Background:
I've been cycling back and forth to my work. It's 12km from door to door and I do that in about 30 min so I guess that puts my cruising speed at about 24km/h. This morning I had to hump my way into a force 4 headwind all the way there and after work I wasn't looking forward to the ride home. As luck would have it someone on a race bike passed me just after I left and I managed to catch up to him and used his slip stream. He was cycling a lot faster than I usually do but I managed to keep about 1/2 metre behind him for the 10km that we cycled the same route. We made just under 30km/h, which for my bike is pretty fast. (I have a 24 speed mountainbike with tires 3 fingers wide and a shock absorber in the front fork tht all conspire to keep my speed down in the mid-20's if I cycle any distance on it). That's when the thought occured to me that cyclist must have something like a VDOT tht they track.
I normally run. I cycle because I have to get to my work anyway and I'd rather not waste the time in the traffic jams. When I run I track my VDOT to see if I'm progressing or not. With running it's easy because there's no mechanics at play and conditions don't usually affect your tempo too much.
But how to cyclists do that? Is there a sort of VDOT score that I can track to see progress over time?
So... reading back, that's a long lead in to a short question. Can anyone help me?
R..
I've been cycling back and forth to my work. It's 12km from door to door and I do that in about 30 min so I guess that puts my cruising speed at about 24km/h. This morning I had to hump my way into a force 4 headwind all the way there and after work I wasn't looking forward to the ride home. As luck would have it someone on a race bike passed me just after I left and I managed to catch up to him and used his slip stream. He was cycling a lot faster than I usually do but I managed to keep about 1/2 metre behind him for the 10km that we cycled the same route. We made just under 30km/h, which for my bike is pretty fast. (I have a 24 speed mountainbike with tires 3 fingers wide and a shock absorber in the front fork tht all conspire to keep my speed down in the mid-20's if I cycle any distance on it). That's when the thought occured to me that cyclist must have something like a VDOT tht they track.
I normally run. I cycle because I have to get to my work anyway and I'd rather not waste the time in the traffic jams. When I run I track my VDOT to see if I'm progressing or not. With running it's easy because there's no mechanics at play and conditions don't usually affect your tempo too much.
But how to cyclists do that? Is there a sort of VDOT score that I can track to see progress over time?
So... reading back, that's a long lead in to a short question. Can anyone help me?
R..