Doggus

Cool article.

Have a read.

Have a comment (pro/con).

If this has been previously posted, don't bother, just point me the way.

I want a set of Power Cranks.

gsteinb

It's pretty funny to include a powercranks advertisement in an article on cycling myths.

Doggus

Good thing they're not selling scooters, I want one of those too.

botto 

from friends who have them, i've heard that power cranks are **** (albeit helpful ****).

ldesfor1@ithaca

I've heard some really nice arguments against powercranks, conceptually. That said, I do believe in doing 1 leg drills... but maybe because I cant afford powercranks financially (or the months of adaptation time they supposedly necessitate).



I am a huge fixed gear supporter, but not because it "smooths my pedal stroke". I agree with this point of his. BUT, this does not make FG riding a "winter training no-no" or a coffee shop only bike. That's just horse plop... or throwing out the baby with the bath water.
There are tons of reasons I use the FG in my fall/winter training arsenal. I will expound if anyone actually cares. I'll say this though: go for your favorite 60-70 mile ride on a frewheel bike, then do it fixed and tell me that the FG doesnt stimulate some training stress. (A stress I dont endure durring the late winter/spring/summer).

Here's where me and Josh would enter fisticuffs... he sort of shoots himself in the foot here:

he says:
"What you can’t do at any point in the season is train strength. Training muscular strength will temporarily slow you down, cause fatigue and require several days of recovery. Can you think of a time of the year where quick recovery and road performance is not at all important? At what point in the season can we afford to destroy our muscles without worrying about getting hammered into the ground at the local race? I think you see where I am going here"

ummmmm.... did we mention that every ascent on the fixed gear is big gear training?!?!

ok. hopefully my point is clear.

As far as motorpacing goes.... I think we call it SST around here... no arguments here. BUT, it seems like he's painted this issue black and white here. Most of us cant do 6 hours of SST-level intensities, like Josh does with his magiacal double tailwind!


my 3 cents.


-L

MDcatV

FG riding: (according to a coach I'm team mates with) good in hills, waste of time in the flat lands.

Powercranks: I have a team mate who swears by and advocates powercranks. Everyone on the wattage board or cyclingforums power forum thinks they're myth. Who knows, I just think that $800+ is better spent on many other things.

small ring only: we used to do that, but dont anymore. I didnt really know why we did it, and currently dont know why we no longer do, but dont really care either way.

LSD: that's been discussed ad nauseum, but I guess it's that time of year. IMO, just change the acronym to stand for long steady distance instead of long slow distance.

Now, where is squint?

waterrockets 

Yeah, they're condoning steady SST rides. That's a great way to build threshold power, and has worked well for me in the past.

The only problem in the winter is that if I have any weight I want to lose, I can't diet at zone 3 intensity. High 2 and low 3 I can handle, but not "just below threshold," as it makes me too hungry.

wfrogge

I agree except for the powercrank part

grolby

The allegation that they have "proved" the effectiveness of PowerCranks gets a big from me. I am extremely skeptical of any training tool or technique, including PowerCranks and one-legged drills, that is so strongly contradicted by basic physiology and biomechanics. Hell, it doesn't need to be anything that wacky; pedal stroke diagrams make me roll my eyes in disbelief. Way, way, WAY too much is made of the minutiae of the pedal stroke. I also like the "trust me, it doesn't translate," on the effectiveness of spinning bikes. Okay, want to give me a reason WHY I should just trust? I'm not convinced that spinning classes are helpful for cycling, but c'mon.

Other than that, he's speaking in general terms about something that should be very personalized depending upon strengths, weakness, needs and experience: training. I don't know much about training, but I do know that someone who's been riding and racing for five, ten or 20 years has very different training needs from someone like me, who's been riding for four years, riding road "seriously" for perhaps a year and half or so and racing for, well, one season so far. I didn't have an endurance base left from my days of running in high school, so I needed to start from square one last winter. Lots of miles, not too fast was exactly what I needed when training for my collegiate season this year. I stand by that statement because my results in March and early April confirmed me as one of the strongest riders in my races. In one or two races, I was strong enough to win, if not smart enough. I didn't know what I was doing, but apparently all I needed to do was ride. In fact, I am retrospectively fairly certain that my half-arsed attempts to do "interval training" in the middle of my season cost me energy and power that I could have used on race day. I didn't get that my races were all the interval training I could handle, with two races per weekend, one week between race weekends. The focus for the intervening weeks should have strictly maintenance riding. I don't have the endurance base to recover from those kinds of efforts midway through the week.

