100-105 rpm is normal for the hour record. This is equivalent to 200-210 spm in running, but of course the range of motion in cycling is much less.
How hard is a 2 hour marathon in cycling terms
Other Running Related Topic
-
10
-
Joe Jackson wrote:
frankencrank wrote:
We both agree that higher power will have a higher most efficient pedal speed. The question is: What is the most efficient pedal speed for any particular power.
While it may be presumptuous of me to say Armstrong was doing it wrong, in view of this study I think it presumptuous of anyone to say he was doing what was best. Unless one has done the work to determine what is best one is just guessing. But, we do have some data to suggest that for most people optimum pedal speed at 400 W will be about 1.4 m/s, at 200 W about 1.1 m/s, and at 50 W 0.61 m/s. One could easily interpolate the best pedal speed for their TT power and calculate what they are really are at and compare. I would be interested in if you could do that and see what you come up with.
While you think the study says the best improvement one could hope for would be 4% all I can say is we saw 10%. Perhaps that is because my "subject" was starting at a pedal speed way above 1.4 m/s and riding at a power well below 400 watts.
While far from big news in the running world, the cycling hour record was recently broken by Filippo Ganna. As lots has been published about his set up I thought it was be interesting to dig into his ‘foot speed’ and revisit this thread. For the record, I get that he is producing super-human watts and thus his data isn’t all the relevant to the rest of us, however, our resident foot-speed expert above has stated that Armstrong likely wasn’t doing what was best for him so I was curious about what the most modern approach to all out speed might have yielded.
First, depending on which source is cited, a crankset and rear cog combo of either 65x14 or 64x14 was used. This makes a difference of about 2rpm at the average speed of 56.8 km/h that he rode. Crank length used was 170mm as far as I can find:I put those numbers and a range of speeds into a gear calculator to get cadence and here are the results:(not sure if that will show up pre-loaded or not, if not it should be self-explanatory)
Using the more likely 64x14, his average cadence at his average calculates out to 100 rpm yielding a foot speed of ((.340 m crank diameter x 3.14159) x 100 rpm)/60 sec = 1.78 m/s (swapping in the 65x14 yields 1.74 m/s)
Wow. That’s fast. Comments?
"With this gear, Ganna needed to average a cadence of at least 96 RPM to break the record. In fact, a perfect cadence of 96RPM would have netted Ganna a distance of 55.570km. However, that was assuming he rides perfectly on the black line for the entire hour. Hitting his mark of 56.792km, Ganna would have had to average over 98RPM."
According to your linked article just over 98 RPM.
Anyway I guess our "expert" who did that unpublished experiment n= 1 to conclude 7 x tdf winner Lance Armstrong was "doing it wrong" with his high cadence needs to reach out to Ganna and his team and explain to them the mistakes they are making with high rpm's.
10 -
I think the Lance Armstrong cadence thing is slightly exaggerated. He was doing over 100rpm at the end of a climb effort but not at the beginning.
00 -
Think again wrote:
I think the Lance Armstrong cadence thing is slightly exaggerated. He was doing over 100rpm at the end of a climb effort but not at the beginning.
Ever watched this time trial before?
00 -
Joe Jackson wrote:
Using the more likely 64x14, his average cadence at his average calculates out to 100 rpm yielding a foot speed of ((.340 m crank diameter x 3.14159) x 100 rpm)/60 sec = 1.78 m/s (swapping in the 65x14 yields 1.74 m/s)
Wow. That’s fast. Comments?
Converting the foot speed to running:
10,000 meters / 1.74 mps = 5747.126 seconds = 95 minutes and 47.2 seconds for a 10k run.00 -
frank\'sacrank wrote:
Joe Jackson wrote:
Using the more likely 64x14, his average cadence at his average calculates out to 100 rpm yielding a foot speed of ((.340 m crank diameter x 3.14159) x 100 rpm)/60 sec = 1.78 m/s (swapping in the 65x14 yields 1.74 m/s)
Wow. That’s fast. Comments?
Converting the foot speed to running:
10,000 meters / 1.74 mps = 5747.126 seconds = 95 minutes and 47.2 seconds for a 10k run.Wow. That’s slow. Cycling is so easy!
