Gears and Another TT
First off I wish I had this link yesterday:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=3016215
I obviously really suck at picking a "general" route. 2327 feet of vertical in 26.64 miles is stupid. Sure there were some climbs but that's just silly for a endurance/tempo ride. I will give myself an artistic A for the course though. That's a solid looking loop on the map in terms of shape.
So onto Gear Ratios:
I wrote yesterday that I generally climb in my 42x23 combo. I mentioned that to Albert and he replied as such:
"Holy cow!!! I thought it was a 23 i looked down at that thing and was like you are fucking nuts for doing everything in the 42
My front ring is a 36 and my 2 biggest in the back are 25 and 27
Non compact gearing would be a 39 up front and 25 and 23 in the rear (what I had on my first bike)
So lets look at some gear inches
42/27 42
42/25 45.4
42/23 49
39/27 39
39/25 42.1
39/23 45.8
36/27 36
36/25 38.9
36/23 42.3
So in a 42/23 you are at 49 gear inches.
I never use my easiest gear ( kind of a mental leave one just in case) and I rarely use the 36/25 combo but i use it. So even if I used the 36/23 on every hill that is 7 gear inches less then you were using!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's a lot.
For me to use the same gear inch I would be in a 36/20... my middle of the cassette is a 19. Do I climb some hills in that gear? Sure I do but not some of the monsters we were doing.
You know when Elle had her triple she used to do the same thing. I would get this from her. "I don't want to use the small ring" I would tell her she is crazy. That 42 is a big ring up front to do hills on. I know its a mental thing and I do it too with not using my easiest gear.
I wonder what this has done to help or hinder progress. I think its fine to have a day where you say you are going to do all hills in that ring, and then i think you should have a day where you do all hills in the little ring.
Ah wtf do I know, other than I would never have done those hills in that gear."
I agree, what the hell am I thinking? In terms of how it applies to my training well it's a good question. I do spin more than in years past but to be sure this isn't going to help that cause. So yet another reason to lose my middle ring hangup. Plus when the cadence drops so low you're
entering a realm of strength training on the bike. Maybe not so bad for off-season but it's June now.
So lose the grind and drop to the small ring. I'll have another chance this weekend as Nat has basically given me the green light to ride as much as I can Sunday. I'm certainly going to go up and over the 6 hour mark and if I'm smart I'll take this opportunity to push the 8 hour mark. Now I need to figure out where to go. Too many options to list right now.
For my own future reference, I will link this RBR thread about climbing and power output.
I did my TT today and it went OK. I beat my previous record by a hair or 2 but it took all I had to do it. My primary muscles were fine but my tendons/ligaments were really screaming at the end, and my left butt muscle (or thereabouts) hurt like hell. When I got off the bike I could barely walk. Literally.
So I waddled into the house and said fuck it, I'm taking the day off. Walking hurt, sitting hurt, standing hurt. Ouch and ouch, that was a serious effort. Like I said in the GPS post, if you do that every day you're setting yourself up for major burnout. It's almost 1:30 now and I'm still sore.
The day was a little breezy and my legs were a tad sore, so I was skeptical that I was going to have any chance to beat my old record. In the end I turned the corner at the top of my hill with about a 500 foot lead. Almost nothing.
Undoubtedly I was stronger last time but since I had toasted the record already I had no real cause to push that day. Next time will be an interesting match. Today was a pretty big effort, a really good threshold workout which is the point of all this.
Last time:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2814805
This time:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3017763
A little confusing but last time I didn't start the timer until about a half mile into it, and that was low speed stuff at the start. That was when I didn't really know what I was doing so I didn't capture the ride entirely. This time I did, which translates to the extra .3 miles in 40 seconds. Like I said it was real close. It would have been more like .1 or .2 miles save for the fact that entering the swamp I had to circle once at 3 mph at the end of the road, and coming down the hill to my house they were cutting down a tree so there was refuse all over and I had to go through it at 5-10 mph instead of 35. So my gap got really small at that point.
I need to refine a few details of the course and the method, but in all this is a great use of the GPS. I probably should warm up properly which I think is why I hurt so much after the ride. I also think I need to end the course on a flat and fast stretch so I can really blow it out of the box and give it all I have.
