Plan 2020 - CycleOps 300 Pro

One of the most critical things in the 500m time trial is the start. Actually, it's the most critical thing, and it makes sense. The goal with the 500m time trial is to cover the distance as fast as possible. You can do one of two things to do that. You can go faster or you can get to speed quicker.

The problem with going faster is that you're working against aerodynamic drag, which increases exponentially. It will take an incredible amount of power to increase speed meaningfully, and at what I presume is the goal speed, about 40 mph, you're covering about 60 feet per second. There isn't a lot of time to go faster.

With limitations to top speed, it makes sense that the rider should accelerate to top speed as fast as possible.

And that's what all the big racers have been doing for the last 20 years. The top speeds are about the same so they work to get up to speed faster. That means every iota of power has to go into the pedals, not into moving the bike around. So no real rocking of the bike

I first saw the unusual starting technique with Chris Hoy in 2002. I wondered about his technique since there was no rocking of the bike initially. It was more like he was on a spin bike and pushing down. Ends up that is exactly it - you basically lock your leg, push down as hard as you can (which means pulling up on the bars), and you end up putting down massive power and saving your quads for later. Here he is in 2002 (and incidentally he does the 500m in 31 seconds, which would win Nationals for me by a wide margin). And here is a crazy fast sea level kilo in 2019 (go to 21:00). That guy does a 30 second 500m. It seems to me that a 34 second 500m will put me in the ball park for Nationals.

Everyone has acknowledged that starts are critical. Therefore riders practice starts all the time, going to the track if possible. There's a unique resistance with standing starts that simply not cannot be replicated on a trainer - it's high resistance at the start due to the rider/bike inertia, but then it turns into a speed thing, turning the pedals fast with high power. You can't replicate that with the light flywheels on trainers, the 6 lbs or even 12 lbs ones. There are whole training days for starts, using different gears, doing start efforts (50-100m), etc.

For me getting to a track is not possible so I needed to find an alternative. Based on some intranet help from fellow trackies, the low buck way to replicate starts is to get a high inertia wheel. There's a bazillion dollar machine out there but a cheap and usable alternative is the CycleOps 300 Pro. New they were about $1500-2500. I saw them at Interbike in 2009, but I remember thinking, "why would I want one?". I liked the 400 for its ability to adjust power (so you could record a ride and then "replay" it at home, or set power test steps, etc).

Picture from the post linked above.

The 400 (above) is a smart trainer, i.e. it can adjust resistance.

The 300 is not a smart trainer but uses the same frame and wheel.

The 300 was initially sold as a fixed gear bike but later it went freewheel, I think for mass market appeal. When I contacted Saris (the manufacturer) about conversion kits to fixed gear I was told that the 45 lbs wheel still has the fixed gear threads, they just put a one speed freewheel on. I'd just need to remove the freewheel and install a fixed cog and a lockring.

With that settled I decided to look for a 300. They're available locally for about $500, I saw them for less outside the area.

The biggest problem was fit - I vaguely recalled being unimpressed with the bar drop when I sat on one in Vegas. When I looked at the local one I measured what the drop would be from saddle to bars. On my bike it's 14.5 cm. On a 300? About zero. When I measured where the "top tube" intersected the "head tube" it was about where I'd want the stem. With a huge amount of vertical adjustment, I figured that if I modified the frame so that the top of the head tube was as low as possible then I'd be good.

I bought the 300.

And got to work.

First off, the thing is really heavy. Shipping weight is 140 lbs, actual weight about 135 lbs. I struggled to get it out of the Suburban, and it noticeably weighed down the rear of the vehicle. In the process of moving it around I managed to break the plastic mount for the computer. On the good side I figured the weight would help anchor the bike, and the flywheel would really make a difference in replicating high inertia standing starts.

Stock head tube. Very tall.

Black insert in tube.

The black insert is a slippery plastic, sort of like cable housing liner. It's tough, resistant to rubbing forces, and flexible. It makes it possible to have a less than perfect head tube and still clamp the tube tightly. On a regular frame the seat post and stem have to be perfect to within 0.1 mm. With the sleeve, not so much - the tube is probably misshapen by a solid 2-3 mm from top to bottom, with significant distortion around the welds.

The clamp (with the big lever) looked to me like it can be removed. This was my big gamble. I figured they would make the frame modular, with a one piece cast piece for the clamp. No reason to do fancy brazing and lug work on this thing, so all the raised bits would probably be molded into the cast piece.

My request for help on Facebook.

The clamp assembly is circled in red.

The yellow vertical line is my lowering goal.

Note the spot weld bits on the clamp assemble. There are two on each side. When I removed the sleeve there were no weld marks at the top, only a lip to keep the clamp from sliding down too much. I gambled that the clamp assembly was slipped over the cap, a couple welding tacks put in place to hold it, and done. If they used more to hold it I'd be in trouble.

Starting cutting at work.

I didn't have a cutting wheel so I brought the 300 to work and borrowed one. When I started cutting I was afraid of ruining my $500 investment. Plus I'd never cut so much metal at once. I was timid, unsure, and eventually stopped.

Did the cut at home.

I started cutting the welds holding on the clamp assembly.

At home I was a bit less timid. I didn't have to clean up before close, I could work at my own pace (no work interruptions), etc. I generally work well like this although sometimes I end up veering down the wrong path. It's how I did the suspension and quarter panels of the Civic, built the inside of the trailer, fixed the Sentra, got the now-red frame repainted, and it would be how I approached modding the 300.

Cut head tube in front, the remaining frame in the rear.

I needed to cut out the rectangle for the stem clamp.

I tried to mirror the rectangle opening for the clamp wedge. I also notched the tube for the alignment bumps in the clamp assembly.

Notching the frame for the alignment notches.

One thing that I didn't anticipate was just how low I cut the head tube. I knew I cut it lower than the clamp height, and I planned on cutting down the clamp, but it was close. I underestimated how much the clamp overlapped the head tube - it went much further down than I thought it would.

Trial fitting the clamp assembly while holding the cut bit of the head tube.

Red thing is a flashlight to look inside the tubes.

At this point the clamp was about 5-8mm too tall - the lip that was supposed to sit on the top of the head tube (visible on the left side of the clamp) was 5-8mm away.

The pieces in my hand.

You can see how tall the clamp assembly is at the back, opposite the yellow lever. It's over 10mm tall, and I needed it much shorter.

The clamp assembly cut down.

I did smooth it out after.

I cut the back of the clamp assembly almost to the top - I'm just short of the cosmetic trim lip of the assembly.

You can also see the lip around the edge of the clamp assembly. There are notches cut out for the plastic sleeve. The springs spread the wedges in the clamp bit - there's another wedge that is not in the picture, and that one is the one that presses against the tube.

Close up of the finished product.

Note how low the head tube is now - the "stem" protrudes below the frame now.

I had to remove a stop that kept the "stem" from protruding down below.

I can't weld so I planned on using a metal epoxy to resecure the clamp assembly to the head tube. However, I actually did not do the last step in the process. I'll do it later but the metal epoxy I have was dried (I used it on the Honda quarter panels about 10 years ago!) and the clamp is holding fine right now without any adhesive.

The finished frame bit. 

The wheel still needs to be converted to a fixed gear.

The major mod is done now. I still have to remove the BMX freewheel off the wheel and install a fixed cog and lockring. I want to put different pedals on it also - the Keo Max pedals are too easy to slip out of, which is why I don't have them on my road bikes (I've unclipped multiple times during sprints). I may use my old SPD-Rs (the kind that don't unclip easily), or I'll use the one Look pedal that doesn't release accidentally, the original Look Keo Carbons that I still have in my pedals bin.

I gave it a test launch last night. I was in my PJs, no socks, and went to do some lifting before bed. I slipped on my shoes barefoot, adjusted the saddle, and did a Chris Hoy imitation. Junior has watched a bunch of starts with me and even he knows the drill.

Beep at 30 seconds.

