Question for Todd

[veespin]

Spending the weekend in Ithaca with baby and I've just finished chapter 5 in Training and Racing with a Power Meter and I got to thinking about borrowing from the world of power training for my "motivational cues" armamentarium.

Say for the sake of argument you (meaning you personally as opposed to the generic*you*) were pedalling with a cadence of, say 120 + rpm. What would you guesstimate as a ballparkfigure for your power output at just about the lowest resistance you'd ever use for efficacy/safety etc. I know you'd probably be doing this sort of workout on your bike and you think of gear ratios rather than "resistance" but I still think the other way around.

Here's why I'm asking. I'm still looking for ways to convey "correct" cadence in class......especially for those members who spin like crazy with too little resistance. Since this is all new stuff, I don't know whether to think in terms of wattage that'd power no more than a nite-lite or enough to feed a whole kitchen worth of appliances.

This is a great book, BTW. Thanks for the recommendation.

Vivienne

[Todd S]

Not sure I totally understand your question, but if I'm at a cadence of more than 120 rpm I'm probably undergeared and looking to shift to a bigger gear (more resistance) ASAP no matter how much power I'm putting out. Generally, the more power you're putting to the pedals, the higher the optimal cadence. In the real world, extremely low power and high cadence results in a lot of muscle activation activity relative to the low power being put to the pedals. Not a smart way to ride, especially on a Spinner where a lot of that minimal power being put to the pedals is probably used to lift the rider off the saddle a little bit with each pedal stroke, making that high cadece, low power combination even less efficient.

Maybe this will help...

http://www.me.utexas.edu/~neptune/Papers/msse32(7).pdf (http://www.me.utexas.edu/~neptune/Papers/msse32(7).pdf)