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=3016215
I obviously really suck at picking a "general" route. 2327 feet of vertical in 26.64 miles is stupid. Sure there were some climbs but that's just silly for a endurance/tempo ride. I will give myself an artistic A for the course though. That's a solid looking loop on the map in terms of shape.
So onto Gear Ratios:
I wrote yesterday that I generally climb in my 42x23 combo. I mentioned that to Albert and he replied as such:
"Holy cow!!! I thought it was a 23 i looked down at that thing and was like you are fucking nuts for doing everything in the 42
My front ring is a 36 and my 2 biggest in the back are 25 and 27
Non compact gearing would be a 39 up front and 25 and 23 in the rear (what I had on my first bike)
So lets look at some gear inches
42/27 42
42/25 45.4
42/23 49
39/27 39
39/25 42.1
39/23 45.8
36/27 36
36/25 38.9
36/23 42.3
So in a 42/23 you are at 49 gear inches.
I never use my easiest gear ( kind of a mental leave one just in case) and I rarely use the 36/25 combo but i use it. So even if I used the 36/23 on every hill that is 7 gear inches less then you were using!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's a lot.
For me to use the same gear inch I would be in a 36/20... my middle of the cassette is a 19. Do I climb some hills in that gear? Sure I do but not some of the monsters we were doing.
You know when Elle had her triple she used to do the same thing. I would get this from her. "I don't want to use the small ring" I would tell her she is crazy. That 42 is a big ring up front to do hills on. I know its a mental thing and I do it too with not using my easiest gear.
I wonder what this has done to help or hinder progress. I think its fine to have a day where you say you are going to do all hills in that ring, and then i think you should have a day where you do all hills in the little ring.
Ah wtf do I know, other than I would never have done those hills in that gear."
I agree, what the hell am I thinking? In terms of how it applies to my training well it's a good question. I do spin more than in years past but to be sure this isn't going to help that cause. So yet another reason to lose my middle ring hangup. Plus when the cadence drops so low you're
entering a realm of strength training on the bike. Maybe not so bad for off-season but it's June now.
So lose the grind and drop to the small ring. I'll have another chance this weekend as Nat has basically given me the green light to ride as much as I can Sunday. I'm certainly going to go up and over the 6 hour mark and if I'm smart I'll take this opportunity to push the 8 hour mark. Now I need to figure out where to go. Too many options to list right now.
For my own future reference, I will link this RBR thread about climbing and power output.
I did my TT today and it went OK. I beat my previous record by a hair or 2 but it took all I had to do it. My primary muscles were fine but my tendons/ligaments were really screaming at the end, and my left butt muscle (or thereabouts) hurt like hell. When I got off the bike I could barely walk. Literally.
So I waddled into the house and said fuck it, I'm taking the day off. Walking hurt, sitting hurt, standing hurt. Ouch and ouch, that was a serious effort. Like I said in the GPS post, if you do that every day you're setting yourself up for major burnout. It's almost 1:30 now and I'm still sore.
The day was a little breezy and my legs were a tad sore, so I was skeptical that I was going to have any chance to beat my old record. In the end I turned the corner at the top of my hill with about a 500 foot lead. Almost nothing.
Undoubtedly I was stronger last time but since I had toasted the record already I had no real cause to push that day. Next time will be an interesting match. Today was a pretty big effort, a really good threshold workout which is the point of all this.
Last time:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2814805
This time:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3017763
A little confusing but last time I didn't start the timer until about a half mile into it, and that was low speed stuff at the start. That was when I didn't really know what I was doing so I didn't capture the ride entirely. This time I did, which translates to the extra .3 miles in 40 seconds. Like I said it was real close. It would have been more like .1 or .2 miles save for the fact that entering the swamp I had to circle once at 3 mph at the end of the road, and coming down the hill to my house they were cutting down a tree so there was refuse all over and I had to go through it at 5-10 mph instead of 35. So my gap got really small at that point.
I need to refine a few details of the course and the method, but in all this is a great use of the GPS. I probably should warm up properly which I think is why I hurt so much after the ride. I also think I need to end the course on a flat and fast stretch so I can really blow it out of the box and give it all I have.
Labels: block training, gear ratio, time trial
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