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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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I have lower back if I don't ride as well. It has very little to do with bike position. But certain positions are better then others with regard to how much I feel it.

I don not know in what world you life, but I think team tbb women have dominated the last few years. Some of them were good before they went to tbb, but most improved a lot. What did Biscay win before tbb, Macel, Bayliss, Wellington? Has Keat done a 8:39-worth IM before this year?

Faris would never win something with a different run style. This style he probably used for his whole life. It is how he runs. Nobody will change that. If Lieto would run like him, he will not going to win Hawaii due to it, and he will for sure also not be second again. Lieto does run and ride like Lieto. He did fine this year. He should not copy a previous winner.

You look like a soccer coach in the 6th class local soccer league.

Pre match briefing.

Coach Empfield: Have we all seen Barcelona play yesterday?
Team: Yes live, they won with 5-0!
Coach Empfield: That is how we are going to play today.

This coach really excists. I don't have to say he never made it out of the 6th league as well.
Last edited by: big slow mover: Oct 12, 09 8:22
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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but if she's a bit overcooked, then, would riding 5 beats faster help that? it seemed to make a big difference to lance, that is to say, were lance riding his "self-selected cadence" the way many on this board think we should all ride, both he and his coach would tell you it's questionable whether his career would've taken the turn it did.





But Lance was an outlier too in terms of the cadence he used the 7 times he won the tour. Both Chrissie and Lance are similar in the respect that they are/were both dominating the biggest race in their respective sport many times over both using a cadence that is a little outside the norm, just at opposite ends of the spectrum. I didn't hear you say Lance should change to a cadence more inside the norm the few times he was in trouble in the 2003 tour for example. I agree it would have been absurd to say so but saying Chrissie should change hers on her way to winning her 3rd Kona in a record time is almost equally absurd. The only difference seem to be that she is using a cadence that you personally don't like. If you're gonna argue that everyone is the same and should use a similar cadence it should go both ways.




BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se
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Re: cadence [big slow mover] [ In reply to ]
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"I don not know in what world you life, but I think team tbb women have dominated the last few years."

i guess my "world" has (chronological) length to it. there are, what, 23 ironman races around the world? it's a little easier nowadays to rack up palmares than in the days when there were 7. this is not to denigrate any athlete, rather, to ask that with 5 times more women in the sport than there was a dozen years ago, and with federation money probably 20 or 50 times what it was back then, and
and olympic medals drawing people into this sport, lots of development programs bringing athletes in, and prize and federation money now equally split men-to-women, and all this feeding long-coursing with great new athletes, where are the fast bike rides? or the fast overall times?

what we have now are fast female swimmer/runners. we have exceptional talent available in the women's field. as noted in this (or another) thread, our male kona athletes throughout the top 5 averaged 2:50 for their marathons in 1992, and they average 2:50 now. our women averaged 3:19 in 1992 and they average 3:02 now. we have much, much better female talent. but their bike times have slowed, and their overall times are no faster or barely faster.

in my view, this is for one of two reasons. either it's due to the split start, where female pros don't have male AGers in the races with them; or it's because -- while they have a lot of technical, tactical, expertise available to them in swim, run, nutrition, training, etc. -- they lack the technical, tactical expertise that attends the cycling leg.

please don't tell me it's because women are racing smarter than men, and they understand that riding slow and running fast is the way to win. because, if that's what's going on, that tactic hasn't worked so well in the natascha/chrissie era.


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: cadence [bjorn] [ In reply to ]
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excellent points. You will always have outliers, and those are 2 great examples. I am not sure why we STers spend so much time discussing and feuding over what works for OTHER people. If it works for you, do it, if it doesn't, don't do it. Nothing wrong with getting insight on changing technique, but arguing over what does and doesn't work for people is redundant.
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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the difference is that it seems slowman helped Lance increase his cadence that may have played some role in his phenomenal success, but trying to cope with the fact/overwhelming evidence that riding at this counter-intuitively high cadence is only appropriate for cycling and not the best way to get you to T2 ready to run in triathlon has been too bitter a pill for him to swallow.
Last edited by: avagoyamug: Oct 12, 09 8:50
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Re: cadence [bjorn] [ In reply to ]
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"If you're gonna argue that everyone is the same and should use a similar cadence it should go both ways."

