M mark (relevant to this conversation). The second gasp was the finish.
To put this time into perspective, it was close to his world cup times around that same period. This video is captioned August 2014. He rode a slower 9.975" at a London World Cup event December 2014 (presumably riding a traditional windup). It's not exactly comparing apples to apples as the track and atmospheric conditions could account for the time differences). But, they are close enough to raise eyebrows.
I have a theory that a seated flying 200m is more viable than people think...with big or small gears. I know this sounds crazy...but so did narrow handlebars just a few years ago. Now they are standard, for the same reason: They are more aerodynamic.
The theory is basically: When you stand during a flying 200, you increase your frontal area so much that, at a certain speed, holds you back more than the gains of standing get you. So, it's basically faster to stay seated and tucked. This won't hold true at slower speeds (read: local racers), but at higher speeds, wind resistance is a bigger issue.
Certain squads seem to know this and focus on being very low out of the saddle to the point where they look awkward...but are winning world championships.
With this in mind, I think that the F200 should be it's own time trial event with medals. The range of qualifying times are so small that it doesn't matter when it's supposed to be a way to find out how to seed a competitive tournament. This will lead to a point where qualifying placement will not correlate to final placement (if there are no byes involved). I don't think there should be byes anyway. They provide an unfair advantage in a war of attrition. There are plenty of other ways to seed a tournament.
06-11-18, 12:30 AM
#82
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I can tell you right now, if I'm testing gears, I'm not going to be doing more than 6 efforts, and they'll be F100s because for the time and effort spent doing them, I'll get more/better information about gearing from doing F100s than doing F50s. Can you guess what that info is, why it's better, and why I'm not going to be doing more than 6 efforts?
Last edited by taras0000; 06-11-18 at 12:39 AM.
06-11-18, 12:50 AM
#83
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Bumping this thread as i will be doing my first ever match sprint tournament. This question/discussion is specific to flying 200 gearing. How much bigger are guys going for their flying 200 at a local level? Is everyone pretty much over 100in for theirs? When you’ve done some test runs in different gearing, what have you found works best? Talking to a masters sprinter the other day, he said he uses between 102-108in for his flying 200. What is “proven” to work for you?
06-11-18, 05:51 AM
#84
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Don’t get hung up on what others use. Play your own game and work out where your strengths lie and play to them, but don’t be afraid to go big!
06-11-18, 06:04 AM
#85
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From the circles I run in, a F50 should allow you to see top speed. Going the extra 50 won’t really gain much aside from increasing fatigue. Once hitting top speed it becomes about conditioning to hold on until the end
06-11-18, 06:37 AM
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With this in mind, I think that the F200 should be it's own time trial event with medals. The range of qualifying times are so small that it doesn't matter when it's supposed to be a way to find out how to seed a competitive tournament. This will lead to a point where qualifying placement will not correlate to final placement (if there are no byes involved). I don't think there should be byes anyway. They provide an unfair advantage in a war of attrition. There are plenty of other ways to seed a tournament.
I agree as well....especially since I suck at F200's since I never practice them. Closest velodrome to me is just over 5 hours away and the next closest is 8 hours away, so 99% of my riding/training is done on a flat, straight road. I never do proper F200's on the velodrome and last year at nationals due to my poor F200 time I got seeded very, very low and ended up having to do 11 rounds of competition before the night was over. All of the 200 times during the heats were faster than my original F200 to qualify......the 200 in my 11th heat of the night at almost 10 pm was still faster than my qualifying F200 at 9 am. I have always been the one to have to go round after round due to my qualifying 200 time.....even started thinking about trying to emulate the last lap of a sprint so I could get a faster F200 qualifying time rather than doing a "standard" F200.
06-11-18, 08:51 AM
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Bigger than what? Race gear?
The gear I go fastest in tends to work best. If you have the time, trial gears and keep going bigger until the top speed drops off. Running big gears requires the development to do so and that doesn’t happen overnight, so you can’t just go from running 88” all season and throw 135” on and expect miracles to happen. FWIW my PB is on 117” on 175 cranks
Don’t get hung up on what others use. Play your own game and work out where your strengths lie and play to them, but don’t be afraid to go big!
Like me i said this would be my first proper sprint tournament, so I am working the next few weeks solely on that.
06-11-18, 02:56 PM
#88
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This might be very obvious, but isn't always obvious to enduros trying sprint training for the first time, but make sure you have at least 15 mins of rest in between efforts when trying gears. It takes 10+ minutes for PCr stores in your muscles to be fully restored after efforts, so you need that time to recover and get a realistic max cadence measurement from the effort.
I recall a roadie who was trying the track saying, "Why do y'all take so many breaks for so long?" She assumed that trackies were out of shape. The real issue was that she wasn't "going deep" on her short efforts. Everything was sub-maximal. She hadn't developed the ability to go 9 or 10/10 on an effort on the bike yet.
06-14-18, 01:33 PM
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All I know is what you tell us. I also know that you’ve only been on a track bike for a year, before that road, and before that badminton.
I also know that you are overconfident in your abilities and conclusions.
Several of us have had high level coaches. Several of us have watched athletes and the sport (including politics) very closely to understand what is reasonable and unreasonable.
Describe a “flying 50”. How is the leadup different than a flying 100?
Are you simply testing entry speed on a 250m track?
Where do you start and end the 50m trap?
EDIT:
You offered the advice to Juice. You have to do more than name the title of the thing (s)he is supposed to do, especially if it’s not clear. Explain what it is to express the complete recommendation.
06-14-18, 01:34 PM
#90
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Geez. There was some serious animosity in a few of those comments. Don't know what I did to irk Carleton so damned much.
06-14-18, 08:24 PM
#93
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There is nothing to apologize for. You made it personal when you decided to drop the "You know I have multiple high level coaches, right?" bit. Sounds like you're trying to justify that you offer unimpeachable advice, but like carleton pointed out, you have been wrong before. He didn't insult you, or slander your name with untruths. He explained himself and then offered an explanation for the advice that he put forth to Juice. If that offends you, then maybe you need to take criticism a little better, because being open and blunt isn't an assault on someone.
There's nothing to look at here people. Let's all move along.
There's nothing to look at here people. Let's all move along.
