Take it slow. No really. Take it slow

“I know I'm supposed to build up slowly, but I'm so unfit right now that I'll just hammer for a few months, get some basic fitness and then start following a plan.”

Bad, bad idea. Especially since--you corner-cutting basstid--you'll just get too lazy to do the whole plan thing and just ride hard all the time.

So stop it right now. Unless of course you want to waste two or three years riding hard, getting a little better, still riding hard, getting a cold, recovering (barely), riding hard, getting another cold with fever, recovering for longer this time, riding hard, JAYUS ANOTHER COLD??? Not to mention the untraceable general malaise that seems to follow you around like a dark cloud. And most important, that you stop getting better and just fluctuate between being average and recuperating.

Thinking back now, I can't believe what an idiot I was. I so badly wanted to be fast on the bike that I'd just jump on and after a token 20-second warm-up, I'd hit redline and stay near it for the whole workout (as much as I was able). I'd rest a day, then I'd do it again. Another day's rest, and I'd do it again. I'd feel like shit and wonder why. After all, I'd rested in between workouts right?

If you ride like this and finally get on to a training plan, the first thing that'll hit you is how easy the plan seems. A hard day or couple of hard days is always followed by rest or easy days. Workouts with periodic elements (intervals, sprints, hill repeats) always end just as you feel you could do one or two more. It's very rare, if ever, that a workout is designed to “kill” you—staggering home on dead legs is almost never a goal.

You've heard it from the experts over and over. Now hear it from your friendly local idiot. If you want to get fitter, faster and ride further, don't get on the bike and ride like a demon with diarrhoea. As they keep telling you, you don't get fitter on the bike. That's when your body is just coping with all the screaming demands you're making. You get fitter when asleep in bed at night, when the elves come out and start repairing tissue and making it stronger, drilling out more capillaries, rewriting the fat burning code to make it more efficient, bracing ligaments and the many other little changes and improvements that are what we collectively call “fitness”.

The other aspect of rest is that you approach the next workout with enough energy to make it count. Without it, you gradually do less work (the physics one) during a workout, and therefore gain less, even though you feel as if you're driving yourself very hard. Never forget that just because you're panting and tired, doesn't mean you're doing a quality workout. When you're ill, just getting up and walking to the bathroom is tiring, but that doesn't mean it makes you fitter.

Whenever you do a workout, you should do it with the rest of the week in mind. If you know you must get five quality workouts in a week, you're much less likely to murder yourself on Monday. Also, play an even longer game. Remember that once you start exercising, you'll feel so wonderful that you'll never want to stop. What sort of schedule can you (and will you) sustain for the rest of your life? One where you push yourself to exhaustion five days a week? Not bliddy likely.

Why a stable?

Many non-cyclists are astonished to hear I have three bicycles (this is actually a small number of bikes to own, trust me). On hearing this, there's the inevitable, wide-eyed, slightly disbelieving, “But why three?” With an unspoken hint of, “I'm pretty sure you're insane, but let me make you say it so I'm justified in throwing this quiche in your face and running out of here.”

The answer is simple. I own more than one bicycle because there is more than one kind of bicycle.

You could, in theory, have one large pot in your kitchen in which you make everything, from tea to rice to fried chicken, but most cooks understand that different tasks need different tools. And if you don't, I really don't want to come to your house for dinner, thank you. Oh, I'm sure your one-pot chicken stew will be fantastic, but I'm not so sure I'll want the chicken-flavoured payasam. And the chicken-flavoured-payasam flavoured tea.

Different spokes
I think everyone understands the basic bicycle divide: mountain and road. Even the uninitiated can see that one has fat tyres, suspension and a flat handlebar. The other has thin tyres, no suspension, and, usually, the infamous “racing bars” or “curved bars”, known as drop bars. Those who look closer will see that the frames are different as well. Road bikes and mountain bikes have different stances, and put the rider in different positions relative to the bike itself.

But just as under frying pans there are saute pans, omelette pans, cast-iron pans and so on, there are different kinds of mountain bikes (MTBs), each designed for a certain kind, or intensity, of off-road riding. Some MTBs are cheap and meant simply to ride around the park on unpaved roads. As you go up the range, they can take more and more beating, and eventually you end up at the downhill bikes—heavy, extremely strong machines that can barrel down mountains chomping 30-foot drops with ease.

Road bikes tend to look very similar to the untrained eye, but sport differences that make some suitable for touring, others for long, fast rides, and still others exclusively for racing. Many of these are in the geometry of the frame, others are in the features available. For instance, a touring frame will have attachment points for racks, while a racing bike won't. A touring frame will put the rider in a comfortable, stable position, while the racing bike will have the rider bent over in a more “aggressive”, aerodynamic position. And there are a range of bikes that are the grey areas in the middle, and yes, the differences between some of these sub-castes can be subtle.