00 -
Think again wrote:
100-105 rpm is normal for the hour record. This is equivalent to 200-210 spm in running, but of course the range of motion in cycling is much less.
Perhaps some of my sarcasm was lost in the interwebz. As you note, high cadence is very typical for any sort of threshold power effort by most cyclists (save for some triathletes who may be prioritizing certain muscles to save others for the run and accommodating very aero positioning which doesn’t always translate to good pedaling form.
A certain poster here wants to claim that all of these cyclists are doing it wrong, though, and that he knows better because his one athlete and a few random studies claim that not only pedaling slower but also also using really short cranks (to achieve a slower foot speed) is more ideal.
I’ve questioned this claim (noting that I’m always happy to be proven wrong) and subsequently revisited this thread after reading about the most-highly-optimized-hour-record-effort-to-date and finding he used 1. standard length cranks and 2. a high cadence. If anyone is ‘doing it right’ I’d say that Ganna is so I’m happy to keep doing what I’ve been doing on the bike (standard cranks, high cadence).
00 -
Joe Jackson wrote:
frankencrank wrote:
We both agree that higher power will have a higher most efficient pedal speed. The question is: What is the most efficient pedal speed for any particular power.
While it may be presumptuous of me to say Armstrong was doing it wrong, in view of this study I think it presumptuous of anyone to say he was doing what was best. Unless one has done the work to determine what is best one is just guessing. But, we do have some data to suggest that for most people optimum pedal speed at 400 W will be about 1.4 m/s, at 200 W about 1.1 m/s, and at 50 W 0.61 m/s. One could easily interpolate the best pedal speed for their TT power and calculate what they are really are at and compare. I would be interested in if you could do that and see what you come up with.
While you think the study says the best improvement one could hope for would be 4% all I can say is we saw 10%. Perhaps that is because my "subject" was starting at a pedal speed way above 1.4 m/s and riding at a power well below 400 watts.
While far from big news in the running world, the cycling hour record was recently broken by Filippo Ganna. As lots has been published about his set up I thought it was be interesting to dig into his ‘foot speed’ and revisit this thread. For the record, I get that he is producing super-human watts and thus his data isn’t all the relevant to the rest of us, however, our resident foot-speed expert above has stated that Armstrong likely wasn’t doing what was best for him so I was curious about what the most modern approach to all out speed might have yielded.
First, depending on which source is cited, a crankset and rear cog combo of either 65x14 or 64x14 was used. This makes a difference of about 2rpm at the average speed of 56.8 km/h that he rode. Crank length used was 170mm as far as I can find:I put those numbers and a range of speeds into a gear calculator to get cadence and here are the results:(not sure if that will show up pre-loaded or not, if not it should be self-explanatory)
Using the more likely 64x14, his average cadence at his average calculates out to 100 rpm yielding a foot speed of ((.340 m crank diameter x 3.14159) x 100 rpm)/60 sec = 1.78 m/s (swapping in the 65x14 yields 1.74 m/s)
Wow. That’s fast. Comments?
I presume this was directed to me. Here is what I found. /
From this article. "Sticking with big and narrow, Ganna used a Wattshop Cratus Aero modular crankset with a huge 65-tooth front chainring." and "The crank arms are again phenomenally narrow as is the Q-Factor at just 134 mm. The crank lengths are adjustable, and while we don’t know which length Ganna opted for, the cranks offer anything from 160 mm right the way up to 175 mm, with the usual 2.5 mm jumps in lengths."
Assuming the wheels had a standard diameter We can assume his cadence to be around 100 as you figured. But, the crank length makes a big difference on foot speed and we don't know what that was. It could have been as short as 160 and as long as 175. We also don't know his power but we can assume it was more than any of us can come close to doing.. Either way, his pedal speed was, understandably much higher than anything you or I should be riding. My guess is he had done work to get close to his optimum as his cranks were adjustable. Many weekend cyclists like to ride around at cadences of 100 (they call it spinning) at power around 250 watts. Clearly they shouldn't be there if they want to maximize efficiency.
00
What People Are Talking About On LetsRun
No top threads at the moment. Check back soon.