Elevation 101

I’ve made mention of my Elevation 101 class, and had a few requests to explain what it is.

One of the local bike shops has a fitness studio where they provide various training. In addition to the weight machines and medicine balls, they have 8 bicycle trainers set up with input into a computer.

A trainer is a device that holds the back wheel off the ground so you can pedal without moving. ~~~Growing up, my sister and I discovered that we could place our bike on the front porch in such a way that the training wheels would keep the bike upright and the rear wheel would rest over a depression so we could spin away without going anywhere. We kept training wheels on one bike way longer than necessary so we could keep that feature. Who knew we were in our own spinning class so many years ahead of the curve.

Back to my story. The trainer at the bike shop will track how fast we are pedaling and how much power we are exerting. In fact, they can use the computer program to adjust the pressure on my back wheel so it can simulate going up a hill. During all of this, our information is displayed on the wall in front of us so we can monitor how we’re doing (and compare to others if we need some motivation).

Vocabulary and technical paragraph (skip if you want). Power = force x distance/time, this is called watts. You can then look at watts/kg to get a number to compare to others. I’m still trying to figure out what it all means. But it is interesting to note that last week I was going about 16 mph, a cadence (or rotations per minute) of around 90, with watts of about 101 and a watts/kg of something like 1.3 while my husband was going 25 mph , a cadence of 85, watts of something like 250 and watts/kg around 1.3. He’s a guy, he’s got great leg muscles, and he’s heavier. I think the point to all of that is  he will do even more on the bike when he loses some weight.

The point to the Elevation 101 class is to measure and increase our power output while climbing hills on our bike. What I’m getting out of it is practice at working my rear off for an hour. My husband says he has learned some techniques from the class, but I still think the greatest benefit has been the focused practice.

Here’s how the class works. We hook up our bikes on the trainers. The teacher has entered a “course” into the computer that has us encountering a series of hills. Last week’s course started with a moderate hill for 4 minutes, then a higher hill for 3 minutes, with a break in between, and continued like that for another 5 hills over the hour.

I admit, this wasn’t my first choice for a class as a beginner. I wanted to take the Cycling 101 class that would work on my position and pedal stroke and then get me out on the road. But they didn’t offer that in June. The only other classes for semi-beginners were Elevation 101 at night or something during the day that I can’t commit to. But the class has worked. My posture has gotten better just from being on that bike for an hour (plus warmup). My pedal stroke has gotten better since I’m going around at 90 rotations per minute for an hour. And I have gotten better at hills which is great since there are so many of them around here.

This Saturday I went out to a local business park (it was a low emotional weekend and I was too skittish to hit the real roads) and I powered over the 5 hills with skill and strength that I didn’t have 3 weeks ago when we started this class. One technique we have learned in class is it’s actually more efficient to get up a hill at a higher cadence. Before this class I usually kept a cadence of about 70 although DH said to aim for 80. In class I figured I’d pull it up to 80, but the teacher keeps asking for 90. Saturday I passed folks struggling up the hill while I kept those pedals going up and down, round and round at 90 rpm.

If you’re still reading, I hope you got something out of all my rambling about my Elevation 101 class. Last week they announced there will be an Elevation 102 class and we’re both signing up. It will be a great workout every week and get us right up to the MS150 ride in October. The one where I’ll probably ride 90 miles over 2 days and DH will ride 100 miles on the first day. We figure we need all the help with hills that we can get.

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