Do what you need. Look around. Look down. Wiggle your hands on the bars. Think of the upcoming effort.

Beep at 10 seconds.

Focus. Hands still now. Prepare to send it.

Beep every second from 5 seconds.

At 2 seconds you lean a bit forward.

At 1 second you throw your butt way back, and start launching forward so that...

At "GO!" your pelvis is thrusting forward so it's over your front hub, your left (track tilts to left so you start with left so you don't take yourself out) leg straightens, and you push down as hard as you can while you pull with your arms as hard as you can. It's like doing a dead lift, max power, hold your breath, just get the bike going.

And I almost flipped over the bars as the rear of the 300 came up off the ground.

Heh.

So I have some more mods to work on, to keep the 300 planted - apparently 135 lbs isn't distributed properly for standing starts.

And then I can work on some full power starts.

Plan 2020 - Wheels

Track Wheels

Other than the rider's position (meaning the aero drag of the actual rider), the biggest aero improvements can be made on wheels.

Track wheels are different from road wheels

First, they have to be secured using a nut and bolt type system. They cannot use a quick release skewer.

The rear dropouts are horizontal, meaning you can move the hub fore and aft. Most road dropouts are vertical so no horizontal movement - you need much less force to hold a wheel in place in a vertical drop out versus a horizontal one. Because of that, although there are front wheel skewer adapters, in the rear it's generally best to have a very strong nut-bolt system, else the wheel will move under pressure, usually shifting sideways so that the tire rubs the frame. Alternatively some dropout screws, designed to limit axle movement within the dropout, will keep the wheel from moving. With such bolts a rider might opt to use a lighter nut-bolt system.

Second, track wheels have two threaded sections on the rear wheel, one for a single cog, with a reverse thread on top of that for a reverse thread lockring. The cog screws on normally, and when you pedal your pedaling action tightens the cog. Believe it or not, it's possible to unscrew that cog, if you backpedal hard, or skip and skid the rear wheel while backpedaling. Therefore the reverse thread locking is critical - it prevents back pressure from unscrewing the cog. It actually tightens if you manage to start unscrewing the cog. Also, for safety reasons, it's illegal to use a hub that doesn't have a reverse threaded lockring.

Although old fashioned road freewheel hubs are threaded the same as a track cog, the lack of a reverse lockring bit means you can't use a simple road freewheel hub on the track. Rear track hubs are unique.

Rear track wheels are also very narrow, 120mm from outside the locknut to outside the locknut. Rear road wheels are much wider, 135+mm. So you can't use a road rear wheel for track without a lot of work. You'd need to narrow it up and add that reverse lockring thread.

Front wheels are easy. They are the same width at the axle as a road hub, 100mm, and with a track adapter skewer, you can use pretty much any road front wheel on the track. There aren't any extraordinary forces on the front wheel so no issues using a skewer adapter system that clamps with a force similar to a quick release skewer.

Rolling resistance, comfort, and rigidity

Since trackies aren't worried about comfort, you can get away with quite narrow tires. Narrow tires are generally more aero, so I'll need to get a few 19mm and 21mm tires.

Also, since tracks are relatively smooth, and tire deflection is wasted energy, track riders tend to ride with a lot of air pressure in the tires. No need for big, cushy riding tires. They'd only absorb some sprint energy better utilized to driving the bike forward.

Likewise, because tracks tend to be sheltered a bit, control in crosswinds is less critical. U shaped rims aren't as critical, and in fact, for indoor tracks, many riders will use a disc front wheel, something completely unmanageable if riding out on the road.

Apparently, and I've yet to verify this, lateral stiffness is a thing, with significant G-forces acting on the rider on the banking. My early T-Town memories don't seem to reflect this but I was probably going too slow.

Wheel Aerodynamics

I did some extensive research on track racing wheel aerodynamics. This basically meant watching countless track videos on YouTube while riding the trainer. It also involved perusing some of the time trial forums to see exactly what people are using, what they've found to work.

I also wanted to work within the experiences I had, meaning riding in some wind (2020 Nationals is at an outdoors track), front disc wheels (I had a 24" front once), and my budget. I love cross-tailwinds with my tall wheels because I can fly. I figure the same applies for the track, but I'll get about 80 meters of flying on the longest of straights before I'm turning again. I know front disc wheels are hard to control. And my budget it limited.

Remember that the front wheel is responsible for about 2/3 of the aero drag of the wheels. It also has a massive effect on handling, since it acts as a lever to turn the bars. The rear wheel is less important, but it affects handling very little. On the road my approach has been to use the tallest rear wheel available (90mm for the Stingers) with the tallest front wheel I can handle in moderate wind (75mm for the Stingers). In really windy conditions I'll use a shorter front wheel to improve control, dropping to a 45mm front wheel or even a non-aero 26?mm wheel.

With that in mind this is what I've gathered, with a "Wanted" list for each section.

Disc Wheels

The fastest wheels are lenticular (lens shaped) disc wheels, meaning they're a bit wider at the hub than at the rim. Viewed from above they're sort of lens shaped, like a flatter contact lens. These sail best when in an indirect headwind and they sail really well in a cross-tailwind.

The problem with a front wheel is that it catches massive air, like massive. On a 24" disc wheel I got blown across about 10 feet of road, almost into oncoming traffic, and I was going only 25 mph. With a full size 700c disc wheel, I would image it's only really usable indoors, with zero wind. My online findings seem to confirm this. Therefore a front disc will be for a different year, when Nationals is indoors, or, if conditions are absolutely ideal, for 2020.

Basically I'll see if I can pick up a lenticular front disc for a steal. Otherwise I'll let it go.

For the rear wheel, again, lenticular discs are fastest, but the flat discs (Zipp) are very close. For me I think it'll be virtually indistinguishable. The biggest issue with Zipp rear discs is that the track axle is pretty much nonexistent, unavailable. It's like the unicorn of wheel parts. List price is almost $300 so it blows the budget out of the water.

This meant I was searching primarily for semi-affordable rear disc wheels, like Corima and Fast Forward. If I could pick up a Zipp track disc I'd do that, as long as it was substantially cheaper than a lenticular.

Wanted: Lenticular rear disc. If a cheap Zipp rear disc shows up, so be it. Less expensive lenticular disc front wheel (since it won't be used much, if at all, in 2020).

Budget: $1000 lenticular rear, $650 flat rear, $900 lenticular front. I'd want a second rear wheel, probably a bargain flat disc wheel, as a spare.

Three and Five Spoke Wheels

With front discs being virtually unusable except indoors, I need to have a low spoke count front wheel. The fastest front wheel on the road has been the HED3, previously known as the Specialized TriSpoke. Fortunately for me this wheelset was my secret weapon back before aero wheels were a thing, and I have both a tubular front TriSpoke and a clincher front TriSpoke.

(I have a TriSpoke rear freehub and a 105 freehub fixed gear adapter but I learned that the TriSpoke uses a Dura-Ace freehub so the adapter doesn't work. I'm waiting to use that fixed gear adapter though as it's a unicorn item.)

I looked into 5 spoke front wheels but found that although they were stiffer, they weren't necessarily faster. If it was all about speed, the TriSpoke should work.

The only drawback with the TriSpoke is that it's flexible. How that affects me on the track I'm not sure, but for now the most cost effective approach will be to use the TriSpokes I have now.

Wanted: nothing, but if TriSpoke is too flexible maybe a 5 spoke front wheel.

Budget: nothing

Spoked Front Wheels

The final wheel for my track racing quiver would be a spoked front wheel, like the wheels I use for the road. I have a couple of them so I figured if the TriSpoke wasn't rideable I could use my Stinger7 front wheel.

At the worst I might invest in a Stinger9, a 90mm front wheel. I don't know if it would get me that much extra speed - it probably wouldn't - so the 7 should be a good fallback wheel. It's be fine in a mass start track race since that's what I use in mass start crits.

