I'm disappointed (not surprised, just disappointed) that I've lost so much cardio endurance in just a week away. Well, 10 days actually from my last ride due to the bike's time in the shop. But as hard as I had to keep breathing throughout the quick ride this morning, I could tell my legs hadn't lost much as far as consistently pedaling.
So, according to the new CatEye computer, I reached a high of 23.8 mph, averaged 11.1 mph and went 4.01 miles in 20:51. Now that I can track cadence, I tried to keep my cadence around 90 (a number I've found recommended several times for beginner bike training). Watching the cadence actually affected my riding a lot, as I had to upshift more on the downhills to keep up, and downshift (way more) on the uphills to keep pace.
It felt great to be riding again after the short break.
Is cadence a measure of the RPMs of the pedals? I was actually working on the equivalent running today - I have a few steep hills on my trail, and I've been getting really out of breath on them. Today I ran up with the same "cadence", but a lot shorter pace, and I had a real "aha!" moment.
ReplyDeleteYep -paying more attention to my cadence put me more in touch with my gears. Consequently, the hills are getting a bit flatter...
ReplyDelete