It's Q&A time. This question was in reference to Saturday's post.
Devoted Reader: Just curious what your cadence is during these big ring efforts. Below average?
Answer: I don't have a clue what my cadence is. Have you ever looked at my bike?
SRM's? No.
Powertaps? Nada.
Heartrate monitors? Negative.
Cyclo-computers? Non-existant.
I do admit to having a sensor on my wheel and a cable/mount for a computer. But frankly, those don't provide a whole lot of data without the computer. I'm sure there are benefits to all those lovely devices but actually I don't give a flying crap. There are times when I wonder about watts and heartbeat and cadence but that passes. At one time I even had a computer that had a cadence feature. It was cool and thought there were some beneficial aspects when I actually used it. My computers usually end up being glorified watches.
To try and answer your question, my cadence for rides like Saturday is pretty good but yes it gets below average as I move down the cassette. As I begin to tire, I slow down too. High tech stuff, huh. Sorry I cant give you any useful data. I will say much of riding this winter has been in a smaller gear and thus a higher cadence. Just now I'm starting to mix in some bigger gears.
Devoted Reader: Just curious what your cadence is during these big ring efforts. Below average?
Answer: I don't have a clue what my cadence is. Have you ever looked at my bike?
SRM's? No.
Powertaps? Nada.
Heartrate monitors? Negative.
Cyclo-computers? Non-existant.
I do admit to having a sensor on my wheel and a cable/mount for a computer. But frankly, those don't provide a whole lot of data without the computer. I'm sure there are benefits to all those lovely devices but actually I don't give a flying crap. There are times when I wonder about watts and heartbeat and cadence but that passes. At one time I even had a computer that had a cadence feature. It was cool and thought there were some beneficial aspects when I actually used it. My computers usually end up being glorified watches.
To try and answer your question, my cadence for rides like Saturday is pretty good but yes it gets below average as I move down the cassette. As I begin to tire, I slow down too. High tech stuff, huh. Sorry I cant give you any useful data. I will say much of riding this winter has been in a smaller gear and thus a higher cadence. Just now I'm starting to mix in some bigger gears.
5 Comments:
Yes, I know. You are technology challenged on the bike. That's totally cool and I frankly, I think your approach is refreshing and a good reference for bike geeks like me. All I was asking though was if your cadence was below average during those big ring efforts. And you appear to be saying it is. Do you feel that these efforts (which some would call big gear workouts) are helping you or have helped you in the past?
heck, he's a mainframe guy...we should be surprised not to find a speedo like the one i had growing up on my schwinn typhoon:
http://www.mostlymusclebikes.com/schwinn/img/sch316schhuretblackfacespeedo.jpg
Yes I feel the need to do harder efforts in a bigger gear. I don't often feel like a "strong" rider. That might be a mental block, but it exists.
My philosophy is that when you get in a crit, you will be pounding around a course in a pretty good sized gear for 50+ minutes. At some point, you will likely have to use a big gear for a period of time just to keep up. I think if you don't practice that bigger gear in some way, you are gonna hurt big time when you the time comes to do it in a race.
But what do I know.
Patrick, I wonder how many of those speedometers ever saw the needle hit 60mph.
I didn't get a top 10 in any race until I got rid of the bike computer and HR monitor. I was trying to do EVERYTHING according to the latest and greatest scientific method. Eventually, I just got out there and buried myself and found out, hey, I can do this.
I had a coach for my first season, and he put it best - "In a race, if your HR is sky high, are you going to slow down?". Nope.
I still use the HR monitor for a recovery ride maybe, when its hard to go so slow. I do miss my bike computer tho...
Yo, where did you find that photo? I used to have a speedo something like that on my old monty ward coster brake bike. I remember thinking how fast 20 mph seemed to be. But when I got my Schwinn 5 speed Sting Ray, I never put the thing on it. It was just so bulky and ugly. Man I wish I still had that Sting Ray. Probably be worth a tone of money right now.
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