Silly beginner questions

pug_

Howdy folks, I've only been cycling a few months now and took part in my first event yesterday the Martin Earley Tour of Kildare in Naas. I noticed a few things along the cycle that got me thinking.

I noticed early on that a number of people were doing very fast peddling in slow gears. Is this some kind of tactic for long distances or something? as in less effort over a longer distance allowing you to go further? I was peddling at a slower rate than a lot of people, but I wasn't putting any real noticeable effort into it so to my mind at least a slower easy effort made sense, I don't know maybe over a longer distance the difference in effort would accumulate, or maybe I'm just reading too much into it?

Also a lot of people had pretty well developed calves. I come from a running background myself so have reasonably good legs. Unfortunately I can't run at the moment due to injury, and the one thing I've noticed is that while cycling I've started to loose a lot of muscle mass on my calves while developing muscle on my quads. Am I missing something with respect to my calves? Is there some technique I could/should be using to help maintain and develop my calves? Or are these people from different disciplines too and calf muscles are just not used that much in cycling?

victorcarrera

Different strokes for different folks. Some can and like to mash the big gears others can't and prefer to spin the small gears.
In general I have noticed that people new to recreational cycling initially use the harder gears but change over time to easier gears. Spinning easier gears is better for blood transport to the leg muscles and allows you to save your strength for hills and faster efforts.
It may also be that beginner cyclists have a basic strength and fitness in their legs from walking and climbing stairs and prefer a similar cadence of pushing harder gears or are worried about getting winded if they spin faster, then over time the efficiency of the heart and lungs improve and they find it easier on the legs to spin.
Maybe it is a bit like an unfit person running for a bus, the legs feel good but they will feel it in the chest first.
Re: The calf muscles. High protein diet and big gears = big muscles.
But big muscles are heavy and you have to carry them over the hills too.

Lusk Doyle

Cycle from the knees down to build up calves?!?

Sexy calves are sexy calves. I too notice this in other riders. Sadly I don't have sexy calves so have to make up for it in overall sexiness. It's tough and I'm not sure I do it!

Seriously though, mashing big gears as a newbie to cycling will hurt you no matter your fitness level or strength. Start easy and build up to higher resistance would be my advice.

seamus

The quads are primarily where it's at in cycling. If you think about it logically, the calves don't do nearly as much.
If you hold your lower arm perpendicular to your body, upper arm parallel to your body and push your arm in and out in a pushing and pulling motion, you can see that it's mostly your bicep and tricep doing the work - your lower arm is basically just a piston, moving in and out.
Same deal for your legs, IMO.

There will obviously be some lower leg strength involved in transferring the power efficiently through your knee and ankle (i.e. keeping your ankle strong and rigid), but I think the bulk of the energy is provided by the upper leg.

Running by comparison uses the lower leg more extensively because the ankle is a lot more active, with most of the power coming from a combination of things including bending the ankle to achieve lift off the ground.

/armchair physician