Plus I can use a 7 in a crit. I'd really want a 7, with the TriSpoke or a front disc my preference on the track.

Front wheels can be secured using a bolt-nut combination that looks like a quick release skewer without the lever. I have one set already, may need to buy another couple fronts. This means I can buy a quick release hub front wheel without worrying about track legality.

Wanted: A second Stinger 7 or a Stinger 9.

Budget: $500

Trainer wheel

Believe it or not I don't have a clincher track rear wheel, meaning one with the fixed gear and the narrow spacing of a track bike. I have two rear track wheels right now, one so bad its hub consists of steel sheets pressed together; I won't use that one. The other is nice, a 32H Suntour Superbe Pro hub wheel. It's laced with a narrow tubular rim right now.

I'd like to get a 24H clincher rim, a cool looking one with stickers on the side (no braking surface), and lace it onto the hub. It'd be 16 spokes on the drive side, cross 2, and 8 spokes radially laced on the non-drive side. I've done this before when building 24H rear wheels for the road and it works great. I just have to work out the spoke lengths for such a build.

This wheel would be my warm up wheel, trainer wheel, and ultra emergency spare rear wheel.

Although I'm not sure why I'd need a spoked clincher front wheel, I have a Eurus front wheel with a new rim, sitting in my inventory for literally 10-12 years. I'll lace over the new rim - it should work as a wheel for rollers, maybe for warm ups, or out-on-the-road experiments.

Wanted: 24H disc brake clincher rim

Budget: $100

Conclusion

I have some wheel shopping to do.

Equipment - Could Tires Increase My Available Effective Wattage By 25%?

TL;DR Check your tires

The Tsunami in its original color with the Bastognes, Jets, and Stinger 6s.

Backstory

I've been very unhappy with my aero clinchers (Jet 6/9 front/rear). I originally bought them because "aero > weight" and I literally bought (aka spent money) into that theory.

The reality is that for whatever reason I don't like the wheels. In fact I avoid the Jets unless absolutely necessary. I used the Jet 6 on the trainer, which is kind of ironic when you realize that on a trainer the only thing the front wheel does is hold the bike level.

I struggle every time I give the Jets a chance. I can't accelerate well with them and even in a higher speed situation I need time to accelerate them (where you'd think that since I'm already going fast it would primarily require more aero work to go faster).

I hem and haw about selling them all the time, deciding one day that I'm going to sell them, then the next to not sell them. I didn't ride the front Jet 6 for about 2 years, preferring to leave it sitting in the basement after riding it maybe a dozen times. I rode the rear Jet 9 for part of a season just because I felt like I should ride it if I wasn't selling it.

I didn't have a lot of metrics on the wheels but one thing stood out - they were heavier than my other wheels.

Wheel Weight

I've always liked riding lighter wheels. They respond instantly when I jump - they make my jump better, accentuating the only strength I have on the bike. That's a good thing.

I also learned that in group ride situations wheel weight affects me significantly. This is because I apparently make short, sharp punches to the pedals to close minor gaps, or even to adjust the gap ahead of me. These "pedal punches" are very short, like a quarter revolution if that.

I learned this when the Missus and I went on a group ride on our tandem with every other bike a single rider bike. We'd previously done one other group ride and that was with all tandems and a triplet - those bikes accelerated and decelerated like our tandem and it was an easy ride so I was more concerned with not crashing than with sitting on a wheel. On the group ride with the single bikes I didn't want to get dropped. I found myself doing these little "pedal punch" efforts to close tiny gaps, where I involuntarily slammed the pedals for about a 2 o'clock amount of power (it seems it's from 1 o'clock to about 3 o'clock). When I say tiny gap I'm talking closing a few inches to the rider in front of us - I was just adjusting our speed a bit.

The problem was that the increased mass of the tandem meant that my quarter revolution power surges didn't do very much. Not only was my little pedal punches too weak, I couldn't even ask the Missus to punch the pedals with me because I was learning that I did this as we rode!

With the tandem I needed to turn the pedals hard for two or three full revolutions instead of doing that little quarter revolution punch. Of course it strained my reserves to the limit. As might be expected a very short time later we went off the back. We lasted maybe 5 miles of that ride.

So apparently I have that thing that I do to adjust the gap to the next rider in front of me. And I really only have a sprint as far as "stuff I can do in a race". For those kinds of efforts I like lighter wheels.

It only reinforced my belief that I prefer lighter wheels.

Why Jet Wheels?

Back in the day I did a bunch of back-to-back sprints on different wheels, to see if there were substantial differences in wheels speeds. If you knew me back then you may have noticed that I went from racing 280 gram rim box section wheels to suddenly showing up with my TriSpokes, Spinergy Rev-X, or Zipp 340s.

Aero made a huge difference for me. Lighter weight allowed me to get up to speed quicker but without aero I'd hit an aero wall and stop accelerating. With aero wheels I could blast through that aero wall and keep accelerating.

Importantly during that test I had the same tubulars on all the tubular wheels, and the same clinchers on the few clincher wheelsets I tested. At least for the tubulars rolling resistance was probably close to identical between the wheels.

In addition the different wheels varied in weight as well, and by switching between different weight wheels I started getting a feel for how heavier wheels felt versus lighter ones. Aero wheels inevitably weighed more but they just kept accelerating. The lightest wheels, all non-aero, hit top speed quickly but the top speed was substantially lower than those of the aero wheels. I fitted lighter wheels for the slower, jumpier Cat 3 type races, where I'd be jumping out of corners and the sprint started at sane speeds. I'd usually choose my most aero wheels for the faster, steadier Cat 1-2-3 races, where it was single file all the time and the sprint was just maintaining some insane speed over the last lap.

Therefore the Jets seemed to make sense. Only thing was that when I first got the Jets I had this subjective feel like "Oh, they're heavier." No objective numbers, just a feeling.

My Jets

When I finally weighed the wheels I attributed my disdain for the Jets to the 3 lbs weight difference between those and my race wheels (Stinger 6 f/r or Stinger 7/9 f/r, about 3.1 and 2.8 lbs lighter respectively) or even the 2 lbs weight difference to my other clinchers, the sister wheelset HED Bastognes. The fact that all but the 7/9s have the same hubs and spokes means that virtually all the weight difference is in the rim/tire/tube/etc. They call that rotating weight and I was taught a long time ago that rotating weight was worse than static weight.

I also have non-aero clinchers as mentioned above, the HED Bastognes, which I prefer to the Jets. They wear the same tires, same brand tubes (different valve lengths), so the wheels are set up the same. However the Bastognes weigh 2 lbs less than the Jets.

Note: I have 50g heavier rear skewers on the clinchers, same clincher tire models on all four clincher wheels, basically similar tubular tires, basically similar all-steel cassettes on all rear wheels, so the wheels are consistent across types, meaning all the clinchers are similar and all the tubulars are similar.

In slower races (usually when it's raining), where I'd use clinchers, I'd use the Bastognes. The 2 lbs weight delta would make them seem more responsive than the Jets even with identical tires and tubes.

TPI (A segway but bear with me)

I wanted to put this out there because it helps visualize what TPI really means to you. TPI is "threads per inch", how many rows of thread fits in an inch. A 66 TPI tire has 66 threads every inch of tire. A 320 TPI tire has 320 threads every inch of tire.

What took a while to sink in is that this also applies to the thickness of the tire casing.

A 66 TPI tire has threads which are 1/66" thick, right? Because if you make it into a fabric you'll fit 66 threads in an inch. That's not that thick.

A 320 TPI tire has threads which are 1/320" thick. If 1/66" isn't that thick then 1/320" is really, really thin.

Thinner casings mean more supple casings. Supple casings deform easier on bumps. This means they absorb less energy flexing. Therefore they have lower rolling resistance on anything rougher than glass.

