The biking thread

[TB]

There is an entire cottage industry of people writing bits of code to make non-compatible bikes work with zwift via github, usually involves 2 devices where one acts as a sort of "emulation" and the other runs zwift. You could try searching on the Zwift forums to see if anyone has done one for your bike. Zwift is an open platform, as far as I can tell so just because a bike isn't listed as explicitly compatible, doesn't mean it won't work. If all else fails, you could always rig up a cadence and speed sensor and get it working that way, though you won't have auto-resistance for climbs.

I might be heading down a rabbit hole that I really shouldn't but I'm considering moving a PC that doesn't really get used into the exercise room and installing GoldenCheetah on it.

GoldenCheetah

www.goldencheetah.org

Under the Ride Indoors section they expressly call out Monark LTx/LCx Ergometers so it should be able to pull some kind of data from it. I think?

Congrats, I had no idea stationary bikes got that expensive!

I didn't, either!

edit: I'm tempted to recommend listing the bike online for seriously like $5k and use the proceeds to buy a wahoo kickr bike...

Don't tell my wife but I had considered something similar.

- - - - -

I did my first ride on it yesterday with no prep whatsoever (ie - no water, etc) and managed this:

I had it set at 100 watts and for the 20 minutes I held steady at 85RPM. Entering the ride into Strava, it put me at 20.7mph.

This morning I did another 20 minute ride at 100 watts and got this:

Apparently I need to remember to stop the ride before I select the program as the extra 2 minutes was me pedaling while I was looking through the menu.

Even so, Strava put that at 22.6mph and I was able to hold 95RPM for over half of the ride. If I wasn't paying attention, I was closing in on 105 here and there.

I will say this, though. Twenty minutes on this bike kicks my butt way more than 60 on the elliptical at the gym does! Now I just need to get my duration up. Hopefully the fan I just bought will help with that.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

A fan is absolutely essential. Go for the biggest one you can get your hands on. Big fan = more CFM for a given airflow velocity, basically it will move a lot more air much quieter than a small fan. At the end of my sessions I'm typically soaking wet...and that's with the window open and my fan running at full speed. Also be sure that you have not just water, but something with electrolytes in it (I like the powders that you mix with water) as without replacing those salts, I find that my heartrate creeps up even with a steady effort.

20mph @ 100 watts...hmmm, that seems optimistic. I don't think that's factoring in aerodynamic drag. I find in the real world, I'm probably around 150-175 watts to maintain 20mph, at least on my bike. A more aero bike would obviously be more efficient. I have noticed that Zwift speed seems higher for a perceived effort versus real world speed. They have idealized thinks like pavement friction, aero/wind, tire pressure, etc I think.

RE Cadence - I would try to find a way to monitor your heart rate at the same time. It can be informative about what cadence is your personal sweet spot and also serve as a really effective effort/pacing gauge. For instance, if I know I have an hour of work ahead of me, I know if I keep my HR below 160 it will be minimal pain. It's still doable at 180, but it's gonna hurt. At 190 I am not going to last an hour. At 200 I'll be seeing red in < 5 minutes.

 

[Shaun]

20mph @ 100 watts...hmmm, that seems optimistic

Very optimistic unless @TB weighs around 15kg

 

[TB]

A fan is absolutely essential.

I bought a cheap 16" pedestal. Even on low it helped immensely but would have been better on medium.

20mph @ 100 watts...hmmm, that seems optimistic.

Very optimistic unless @TB weighs around 15kg

Having never even considered looking into watts, I have no idea what kind of numbers I should be expecting. All I can go off of at this point is the information the bike is giving me (see previous pictures) coupled with the mph from Strava.

I would try to find a way to monitor your heart rate at the same time.

My resting heart rate has always been high, even when I've been doing decent amounts of cardio. It gets better, but it's never all that low. That said, it's not ideal but I used my phone to check my heart rate 10 minutes into the ride and I was at 160. Twenty minutes in I was at 172 and a few minutes after I finished I was back down to 152.

