Equipment - Longer Cranks (175 mm, again)

I was thinking that I'd have a race report from the Nutmeg State Games right around now but I ended up not racing. It wasn't for any reason other than I was a bit bonky when I got out of the car, it was about 55 degrees, and it was pouring rain on and off. In fact the rain decided how long I stayed - I got out during a lull, took refuge in the Expo tent during a downpour, then ran back to the car when the rain took a break.

I had a number of other things going on as well. My Pops has a limited time window that he can be away from home (and all the easier/nicer facilities and supplies we have at home). I could do about 90-120 minutes onsite but any more than that would be tough. With the races running sort of late (45 minutes?) I'd have been well outside his "window of availability" if I had raced.

Another thing that tipped the scaled towards "maybe next week" was that I had just put the 175 mm crankarms back on the bike.

I did it sort of by accident, if you could say it that way. I had just installed a new battery in my SRM spider, meaning I just soldered a battery into the spider. The powermeter worked for a day then went haywire. I assumed I'd screwed up the soldering and the thing shorted or something. So I took the cranks off, meaning both crank arms (yes, I removed the left arm for some reason), removed the chainrings (they hold the SRM "cover" in place), and opened up the SRM. Measured voltage at the battery terminals as well as the circuit board, on the other side of the solders.

3.58 volts, for both.

Which is what it was when I soldered the battery in place. So my soldering job was okay.

When I reassembled things I put the 175 mm crank arms on there, because I had them sitting there and on some spontaneous choice fate thing I just grabbed the 175s when I went to put the left arm on the bike.

I put the right 175 mm arm on the spider, bolted on the chainrings, and stuck that on the bike. Adjusted the N-Gear Jump Stop super aggressively (it rubs in the 39x23, 39x25) so I'll never drop a chain off the small ring.

Put the Exustar pedals on.

I lowered the saddle 5 mm to adjust for the new, lower bottom dead center pedal point. I didn't bother moving it forward because the ISM Adamo saddle is so versatile a few mm fore/aft isn't a big deal.

The rest of the bike I left alone.

I did a short spin, a panic ride, like cramming for an exam, Friday. I hoped that my legs would adapt to the bigger circles. My legs felt all out of whack, muscles straining in an unfamiliar way, super quick to fatigue. I didn't go hard and after a very short ride (it wasn't even 11 minutes) I stopped.

After all that, with the crank change, I just wasn't feeling it for Nutmeg.

Sunday, though, I decided I needed to ride. I did a couple hours on Zwift. I immediately felt better, my legs loping around in circles, turning a big gear over pretty easily. Last Wednesday I was absolutely struggling to hold 170w (in Zwift world).

Sunday? 200w was okay, although my heart rate started to climb when I tried to hold a bit higher level.

Because Zwift penalizes me a bit because of the calculation, I was riding about 30-35w harder than what Zwift said.

After getting an aero boost I decided I'd do a sprint. For me sprints are a focused effort, I roll pretty easy until I get to the sprint, then after I do all I can do to keep my avatar from stopping. See, if I soft pedal at 8 or 10 rpm, the avatar just stops. The sprint wasn't a record effort for me but for being on the longer cranks, not training much, having done two races this year, somewhere around midnight, it was a really good effort for me, within 5/1000 of a second of my last 30 days (Zwift tells you that) but more significantly I put down better power numbers.

Because Zwift sprints are time trials, because it's impossible to jump at exactly the same place and at the same power, and because other riders affect your time (drafting etc), there are two parts to a Zwift sprint: Power and Time.

Note my top times from the last 30 days on the left side of the screen.

My time was okay, 23.07. My best time in the last 30 days was 23.02 but I might have passed someone in the sprint or jumped a hair earlier or something.

However, on power... I gained about 100 watts for my 20 second peak. I didn't jump super hard because I knew I had a 25-30 second effort in front of me, but my peak was still 100w higher than what I've been hitting with the 170s.

When I raced the last two weeks I felt like I was holding my breath the whole time. I couldn't get moving, couldn't do the little punchy efforts I can usually do. I know I'm less fit but it seems that I'm not using the 170 cranks properly, or maybe I'm not optimized for it. The 170s will naturally load the aerobic system more, forcing me to spin. The 175s emphasize lower pedal speeds and torque, so it's more muscular stuff. I think I'm always going to be okay on the muscular stuff and always going to be a bit lacking (or a lot lacking) on the aerobic stuff.

I took today off from the bike but it's looking promising for tomorrow's Tuesday Night race. I hope to test my legs on the 175s then.

Equipment - Fitting

(Disclaimer: although I paid a slightly discounted price for the fit, I gave a saddle that put me way over the top of any discounted rate. Out of pocket costs for me were on par with a retail customer. Over it, actually.)

A long time ago one of the guys that raced at the Bethel Spring Series was a guy I'll call CP. He was a local guy, Cannondale technical something or another, and he helped organize the team that eventually morphed into the current Stage One / Fusion think team.

CP is a sort of car guy as well, and for many years he worked a dream job at Lime rock.

