I expect it would feel like riding up a very steep hill*, in a given gear.

(*incline geometry ignored)

i.e. a scenario where wind resistance is negligible/ignored, and so speed is directly proportional to the torque you put on the pedals. Pedal at twice the cadence, and you generate twice the power and go twice as fast, but the force (torque) resistance at the pedals wouldn't change.

Wouldn't it more be a result of your cadence and power, and not a pursuable metric as such?
You might be able to tweak to ideal torque, but your cadence and power are main factors, that will give you a very small window to optimize.

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NO

why? i didn't say high torque. i just said torque.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

power is a function of torque and cadence. so, if we know power, and we know cadence, we know torque. it's a direct measure. you can't generate power unless you know torque. so it's easy to measure and display torque or, if it isn't, why?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Powertap hubs measure torque. I don't know 'bout the new-fangled ones, but my old wired ones can be put in "torque mode", where the torque is displayed on the head unit.

I'll sell you one cheap!

I didn't say a high gear. i just said a given gear.

<edit> let me elaborate. The steep hill scenario is just a way to remove wind resistance from the speed/force equation. Then you get a linear relationship between speed and power, or in a nutshell a constant force (at the tyre) required to move you up the hill, regardless of speed.

Force is directly proportional to crank torque via your gear ratio. Fix the gear ratio, and you end up with a fixed force/torque at the pedals.

It could be a really low gear ratio and you need very low torque, but of course your power output and speed are low. Still, double the cadence and you'll double your speed, but the force would stay the same.

Torque is what all strain gauge power meters actually directly* measure. Then they multiply it by cadence to get power.

I suppose they don't display it because it's not a useful metric?

(*sort of directly. Let's not dig too deep)

Because your optimal cadence is already set to a certain window, decided by "what's good for you", and so is power, being the amount of work your body can produce.
Torque is - as far as I can reason - not a direct measure of your physical output, but rather a mathematical result of said output.
I think that by far most people won't benefit from reading something that's not tangible. Just like a cda display would probably not help most to dial in their position.

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NO

That's what I meant!

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NO

Well then don't use a phrase like "actually directly measure" in front of an engineer when the more accurate phrase is "indirectly estimate." :)

Why is riding by torque desirable to you?

I think that it is clear that torque applied and local muscle fatigue will be related. But the real limiter in endurance exercise performance is cardiovascular output. And that, l believe, will have very little to do with torque applied.

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[quote DarkSpeedWorksBut the real limiter in endurance exercise performance is cardiovascular output.[/quote]

Power output is a better predictor of endurance performance than cardiovascular output.

Sure, but l was saying something different.

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I am a flickering candle to Coggan's acetylene torch, but....

We already seem to have really good internal torque sensors. We innately are very good at knowing when to shift. And innately are very good at metering out torque to achieve a power.

I don't see what would be achieved by looking at a torque value.

If I understand the question the reason that torque is not used is because it changes a lot during each pedal stroke. The number would be so inconsistent as to be useless.
In my studies I've used force measuring pedals which measure 3d force application. They are really only useful for diagnosis of asymmetries or checking that people are actually doing a specific pedaling technique for research.

Most people already do ride to torque or a little more precise, force.
If it feels like too much force, you change down a gear, too little and you change up.
It is what the new auto changing groupsets work on too.

I am Slowmans age and I now notice that force is becoming an important consideration.
I spin more now because I simply cannot spin really slow as I am not strong enough to turn the cranks in too big of a gear.
I notice it more if I let my weight get out of normal bounds.
It's telling me I need to hit the gym.

I am also wanting this measurement as I would use it to configure gearing to keep force within bounds for 24h or more efforts.
It is probably one of the more useful measurements to know at submaximal power efforts.
Keeping pedal force low also keeps stress off of feet for longer rides.

Maybe the Garmin pedals can do as you wish.

Probably more correct would be to call it pedal force and measure it in newtons, as torque measured at the crank would involve crank length as well.
The Powertap will give you wheel torque, not what the rider feels.

Google says there's a Connect IQ app that displays torque. Haven't tried it.

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Less is more.

right. thank you. so, i think what where we've gotten to in this thread is that, yes, torque is a direct measure. you can't generate a true power number without measuring torque. so, is torque a useful metric?

why not? we're all highly influenced by cadence in our cycling. i think that's largely out of habit and history. we never could measure torque in cycling, until recently. now we can. but we could always measure cadence. so we did.

since power is torque x cadence, if we measure cadence and we think it's beneficial, why is torque not? for example - and i'm sort of talking out my ass, but bear with me as i make something up - let's say that a goal is fiber recruitment up to a particular point. maybe to the point where my type 1 fibers are fully recruited, but no big reliance on type 2 recruitment during a contraction (a pedal cycle). let's say you determine that this point was reached while producing so many foot pounds through exhaled gases, or through lactate accumulation. whatever.

why isn't torque a better measure of fiber recruitment than cadence? and, mind, i had to think up some bullshit in a hurry to establish a point.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

by that do you mean your aerobic system? then why don't we all pedal at 55rpm in a triathlon? because O2 consumption drops as cadence drops. HR drops as cadence drops.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

well, look, i'm just spitballing here. but, to answer your question, because i don't think we're as good as you think we are at sensing torque or, if we are, we pretty routinely, habitually, ignore our bodies' signals regarding when to shift.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

i don't mean torque throughout the entire pedal cycle. i mean peak torque during a pedal cycle. and, if that number is so inconsistent as to be useless, then so is power. or if not, why?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

It seems like you really just want pedal force, not torque. If you are exerting force on the pedals at a low to no speed, that has more of an isometric nature. And the faster you fire, it becomes more isokenetic. Torque is kind of irrelevant, because your body does not care if it is pushing against a short or long crank arm. It just knows it is firing muscles at a constant speed but variable force.

Because torque at zero cadence is zero power, and zero power is zero speed. ergo, torque alone isn't useful.