I feel like I could have upped the watts and maintained the RPMs but I don't want to overdo it since I didn't ride at all last year and would rather ease into it.

Also, my sit bones hurt. I need to switch out the old people seat he had on it for the original one that came with it.

 

[TB]

I'm rather quickly talking myself into getting both the official Monark software for the bike and the third party GoldenCheetah software installed on a PC and seeing what they can do. Now I just need to find some time to dig into it.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

 

[TB]

Not just yet but I'm certainly slipping.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

On the other side of the spectrum, since you have bought yourself a high end medical device, for god knows what reason, you could start a rehabilitation clinic out of your house. Surely a medical license isn't needed for such a harmless thing like an exercise bike? Right guys?

 

[TB]

On the other side of the spectrum, since you have bought yourself a high end medical device

Another high end medical device, you mean. My son has a vest for his CF that, somewhat ironically, is called a Monarch.

Surely a medical license isn't needed for such a harmless thing like an exercise bike?

Got that covered. My wife is a NP.

Doubt she'll be on board, though. She's too busy crocheting baby blankets.

 

[Shaun]

I'm rather quickly talking myself into getting both the official Monark software for the bike and the third party GoldenCheetah software installed on a PC and seeing what they can do. Now I just need to find some time to dig into it.

There are other software platforms to look at too mate, Rouvy, Fulgaz, Trainer Road etc.

From memory Golden cheetah is a full on deep training app by numbers.

Surely a medical license isn't needed for such a harmless thing like an exercise bike? Right guys?

As long a TB wears a white coat and with a stethoscope dangling from his neck it should be fine.

 

[girabyt3]

To change news a little bit... My old grips handled me well for a full year, but I think its retirement time for them... 😅




Already changed them and man... These ones were hard as (beep) to install, they were so hard i had to hammer them down... 😳

 

[TB]

There are other software platforms to look at too mate, Rouvy, Fulgaz, Trainer Road etc.

I'll add them to my look into list.

From memory Golden cheetah is a full on deep training app by numbers.

I'm only noting that one since they expressly call out supporting the LC6.

As long a TB wears a white coat and with a stethoscope dangling from his neck it should be fine.

I have both items in my house right now, only the white coat has my wife's name on it.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Having a trainer is really illuminating RE recovery, hydration, fuel etc. If I'm riding my bike outside, it's very unlikely I'm doing the same route that I did the last time I rode my bike, that's just my preference. Because of the differences, it's hard to judge if the ride itself is more difficult, I'm trying harder, or I'm just tired. However, on the trainer, every day feels exactly the same and so it's pretty easy to compare efforts. The day before yesterday I did a 80 minute tempo ride with surges into V02 max. I was well rested, I had a lot of fluid, and I ate beforehand. It was a hard effort, but I felt good. This morning I did a 60 minute zone 2 ride and I felt awful. My HR was not particularly responsive and my legs felt just really heavy. It didn't help that this was a fasted ride. My HRV is also down. Seems like I need to take a day off.

 

[W3H5]

Popped into the bike shop featured in that YouTube video this morning to check out their stock. It’s not an independent but a Kaze franchise, which after checking wasn’t Chinese, is fine with me.
They quoted me reasonably on the parts I want but the shop lacked that LBS feel as it’s pristine and all their gear is high-end.

I suppose I’ll be back there when my bank balance is refilled. The savings I’ve made on not buying beer alone this month should easily cover the parts.

Legs felt good today. Progress made. I’m heading back out this afternoon to see if I can progress on the mountain.

Already changed them and man... These ones were hard as (beep) to install, they were so hard i had to hammer them down... 😳

Having an air line to slightly inflate the grips as you slide them on makes it a piece of cake.

 

[Greycap]

Already changed them and man... These ones were hard as (beep) to install, they were so hard i had to hammer them down... 😳

Having an air line to slightly inflate the grips as you slide them on makes it a piece of cake.