One year, after moving to our present house, I was on my normal Quarry Road Loop when lo and behold, an old Stage One kit (with a rider inside it) turned onto the road in front of me. I caught up to the rider. To my pleasant surprise it was CP. He and I lived in the same town now!

We chatted a bit, I turned off (or maybe he did) and that was that.

He is involved with the local cycling groups and helped me try to get a race going in town. Unfortunately the town balked at the liability aspect of things so no crits here for the foreseeable future.

Fast forward a half dozen or so years and CP reached out to me. He'd just opened up a fit studio, Body Over Bike, not far from where I first spotted that Stage One kit. He asked if I wanted to get a fit done.

I hesitated, for many reasons.

I'd worked on my position for many years, slowly honing it, experimenting with variations, and arriving at what I felt was close to my optimal position after literally decades of experimenting. I was thinking I might have just a bit more length possible in my fit but it was otherwise pretty good. So, in my mind, my fit was pretty good.

There was another thing. Ego.

I didn't want to be found wrong.

I can admit that now, although it was hard initially to think this. I'd poured a lot of time and energy into my position, and I sort of needed, for my mental sanity, for my position to be right. Some of my A-B-A experiments (one position, then another, then back to the original) took many months, and during the B phase I had some pretty bad races and rides. I spent two separate seasons testing a different crank length, both years with the same dismal results. Effectively I had gambled and written off two seasons of racing to see if a particular crank length worked for me. I paid for my experiments, both fiscally and mentally. I was afraid to learn that all that was for naught.

Finally, I didn't want to be shoehorned into someone else's idea of what I should be doing. When I first used the Fit Kit, back in the 80s, it basically told me a definitive range of measurements. Once I strayed outside of their parameters it was game over, at least from the Fit Kit's opinion. My weird proportions meant I didn't fit anything, and the Fit Kit told me that I was just wacky on the bike. Of course back then there were no power meters, very little sophistication in measuring accuracy, and a lot of, "Yeah, that looks better." I know because I did that with my customers, my clients, when I fit them.

Eventually I got over my fears, doubts, and insecurities. I called up CP and took him up on his offer to do a fit for me.

My Fit Philosophy

In terms of fit thoughts I have two things that I think work in my favor. The first is that I'm not afraid of thinking outside the box - if I learn that I might be better doing this or that I'll analyze the idea and, if it's even remotely possible that the change is good, I'll give it a shot. The second is that I've had some significant success stories when fitting others. A corollary, and sort of significant, I've had no real failures that I know of.

I definitely think outside the box. Back in the shop days, for a recreational woman rider, I recommended a pretty aggressive position. She had back problems, she felt like the bike wasn't going anywhere, her saddle was uncomfortable, and she didn't feel like the bike was stable. I dramatically lowered her (straight) bars, added bar ends for more positions including a longer one, and moved the saddle up and forward. I wanted to reduce weight on the saddle, increase leverage on the pedals, and increase weight on the front end. These would deal with her saddle issues, speed, and stability, respectively.

I went that direction because I had similar issues, over the years. Her position mirrored mine, believe it or not, just on a hybrid instead of a road bike. I explained my philosophy, my goals, and how such a position would meet those goals. Hesitant but trusting, she tried it.

And she loved it.

She rode faster, easier, and in more comfort.

I fit only three very talented riders in my life - a strong duathlete, a Masters stage racer, and a low level pro. The dualthete admitted to me many years later that, even with sponsorship on nicer, more aero bikes, he would race on the (wrong sponsor) bike I fitted for him because he felt so much better on it. He was ranked in the teens (13th or 15th or so) nationally on the bike, so he was no slouch.

The Masters racer came to me, a bit desperate, after finding it virtually impossible to win a big Masters stage race in South or Central America, the biggest Master's stage race in the world. He was okay in the road race and a circuit race, but in the time trial he would lose a bit too much time. After I fit him to his TT bike (he seemed very dubious about the whole process) he went and won the stage race thanks to his time trial. He randomly reminded me of that a few times over the next 10 or so years - it was very nice to hear him thank me for my fit work yet again when I saw him at a race or something.

Finally, the pro. I may or may not have helped him, but the fact that he came to me asking for help after getting fit by (Euro) pro team staff… that was enough for me.

Body Over Bike

So that brings me to CP and his fit studio. I knew my life would be changing in the near future, severely limiting the time I had to ride and race - I'd be taking care of my elderly dad, basically tethering myself to the house.

Even so, I was thinking of ways I could progress with my riding. I wanted to use the limitations in my life to focus on things I'd let go. Since I'd be homebound for the most part I wouldn't be able to race much or even train outside.

Therefore I thought about "indoor stuff". I plan to focus a bit on my diet, which, after a very high A1C blood reading showing me as diabetic, forced my eating habits into a slightly unexpected direction. I wanted to take some time to perform badly needed maintenance on my bikes. For example those that race with me may have noticed I had no spare bike for a couple years now - it's still being put back together. I never bothered changing my chain this year so I'm a super loose, super worn chain. Even my bar tape dates back two years, and because it's black tape on black bars, you can't tell that half the drop on one side isn't even covered in tape. Since it's not noticeable from, say, 50 feet away, I haven't bothered replacing it. I can catch up on this kind of stuff while I'm at home.