Cadence is important because for many people (and up to a point) an increase in cadence leads to an increase in power, despite a corresponding drop in torque. And more power makes you go faster.

but cadence at zero torque is also zero power. if you're going downhill and you're pedaling a cadence lower than is required to pressure the pedals, zero power is the result. so, look, very possibly there's a very compelling reason why torque is useless, but that argument isn't it.

i agree an increase in cadence leads to an increase in power. but so does an increase in torque. the *possible* difference is that torque is more closely associated, i think, than cadence is with fiber recruitment. that's why i *might* be interested in torque, if what i'm really trying to do is maintain a more steady rate of fiber recruitment.

i think we already do this, to a degree. cadence scales with effort. froome exhibits this during a bike race better than anybody, by far. is that what he's doing, regardless of what he thinks he's doing, if he thinks about it at all? torque could be an interesting insight into that.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

no, i think i want torque. because pedal force doesn't know if the crank is long or short, and pedal force x a shorter lever means i have to exert more pedal force, which impacts directly the cost on my muscles. i think what i want is torque.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=5909309#p5909309 et seq.

(especially this one: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=5909972#p5909972 )

Not only do I not remember that, I participated and still don’t remember it. Thank you. It took me 2 years to catch up to just a little of your thinking in that thread.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Isn't this basically the point (or one of them) Brett Sutton is trying to make when he advocates low-cadence riding for an Ironman? You ride an IM bike leg at a lower power than a 40k straight TT, he says, so proportionally your cadence should be lower. If a trained pro rides at ~100-105rpm for a 40k TT, the average AG athlete would be better off riding at ~75rpm. If you think about it, what he says is "change cadence, don't change torque" - or rather, change it less. Of course it's not quite keeping torque the same, but minimizing the difference.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

OK... it was this statement of yours that led me to suggest pedal force "why isn't torque a better measure of fiber recruitment than cadence." Muscle force, and rate of applied muscle force would be the thing tied to muscle fiber recruitment. Torque is just a secondary calculation of how that force is applied within the external system.

It looks like there’s a connect iq data field for average torque with configurable time period (in seconds) just like power - https://apps.garmin.com/...e9-a619-78ec6c83b031

I haven’t tried it, just searched for it. Honestly if it wasn’t there I was going to see how hard it would be to write one of my own.

I’m interested to see what you find out!

I am not sure if l understand your question.

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You're just changing what you're looking at. Instead of power and cadence you're swapping that for just looking at torque and having to engage your brain muscle to do the work on deciding what to do with that information.

That's how you learn your gear changes. You get used to what it feels like at 90rpm or 100rpm for a given exertion level. It starts feeling different, your brain moves your hand to the shifter. Even without staring at a power meter.

This just seems like a mental exercise to me.

I have cadence displayed on my bike computer because although I know what feels right, it's easy to drift away from that under various circumstances without realising it so long as the drift is gradual. If my legs are struggling but I'm not breathing terribly hard and I glance at the screen and see 65rpm, I'll instantly realise why and after a quick gear change normality is restored. It doesn't happen often but it does happen.
The problem in this case is not the cadence, it's the pedal force or torque. Since the cranks are a fixed length, pedal force and torque are directly proportional on a given bike so we don't need to differentiate at this point. As you say, we don't typically look at torque. And I'd agree that the reason is likely because it wasn't available until power was. However providing you have power I don't see much use in it.
Power tells you about total output energy and total propulsion. Torque only gives you a piece. Torque or cadence provides additional data about the manner in which you're producing the power but I think either will do, and having both adds nothing. Typically at lower power we balance cadence and torque so that both are within comfortable limits. The two are inextricably linked. For example, at low power I don't just drop the pedal load compared to a harder effort, I also drop the cadence because without the pedal load I'm less stable and more likely to bounce in the saddle. Also an unnecessarily high cadence expends unnecessary energy on body movement that contributes nothing extra to propulsion. Similarly at high power I will tend increase both load and cadence.
So long as I know power and comfortable cadence, I don't think I have much use for a torque figure. Not because torque is irrelevant but because it's already included in the relationship of the figures I'm looking at.

Lastly, torque being highly variable throughout the stroke and likely depending also on position and fatigue, lends itself less readily to useful monitoring. Oh, and cadence is much more intuitive and easily observed without a number. We often will know it's fast or slow just by the rhythm. No?

In one of the posts in that thread I showed three plots. Two of those plots came from something I wrote in around 2003 about power, cadence, and crank torque. http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/...ents/components.html

No. What you want is pedal force and tangential foot speed. You can vary crank length all you want, and your body will basically hold those constant for a given effort. This is easily seen in Pedal Force vs. Tangential Foot Speed plots (AKA "Quadrant Analysis). (see link below). "Torque" is just a derived value. You just have to make sure you have the correct gearing range for the given equipment choice.

http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/...erwithin-reason.html

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

you're way ahead of the game.

stipulating that i'm ignorant slut, and know basically nothing more than what i glean from saturday morning TV cartoons, it occurred to me to ride - as a thought experiment - according to fiber recruitment during the power phase of the pedal stroke. or as close to fiber recruitment as i could get to it.

cadence is sort of the inverse of that. torque speaks directly that.

it's not that i think this is the magic bullet; that now i know how to ride. it's that with the move indoors, and indoors with purpose, with metrics, rather than by videos of greg's '89 tour, there is the capacity to experiment. if there is a workout whereby, for example, there is a step progression, say, 1min @ 80, 90, 100, 110, 120 percent of FTP for a minute each then 4min @ 60 percent, repeat it, what if that workout was done while trying to keep torque constant, except that you don't exceed an unsustainable cadence (as regards efficiency), which i think jim martin and others have decided is around 115? so, maybe, you step your cadence up to 105 and then you just let the torque build if that's what's required, otherwise, anything between, say, 65 and 105 is fair game, but torque rules how you do the workout. what would you learn? anything? i don't know.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Depends. Most of us use crank lengths within a small range, so if you have one you can pretty closely get the other. The one really notable exception I can think of is when Indurain used 190mm cranks for his hour record. Compared to other hour record holders, his position on the foot speed/pedal force plane looked different than his position when plotted on cadence/crank torque axies.

But, with that exception, in general I agree that muscle shortening speed is the underlying physiological limitation. The problem I faced when I first started looking at this stuff was that I didn't have crank length from many of the people I was getting data from, so all I could look at was cadence and torque. As long as most riders use roughly the same crank length across their different bikes the difference won't much matter.

As others have said, torque may not be a super meaningful value for this activity (cycling).

