How to increase speed?

"Roger Zoul" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Peter Cole wrote:
||
|| I wouldn't worry too much about cadence, just do what feels natural.

What if grinding up a hill at 40cad feels natural? Will that be good for the
knees in the long run?

Peak pedal force is the same, whether pedaling at 40 rpm or not. Climbing is
no different than sprinting. I don't know of anyone who damaged their knees
from cycling, it's generally used as a therapy for people who have damaged
their knees doing other things.

No E-mail <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

What's the best way to do intervals? On a trainer? I live in Sunny
CA so I can bike all the time outdoors. Would buying a trainer do me
some good or is it just for people who have winters/rain? Thanks.

Find a ten-minute hill; go to the bottom of the hill. Climb the hill
almost as fast as you can. Go back down the hill and bodge about for a
few minutes at old granny speed. Climb the hill again. Repeat times
five or so, aim to be completely blown when you get to the top the
last time, try to make each of the times up the hill reasonably
similar.

Do something similar on the flat.

If you're going over just slightly lumpy countryside with lots of
little climbs but nothing big and not much flat ground, try to keep
your speed constant while you're going in one direction (so you have
to work hard to get up the climbs and sit back on the downhills).

Go out with a group where when you're on quiet roads every time you
see a sign sprint to it (unless the sign is Give Way or Stop, of
course).

Peter

Terry Morse said:

There was a lively discussion of this subject a few months ago,
differentiating VO2max (actual max. cardio output) and VO2peak (max.
cardio output for a specific exercise). VO2peak is always less than
or equal to VO2max:

http://tinyurl.com/3kn4u

Summary: Since a trained cyclist can attain actual VO2max while
cycling, VO2peak and VO2max are the same in that case, and the same
is likely true for that trained cyclist's VO2peak when running.

Jiminy Christmas, there are 550 posts in that discussion. Any other
interesting tidbits you can remember, or do we need to read all 550 to
find out? ;-)

-km

--
the black rose
proud to be owned by a yorkie
http://community.webshots.com/user/blackrosequilts

Peter Cole said:

Climbing is about power to weight ratio, speed on flats is about power to
drag. Taller people usually have naturally worse power to weight and better
power to drag. This makes them better time trialists than climbers, typically
(of course there are always exceptions).

Yeah. Like Induráin!

-Luigi

Luigi de Guzman said:

Peter Cole said:

Climbing is about power to weight ratio, speed on flats is about power to
drag. Taller people usually have naturally worse power to weight and better
power to drag. This makes them better time trialists than climbers, typically
(of course there are always exceptions).

Yeah. Like Induráin!

I am a moron. I should have typed "Like Merckx!" but was thinking of
Induráin for some reason. blah.

-Luigi

the black rose said:

Terry Morse said:

There was a lively discussion of this subject a few months ago,
differentiating VO2max (actual max. cardio output) and VO2peak (max.
cardio output for a specific exercise). VO2peak is always less than
or equal to VO2max:

http://tinyurl.com/3kn4u

Summary: Since a trained cyclist can attain actual VO2max while
cycling, VO2peak and VO2max are the same in that case, and the same
is likely true for that trained cyclist's VO2peak when running.

Jiminy Christmas, there are 550 posts in that discussion. Any other
interesting tidbits you can remember, or do we need to read all 550 to
find out? ;-)

Well, I did say it was a lively discussion. :-)

The gist was that VO2peak while running or cycling is the same for a
sufficiently trained athlete. Only the un- or under-trained subject
will show VO2peak differences between running and cycling.
--
terry morse Palo Alto, CA http://bike.terrymorse.com/

Luigi de Guzman said:

Quoted message said:

Yeah. Like Induráin!

I am a moron. I should have typed "Like Merckx!" but was thinking of
Induráin for some reason. blah.

Moreover, it's Induraín.

Ewoud Dronkert said:

Luigi de Guzman said:

Quoted message said:

Yeah. Like Induráin!

I am a moron. I should have typed "Like Merckx!" but was thinking of
Induráin for some reason. blah.

Moreover, it's Induraín.

Vocal accent is on the "a", normal Spanish dipthong with the "ai", no
written accent anywhere, no unwritten accent on the capital "I".

http://www.arrakis.es/~angelman/indu.htm

--
My bike blog:
http://diabloscott.blogspot.com/

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 07:21:15 -0700, Terry Morse <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

The gist was that VO2peak while running or cycling is the same for a
sufficiently trained athlete. Only the un- or under-trained subject
will show VO2peak differences between running and cycling.