And, significantly, I wanted to explore possible position changes on the bike. Since I expect to be on the trainer virtually every ride for the foreseeable future, I'd have a great laboratory for experimenting on fit. I could do some pretty straightforward "before and after" type comparisons, I could make changes mid-ride, and I could sort of measure power changes from one position to another.

Therefore CP's offer to do a bit more structured fit came at the perfect time.

Due to my then work schedule, and my preference to come in on one of my work late nights (so I could spend my early evenings with Junior and the Missus), we scheduled my fit session for 8:30 PM on a weekday evening. Expecting the fit session to run 2-4 hours, it'd mean a late night for the two of us.

I showed up at the studio with my bike, my riding gear, and a brand new saddle I wanted to try. I kitted up while he set up the fit bike with my pedals, saddle, and appropriate bars, and we got down to business.

Pedaling on the Guru fitamajig.

Note the white rectangles on the wall with cleat cut outs. These are templates for cleat placement on shoes. You can put your current shoe on the template, note on a grid where various landmarks land (I used the heel area), then replicate the position with new cleats or on a second/third pair of shoes. Very useful.

The Guru system has a bunch of Fizik saddles and Zipp bars and stems. We used a Zipp bar that measured the same as my FSA Wing Compacts. My saddle, my pedals.

CP with a corner of his fit studio, Body Over Bike.

We got down to business right away. I had no idea what to expect. I wasn't sure if I'd be told "you fit like this", or if there'd be some adjustments to the "base fit" based on stuff like having a bad back (me) or weird physiological proportions (me again). I went in with absolutely no idea what would happen in the session.

First, he had me stand next to the fit bike thing. Some camera thing scanned me and calculated my physiological dimensions instantly. That was really cool, and, for those with personal space concerns, it meant that no one had to stick a ruler between your legs or whatever.

The next thing was for me to check my shoe size. I was like, okay, whatever you have to do, but seriously, I've worn the same size and make shoes since the early 90s. Thankfully it seemed that I'd been wearing the right size shoes for that time. However, it appeared my feet sat really crooked, my ankles collapsing inward. An insole corrected that. I wasn't sure about the insole thing but I was willing to give it a go.

Next I got to ride my bike on a trainer. I suppose this is so that I refresh my muscle memory on how I fit on the bike I've been riding. CP had the same brand trainer as mine so that was straightforward, no need to even change the rear skewer. I quickly got going.

My first surprise was that my knee, which normally wobbles mid-stroke, wasn't wobbling mid-stroke anymore. I also felt like my feet were much more supported. It wasn't that they were "supported", it was more like they weren't collapsed inward. Before it felt like I was standing with my feet on two slopes, like I was standing inside of a flat-V shaped trough, one foot on each angled side. Now it felt like I was standing on a flat floor.

CP noted that when I was pedaling I reverted to the drops pretty quickly. I pointed out that because my back bothers me I find it most comfortable to be on the drops, and after a 12 hour day at work, I was sort of tired. Apparently many riders end up higher on the bike, meaning they have optimized their bike fit for a different position.

After thoroughly warming up I moved over to the fit bike gizmo. You can see the pictures above, but the main thing is that it allows position changes while you're on the bike, even while pedaling if you want. The only things that can't change automatically are the actual bars and saddle (they have to be removed and installed), the crank length (requires a few bolts to be turned on the cranks), and pedal type (remove/install like normal). Once you have a pedal, saddle, and bars, and you have a crank length selected, it's very straight forward.

CP suggested I give 170 mm cranks a shot. I ride 175 mm cranks, and I have really short legs, and 170 mm would work better on paper. I'd tried them for two seasons, unsuccessfully, but when we changed the arm length to 170 mm the fit bike felt so much better that I decided to give it another shot.

With that we got into the heart of the fit session. We didn't say much for a while - it was all stuff like this:

"You want to go another 5mm on the saddle?"
"I'd like to go forward a bit more on the stem."
"Wait, let's go back, can we compare this position to the one from before?"

Stuff like that.

Oh there was one bit that I think for me was significant. My legs were fatiguing pretty badly. CP asked if I was okay.

"Do you want me to reduce the resistance?"
"Um..."
"It's at 150w. I can bring it down to 80w or so."
"Yes, please."

Haha. No wonder I was fatiguing badly - 150w is close to an average race pace for me. I wonder if I was the lowest "fit power" rider out there.

At one point we were slowly raising the saddle, 5 mm at a time. One move in particular was a bit much so I asked him to bring it down "maybe 2 mm". I felt a bit ridiculous asking for a 2 mm adjustment but, whatever, it felt much better when he made the move.

I should point out that I wasn't being pushed into a particular slot or measurement. It wasn't like, "Your quad is x long so your setback needs to be y cm." It was more if it felt okay for me, with CP making suggestions to explore just outside my comfort zone. Then, based on my requests, he'd raise/lower or move forward/back contact points just a touch.

We ran into something pretty quickly - the fit gizmo ran out of room when I asked for more length. CP punched in the command then looked up at the screen with surprise. There was an error about not being able to move that way.

