Recovery Week and compact cranks.

Its a recovery week and boy do I need it. I have been very tired the last week.

I blew the start of my bike ride today. I went out using the high gears as I can do those now without much problem. However my knee isnt up for that out of the blocks. By mile 5 I was in trouble. However I was able to nurse it and ended up keeping an average of 15mph. Its a recovery week so thats good and it was a good bit of training in case this happens on race day.

I discovered a bit of bad news at the weekend with regards to my bike. There is always the argument about cadence. I like the concept of high cadence but as I haven't done that most of my life its hard to reprogram my brain to take that into account. What I found out was my crank is a compact crank. Which means less teeth. Last year on downhill I could easily hit 40mph this year its about 33 before I run out of legs. I had thought I was dreaming but its the gear ratio.

Compact is great for hills and cadence riders however not the best for downhill top speed or from what I can tell a Time Trial (Ironman is a TT). This is where I make up my time after climbing. So I thought Ill replace the crank it was 200 for a new back cassette. Well it ain't going to happen! A new front crank is about 300-600 plus a new derailer. For the most part it wont matter in Arizona but there is a 5 mile downhill section I would have liked to go faster on.

I didn't know a compact existed. I learned something new!