On the other hand if you have a really, really thing 1/320" thick tire casing, it's not really very resistant to getting cut or punctured by glass, nails, thorns, etc. You never hear of "yeah, this tank has armor 1/320 of an inch thick!" It's more like "With the Tiger 2 there was 7 inches of solid steel between the crew and incoming shells from the front".

Most tires layer the casing over itself so a 320 TPI casing with two layers would be 1/160" thick, twice as thick as 1/320". At that point you'd have 640 TPI if you looked at the casing through a light (two layers of 320 TPI), but it's just 320 TPI casing layered twice.

Still not that thick. That's why you don't want to wear your tires down to the casing, you really have very little left at that point between you and a flat.

Anyway, TPI explanation done...

Clincher Tire Rolling Resistance

The somewhat recent Velonews tire rolling resistance test sparked my interest. I realized that it might be that the tire rolling resistance is contributing to my dislike for the Jets.

Velonews found that the lower TPI tires, meaning those with thicker/stiff casings, had higher rolling resistance. This would be expected, based on the fact that deforming a tire over a bump takes energy, and the less energy you use doing that the less the tire will slow. Higher TPI tires rolled better in the test. The Velonews article did point out that one manufacturer counted the TPI of the double casing so Velonews halved it to keep the number consistent. TPI in the chart is TPI for one layer of casing.

Based on Velonews's findings a fast tire can save as much as 10-20 watts per tire at 40 kph / 25 mph, so 20-40 watts total. This means a rider can reduce total power required to maintain 40 kph / 25 mph from, say, 100 watts to just over 60 watts.

Rolling resistances at 40 kph:

•  Thicker/stiffer tires, 100w
•  Thinner/flexible tires, 65w

35 watts may not seem like a huge savings or huge wattage overall. However, consider that I've placed 3rd in a Cat 3 race averaging under 160w:

Average power for 58 minutes: 158w

Cat 3-4 result: 3rd place.

If I was using my 60 TPI (threads per inch) training tires I'd be using (Maxxis ReFuse, a solid, super reliable training tire), realistically, at least 120w simply overcoming rolling resistance. That would be a super optimistic number based on a "better" higher thread count (80 TPI) tire being rated as using 59w at 40kph. Factor in the ReFuse's tough as nails construction, a layer or two of puncture resistant material under the tread, and you end up with a really thick tire casing that doesn't flex at all. Still, though, I think 120w would be a very conservative estimate for the tires' energy consumption.

• Rolling resistance with my 60 TPI ReFuse tires: ~120w
• Rolling resistance with the nicest clinchers: 65w

If I went to one of the fastest tires in the Velonews test, which consumed 32-35w at the same speed, I'd save about 55w total in rolling resistance.

55 watts!

If I typically average 160-200w in a race, and I'm using 100-120w to overcome rolling resistance if I'm using my clinchers, then I'm really using say 60-80w to overcome air resistance. The rest of my power output, say 100-120w, is going towards overcoming rolling resistance. If I can reduce that by 60w, that's huge! I could almost double my power devoted to overcoming air resistance!

Clincher Tire Math

If I did a race on my clinchers:

• Current, super hard race for me, 200w avg.
• 60 TPI tires, about 120w/pair
• Leaves 80w for air resistance (and bearings and stuff)

What if I had some nicer clinchers?

• Current, super hard race for me, 200w avg.
• Nicer clinchers, approx 65w/pair
• Leaves 135w for air resistance (and bearings and stuff)

I'd be seeing an effective increase in available power of 55w. That may not seem like much until I put it a different way.

55w is 25% of my FTP when I upgraded to Cat 2.

Gratuitous picture of the Tsunami in its current color with the Stinger 7/9 set up.

Tubular Tires

I normally race on tubulars. Unfortunately there isn't really any data I could find other than an earlier Velonews test with tires I don't use.

Tubulars seem to use a bit more energy, 45-50w each, but there are so many variables that I can't really apply that test to my tubulars. I use different tires, different pressure, and there's the whole "how did you glue them" bit.

There were a couple constants though. First, a higher TPI led to lower rolling resistance. Second, the test found is that higher pressures in tubular tires really don't alter rolling resistance numbers. I think this is because a tubular tire doesn't rely on the rim for part of its shape, it's a shape unto itself. Therefore it really doesn't change shape much when you put more pressure in it.

Let's use a decent number, based on the description of the tires and casings. I'm going to say 45w for my tubulars. I use 23mm tires built with nice 320 TPI casing. The test had a 24mm tire with high TPI.

Tubular Tire Math

• Current super hard race for me, 200w avg.
• 320 TPI tubular tires, approx 90w/pair
• Leaves 110w for air resistance (and bearings and stuff)

At 200w average this is a 30w increase in power output for air resistance compared to the nice clincher number. With the clinchers I only have about 80w to devote to air resistance. With tubulars it's realistically 110w.

It makes sense that if I was close to the edge with tubulars I'd be well into the red with clinchers. 200w really is about as hard as I can go in a race. I've hit that a number of times in races. With clinchers, to go the same speed, I'd have to up my power output by 30 watts, blowing me up.

I'd be off the back with the clinchers.

This also explains a bit on how I can race a bit more effectively against riders that drop me quickly on training rides. I need that extra 30w of power to overcome air resistance but I don't have it with the training tires.

That's just based on rolling resistance! Keep in mind too that the clinchers are heavier, with the Jets being especially heavy. Doing those quarter pedal punches to close little gaps might be efficient with lighter tubulars, but with heavier clinchers I'd be putting down a bit more energy on each adjustment. Multiply that by numerous adjustments and the extra watts quickly add up. The Jets's excess weight may be pushing me over the edge.

Thoughts Going Forward

So it may be that the tires are a big part of the reason why I don't like the Jets. Unfortunately I don't have the option of buying tires right now, and the only set of extra tires I have are not one of those magic ones on the list - they're stiffer versions of a 46+ watt tire so it's probably a 50-55 watt tire.
<35w a="" are="" as="" bit="" change="" d="" experiment="" i="" large="" more="" obvious.="" p="" possible="" rather="" results="" so="" that="" the="" tires.="" with="">
I don't know how puncture resistant the Specialized tires are but the Conti GP4000S II have a good reputation for being bombproof clinchers. It might be that my next sets of clinchers will be a pair of those Contis.
<35w a="" are="" as="" bit="" change="" d="" experiment="" i="" large="" more="" obvious.="" p="" possible="" rather="" results="" so="" that="" the="" tires.="" with="">
<35w a="" are="" as="" bit="" change="" d="" experiment="" i="" large="" more="" obvious.="" p="" possible="" rather="" results="" so="" that="" the="" tires.="" with="">And then maybe I'll keep the Jets after all.

Equipment - Homemade Rocking Trainer

Last night I did my first ride on my home made rocking trainer. The goal behind the rocking trainer is to let the bike tilt left and right, like it does when riding out on the road.

The two obstacles (well three?) to a rocking trainer are:

1. Does it rock realistically?

2. Does it allow you to ride it without tilting inadvertently?

3. Does it provide enough resistance?

Realistic Rock?

The first is the main goal of the trainer, to be able to rock the bike realistically. What a lot of people don't realize is that when you rock your bike side to side while out of the saddle your bike actually tilts around the bottom bracket area, relative to your path. Meaning, yes, your bike tilts left-right with the tires as the axis, but when taking into account the slight wiggle you get when rocking the bike back and forth, the bike is really going in a straight line from about the bottom bracket area.

This means the tilt axis needs to be higher than the tires, closer to the bottom bracket. Your body is mostly stationary during out of saddle efforts (if your body moves then that's not the best), you're basically standing on the pedals, and the two pedals share one thing in common - they're anchored at the bottom bracket axle. This makes the bottom bracket the ideal pivot point.

If the axis is too low then you get the "my tires are stuck in a groove and I'm going to fall over" feeling", which is what it would be like if you actually pivoted around the tire/road junction.

Problem is if you have the axis too high then it gets a bit weird. Imagine if your head was the pivot point - the tires would slide back and forth a few feet as the whole bike/trainer assembly pivots around your head.

