Abid's blog: Training Week 2 - Sunday

Had a good swim and bike today. Did a few drills in the pool, and then got dressed for some biking tips and then a short bike ride (around 10 miles). Since my poor bike is a really old piece of wrought iron, I had some difficulty keeping up with the leader. But the bike pedals really help. Anyhoo, here were the tips:

Keep your knees on top of your feet, don't let them come out while pedaling
Anticipate the gear shifts, i.e. if you are going towards a hill, shift to a lower gear ratio before you hit the incline
When you shift, don't just think about changing one gear at a time, think of the gear ratio. This might mean shifting both the front and the back gears at once. They showed us a chart that looked like the one below
Let your legs tell you when you shift, if they feel heavy shift to a lower gear ratio, if you are bouncing up and down shift to a higher gear ratio
Keep your legs turning as much as possible, even when you are coasting. Not turning them can lead to building up waste material in your legs
The optimal cadence, i.e. pedals per minute is around 85 - 95. This also happens to be the same as the optimal cadence for running, i.e you should take 85 - 95 steps per minute. The goal is to be within 80 - 100 pedals per minute and over time build a sense of always being in the optimal range

So that's that. Looking forward to not doing anything tomorrow, Monday, the rest day.