you're right. lance was an outlier "fast" instead of an outlier "slow." but if you look at cadences used in time trialing these days, they're probably 5, and maybe even close to 10, beats faster than they were a generation ago. even in climbing, riders like contador use that faster "lance" cadence.

in the '80s, time trialing was done at 80 or maybe, exceptionally, 85 rpms on 180mm cranks. it's a completely different activity now. the trend is clear and, sure, i think there's plenty of room for tweaking the approach to this through finding out what the variables are: what's your fiber type makeup? what's your aerobic capacity? if you don't have much aerobic capacity (relative to those in your competitive set) should you opt for a somewhat slower cadence and, if so, how much slower?

those are valid questions and i think we'll get there. but there's an overall truism or theme, here, bjorn, and that is for you to emphasize the outlier's right to be an outlier, and for me to emphasize the outlier's risk in being an outlier. when i write here it's for a lot of readers who are wondering what to do, how to set up their bikes, how to ride. there are two ways forward: either there's nothing we can know, put your saddle wherever you want fore/aft or up/down, go with the stem that came on your bike OE, hop on and ride; or, my view, which is, here are the trends, here are the commonalities, best to emulate them absent a good reason.

finally, you emphasize variances in people. i emphasize sameness. why do i do this? because sameness wins in every other human endeavor. every one. except, perhaps, fine art. when somebody breaks from the mold, sameness just coalesces around him. when bill koch started skating every XC race, his competitors didn't simply say, "well, there goes an outlier." bill koch's outlier-ness became the next generation's sameness.

so we're haggling, you and me, over two issues: whether sameness trumps deviation; and if it does, what is the risk/benefit slope as you deviate from the norm? i don't think we're going to solve it here, but i think your message to these readers is, for these readers, the perilous one.


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Women did not get faster over all?????

I counted it:

How many races sub 9 hrs were there in the period of 1991-2006? 16 16/15=+-1 every year
How many 2007-2009? 21 And the year is not over yet. 21/3=7 per year...

The before 2007 world record is broken by 7 different women in two years!
Last edited by: big slow mover: Oct 12, 09 9:03
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Re: cadence [UK Gearmuncher] [ In reply to ]
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Thats what I keep thinking. Unless its for biomechanical or aerodynamic set up reasons, why would you want someone to have a shorter crank AND a lower cadence ? Doesn't that seem being counter intuitive ? Can anyone comment on any physiological benefits to consider it ?
Shorter cranks can offer both biomechanical and aerodynamic advantages, depends on the individual.

--------------
Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks
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Re: cadence [Frank Day] [ In reply to ]
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Hi Frank. Thats what i said. what I don't understand is why a rider would have both a short crank and a low cadence. Isn't that counter intuitive ? Wouldn't the high torque required be a problem if they weren't compensating by upping their cadence ? Any thoughts ?
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Re: cadence [big slow mover] [ In reply to ]
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oh come on, why let data get in the way of Dan's argument?
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Re: cadence [big slow mover] [ In reply to ]
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"How many races sub 9 hrs were there in the period of 1991-2006?"

my ex raced germany in 1992, had a bad asthma attack, worst race of the year, and finished sixth... in 9:12. women have been fast for a long time. but when you add in courses like austria and frankfurt that weren't around back then, and you give these gals more than triple the opportunities to get a fast time, sure, you'll have more fast times.

so, why don't you just look at the one race where everybody gathers, and look at how that race has progressed? look at overall times, bike times, run times, swim times. compare to each other, and how they perform relative to their male counterparts?


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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In Reply To:


finally, you emphasize variances in people. i emphasize sameness. why do i do this? because sameness wins in every other human endeavor. every one. except, perhaps, fine art. when somebody breaks from the mold, sameness just coalesces around him. when bill koch started skating every XC race, his competitors didn't simply say, "well, there goes an outlier." bill koch's outlier-ness became the next generation's sameness.

so we're haggling, you and me, over two issues: whether sameness trumps deviation; and if it does, what is the risk/benefit slope as you deviate from the norm? i don't think we're going to solve it here, but i think your message to these readers is, for these readers, the perilous one.


I don't emphasize variance in people but I do think that even though we are more or less the same there are individual differences. I mean just take a look around next time you're in a big crowd and it's pretty obvious that some people are very different..