Imagine two scenarios, kind of a thought experiment:

(1) You get on a bike and put a huge amount of force on your pedals with 150mm cranks and get a resultant torque value of 'X' (as measured at the BB).

(1) You get on a similar bike and put a much lighter force on your pedals, only this time with 200mm cranks and also get a resultant torque value of 'X' (as measured at the BB).

These things will feel vastly different for your body, and yet the torque values are identical.

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I am guessing you can find this in various Power Meter Apps. For example, this page shows a screenshot of the stages app with Torque displayed:

https://stagescycling.com/...th-updated-firmware/

I am guessing it is not displayed in a workout mode, but perhaps under device settings or calibration.

it would be easy for the PM to offer it, because the PM already knows it. your head unit could display it in any case, because its power over cadence, two known figures. the question is whether i'd learn anything by tethering my efforts to torque.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I have no idea whether torque is a useful metric, but I remember years ago Arnie Baker's book HIT for Cyclists had a chapter on torque-based training and prescribed workouts by (among other things) torque.

I wrote a tiny bit about indoor trainers here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=5910037#p5910037

Some PM output "torque effectiveness" as a left %/right% (but NOT summing to 100%). Any idea what that's about?


ETA this example is from Garmin Vector metrics

I've been thinking about this some lately. Studies show that there is aetabolic cost associated with pedalling at higher cadence's at a given power. Likely because you are having to move the mass of your feet and legs more while putting the same amount t of power (or, over time, energy) into the pedals. But many riders and coaches prefer "higher" cadence. Meaning high 80s or 90s. I'm one of those. So why is that better?

Maybe there is a study on this, but my hypothesis is that the extra metabolic cost is easier to maintain over time than the extra muscle fatigue from exerting a higher force on the pedals at lower cadence. (I agree with the above poster that force would be a more useful measurement than torque since it eliminates the influence of crank length and isolates just what your body is doing).

So knowing force could be useful. It could help in objective gearing selection. It could help maybe with identifying how your body prefers to work in different kinds of efforts (short vs. long, flat vs steep where inertia is different).

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
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there absolutely is a metabolic cost to a higher cadence. your HR will go up if your cadence goes up and your power remains the same. you're picking your poison here. you want to pay an aerobic cost or a glycolitic cost? does this change depending on your own muscle constitution?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Check out PowerTap's P1 advanced pedal metrics that show force. These are not ideal, because they do not also show rate of application of the pedal forces. And, they are not easy to quickly consume while riding, but they are pretty good. This gets to the crux of understanding what your body is doing and how rapidly it is doing it. If you got used to watching and studying your individual pedal force dynamics, you could train and ride to that, probably far more effectively than power. It is just that the world is oriented around power as the single composite metric.

Right or wrong, I generally ride at a constant torque (feel). More power = Higher cadence. I believe part of it has to do with being subconsciously easier to pedal smoothly with more force on the pedals but also just consciously spinning faster at higher power to protect the old knees. I've also graphed torque as something of an RPE / strength check when I find my cadence was down but force felt easy.

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Interval Design Studio
YouTube | SoundCloud

I am lost as to why you would want to use torque rather than force in your given scenarios. When measuring torque, you are taking into consideration the entire machine. Your muscles don't care what gear you are in or your crank length. They just know how hard and how often they are pushing on the pedal.

Am I way off on this? Is torque perceived by the body differently than force?

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Oui, mais pas de femme toute de suite (yes, but I am not ready for a woman straight away) -Stephen Roche's reply when asked whether he was okay after collapsing at the finish in the La Plagne stage of the 1987 Tour

i guess i'm ambivalent. i hear you. i don't know that there's a practical difference given, as rchung stated, that there really is not that much difference between crank lengths for the purposes of torque (yes, for the purposes of range of motion, less for torque).

but, yeah, if power = torque x cadence and max torque = force x lever arm when that force is perpendicular to the lever arm? something like that? then, yes, i could see how force is what i'm after.

the reason i kind of like torque, tho, is that i know power, and i know cadence. i don't know torque. as a cycling metric. so, i'd like to see how torque and cadence act, inversely. i see your point. but i don't think it would be that different looking at force versus torque, and what is certain is that i can have torque easily from any device i own with pretty little extra work from that device maker.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

If comparing across athletes or even bikes, I see how it would be useful to know torque as well as force. If it is just you in your basement on your trainer, torque vs. force doesn't matter. If you know your power and your cadence, you could make up some imaginary torque unit and ride to that.

Is this what you are thinking like when you are trying to look at torque based training: riding at 50rpm and 100 watts, and you could be producing 20 slowmans (of torque). 75 rpm and 150 watts = 20 slowmans. 75 rpm and 300 watts = 40 slowmans?

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Oui, mais pas de femme toute de suite (yes, but I am not ready for a woman straight away) -Stephen Roche's reply when asked whether he was okay after collapsing at the finish in the La Plagne stage of the 1987 Tour

well, you're not producing slowmans. you're producing foot-pounds. and it's not imaginary. it's actual foot-pounds, or newton-meters, or whatever. i can derive this through known values, cadence and power, and i'll know it to plus/minus 1.5 percent or if i can't then my smart trainer or power meter is making a false claim.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

...and then you take that same number and just divide by your crank length (a constant for a given setup and session, right?), and you have force...which is what your legs are actually producing/feeling.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

For peak force, yes. I don’t care. Doesn’t matter. Kind of beside the point.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

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Average force. However, for most of us, a reasonable rule of thumb is that peak force is roughly twice average.

Beside the point in what way? I'd argue it's the ENTIRE point.

Did you look at those QA plots from that link to my blog post? If so, what was your takeaway?

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Why would you be interested in torque and not force? Torque isn’t measured. It’s calculated. Force is what’s measured by the strain gauges.

