Ashburn wrote: I tested an (allegedly) efficiency-improving cycling device once. I might have gotten more efficient, but I couldn’t improve my power so I went back to hard interval training and my power improved.
Are you saying you didn’t do hard intervals during your allegedly efficiency-improving cycling device usage? Or couldn’t do hard intervals with the device?
Thanks…
Are you saying you didn’t do hard intervals during your allegedly efficiency-improving cycling device usage? Or couldn’t do hard intervals with the device?
Thanks…
Well, I could do hard intervals with the device, because just getting them to go in circles was hard (as all new users would attest).
Dec-Jan of 2002-2003, 8 Weeks, 3 rides per week as…
1 outdoor ride that started at a miserable 45 minutes and built to 2.5 hours in tolerable comfort.
1 trainer ride with a “drills” orientation. 30 seconds spinning up to 90 rpms; 30 seconds easy; repeat 15-20 times. That sort of thing. Hard work, but not a “deep aerobic” workout.
1 trainer ride of longer intervals. Started at 3x 5 minutes. Built up to 3x 15 minutes. Each interval done basically as hard as I could without fading. These were insanely hard. I think I actually cried a few times.
All done on the road bike, as I didn’t want to bother trying to ride in the aero position. Trainer rides done on Computrainer in erg mode (ie, no letup on the long intervals).
20-minute TT power in week 0: 205 watts.
20-minute TT power in week 9 (after some rest): 210 watts. Lower HR, though. But PE was just as hard.
Compare that to a 10-week build I did this past winter/spring, also on 3 rides per week. Started at 210 watts and built to 260 watts with conventional equipment and an intensity-based training regimen.
Vitus writes: "You can’t say that about cyclists. Pretty much all the energy a cyclist produces is used to move the bike forward. Their isn’t much “wasted” energy, no matter what the cyclist’s cadence is. "
Wrong. And, we need to define a few things. Cycling efficiency is the ratio of the energy to the wheel divided by the energy expended by the organism. The typical energy efficiency of cyclists ranges from 16 to 23% so most of the energy expenditure is not going to move the bicycle and there is a substantial range of efficiency in current cyclists.
Now, there are certain inefficiencies that can’t be overcome, like the inefficiency of the contracting muscle which is just under 50%. So the maximum possible efficiency of a cyclist, if everything was perfect would be about 50%. However, as noted above, measured efficiencies in cyclists are well below that number and vary widely, so it is clear, there is potential for improvement.
What does this mean in real life? Say you currently are riding at an efficiency of 20%, if you could increase your efficiency to 22%, you would increase the power to delivered to the wheel by 10% without increasing your overall effort one bit. So, the swimming analogy you used holds for cyclists also. Technique does matter regardless of what some here will say.
And, Mr. Winkle is right in a later post. All the inefficiencies are ultimately lost as heat.
And your response to those who say “the present data indicate that mechanical power output and pedal speed (i.e. cadence), a marker for muscle shortening velocity, account for 99% of metabolic cost during submaximal cycling”?
Lurker writes: "What effect pedaling economy/efficiency? Does bike position? Cleat position? I guess I am having a tough time seperating/narrowing down to what effects efficiency/economy. I think the two are tied and that position on the bike and essentially how you move through the pedal stroke would effect both as well. "
I see there being three areas affecting cycling efficiency that can be improved. The big one is direction of applied force. If the muscles are contracting and applying force radially, then energy is expended and no work is done and efficiency is zero. If the force is perfectly tangential to the circle, then efficiency is maximum. The force is rarely applied tangentially to the circle but efforts to do so can result in substantial efficiency improvements. I believe this is one of the major areas of PC improvement but I don’t have proof of this yet. The second area is cadence. If one is not at the optimum cadence for the power one is at then inefficiciencies are introduced. These may or may not be large depending upon how far away one is from optimum and whether one is too high or too low. Cleat position could be another improvable inefficiency as the more forward the cleat is the harder the calf muscles must contract to support the foot for any given pressure, which requires energy but results in no more work being done. Moving the cleat back would allow for less energy expenditure here. I expect this to be small.
Thanks. This is what my line of thinking was, but I was losing it somewhere from brain to keyboard. In a related note re: cleat position, have you or anyone seen/read studies looking at the relationship between the different pedal styles (Speedplay lolipop, Look/Time/Shimano platform, etc.) in combination with foot size and then looking at the force applied. Essentially, does foot size dictate what type of pedal you should use? I’m sure pedal companies have this stuff, but i have not seen it. Thoght about doing something similar for a master’s thesis.
Ashburn.
It continues to mystify me as to why people continue to expect to see big improvements in power in 8 weeks or so on PC’s, most of which was spent by you just trying to get new muscles up to some basic capability, which you seemingly achieved, along with some small power improvement. PC’s require a lot of hard work and a fair amount of dedicated time to see the claimed improvements for most, if not all new users. The claims require 6-9 months of work to see the big cycling gains.
