Let's talk about speed...

One of the main things that seems to confuse both indoor cycling teachers and students is the issue of‘speed’.

When I ask my future teachers ‘How do you go faster on an Indoor bike?’ - they pretty much always say ‘Move your legs quicker’!

Whilst this is true very occasionally - most of the time it isn’t.

Here’s why:

RPM and ’speed’ (kph) are NOT the same thing. 

RPM (cadence) is how many times your legs go round on the bike per minute and speed is a combination of power output and RPM. 

One VERY VERY common mistake many teachers make is confusing leg speed (cadence) with the actual speed we’d be going if we were cycling outside. They assume that moving your legs faster will increase your speed.  The majority of the time this isn’t the case.  

Think about it like this:

If you’re in the saddle, riding a bike outside up a very steep hill your legs will be moving super fast (at a high RPM) but you’ll actually be moving pretty slowly as you’ll be in a very low gear.

If you’re riding along a flat road your legs will be moving much slower (you’ll be riding at a lower RPM) but you’ll be moving fast as you’re in a higher gear.

SO: If I wanted to go faster on a stationery bike most of the time I’d keep my RPM the same and increase my resistance. 

If my RPM was 85 on a fairly easy resistance level I’d probably be riding about 20kph.

I I do a ‘distance’ challenge in class ‘How far can you cycle in 2 minutes?’ The top results will be around 1.4km which is equivalent to a sustained pace of 42kmph. All of these riders will have kept their RPM at around 85.

If in the last 20 seconds of that challenge I might ask riders to accelerate by increasing their RPM - yes they would be going faster but it’s much much harder to sustain a high RPM in order to increase speed. Professional race cyclists have an average cadence of 90RPM. 

You can go much ‘faster’ for a 30 second sprint at a cadence of 100 on a higher resistance than a cadence of 130 at a lower resistance. 

So next time an instructor ever you to ‘Take all of your resistance of and SPRRRRIIIIIINT’ think again.