egoist

I've been consciously keeping my cadence in the 80-90 range. Until I recently changed to a lighter, higher-geared bike I could always remain seated on hills and keep my cadence (I don't climb the "biblical" type inclines I hear about on this forum). On a recent ride I discovered when my cadence started to slow I could pop up to a higher gear, stand up and crest the last 30-40 yards of the hill much faster than I had been. I continued this stratedgy for the second half of the ride and was able to improve my best previous average on this same ride by more than .5 mph. I was no more exhausted than previous rides.

I noticed the next day however, that I was sore on both the right and left side of my legs, just above the knees. Is this the knee problem I read about from excessive mashing or is this just muscle soreness associated with using a different group? I like the additional speed I can maintain with more "out of the saddle" pedaling, but can this be overdone to the point of injury? Up to this point I've only been getting up off the saddle when I restart at an intersection to accelerate quickly.

MONGO!

Sounds like normal soreness from using new muscles.

RacerOne

Agreed, sounds pretty normal to me.

Hickeydog

I get the same pain from mashing as well. Just the muscles telling you to HTFU.

hairnet

yeah, burn those quads.