Can You Stay Upright?

The second is sort of crucial. Bikes stay upright because you can steer the bike while you move forward. Basically you catch yourself falling by steering into the fall, like if you're tilting right you steer right and now you're not falling, you're just turning right.

With a trainer there's no forward motion, meaning your bike isn't moving forward and therefore you can't really steer into a turn because you're not turning per se. Therefore it's a bit trickier to keep the bike from tilting.

The thing that helps to tilt the bike is to be able to steer the front wheel. The head tube angle and fork rake encourage the bike to lean if you turn the bar while the bike is stationary (by lowering the front of the bike). That allows the bike to tilt a bit where it wouldn't otherwise tilt.

My homemade rocking trainer.

The brown thing under the wood is a spacer to raise the left side just a touch.

Eventually I think I'll use wedges between the two pieces of wood.

Due to the forward hang of the trainer the base has to extend forward a bit. I made my base out of wood because I could, and I don't have welding skills.

Note that the folding arms and their mounts are removed from the front of the trailer (normally under where the trainer clamps the wheel). This was an all-or-nothing experiment.

I had this trainer frame after warrantying a blown up electronic trainer through CycleOps. Although I requested they send only the resistance unit (a Fluid2 since they discontinued the electronic unit at the time) they sent me a complete trainer. I suppose it's probably easier logistically to do that instead of stock a bunch of resistance units. Anyway end result was that I had an extra trainer frame. They don't wear out so I decided to use the spare to see what I could do with it.

View from above.

I've been thinking about the trainer and how to make it better. I think one thing would be to make the pivot point (where the plates are, see pictures below) below the bike, not behind it. This would support the bike better. Right now the bike dips a bit when I pedal, more when I pedal hard. It's to the point that I expect the tire to hit the floor/mats at some point.

Different view of the rocking area.

Although I asked my car friend to cut down the plates a bit, he ended up welding the plates in a different order. I wanted the top plate to be in the middle, so it could clear the other two plates while it rocked. It's okay, nothing hits so far.

(I gave my car friend a piece of plate steel in exchange for doing this work - the plate steel was probably 2'x3' and had to weigh 50-80 pounds... it was really heavy but it's stuff he could use for his car restoration hobby.)

Plates and bushings.

The plate angle was designed to allow the bike to pivot around 1/3 up from floor relative to BB.

The guy who welded everything painted it also, without me requesting the paint. Very nice.

You can see here that the plate welded to the trainer frame (middle one) is wider than the top plate. This was an error. The guy helping me out inadvertently swapped the two plates. If the narrower top plate was welded to the frame there'd be more room for it to rock.

I have to increase the height of the bushings as the trainer doesn't rock enough so I don't think I'll run into interference problems between the middle plate and the bottom one. If I do I'll have to try and cut down the middle plate. It's very tough to cut - the guy who welded it actually asked someone else with a plasma cutter to cut out the pieces for him. I don't have a plasma cutter. I may visit a machine shop nearby and ask them to cut the piece down.

A stock Kinetic Road Machine resistance unit.

The tire-roller junction is the weak point of the whole set up. I haven't done an all out sprint yet, just a few rolling jumps to make sure nothing would break, maybe 600-800w each. Nothing like 1000-1200w, and definitely no 10% jumps. However the tire slips if I do any kind of a super hard jump.

I got the KK Road Machine unit from a fellow racer. Note the spring - it's not curved around the corner. When I got the trainer the spring was curved around the corner. I didn't realize it but the various pieces of metal holding the old trainer were slightly bent. This meant I couldn't get as much clamp power to hold the roller to the tire. Now it's much better.

Note: This is a Kurt Kinetic resistance unit. The frame is a CycleOps frame that used to have a Fluid2 resistance unit on it. The frames and resistance units are interchangeable based on what I have experienced. Apparently KK has some deal with CycleOps where the frames are the same. Different mechanisms for adjusting tire tension (I prefer the CycleOps lever system although I haven't tried the two companies' newest systems) but obviously the resistance units fit one another's frames.

For the front a heavy duty lazy Susan with the front wheel holder.

This allows the front wheel to turn easily; I've turned it a bit to illustrate that.

I need to mount something to the metal lazy Susan, probably a thin piece of wood with the tire block mounted to it. The lazy Susan is an industrial strength one rated to a few hundred pounds, not something for the coffee mugs in the kitchen cabinet.

If I do that I'll need to raise the rear a similar amount, to keep the bike level. This isn't a bad thing since it would increase tire clearance to the floor.

How Does It Work?

Right now it's not working really well.

1. The rocking motion is too limited side to side. I feel like I want to move the bars another 4-6 inches to each side. That might be an exaggeration because I didn't use a tape measure or anything, but I don't think so. For sure the bike still feels too rigidly upright.

2. The bike doesn't tilt easily enough. I have to force the bike down to the side. It doesn't drop down naturally. I'm not sure what the solution is - maybe some bushings to the side of the main axis, soft ones, with the larger central bushings cut down a bit? I don't know. I'll have to think about this for a bit.

3. The rear tire gets very close to the floor.

4. The skewer has to twist in the trainer. Since the trainer frame is tilting forward on each downstroke, however slightly, the skewer twists inside the cups. Ultimately I'd like to have some kind of bushing type material or a separate cup for the skewer ends that rotates on its own.

5. Lack of peak power. The tire-roller interface is still the weak point of the whole set up because it slips at about 1100-1200w. This limits any peak power kind of efforts.

Going Forward

My ultimate trainer set up would be a reduction gear trainer like the one here, but that's a pipe dream for now. The challenge here is to mimic the inertia you have to overcome when accelerating without drivetrain/tire slip as well as rocking the bike like you do outside.

With the Kinetic Road Machine resistance unit you get some of that - the inertia and the exponential resistance. However there are two limitations.

First and foremost there is a definite element of drivetrain slip, aka tire slip. If I do a max effort downstroke the tire slips every time, so I've learned to tone down my initial jump by 300-400w. That's not a good habit to get into and it also prevents me from exploring max effort jumps indoors. I'm pretty sure this is part of the reason why my peak power is a bit lower nowadays - I've trained myself not to make big jumps nowadays. In 2008-2010 I was training outside a lot, I was doing many massive jumps, and I regularly hit significantly higher peak power numbers, 1400w whenever, 1550w on a great jump. Nowadays I think it's a big deal if I hit 1250w and many of my jumps are more like 1100w.

The other is the incorrect rocking motion. Without the bike tilting as much it just doesn't feel the same as it does on the road.

I can't do much on the drive train slip limitation. I can, though, work on the rocking bit, so that's my homework going forward. I'll also finish up the front tire mount as well.

Equipment - Bar End Shifters

So the other day I got mentioned in a blog post by Steve Tilford. It was sort of a round about way of being mentioned, almost a rebuttal. He'd merged the ideas of indexed bar end shifting (his thoughts) with regular bar end shifting (my contribution), resulting in him pointing out his brother invented indexed bar end shifting.

In a comment to a prior blog post I paid tribute to Leonard Nitz as an inspiration for bar end shifters. The reality is that there were a number of riders in the New England area (Nitz was from NY so he'd have seen these riders) using a right side bar end shifter. Some used both right and left, but for us "crit guys" the right side was all we needed. For the left side we just used the simple and straightforward downtube shifter.

However, for me, locally, the real inspiration came from my teammate Mike Hartley. He's the guy that taught me a ton of what I know now. He taught me about leadouts. He demonstrated to me commitment in training, commitment to a race plan. For years he sacrificed his own chances in races so he could help me instead. I distinctly remember two races where he blew up trying to keep me at the front, apologizing profusely as he drifted back inside the last lap of the race (Meriden and Danbury). In other races his efforts helped me place well. I remember Cheshire Crit in CT particularly, and Montague in MA, the first race where we worked together as a team.