How does someone use information about VO2peak in designing training?

JT

In article <BWqNc.170621$IQ4.91617@attbi_s02>,

Peter Cole said:

"Roger Zoul" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Peter Cole wrote:
||
|| I wouldn't worry too much about cadence, just do what feels natural.

What if grinding up a hill at 40cad feels natural? Will that be good for the
knees in the long run?

Peak pedal force is the same, whether pedaling at 40 rpm or not. Climbing is
no different than sprinting. I don't know of anyone who damaged their knees
from cycling, it's generally used as a therapy for people who have damaged
their knees doing other things.

While on a loaded bike tour in the Canadian Rockies, one of the riders
(thinking he was in a lower gear than he actually was) really honked up a
mountain road. He complained of knee pain all the next day, and dropped out
of the tour the day after that. Hard to know exactly what happened to the
tissues: was it bone? cartilage? tendon? mental?

In any event your claim that you cannot damage knees in cycling seems far
too broad to be correct, though probably true for most it may not hold for
some, especially with unknown uniquely weird knees.

-frank
--

Diablo Scott said:

Ewoud Dronkert said:

Luigi de Guzman said:

> Yeah. Like Induráin!

I am a moron. I should have typed "Like Merckx!" but was thinking of
Induráin for some reason. blah.

Moreover, it's Induraín.

Vocal accent is on the "a", normal Spanish dipthong with the "ai", no
written accent anywhere, no unwritten accent on the capital "I".

http://www.arrakis.es/~angelman/indu.htm

How come you guys pick up on this and didn't notice that I put the wrong
accent on passé last week?

Standards of pedantry are slipping.

"Frank Miles" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <BWqNc.170621$IQ4.91617@attbi_s02>,

Peter Cole said:

Peak pedal force is the same, whether pedaling at 40 rpm or not. Climbing

is

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

no different than sprinting. I don't know of anyone who damaged their knees
from cycling, it's generally used as a therapy for people who have damaged
their knees doing other things.

While on a loaded bike tour in the Canadian Rockies, one of the riders
(thinking he was in a lower gear than he actually was) really honked up a
mountain road. He complained of knee pain all the next day, and dropped out
of the tour the day after that. Hard to know exactly what happened to the
tissues: was it bone? cartilage? tendon? mental?

In any event your claim that you cannot damage knees in cycling seems far
too broad to be correct, though probably true for most it may not hold for
some, especially with unknown uniquely weird knees.

I didn't say it couldn't be done, just that I didn't know of anyone who has. I
know a lot of riders who put in a lot of miles. The idea that low cadence is
in itself harmful is particularly dubious (which was the context & the
argument for spinning). Cycling has neither impact or twisting forces, the two
major culprits of knee injury. Sore knees are not necessarily damaged knees.
Things that can happen from bad pedaling style are tendonitis (particularly in
the achilles, which may become permanent) and Morton's neuroma, these are well
known, yet people always fret about knees. I haven't seen those problems
except in rumor/hearsay.

Diablo Scott said:

Ewoud Dronkert said:

Moreover, it's Induraín.

Vocal accent is on the "a", normal Spanish dipthong with the "ai", no
written accent anywhere, no unwritten accent on the capital "I".

It appears so. Sorry, I remembered badly then.

Peter Cole wrote:
|| "Roger Zoul" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
|| news:[email hidden]...
||| Peter Cole wrote:
|||||
||||| I wouldn't worry too much about cadence, just do what feels
||||| natural.
|||
|||
||| What if grinding up a hill at 40cad feels natural? Will that be
||| good for the knees in the long run?
||
|| Peak pedal force is the same, whether pedaling at 40 rpm or not.
|| Climbing is no different than sprinting. I don't know of anyone who
|| damaged their knees from cycling, it's generally used as a therapy
|| for people who have damaged their knees doing other things.

Well, I don't know what your experience or background is, but I read lots of
people who claim that grinding in too high a gear is one of the two major
reasons for knee pain - and hence is the where the recommendation for
spinning at high cadence originates. Also, your statement suggests that
cycling is never harmful to the knees, which we know is not true -- improper
fit on the bike very definitely can have a negative impact on the knees.

Certainly, it is true that cycling can be beneifical to the knees, but it is
not a foregone conclusion.