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blog

by average force are you talking about the averaging of peak force over x number of pedal cycles? or average force throughout the pedal circle? because, if the latter, extracting that is not as as simple as average torque.

average torque is simply power divided by cadence. average force, unless it's a direct measure, is not easy to tweeze out of torque. force is the diminished (if i remember) by the cosine of the angle formed by the perpendicular to peak force and the line to wherever the pedal may be at the time. or something like that. so, unless your power meter knows that angle at any given sampling moment then it's hard to extract average force. much easier to extract average torque, and much easier to extract torque at any point along the pedal circle.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The strain gauges are actually measuring strain. From the measured strain you can calculate the bending moment, force, etc using your understanding of the structure response of the object the strain gauge is attached to.

two things. first, i predict that by the time we hit 100 posts no one arguing his thesis is going to remember the point of the exercise. so, for the purposes of the point of the exercise, i don't think it makes any difference. if i choose torque as the metric, and i get a wild hair and decide to move up or down 5mm in crankarm length, which i'm unlikely to do, this means a 3 percent difference. so, for the purposes of the exercise, i'd be cool with either. i would not find it a liability to get one metric over the other. right now i have neither.

second, it's much easier to get torque. if i have power and cadence i have torque. as tom pointed out, it's also pretty easy to get force, but i doubt it's easy to get force around the pedal circle without some significant calculations no device maker's likely to do. so, if we're going to circle jerk this thing and then go back to the NCAA tourney and forget about it, fine, let's debate. but a device (or app) maker could give us torque around the pedal circle by coffee break tomorrow if he wanted. meaning, if this were something worthy of pursuit.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You have all this upside down. A power meter is measuring force through a strain gauge. Force is the most elemental metric. Then, it is taking force and a known distance to calculate torque. Then, it is taking the torque number and multiplying that by angular velocity. It has to take multiple force measurements per revolution in order to have a more accurate. The PM has whatever means is necessary to measure the tangential force vector. Force is the center of the universe in a PM, and it is the thing that matters to the athlete. Torque is the derivative number.

righteo. there's the world we want, and there's the world we live in. if you want a device maker, or an app maker (trainerroad, let's say) to give you force, around the pedal circle - tomorrow! - how likely? if you want them to give your torque - tomorrow (or next week) - how likely? or to put it another way, if they wanted to provide this, they could tomorrow. torque! but they couldn't provide force. you're not going to get force. you'll get it, from a device maker - next year - if next week trainerroad starts producing workouts where torque is the metric, and if you all proclaim your huzzahs and torque becomes a sexy number.

so, the only way you're going to get something around the pedal circle is if that something is torque, and it's going to be a back-calculation from power and cadence. in my opinion. unless there's something i don't know or can't see, which is very, very, very possible.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Maybe we are misunderstanding you but you seem to be trying to reverse calculate/engineer the power reading to get torque and force. You are making it way harder than it needs to be. You know Force before you know torque and you torque before you know power. No need to calculate torque and force based off watts. They are inputs to the equation to get watts so they are already known.

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blog

Force metrics and visualization are already happening today with PowerTap P1 pedals and their iPhone app. Unfortunately, none of head units are doing it. Per the comments above, it would not take rocket science to do either torque or force with a Connect IQ. Once you get up to a web app, torque would be the only number, since I bet that FIT files do not ship force or moment.

Garmin's Pedal Dynamics are still oriented around Power, but they clearly have all of the force vector data, because that is necessary for the visualizations. So, the nut is Garmin does not see a need to do either Force or Torque. The fact this does not exist is a Garmin HU thing. They could, and they are getting the real-time force data, but they have chosen not to present it.

Same is true for force (tangential effective pedal force)...they'd just need the user to enter crank length (to divide the torque by).

In fact, I plotted those QA plots I referred to above (which you still haven't told me what your take-away on them is yet...but, I digress...) using power meter data in GoldenCheetah. The only additional information needed was crank length. WKO has the same function as well.

Let me ask this...are you somewhat fixated on torque because you think you might be able to do something about it based on measurements within a pedal stroke cycle? For many reasons (I'm sure you've heard), that's not really "worthy of pursuit"...

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

okay. i'll bite. if i know force before i know torque, you also must know force too. what is the direct measured force you pedaled, on average, during your last recorded ride?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

As far as I can figure, a power meter's strain gauges' measurement of torque is no less a "measurement" than what a scale does to measure the weight of an object. Hang an object from a spring, make notice of how much the spring ( which you have calibrated) stretches, and you have measured weight. How is the power meter's strain gauge any different in its essence? The strain gauge measures force, and it's a trivial matter to calculate, (measure!) torque from that. Cadence itself is measured, distance, (use a ruler to measure the radius of the wheel,) vs time, (use a clock.)

Power = F X C lets say Force is torque!!!!!

200 watts = 2.0 x 100 rpm
180 watts = 1.8 x 100 rpm
160 watts = 1.6 x 100 rpm.

then all you care about is torque so you ride 2.0 like so
150 watts = 2.0 x 75 rpm

good job riding your proper race torque. I ate all the snacks before you got here slow poke.
Plus your back and Hips are sore from overloading your legs with excessive load to do the work needed.

end of discussion. Go ride practice gear x and learn to shift wt faster on gear x to increase RPM. once gear x is at a faster pace gear down and relearn on the next gear. please rinse and repeat until wt in down and power is up.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
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first, i'm not fixated on torque. i'm asking whether riding by a different metric - and either force or torque would work for me - is a worthwhile exercise in training. is it worth pursuing? i promise you i'm much more fixated on how nevada does against sister jean this afternoon.

rchung, if i understand him correctly, thinks within the pedal circle is important. i don't know that it is. i agree with you that peak force is pretty easily calculable. it just requires and extra field in the equation. others tho, in this thread are arguing that it's silly to back calculate since force is a direct measure. which it is. just, fat chance you'll get that number any time soon from anybody. tho i'd be happy to be proved wrong.

bear in mind, you don't need to be a device maker to give us either. or any. you can be an app. zwift could do this. trainerroad, GC, fulgaz.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Based on your previous reply I now understand what you are getting it.

So no I personally do not know Force or torque because it’s not readily available to display on my Garmin. But it could be available with a very simple firmware upgrade to current pm’s.

I will say though that there will be a difference on the “measured” force if you get it directly from the pm vs backwards calculating it for every pm but pedal based pm’s. The measured force is the force at the location of the strain gauges which will a higher value on say a crank based pm compared to backwards calculating the force by using crank length.

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blog

The only times I've ever been interested in pedal force (or torque) is when looking to see if I'm gearing limited in climbing. Long ago I noticed that if I'm over-geared for a particular climb steepness, then my power drops. Looking at the crank torque plot in the old PT software (this type of information HAS been available for quite some time) showed me that the crank torque (i.e. pedal force) stayed constant and I just dropped cadence...hence the power dropped. In other words, at that effort I was force limited. That told me for that climb I didn't have low enough gears.