"Hm. That's the first time I've seen that."

So apparently my torso length is freakishly long because the fit gizmo wasn't able to accommodate me being a bit more stretched out. For me that meant that the length recommendation has to be taken with a grain of salt since I couldn't explore the limits on the fit gizmo.

However, with the bar drop and such, I did notice something. I did want to go lower, just to see what would happen. As CP dropped the bars lower and lower I suddenly felt a twinge between my shoulder blades. I never noticed the sensation before, not in an on/off way. I knew I got fatigued like that but I didn't associate it with a particular bar height. Now there was a definitive bar height value which produced the twinge.

To me this was significant. First, it taught me that such a thing happens. Second, it also taught me to look for that sensation when experimenting with my bar position. I knew I'd be experimenting on my own, and with the length part of the equation sort of "out of bounds", I'd be experimenting on my own.

As we honed in on where I felt good on the fit gizmo, CP would revert my position wholesale to another position. I could feel the difference between two positions immediately, without even having to stop pedaling the bike.

The final step in the fit session was to measure my bike. I had basically forgotten about that until now. CP measured my bike and while keeping the fit bike numbers handy.

The fit bike's saddle height? 518 mm (BB to Saddle rail, not BB to Top of saddle).

My bike's saddle height? 518 mm.

That "2 mm down" that I thought ridiculous? Not very ridiculous.

The results - this is with an SLR saddle.

CP noted that I have some significant drop, over 14 cm (14.2 cm, the lower left blue box in the picture above). I protested, saying that my saddle and bars were sort of level. I pointed out that a taller rider would have much more drop. He called me on that because in his experience my drop was pretty significant. We let Google decide after agreeing that Adam Hansen, ProTour rider, was a "much more drop" kind of rider. Hansen is 6'1", he's not afraid of going against conventional wisdom, and he has a super forward position with long cranks, just like me. We looked up his saddle-bar drop.

14 cm.

Oh.

At the end of my session CP sent me a pdf of my fit session results. This is nice because I have a record of my fit that I can refer to any time.

With the time well after midnight we cut the (first) fit session short. I returned to do a saddle session, primarily so I could explore other, more readily available saddles. I also had this idea of having a saddle that allowed for some setback. Even with my SLR saddle pushed back a bit I was left with only 4 mm setback, a far cry from the 4 or 5 cm setback commonly found on road bikes. Even the rules require something like 4 or 5 cm of seat back.

I'd brought along a Tares saddle I bought new literally 4 or 5 years ago. I never mounted it, never tried it, but because it has a short length it would make my bike look a bit less freakish. I sat on it, hated it, and immediately rejected it. So much for that. This is the saddle I gave CP.

CP examined my saddles, the SLR and the Titanio, comparing the shape of the saddle. We tried this or that based on the saddle shape. However nothing really seemed to match my saddle shape, and the one that was close wasn't comfortable at all.

Then CP made a suggestion. He put an Adamo saddle on, one of those twin tusk nose saddles. I was really iffy on this one but I knew CP wouldn't have me try something if there wasn't something there for me. Plus, as he pointed out, he doesn't sell them, so there was no conflict of interest on his part.

I got on the Adamo saddle and it felt okay. Not fantastic, just okay. However, it was "just okay" all the time, in any position. On my SLR I was "just okay" in one position and it was "horrible" everywhere else. With the older Titanio saddles that I thought fit me best, they were "great" in one position and not very good in everything else.

A day after the saddle session I got on my (SLR equipped) bike and thought to myself, "How the heck did I ride this thing?!" I got off the bike, looked on eBay, bought a saddle, and waited to ride until it came in. I installed it and BAM! I was good. It's "just okay" but not uncomfortable, and I have a much wider range of positions available to me. Sliding a bit back is still "just okay", sliding forward is "just okay". Everything is "just okay", making every position on the saddle totally usable. I haven't done much more than 2 hours at a time on the trainer, if that, but the saddle has been absolutely fine.

Adamo saddle on the red bike.

I bought it off eBay.

An internet forum member mailed me the black one that's on the black bike.

I've been good with the insoles too. I think that I need a shoe that lifts the inside of my foot a bit more than they do now. I started dreaming of a set of custom soled shoes but that's a wild dream for now. My ultimate dream would be to take a page from Adam Hansen's book and make some custom shoes based on the shape of the insoles.

I did two things that screwed me up for a while. First, the 170 cranks meant I needed to raise my saddle 5 mm. However, my first ride on them felt a bit low so I raised the saddle another 2 mm, then another 2 mm. Within an hour my knees were in pain. I returned the saddle to the "right height" but it took about 3 weeks for the knee pain to go away.

Likewise I decided to experiment with a 2 cm longer set up on my own. This was disastrous. I've returned to my previous reach, the one I already had on the red bike with the custom stem.

For now I'm good with the current fit, which the fit basically verified. I prefer the new saddle. I'm trying out the 170mm cranks. I really like the feel of the insoles. I'll see how they all work through the remainder of the season and make decisions from there.