As much as I wouldn't like to say this... those look like locking grips and as such the air wouldn't help. Were the lock rings loosened (usually with a 3 mm Allen key) before installing them?

 

[girabyt3]

As much as I wouldn't like to say this... those look like locking grips and as such the air wouldn't help. Were the lock rings loosened (usually with a 3 mm Allen key) before installing them?

Of course, I even removed the screws and used alcohol to create the slippery layer... Didn't help either...

 

[girabyt3]

Thank you, Doddy

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Egan Bernal, winner of the 2019 TDF and a rider who I happen to like very much, has had a pretty bad training accident.

Bernal, 25-years-old, was in stable condition following “successful surgery” for a broken femur and patella, a damaged lung and spinal trauma, according to a statement Tuesday morning from Clínica La Sabana, a hospital on the outskirts of Bogotá, the Colombian capital.

From what I understand, a bus stopped to drop a passenger and he slammed into it at approximately 30mph. I really hope this is not a career ending injury for somebody who seems to genuinely love the sport.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

My bike's status has changed from "processing" to "in picking" which, and I don't speak British, I think means that they are building the thing.

 

[Michael88]

I have a question for the bikers here, I'm mainly an advanced level weight lifter / powerlifter - see signature- (used to do a lot of cycling but haven't done much in the past 3 years) but I got myself a stationary bike to keep my cardiovascular system healthy. I'm not trying to lose weight or become a serious cyclist, but I'm a bit lost on what to aim for.

I feel like doing 30 minutes 5-6 times a week is the sweet spot and is sustainable long-term considering my other training that is 10 hours / week lifting weights plus having a full-time job, but I don't know anything about heart rate or watts / hour etc.

My bikes computer says I do about 350 watts per hour and that's what I aim for for now as this feels comfortable yet challenging (like 85% intensity), no idea if that is good or bad for me. One other strange thing is I cannot get my heart rate above 90, usually I'm hovering around 80-85 which is confusing since I read that ''real'' cardio begins way above 100 beats per minute. I tried to get to 100 bpm but that basically requires me to do sprints on very high difficulty settings, no way I can do that for longer than 1-2 minutes. Am I simply out of shape? Is my training useless or even harmful? Are there any guidelines?

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

350 watts at 90bpm? Somethings up or you should be entering some world tour races.

Either your power figure is wrong or your heartrate figure is. I'm not sure what 350 watts per hour means...that's like an integral of power (1 watt = 1 Joule per second) maybe you could figure out what the bike computer is reporting and reply again. But there's simply no way you could do 350 watts for an hour if you are out of shape.

For reference, here's a chart of "typical" w/kg numbers for cyclists of different fitness levels. FT = functional threshold or around how much power you can sustainably produce.

350 watts at a typical body weight would put you up in at least category 3 racer level. I think this chart is a little optimistic towards the bottom end of the scale as I don't think most truly untrained riders could get anywhere near 1.86w/kg starting out, especially ones on the heavier side. If your trainer/bike has an ERG mode, I'd suggest doing a ramp test to see what your real power number is. More info on power here and here

Hope this is somewhat helpful, but I think we need more/better information.

 

[Michael88]

Thank you for your reply - I haven't done proper consistent cardio in years, but like I mentioned before I do hard competitive weight lifting and strength training 10 hours / week, it probably helps some with cardio as well. I'm definitely in shape but not geared towards cardio. I move six to over ten thousand kilograms total per training session.

As for the FTP score, 350 watts is only theoretical since I only do 30 minute stints since I don't want to overdo it as cycling is not my main goal, but doing 30 minutes on theoretical 350 watts/hour is like 80% of what I feel I can do and I surely can do that for another 30 minutes if I really wanted to.

If the 350 watts is correct and I weigh 107kg / 236 lbs that gives me a 3.2 score on watts per kilogram which seems to put me into the average category, according to the links.

