New to Cycling and after Tips :)

[ColinJ]

OK so how/where do I ealrn about the gears?

Mine has 3 rings at the front- so should be easier on hills yes?

As long as you are using the smallest ring!

For a given bike speed:

• Changing to a bigger ring on front = lower cadence; more leg strength required
• Changing to a bigger sprocket/cog on back = higher cadence; less leg strength required

For a given cadence:

• Changing to a bigger ring on front = higher bike speed; more leg strength required
• Changing to a bigger sprocket/cog on back = lower bike speed; less leg speed required

 

[Globalti]

Weeeeel.... a little, yes. My cycling buddy rides a triple and I ride a double and we find it makes very little difference; when he's on his granny ring he's on a smaller rear cog than me so we end up spinning at roughly the same rate. My cassette has a wider range of 11 to 27 whereas his is probably something narrower like 11 to 23. What is the range of gears on your cassette?

To learn to adjust the indexing it would really help if you could hang the bike up, stand alongside the right hand side and twiddle the pedals and gear levers while turning the adjuster thingy and observing the effect.


When I wrote above about drafting I should have explained that to make fast progress you need to learn to ride in a group. I don't have much group experience and no club experience (would like to have) but on sportiffs (I've just done the Cape Argus in Cape Town) it means jumping on a faster moving group and sticking with them for as long as you can. The etiquette is that once you've had a bit of a rest in the group you ought to go to the front and make a bit of an effort if possible; other riders will appreciate this. Ideally you will form a line of 4 or more riders doing "through and off" where everybody feeds forward, does a bit at the front then drops to the back for a rest. When you think about this technique you can see how a well organised peloton has massive power and can easily reel in a small breakaway group or individual in a race, although it didn't work out that way in the recent Paris-Roubaix! In the Argus I found myself in an informal group about 10k from the finish and between us we tore along at an exhilarating speed, it was really thrilling and must have taken 2-3 minutes off my time.

 

[Heather]

I have not a clue about any numbers or anything on my gears ? How would I find that out. I don't have anywhere to hang the bike either.

At the sportives I've done, I haven't been quick enough yet to ride with anyone, they are all faster than me. I'm looking forward to getting to that stage.

 

[fimm]

Thanks

Thats one thing I'm a little worried about.

Running means everything to me and its heartbreaking having a long period off, so need a little cycle encouragement. I'm worried that when I go back to running I'll have these whopping thighs lol and be very slow. But I guess its just one of those things i'll have to deal with!!

My boyfriend has proper powerful cyclists' thighs and has just run a sub-40 10km and a sub 1:25 half, so it is possible to be quite fast at both! Obviously he is able to train both disciplines in parallell. When I say my thighs have changed, I think it is more that they are more muscley and less wobbly!!

 

[Globalti]

I have not a clue about any numbers or anything on my gears ? How would I find that out. I don't have anywhere to hang the bike either.

At the sportives I've done, I haven't been quick enough yet to ride with anyone, they are all faster than me. I'm looking forward to getting to that stage.

The simple way is to count the teeth on the smallest cog and the biggest cog.

The second best alternative for messing with gears is with the bike upside-down on the floor or a table.

 

[Rodney]

Heather,

runner in the same boat here. After suffering nasty injuries 5 years in a row I have decided to dedicate more time to cycling then running. like you running has been a big part of my life, i will still run 10-5 miles a week but nothing like 50 + i have done.

I suffered plantar facsis took me nearly 14 months to recover......

good luck with the cycling, watching this thread with interest

 

[Heather]

Thanks Rodney, hope you heal well too.

I was able to run through it from July to November but then it got reallllllllllly bad and I've had to stop. I was running anything between 80-110mpw so its a massive loss.

Hey ho, cycling it is for this year!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Globalti]

God did not design humans for running around for hours on paved surfaces; he made us for short bursts of speed in grasslands chasing wombats, iguanas, llamas, pterodactyls and mooses for our dinners.

If we aspire to running around for hours on paved surfaces we are better advised to use the bicycle, an invention sent to us by God anyway so there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[ColinJ]

You might find this article and this one interesting!

 

[andyg9053]

for your feet try massage using a golf ball 2 or 3 times a day, worked for me in a few weeks after 3 months non running with no improvement

 

[Heather]

Believe me, in the last 9 months I have tried it all.......really.......

 

[Mista Preston]

If you're interested, get hold of a non-fiction book called The Escape Artist by Matt Seaton; it's small so you can read it in a couple of hours. It's about bicycle obsession, race lore and technique and it has a shock at the end, which I won't spoil for you.

Globalti. Just wanted to say thank you for mentioning this book in the thread. I am not new to cycling but read your post by chance and went and got the book. Finished it the other day, what a great read. Fantastic book.

 

[betty swollocks]

You might find this article and this one interesting!

That's very interesting stuff. Have posted both links on my FB page for all of my many friends who're runners.
Thanks