"Badger_South" wrote

I'm only focussing on this stuff as part of a phase I'm going through,
though. I keep seeking out and testing myself on harder and harder
sections, which are not hard to find where I ride (lots of 100-200 yd
steeps). So far I'm doing pretty well for a my condition with the hip
injury and everything, I believe.

We all go through phases, one of mine was beginning fixed gear riding where
I learned that cadence didn't have as much of an effect as I had presumed
it would.


If you don't mind my asking, what is the best way to learn the 'blowing
up'
part? By that do you mean a completel loss of ability such that you have
to
take the bus home? (I've had one sitch where I suddenly dropped off my
17-18mph pace and dropped off to 12mph for the last 20 minutes - puzzling
since this was in the flats. I didn't feel bad - just lost the 'oomph'.)
Should I attempt to push to the point of such 'blow up' to know what it
feels like?

The classic "blowing up" is more of a short-term phenomenon, where you
briefly exceed your cardio-vascular capacity and go into debt. We all have
a steady-state pace that we can sustain for several minutes, when you push
beyond that, your output drops precipitously until you recover. This is
more of an aerobic/anaerobic thing than a fatigue thing. If you're climbing
hills, or doing fast, relatively short rides (like time trials), it's
important to go to your limit, without exceeding it, for your best time.
Learning exactly where that is takes time and knowledge of your body. Heart
rate monitors can help learning to pace, but given day-to-day variations, I
find listening to your body works better.

The long-term fatigue limit is different. Fatigue accumulates in your
muscles, and eventually you get to the point where your output drops off
severely. Unlike blowing up, which is recoverable after a few minutes,
muscle fatigue doesn't go away with brief rest. If you keep pushing, the
muscles often go into spasms (cramping). Muscle fatigue can be accelerated
by periods of high level exertion, so if you want to go long, you have to
watch the pace, too.