Hills: Mash or Spin?
Originally Posted by
OldBrokeReCycle
I'm 67; I am a non-racer, have been a tourer, commuter, and now exclusively recreational rider. I've got 50% or so lung capacity due to 40+ years of Bad Life Choices(TM). I gave up electronics when the power meter wouldn't stop lauging.
.Either way, I'm climbing at 5 or 6 mph up not too steep (5-10% [?]) grades.
It seems to me that mashing (39/30+ at really low cadence) is easier than spinning (30/30+ at a less-low cadence). High-cadence being maybe 70+ rpm, which I can do pretty easily (53/20+) on the flats at 12-14 mph. I am now no longer afraid of these 20 mile 1500 ft rides.
I would like to go on longer rides (30+ miles).
What do you think? Is mash or spin the better "training" strategy?
Originally Posted by
crtreedude
I do both. If the hill is long, I like to sit and granny up it, but if it is short, I tend to just stand up and power over it,
knowing I can recover on the other side.
Originally Posted by
bruce19
I start with a cadence that is comfortable. I will go up or down the cogs based on terrain and what my legs are telling me.
FWIW, I have posted about riding on the moderate hills of Metro Boston.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
"Cadence"
I’m a 40+ year long cyclist and I ride mainly for fitness.
My training tool is the Relative Perceived Exertion (RPE) Scale, and I use cadence to chose gears to maintain my desired exertion..
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
This year though, I decided to go for speed (intensity), and I use the semi-quantitative, standardized, but personally relavant system of
(Borg’s) Relative Perceived Exertion (RPE) (link).
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
The RPE scale ranges from 6 to 17, with descriptions of the intensity. Multiply the RPE by 10 is the approximate heart rate. Jim's scale is the equivalent on a 0 to 100 scale, easier to think about:
RPE = 7, very, very light... Jim's scale = 20 to 30
RPE = 9, very light... Jim's scale = 30 to 40
11, fairly light...50 (my usual happy-go-lucky pace without thinking about it)
13, somewhat hard...60 (I have to focus to maintain)
15, hard...70 (I start breathing hard at about 30 seconds)
17, very hard (lactate threshold; breakpoint between hard but steady breathing and labored with gasping)...
18, 80 (my predicted max HR)
19, very, very hard...90 to 100.
My basic training is to ride at my RPE of 50% for six miles to warm up, then cruise at an RPE of 60%, and do intervals (on hills) at 70%. I try to change gears to maintain a cadence of about 85-90 rpm on flats and rolling hills, and about 60 to 80 rpm on harder hills, to maintain my RPE.
Shift up to higher gears as the cadence rises, and shift down as the RPE increases.
My above schedule is partly based on the need to incorporate intervals in training.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
...I'm fortunate to be a daily year-round cycling commuter early in the morning, with a pleasant, minimal one-way distance of 14 miles, easily lengthened during the nice weather. My commute is really my only chance to train.
I had long rejected the idea of intervals because getting on the Road early is a challenge itself, and I didn't want to lose my enthusiasm by punishing myself too much. That fairly simple regimen described above seemed tolerable, and for the first two days so far was tolerable and somewhat enjoyable....
Intervals on the road during a defined commute are more variable than what one can do on a trainer. I have quickly learned that I must watch out for traffic and not pay too much attention to the stopwatch on my cycle computer. Sometimes the stopwatch times out during an interval and I have to reset. Often the terrain is out of synch with the interval, e.g. downhills on the intensity interval, uphill on the rest interval, with stoplights interspersed.
As mentioned above I just use “Rating of Perceived Exertion” (RPE) as my monitor...I consider my usual happy-go-lucky pace is at an RPE of 50 (out of 100), and previously sometimes tried to ride most of the commute at a steady 60. So I ride about 6-8 miles at my usual pace (exertion) to totally warm up, then I estimate my RPE during the intense one-minute intervals to be about about 70-80. I then revert to my usual RPE of 50 for the remaining 2-3 miles
.
My hills are of a suitable length for those intense intervals,As @
crtreedude mentioned above, I consider my ability to recover quickly as an informal indicator of fitness (along with intensity (speed) of the effort, and resting heart rate).
I pedal hard and fast on the downhill preceding an uphill grade to conserve my downhill momentum as I go uphill. One useful tip I garnered from Bike Forums is to jump two gear levels up when rising to stand on the pedals and mash.
A caveat about hillls though:
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
"Riding versus Training"
One other thing I learned during my trial phase of this training program is not to underestimate hills when doing intervals. I once was riding up a hill in too high a gear, barely pedaling to stay upright, and my chain fell off the front cog and got wedged between the seat tube and pedal crank.
I had to pull so hard to remove it that I bent a link, causing the chain to skip with each rotation.
I had posted about my last mountainous road ride in Pennsylvania in 2015:
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
…Compared to the hills of Metro Boston, I consider that I rode over two
mountains, shorter perhaps, but with grades as challenging as I had encountered in Colorado (but that was 35 years ago)
.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
Now there are plenty of nice rides around Boston, but what made this ride special were the mountains; see BD’s Ride with GPS.
There were also some steep backroad hills,
and I occasionally got stuck in too high a gear, saying to BD,
“I gotta learn to respect these hills.”
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