One year on - average not improving

[briantrumpet]

Also, you don't need strength to ride a bike. If you're strong enough to walk up stairs then you're strong enough to ride a bike. That's because cycling is an endurance sport. Perhaps you're confusing strength with power? And while running will undoubtedly improve your cardiovascular fitness, it really is a crap way to go about improving your cycling fitness.

I really do despair at some of the advice offered on this forum, especially when such nonsense is put across in such an authoritative way as it certain to mislead the unwary and gullible.

All we need is for dennisn to join in to tell us that weight training improves endurance cycling.

 

[pshore]

I'll be interested to see where this leads...

Why ?

 

[briantrumpet]

Why ?

It's just of you were going to say that you needed SPD-SLs would make someone go faster because of 'better power transfer', I might have put an alternative point of view.

 

[pshore]

It's just of you were going to say that you needed SPD-SLs would make someone go faster because of 'better power transfer', I might have put an alternative point of view.

I certainly wouldn't say that if comparing SPD vs SPD-SL.

I was going to say that SPDs in general might help utilise more muscles in the pedal stroke and allow more power in climbs and acceleration out of slow corners etc. Those kind of things help keep speed up and squeeze out a small improvement in average speed.

Some say that with the right pedalling technique you can achieve similar efficiency on flat pedals compared to SPD's. Personally, I could never get the circling technique quite right and my feet would lift off the pedals from time to time.

 

[theclaud]

I've thought about this many times. While locally, it may be true that there's a steep hill, gradual ascent, if you do a loop, you start at x feet above sea level...and end at the same x, so ascent and descent overall are the same.

I equate it to my rides...and these include rolling hills, no more than 1 mile long and not particually steep...it makes no difference whether i ride my 'hilly'..(lumpy may be a better description) route...or a flat route. My averages are the same.

No doubt, sharp steep hills will affect your times, but rolling hills dont (for me anyway)

I'm not insisting i'm right, i don't do long steep hills, but my experience tells me sometimes hills make no difference...dependent on the kind of 'hills'.

Another thing about hills is that if you're a reasonably confident descender from day one, you don't have much room for getting faster on the downhills. From the moment you are confidently in control of a particular bike you will probably bombing downhill as fast as you can anyway, even if you're crap at everything else. I live in a hilly area with very little in the way of long flat rides, so making any serious difference to my average speeds would require a determined effort to get faster up hills. Which is, of course, possible, and happens in a gradual way, but I'm far too lazy to go about it properly.

 

[briantrumpet]

I was going to say that SPDs in general might help utilise more muscles in the pedal stroke and allow more power in climbs and acceleration out of slow corners etc. Those kind of things help keep speed up and squeeze out a small improvement in average speed.

Phew. I'd agree. Getting 'clipless' pedals (SPDs) was one of the revolutions (pardon the pun) in my cycling, and I'm not going to change to SPD-SLs just because 'that's what all road cyclists use'. They're cheap, simple, and do the job nicely.

 

[vorsprung]

I really do despair at some of the advice offered on this forum, especially when such nonsense is put across in such an authoritative way as it certain to mislead the unwary and gullible.

I totally agree with amaferanga

If you want to learn how to train to go faster there are plenty of books out there. Don't ask on here, it's a waste of your time