- Leg shaving.
Gear ratios.
Maximum heart rate calculations
and riding to the local shops in lycra.
This all coming up on this weeks Ask GCN Anything.
- It certainly is,
but the first question is in relation to indoor training.
A pertinent subject this time of the year of course
and it comes from Steve Lee, who asks,
is a mile or a kilometre on a turbo worth the same
as a mile or kilometre on the road?
What a cracker to start with.
- Yeah, difficult question to answer actually,
it's going to be neither impossible
to give you an exact correlation between the two.
A lot if is going to depend on the resistance setting
on your trainer and also how you're measuring the speed.
So, if you got the resistance set high
and you're effectively trying to climb indoors,
your obviously going to do far less kilometres
than you would do out in the open road on the flat
or maybe if you're on the rollers
with very little resistance, you might do a lot more.
- Yes, what we'd recommend really
is to ignore actual distance and focus on duration
and intensity.
So basically, you perceive, definitely.
You can measure that by using a power meter,
or a heart-rate monitor.
But one thing is definitely for sure
and I can testify to this
but having spent years on the turbo
is that every minute you spend on the turbo
is by far a higher quality than out on the road,
because there aren't the same amount of interruptions
and you don't really freewheel at all.
- No, there's nowhere to hide
and no reason to freewheel as you mentioned.
And actually coming up right now
is our GCN Guide to indoor training
what you might find quite useful.
- Firstly, you gonna need to find yourself
somewhat nice and flat to put your turbo-trainer.
And secondly, somewhere that you don't mind
getting wet.
Because you are gonna sweat a lot.
Now, the hour and years you protecting yourself
from the weather outside
and training indoors is that you'd need to find somewhere
nice and cold.
Because if you have a heat
it's gonna put a ceiling on your training
because you basically you have heart-rate drift
without putting in any extra effort.
- Next up we have a question in from Toby Ryan,
he asked, Lycra for commuting to work
or popping to the shops yay or nay?
- Well, shall we start with popping to shops?
- I think we could, yeah.
- I think it's a nay
I mean cycling has got more and more popular
all over the world
but there's no doubt it
but if you start cruising up the supermarket
dressed in lycra
you gonna definitely get a few funny stares.
As you did.
- I did, yeah.
– Quite recently actually.
- I wouldn't recommend it.
- No.
(funny music)
- The commuting side though
is a completely different matter altogether.
It's somewhat going to depend on how long your commute is.
So what we say is if it's 10 minutes or less
it's not probably worth the hassle
of donning all of your lycra
to just to go into work and back.
However, if it's going to be much longer
20 minutes and above you going to find it
a lot more comfortable and probably faster
if you do put some lycra on.
And actually this gives us a chance to throw it
to one of our favourite ever GCN videos
where Matt, Lasty, Si and myself did a commuter challenge
taking various forms of transport
from a cafe to our office.
– I never noticed that before, I've got the uni-wide cam
– Oh, look at the chinos
– Dang, like the chino years.
– It also seems that we can't agree on the best route
Matt and Tom are taking the quiet route
I want to get back as soon as possible
so I'm going the direct route.
And Dan?
Well, no one quite knows what Dan's up to.
It seems we might have a race on our hands.
(upbeat jazzy music)
- Quick fire-around now we'll start with Bob Bobby who says,
Ask GCN what shoes should I use for cyclocross?
Well, that's a fairly easy question,
mountain bike shoes in general,
you normally use mountain bike pedals for cyclocross
because their clearance abilities in terms of mud
so you want to be able to use mountain bike cleats
so mountain bike shoes preferably
with the options for studs at the front
in case you need to run up some steep, muddy climbs.
– Well , next up we have this from Bagamp,
How much do you need to train in a week
to be in good form?
That is a really good question,
but purely depends on your own personal circumstances
and ambitions.
So if purely want to keep fit
you can get away with kind of two, three hours a week.
If you want to do some sportives for example,
you might move it up around five or six hours a week.
But if you want to race and ultimately turn professional
professionals are up between 15 and 30 hours a week,
it purely depends
on the amount of riding you want to do really.
- Yeah, Matt actually won a National championships
of the back of 12 hours a week training,
very high intensity though I understand.
Next up from JW van Kuilenburg,
Hi guys, I deflate my tyres between weekend rides.
Will this keep my tyres in better shape or not?
