I was helping at gates last night and was chatting to a friend who almost always beats me out of the gate about gearing and he let slip that he is running 38×18 which is super spinny but explains why he has such a good second and third pedal!
When I got home I went on the Ultra BMX Gearing Chart and I found that his gearing is 49.62 gear inches on my bike. I looked at comparable gearings and a gearing of 36×17 is 49.77 gear inches which is pretty close. Better still I already have a 17t Onyx rear cog in my parts bin from my 20″ wheel where I was trying a 46×17 before I lent the wheel to a friend and put on a 16t cog for him. This means that I can experiment with the new gearing without spending any money at all 🙂
He also suggested to do a lot of spin classes as to get the leg speed and fitness built up so once I have built a base fitness in the gym and my wrist, shoulder and hernia have improved, I will start to do some spin classes in the morning a couple of days a week and in the new year start to do sprints again to build the leg speed more. I especially want to do downhill sprints as that build leg speed really quickly. I will also need to dig out my cadence sensor out and put it on my clip shoes so that I can measure my max cadence over time. In the new year. I also want to start doing pump laps on the track to help with carrying speed as that will be really important when running a lower gearing.
For the next few months I am forgetting about the BMX and building my base fitness by going to the gym at least 4 times a week and riding the road bike once a week as well. Obviously I will not be able to ride the road bike at the moment due to my rotator cuff tear so I will replace it with walking until my shoulder is strong enough to ride. My planned schedule is:
Monday AM – Road Bike Ride (Walking for first 2-3 months due to shoulder issue)
Tuesday AM – Gym Weights (Legs)
Wednesday AM – Gym Recumbent bike
Thursday AM – Gym Weights (Legs)
Friday AM – Gym Recumbent bike
In the new Year I plan to replace the recumbent bike sessions with spin sessions until about March and then if I am able to replace at least one of the sessions with actual BMX Sprints. In the new year I may also do one or 2 sprint sessions with my friend in Trowbridge like I did last year as I found the sessions were really helpful apart from the couple of sessions where I hurt myself!
Hopefully the 6 months off of the track will mean that I can build a decent base fitness, lose weight and heal from all of my injuries before the start of the season next year.
I have worked out that there are roughly 200 days until national racing will start again which is roughly 6.5 months so I should be OK to take 6 months off of the track to heal up and still be ready for racing. I will decide nearer the time if I will race Nationals or Regionals next year but I am airing to racing Nationals only as I am not really too bothered about regionals really as I will not really get anything out of the Brits as I have no chance of making the A final so will not get a plate anyway! Racing Nationals means that I can maybe qualify for the Worlds in the USA in 2024 and show that I should be racing in Glasgow next year.