Another long ride, the second of the training series.

This ride was hard. My legs were still cooked from yesterday. My quads started complaining early and continued throughout the ride. Near the end, I began to lose power and I limped home. This is the kind of workout that I hope will help be become a better cyclists.

In reviewing the data, I notice first of all that when comparing this ride with the first long ride, almost all of the metrics were comparable.  The average power was just one watt, and the time difference between the two was less than 2 minutes apart.  Distance was a bit less this week, but less than two miles.  But the big difference was cadence.  Last week, my average cadence was 60 rpm and this week it was up to 69 rpm, an 15% increase!  (Remember, I’m using Power Cranks which tend to slow down your cadence.)   To be honest, I was not concentrating on my peddle speed; I was just peddling at a comfortable rate.  None the less, I am please with the improvement.

The graph above reveals an interesting fact – my pedal velocity drops as my power increases. During the main set interval of the workout, the training plan called for an effort equal to 70% of my Critical Power (CP) for 25 minutes. During these two weeks, I have been using 220 watts as my CP, so 70% would be 154 watts. But I actually average 160 watts at 75 rpm and my heart rate averaged 129 bpm. The second main set interval was for 75% of CP or 165 watts for 30 minutes. I averaged 173 watts and my cadence dropped to 70 while my heart rate rose to 136 bpm. The final main set interval called for 80% of CP or 176 watts for 25 minutes. I averaged 191 watts and my cadence dropped to 64 rpm and my heart rate rose slightly to 139 bpm.

Here is graphical representation. The left axis is force and the bottom axis is peddle speed. As the graphic shows, at my peddle speed increases, the force on the peddle decreases.