I have come along way in a short time riding. Thats the feeling I get anyway – and I suppose that is peppered by the fact there is a whole world of information I need to know from here too. I find that is comforting – to know there is more to learn – because it means the journey has just started.
When I first started riding, my goal was to focus on speed and keep my adverage speed high. This was the only measure I had to imporve myself. This meant that I started with a low cadence, and pushed myself on every single ride I did, until my adverage speed increased. Now I look back and find that its not the optimum way to ride.
Now I subscribe to a few RSS feeds that give pointers on improving how to ride. One I came across recently was at bike radar (a grand place to find cycling information). The article made mention of the fact that riding hard did improve speed, but riding smarter made the speed improvement a bit better.
The article (Get Faster by Riding Slowly) states that to make speed improvements one does not just ride faster. The big thing is to monitor the heart rate and improve slowly. For me, I keep the cadence high, and keep my heart rate between 70% and 80% of max. Two pluses is that I find I can ride further, and that is the optimum place to burn off body fat.
So I have tried to add this into my rides. So far so good.
Another thing I found out early on was to increase cadence. This was instructed on my first group ride (it seems like a while ago I rode with someone else) – I was told that I wasn’t turning my pedals fast enough, and I should increase, and given the example of Lance Armstrong and how he rode.
I started turning faster, but I didn’t understand what was going on. Some research, and I found that it has been found that a higher cadence helps lactic acid from settling in your muscles, and is a good way to go uphill.
Of course I am unfit – or, getting fitter – and so increasing cadence was nessecary but difficult. Then I found this article: Cycling Cadence and Pedalling Economy. Basically this shows that I can raise my cadence but I still have to find where I can best ride.
I think this proves I still have more to learn. And possibly more to write about. Because this article struggles to mean anything.