Saturday, February 27, 2010

Back on the bike

After 2 weeks off, some physical therapy, 2 doctors visits, and some bike adjustments I made it out for a ride today. There was no goal and the only rule I laid down for myself was to stay out of the big ring. The ground was frozen so I opted for a mountain bike ride at Rhett's run.

The knee felt fine but it was pretty challenging for me to ride with a high cadence. I don't know how the world class climbers on the road can manage to go so fast and keep such a high cadence. Yesterday I watched some footage of Lance and Ulrich and was amazed at the huge difference in their leg speed. Lance was probably 80-100rpm while Jan was 40-60rpm.

Today was the first day not riding in the snow on the big-wheeled dualie...and man does that thing crush the climbs. I felt like I effortlessly floated over the sections at Rhetts that gave me trouble on my ss.

1 comment:

Rory King said...

its funny dan, leg speed is something i've come to take for granted. starting out with JR gears, it was essential. if you wanted to go faster than 30 mph, well you had to learn to spin upwards of 130 rpm. the fixie and rollers helped too. there were some cases on the fixie where if you couldn't spin and spin fast and smooth, you were toast. I have just the opposite problem now. i'm really inefficient when it comes to repeated standing efforts or sitting cadences below 85-90. its cool to look at the power/heart rate/cadence data and check all that stuff out - i've really been enjoying it at least.