I’ve been doing some threshold work on climbs lately (10-12 minutes). In the past “just riding” the hills I naturally must have rested when the incline dropped from 12+ % to 2-8% or so. However, now that I’m using the hills to get into threshold watts I am noticing that I just can’t keep the power high during those “false flat” bits between the steeper efforts. My FTP is ~200W and on the steeper sections I can maintain that effort quite nicely. But when the road levels out a bit if I try to spin faster in the same gear I’ve got about 2-3 seconds in me before it is just too fatiguing and my power drops to 150-170. If I try to go into a harder gear my cadence drops to 70 or so and it just feels too hard to stay in that gear and my power drops (again, to 150ish). As soon as the incline picks back up I’m “easily” back at 200ish. I am riding my 1x gravel bike so perhaps this is an issue of not having the best gearing for my preferred cadence? Any thoughts on working through this?
Could be an issue with gearing, but it also just takes practice and experience to get better at smoothing out your power over varied terrain like that.
If spinning faster/slower than you prefer is giving you trouble, you could try doing cadence intervals to work on that. It doesn’t even have to be at high power – you could do cadence drills in Zone 2 if you wanted to. Try to do a few minutes at a time “on” at a higher/lower cadence than you prefer, then take a few minutes “off” back at your normal cadence. Try to build up to longer “on” intervals over time.
Those exercises should help you get used to how spinning faster/slower than you’d like feels. Then, when you get into your harder intervals and your gearing doesn’t allow you to settle into your ideal cadence, you’ll at least have a better idea of how to handle those changes. Again, though, it takes time to master this skill – but it’s something that can be improved like anything else if you focus on it!
Thanks. My ideal cadence climbing seems to be 80-85. I can easily maintain 95+ on easier efforts (I have TR to thank for this - I’ve finally gotten comfortable at high cadences for easy - sweet spot efforts). It is the higher cadence in a state of fatigue/effort that I can’t do - even for very brief efforts. I guess the same is true for the lower cadence. If I’m just cruising along and hit a brief climb a cadence of 65-70 feels fine. Again, it is in the middle of the threshold effort that I seem to not be able to leave my preferred zone.