Racing - CCAP Tuesday Night Criterium, June 7, 2016, B race

So Tuesday the 7th was my second race of the year, second ride outside. My first week was a disaster, with a combination of issues making me feel pretty uncomfortable on the bike. As a reminder the main problems were that I had a too-tight headset, making it virtually impossible for me to make small trajectory adjustments. I felt like I was swerving from curb to curb. Which I wasn't, but still, I felt really unfluent on the bike. The other problem was I was experimenting with a longer position. It was okay on the trainer but unacceptable on the road. Because of the custom stem on the red bike I was doing my fit experimentation on the black bike.

For this week I decided to revert to the red bike. It'd have the same reach/drop that I've had for a couple years, once I got my custom stem. I moved the 170mm cranks back to the red bike, the final major undecided change I've made over the course of the winter.

Note: the one major change that seems to have worked out well is trying out the Adamo ISM saddle, the unconventional twin tusk saddle that people seem to love or hate.

With the red bike back on the trainer, before the race on the 7th, I noticed, too, that the FSA Wing Compact bars are much, much stiffer than the old 3ttt Gimondi bars. So a little bonus there.

Initially I thought we wouldn't be racing on Tuesday, due to the weather, but as the 24 hours prior to the race ticked away the weather forecast went from sort of grim ("50% chance of thundershowers") to pretty good ("0-15% chance of thundershowers"). By 10 AM or so I started adjusting my schedule to accommodate the 2 hour time slot the race (stuff to do with my Pops and such).

For me the great thing about Tuesdays is the incredibly quick pre-race process once I've raced there the second time. I have my number, I take my time pinning it at home, using as many pins as I want (I forgot to take a picture of my number two weeks running now), I pump up the tires before I leave (race isn't far away so tire pressure isn't a problem). When I get there I get my bike out, slip on the race wheels which I pumped up just an hour ago max, sign the big form, pay my money, and I can race.

I thought I'd get a warm up lap in and rolled away from our base camp just beyond the start finish. I got maybe 20 feet and Karen, the official, called everyone to the line.

So much for the warm up.

Start

With a two lap neutral start I felt my non-warmup wasn't a problem. Unlike last week I even remembered to bring a bottle, so no stopping and chasing back on during the neutral bit.

And the neutral laps, although it picked up with about 200m to go on the second and final neutral lap, weren't fast laps. I remember watching the Philly race one year, when it was Corestates. Someone flatted in their neutral laps, which are parade laps around a short loop at the start/finish. Thing was that they were flying along, probably 30 mph or faster. A rider from a smaller team punctured, struggled to get back on, the team sent two more riders back, I think they worked so hard that one rider never got back on. At any rate when you hear "neutral laps" you might get a 15 mph thing or you might get a 30 mph thing. Just be wary.

Wind from the left here, then on the next bit it was from the right. Tricky.

The wind was moderately strong Tuesday. Not horrible but enough so that you had to Wind Manage a bit. I spent a bit of the race experimenting - the worst was that in the curving finish straight the wind started out from the left but then ended on the right. This meant being to the right of the rider in front of you as you exited Turn 3 but then being to the left of the rider in front of you entering Turn 1. Combined with the long sweeping, multi-apex curve, it was a bit tricky moving from one side to the other.

I did notice one rider consistently finding shelter to the right as we exited Turn 3. However he stayed right as I moved left and he ended up in the wind as we passed the start/finish. I helpfully pointed out that he should try to stay left at that point.

Then the next lap I realized that the wind had shifted just enough that it was a plain headwind on the start/finish line - staying left or right didn't matter, you really wanted to be directly behind.

So I gave incorrect advice. I'm sure the rider was rolling around for a few laps thinking, "Who the heck does that guy think he is?"

Strung out.

The B race this Tuesday felt pretty hard. Although not quite at last year's A race levels, the race was definitely strung out a bunch of times. People raced aggressively.

I noticed with alarming clarity that when the race got strung out I suffered. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this because although I haven't raced outside I didn't think I'd suffer so much. Obviously I lack some aerobic conditioning, even for me. The only thing I can think of is that I haven't been riding very hard on the trainer; combined with my almost 3 month late start, I'm starting on March legs when everyone else has June legs. If that's the case I never realized how important it was to start early. That's food for thought for a different post - I think it's significant for someone that is "just starting out".

Legs failing me, I had to let gaps go.

As the attacks continued I started doing something I never expected to do - letting gaps go. I literally couldn't respond to the pace surges. I felt like a restrictor plate racer in an otherwise open field (restrictor plates artificially choke car engines, it's like breathing through a straw). I was okay with the easy stuff but as soon as I gunned it my power seemed capped. Based on my SRM data, my heartrate basically plateaued at about 160 bpm. I lacked the conditioning to rev my heart into the upper 160s, something I could do in 2015.

Sitting second wheel, with Jeff right behind.

Picture by Jeff Cote.

Having said that I did manage to get up there once or twice, and someone (Jeff Cote in this case) happened to capture it on film.

My view at about the same time.

Sitting from left to right is the Base Camp with Junior, the Missus, and Pops.

No, I'm not off the back with this guy, although based on my normal crit riding tactics, if you see one rider in front of me it's either 100m to go or I'm off the back.