About the heart rate, not sure what's up with that either, if I push myself really hard I can get up to mid 90's BPM but I cannot break 100 for more than 1-2 minutes, its definitely not an intensity I can keep up. Problem is I read proper cardio begins at 100+ bpm. Not sure what I am doing wrong here, 80-85 BPM is what I am doing right now. I don't want to train so light its just useless work.
Would be high intensity training an option, like doing several stints of 2 minute sprints going in with everything I have and then try to do longer and longer stints to get some training time at 100bpm+?

 

[W3H5]

350 watts is racer territory. I used to be lucky if I could sustain 200 for an hour.

Legend Pantani had a resting heart rate so low that he had to get up mid sleep to get on a spin bike to stop his heart from completely stopping. I imagine when he was on the rivet his rate was similar to yours.

I get out of breath just looking at a bike lol.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Thank you for your reply - I haven't done proper consistent cardio in years, but like I mentioned before I do hard competitive weight lifting and strength training 10 hours / week, it probably helps some with cardio as well. I'm definitely in shape but not geared towards cardio. I move six to over ten thousand kilograms total per training session.

As for the FTP score, 350 watts is only theoretical since I only do 30 minute stints since I don't want to overdo it as cycling is not my main goal, but doing 30 minutes on theoretical 350 watts/hour is like 80% of what I feel I can do and I surely can do that for another 30 minutes if I really wanted to.

If the 350 watts is correct and I weigh 107kg / 236 lbs that gives me a 3.2 score on watts per kilogram which seems to put me into the average category, according to the links.

About the heart rate, not sure what's up with that either, if I push myself really hard I can get up to mid 90's BPM but I cannot break 100 for more than 1-2 minutes, its definitely not an intensity I can keep up. Problem is I read proper cardio begins at 100+ bpm. Not sure what I am doing wrong here, 80-85 BPM is what I am doing right now. I don't want to train so light its just useless work.
Would be high intensity training an option, like doing several stints of 2 minute sprints going in with everything I have and then try to do longer and longer stints to get some training time at 100bpm+?

What is your resting heartrate? How are you measuring power? Are you sure you aren't looking at cadence (RPM) rather than heartrate? (BPM) lol

Do you ever run? Running definitely activates cardio faster than biking, at least in my experience. I find it really hard to believe an untrained cyclist could sustain 350w of power at a sub 100 heartrate. That's like a brisk walk cardio intensity.

Maybe @Shaun could provide some insight, because this is outside of anything I've seen / heard of.

Edit: The only other thing I can think of is that you are riding like you are lifting. Like 50rpm ultra potato masher style. In that case, it's basically the same thing as lifting weights. Can you provide any cadence data?

 

[Michael88]

What is your resting heartrate? How are you measuring power? Are you sure you aren't looking at cadence (RPM) rather than heartrate? (BPM) lol

Do you ever run? Running definitely activates cardio faster than biking, at least in my experience. I find it really hard to believe an untrained cyclist could sustain 350w of power at a sub 100 heartrate. That's like a brisk walk cardio intensity.

Maybe @Shaun could provide some insight, because this is outside of anything I've seen / heard of.

My resting heart rate is typically in the mid 50's, blood pressure typically absolutely normal at 120/73. Yeah I'm definitely looking for pulse, lol, but testing it with my own fingers to make sure its definitely in the high 80's territory.

I don't run if I can help it LOL! I weigh 107kg/236lbs and its hard on my joints, also I do a lot of leg training, doing squats, deadlifts etc. which is hard on the joints also, that's why I choose cycling as low impact cardio training. I used to be an active cyclist until I stopped a couple years ago to focus on lifting entirely. Don't remember the numbers I did back then but around here its jut mountains, most of my cycling tours were just about climbing and climbing. I remember I was really good uphill, not so good (fast) on the straights, probably because of my high weight.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

My resting heart rate is typically in the mid 50's, blood pressure typically absolutely normal at 120/73. Yeah I'm definitely looking for pulse, lol, but testing it with my own fingers to make sure its definitely in the high 80's territory.