I would propose that some of the subsequent improvements you saw were not due entirely to the hard intervals but, also, to some of the improved efficiency achieved in the 8 previous weeks. Further, i suggest, that if you had continued in your quest to where you could have done those hard intervals on that efficiency improving device, your power improvements would have been eeven greater. Of course, there is no way of knowing for sure.
I have decided not to respond to troll posts by “RVW” sincle learning of the financial angle that he is pursuing by means of his posts.
Very interesting indeed. I finally put it all together and it all makes sense now. Ask Yaquicarbo for an explaination if you need one, he is aware of the RVW conspiracy and his financial angle as well.
Gary -
Lame, BS post. If you are going to “out” someone, out them.
MH
It probably depends on whether the energy requirements of the active lifting of the upstroking pedal is greater or less than the lost force in the downstroking leg (which has to overcome any active or passive resistance in the upstroking pedal.
No need to out this person, as they can take care of that themself if they wish.
Gary,
No offense intended, but if you aren’t willing to put your proof where your mouth is, you should shut your mouth.
It IS necessary to support allegations like you are making, if you want to have any credibility at all. Given your entrepenurial endeavors in the bike biz, you need to guard that credibility, and BS like this is the fastest way in the world to lose it.
Put it another way: I’m calling bullshit on you, and that client of mine who was thinking about the Rotor purchase will receive a markedly different revue of the “Fly-by-night outfit” (their description) selling the cranks than they were going to get an hour ago.
MH
Fredly, how did your bike handling skills course go that you were hoping to put on? I hope you had a lot of participants! Sorry if this question is OT, I didn’t think I should start a whole thread about it, and just haven’t seen your name pop up lately. Glad to see you’re still around.
Fredly, they can purchase the cranks through any local bike shop if they prefer.
If I am wrong about my suspicions or my conspiracy theory then I apologize for announcing it on this forum.
I would propose that some of the subsequent improvements you saw were not due entirely to the hard intervals but, also, to some of the improved efficiency achieved in the 8 previous weeks.
The “subsequent improvements” came more than a year later, after not riding AT ALL in the preceding 10 months.
Hi Yacq,
I’ve been really busy, so I haven’t been posting: two stage races and 24 hr. mtn. bk nats this month, plus day job, and the start-up coaching business have pretty much precluded internet surfing.
We will be offering the tri skills course, but decided to save it for next season, and focus on rd/mtn/cross this year. We are just rolling out the new biz - anybody interested can check it out at www.cycleu.com .
Our programs are an outgrowth of the long-standing weekly Seattle cyclo-cross clinics, which I/we have been coaching for several years; we get as many as 100 riders to show up for these - it’s pretty insane. If we could get 1/3 of that turn out for a Tri clinic, I would be really pleased. I am working on curriculum for that class, and when I get it looking pretty solid, I will post it here for comments.
BTW, I am also a FIST certified kinda guy, and we will be offering this service at Cycle-U, so as soon as I get around to emailing Dan, there will be a FIST center in Seattle; thanks to the kind folks at Computrainer, we have a Computrainer to work with, too. Blah blah blah - sorry to advertise; I’m going to change my handle around to reflect my bias/potential conflict of interest now that I’m back in the bike biz, but that’s pretty far down the priority list right now…
Thanks for asking :0)
True, but I think this only applies if you’re actively resisting with one leg. I don’t think there’s any difference in absolute work between unweighting one pedal versus letting the leg on the downstroke push the other leg up.
I’ll agree with you that there may be no difference in absolute work performed, but I’ll argue that it allows you to better apply the wattage potential of your legs to forward propulsion.
Think of it this way: the muscle groups in each leg can only generate so much force in that critical 1-4 'o clock position. For argument’s sake, let’s imagine a hypothetical case for well-trained athlete Q riding @ 100% LTHR: 250 watts for the leg in the critical part of its stroke. Now imagine Q is using some of the 250W to push around the other leg – let’s say 50W. 200W to the wheel and 50w to the other leg.
Compare that now to Q who will spend <250W for the leg in the critical pt. of the stroke + ~50W unweighting the other leg thereby allowing all of the <250W to be applied to fwd propulsion. Sure total power expenditure is up to ~300W, but I’d argue that Q will still be around 100% LTHR and/or will have fresher legs to boot.
Why? B/C that <250W leg is now producing less lactate locally and therefore is no longer the LT bottleneck. Meanwhile,the 50W leg is probably not reaching its local LT so no explosion results.
Best wishes on your plans! Sounds grand to me, I hope it’s all you wish for it to be, and none of what you hope it not to be!
Hey!
Thanks, man - that’s really, really nice of you.
Sometimes it just blows me away how great the folks on this forum can be.
MH
powergyoza wrote: I’ll agree with you that there may be no difference in absolute work performed, but I’ll argue that it allows you to better apply the wattage potential of your legs to forward propulsion.
It seems that way to me, too…RVP will be along shortly to explain why it isn’t so. I still don’t understand why it isn’t this way, if Ashburn can explain it to me a different way, maybe I could grasp it…something about RVP’s teaching methods (smile) just don’t get through to change my understanding of what seems sensible.