Moving up hard to do a leadout.

This is on the backstretch of the last lap.

I was pretty redlined so I decided not to contest the sprint. I did want to do whatever I could to lead out the sprint, but the actual sprinting bit I figured was a bit far off. On the last lap no one made an early move so I could follow wheels without going into the red. On the backstretch I moved up the left side.

When I got about 3rd wheel, drawing up to Ralph on ERRACE, I was shouting to get on my wheel and tapping my hip. My riding broadcasted that I was going "now" but just to be sure I was also yelling it out loud and gesticulating as well. Ralph got the message and was the first to make a move.

Jeff takes over leadout duties and basically pulls me until the sprint truly starts.

At the same time my teammate Jeff thought it would be a nice gift to have me win in front of my Pops. Very touching, to be honest, because I really hadn't thought of it. I went out and won the 2005 Bethel Spring Series for my mom, and my dad was there cheering on the sidelines. In 2010 I won and, in my mind, that was for my dad. Now, though, not much registers with him, so any win would be really for my benefit.

Well, maybe Junior's also. He's still getting to understand the whole racing thing and he is learning about "first, second, third, fourth" etc, and it would be cool if he could say "My dad was first!".

In case you're wondering about the Missus, I think if I won she'd be happy for me, but she also knows that my sit and sprint tactics work pretty well with the B race. Plus as a long time racer it's not nice to beat up on newer riders. It's like a low level black belt (mainly earned because you'd have to be a blackbelt in your 34th season of racing... has it been that long?) "winning" against a white or yellow belt.

If I won the A race she'd be extremely surprised as I've never won a proper A race here before (I'm not counting the rain-shortened one from eons ago).

I did win a B race in 2014 but it was about as hard a race as I've ever done, mainly because most of the protagonists were Cat 3s by the end of the season. So there's that. We'll see how it goes this year, but my expectation is that I won't go for a win in the B race.

Ralph goes!

Note Jeff and I have moved right to get out of the way.

As Jeff pulled like a madman I sat on his wheel. To put things in perspective my power numbers here were pretty low. My initial surge to move up the side took about 640 watts, so something I could sustain to the line. Jeff went and I hit 800 watts briefly to get on his wheel, but sitting on his wheel my power quickly dropped into the 300-400w range. I'm sure Jeff was more in the 800w range, if not more.

Jeff moved gently to the right as his legs started to go. I moved with him, not intending to sprint, opening up the left/inside for whoever. At this point Ralph was on my wheel but I didn't know that. I just hoped someone got my wheel before Jeff did his big effort.

Ralph wins!

Note Jeff kneeling by the cone, taking a picture.

A few riders passed us before we coasted across the line. Jeff's leadout was super effective, with just Ralph on our wheel.

The picture Jeff Cote took.

View from the sidelines.

The field was pretty splintered at the finish. It's a sign of a good leadout. The point with a leadout is to first keep the tactical situation static, i.e. people really don't move around much because it's all they can do to just hold the wheel in front of them. The other point is to try and reduce the odds. Usually a leadout will occur around course features like a corner or wind or something. By doing what amounts to an early sprint, a leadout really amplifies the pack effects of said corner or wind or whatever. A lot of times a good leadout will cause gaps to form in the field, like if the leadout started just before a corner it's very difficult to accelerate up to leadout speed when you're focused on not sliding out in a corner.

In my case my "leadout" wasn't super fast because Jeff easily rolled by me. I should have been going a bit harder, closer to the 800w number I hit while getting on Jeff's wheel. However because of my speed differential to the riders at the front of the field I didn't want to go much harder.

Plus, to be totally frank, I didn't think I could go much harder.

Junior and my bike. Note ISM saddle.

After the race Junior, as usual, wanted to pedal the bike, meaning backward. His delight in everything always brings a smile to my heart. Last week I turned off the camera immediately but this week I tried to capture some of his glee in playing with my bike.

With extremely threatening clouds virtually at the course we packed up as quick as possible. My Pops doesn't move fast so if we got hit with a downpour it would have been very wet. As it was was hit some heavy rain just a few miles away from the venue.

As far as the race numbers go, I was actually a bit shocked. I knew the race was hard but I didn't realize just how hard. I averaged 197w for the 40 minutes we raced, including the two neutral laps. Golden Cheetah (the power software I use) is weird - it also says I averaged 215w, which is probably an error. Even worse it says my weighted average ("normalized power") was 210w. In other words it's saying my average was 215w but my normalized was lower at 210w. I'm sticking with the 197w. My average heartrate was just 157 bpm, well below what I'd expect to see.

I did hit a lot of peaks but none of them were very high. With Zwift I've gotten into the habit of looking for 23 second peaks so I do that even now, to give me some comparison numbers. In Zwift, for a max effort, I'll usually see 800-850w, with my best numbers being in the 950w range. In the race my best 23 second power was on the last lap and I did just 547w.

On the other hand I broke 600w about 20 times (of those four efforts broke 800w), meaning the race required me to make some efforts. If I was better, if I could rev my heart a bit more, I probably would have had bigger peaks but fewer of them - bigger efforts to get on a wheel but saving me the need to close gaps later.

