General Cycling Discussion - I think I'm getting the hang of spinning.

Came home the "long way" and managed to clip another 1.5 minutes off the trip. Went the whole way in a gear lower than I would normally go. I was breathing hard but comfortable all the way. Guess it has finally twigged. I was concerned that spinning would also mean going a fair bit slower. Don't get me wrong, I'm not that much interested in the speed but the elevation of my apparent health by my ability to maintain it for longer.

I myself have noticed if even only a 5rpm difference, a higher gear can help me

Spinning is good for guys like us. I knew a guy who was very proud of the high gears he pushed in the mountains. His knee surgery was last year..

The breathing will adjust pretty quickly as your body is using more aerobic capacity and less anerobic. As an extra bonus the spinning is supposed to increase fat burning significantly.
Also because your knee's aren't hurting so much you can ride more often. :)

Okay, I have a clue, but can someone be specific as to what "spinning" is?
It sounds like another term for "moving your legs faster".

No spinning only means the rate of how you move your legs. Also known as Cadence.

Oh and HaagenDas think of higher cadence vs. more power like Lance Armstrong vs. Van Ulrich.

I had always thought that I had a pretty low cadence, but when I counted yesterday, I found that my "normal" cadence was 90!

yeah. i think 90 is actually hard on the knees. people should probably keep it 110 to 130.

If I drop below 100 my knees let me know immediately! With 27 gears I can always find one that keeps me between 100-110... Although I'm really not sure what that big chainring is for!?! It only gets used on days with a strong tailwind.

yeah. i think 90 is actually hard on the knees. people should probably keep it 110 to 130. I guess it depends on your own body but 90 never bothers my knees and climbing at a little lower rpm (80 or so) doesn't either and I can hit 140 to 160 in a sprint.

As an extra bonus the spinning is supposed to increase fat burning significantly.


That caught my eye and I was wondering if spinning might account for something else I've noticed recently.

When I was putting in lots of miles (180/week on four rides), but not spinning all that great (maybe around 82-84 most of the time, I didn't notice much difference in how much I was eating.

But over the past couple weeks I've been trying to spin more while still keeping my speed up and I've noticed a couple changes occurring.

One is that I'll find myself feeling a fair amount of resistence and think I should downshift to increase rpm. However, when I look at my computer, I would see I'm already over 90 rpm and several times was over 110! This is a huge difference for me.

The other change is that, even though I'm not riding as far (no more than 90 miles a week in 3 rides), I feel hungry a lot! So, when I saw your comment above, I wondered if burning fat was somehow related to my increased appetite.

Hey, Hag, that is some great art work - I took a jaunt over to your home page.

Thanks mate!

The art is great!

thanks again

Hey haag your full of surprises, awesome flicktures, and a nice bit of writing re the knee's.
If you guys like spinning, chuck a set of 152.5 cranks on a trike, 180 rpm for prolonged sprints (short peaks are higher) your feet turn into a blur at the bottom of your vision.
I went back to 170s though for hill climbing. My cruise is well over the 100 rpm, most roadies seem to consider 80 normal and <90 a high cadence.