No Torque



BILLYHOLMES

New Member
Oct 27, 2005
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[SIZE= medium]I have over the last 4 years has my left knee and right hip replaced and now I am back riding however, I never really got the bend back in my knee so I had shorter cranks made (115mm) and jacked up the seat to match so all is good. [/SIZE]

[SIZE= medium]I am back to a reasonable level of fitness and have been at the 2 x 20 minutes and by increasing my cadence by ~ 10%, I seem to have got back to similar speeds than I was doing before the operations. However, I seem to have built a “Japanese” motorbike engine!! I seem to have no low down torque, I can be flying along but as soon as I hit any small hill I am down to a crawl. [/SIZE]
[SIZE= medium]Over a measured hill I used to be able to climb in 6.6 minutes, I am down to 7.45 minutes despite losing 10lb in weight. My question is, I have lost a third of my crank length, does this equate to a third overall power/torque loss?[/SIZE]
[SIZE= medium]What’s the best way to tackle this problem? Just ride the hills, perhaps repeating intervals up my local hill or is there some other way to develop some more low down torque? [/SIZE]
 
Originally Posted by BILLYHOLMES .
[SIZE= medium] My question is, I have lost a third of my crank length, does this equate to a third overall power/torque loss?[/SIZE]....
No, you didn't automatically give away torque nor will longer cranks automatically provide more torque capabilities.

The drive train on a bike is a system including: the crank length, the chainring to cog ratio and the wheel diameter. It's that entire system that determines the effective gearing not just the crank length and not just the gear ratio. The shorter cranks will require slightly different gear selection to transfer the same torque through the entire system but it's not something you'll calculate or worry about, just choose gears that let you ride the hill in a cadence/torque range that works for you.


[SIZE= medium]What’s the best way to tackle this problem? Just ride the hills, perhaps repeating intervals up my local hill or is there some other way to develop some more low down torque? [/SIZE]
Keep riding hills, try to ride some longer hills that allow you to do 10 to 30 minute Threshold work on hills. Perhaps change gearing on your bike to compensate for your shorter cranks (lower low end gearing) but basically keep training and keep working on hills.

BTW, without some power meter torque data it's hard to know for certain that you're torque and not power limited. It's really hard to guess without some objective data. The shorter crank lengths alone don't make that obvious again because it's the whole drive train system you have to consider. But if you really want to focus on the force/torque aspects of training then seated stomps from low speeds in big gears and or standing starts are good ways to do on-bike strength work. Simply grinding bigger than normal gears doesn't really get the job done even though it feels very hard, the forces are still pretty low for much strength building. Good discussion on that subject here: http://www.aboc.com.au/tips-and-hints/why-we-dont-use-strength-endurance-anymore


Ideally you'd get back into physical therapy to see if you can reclaim some of your lost range of motion so that you could ride more normal crank lengths, but I suspect you've already taken that as far as you think you can go.

Good luck,
-Dave
 
[SIZE= 10pt][COLOR= black]Dave,[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE= 10pt][COLOR= black]Thanks very much for taking the time here, and what you say makes good sense to me. I am going to concentrate on the hills a bit more and try some of those seated stomps and see where that takes me! [/COLOR][/SIZE]

[SIZE= 10pt][COLOR= black]You are right, I did pursue every which way regarding knee bend improvement but it seems I'm stuck plain and simple however, it’s not too bad, at least I can ride![/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE= 10pt][COLOR= black]Regards,[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE= 10pt][COLOR= black]Bill. [/COLOR][/SIZE]