The sweet spot in biking

10-21-2004, 02:54 AM

A few folks here have mentioned getting into cycling directly or incidently
after having problems with jogging, a great activity, but problematic for
quite a few after years or even sooner.

The problem I found is that you just don't get that runner's high, which
for me involved moving into a higher plane of activity, with more demand on
the body at the 6-7 min/mile threshold (ymmv), with cycling like you do
with jogging. (not to say biking doesn't make you high, John Denver).

I've hoped that this higher plane would be available on the bike, but
wasn't sure. But for me, when in this state while jogging was as clear as
night and day. Biking can be a bit too mild - even when you're highly
trained and moving at 20mph easily, you're not really in the 'zone'
(whereas a beginner would be).

I'm now beginning to think that there is a comperable, if not enhanced
version of this runner's high on the bike, and it lies in the area of
spinning up, and continuous climbing. I really felt this sensation strongly
yesterday on the 2 mile climb at 4-5%, and felt as though I could keep this
high demand output for extended periods. (of course the more advanced
riders would be going faster, but the analogy is similar). There was a nice
sensation of tightness in the lower body, which felt like when you stand
and tense your muscles to 'make a muscle' in the mirror, but obviously the
quads were contracting and relaxing - it's hard to describe, I guess.

In addition, I felt like I needed to stay at this output level and not drop
off to coast or even hit the flats, or I'd move out of the zone or
metabolic 'sweet spot'. It was -really- disappointing to have to coast
slowly to the bottom after turning around at the summit, and wait that long
to do a repeat. Obviously, I need to increase the warmup. The two to three
miles to the park from my house will include some shorter but steeper
sections. But the neat thing is that this 'mistake' highlighted an
interesting illumination (for me).

What's also nice is that on the bike you can fine tune this sweet spot much
easier using gearing than when running where your adjustments are coarse.

I also found that I had to push to get into this zone. I.e. at the first
urge to gear down, I upped the cadence, and would try to hold it for
another 100yds. With this method I felt the -body- shift gears internally,
which is pretty cool.

Anyway, early morning raving. Imagination or not, I'm having fun... ;-D

-B