Seriously though, in this context it could be body type, muscle fiber composition, femur lenght etc varying between people that I do think can easily account for a difference in cadece of 5-10rpm up and down. Iow I don't think we are so similar that we can, in this case, say that everyones ideal cadence should be almost exactly the same.




BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se
Last edited by: bjorn: Oct 12, 09 10:05
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Re: cadence [berend] [ In reply to ]
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Optimum cadence tends to be higher at higher wattages.

Higher absolute wattages or higher percentage of an individual's threshold power? If women's "absolute" performance is limited (compared to their male counterparts) due to VO2max and other physiological differences, yet they still ride the same or similar "relative" power outputs as a percentage of that "absolute," then something that's optimum for those "higher [relative] wattages" for males will also be optimum for females, too, no?

Berend
I guess that is possible but I doubt it. The studies that have been done that I have seen certainly suggest to me that power is the major determinant of what the most efficient cadence is but I must admit that most of these studies have not been done on elite athletes and haven't looked at what you suggest. Whether I am right or wrong the only way of really knowing in any one athlete what is their most efficient race cadence is to do testing. It is reasonably easy to do if one has the basic monitoring tools. It is something everyone should do but hardly anyone does. People come here all the time and tell us that they race at so and so cadence yet I have never seen anyone come here and say that they arrived at that cadence through testing and here is my data to prove it.

--------------
Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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In Reply To:
so, why don't you just look at the one race where everybody gathers, and look at how that race has progressed? look at overall times, bike times, run times, swim times. compare to each other, and how they perform relative to their male counterparts?

Because it is a straw man. The race results and paces are not necessarily the best performance available at the time by the athlete. See above. If they were staggered starts and no one knew where they were in the standings until the results were posted, then you could make that arguement.

Otherwise it is merely anecdote.

:D

g


greg
www.wattagetraining.com
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Re: cadence [bjorn] [ In reply to ]
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"just take a look around next time you're in a big crowd and it's pretty obvious that some people are very different"

what is my take-away from this? in an applied sense? "sir, science tells us that this regimen of chemotherapy will work for you, but, you're red-haired, and, my last three patients this chemo cured were brown-haired, and, as we know, all you have to do is look around, everybody is different, so, go home and try some st. john's wort for your cancer."

the differences you see in a crowd are superficial. again, you say you're not arguing in favor of variance, you're just arguing against sameness ;-)

"I don't think we are so similar that we can, in this case, say that everyone's ideal cadence is almost exactly the same."

a man just died who was something around 114 years old. oldest living man. an achievement truly wellingtonesque. his secret? bacon fat. now, we can deal with this data point in one of two ways. we can either say, hmm, bacon fat, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so to speak. he set a record. he's the world's best. ergo, bacon fat conspired to make him the oldest living man.

or, we can say that he's got terrific genes, and these genes, combined with otherwise pretty good habits, conspired to make him the oldest living man in spite of his bacon fat habit -- that his genes overcame bacon fat, rather than worked in tandem with bacon fat.

but, maybe you're right, maybe we'll find out that for some people eating lard and bacon fat every day will work for them. but i hope that's not what you're advocating for us slowtwitchers. i hope you emphasize sameness in their choice of eating habits, rather than deviation.

we can say that, yes, bacon fat eating might be best for that man, and by extension for many other people. or, we can say that, notwithstanding this man's success, he might've lived to 116 without eating bacon fat, and, the group of spectators watching this man's longevity performance ought not to emulate him.
we can take what we know, or what we think we know, and build on that. or not.

the only way chrissie will ever know if her best IM cadence is 84 instead of 78 or 80 is to ride at 84 and see how that works. is that a risk? yes, because she's putting at risk her status as the world's best. but, what of the girls 20 or 30 minutes behind her? what about them looking at ways to improve? less of a risk. but the performance dynamic is the same for chrissie or for second through seventh place: either you're doing everything right and you should change nothing; or you've got improvements in front of you, and you risk going sideways in your attempt to improve.


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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. . .but if she's a bit overcooked, then, would riding 5 beats faster help that? it seemed to make a big difference to lance, that is to say, were lance riding his "self-selected cadence" the way many on this board think we should all ride, both he and his coach would tell you it's questionable whether his career would've taken the turn it did.

but, maybe her cadence is good for her. but, if it is, it's an outlier's cadence. and, if you want to be an outlier, i think the onus is on you to demonstrate why. not to me! not to people on this board. not to the sport, or the spectators. rather, to you, yourself. if you're an outlier, you should satisfy yourself that your deviation from the norm is appropriate. this is only prudent. for example, faris' long, loping, running technique. that's an outlier's technique. he won kona. so, is that the proof that his running technique is his best running technique? or, is there another 5 minutes worth of marathon inside that body?