Fair enough, he's probably writing to a more experienced audience with more riding and racing experience, but still. Internet training advice seems reasonable for learning about what kind of effort and workout can be used to improve which element of riding (2x20's to raise threshold, WRI(TM) for AWC), but when it comes to more "meta" questions about form and technique, as well as what an individual racer needs in their training schedule, it seems hopelessly generic. There are enough training gurus and experienced, older racers who are happy to ride with and talk to me - for free! - in real life (and are therefore at least somewhat acquainted with my actual abilities) that taking training advice from the internet seriously seems pretty sketchy. Maybe the experience of others here is different, but it seems like when I've tried to apply training advice I'd gotten off the internet, including here, to my own training, I've gotten burned. Most places ought to have an active enough cycling community to have a few knowledgeable people around. Most people are perfectly willing to talk and give advice for free. It's not like having a coach, but it's a damn sight better than most of what you'll get off of the internet.

TurboTurtle

"I'll say this though: go for your favorite 60-70 mile ride on a frewheel bike, then do it fixed and tell me that the FG doesnt stimulate some training stress."

You may have some good reasons for FG, but this ain't it. You could say the same thing for a 'bent or a unicycle. Just because it has 'training stress' doesn't mean that it is more productive than training on the road bike. - TF

urbanknight

I've ridden with Josh before (he started and owns the club I race with) and he swears by those cranks, riding them all the time.

VosBike

It appears the author is good at riding bikes. He should stick to that.

ldesfor1@ithaca

You are correct.

I do not believe that I said it was "more productive" though... did I? Also I argue that you should compare the FG to a unicycle or bent...

to be more specific, I enjoy the way the FG forces me to work hard, even when I dont want to. I hope this is a bit clearer.

-L

MrCjolsen

My fixed gear credo:

When you can't coast, you don't coast. When you don't coast, you go faster.

DScott

To wit: Piuma Hill Climb. 2,260 ft of climbing in 8.2 miles. Dude did it in 35:15.

https://www.lagrange.org/piuma2008.htm

The_Cretin

I believe in an E-Tip (around the end of 2007?), Friel defined LSD as long slow distance. Stick to your guns. Don't start waffling when the arguments against long slow distance begin to mount.

Probably busy doing fart-lick training.

MDcatV

ah, come on Cretin, who needs arguments against L<slow>D, parenthood and age should be enough to make anyone into an SST guy, it did me

waterrockets 

They should rename it to something more descriptive like "Just slow enough so you don't have eat like a cyclist."

a.k.a. 72-75% of FTP

FatguyRacer

Different things work for different people. After many years of training I have discovered irrefutably that the more miles I do, the faster I go. My best and fastest weeks this year all included at least one 3-4 hr day of Zone 2-3 riding.

CastIron

I'm already slower. And my drive is utterly gone. I figure 150m a week at a leisurely pace is all I get until cabin fever provokes me.

The upshot is I'm getting some decent garage time for woodworking. Might have some new furniture for Christmas to plan my growing ass upon.

waterrockets 

Sweet. I'm going to buy the lumber for my kitchen cabinets this weekend.

CastIron

You know Norm just did a whole series on that. _Pre-finished maple ply made it look stupid simple.

waterrockets 

Yeah, I've got that series on the Media Center Reading Paquay's "book" and a couple others, there really isn't much to it. We got a quote of $17000 for the elevations I'm going to build, and my materials estimate is about $3500...

I'm going European (no face frames) with Cherry. I'll be using mostly pre-finished birch MDF for the carcasses.

Oh yes, there will be Blumotion. Oh yes. <drool>

This is really close to what I'm going to do (but with panels or the short drawer fronts too):

CastIron

Nice. I've got the same project about three years distant. My dad has a small orchard with a stash of befallen black walnut and hickory, so it'll likely be hickory for the cabinets.

waterrockets 

Yum. Hickory is awesome.

I'll let you know how this goes. SWMBO wants me to build one unit from start to finish so we can get a real feeling for the quality, cost, and time. I wish I could just go straight into assembly line mode for the whole kitchen, but she's probably right. Every project I do has something unexpected, so it will be good to identify that before I've got $1000 worth of drawer glides in the shop.