Gear Control: Mastering Pacing

From an article in 220Triathlon.  Not sure what issue though.  Written by Pete Bonfield

“Mastering pacing is key to not only a fact bike, but a strong run” – Pete Bonfield

When I did my first half-ironman (HIM) this year, the very first thing people told me to do was pace my bike.  Of course the word ‘pace’ is very subjective.  The pace I used for an Olympic distance is VERY different than that of a HIM.  Mountain bike racing is very similar.  When I moved from sport to expert class, the pace was very different.  The sprint at the start wasn’t nearly as long nor as intense.  Still fighting for position, but not at the same intensity that sport class riders do.  In sport, it was balls out.  I’d eventually move up simply through attrition.  In expert class, that is not the case.  Fight for position and fight to keep position.

“To optimise your performance during a race it’s critical that you carefully control your effort…you don’t want to ride at less than your lactate threshold.  If you do you will lose time – riding just a couple of beats under your lactate threshold can lose you around 2mins over an hour-long ride.  Manage your effort carefully, and you will be able to ride close to your lactate threshold without exceeding it.” – Bonfield

Triathlons are all about pace. Don’t blow up on the swim, don’t go out to hard on the bike and don’t try to win the run in the first few miles.  The competitive nature of athletes makes it very difficult to dial back on the effort.  During my HIM, I actually had my GARMIN unit set up to beep when I exceeded a certain power level and heart rate.  I needed this to force myself to keep the right pace.

“You may feel you should be riding harder, especially if other athletes are passing you on the hill, but don’t worry – if they’re pushing themselves too hard their bike split and overall race time will be adversely affected’ – Bonfield

The article makes a good point about staying at or below your LT heart rate.  This includes pedaling downhill to keep your pulse high.  During triathlons, especially sprint distance, I see so many people using the down hills as recovery. They just use momentum to go down the hill.  I use the big chain ring and keep pedaling.  Downhill isn’t anymore a recovery than an uphill.  It’s just easier.

Level Cadence
You cadence should be between 80-100rpms.  Your most efficient cadence will be determined during training, but should fall in that range.  There is no award for pushing a hard gear up a hill.  The award is for who get’s done the fastest.

“Don’t make the mistake of riding higher (or harder) gears and reducing your RPM to a rate that’s lower than the one at which you have trained your legs to work efficiently.  If you do, you’ll go slower, your leg muscles will fatigue quicker and it’ll be harder to run off the bike” – Bonfield

Pedal slower = more power HR will drop.  Pedal faster = HR will increase, output will drop.  The goal is to change gears to maintain the same level of cadence.

Maintain Momentum
Momentum is a mountain bikers best friend.  In triathlons, the hills will be long. Momentum does help, but it won’t usually get you up the hill. In a mountain bike race, an efficient use of momentum can be the difference between flying over a hill and having to power over the hill.  Use the down hills to your advantage.  All the momentum to carry you up hills as long as possible.

Using Gears
When I switched from mountain bike racing to triathlons, my shifting skills shined.  Mountain bikers shift hundreds of times during a race, thus the skill of shifting is perfected.  During triathlons, I used this perfection to my advantage.  From mountain biking to triathlons, I’ve become very sensitive to the size of my chain rings and cassette.  I can tell the difference between 52t and 53t or a 12-25t and 11-25t.  I will tweek my gearing based on the course.  The reason is to maximize the distance per rotation.  Below is a gear to power ratio:



The article does go into detail on how to use the gears.  Below are snapshots from this article for your reference.  It is tough to read, but helps if you open it in a new window.