Importance of Cadence
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Yes! Absolutely, I have emphasized muscle strength and endurance over cardio. I have always had very strong legs and my strength in a rider is being able to put out a lot of torque over very long distances. My winter routine is to put high resistance on the elliptical and grind on it for 3 hours on Saturday and Sunday, and 3-4 hour long sessions during the work week so my leg muscles are big and powerful. It's a lot more efficient for me to put out 63 high-torque rotations per minute than waste a bunch of the energy I produce lifting my heavy-ass legs 30 or so more times per minute.
Last edited by Trakhak; 09-29-21 at 02:28 PM.
#52
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Maybe you should ditch the power cranks and use a standard crankset where the weight of the descending leg lifts the rising one.
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See, I have no problem with the idea that all of that is valid.
The problems for me in these conversations is when people start describing what I do successfully as being the mistakes of a beginner. Bicycling is really an art, not a science, there's always more than one good way to do things.
And what's great about your post is you realize how much of this is subjective. I'm on the opposite end on #5, I find spinning absolutely boring as hell.
Hope the zip tie Karens don't find you!
The problems for me in these conversations is when people start describing what I do successfully as being the mistakes of a beginner. Bicycling is really an art, not a science, there's always more than one good way to do things.
And what's great about your post is you realize how much of this is subjective. I'm on the opposite end on #5, I find spinning absolutely boring as hell.
Hope the zip tie Karens don't find you!
Doesn't matter the topic: flat/drop bars; tires; chain lube; frame material; clothing; shoes; pedals; ... whatever. A bunch of recreational cyclists (however 'serious') claiming to know the 'one true way' ... ridiculous. In the end, we are all a bunch of dorks 'playing bikes'.
Me? I don't like to 'mash'; I'm a spinner (80 to 110), therefore all cyclists should be spinners. That about sums up Biek Forms logic.
Oh, and if I could be arsed I'll cite a bunch of "studies" to support that position. But I can't be arsed, so I won't.
#54
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Here's a track cyclist with legs that are probably as big and powerful as yours, and yet he can turn over the pedals at a pretty good rate of speed. Road riding is something else again, of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rotFAHIax2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ&t=9s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rotFAHIax2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O5voOCqAQ&t=9s
His legs are much bigger and I'm sure much stronger than mine. That's also a 90 second ride. It has absolutely nothing to do with the type of riding I do. And I'll bet he has about 3-4 times more fast twitch muscle than I have.
But, yeah, those guys are definitely outliers. That's kind of the point of what they do.
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But ... but ... isn't that t' Biek Forms way? "My personal preferences, etc. blah blah blah" are the right/scientifically-demonstrable/universally-accepted 'way' -- the only way to cycling salvation.
Doesn't matter the topic: flat/drop bars; tires; chain lube; frame material; clothing; shoes; pedals; ... whatever. A bunch of recreational cyclists (however 'serious') claiming to know the 'one true way' ... ridiculous. In the end, we are all a bunch of dorks 'playing bikes'.
Me? I don't like to 'mash'; I'm a spinner (80 to 110), therefore all cyclists should be spinners. That about sums up Biek Forms logic.
Oh, and if I could be arsed I'll cite a bunch of "studies" to support that position. But I can't be arsed, so I won't.
Doesn't matter the topic: flat/drop bars; tires; chain lube; frame material; clothing; shoes; pedals; ... whatever. A bunch of recreational cyclists (however 'serious') claiming to know the 'one true way' ... ridiculous. In the end, we are all a bunch of dorks 'playing bikes'.
Me? I don't like to 'mash'; I'm a spinner (80 to 110), therefore all cyclists should be spinners. That about sums up Biek Forms logic.
Oh, and if I could be arsed I'll cite a bunch of "studies" to support that position. But I can't be arsed, so I won't.
When the conversation turns to what we eat on long rides, I usually have to give people a "don't try this at home" warning because I think what I do would probably make most people sick.
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Maybe I'm good doing what I'm doing.
