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umop3pisdn-
I'll let tester summarise his experiments with short cranks and cadence
If you keep gain ratio constant, you'll do the same speed, within any practical range of crank lengths. There might be marginal differences from the following sources:
- Shorter cranks reducing effecting frontal area and therefore reducing drag
- Higher cadence increasing downstream turbulence and therefore increasing drag
- Higher cadence increasing metabolic cost due to more frequent muscle firing
- Higher pedal force increasing metabolic cost due to greater muscle force and length of contraction
If 2 didn't cancel out 1, and/or 4 cancel out 3, there would be a clear choice between long cranks/low cadence and short cranks/high cadence for racing cyclists :)
- Shorter cranks reducing effecting frontal area and therefore reducing drag
gbj_tester
Right, same thing, yeah. But almost certainly expressed better. So what I'm wondering is whether gain ratio + downwards force or cadence is more important. Probably a bit of both really - if you increase either too much you're going to hurt yourself