To be more complete I have to say that Mike and Lou Kozar were the two guys who inspired the bar end shifter. I wanted to be like Lou - he'd gotten second in the state RR the year before I met him, he was a Junior, he built my first race bike, and he got me set up equipment-wise so I could go racing. Lou, though, got more involved in the shop and eased up a bit on the racing. Also he was a stronger version of me. He was a lot stronger than me and his jump absolutely demolished mine. I'd only have a chance if he wasn't training - I had to do longer sprints to beat him. At any rate when he raced with me I knew my place and it certainly wasn't the lead sprinter spot.

Mike, though, he was irrepressible as a racer-tinkerer. He'd experiment with all sorts of stuff. And he came out and raced all the time.

For the bar end shifter he had a number of set up tips.

Remove Shift Lever Cover

First, remove the plastic shifter cover. The Suntour bar ends came with a hard plastic shift lever cover (the same goes for the Shimano levers). It numbed the feel of the shifts, giving you less direct contact with the bike. In the days of Benotto tape (it's only a bit better than a layer of electrical tape on the bars) and super thin leather gloves, "feel" was everything. You had to rely on yourself to make good shifts, to notice that there's a tick in some bearing, and having the bike connected to your raw nerve endings was a great way of knowing your bike. It wasn't like it is now, where you're sort of riding an SUV that happens to handle pretty well.

Bard end shifter with rubber cover still on.

This is a 1985 frame that I think broke by 1986.

Drop outs were not replaceable back then.

Note tubular tire strapped under the saddle.

When I first started racing I was afraid of changing actual parts. Changing out a part, fine. Altering an actual component, no way. It took me a while to simply slip off the shift lever cover.

You can see the texture on the shift lever here, sort of a ridge to catch your pinkie or ring finger.

The plastic cover hid it, making it less "grippy"

From my post here.

Drill The Lever

Second, if you really wanted to, you could drill out the aluminum shift lever. Holes in aluminum levers fulfill two purposes, one more than another. You might think that holes in, say, a brake lever would help reduce weight, however minutely. You'd be right, if you were talking about homemade holes. But production holes, like the ones in Campy's Super Record brake levers? They were there for grip in the rain. Drilled out Super Record brake levers were actually heavier than their non-drilled out Nuovo Record counterparts.

However, if your levers were slick with water, the holes helped give you traction. It's like the diamond plate metal things on the trucks and such. The raised diamonds give you some semblance of traction.

Modolo Pro brakes, factory drilled.

Typically the aluminum was thicker on drilled out levers, increasing weight or keeping it the same.

Note the WOODEN cable stop on the downtube - I carved it myself.

Finally, the ultra thin Benotto tape. Nowadays you'd probably be sued for offering such a tape.

For those ultimate weight weenies you'd see the Nuovo Record levers (and a Nuovo Record small chainring, for the same reason - the "lightened" Super Record small ring was actually a touch heavier). With a shift lever, in the heat of a sprint, you wouldn't want it to slip in your sweaty fingers. So drilling the thing a bit would help with that.

At home we didn't have a good drill, I was scared of ours, and I really didn't use the drill press at the shop, so my bar end lever remained undrilled. Therefore no pictures as I don't have a picture of Mike's shifter.

Cut Bars

Third, Mike cut down his bar so that the shift lever would sit in the palm of his hand. One major disadvantage of a normal bar with a bar end is that the bar end is about 3" away from your hand. It's fine if you were on a touring bike, which is really what bar ends were meant for, but in a crit, with 200m to go, you didn't want to be sliding your hand back 3" to shift while you were sprinting your brains out.

Before I cut down my bars.

Mike's logical solution was to move the shifter up, and to do so meant to cut down the bars. He cut down his bars so much the bar end was basically pointing a bit down, not back. I imitated him, cutting a bit more at a time, until I reached the same conclusion he did - it was best to have the shift lever basically end the curve part of the drops. If the bar end sat flat it was too far back.

My cut down crit bend bars with Suntour shifter.

From here.

Because I was cutting the bar for shifter placement I cut less off the left side of the bar (no bar end shifter there). I cut at least one bar evenly, meaning the left side was way too short. I don't remember what I did but I think I raced with a "dummy" left bar end mount so my hand wouldn't slip off. Or I cut the bars more and turned them upside down to make a "time trial" set up.

Knowing me I probably did the latter.

When I went to Ergo levers I didn't change bars right away. Therefore I had to race with an empty bar end mount on the right side. When I got new bars I cut them down for no bar ends so I was okay.

Note the empty bar end mount on the right side, even though I have Ergo levers.

I still cut my bars down to this point nowadays, without removing the extra inch of bar for the bar end mount. The flat stuff on the drops I never use because it's useless and frankly a bit dangerous in a field. You can't do anything well from the ends of the drops - can't brake, can't shift, and you don't have as tenacious a hold on the bars as further up the drop.

What I cut off my bar currently; it's conservative as you can always cut more.

This is an FSA Wing Compact bar.

Retrofit Index Shifter

Fourth, Mike actually did retro-fit a downtube Shimano index shifter (SIS) onto a non-indexed bar end mount. It didn't have great ergonomics because a downtube shifter was much longer than a bar end shifter. His shifter ended up sticking way down. I don't remember if he cut it down or not. When I first saw it I was impressed with his work but not with the appearance.

It involved using a downtube frame adapter specific for the SIS shifter, mounting it to I think a Suntour bar end mount. I remember a bolt going through the bar end mount, one that wasn't the right one, probably a retrofitted Cannondale downtube mounting thing. Most frames had their downtube mounts brazed on so they were useless for retrofitting onto a bar end mount. Unless you brazed one on, I suppose.

How an SIS shifter (#7/#13) mounted to a downtube boss (#8)

Lifted off a forum.

However, Cannondale's aluminum tubing meant that the downtube bosses were bolted on, with a long bolt connecting the left and right downtube mounts. Unscrew them (from a trade in frame program that existed back then) and you'd end up with two mounts for downtube shifters that were actually threaded in the back. Perfect for mounting to some obscure place.

You can see the upper left piece is a downtube boss, like #8 above.

Mount the black piece onto a friction bar end mount and an index shifter would fit on it.

The long bolt reaches between the sides of the downtube.

This was lifted off a forum and the poster said they got it from Cannondale.de.

(On an aside we half joked about moving shifters around on a Cannondale. It'd be an easy process, just drill holes and bolt on the downtube mounts. You could have theoretically mounted the shifter further up the downtube, along the top tube, where ever. I'm sure it would have been possible (still is possible?) to mount the downtube bosses to a set of aero bars so you could have your shifters on them. Likewise, because the threaded bottle bosses were rivnuts, you could mount extra bottle mounts where ever you wanted, or, conversely, use the threaded inserts for other purposes, like anchoring a fender permanently to a touring frame. I remember doing this for a customer who took his bike all over the world, we went a bit nuts drilling out his frame and installing "permanent mounts" for various accessories.)

Flip Left and Right Mounts

Finally, when Shimano's index bar end shifter came out, the shift lever mount mounted the shifter below the center of the bar. This meant that the shifter was below where it would be compared to a Suntour shifter. With the whole "shifter in the palm of your hand" philosophy this was less than ideal, and in fact it was horrible. Although I was suitably impressed with Shimano's index shifting, the fact that the shifter sat so low (and also that it would have cost some money) kept me on Suntour. As someone that hasn't used Shimano drivetrains who knows what would have happened if I'd gone Shimano at that point?

Shimano SIS bar end shifters.

Note how the center bolt of the right shifter (top) is below the center of the bar.

Mike's solution was perfect. He flipped the left mount and installed it on the right side of the bars. He had to do some drilling and such but after a little bit of experimenting it worked out. Now the shift lever sat higher than the centerline of the bar, sticking up maybe a quarter inch. His bar end shift lever was literally in the palm of his hand.

