Disturbed275's Mentor Group - CLOSED! (Page 11)

Couple of tips I have learned (but not mastered by any means) for the bike:

1.  Key to the bike is to be at about 90-100 RPM's on average for the entire ride.  Reason being is that you can recover your heartrate for the run from spinning too high, but you cannot recover your legs for the run if spinning too slow.

2.  Switch into a lower gear, much easier, for higher RPM spinning prior to starting a hill (might want to do 100-110 RPM's).  Try to keep the RPM's up going all the way up the hill (in that easier gear), and when you hit the top of the hill DON'T stop spinning.  Continue spinning at that easier gear and a higher RPM rate for another 10-15 seconds before switching gears.  It will help flush out the lactic acid that build up going up the hill (and my coach tells me, psychs out the other riders).  It is much easier to spin higher going up a hill than slower.

3.  When switching to a new gear, that may be harder, your body takes about 15-20 second to acclimate to that new gear.  So it may be hard at the beginning, but your body will accept it if you give it time, like if you are going up a long slow gradient hill.

Last year at my first race I probably was at about 60-75 RPMs for the entire race  and when I got to the top of the hill (doing an extremely slow RPM, higher gear) I stop and the lactic acid built up and I couldn't recover for another 10-20 seconds.  Good thing it was an aquabike, otherwise I would not have been able to do the run because I blew myself up on the bike . . . LITERALLY.

Hope this helps