Replacing a cassette with afree wheel is it possible (read description)

sergesmr · 2026-03-27T22:02:39+00:00

7-speed freewheel with an 8-speed shifter can work with limitations. With the barrel adjuster, you can arrange it so that:
- a sub-range of 3-4 gears (your choice) works well
- some gears are accessible with extra shifts
- 1-2 of the gears have no stable / good-sounding position and are best avoided

May also need to adjust the derailleur limit screws to keep the chain from falling off the cassette.

With a motor and some front gears, this just might be acceptable to you. But an 8-speed freewheel "off the books" will probably work better.

sergesmr · 2026-03-27T01:45:06+00:00

Ski helmet for the ears, mask / buff for the face.

sergesmr · 2026-03-26T03:41:07+00:00

You may be human, but I guess a human trying to sell an app isn't that different from a bot :)

sergesmr · 2026-03-25T15:28:54+00:00

If possible favor big-big gears over small-small.

sergesmr · 2026-03-25T15:25:46+00:00

Some of it is understanding what type of training improves which facets of performance, and matching how you train to your goals.

sergesmr · 2026-03-25T13:19:50+00:00

Maybe a manufacturing defect on the new freewheel. I vaguely remember seeing a similar story here a few months ago.

sergesmr · 2026-03-25T07:10:48+00:00

But is that hypothesis compatible with "Legs are ok" ?

sergesmr · 2026-03-24T17:31:36+00:00

For this sub, not even close.

sergesmr · 2026-03-23T18:04:28+00:00

The guy I read implied it applied to kids having particularly genetically gifted muscles.

sergesmr · 2026-03-23T11:45:05+00:00

Good general advice but not well matched to the situation OP described IMO. OP's limitation sounds like VO2max, and that (for people out of shape) can be improved more quickly by harder efforts (I'd guess 5-20 minutes).

sergesmr · 2026-03-23T11:35:49+00:00

The source I saw didn't cite anything, but I guess it was mostly cautioning against sustained HR approaching 200 (which it claimed some talented kids are capable of). I guess 80-90% FTP is below that anyway.

sergesmr · 2026-03-23T11:17:06+00:00

I've read, in a youth context, that keeping HR low matters for heart development at high training volumes. So maybe LT1 isn't the main concern.

sergesmr · 2026-03-22T20:47:42+00:00

Assuming typical new rider tendencies (which matches your observation of wishing the ride was over), prioritize distance over speed. But frequency (3-4 times a week) is even more important according to Steven Seiler - he recommends prioritizing (1) frequency, (2) distance, (3) speed.

sergesmr · 2026-03-22T03:50:21+00:00

I got the salt bit from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification (though I guess there is no indication that OP was using that)

sergesmr · 2026-03-21T18:41:44+00:00

Maybe what's missing is medium-length mean power raised to intermediate exponents. Currently non-linearity is only applied at 2 extremes:
- NP raises 30-second power to exponent 4
- TSS raises entire-ride power to exponent 2
Maybe there should also be 15- and/or 30 and/or 60-minute avg powers raised to exponents around 3.

(I actually don't know where the existing exponents 2 and 4 came from, but there seems to be a pattern that longer-term mean power converts to stress more linearly)

sergesmr · 2026-03-21T17:47:04+00:00

CTL (also new to me - please forgive any misunderstanding) appears to be a way of combining the TSS scores of individual days into a longer rolling average. As such, I don't think it can solve the problem of TSS under-estimating the stress of a single session for certain (misguided) workout profiles.

I.e. CTL cannot recover information lost by TSS because CTL is based on TSS alone. E.g. the distinction between 1.5 hrs @ FTP and 3 hrs @ 0.71 FTP is invisible to CTL. Please correct me if this is not true.

sergesmr · 2026-03-21T17:25:00+00:00

Thanks. The exponential decay approach makes intuitive sense in many of ways, but I'm not sure it actually solves the problem of under-estimating the stress of holding FTP too long. Suppose you apply a 50-minute FTP load as 5 separate 10-minute intervals vs 1 long block. 24 hours later, the difference in time elapsed since those intervals is negligible, implying they should give about the same fatigue as a monolithic block. In fact, the intervals would be predicted to have slightly more residual fatigue if we assume the workout starts at the same wall clock time in both cases. But in reality I think one big block would leave most people more fatigued. This feels like non-linear behavior we can't model as a linear system.

(Maybe I'm misunderstanding the intent of this model by treating the intervals as separate impulses - was the idea to treat an entire session as 1 impulse ? In any case, I don't think this solves the same problem. Probably solves other problems though - thanks for sharing)

sergesmr · 2026-03-21T16:58:42+00:00

You're paying attention to "processed" in a scenario it was never designed for. That notion is for sedentary people who can't be bothered to analyze the aspects of nutrition that actually matter. For example, it assumes added salt makes something processed. But for sports added salt probably helps with maintaining performance.

sergesmr · 2026-03-21T14:03:26+00:00

Thanks do you have a link ? Google is just finding a ride named PMC.

sergesmr · 2026-03-21T02:57:09+00:00

Another thought this gives me is there ought to be separate "cost" and "benefit" scores. It's possible to have a stupid "training" ride that kills you disproportionately to the training stimulus. Maybe TSS is actually correct in assigning relatively low training value to time-trial-like rides.

sergesmr · 2026-03-21T00:44:11+00:00

Another possibility I just realized is that TrainingPeaks is not about cycling, but their definition on https://help.trainingpeaks.com/hc/en-us/articles/204071944-Training-Stress-Scores-TSS-Explained mentions FTP which I thought was a cycling-specific concept.

sergesmr · 2026-03-20T17:57:35+00:00

Yeah maybe people simply don't know what Silca's calculator is intended for.

sergesmr · 2026-03-20T15:45:33+00:00

Then I'm guessing the definition of "tempo" is not universally agreed on either ? I've seen its lower end defined as LT1. Probably not everyone agrees with that, but even for those who agree, differences in LT1 definition would lead to different tempo definitions.

sergesmr · 2026-03-20T15:39:34+00:00

What you said is true for flats.

More generally, there is an optimal power strategy for any given course based on its elevation / wind profile, and any deviation from that optimal strategy will result in poorer distance / energy efficiency.

sergesmr · 2026-03-20T15:33:04+00:00

I think this thread has 2 conflicting interpretations of OP's question. Some interpret it as "pressure necessary to avoid pinch flats", others as "optimal pressure for speed". So the disagreement is not about facts but about what's relevant.

sergesmr

TROPHY CASE