"
And there were more girls from team tbb riding ugly but doing just fine. All these girls IMPROVED since they became part of team tbb."

well, i'm sorry, i know i'm not going to make very many friends, but, absent chrissie (who has a dave scott engine downsized to fit inside a 115 pound frame), i just don't see that the team tbb girls are better riders or overall better athletes than the rest of the field. they do big miles, they train in enclaves, they have a lot of good things going for them, but, i just don't see the payoff, the breakout performers. mind, we have loretta, siri, jackie, nicki, and you just have to acknowledge brett's ability with short coursers. but, when the ITU prompted brett to switch to long coursers, i don't see what you all seem to see. this is not to denigrate these athletes, rather, based on his short course performers, one would think that we'd have sub-9:25 kona performers coming out our ears.
I guess it is possible her cadence is below optimal for her but I would be surprised. I suspect it was testing done by Brett and Chrissie that led her to this cadence. Just as, I suspect, it was testing done by Lance and company that led him to his cadence (a cadence used for a completely different kind of racing).

Chrissie is an outlier. But, if she is an outlier simply because she had the forsight to do some testing of what cadence might optimize her racing rather than think that "what comes naturally" is optimum, like the rest of the world then it is a lesson the rest of the world should pay attention to. The fact she is so dominant suggests that, at least, a few will pay attention.

--------------
Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks
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Re: cadence [Frank Day] [ In reply to ]
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"I suspect it was testing done by Brett and Chrissie that led her to this cadence."

maybe jonnyo, stjay, or others who watch this process close-up can say whether this sort of testing goes on. that hasn't been my impression. rather, that brett is more eyeball oriented when he considers his athletes' bike positions and cadences and, even then, it's my understanding that the cadence is the cadence is the cadence for his gals, all his gals, and that this cadence is slower than what we see for the men, and that brett believes this slower cadence is a women's-specific dynamic.

maybe others closer to the process can disabuse my if my impression is wrong.


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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In Reply To:
from ahlquist: In conclusion, cycling at the same metabolic cost at 50 rather than 100 rev·min–1 results in greater type II fiber glycogen depletion. This is attributed to the increased muscle force required to meet the higher resistance per cycle at the lower pedal frequency. These data are consistent with the view that force development as opposed to velocity of contraction determines the degree of type II fiber recruitment when the metabolic cost of exercise is held constant.

That is what Alquist et al. wrote, but what they actually found was that the pattern of fiber type recruitment was essentially the same regardless of the cadence:



In any case, they weren't the first to posit that pedaling faster altered the pattern of fiber type recruitment...
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Re: cadence [UK Gearmuncher] [ In reply to ]
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Hi Frank. Thats what i said. what I don't understand is why a rider would have both a short crank and a low cadence. Isn't that counter intuitive ? Wouldn't the high torque required be a problem if they weren't compensating by upping their cadence ? Any thoughts ?
Here is my take on crank length. I don't think crank length matters much except for triathlon or tt-ing. The difference between 170 and 175 is about 3%. Such a change is easily within the normal range of motion limits of the joints so should not account for much of a mechanical leverage difference in the legs or joints. Only when the cranks get way too long or way to short should this be much of a problem for most people.

What seems to matter most from an overall efficiency point of view is pedal speed. To keep pedal speed the same if we change crank length 3% would simply require changing the cadence 3% or changing a 75 cadence to 77.25 or 72.75 (depending upon whether you went shorter or longer respectively). This is hardly a problem to deal with in racing as the difference between a 14 and 15 tooth cog is over 6%.

So, we see shorter cranks provide almost zero "leverage" difficulties and even if we went very short this could be easily be made up for by different gearing to keep pedal speed the same for the same power. So, there is nothing lost in climbing by going to shorter cranks if we gear the bike appropriately. But, shorter cranks offer other advantages.

1. It will take less energy to make them go around one revolution as the up and down excursion of the thigh is less by twice the crank length difference. This means one can achieve higher rpm for the same energy expenditure so one is less likely to "spin out" on the down hills. So, higher top end speed on the downhills.

