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speed and gears

by Carl Brewer last modified 2007-07-02 01:51

A handy calculator

I stumbled onto this today while showing Briana James and Mike Goldie how relevant (or otherwise) spinning 200+rpm is :

http://software.bareknucklebrigade.com/rabbit.applet.html

It's a calculator for speed vs gear inches.  The bottom line is that the fastest track sprinters, if they're pushing 100" in a flying 200, are doing ~160rpm. If they're pushing bigger than that, it's lower cadence. It depends on the rider, but the fastest flying 200's are around 72-73km/h, which is, on 100", around 155rpm.  I think they ride bigger gears than that (106"?) so that cadence is even lower. It's still a very high cadence, but it's not 200rpm, and top track sprinters would be unlikely to ever break 160rpm in a race situation on a race gear.

 

Yeah but...

Posted by Dino Apolito at 2007-07-02 02:56
OK, you may never race at 200rpm but is it worth training at that level? I'm thinking if you can build your max cadence through high cadence drills at low resistance that has gotta get you a higher racing cadence at any given resistance.

It's a bit like doing max efforts or uphill sprints on big gears or a host of other training drills that aren't directly related to what you do in racing.

Savvy?

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