Which direction did the toilet flush swirl when you did this?frenchyge said:I've ridden a stationary bike *on* a nuclear sub in the Gulf Stream. Talk about confusing....
Which direction did the toilet flush swirl when you did this?frenchyge said:I've ridden a stationary bike *on* a nuclear sub in the Gulf Stream. Talk about confusing....
They don't always flush well against sea pressure, so I was just thankful when it went down instead of coming up!Steve_B said:Which direction did the toilet flush swirl when you did this?
Right.frenchyge said:You'd have to increase cadence (or gearing) proportionally to overcome the reduction in torque if you wanted the same power output as before.
Ha! This is interesting, because I felt like I was going about the same speeds for slightly lower heart rates when I went from 180s back to 170s and 172.5. With the shorter cranks, it was a weird feeling; it felt like more of a short stomp, and that I was using less quad for the same output and speed. Short cranks feel like you're up high and stomping aluminium cans, and very long cranks feel like you're doing leg-press with your knees in your chesttonyzackery said:Anyway, in my case (relatively short femurs and long feet) I've found I'm much more efficient (lower heartrate for given wattage and cadence) and have increased sustainable power on 170mm cranks versus my old 175s.
I know what you're hinting at but I found that moving my saddle forward got rid of that feeling of being to far back and being a bit constrained...531Aussie said:so, I rode my 'long crank' bike the other night, with the 177.5s.
The ride was a group thing with hard efforts over short hills (300m to ~1.5km). As I said above, the long cranks are great when you're off the saddle and 'levering' over the hills at low/moderate revs, but as soon as you sit down to pedal, that's where the position compromise comes in.
Funny; after about an hour on the 177.5s, I get sick of trying to push them ,with my knees coming up so high, and I find myself getting off the seat to 'get over' the pedals.
In my opinion (cadence aside), long cranks are a compromise between extra leverage and being in a lower/weaker position, so you've gotta work out if the extra leverage outweighs being in a worse position, or vice versa.
By the way, this is a 'nifty' little article about a couple of the conundrums of long cranks:
http://www.arniebakercycling.com/pubs/Free/Optimum%20Crankarm%20Length.pdf
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