You understand that means some of the energy generated by the descending leg is going into lifting that ascending leg, right?
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#61
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Second, such an obvious moving of the goalposts fools no one. The issue you raised was energy needed to raise the upward moving leg in the pedal stroke. Other than a slight imbalance between the two legs, whatever force is needed to raise one leg is provided by the weight of the other.
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I actually don't think I've ever looked at cadence. I naturally have a fast cadence of 90+ and therefore never worried about being a slow cadence masher, so for me, my one metric to rule them all is "3 second avg. power" (power meter required). Power data is EVERYTHING!
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#64
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First of all world class pros do not exert upward force on the rising pedal, https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ng_performance
Second, such an obvious moving of the goalposts fools no one. The issue you raised was energy needed to raise the upward moving leg in the pedal stroke. Other than a slight imbalance between the two legs, whatever force is needed to raise one leg is provided by the weight of the other.
Second, such an obvious moving of the goalposts fools no one. The issue you raised was energy needed to raise the upward moving leg in the pedal stroke. Other than a slight imbalance between the two legs, whatever force is needed to raise one leg is provided by the weight of the other.
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#65
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If you can't follow the discussion, maybe it's best you remain silent. I never made any comment on how to ride a bike.
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First of all world class pros do not exert upward force on the rising pedal, https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ng_performance
Second, such an obvious moving of the goalposts fools no one. The issue you raised was energy needed to raise the upward moving leg in the pedal stroke. Other than a slight imbalance between the two legs, whatever force is needed to raise one leg is provided by the weight of the other.
Second, such an obvious moving of the goalposts fools no one. The issue you raised was energy needed to raise the upward moving leg in the pedal stroke. Other than a slight imbalance between the two legs, whatever force is needed to raise one leg is provided by the weight of the other.
Didn't say they pulled up, it's that they don't let their leg sit on the pedal as dead weight as much as lower skilled riders. I could dig out references to this if I thought your argument was worth the time, but you're so far off the beam, it's not necessary.
You don't seem to understand that the descending leg is not falling, it's pushing down against resistance. Even if all of the energy needed to lift the ascending leg is eminating from the descending side, it isn't a matter of balance, the weight of the ascending leg is simply an additional source of resistance that must be overcome by the descending leg to move the pedal downwards. The weight of the legs are going to be constants throughout the ride whether you're spinning or mashing. All I've claimed is that moving that weight up 90 times a minute is going to take more energy than doing it 60 times. You got some fancy math proving that obviously true statement is false? Didn't think so.
TL/DR: It doesn't matter which leg is doing the lifting, doing it 90 times a minute is going to take more energy than doing it 60.
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after reading this thread I have been more consciously monitoring cadence and another screen shows average cadence. I always considered myself a higher cadence rider but was very surprised to see an average of 65 which involved 2000’ climbing some at 15-16%. On flats - I was usually in the 70s but on 1% downhill grades about 85. I tried to push my cadence up by downshifting when I noticed being in the 60s but what came to mind is we pedal at a rate which feel comfortable and the 70s might be it on the flats at 18 MPH. Lots of other factors influencing cadence but for me, my sweet spot is more in the 70s.
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#70
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Sorry I’m not nearly as impressed by you as you are. And your link about research proving elite cyclists don’t lift on the upstroke only stated that the elites have the ability to generate higher downstroke power than non-elite cyclists. That does not exactly prove anything about whether either the elite or non-elite groups (a whopping 15 total riders in the entire test) generate power on the upstroke or how much.
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#72
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You don’t really think I was serious about changing from power cranks do you? It was an ironic device to show the fallacy of the model that muscular effort is needed to raise the upward moving leg. There may be a few holdouts, but virtually no one is riding with power cranks anymore.
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#74
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You don’t really think I was serious about changing from power cranks do you? It was an ironic device to show the fallacy of the model that muscular effort is needed to raise the upward moving leg. There may be a few holdouts, but virtually no one is riding with power cranks anymore.
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