Masher or spinner?

i mash pretty bad, but i've ridden bmx bikes for years, i've only been riding road bikes for a few months now, so i'm making pretty good progress i think....

Johnny O-R said:

I'm a long time masher who's sloooowly improving spinning technique. My knees are holding up pretty well so far, but are there any other recidivist mashers out there?

I'm not a longtime anything, having just gotten back on a bike a couple of months ago after a hiatus of three decades (probably longer than many of you readers have been alive!). But I'm a spinner. I'm too d-mn lazy to even lift my posterior out of the saddle.

Someday I'll figure out that it takes less energy to mash...

Natural masher but sooooo trying develop a little finesse and spin spin spin spin spin. Knees started aching this summer. Finally, I'm putting enough miles on the bike to hurt myself...this is a good thing. I think. 😕

I finaly learned that to climb you have to spin. Spinning on the downhill side aids your recovery as well. I tend to get lazy in a paceline and have to keep reminding my self to spin. It is a totaly different animal to train to spin vs training to mash, but well worht it.

Mashing vs. Spinning. It depends on what I'm trying to accomplish. If I'm doing a daily training ride then I spin as I'm trying to develop my cardiovascular system and I'll want my quads to be fresh for the next day's training. Also, the higher RPMs keeps me from buggering up my knees. :o

If I'm going for a PB then I will slow down the cadence as I tend to get more speed for a given average heart rate that way. The lowest I'll go is ~70 RPM so I don't know if this qualifies as mashing by some.

The only time I'll pedal slower is if I'm trying to squeeze efficiency out of a low heart rate, such as 60% - 65% of MaxHR. Then my RPMs will drop but I'm not mashing the pedals as the forces I apply are pretty low. Last August I rode for an hour with an average speed of 14.8 MPH on the flats with an AvgHR of 60.21% MaxHR. This kind of riding is useless for any kind of practical application though, except perhaps for a recovery ride.

spin always.
legs work just like car engines. You can make big power with big legs at low rpms, or you can use smaller legs at higher rpms to make the same power numbers.
My legs arent huge, but they can spin quite fast, so what I lack in brute power, I can make up for in rpms.
Im usually between 90 and 120rpm on the road and around 160 on the rollers. Once i did 181rpm on the rollers @61 mph.

I mash alone and I spin with the pack.

always spin!!...

especially now here in italia... been riding with aqua e sapone neo-pros' and the way those boys will go next year im spinning!!!...

take it easy...

jb

Where's the "BOTH" option? I start out spinning, then once warmed up I'll mash if I feel like it. Nothing like mashing up a short hill, grunting, sweating, growling, head pounding, that's fun! Long climbs I alternate, mash/spin. There's lots of different levels of either. I can rest doing either one. Sometimes if my ass is burning, I'll stand/mash, but an easy gear so I'm basically just giving the glutes a rest, just letting my bodyweight push down each stroke. There's usually only one gear that works, doing this, depending on wind or hills. One gear too low and you'll "fall" down each stroke, one gear too high and you're pushing again, and not getting any rest. If the quads are screaming from jamming, I'll sit and spin an easy gear. Tuck the knees in, hunker down on the aero bars and burn 90-95 RPMs or so, let the blood flow.

Best to be an "all rounder", I think. Never hurts to be able to spin high rippems comfortably, but there's only one Lance. If you train specifically for spinning, some monster masher is gonna run away from you the next group ride, and that sucks. If you train specifically for mashing, some skinny runt is gonna spin far away from you somewhere else on the ride, and that sucks even worse.

You'll only go as far as your next 5000 pedal strokes will get you. You're only as good as your spirit says you are.

jamisbiker91 said:

spin always.
legs work just like car engines. You can make big power with big legs at low rpms, or you can use smaller legs at higher rpms to make the same power numbers.
My legs arent huge, but they can spin quite fast, so what I lack in brute power, I can make up for in rpms.
Im usually between 90 and 120rpm on the road and around 160 on the rollers. Once i did 181rpm on the rollers @61 mph.

181 rpms?!?!?!? That's waaaaaaaaaay fast! Freakin Wile Coyote on crack! Ya got hydraulic fluid for blood?

Seriously, that's fast. I don't think I've ever turned over 140 RPMs in my life.

Johnny O-R said:

I'm a long time masher who's sloooowly improving spinning technique. My knees are holding up pretty well so far, but are there any other recidivist mashers out there?

Same here Johnny. As a bigger dude(210lbs) mashing just seems to come naturally but I am really working on improving my spin as well.

I was a spinner for a while. But for the last couple of months I've been doing some rowing, so the first time I got back on my bike, my comfortable cadence was a lot lower than it used to be. It'll come back though...

I always keep my cadence between 90-100.

2nd wind that is funny. Mash alone and spin with the pack. Mashing is better alone. Spinning with the pack depends upon the instructor.