When Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France back in 1999, he showed us a pedalling style with a very high pedalling rate, even in the mountains. Many experts have referred to this technique as one of the main reasons that Armstrong could beat his opponents so easily. With a high frequency it is easier to remove lactate from the legs, but it requires a high degree of special training to be able to maintain a high pedalling frequency.
(source: here)
When I read that quote I think he could beat his opponents because he had the best doping program in the peleton and the best management organizing the infrastructure behind it.
It is a brief article, raises some questions - something to think about i suppose, and a good time of the year to think about.
Personally I still think no matter what your most natural cadence is, to sprint you need to spin a high cadence. But sprinting at the end of the race or for a prime or a town line or to jump away from the pack to try and break away, that snap, the quick acceleration is always best done at higher RPMs. You're going to be anaerobic anyway best to take advantage of the benefits of how to make horsepower. Torque is probably not as easy to train as is leg speed (certainly takes more time and effort, dedication, living like an athlete blahblahblah). Leg speed is pretty simple, esp if you are not trying to raise your preferred cadence beyond where it is comfortable, to raise for the ending sprint. Doesn't take much to work on coordinating the muscles to spin in excess of 150 rpms. Not that you would ever sprint above 150... but you know there's a lot of people getting beat by juniors and they have much smaller gears than you. Think about that (or not, esp if you've already thought about it 25 years ago when you started this crazy sport).
heddwch
G
2 comments:
Careful - speaking as someone who's only trick was high pedal speed you've pretty much got to test in the top 20% for pyruvase production and/or hematocrit, not to mention LT (which is not particularly trainable) to pull this off.
Even then, it's quick twitch/slow twitch and you begin recruiting muscles that are designed for speed not torque. Exhaustion may set in far earlier so, at least in a sprint or climb, you end up having to become a master at timing and pacing.
In the end, the guys with big-ass low-end leverage may still have a one-up. Especially on the no coastey/no changey geary races.
Of course, speaking from the memories/experience of a 20-year old may discredit this nugget of wisdom a bit.
I don't know where i sit for either pyruvase or 'crit...
that said - i'm speaking not as using leg speed to do a long climb, or for a long duration. But for a sprint.
Sort of V-tech style. If you can hit 10,000 rpms who needs torque. But if you can combine a bit of torque and then beable to blast to 10k for even just a minute, that's an advantage.
maybe.
i've also had no trouble with leverage/torque...
but i've never had the chance to hit a no coastey/no changey geary race so who knows
these last couple days have been an exercise of lowest gear lowest pedal RPM possible highest Torque possible just to get across the washington bridge...
Post a Comment