Going Foward

So I got rid of the longer position. I went back to the red bike, which has my favored FSA bars in the right position and a properly adjusted headset. I do miss the slightly shorter stays of the black bike so maybe the thing to do is to move the stem/bars over to that. Not yet though as that's a lot of work.

I'm still on the fence about the 170 mm cranks. I felt like I couldn't surge well with the 170s, like I couldn't close gaps quickly. I'm definitely more a pusher than a spinner, although that might be because I used 175s for 10 of the last 12 seasons. However I definitely tend to push too much, as illustrated by the time I had a mechanical and had to do the Tuesday Night (A) race in the 39T chainring. So maybe I need to learn how to spin again?

I don't know.

It might be that it'll be easier for me to put the 175s back on. I felt capped like this in 2003 when I tried 175s for the first time. I felt like it in 2008, when I had only 170 cranks for the SRM, and again in 2011, when I tried to find some more speed. My best years in that time, 2005, 2010, 2015, I raced 175s.

Hm hm hm.

Equipment - Black Tsunami, 2.1

(2.1 because it was 2.0 and then I fiddled with it)

Over the winter I experimented a bit with my bike. I raced it Tuesday May 31, my first race of the year and my first ride outside. I'll go into the race in a different post but I was on the black bike for the first time in a couple years. The main reason? I wanted to experiment with reach, and the red bike's custom stem makes it impossible for me to fiddle with reach. On the black bike, with a normal 12 cm stem as "default" I have room to go further out.

Longer stem with 26.0->31.8 adapter for bar/stem

My 26.0 bars, dating back from about 1997 or so, didn't fit the only 14 cm stem I had that would fit the black bike. Luckily I got some Wheels Manufacturing adapters. Made with aluminum, they allow the 3T stem to hold the 3ttt bars. And yes, the company changed names between the 1990s and now. Old was 3ttt, now it's 3T.

The rear triangle. 39 cm stays make it super compact.

I love the short stays for out of saddle sprinting. The black bike is marginally shorter than the red bike. It might be my imagination but the black bike feels a bit better out of the saddle.

The cranks are 170s. I tried them but I think I'd need a lot of outdoor time to get used to sprinting on them again. I used to do 10-15 sprints once a week for 2-3 months (plus race virtually every week) before I felt good sprinting on 167.5s and 170s. Nowadays I don't have that kind of time/energy. The 175s feel good out of the box even if on paper they're slower. I'm about 20% slower in my sprint than back in the day. I'm sure part of it is that I no longer do so many sprints, but I'm sure my age has a lot to do with it. I've given up on trying to regain that lost speed.

Using these saddles now, they are great for me.

Another thing I'll post on but the Adamo ISM saddles are great for me. They're very heavy, such that it's pretty noticeable when rocking the bike, but otherwise they're great. I didn't have problems before but after I tried the saddle I couldn't go back to the SLR that I had on the bike.

Detail on some cable management stuff.

With the longer stem I had to re-anchor all the cable housing. It worked out well, very compact, full range of motion for turning the bars. The random computer wire is for the SRM.

Front/wind view of cables.

The "aero" appearance of the cables. My bike is so short that the cables realistically don't play a big part of aero. Someone said somewhere that a foot of exposed cable is about 1 watt at some higher speed, 25 or 30 mph. My total exposed housing is probably a foot, if that. So not a big concern objectively speaking. Subjectively though I like clean housing and, my preference, internal routed housing.

Exustar pedals keep my foot in much better than the Keo Max 2 that I bought.

Another future post topic. I've been riding some old Keo Carbon pedals for forever, I think since 2007 or so. I bought more Keo pedals, the Keo 2 Max specifically, to replace the pretty worn Keo Carbons, but I unclipped out of them regularly, seated and standing. It was pretty disconcerting. The Exustars retain my foot better.

Detail on the dual speed pick ups and clearance to crank.

Because I ride Zwift on the trainer, and because I ride the trainer most of the time, I want an Ant+ speed sensor. The SRM uses its own proprietary speed sensor. I didn't want two magnets on the wheel so I set up the two pick ups on either side of the chainstay. The SRM is under or inward, the Ant+ is the big squarish one up top.

The SRM hangs down for the clinchers, points inward for the race wheels. Those have much more inboard spokes due to rim height, and all my wheels have basically the same hub, all HEDs.

The Ant+ points up and is set for my regular clincher wheel. I don't use Ant+ for racing so I don't have to adjust it.

The same pair of zip-ties holds both mounts tightly. I can rotate one or both mounts around the chainstay.

Although I like this bike I prefer the FSA Compact bars. I'll need to get a second custom stem for this frame so I can use those bars. Ultimately I'd like the newer Campy shifter shape as I much prefer them, but these work.

Equipment - End of Season Maintenance

Not to be confused with "Beginning of Season Maintenance", naturally.

The end of each season sees the normal wear and tear on the bike, the stuff that you think, "Well, it should be okay next week". My thought process usually goes a bit more like, "Well, I'll replace that part next week".