For me it was too much. Honestly the budget was the big part because to get into Shimano's index shifting system (key word: system) you had to have, primarily, their freehub rear hub. I had no such hubs in my own inventory, nor any cassettes. Therefore to get into SIS I'd have had to spend money for shifters, the rear derailleur, rear hubs (for the cassette hub - I had all freewheel hubs), cassettes, cables, housing, chain... I just stuck with my Suntour stuff. It was free because I already had the whole set up and it worked fine.

And then 1988-89 rolled around and Shimano's STI levers became widely available. I saw an immediate effect at races, or, more specifically, in sprints on training rides. I used to be able to take advantage of my "shifting while out of the saddle sprinting" but now that advantage eroded pretty quickly. Not only that but STI worked when climbing out of the saddle on the hoods. Now I was the one being left behind as riders shifted gears in the middle of a slope.

The real kicker were the SUNY Purchase Tuesday Night Sprints. I used to be able to clean up there, out jumping the stronger sprinters and out sprinting the stronger jumpers. If you could jump better than me I'd out sprint you after shifting into a higher gear. If you could out sprint me I'd out jump you by jumping in a lower gear. When STI showed up suddenly it wasn't quite so simple. One rider started regularly beating me when he didn't have to jump in the same gear he sprinted in - Eric Min. He'd go on to found Zwift.

Sprinting at SUNY Purchase, or, more precisely, sitting up just after winning a sprint.

I had to wait until 1992 when Campy came out with their Ergo levers before I got back on a semi-level playing field as far as shifting while on the hoods went. Since then I've only ridden Campy. The lever + thumb button works well for me.

Anyway, that's my experience with bar end shifters. I was lucky to start racing in an era where one could pretty easily tinker with their equipment. It was a bit more modular, a bit more "parts put together". I used to do all sorts of stuff with my shoes, mainly drilling out new cleat mounts and adding straps to lace shoes (which makes me wonder what the attraction is to laced shoes again). I fiddled with hubs and brakes and rear derailleurs. I used the shop facing tool to steepen my head tube angle a bit, "facing" the bottom part of the head tube and removing a solid few mm of material off the bottom of it.

Currently it's not like that, with more integrated stuff, carbon stuff, etc. Even switching derailleur pulleys is sort of a big deal - back then everyone did it. And I highly doubt you'll see people altering Ergo lever mounts and such, it's just not worth it. There's very little optimization going on.

Or, perhaps more accurately, now that I think of it, perhaps it's more that I no longer have the time or inclination for such tinkering.

In a way that's sort of sad.

Training - Why Should You Get A Better Fan?

In 2015 and this year I trained basically 100% indoors, going outdoors only for races or a few event rides (the latter in 2015 only). My last regular outdoor training ride was around Christmas 2014 when we had unseasonably warm temperatures here in northeastern US.

Indoor Training Advantages

I've always trained indoors throughout the year, in the winter to avoid the cold/chill, but even in the summer, usually to escape the heat/humidity outside. This has been the case for about 25-30 years. Training indoors is great for a number of reasons, like road safety, no scheduling problems if you encounter a mechanical, immediate parts/tools availability for said mechanical, immediate water/food availability, etc. For about 10 years I trained inside the bike shop so I really had any and every part available if something happened. I've done outside rides only to puncture at a critical time, like on a ride where I gave myself virtually no time cushion to pick up Junior from daycare. Although I rode harder than I thought possible it was an irresponsible way to motivate myself.

Indoor Training Challenges

Training indoors is tough for a number of reasons. The absolutely most significant thing with indoor training is that it's simply harder than riding outside. No one can really pinpoint exactly why but this post offers some possible suggestions. Basically it suggests that not being able to coast, not being able to rock the bike, and less external stimuli as factors that make indoor training harder than training outside.

However the main one most people cite when talking about training indoors is boredom. Nowadays, with all the tech available, there's quite a bit of distraction available to combat this problem. I find that watching bike DVDs, using Zwift, and listening to music make time fly on the trainer.

A dominant Race Across America rider, Lon Haldeman, defined the anti-thesis of a bored indoor rider. He would ride rollers in the dark to condition himself to riding through a dark night in the middle of nowhere. Although I don't turn out the lights and I generally don't ride rollers, I still find myself regularly reverting to riding with my eyes closed, particularly when pushing hard. I count pedal revolutions, focus on maintaining a consistent pedal stroke, and open my eyes to do a time/effort check.

Another indoor challenge is learning and conditioning to ride out of the saddle. Due to the nature of trainers and rollers it's hard to rock the bike out of the saddle (Kinetic Rock N Roll notwithstanding). For me this is significant since I simply cannot sprint effectively without being out of the saddle. I admit that I'm in the final stages of doing a very low buck DIY Rock N Roll using a converted CycleOps Fluid trainer frame (yikes, I started that three years ago?). If that works out I'll post about it, otherwise it was all just an exercise in experimentation for me.

Direct drive trainers tackle the problem of tire slippage. It's significant when making huge efforts. I'm not quite strong enough to regularly slip tires on my trainer/s but there are riders significantly stronger than me that probably have major tire slippage. Such a trainer replaces your whole rear wheel - ultimately you end up putting your bike's chain on the trainer's cassette. By eliminating the tire-roller interface a direct drive trainer makes the system virtually slip-free.

Direct Drive trainer (approximately $660), picture from the CycleOps site.

A "smart" trainer is the ultimate for indoor training. "Smart" trainers use software inputs to adjust resistance, so, for example, if you're using a program like Zwift and you're on an uphill, a smart trainer will increase resistance. In order to make it up the hill you'll have to shift into lower gears. With a regular trainer you have to shift into higher gears in order to increase resistance. Smart trainers should engage you a bit more, due to the fact that you'll need to shift gears to react to virtual terrain changes.

Smart direct drive trainer, not available yet, est. MSRP $1200.

Picture from CycleOps site.

A long time ago I got to use a smart trainer, something called a VeloDyne. It was really engaging, really motivating. It was a bit hard as it didn't coast well, making the downhills the hardest part of any route. There was also not much in terms of "courses". I think the 1984 Olympic RR was one of the courses, I think also Morgul-Bismark of Coors Classic fame, but one could not import a course, nor could one make their own. I might have a picture of it from my shop days but I don't know at this point. I did have an adventure delivering one though.

For all the indoor training I do I haven't been able to justify purchasing a smart trainer or a rocking one. Zwift started to change my mind on direct drive and active trainers, but at the moment buying such a trainer is simply out of the question.

Indoor Training Cooling

Finally indoor training is hard because it's hard to cool off.

When you work hard you generate excess heat energy. Your body tries to get rid of that heat energy, mainly by expanding blood vessels near the skin surface (so you get flushed, your veins pop, etc) and by sweating. Sweat gets rid of heat through evaporation. When sweat evaporates it must absorb heat energy - if the sweat doesn't evaporate then it won't do much good in removing heat.

For sweat to evaporate it needs two things - air and some dryness. If your sweat has no air volume around it then it can't evaporate. For example if you wrapped yourself in Saran Wrap you'd be mighty hot after a short time. On the other hand if you were in an indoor stadium or concert hall, you'd have a lot of air volume. When I had the shop with 20 foot ceilings and a 70'x25' floor foot print, I had a gazillion feet of air volume (okay, it was 20x70x25 so 35,000 cubic feet of air). With smaller areas you need to move air around so that you're introducing new air to your trainer area. A powerful fan works well for this, allowing you to move air around quickly.

Sweat can't evaporate if it's too humid. If you're in 99% humidity air then the air is basically saturated. Your sweat won't really evaporate and therefore it won't really cool you down. You'll feel like you're taking a hot shower. Air conditioning helps, since it dries the air. A dehumidifier is good also, although it heats the air while it dries it, making it a bit touch and go if the house is already warm. In the shop example above I had 35,000 of air conditioned goodness so even in the middle of a heat wave it was downright pleasant to ride indoors for an hour or two at a time. We even had "group indoor rides" with maybe 6 or 8 riders, without any problems with too much humidity.

