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Thursday, January 29, 2015

I'm not slow; I'm not fast. I'm half fast. (Unknown)

I was really curious if being clipped in would make me faster. It does. With no extra effort, I'm about 2-3 mph faster.

I'm still easing into being clipped in. I've learned in the past that increasing speed or distance too fast leads to unpleasant consequences. My preferred cadence is around 85-95 RPM. For the sake of discussion, let's call it 90 RPM. Our average ride is around 4 hours (240 minutes). Which means on an average ride, I do 21,600 pedal strokes.

That means I make my wonky ankles turn the pedals 21,600 times.

The first long ride I took clipped in I was having so much fun I didn't notice my wonky ankles...until I got home! Then I found myself looking really pitiful since I was limping on both feet. Lesson learned. After that I got sensible. We dropped the distance and didn't push the speed. Then we slowly increased things.

In a week or so we'll rejoin our Saturday 20+ ride group. Things are looking good.