吳伯伯單車講座第一集

The useful lessons I learned so far are two things:

Increase heart-lung capacity.
Proper peddling skill and bike setup to avoid injury.

Item one is the key objective of training. I suggest getting a bike computer that display cadence (peddling RPM) and a heart rate monitor. Speed and distance are by products and can be affected by wind, temperature, and road conditions.

The heart rate monitor tells you how hard your body is taking on the load. When I first started, my HR went to 160 real quick and I can’t keep it long. After several months of training I can see HR going down and I can stay in the high HR zoon longer. One popular training method is the “interval training”. Work up your HR to >80% of your max HR, stay there for a minute, relax for several minutes so the HR comes down, and then repeat the cycle. This makes your training more effective and less boring. Speed, distance, and leg muscle will come with the HR training.

Peddling skill helps you be more efficient and avoid injury. In our age, we should avoid pushing the large difficult gear. The recommended cadence is 60~90 RPM. Select the proper gear so you can stay in the target cadence comfortably. I started with aiming 70 RPM. Now I can keep 80 RPM and occasionally 90. I also found the attached “UP UP Peddling skill” very helpful. I use “Catey Strada Cadence” bike computer. It offers the function and cheaper than other wireless models.

Last and most important thing is “DO NOT OVER TRAIN”. Cycling performance is cyclic. With training, the performance will improve, peak and then degrade and then goes up again. Don’t think your training is not hard enough because the performance shows no improvement. Relax and rest after a hard ride. Your body improves while you rest. The schedule I try to keep is:
Long ride on SAT and SUN
Rest on MON
Normal ride on TUE, WED, THU
Rest on FRI so I can ride harder during weekend.