Cycling in ironman
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Triguy98 posted 1 year ago.
You need to work both. Being a newer biker, it takes a while tob uild up the necessary muscles. Make sure your workouts include big gear grinding, high speed intervals, and high cadence spins. Some triathletes are indeed mashers, but a larger percentage are spinners. Its an individual thing, but it does take the body time to be able to push the gears hardusing either method.
Life is short. Play hard and get dirty doing it.
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RV posted 1 year ago.
You want to ride at a high cadence 90+ being on a flat course - you would want to be on the big chain ring up front. You want to ride at a high cadence at the biggest gear that you can hold. Hey congrats on your IM finish. Work on increasing your strength and endurance.
RV
It takes a long time to get good. - Scott Molina
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast. - Rich Strauss
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Tikal Dog posted 1 year ago.
I think that after Lance came and changed Time Trials in the Tour by pedaling smaller gears at higher cadence everyone tend to think that THAT was his magical secret.
That worked better for him.....but it may not work for you. You have to find the combination that best works for you.
I for example feel good in higher gears in short races, but for longer ones I just cant handle them. My legs feel realy loaded after a while.
Hyperactive Trifueler!!!! (I refuse to let the status go :p)
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brock1234 posted 1 year ago.
Big chain ring is more efficient (more leverage), you shouldn't really need to touch the small chain ring on a flat course.
I don't want to get into arguments about cadence because it really depends on the person. However my coach has always said he had his best TT's when we held a cadence of 86-90, and a HR of 155-165BPM. Meaning if your cadence starts dropping your pushing to bigger gear, if your HR and cadence go up your pushing to smaller gear etc etc.
He was a sub 53min 40km TT so I guess he knows what hes talking about.
Mark.
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OzTriGuy posted 1 year ago.
brock1234;62430 wrote:
Big chain ring is more efficient (more leverage), you shouldn't really need to touch the small chain ring on a flat course.I don't want to get into arguments about cadence because it really depends on the person. However my coach has always said he had his best TT's when we held a cadence of 86-90, and a HR of 155-165BPM. Meaning if your cadence starts dropping your pushing to bigger gear, if your HR and cadence go up your pushing to smaller gear etc etc.
He was a sub 53min 40km TT so I guess he knows what hes talking about.
Mark.
Interesting info. How does the grinding affect running off the bike?
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brock1234 posted 1 year ago.
OzTriGuy;62553 wrote:
Interesting info. How does the grinding affect running off the bike?
I think in shorter distance races, in particular sprint distance pushing bigger gears is a big mistake, and you won't come right in the run for a few km at least. Standard distance is ho-hum I couldn't really say what feels better. In Ironman though i've never had any problems pushing bigger gears (not stupid big, but 86-88RPM). My theory is, when using big gears in the high intensity stuff it overloads your legs, and they lactate up really quick. Because Ironman is longer you can get away with it so long as you've trained yourself.
Like I said above though it really depends on your build, i've got pretty big quads so I can get away with it.
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Pete L. posted 1 year ago.
I think it has more to do with strength than cadence. Some people are just gear grinders, and that works for them. You're not falling behind because of your cadence, its just the wattage you're pushing. You just need to get strong enough to stay in the bigger chainring. I hate when I get right on the edge, and can't hold cadence in the big chainring, but sometimes, I just need to downshift to keep my heartrate stable.
Do you train with a heart rate monitor at all?
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brock1234 posted 1 year ago.
Pete L.;63180 wrote:
I think it has more to do with strength than cadence. Some people are just gear grinders, and that works for them. You're not falling behind because of your cadence, its just the wattage you're pushing. You just need to get strong enough to stay in the bigger chainring.QUOTE]Na man, if you have a lower cadence you create more mechanical torque (wasted energy). You can be putting out alot of watts, but alot of the energy can be getting absorbed by the chain and crank arm rather than be transfered into foward momentum.
Mark.
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brock1234 posted 1 year ago.
Pete L.;63180 wrote:
I think it has more to do with strength than cadence. Some people are just gear grinders, and that works for them. You're not falling behind because of your cadence, its just the wattage you're pushing. You just need to get strong enough to stay in the bigger chainring.
Na man, if you have a lower cadence you create more mechanical torque (wasted energy). You can be putting out alot of watts, but alot of the energy can be getting absorbed by the chain and crank arm rather than be transfered into foward momentum.
Mark.
Hi guys,
Couple of questions about cycling, I recently did the WA ironman....what a great day that was....my first ironman completed!!! but anyway....While i was on the bike i noticed that all the people who overtook me had a much lower cadence than me and were using much higher gears.
Now I only bought my bike in march so i aint very experienced but i thought it was better to have a higher cadence, about 90-100. The people who were overtaking me must have been far lower than that just by looking at them...I was in my lower chainring and about 3 up from the bottom at the back...was a pretty flat course all the way round but virtually everyone else was on the big chainring....
So my question is, should i be churning it out in the higher gears or should i keep to the higher cadence??
Cheers
Tim