been thinking about posts like this and that, and about a conversation with a fast and nice neighbor friend on a ride last year. the question comes up, why do cyclists baby themselves? the fast neighbor friend was a high calibre rower back in the day and has mentioned on a ride or two that the interval workouts that cyclists prescribe themselves (and loathe) are nothing compared to what rowers do. a 20 minute TT interval is a drop in the bucket for a rower, but for a cyclist it’s a tough workout that will require a day to recover from. I think I’ve come up with a why: take that 20 minute interval on a boat. what is a decent stroke count per minute? it’s probably 20-25 strokes per minute. so over 20 minutes that’s 400 strokes. those strokes are a lot harder than 20 pedal strokes, and require more muscle groups and so on. but let’s say you do a 20 minute ITT on a bike at 95 rpm. . .that is 1900 efforts. that’s a lot of muscle and brain firings. it’s tiring, no? rowing might be more painful, but cycling is likely more tiring. cyclists are always tired and hungry.
so maybe that’s a little insight into why cyclists whine and are cranky and require massage and lots of sleep etc etc. it’s because we’re using the limited cycling muscles we sequester repetitively and excessively throughout a ride or a workout.
I could be wrong.
do him a favor