Truer Words Were Never Spoken

Trips to the bike shop have become all too frequent for me. All the employees know me. Today I stopped in because I needed some advice on my saddle, but ended up chatting to the store manager for awhile.

He gave me some really good advice on several topics, but mostly we talked about my legs being much stronger than my cycling skills. Coming off the marathons, my legs are pretty tough. Because my legs are tough, I never switch gears.

He correctly predicted that I almost always run in too hard of a gear which allows me to pedal at a much slower cadence. I replied that I thought it was because I didn't like trying to figure out the gears (which is true, I don't like fiddling with the gears). Then he said something so accurate that I had to concede the point.

"It has nothing to do with the gears. You'd rather burn in your legs, than burn in your lungs. Cranking in the heavy gears is way to avoid doing what's hard for you."

Ouch. The truth in that stings a bit. Bring on the interval training.