2. The lesser thigh excursion means that we will be less cramped when we are in the aero position. This should allow the rider to either generate more power in their aero position or get lower without losing any or much power. So, higher speed on the flats.

Any or all of these differences should allow the cyclist to race better.

The only question for me is how short is too short? It is why I have recently extended the adjustability range of our basic PowerCranks to go as short as 155 to allow the user of any size to experiement with this some.

--------------
Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks
Last edited by: Frank Day: Oct 12, 09 10:39
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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The part about people looking different was meant as a joke but I guess I should have put a smiley face on there so everyone could get that.

Regarding the other stuff I really think you're comparing apples to oranges when you're talking about medical treatments, diets etc. But in the case of chemotherapy theraphy that you brought up I'm pretty sure you don't give the same dosage to everyone. We're not that similar. Some people react a bit differently to some drugs as well so sometimes a different cure of treatment works better for them.

We're getting way off track now though but also replying about your diet argument as there can be differences there as well. One example is lactose intolerance which most people develope to some degree growing in to adults except for a large majority of Scandinavians who have a different gene. So advocating exactly the same diet for those to groups might not be the best idea. So yes while I think in general diet advice should be similar for all people it's not completely out of the question that some do better with certain types of food than others.

As an aside there's a pretty big group of lunatics advocating eating lard and bacon actually as part of the LCHF diet. They're almost as fanatic about that as you are about riding at 84rpm in an Ironman.. (-:




BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se
Last edited by: bjorn: Oct 12, 09 10:43
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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keep in mind that the hour record, where because of fixed gear we absolutely know the cadences with precision, has only been set once in the last 50 years at a cadence less than 100rpm, and that was 98rpm. yes, fixed gear bikes, that's a slightly different riding dynamic, but not much.

The difference isn't the use of a fixed gear, but the use of a banked velodrome, which results in significant variations in stored kinetic energy and/or speed/cadence each time you enter/exit a turn. That favors use of a smaller gear/higher cadence than would be the case if the hour record could be attacked on a flat, straight road.
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Re: cadence [Frank Day] [ In reply to ]
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In Reply To:
In Reply To:
Hi Frank. Thats what i said. what I don't understand is why a rider would have both a short crank and a low cadence. Isn't that counter intuitive ? Wouldn't the high torque required be a problem if they weren't compensating by upping their cadence ? Any thoughts ?
Here is my take on crank length. I don't think crank length matters much except for triathlon or tt-ing. The difference between 170 and 175 is about 3%. Such a change is easily within the normal range of motion limits of the joints so should not account for much of a mechanical leverage difference in the legs or joints. Only when the cranks get way too long or way to short should this be much of a problem for most people.

What seems to matter most from an overall efficiency point of view is pedal speed. To keep pedal speed the same if we change crank length 3% would simply require changing the cadence 3% or changing a 75 cadence to 77.25 or 72.75 (depending upon whether you went shorter or longer respectively). This is hardly a problem to deal with in racing as the difference between a 14 and 15 tooth cog is over 6%.

So, we see shorter cranks provide almost zero "leverage" difficulties and even if we went very short this could be easily be made up for by different gearing to keep pedal speed the same for the same power. So, there is nothing lost in climbing by going to shorter cranks if we gear the bike appropriately. But, shorter cranks offer other advantages.

1. It will take less energy to make them go around one revolution as the up and down excursion of the thigh is less by twice the crank length difference. This means one can achieve higher rpm for the same energy expenditure so one is less likely to "spin out" on the down hills. So, higher top end speed on the downhills.

2. The lesser thigh excursion means that we will be less cramped when we are in the aero position. This should allow the rider to either generate more power in their aero position or get lower without losing any or much power. So, higher speed on the flats.

Any or all of these differences should allow the cyclist to race better.

The only question for me is how short is too short? It is why I have recently extended the adjustability range of our basic PowerCranks to go as short as 155 to allow the user of any size to experiement with this some.

