lol, dude I thought you would have realized this in your previous exchange with the OP.

Thats cool. I know all this arguing might seem I don't respect you. I do, BIG TIME, as I do all cyclists.

We just have different opinions. I'm not saying your right or wrong, I have taken on board what you have told me. I might be an idiot BUT what I do is, I use the EXACT same prinicipals that the most powerful guys of all time use (take them & apply to cycling, thats all).

Now, I'm not going to listen to tom, dick & harry that have just graduated from Harvard. There not fast, nor powerful. I don't care for what speeds there subjects limbs have achieved or what the graph readouts say. I take the fastest/most powerful guys in history (Shaolins/Grandmasters/Bruce Lee etc) & apply them same methods which are brought on by stimulating the central nervous system to my cycling training. Its something fun.

I'm not looking to win the Tour you know, lol...

You keep saying "are brought on by stimulating the central nervous system" like it actually means something.

You are talking out of your ass.

Your nervous system is stimulated exactly the same if the forces are the same. If you put in the same effort then the forces are the same.

If your workout is not as good on a lighter bike it just means you are weak willed.

To believe otherwise just means you are looking for an easy out and making excuses.

If you are dedicated and willing to work hard it does not matter how light or heavy your bike is because you can push yourself to your limit regardless.

And you're acting like one. Does it make you feel like a big man to come in and **** all over someone's thread?

Read posts 3-6 and tell me I'm the one "****" all over someone's thread. The thread was "****" from the beginning.

*****, you can look at this from the other side. A light bike makes it easier to not work hard. But it does not necessarily mean you can't get the hard workout you are looking for, you just have to force yourself to work hard instead of letting the bike make it easy for you. Just shift to a higher gear and pedal the crap out of it. That's what Greg was saying, and that's the point that you are missing in your stubbornness.

Its hard to explain umd, I'm right, but its hard to understand.

Its like this. You as an athlete right, your nervous system, as it was when you first began cycling learns a top speed or power output. Now what I do, what Bruce Lee's big secret was, to teach himself to move faster than the speed barrier he had imposed on himself OR teach myself to move faster than the speed barrier which was imposed on me when I first began cycling. Your developing the nervous system, teaching your brain to fire every muscle (power) faster. It comes with training.

NO! YOU DON'T SHIFT TO A HIGHER GEAR. Your losing POWER.

Except your muscles don't fire faster, they fire the same because your effort is independent of the speed. What matters is the leg speed(i.e. muscle contractions), not the bike speed.

However, there is one instance where the concept of which you speak does apply, but you have it backwards. If you want to teach yourself speed, you do motorpacing. Reduce the resistance so that you go really fast.

You have it backwards. A higher gear is harder. A higher gear at the same cadence takes more power because it moves the bike farther.

YOUR muscles don't fire faster BECAUSE you have "limited" yourself, or imposed a limit due to resistance or the weight of the bike your pushing. That power has been learnt, its there, its constant, its the same resistance, day in, day out on the same bike... Your nervous system has learn't that speed (power) now go & learn a higher one, one that is going to stimulate your nervous system to a higher degree.

"At the same cadence". What happens to cadence when you shift to higher gears???...

You've hit the nail on the head. "Reduce the resistance so that you go really fast".

No! INCREASE the resistance more & more & more & more, faster, faster, faster, THEN REDUCE IT. BOOM.

You have stimulated the nervous system.

Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall. If you keep the same power then your cadence will drop when you shift to a higher gear. If you keep the same cadence then your power will rise. My point, as well as Greg's, is that if you want to work harder, shift to a higher gear.

Oh my god you are like a little kid with his fingers in his ears shouting over everyone when they are trying to talk. You don't need a heavier bike to increase the resistance. You can just pedal faster in a harder gear.

what the **** does this mean. Do you even understand the cns and muscle contractions?

I am not limiting anything. I increase my resistance by riding faster uphill. I got a nice threshold workout in yesterday, and another today.

http://www.photoscene.com/kimandsteve/images/8859.png

http://www.photoscene.com/kimandsteve/images/8861.png

Wrong, Ride a bike for a thousand miles. Then ride the same bike on tour with 50+ lbs of extra weight for a thousand miles. Ride the bike again, when you get back with no weight. You are faster, and stronger. 100% of the time.

Not to degrade the "science" or "medicine" behind it. But from personal results. Every single time I add weight and go on tour, I come back Faster and stronger than riding the same amount without the weight.

You two were made for each other.

It still comes down to effort. The heavier bike makes it harder to "cheat" and go easy. If you forced yourself to do the same effort as you do with the extra weight it would make no difference.

For most people, a heavier bike will likely make them work harder than they would on a lighter bike. Fine, I'll agree to that. But a lighter bike does not necessarily make for less of a workout. You can get the same workout regardless of bike weight if you so chose.

Worked for me last year. Rode 8,000 miles then went on a 4,000 mile tour.
Totally Stronger after the tour......

Yes, this makes sense. I agree a lighter bike does not make it impossible to achieve same work out, but there is a reason than you use a light bike for racing. The minimize the effort needed over that exact same amount of riding. You can always compare apples to oranges in this case which is riding a bike for 120 miles or riding a bike for 50 miles. Or like you said above, by increasing the grade or tension or whatever the case may be. For training purposes. If you could Only ride exactly 50 miles of the exact same terrain every day. Doing it in a heaver bike will help you ride the lighter bike later.

umd, you said it best; "Reduce the resistance so that you go really fast".

Keep in mind that same prinicipal for the future, BUT keep PROGRESSING, with that same principal.

wow, that was a whole bunch of awesome in two pages.

I will stipulate that, in the very limited situation of having a fixed distance to ride, a heavier bike would make your workout take longer and therefore you would do more work. However, riding a lighter bike just means that for the same effort you would go farther in the same amount of time. If you think of training in time rather than distance then riding the lighter bike at the same effort faster for the same amount of time covers more distance but you still did the same amount of work and got the same workout. This is why people from "the 33" always say that it's about time and intensity not miles whenever the distance pissing contest threads come up. When I get my workouts from my coach, they say do 'a' power for 'b' time. Not go 'c' distance. It doesn't matter at all how far I end up going over the course of that, except as needed for logistics to plan where I need to be to do certain workouts. e.g finding a stretch of road where I can do 10 minutes uninterrupted, or get to a climb, etc.

Nah, not really. The point umd is trying to get you guys to see is that if you ride the lighter bike at the same power output as you'd ride the heavier bike, the benefit to your body will be the same. The only difference is that the speed you are traveling will be faster on the lighter bike.

edit: sorry, was writing the same time as umd's follow up above.