In Maine I don't think I mentioned it in the post but right before I left for the last Kingman Loop I switched out the cleats. It's one thing to break a cleat at home, no more than about 20 minutes away from home base, with so little elevation changes that it takes me 40 hours of riding to climb the same amount as 8 hours of "flat" riding in Maine.

It's another thing to break a cleat in a place where I may not have a cell signal, there aren't any bike shops around, and where I may be a couple hours ride away from home base. Even if I had a signal it may be that the calvary, i.e. any potential help, may not have a signal.

Finally there's the off chance that I run into some wolf or something, even get bitten by a couple of dogs.

With these factors in mind I felt it prudent to swap out the cleats. I didn't know when I'd last replaced the cleats but I thought it was in the spring. However, checking back on Strava, it seems that I replaced the cleats last June. Based on my Strava log I have about 200 hours on the cleats. This includes a bit more walking around than normal at some points, especially at Bethel, and a bit less than normal, like my trainer rides. Whatever, 200 hours is pretty good. I'm at 140+ hours for 2013 and I did 75 hours in 2012 on them after June 2012.

I also took the opportunity to twist the left cleat a touch. Usually I like my heel to miss the crank by about 10 mm. For whatever reason I had my heel a bit closer and I found myself twisting my foot outward all the time. This didn't do much for my clipped in confidence as I unclipped somewhat regularly. With short rides and races I kept forgetting about it, but in Maine, with lots of time, I thought about it a lot.

Therefore when I replaced the cleats I adjusted the left one. Of course I then had a really fast ride (for me) immediately after. No knee pain either, and I have really, really fragile knees.

I kick myself when I realize stuff like this.

I mean, I knew it before, but it didn't seem important enough to deal with it. When I finally deal with it I'd think, "Why didn't I do that earlier?"

Along those lines I switched out my cranks. My SRM battery died in July or something and I've been too lazy to fix it. First I needed to find my Cannondale SI crank tools, which I lent the shop when they faced the BB shell. Ends up I buried it in my gear bag so I'd never forget it. Next I needed to stage a new battery (I have it and I know where it is) and solder it in. Finally I wanted to make a decision on crank length.

This year I committed to the 170 cranks. In 2010, my best recent year, I was on 175s, and I was on them since 2004 (minus a break in 2008) after I dropped a friend and returning to racing road rider while on my 175mm crank mountain bike. I then went to do sprints with a 175 mm road crank and went 10 mph faster than my previous 170mm sprint. I wasn't in shape but I figured that some of that 10 mph had to have come from the longer cranks.

I wanted to try 170s again because in my heyday, back in the 80s and 90s, I rode 167.5s and I was literally 6-8 mph faster in my fastest sprints. I thought I could regain that speed by getting shorter cranks.

Unfortunately aging 20 years had something to do with my loss of speed, and 170s actually made me slower than the 175s. In similar circumstances (tailwind sprint on the same course) I was about 3 mph slower on the 170s. Also I haven't even gotten a whiff of those heyday type speeds while on the 170s.

Therefore I gave up on the 170s.

Instead of doing a new battery and stuff I just put the other SRM Cannondale SI cranks on, the ones from the black bike. The battery is good, I have a second head unit so no calibrating, and it has both the 175s and my best-so-far Keos, the Carbons.

BB axle looks fine

The two right side crank arms.

That's another thing. The Keo Max2 pedals feel really loose, like really loose. The Carbons, allegedly possessing the same retaining force, are much more decisive in their grasp of the cleat. I made the assumption that the Keo Max2s would have the same retaining power due to the same newton-meter rating, but alas the pedals easily give up the cleat.

So my overall changes are as follows:
1. New cleats on my shoes (and they didn't change the retention feel on the Keo Max2s).
2. 175mm crank arms, instead of 170mm. This involves dropping the saddle 5mm to keep the saddle-pedal distance consistent.
3. Second SRM spider with newer/working battery.

I approached my first ride on the 175s with some caution. Longer cranks means a bit more stress on the knees, not because of the higher leverage but because your leg closes more with a longer crank. It opens the same amount, based on the same saddle height, but your knee closes up more. This means more pressure on the knee cap at the top of the pedal stroke.

Well I got on the bike, did some spinning while deliberately not looking at the SRM headunit, and then peeked when things felt okay.

110 rpm.

Whoa.

I expected 90 rpm or lower, after coming from the 170s. Apparently I'm more used to the 175s, even after a season on the 170s.

For 15 minutes I averaged over 100 rpm on the 175s.

No knee twinges, no weird aches, nothing.

I geared up and slowed down my pedaling speed.

One concern with the 175s was that my legs would come up a bit more, a total of 1 cm, based on the fact that my saddle dropped 5mm but the cranks come up 5mm more as well. In my 2012 fitness levels, or even my early 2013 fitness level, I was basically too fat to ride the 175s without gut punching myself with my quads on each pedal stroke.

Now, at the end of 2013, having dropped 12-13 pounds since March, I can pedal the 175s fine.

If I can continue the trend and get down another 10 pounds or so, I'll be back at or close to my 2010 weight. That was a good year, and I hope to at least start 2014 in a similar fashion.