Imagine if cars weren't as expensive and damaging as they are and that we all lived on big estates with tons of garage space. You can see how we might have many kinds of vehicles. Perhaps a good 4WD for off-roading. A large people-carrier for family runs. A plush, quiet car for commuting. A hardcore sports car for track days and Sunday drives in the mountains. A vintage car to tinker with in the evenings. A cheap runabout for quick errands.

That's the good thing about loving cycles, even motorcycles. You don't have to be a billionaire to have a stable.

Spinformation

With cycling, there are many, many things I wish I'd done from the start and one of them is having cadence information.

When I bought my first “good” bicycle four years ago, I thought $400 was crazy expensive (but had read over and over that about $400 was a line you must cross if you want something that lasts). Ah how fresh-faced and innocent I must have been. So I decided that a bicycle computer was an unnecessary indulgence, and even when I did come around, I bought the cheapest one I could find.

Looking back now, I want to beat myself upside the head and tell me to just pull out the dosh for the Cateye Strada Cadence, the wired one is fine. It's not expensive (I know now), but at the time, paying $40 for a bicycle computer when you could get one for $14 seemed just wrong.

But I believe that a new rider, perhaps more than anyone else, must get a computer with cadence.

There's lot of detail out there about whys and wherefores, but simply, cadence is a measure of how fast your legs are pumping. When peering at sports motorcycles, the first thing many people notice is that the tachometer, or rev counter, is the king of the dashboard. That's because it's a direct view of what the engine is doing, making you a much more informed and efficient rider. Same with cadence (and later, heart rate). It's a direct reading from the engine and is much more useful to the rider.

Many beginner cyclists ride at very low cadences—40 to 60rpm. For us Indians, one reason is most of us grew up with single-speed bicycles, and if you changed cadence, you also changed speed. If you wanted a higher cadence, you also had to be able to sustain a higher speed. So we learned to ride low and slow.

But one of the biggest advantages of gears is that you can vary how fast your legs are turning without changing your forward speed. You can ride at 20km/h with your legs slowly pumping up and down at 40rpm, pushing a big, hard gear, or you can change to an easy gear and ride with your legs flying up and down at 100rpm. The latter is your goal. Not necessarily 100rpm, but to ride at any given speed with your legs moving quickly and lightly on the pedals. A good early goal is 90rpm, but if you're used to slow hard cranking, and find that too fast, at least get up to the 80s.

Why?

Less stress on your knees. Imagine you have to move your dumbbell set upstairs. The low cadence approach is to load them into one big sack and struggle up the stairs, risking having your spine fly out of the top of your head. The high cadence approach is to divide the load into four parts and run up and down the stairs with them. Far less risk of injury.

Less tiring. Back to dumbell example, you can see how the low cadence approach will exhaust your muscles, and you'll need recovery time before going back for the barbells. But the high cadence work leaves you fresh, and you can skip straight back down after the last load of dumbbells and get started on the rest.

But, but, but...

“I want to develop muskulls! Shouldn't I do heavy weight, low reps, i.e. low cadence?”

There's a place for low cadence, high resistance work, but only in short, well-thought-out workouts MUCH later in your cycling career. Even then, these workouts come with warnings to stop if you feel any kind of pain or not do them if there's any soreness in the legs. They are also carefully spaced out. They are effective but potentially dangerous medicine, and don't belong in a beginning cyclists' cabinet.

“But won't I get tired running up and down the stairs four times instead of walking up once?”

Yes, but you will recover in just minutes since you're taxing only the aerobic system. With the low cadence approach, you're tiring the muscles (by using other energy systems, but let's leave that for later), and will need hours or even a day or two for your muscles to recover.

“What recovery? I'm pedalling all the time!”

Yes baba, that is why you must apply high cadence from the start and get your body used to it. You'll pant a little in the beginning, but very soon find that you can switch on your pedalling and run it effortlessly for as long as you need. It's a good feeling, so chase it now!

"Isn't it some complicated sensor system?"

Not really. You stick a magnet on the crank arm (the bit the pedal is fitted to) and a sensor sits on the bike frame. Every time the magnet passes the sensor it counts a rotation, displaying your cadence on the screen. If you have the budget, get a wireless one (quality is more important here, otherwise you'll get glitches from interference) to save the initial trouble of routing the wires along the frame. But even with the wired one, it's just a few minutes' work with a handful of Zip ties.