I am a heavy rider trying to gef back in shape after a rather long break. I am at 100kg and ftp at 238 and rising (coming drom peak 3 years ago of 78kg/290 ftp).
Iam preparing for Mallorca 312 (will do the intermediate distance) and enrolled 3 weeks ago into TR low volume and currently at base 2. Im adding endurance rides to it and need to free up timing to also play tennis or swimming
My tipycal cadence is rather low in the range of 75-85 with average being 80 in most rides even in flat terrains. May be this is coming from my background of triathlons but i always struggle to raise my cadence beyond 85 unless if its few minutes repeats in workouts.
My question is how to incorporate low cadence into exisging tempo or threahold workouts? TR doesnt seem to take into account w/kg for a climbing event and in my case climbing at 200-220w with my current weight (i hope to drop it of course) means i will slend hours at a cadence of 60-65 or 70 at best.
Whatever cadence you normally ride at is fine. Your body is picking the most efficient cadence for you automatically, because it doesn’t like wasting energy.
If you think you won’t be able to ride at your preferred/normal cadence for long stretches of time, you need to fit smaller gears. A gearing calculator, eg bikecalc.com, can help.
Rather than doing that, you should get appropriate gearing.
Get gearing that actually suits your fitness level. When it comes to climbing your W/kg is what matters. Personally, I’d get mountain bike gearing: go 1x, fit the smallest chainring (probably 38 teeth) and a mountain bike rear derailleur with a 10–52 cassette. This will be a major investment, yes, but it’ll make cycling a lot more fun for you.
Alternatively, you can also go 2x: fit a new crank with touring gearing. A friend of mine has a 40/24-tooth chainring combo on his touring bike. He is in his 70s and until this month, he rode at least one century every month for 12 years!
Road bike gearing is not suitable for the majority of riders who live in mountainous areas.
Shorter cranks make sense if your fit benefits from them or you prefer them (I do!), but they effectively increase the gear ratio further. There is no replacement for easier gears.
Since IMHO a new crankset is likely going to happen, you can make a conscious choice for a crank length.
I am 1m83. I used to use 166mm crank length in tri and 170 in road bikes before.
Currently on the sl7 i have sram red 50/37 in front and 10-33 and crank length of 172.5
Surely thrre is plenty to adjust but i also dont want to change everything so wonrering what will be the one or 2 changes that will get most of the benefit
My other question on training is : should i try to do threshold sets at my regulat climbing cadence which is high 70s versus what TR always recommend which is 85-95?
And what would that limit be? Grinding can become necessary, but if it can be avoided, it is almost certainly better for your body.
So you have very aggressive, sporty gearing, the exact opposite of what you would need.
If you to stay 2x, you can get the smallest road chain rings (46/33) and get a 10–36 cassette. That‘d give you 1.5–2 extra gears at the low end.
But if it gets steep, that might not be enough. A 1x mullet setup can give you substantially easier gearing. A 42-tooth chainring coupled to a 10–52 cassette gives you a lot easier gearing than you have now.
Ok got it. I hope i improve my ftp from current 2.3 per kg to 3 ish by then and would like a combo that i can also use in the flats here in NL. Might go for 2x as recommended…
If you use erg mode: 10-15s before the interval drop your cadence to something like 60 and keep it there for the interval
The opinions of the importance of low cadence/ high torque drills are mixed but I did another training program than TR with quite a bit of low cadence drills and for me it helped enormously even if it was just psychological to climb in the Alpes because I knew I could maintain those low cadence/ high torque sessions
Incidentally if you are in the Netherlands, I have a brand new force 10-36 lying aroud (which doesn’t fit my derailleur) and red 46-33 chain rings
For the flats you need less tall gears actually, because people reach top speeds when going downhill and not when they are pedaling on the flats. I’m fairly strong rider on 1x12-speed drivetrain. A 42-tooth chainring is plenty when it is flat.
Is that more important than not having climbing gears? (How would you know, Dutch mountains = wind )
I do my low cadence drills on the trainer or when climbing (probably not an option if you live somewhere flat). I moved from a mountainous area to a very flat area recently, and 42:10 is plenty for me (335–340 W FTP at the moment).
Another proponent of lower gearing here. It’s one thing to grind up a few short climbs, but doing that for hours sounds unsustainable to me (or at the very least a miserable experience). My w/kg is usually around 4w/kg and I won’t go out on a ride like that without 1:1 gearing or better. I run a mullet setup on my gravel bike that I use for climbing days. Or I’ll even pull out my mtb in some situations. Would not run “traditional “ road gearing for all day climbing ride.
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