By Maynard Hershon — Because your legs, like your car engine, have a happy, efficient operating range, your bike is equipped with a number of gears. The gears allow your legs to find a cadence or pedaling speed that pleases them.
We’re not talking about bike speed here; we mean leg speed. We’re also not talking about race-winning, Lance Armstrong leg speed. We mean a comfortable leg speed you can sustain for miles with minimum fatigue, not so fast you’re bouncing in the seat, not so slow you can divide the pedal circle into pushing and pulling. A leg speed that will help you finish the ride with the group, still feeling fresh.
If you remember nothing else from this article, remember this: Your legs are happier in steady movement — not pedaling and coasting, pedaling and coasting. Each time you stop pedaling, your leg muscles stop moving the blood in your legs out of your legs, where that blood can be cleansed and re-oxygenated. If you must coast, soft-pedal, float the pedals around their circle, promoting blood flow, easing the fatigue in your legs.
Nothing good happens while you’re coasting. You only imagine you’re resting your legs. When you begin pedaling again, the sudden workload hits your legs and hurts them. Coasting when you could pedal is lazy and counterproductive. It makes riding more painful, lowers your average speed and shortens your comfortable range.
And — if you pedal and coast, the person following you must pedal and coast to maintain the gap behind. Each start and stop is exaggerated behind you, and behind that person and behind that person. On-again, off-again pedaling costs you and costs each rider behind you. Looks jive, too.
If you find a gear you can pedal consistently and smoothly at a steady level of effort, and you pedal 60 seconds in each minute, you will ride at your most effective level. People following you will comment on how pleasant it is to ride behind you, how predictable you are, how classy. You’ll be doing your part to promote a more accomplished riding group, a group that moves smoothly and efficiently over the road or path.
If you have a cadence function on your cycle computer, try to keep the number between, say, 60 and 90 pedal revolutions per minute. If you don’t have a computer or a cadence function, try to pedal fluidly in a gear you can “get on top of,” meaning move easily. You want to roll the pedals around, not mash them down and haul them back up, beating up your knees. You want the motion to be round and rapid, graceful, smooth.
You don’t want to labor over the pedals and you don’t want to spin uselessly, as some riders do who use the inner ring of their triple crankset on flat roads. Pick a gear that resists your pedaling but doesn’t feel impossible to turn over smoothly.
I’d say that the closer you get to 90 pedal rpm the better, but suit yourself. Focus on smooth, constant pedaling. As you get used to pedaling a bit faster and pedaling more of each minute, your happy cadence will rise naturally, I believe. Even if it doesn’t, faster cadence and steadier pedaling are their own reward.
In order to find an appropriate gear for conditions of grade, wind and road-speed, you operate the shift controls. Most of us understand how to shift the bike on flat roads or descents. We soft-pedal as we move the control lever; the shift happens smoothly and nearly soundlessly. We don’t all know how to use the gears on climbs…or even on short rises that make demands on our legs.
First, anticipate the grade. As you sense the road rising in front of you, change to an easier gear. Don’t try to muscle the flat-road gear part-way or all the way up the hill. Don’t wait until the grade slows you to a crawl before changing to a lower gear. As you feel the grade increasing, change again to a still easier gear.
If you wait to shift, your bike will resist your attempt to change gear. If you wait, you will slow down the riders behind you. If you wait, you will have labored over your pedals to no avail, only to nearly stop on the grade, tired, frustrated and convinced that you just cannot climb. Try it this way, see if it doesn’t go better….
Shift earlier. Shift even before you hit the hill proper and spin as you begin the climb. If you shift early, your chain will not be under pressure from your effort to push the hard gear up the grade. Your bike will shift quickly and smoothly. You can get the gear you need to maintain your momentum. Especially as you start up a grade, even a brief one, momentum is your friend. Take care of your friend.
If you have a triple crankset, I’d suggest using the middle ring on flat roads without tailwinds. If you’re in the middle ring when you approach a climb, you’ll be able to find a good gear for the climb by shifting the rear derailleur, the control on the right. You will not have to change from the large ring to the middle ring while you’re pedaling hard, risking throwing the chain off the rings, bringing you to a sudden halt in front of your riding friends.
Think ahead about climbs. Especially if you regularly ride the same old roads and bike paths, you know the ups and downs. Be ready for the climbs. Think about using the middle chainring. Think about maintaining a consistent effort. Think about shifting down early, finding a gear that’ll help you preserve your momentum. Think about already being in the correct chainring at the bottom of the climb, then finding the perfect gear among the rear cogs.
Try to keep your effort as constant as you can. Pedal all the time. Pedal on downhills for your legs’ sake. Shift early on uphills. Pedal a brisk cadence on the climbs; it’s easier on your knees. Stay relaxed and on top of the action. Enjoy your cycling.
(Visited 6 times, 6 visits today)