Man am I a dumb ass. I’ve been riding a CT for about a month and I finally figured out that pedaling more efficiently make biking easier. Sounds pretty straightforward, but until yesterday I pretty much had it backwards. (“morons, your bus is leaving”…Groundhog Day).
Previously, whenever I was pedaling in spinscan and really focused on getting the spinscan number (efficiency) higher, I would really pay attention to keeping my watts up which led back to more mashing.
Last night, I get into a good groove of thinking about the pedals turning themselves with my feet hanging on for the ride. Spinscan goes to high 60’s and stays there. Watts plummet, but I’m digging the high spinscan number (for me) so I keep at it.
Then it hits me. I’m in the same gear, turning the same cadence, speed remains constant, but watts are lower and eventully HR heads south as well. In this case, lower watts is GOOD. Same speed, less work.
Stay tuned for same work, more speed.
I am loving the CT, especially in ergo mode.
Man am I a dumb ass. I’ve been riding a CT for about a month and I finally figured out that pedaling more efficiently make biking easier. Sounds pretty straightforward, but until yesterday I pretty much had it backwards. (“morons, your bus is leaving”…Groundhog Day).
Then it hits me. I’m in the same gear, turning the same cadence, speed remains constant, but watts are lower and eventully HR heads south as well. In this case, lower watts is GOOD. Same speed, less work.
Stay tuned for same work, more speed.
I am loving the CT, especially in ergo mode.
So you are saying that you are doing the same amount of work (speed) with less energy (watts)? I could be wrong, but you need to think about this a bit more.
Also, it’s been shown that the fastest TTers have the most variation in power throughout the pedal stroke, which would show as lower spinscan numbers.
yeah, this makes no sense. all else equal, you’re not going to maintain speed with a lower power output.
As Klehner suggests the best riders mash more (generate greater forces on the downstroke and less on the upstroke) than less good riders (who have a more ‘even’ pedal stroke).
Additionally, it makes no sense that your speed is the same with a lower power, and even if it did make sense on the CT, it isn’t of any value in the real world. You need to generate more, not less power if you want to go as fast or the same speed (assuming the same conditions).
In other words don’t worry about how you pedal so long as you pedalling is within a range of about 80 - to - 100 revs/min. Just make sure the power is where you need it to be.
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