Other than that...and I think this may be a big part of what RChung has been trying to display...crank torque, pedal force, cadence ALL vary by quite a bit during riding, so trying to artificially constrain one of those things over the others isn't very fruitful. Your body is basically going to "do what it does" to accomplish the effort. Our brains do a pretty good job of controlling our muscle activation for the given effort level.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

just realize that trainerroad doesn't need your PM to make that firmware upgrade. it can tell you tomorrow what your torque is, and it can give you a cadence target at any power that corresponds to holding torque. or it could if it wanted to ;-) of course, so could your PM maker. i just think it's much more likely that trainerroad will do it and then your PM will see the utility of it and then give you that firmware upgrade.

but the whole thing revolves around whether its of value to ride (or train) according to some sort of muscle fiber recruitment, muscle shortening, whatever, metric as opposed to the metrics we have now. this is where i'm way out over my skis.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The latter. *Average* pedal force is actually easy to get if you have crank length. It's just that when I first starting looking at this stuff across several different riders I didn't always have their crank lengths, so I could easily compare their torque but not their force.

In practice, we don't usually have to worry about cranks changing their length in the middle of a ride (if it does that's a completely different problem) so from a practical point of view, whatever you do with pedal force you can do with crank torque.

There are too many cranks in this thread.

It depends.

Metabolic and cardiovascular strain (and hence adaptation) will be (primarily) determined by the (temporally-smoothed) power output, regardless of how it is generated.

Neuromuscular demands (and hence adaptations in muscle contractile function) will be (mostly) dictated by the force and speed with which you pedal.

I developed quadrant analysis (QA) about 15 y ago as a way of visualizing the latter demands. QA was inspired, in part, by Robert's interest in torque vs. cadence plots and "power expansion pathways", but explicitly incorporates the physiological knowledge that significant type II motor unit recruitment seems to (initially) occur only at intensities above FTP. (The other motivation for QA was people's complaints that NP didn't seem to fully capture the stress they experienced during severely "on-off" cycling, e.g., a criterium).

Once dual-sided power meters that offered additional information about pedaling dynamics became available, I developed additional analytical tools, i.e., calculation of maximum effective pedal force (MEPF), gross power released (GPR), gross power absorbed (GPA), and kurtotic index (KI), all of which can be found in WKO4. This seems to be a bit of a deeper dive into cycling biomechanics than what motivated your original question, however.

A description of QA can be found in our book, as well as here (note that both the date on the article and the byline are incorrect):

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/quadrant-analysis/

These sources describe the pedaling metrics unique to WKO4:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/...and-metrics-in-wko4/

https://help.trainingpeaks.com/...ling-metrics-in-WKO4

https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/...daling%20Metrics.pdf

TL, DR answer: specificity, specificity, specificity, specificity, specificity.

Pedantic, but I think those are both indirect. Measuring mass via a balance would be direct measurement. But measuring weight via a spring uses a calibrated correlation to material deflection. Like most power meters measure torque.

thanks. let me read those articles and see what i can glean. i have a suspicion some riders would be well served by moderating their cadences more actively to lessen over-recruitment of type II fibers during exercise, even when there are fairly significant changes in power occasioned by the tactical realities of a race. also, that if that's true, that those athletes tend not to moderate their cadences sufficiently.

but i don't know. it's just a guess. a hunch. i'm exceedingly mentally, informationally, underequipped to extrapolate past that.

i need

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

A beam balance must be calibrated as well. I really see no difference.

The difference is that with the balance no mathematical relationship between physical quantities is needed. It's comparing a mass to a known mass. Like using a measuring stick is comparing a distance to a known distance. However, like the torque arm formula need to convert a force to a torque. Or a formula to convert a material strain to a force.

This site may help.

Ok, so.....how does one measure power "directly?"

I don't know...torque wouldn't be too hard, but power would be tricky, from a bike.

Slower pedaling -> higher force for same power -> GREATER recruitment of type II motor units.

OTOH, faster pedaling -> lower force threshold for recruitment of any given motor unit -> greater recruitment of type II motor units.

IOW, the effects of cadence (at least at the extremes) on motor unit recruitment are more complex than you seem to be assuming.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Only the Dunning Kruger effect can explain this....
(unless the intent is very different than I suspect)

In the first place this thread is a great language course for me I'd like to join .. and I'll try to represent/describe a point of view that is hopefully understandable ..

.. by moving we try to match with situations ore events relativ to us and therfore have developed senses for differences in synchronity and balance .. force (ore torque) at a bone is used like with a limiter in each fiber, it stops if a signal shows it’s enough .. many of this is settled by the autonomic nervous system and unconscious to us .. but not the outcome relative to world we can sense and want to influence ..

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Is there ANY means of measuring power in ANY system that measures it "directly" (as defined by the article you linked to)? Because if not, all this talk about bike power meters not measuring power directly is just a trivial matter of no consequence.

Are we witnessing work on FTT - Functional Torque Threshold model ?:)

Froome can be quite a masher during his training ride below avg RPM 66 over 180km, I think all he does is planned and fully realized, he has the best physiological coaches in the world.
https://www.strava.com/.../1360361706/overview


While training at different torque aka Cadence shift eg: slow Cadence low\mid power then switch to high cadence and high power can improve neuromuscular link it would be hard to narrow down the precise torque values without tools like below.

http://www.btsbioengineering.com/products/freeemg/

I think people like Froome they are totally aware of benefits.

So I am lazy and not gonna read 4 pages of this since late to the game.

Torque is a helpful training tool this is why lots of the pro team coaches use it in theory when planng workouts but dont actually use the numbers. This is the reason behind motor pacing. Using this can help train athletes for various racing situations and other stuff. I dont think very useful for triathletes. Road racers, CX , track, and MTB very much. Tommy Danielson has been talking about torque quite a bit lately as well and how you can use racing. So Slowman, yes depending on what you want to use for it is helpful. I know Powerbox from FSA allows one to see torque values so assuming power2max does too.

http://www.americanroadcycling.com/america8/TheBook/Torque.aspx?frm=MenVert

Neither are particular useful for that per se.

