Due to a recently diagnosed heart problem I have been advised to stick in sweet spot on bike. Easy enough on road and gravel, not so simple on sharp hills on MTB. Any tips and experience ? Consultant is a keen roadie and knows his stuff..l
Walk up?
No expertise what so ever, but wouldn’t a triple front help?
get a heart rate monitor and take it easy uphills. Find I can after a while ride up 1:4 climbs still in zone 2 albeit not very quickly
E-bike?
Got set up with HRM recently and am on 32x46 so reckon I have to just back off as much as I can. E bike will happen one day but would like to try and hold off as long as I can..
Not knowing your heart condition 'to stick in sweet spot' could be quite some effort as its runs practically up to FTP (85-97% ftp), especially if stuck at higher sweet spot for some length of time.
My cardiologist told me no more than moderate/incidental exercise while I'm being investigated. He actually said no cycling, but I've taken as no more than Z2 for the purposes of sanity and as Z2 cycling can be less stressful than walking. Please can I have your consultant instead?!
Push or ebike
And get a HRM
The sweet spot in question is Thetford Forest.
If long term hrm and ebike.
Lower gears and a HRM.
longdog - what I should have said is that I've not to get beyond sweetspot into threshold (non obstructive coronary artery disease) as doing so increases the likelihood of a plaque rupture.
Looking at My HR profiles on Strava, he is more than happy with my road and gravel stuff and recommends I knock the peaks down when on MTB, as I usually spend between 2 and 15% of a typical ride over threshold, depending on where and how I am riding.
So you already have an HRM. Presumably you've a GPS that displays the data as well. Can you set up an alert to ping when your HR gets to a certain value? Given that your heart rate lags behind effort I'd set it about 10bpm lower than your sweetspot/threshold boundary to give you time to back off but check with your cardiologist.
Strava does have a use after all 😊
Surely simple gearing is the answer - 32 x 50 - should get you up most inclines within your desired range.
Use a HRM
Otherwise its an ebike
Assuming it's a chest strap and not an optical wrist pisher....
Get an ebike. 🙂
Seriously, holding off? why? bothered by what judgemental pricks say? **** that, they're ****in amazing, in your position it'd be my go to bike.
nobeer - yes, chest strap.
Going to go get a shot of Dave's Focus I reckon next week..
Sweetspot is a very narrrow/precise zone. It's top end of tempo (Z3), just into threshold (Z4). Without a power meter you'll not really know.
Tempo (Z3) is a larger zone. Going off heart rate monitor (or even percieved effort), tempo is easier to follow instead of SST
^^^ yes, I have been researching a bit and had a chat with the cardiologist around it last night. His main aim is that I stay out of VO2 max, so around 85% max HR, with max being based on my actual max achieved on hard rides, which is 190, so I am to stick below 162 ish, which is effectively tempo.
32x46 would not be low enough for me, more so on a 29er. So look at 32x50 or 30x50 if you preferto ride not walk, even at the same speed
Be prepared to walk
The BLevo app would be ideal here - you sync it to your HRM and your Turbo Levo (should you have/get one) and you can set it to adjust the level of assistance automatically based on your heart rate in order to keep you in a specified range.
I'm nearly same max HR as you.
You kind of know when you're in tempo without looking at screen. It's not hard riding, but you are mouth breathing moderately.
I heard on some podcast ages ago, velonews probably, that in zone 2, you should be able to ride for long time nose breathing (if you don't have a cold!).
The change in breathing is something to do with moving past the lactate/aerobic thresold LT1 (as opposed to LT2 the anaerobic threshold, which we always call threshold)
If you're on Strava you can join the Crickles group which is all about heart rate data. The web site has a login where you can look at various forms of heartrate data analysis. It also works out your HR zones based on the rides you do and your current fitness/form etc. I think if you give them permission to,
I use a HRM for my commutes. I don't have any alerts setup, I just have my HR displayed to be read easily. For the short sharp climbs I just keep slow steady controlled pedalling, and slow down when I see it creeping up, or if it is rising faster and I'm tired then just get off and walk. I don't have any diagnosed heart condition, just a few times where I've experiend an unexpected sudden rise in HR, most probably due to a combination of over exertion & poor sleep & minor illness.
Re nose breathing, I read once if you can't maintain it you're riding too hard, and at the time I was struggling to overcome a persistent cough. Pretty sure I can sustain bose breathing in HR Z4 (160+ 44yo).
^^^^ useful cheers. Going to do some experimentation with current setups before thinking seriously about an ebike, though I know that will come at some stage 🙂