I don't run if I can help it LOL! I weigh 107kg/236lbs and its hard on my joints, also I do a lot of leg training, doing squats, deadlifts etc. which is hard on the joints also, that's why I choose cycling as low impact cardio training. I used to be an active cyclist until I stopped a couple years ago to focus on lifting entirely. Don't remember the numbers I did back then but around here its jut mountains, most of my cycling tours were just climbing and climbing.

My RHR is like 47 but it still jumps up into the upper 100s quickly on the bike. I think we need to know how fast you are spinning those pedals.

 

[Michael88]

My RHR is like 47 but it still jumps up into the upper 100s quickly on the bike. I think we need to know how fast you are spinning those pedals.

Wow 47 is great, now thats an efficient heart!

I just checked - my bike does not show revolutions, but what use is it if I don't know the resistance in exact numbers? Its just a friction based brake with no stops. I like to crank resistance up very high and go for relatively low RPM, if I had to make a very rough guess maybe 70-80 rpm? Hard to tell -

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Wow 47 is great, now thats an efficient heart!

I just checked - my bike does not show revolutions, but what use is it if I don't know the resistance in exact numbers? Its just a friction based brake with no stops. I like to crank resistance up very high and go for relatively low RPM, if I had to make a very rough guess maybe 70-80 rpm? Hard to tell -

It doesn't show revolutions but it shows power? That's interesting. Never seen a stationary bike that doesn't show cadence.

I was trying to think of some real stump-pullers in pro racing as a comparison. Conor Dunne is like 6'-8" tall and has apparently put down over 500w for an hour in the past during a Zwift race. He weighs close to 100kg so he's not really a contender for winning races. I was looking at some of his rides on Strava and his HR is what I would call "normal" - well above 150. I don't have an answer for you other than I think one or more of your data points is wrong. Maybe get a fitbit?

 

[Michael88]

Yeah something's got to be off, all I really know is that my heart rate does not go up as it should be even if I go really hard on the bike, checking BPM myself, I have no way of knowing if the bike is showing the correct watts. It really does not show RPM but what I forgot to mention is that it shows kilo calories burned, and that's around 150 in my 30 minute stints.

Is Conor Dunne good at climbs ore better on the straights? I've always found that my weight helped me pedaling up steep climbs, but I've always had a hard time doing more than 32 km/h on the straights for extended periods of times on my pseudo-racing bike. (More like a trekking bike with racing tires). Even with the sprint handle bars to lower my considerable profile.

Are fitbits accurate?

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Yeah something's got to be off, all I really know is that my heart rate does not go up as it should be even if I go really hard on the bike, checking BPM myself, I have no way of knowing if the bike is showing the correct watts. It really does not show RPM but what I forgot to mention is that it shows kilo calories burned, and that's around 150 in my 30 minute stints.

Is Conor Dunne good at climbs ore better on the straights? I've always found that my weight helped me pedaling up steep climbs, but I've always had a hard time doing more than 32 km/h on the straights for extended periods of times on my pseudo-racing bike. (More like a trekking bike with racing tires). Even with the sprint handle bars to lower my considerable profile.

Are fitbits accurate?

Big dudes are horrible on climbs. Power to weight matters a lot there. Big dudes are really fast on the flats though because of some biomechanical scaling. GCN actually just did a pretty instructive video about this last week:



Basically power to weight is much bigger factor on climbs than power to aerodynamic drag on flats because aerodynamic drag does not increase as much as weight does when it comes to body mass.

As a reference point, I did a 30 min high intensity interval ride yesterday (150 watts average, 250w max, 156bpm average HR, 186 max) and, per Strava, burned 300 calories and did 313kj of work. Cadence average was 93 and max was 121 (I'm a spinner lol)

I use a heart rate chest-strap on the bike and have a fitbit on pretty much constantly. I'm actually surprised how accurate the fitbit is, usually within 1% of the HR strap - unless it stops recording which it sometimes does to my hand position on the bike.