Originally Posted by
gregf83
My question is: why is it recommended to do spinups in the little ring if the pro sprinters aren't turning more than 110 or 120 in the final sprint?
Keep in mind that the pros were amateurs once. They've done a lot of various training, miles, etc. Hincapie is the only Tour guy I've raced against (meaning we entered the same race - that's about the closest I got to beating him), and he cleaned up around here as a 15 year old. He rode the Jr gear limits (49x15 or 53x16 as an Intermediate, then one tooth smaller as a full fledged Junior), learned to spin those little gears, etc etc etc.
Spinups and other high cadence drills help accelerate learning pedaling efficiency. This efficiency takes a long time to hone, lots of hours, lots of muscle memory, and drills and such help accelerate the process. That's why guys do fixed gear work, lots of LSD, spin ups, etc etc etc. Doing 15k or 20k miles a year for 3 or 5 or whatever years goes a long way towards honing pedaling efficiency. Or you could just do fewer miles for more years. I took the latter approach since I've never exceeded 10k miles, and usually am below 3k for the year.
Another way to hone pedaling efficiency is to do long, long, long hours, even for riders like me. You learn to pedal more efficiently when you have almost no gas left but enough to keep your wits about you. Suddenly you'll realize that sitting "just so" will help, or standing "just so", etc. I learned the hard way about saving energy - bonk 30 miles from home will teach you how to ride using as close to zero wasted energy as possible. Or doing 100 mile rides in Feb. Or ride (not as many miles as a pro, but also drill) for 20 or 30 years.
cdr