I personally completely leave my tyres between rides,
I don't think about deflating them at all.
Don't entirely know the answer but I would imagine
that if you completely deflate them
you have the weight of the bike on them
and it's not going to be great for your tyres,
maybe some of our viewers can help us out with their answer.
- I'm agreeing with Dan on that one,
next up we have this from Emre Alca who asked,
I'm looking to buy a race bike
but I want the practicality of disc brakes.
How long before there expects to be UCI-based legal?
– Wooh
– Hashtag-torqueback
- There's a question.
- I wish I knew the answer
I don't know the answer
I know some teams have them
but it's still all up in the air.
And we don't have a definite answer.
– Yeah, I'm still experimenting with them in early 2017.
But there's no kind of official resolution to it yet.
Who knows when the date will be?
Yay or nay?
Finally, Daniel van Driel,
After it heavily rains my wheels fill with water.
Is this normal?
And is there an easy way to get the water out?
It's not uncommon particularly in the past
remember how in deep-section aluminium rims
which would fill out with water when it was raining,
and it was actually a small lil eyelets
on one part of the rim
and you put that to the bath and the water would come out.
So maybe try and find one of those on your wheels.
- Next up we have this from Alfie 1567,
hopefully that's not his date of birth.
- That it is.
- Indeed.
I'm a young rider.
So definitely not his date of birth.
Does shaving your legs
and putting up with my friends telling me I look like a girl
is it worth it for marginal speed gains
or is it just a style thing?
It is the age-old question isn't it, shaving your legs
I mean, the pros
all we look up to
all shave their legs
apart from Peter Sagan in the early season.
But your mates never leave it alone.
- No, they don't
we've all been in this situation as may arise in the past
haven't we, when you're a teenager no sure what to do.
Unfortunately, the only person that can answer this question
is you.
At the end of the day
it's not going to make a huge difference
to your cycling performance if you do shave your legs.
However, if you do want to look like
the vast majority of professional riders
there's only one thing to do,
that is to shave your legs and probably
your mates will joke and jive with you for a couple of days
but after that, they're going to forget about it.
Anyway, we do have a video on this very subject
as you might expect
thankfully, I wasn't involved in it at all.
And before we go full screen I should just say,
not safe for work.
- Definitely not safe for work.
– Or school.
- No.
(jazz music)
Now, if you've ever watched a bike race
or you've a group of cyclists
out on the road
or on a bike race
I bet you wondered
why do they shave their legs?
Well,
here
rather than focusing on the why
we're going to focus on
the how.
- It is almost time for our final question of this week
before we get to it
quick reminder that if you want to ask us questions
ready for next week's show
just leave it in the comments section down below
or on social media using the hashtag-torqueback.
And this final question comes in from ham3775,
Which makes a bigger difference
in how hard or easy a gear is,
the amount of teeth in the rear
or in the front?
- That is a good question ham
and it's something that we all encounter
and scratch your heads about
especially when you're first starting out.
So, to simplify it
the bigger the chainring
or the bigger amount of teeth on the front,
the harder it is to pedal.
And also, the smaller the cogs at the back
the harder it is to pedal.
So, if you want to go uphills
you need to put it on the small chainring at the front
and on the bigger cogs at the back.
And then for descent
you want to have it on the big ring at the front
with the most teeth
and the smaller cogs at the back.
And for flat riding,
essentially you just want it on something
that feels comfortable depending on how strong you are.
- You do sometimes have it on the big ring for climbs
don't you Matt?
– Sometimes.
- Notice that.
- Just to go.
- Compacts the way to go, aren't they.
You probably guessed it though
we do have a video on this very subject
coming up right now
How To Choose Your Gear Ratios.
Right, let's start with the very basics,
your gear ratio effectively determines
how far you travel forward
for one complete revolution of the pedal.
What you really need to know
is that the smaller the cog is on the rear
cassette here the further you travel
and conversely, the larger the chainring at the front here
the further you'll move forward for that complete revolution
- Now, if you don't want to miss out
on any future Global Cycling Network videos
click on the globe, and lend out with a video any inbox
or further more
every single day!
- You will indeed.
- It's actually freedom to tell you mates as well.
- And before you even get there
I've actually got two more videos
coming up for you right now.
Down here is Ask the pros,
wax or shave
over in the Tour of California,
and on the other side is How to Change Gears
like a pro.
- Keep those questions coming.
Hashtag-torqueback