Not to mention better cornering clearances for those of us who do crits ;-)

Actually...although Frank might think that all I ever do is disagree with him...I have to say, on this point I think he's basically got it right :-)

http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/
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Re: cadence [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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"I suspect it was testing done by Brett and Chrissie that led her to this cadence."

maybe jonnyo, stjay, or others who watch this process close-up can say whether this sort of testing goes on. that hasn't been my impression. rather, that brett is more eyeball oriented when he considers his athletes' bike positions and cadences and, even then, it's my understanding that the cadence is the cadence is the cadence for his gals, all his gals, and that this cadence is slower than what we see for the men, and that brett believes this slower cadence is a women's-specific dynamic.

maybe others closer to the process can disabuse my if my impression is wrong.
Johnnyo had indicated that Brett was interested in lowest HR. That certainly suggests at least a minimum of testing to me looking for efficiency. But, even if he simply stumbled across this philosophy I would suggest that there is a scientific basis to support it.

--------------
Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks
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Re: cadence [Tom A.] [ In reply to ]
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In Reply To:
In Reply To:
In Reply To:
Hi Frank. Thats what i said. what I don't understand is why a rider would have both a short crank and a low cadence. Isn't that counter intuitive ? Wouldn't the high torque required be a problem if they weren't compensating by upping their cadence ? Any thoughts ?
Here is my take on crank length. I don't think crank length matters much except for triathlon or tt-ing. The difference between 170 and 175 is about 3%. Such a change is easily within the normal range of motion limits of the joints so should not account for much of a mechanical leverage difference in the legs or joints. Only when the cranks get way too long or way to short should this be much of a problem for most people.

What seems to matter most from an overall efficiency point of view is pedal speed. To keep pedal speed the same if we change crank length 3% would simply require changing the cadence 3% or changing a 75 cadence to 77.25 or 72.75 (depending upon whether you went shorter or longer respectively). This is hardly a problem to deal with in racing as the difference between a 14 and 15 tooth cog is over 6%.

So, we see shorter cranks provide almost zero "leverage" difficulties and even if we went very short this could be easily be made up for by different gearing to keep pedal speed the same for the same power. So, there is nothing lost in climbing by going to shorter cranks if we gear the bike appropriately. But, shorter cranks offer other advantages.

1. It will take less energy to make them go around one revolution as the up and down excursion of the thigh is less by twice the crank length difference. This means one can achieve higher rpm for the same energy expenditure so one is less likely to "spin out" on the down hills. So, higher top end speed on the downhills.

2. The lesser thigh excursion means that we will be less cramped when we are in the aero position. This should allow the rider to either generate more power in their aero position or get lower without losing any or much power. So, higher speed on the flats.

Any or all of these differences should allow the cyclist to race better.

The only question for me is how short is too short? It is why I have recently extended the adjustability range of our basic PowerCranks to go as short as 155 to allow the user of any size to experiement with this some.

Not to mention better cornering clearances for those of us who do crits ;-)

Actually...although Frank might think that all I ever do is disagree with him...I have to say, on this point I think he's basically got it right :-)
Please tell me that you simply overlooked his claim #1! ;-)
Last edited by: Andrew Coggan: Oct 12, 09 10:53
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Re: cadence [bjorn] [ In reply to ]
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"I'm pretty sure you don't give the same dosage to everyone."

i'm pretty sure you do, normalized for blood concentration, and assuming your cancer is similar in scope to another's. oncologists here can correct me if i'm wrong.

"We're not that similar."

yes, i think we are, and this is what the scientific method rests on.

"
Some people react a bit differently to some drugs so sometimes a different cure of treatment works better for them."

precisely.

"
We're getting way off track now"

i think this is exactly on track. your posture is to emphasize differences. you keep saying that's not what you're doing, and then you go ahead and do it again. you're addicted. your a serial difference emphasizer ;-)

"
One example is lactose intolerance which most people develope to some degree growing in to adults except for a large majority of Scandinavians who have a different gene"

yes, you're right, and for those of us whose ancestors learned to drink goat's milk, yippy-i-o-ki-ay. but for native americans, who lived on atole and pine nuts, yes, a different diet is indicated.

so, let's say an east anglian on francis drake's ship, landing on the west coast of america in the 16th century, said, "look, i'm eating atole! and my stomach is not in a knot!" do we then tell the other englishmen, "hey, eat what you want, everybody is different, lars here is a perfect example of that, fill ourselves up with fly larvae."

i have a feeling that this is going nowhere fast. i think sameness is the truism we ought to cling to, and veering off is possible, it might even be best, but it ought to be rare, and only for good, demonstrable, reasons. you are much more embracing and, in your writing, laudatory of deviation from the norm. you and i will just have to differ.


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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