Muscle fibre recruitment in dynamic scenarios is much more a function of power than either of torque or cadence.





While pedal force varies a lot during a pedal stroke and pedal velocity doesn't, peak and average torque (for steady state riding) are still pretty much related by a reasonably fixed factor.

Metabolically, knowing your torque or cadence is not particularly helpful, while knowing power most definitely is.
For neuromuscular insight then Quadrant Analysis is your friend.


In any case, cadence and torque are not really independently controllable variables at our disposal* but we can control our power output.

The things we can control:
- effort level (i.e. power)
- gear choice

Cadence and torque are then simply outcomes of those choices and the resistance forces acting against us at the time.

Far better to focus on effort level and choose a gear appropriate for the situation.


* except perhaps for the artificial scenario of cycling on an ergometer set to maintain a fixed work rate irrespective of what the rider does.

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http://www.cyclecoach.com
http://www.aerocoach.com.au

Torque is a red herring.

it may well be that riding according to torque, as a thought experiment during a training session, is useless and yields nothing of value. but your two statements above seem to me to contradict each other. you cannot "choose a gear appropriate for the situation" without some at least unconscious if not conscious consideration given to cadence. or torque. depending on what prompts the choice.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Unfolding force with the active fibers is taxable, relaxing the passive is not so taxable, general muscle tension depends on load and exhaustion level (somehow) .. unfolding force at different speeds of moving ore rhythms (of the bones) need a (still) capable nervous system and (recalibrated) senses for all this situations (with very different loads and after hours) ..

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i am suprised we are 90 posts into this thread and oysemetirc rings havent been metioned.

Different shaped chainrings support preferences (ore reduce weaknesses), they don't change principles edit: the basics ..

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maybe I have completely missed the boat on this discussion but to me torque and cadence is similar in principle to low/ force high rep vs high force/ low rep. In other words at the same power, cadence is a surrogate measure for torque since they are inversely related and linearly proportional. So assuming you can maintain the same power then cadence tells you what the torque is in a relative way. So correct me if I am wrong, (and I am sure the flame throwers are being loaded up as I type this) but as RChung says torque is a red herring, and adds no added information that you do not already have if you have a power meter and watch cadence and power as they relate to each other.

did you see that you're quoted in another thread today saying, "That's why focusing on cadence to the exclusion of these other choices is a red herring.”?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

RChung is a red herring.

You are right with the physical model ..



.. that can describe/caclulate an output of a system.

My thoughts are related to the articulated bio mechanic chemical driven nervous activated senses monitored inputs to ride a bike (fast) ..

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i'm sorry. can you repeat that? i'm hard of herring.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Salmon'll be along any minute to explain.

In the meantime, a short version is that I don't think there's a simple way to turbot-charge your cycling.

.. the pygmy seahorse knows the way best (it can move with max 0,01 mls/h) ..

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Well they fool some powermeter...

Yeah, they do .. but not the time .. ;-)

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Dan,
Sorry if I have missed some important stuff in this thread, but your post has got me thinking Dan.
Sorry if I am about to butcher torque/force etc.
But in the instance of short cranks. I find the 155s I have feel like I have to generate too much force in too short a time for my long long legs (37inch inseam) to tolerate.
I find I have a limitation on rpm in aero position. Sat up I’m fine. 100 on the turbo is no problem.
To counteract this, would a longer crank allow me to generate more torque to compensate for the lack of spin?

well, theoretically, you have this interplay: yes, you need to generate (a little bit) more torque with a shorter crank. and, not only is the lever (the crankarm) shorter, torque is force x that lever, and it's that x the cosine of the angle created between the diagonal perpendicular to the force and the line from the fulcrum of that angle (the BB) and the place on the pedal circle where you are at any moment - which is to say that there's only one perfect place on the pedal circle and you move away from that place incrementally more quickly on a smaller pedal cycle circumference, if time is the measure (just, i'm a little fuzzy on this part, i'd have to think this through a bit).

countering that is another mechanical element, which is your body. on the bicycle you have two machines at work, that interplay. your bicycle is a machine, with all its physical features. and your body is a machine, with its physical features. you have force applied at the end of a lever, right? but, what am i talking about? in the paragraph above it's the crank, and the BB is the fulcrum, and the crankarm is the lever. but i might also be talking about your hip as the fulcrum and the femur as the lever. this is where you gain back that mechanical disadvantage of the shorter crankarm. you begin to push down with a new mechanical advantage granted you by the shorter crank, assuming your retain your same aspect into the wind (identical armrest elevation drop from saddle to armrest pads).

here's something i'm pretty sure nobody offers you, but that i think might be fun. and i'm not offering it either, but bear with me. I have, what, 4 (i think) fit bikes in my studio: a GURU, an exit cycling, a purely custom, and another purely custom that just showed up and is still in the crate. they all have adjustable cranks. they all have smart resistance units. so i could put you on any one of these, in your position, and put you through a performance test, retaining your position exactly, just with different crankarm lengths. and you could see right there, in the course of, say, an hour, which crankarm is best for you.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Thank you for your reply Dan.
Ok, so let’s add this into the mix.
I am happy putting out power on the 155s on the turbo, if anything it’s higher.
But on the road I feel it’s too fast in aero.
I have 2 chainsets, 155 snd 165.
Any logic in training 155 on the turbo and riding 155 on the road? 155 on the turbo to improve force generation and then 165 on the road to make better use of this force?

Funny you should say that about the rig, me and a friend who is looking into bikefit and is an engineer are planning on building one with adjustable cranks

Dude, if you have a 37" inseam then perhaps you should be on the 165's. In comparison to your legs, those are the short cranks everyone talks about. You may have gone too far for your size, I certainly would go to 165's with the 7" longer leg you have than me. I have 30" inseam and I ride 155's...

Yes I think I maybe went a little TOO short!

The only problem is that it's reasonably likely that there is a period of adaptation to a new position/crank length. That period could be on the order of a month so a quick 5min test doesn't necessarily provide information on an optimal length.

Not true, at least in terms of maximal muscle power.

But how often are you putting out maximal muscle power while seated? Is the optimal setup for maximal muscle power also optimal for riding at 80-100% of FTP?

The point is that our neuromuscular system is quite flexible, and readily adapts to new tasks. There is no reason to believe that the intensity of the exercise makes any difference in this regard (and in fact, at the level of the individual motor unit, all exercise is near-maximal, even when you are just cruising along).

