I had a really nice commute today. The stars aligned and didn’t have to wait long at the few lights I have before getting to the country roads I take into work.
I’m usually more about 12.5-13mph average, and I had headwinds the majority of the way in.
I’m curious if new tires can help this much? I just installed some Continental GT Urban’s this weekend, running at 80PSI, instead of my pro comps at 70PSI. I was cooking through a few segments. I usually am in 2 and 5/6 gears (not sure if that’s 10th and 12th gear, or some other way. I’ve frequently pondered that on my numerous 40ish min rides). But I spent a fair bit of time up in 2 and 7 today.
I try and focus on maintaining an RPM, rather than a speed (tho I’m sure there’s correlation there). I just try not to smoke my legs early on so I’m not dragging into the office, but wanna keep my heart rate up for the fitness aspect.
My normal door to door commute is right at 9 miles and I’ve done that in 39:XX last week, but had a tail wind. I had to be at the airport to support a colleague so I was VERY surprised when I climbed the hill to the office and saw 43 on the watch, as I started a cooldown loop, with the added 1.6 miles.
Idk if 2 weeks is enough to start noticing gains in performance, or if getting really good tires at a higher PSI is incremental enough that over 10+ miles a noticeable improvement is a given.
by FuzzyDairyProducts
1 Comment
Honestly it can be both or either, good tires with the right pressure can be 10% better than cheap tires with low pressure. I believe GCN did a couple of vides on differnces between tires in terms of efficiency, as well as effects of tire inflation on performance, they might be interesting to watch. Also fitness can improve by that much in a short period especially if you used to be an athlete, followed by living an idle life style for a few years, then coming back to sports/ cycling. I experienced essentially the same thing myself.