Originally Posted by
SDF15
Thank you all for the feedback. The problem I have is that when riding in a group I get systematically dropped on climbs and seem to recover the lost distance on flats. Having done some reading it looks like a I have a low power to weight ratio. I am not a particular heavy rider (65kg or~143lbs) which means that probably my power output sucks.
The majority of training advice and material I got are either related to power measurement and need a powermeter or to heart reat intervals and keeping a good cadence arround 90 rpm. I have no clue how fast I spin, I compared myself with other riders in the group and the bracket range is quite wide between different riders. I tried spinning more uphill but this leaves me completely out of breath when trying to keep up with the herd.
To get back to my initial post: wouldn’t a cadence and heart rate monitor help to improve on my particular issue rather than just a stop watch and a hill? At least I would know if have to train either my cadence or torque more ...
Same here. Even among my own age group (I'm 60, 160 lbs with maybe 5 lbs excess fat) I struggle to keep up on climbs, while I'm reasonably fit for flats and faster than average on downhills.
I was curious about heart rate and cadence monitors but decided to just modify my training. Last summer I tackled more interval training and hill repeats. Just painful grunting it out to improve on my weaknesses. It helped.
I can track my gradual improvements via Strava. But it's also important to factor in conditions. Wind is a huge factor. Last week riding the same climb on separate days I barely managed 8 mph one day and 18 mph another. The difference? Wind direction. It was 20 mph headwind on the slow day, 20 mph tailwind on the fast day. On neutral days I'm usually averaging 14 mph.
So speed/time alone aren't useful guides without context. Same with Strava's power estimates for folks who don't use power meters.
Eventually I might get some benefit from a heart rate monitor, but I'd need to be closer to peak fitness first. Meanwhile I just stop and manually check my pulse after a near-maximum effort.