If you start mentioning Frank Day, I'm going to assume waterboy hacked your admin account...

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

I guess your new nickname is "Red" then :-)

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Boom. End of thread. Once again Alex distills it all down for us.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

it didn't end it for me. i guess you didn't see my reply to that post.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

It should have. And I did.

Between Alex and Andy's replies, you should have all you need to know.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

i'm sorry. i didn't (and don't) see alex's reply. or andy's reply that spoke to my question.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

This thread is a train wreck.

Andrew Coggan wrote:

This thread is a train wreck.

i don't see what's train wrecky. what i see in the thread is that a few people have raised this question. me, i don't know. i'm just asking.


alex wrote two things: "metabolically, knowing your torque or cadence is not particularly helpful, while knowing power most definitely is," along with, "far better to focus on effort level and choose a gear appropriate for the situation."


to me, just reading those two statements, they don't square for me. if you choose the appropriate gear, you're choosing on what basis? what makes it "appropriate"? is the thesis here that you don't need to pay any attention to either torque or cadence? i very strongly suspect that the great majority of folks who earn their living from cycling, as cyclists - or coaches, etc. - would not agree that cadence is not to be considered.


i don't want to put words on anyone's mouth, but i can only read your words, not your mind.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

In your OP, you talked about "riding to torque" and asked "anything out there on that?"

You had an exercise physiologist, who you called out by name in your thread title, and a well-respected cycling coach both explain why it's, as RChung commented, a "red herring".

So yeah...asked and answered

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

let me rephrase. why is it a worthless notion?

i'm not an expert in very many things, but, in such case i'm asking a question that's in my wheelhouse, if you ever catch me pulling rank, that is, saying that a notion is worthless and refusing to explain why, or to offer evidence, historical practice, reasoning, please call me out on it. you'd be doing me a favor.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=6591363#p6591363

"Slower pedaling -> higher force for same power -> GREATER recruitment of type II motor units.

OTOH, faster pedaling -> lower force threshold for recruitment of any given motor unit -> greater recruitment of type II motor units.

IOW, the effects of cadence (at least at the extremes) on motor unit recruitment are more complex than you seem to be assuming. "

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

you're writing me back (in part) what i wrote. slower pedaling = more type II fiber recruitment. which could be detrimental. i'm asking a pretty basic question, and i'm really not getting an answer. power = torque x cadence. we look at cadence. very hard. have been for generations. we've never been able to look at torque. until this generation. so, if cadence is that important, why is the other metric not important?

specifically, if the point of cadence is, really, to pedal with the optimal torque, might it be interesting to look at torque? has anyone ever done it?

what i'm variously getting is - parsed - none of it is important to look at (cadence or torque), or, it's more complicated than that. which, really, is not an answer.

i don't mind if the answer is just not known (or if it's never been considered; or already tried and proved to be a false lead). i have no problem just hearing "i don't know." i say it all the time, in fields in which i'm considered an expert, because there's either not known or, if it is, i don't know it.

i have only a very casual interest in this. but you keep saying i've gotten my answer and i really haven't. i've gotten gobbledygook, and i've had rank pulled, but an answer is something i've certainly not gotten.

that said, while i found it an interesting thought experiment, it's not important to me. nobody should be more ardent in crafting an answer than i am ardent in hearing it. i withdraw the question.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

An exercise physiologist, a cycling coach, and an engineer walk into a bar, and . . . ?

I’ve only gotten to the end of page 1 (so far...), but there is something in knowing torque (if you also know power & cadence).
By plotting the relationship between all three you will find a point (relative to cadence) where power & torque cross over, this point will most likely be your most efficient cadence relative to your cardiovascular aerobic fitness. It could be useful to know this...

As I answered you initially, whether how you produce power matters depends on your perspective, i.e., the adaptations under consideration.

Also as I answered initially, multiple analytical tools are available (and have been for a long time) for assessing such questions.

Regardless, as I (and others) pointed out before, torque isn't really relevant - what truly matters is the force and speed of muscle contraction, so best to think in those terms.

Power = torque x angular velocity.

IOW, if you know two, the other is calculable, i.e. the interrelationship is fixed.

Instead of thinking about cadence and torque, how about looking at pedal force and foot speed...especially since that's what your body "sees"?

And then, we're back to talking about QA plots...

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

You forgot the "scl scntst" named "Red" ;-)

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Who is this "we"? Likely the only reason cadence was looked at "for generations" was because it was the only variable that was easily measurable. That does not mean that taking action based on that variable was actually useful.

i don't disagree. and, that's also what i said. cadence was used because cadence was calculable. some of these smart guys above are introducing additional metrics that i think may also be helpful. i don't know. angular velocity. the speed of muscle contractions (tho i don't know how you measure that).

by "we" i mean all the people - literally everyone, virtually without exception - of any import and excellence in cycling who came before you.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

...actually, tangential velocity (i.e. "foot speed"). "Angular velocity" is just cadence in different units. There's a difference.


Tangential velocity/foot speed is basically a direct proxy for muscle contraction speed.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

You have specifically cited the the importance of cadence to support your argument that torque might be important. However in the case that cadence is effectively a secondary signal – i.e. it is not cause but result – your argument is rendered moot. What people have believed about cadence for generations is irrelevant; as I'm sure you know coaches and athletes have adhered to many erroneous beliefs over the years.

We monitor "results" as important metrics all the time. Most of the "causes" are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to monitor in real-time and, in addition to that, there are multiple causes that lead to the result.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I have a serious question about running. Are there running coaches who specify stride rate independent of run pace or stride length? If so, do they also sometimes specify stride length independent of stride rate?

coaches routinely talk about stride rate. 180 steps a minute. they very rarely talk about stride length as a specific metric. 6 feet. 7 feet. that's not done. that i know of.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Do they talk about muscle fiber types, and differential recruitment?

Not good ones.

Now you're just playing with him...

