Kickstart My Heart

The Stormchaser is a 38 X 17T set up.

Recently I have found myself doing a lot more single speed biking, no doubt due to the Stormchaser landing here for review. I've been riding that quite a bit, of course, with a geared rig in between for good measure here and there. I also have a fitness watch, an Apple one, first gen model. A hand-me-down from Mrs. Guitar Ted. So, full disclosure: the watch may not be the greatest tracker of heart rate, or whatever metric is used to determine the fitness parameters on an Apple Watch. But it is a reference point, and I've noticed a few things about this and the Stormchaser single speed vs geared vs other single speed bikes in my stable.

I've noted that my exercise goal gets met a while after I get to Andy's Bike Shop to work with geared bike. I've noted that I nearly meet it, but usually exceed that goal if I ride the Stormchaser. One day I left a little early, so I decided to really loaf my way to work on the Stormchaser. Going slow, like really slow on a single speed geared like the Stormchaser is, doesn't work well. There is a certain speed you have to maintain, or your muscles will get so worked you will be in trouble before long. So, despite my 'slightly relaxed pace', a pace at which I felt perfectly calm, by the way, I ended up doing half again as much 'exercise', according to the Apple Watch, as I did when I was actually pushing the pace.

Weird. At least to me, it is. The one consistent thing I've noted is that I always do more 'work'- again, using the watch as a reference- on a single speed going to work than on any geared bike no matter how fast I try to go. Using my 'spinny' geared Surly 1X1 does it, and so does my single speed Black Mountain Cycles bike, and it just doesn't seem to matter.

the Orange Crush #49 is geared 44 X 18

 By the way, crank length doesn't seem to matter. The Stormchaser and the Surly are using 175mm arms, with the wheel diameters being fairly close. The Surly has what you may as well call 26+, and the Stormchaser is 700 X 42mm, and yes, that's ever so slightly larger, but they are remarkably close. The Orange Crush #49 has 180mm cranks and 700 X 40mm tires. It doesn't seem to matter what I ride, they all kickstart my heart, seemingly. Except for one outlier....

I rode the Surly on a casual, urban alley/pavement cruise the other day. I had a heckuva time getting my 'exercise' goal fulfilled. Did the exact same route the next day on the Black Mountain Cycles rig and I did almost twice as much 'work', according to the watch. Now I will say that the BMC is geared harder than the Surly, for sure. This actually made more sense to me than the results I got going to Andy's and back. Or maybe my heart rate should have been higher on the 'spinny' 1X1? Hmm...

Now, I do not have a heart rate monitor, no power meters, none of that stuff around here. So, I have no answers to help those questions that might be answered by using such devices. Maybe I should get something...... But then again, I'd probably just ride and think that stuff is too much bother. Like I do when I think about using the GPS computer I have. I cannot be arsed to wait for it to contact satellites and get itself going. Heck I could be five blocks down from the house before it decides it has detected movement, "do you want to record this ride?". Gah! Just let me ride fer cryin' out loud!

Anyway........

Not that any of this matters at all to any of you readers. I just am curious and am watching these things as the data gets compiled on the watch and seeing that single speeds are kicking my heart rate up more than a geared bike. I think that is my takeaway here. Your mileage may vary.