I don't see an obligatory train wreck either. But you probably have the data already. Power and cadence gives you torque (average per rotation) with a little bit of post-processing, from there a few exploratory scatter plots will tell you if there is a pattern indicating a relationship.
Ramp test data tells me that as power demand increases, I choose to use a higher cadence, I do upshift as speed increases but not enough to keep cadence constant.
With a cubic power curve, 26% faster = doubling the power. So on a constant gear, 26% increase in cadence 59% increase in torque. Constant cadence, 100% increase in torque. Constant torque, 100% increase in cadence therefore 59% reduction in gearing for 26% higher speed. So I'm certainly choosing to reduce the increase in torque that would have been required for a constant cadence, but definitely not keeping it constant.
I could check on two turbotrainers with completely different power curves to see what consistency I exhibit, if any.

Am I making the right choices? Who could tell me, apart from my own internal feedback?
My first guesses are that I have chosen a crank length that provides the "right" balance between pedal force and limb articulation, and then choose a cadence that provides the "right" balance between pedal force and speed. A shorter crank and lower gear could provide unchanged pedal force and speed for a given power, it would be produced with a higher cadence and reduced limb articulation. What is most effective for (a) an individual performance and (b) positive adaptation for individual future performances are further questions that I lack the knowledge to answer. I probably couldn't even fathom the correct intermediate questions.

Here’s one from Steve magnets:

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/...tride-frequency.html

Cheers,
Maurice

resist... being... that... coggan!

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

just answering a question, brother. not offering my opinion. i don't ascribe to stride rate as a useful metric. but that was not what i was asked. i was asked, "are there running coaches that..."

but there is a fundamental difference between running and cycling, which is quite obvious to those of use who do both, and which render comparisons not very helpful. there is no "stride length in cycling or, to put it another way, there is 1 stride length. not changeable. unless you change the crank length. and then there's another. not changeable. not coachable.

so, it's not helpful to try to draw a conclusion by comparing the two sports.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

If I’m reading Steve’s article above correctly he delineates between force production (stride length) and force frequency (stride rate)

Similar variables to cycling no?

Anyways, laymen’s summary: people are different, don’t pidgeon hole improvements in performance to one variable (pose method) to the exclusion of other obvious variables.

2c
Maurice

I understand your point, but there are coaches that ascribe to all kinds of crazy ideas or are stuck with ideas that are 30 years old.

It doesn't seem helpful to answer "yes" when the science has been pretty clear on the point of running cadence and many renouned coaches on this forum have made the point repeatedly.

The cycling equivalent of stride length is gear inches. Given your history I'm sure you know this.

throttle back, pard! if you want to yell at me, can you start another thread for that purpose? perhaps there was an agenda to the question. i don't know. what i do know is that the easiest way to see a fight, other than turning on HBO on saturday night, is to get 2 coaches in 1 room. the answer i gave was straightforward and directly to the point. further - and while i don't agree with focusing on stride rate - there is still waaaaaay more "coaches" fixated on this than on any other metric in running. it's running's version of 220 minus your age. you may go postal or even go fedex on my ass, but that doesn't change the answer to the question i was asked.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Not yelling. Just conversing. Can't be bothered to yell at the internets much anymore.

I agree that there are a bunch that still focus on it like 220-age. I put them in the same mental group.

That's a good suggestion. In fact, if you took into consideration crank length (and thus how much/how fast muscles shorten at a particular cadence), and also drew lines demarcating different regions based on physiological data, you might really be on to something.

Hey, I'm just trying to protect you from the cat that keeps batting you around.

i don't mind being batted around a little.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The language train speeds up, nice ..

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https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/...91aab8ddecbee285.pdf

this study did fool the watch too
see page 35 ( and iam not saying this is a good test )

I’m going to twist your question because I think it gets to a similar place.

I think I want to know about the power I exert on a footpod. Why an I confused?

If you know the mass of a footpod with an accelerometer in it you can calculate the power exerted on the pod. While cycling this power represents power require to move my legs/feet which doesn’t go into the bike. Therefore for a give bike power meter reading the cadence which gives the lowest power at the pod is the best. Correct?

And isn’t the foot pod power also what we should be using for ‘running power’? Forget the algorithms look directly at power at the pod. I realise it will be a very small number and only part of your total output but it’s at least a direct measure of power while running.

Thanx for the link .. it will take some time to read through .. since a 1km TT is really just like a sprint (< 90sec) I can imagine the more torque at the most effizient spot supports the max average power output .. how about fatigue and recovery for and after longer intervals .. how about to repeat the same results with different riders .. how about adaption effects .. and how to measure time at all, when one measuring point is always gone .. ;-)

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Where biological senses process physical, mechanical and chemical facts to adjust our movements (if resources are available) .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception

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Wow, 7 pages of Slowman getting clobbered about whether his question is even relevant. Maybe by page 10 we’ll discuss the question itself.

I’ll try to contribute something. Team Sky does make mention of doing “torque specificity work” during their base phase, and as someone else pointed out, that basically amounts to riding tempo at 70 rpms a la Chris Froome's Strava rides. I wonder why they would do that if it doesn’t help anything. They seem pretty focused on performance. Maybe this paragraph should be in pink.

Anecdotally, I have tried this and I find it is much easier to do FTP or VO2max intervals after doing a few weeks of “torque specificity” work first. It is also much easier for me personally — I run a much lower heart rate for a given power level if my cadence is low.

Incidentally, you can plot torque easily in Golden Cheetah and even make a “mean maximal torque graph” as suggested at one point on this thread. I find that is useful for determining roughly how long I can hold a particular torque before fatiguing, or which torque I can hold for a very long time. That’s also anecdotal.

There’s 2 cents for you, Dan.

-Will

Would you be surprised to maintain edit: sustain the highest torque on cranks that can't move?

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___/\___/\___/\___ the s u r f b o a r d of the K u r p f a l z is the r o a d b i k e .. oSo >>

That's because his question was answered quite some time ago.

(BTW, WKO+ 3.0 had the ability to calculate and plot mean maximal torque a decade or more ago. Nobody looked at it/really cared, though, because better tool existed/still exist. In fact, if Dan had been paying attention at all, he wouldn't have asked his question in the first place.)

http://www.tradewindsports.net/...-sub-max-and-max.pdf

this is I think the most comprehensive paper i have read on it .

At the end it's very interesting to experience the differences made by oval chainrings and to take the insights ..

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___/\___/\___/\___ the s u r f b o a r d of the K u r p f a l z is the r o a d b i k e .. oSo >>