Remember, air volume and humidity.

Indoor Training Set Ups

When I see someone else's trainer set up I always look at a number of things usually obvious by the picture.

1. Fan, like its size/velocity.
2. Air Volume, like how much air volume appears to be there.
3. Air temperature, like does it look like the rider is on a trainer in their garage with the door open during a snow storm?

Those three factors - air velocity, air volume, and air temperature - really affect how you'll feel on the trainer.

There's a fourth factor but it's hard to guess at, although it's often related to air volume. The mystery factor is air humidity. I'll put it in the list below.

4. Humidity

If I see central AC vents or a window AC unit or a cold/wintry background then I'm guessing the humidity is under control. If I see a dehumidifier, if I see five towels draped over the bike and nearby furniture and a puddle of water under the bike then I'm guessing the humidity is a bit out of control.

The other day (okay, the other month) I saw a picture of the local hero pro on his trainer It looks like a home decor ad, if you ask me, because it looks so neat and tidy:

Note the fan on the floor.

Photo courtesy Benjamin Wolfe (Jelly Belly Cycling Team p/b Maxxis)

(Let me put in this disclaimer right away. In my world 200 watts is a hard effort. 450 watts is basically a max 60 second effort. For someone like Ben he does 450w average for a long time, like an hour at the beginning of a long day of racing. This is based on the fact that he posted that it took 450w avg for an hour just to make the second laughing group at some stage in the Tour of CA this year. What I mean is that my recommendations may not hold water if you're a super human and don't generate much heat cranking out 400 watts. Maybe you don't even break a sweat at 400w.)

Anywho...

When I saw Ben's picture above I subconsciously went down my list. I'll skip #1 for now and start with #2, Air Volume. It looks fine - there's so much ceiling above him that someone could take this very stylish picture.

#3 Air temperature I'm guessing is okay since it's June and the windows are closed. This could be an indicator of air conditioning.

#4 Humidity... related to air conditioning, air conditioning would make humidity a non-issue.

The only thing left is #1, air velocity. He's using what appears to be the ubiquitous Lasko 20" box fan. Set on the floor it blows cooler air up at his head/upper torso, ideal for cooling off a working rider. It's a decent fan for moving air around - I should know, I think we have four in the house. We use one dinky little window type AC unit to cool our 1500 sf house. The box fans help move the air around so we don't have one icy cold room with the rest of the house sweltering in heat; instead we have one chilly room and an otherwise comfortably dry and cool house. Other than the low thrumming of fans in the background and the somewhat MacGyver looking fans set up around the house the system works well.

The ubiquitous Lasko box fan is rated at "up to" 2500 CFM, or 2500 cubic feet per minute. That's on high. I thought I read somewhere that low is 800-1000 CFM (I think when I worked at a place that sold such fans) but I can't verify that.

When I see these fans in front of trainers or treadmills I wonder how the person can possibly stay cool. Okay, in the winter, in an unheated basement, it's sort of reasonable since you may not need much air velocity at all. But when it's even sort of warm you really need a lot of air flow to evaporate your sweat to cool you down. If there's no evaporation happening then there's really no cooling off happening either. That's why a super humid 95 degrees can be so much tougher than a very dry 105 degrees.

My set up isn't quite as neat at the one above, as evidenced by the picture below. However there is one key element in my set up: a very strong fan.

You might be able to find the fan on the floor amongst all the clutter.

It's a 20" Hamilton high velocity fan.

Air volume is sort of low because the bike room is in our basement. Worse, in order to keep the cats out of all sorts of human-inaccessible nooks and crannies, we have to keep the door shut to the bike room half of the basement. For the trainer room and the bike "shop" room I have two small rooms for air volume. Two wall mounted vent grilles allow air to travel between the bike half of the basement and the regular half. I have two fans permanently pushing air around the bike room and out of one of the vent grills so I'm guessing that the air probably gets cycled once daily at most.

Not only that, because of all sorts of reasons I can't leave the door at the top of the stairs to the basement itself open except for late at night so there's very little air flow into for most of the day - it's whatever seeps around the door along with about a 5"x5" cat door (we removed the flap so it's always open). Therefore the basement air itself doesn't get "refreshed" very frequently. At night in warmer weather I use one of our Lasko box fans to push air into the basement, allowing the hotter air down there to travel up the ceiling into the first floor.

Very low air volume cat door in our door to the basement stairs.

This doesn't bode well for air exchange between the main house and the basement.

In the winter the furnace naturally creates circulation, heated air rising to the first floor, cooler air sinking into the basement. It ends up the basement is pretty warm in the winter so it works out.

For air temperature the bike room is fine in the winter, typically 45-65 degrees F. In warmer weather it gets a bit hot, like 75-80 degrees F.

Humidity is all over the board. In the winter it's about 35-45%, ideal for indoor training. Sweat evaporates quickly and the room doesn't feel like a sauna. In the summer about 70-80%; that's not that great, I get sweat running down my face, I have to use a towel to keep my eyes clear, and, probably most significantly, I'm simply aware of sweating. I run a dehumidifier in a different part of the basement so the temperature may go up as much as 10-15 degrees F, but with judicious basement-door-opening I can keep the basement at about the 70 deg F mark.

Air temperature, air humidity, that's sort of based on your trainer room environment, your house. You need to take into account what you have, what you don't have, and figure out how to fill in the gaps.

Air Velocity

For me, for air velocity, I'm all set. The 20" Hamilton, model SFC1-500B, is rated at 3900 CFM on low, so at its lowest setting it moves about 150% the volume of the ubiquitous Lasko box fan on high. The Hamilton pushes 4700 CFM at medium and a hurricane-like 6100 CFM on high.

To give you an idea of how powerful the fan is, during a particularly bad storm I had water come into the basement (this was in our old house, leak was due to a crack in an add-on foundation area which we eventually found and fixed). Initially it looked like some water had just seeped into the basement, simply wetting the floor. It looked like I'd spilled a bucket of water down there. I set up the fan on high to "dry" the floor, pointing the fan at the wet floor to maximize air movement and therefore evaporation in that area. I also ran a dehumidifier on a counter top down there to dry the air. This set up my trifecta of air velocity, air volume, and air humidity. I hoped to check in a couple hours later to a nice and dry basement.

Unfortunately when I came back to check up on my "drying project" I found that the water level had risen unexpectedly. We had a few inches of water in the basement, with the shallow bit about 1" just near the fan - apparently our basement floor wasn't very level. I was worried that the fan would get shorted out, sitting in a puddle of water. But to my great surprise I found, in front of the fan, a miniature wave an inch or so high about 3 feet away from the fan. The fan was blowing so hard the water couldn't approach any closer. The floor in front was bone dry and it's where I staged the wet/dry vac to start cleaning things up.

So I have a very powerful fan for my trainer.

As a side note I've had the fan for maybe 12 or 14 years now, if not longer. I use it regularly. In some situations I'll move the fan to move air around in other parts of the house, like the wet basement (when we lived there) or, when we get hit with debilitating heat waves, I'll set it up to blow air around in the main part of the house. It's a solid, durable, reliable fan.

Air Humidity

Drier air will help comfort on the trainer. You cool off by having sweat evaporate off your body, but if the air is too humid the sweat simply cannot evaporate quickly enough or at all. When I was a kid we didn't have air conditioning so if I got sick and it was hot and sticky out it'd be hard to cool me down. If I was running a high fever my parents would carefully dole out aspirin to reduce my fever. I knew if they were really worried, or if it was really sticky out, when they patted me down with a towel dipped in a water and rubbing alcohol solution. The slight bit of rubbing alcohol was there to evaporate quickly - it evaporates quicker than water. My dad, the chemist, knew that the rubbing alcohol mixed with water would cool me better than just plain cold water. Just to be clear you should NOT be dousing yourself with rubbing alcohol on the trainer. There are problems with rubbing alcohol that far outweigh the benefits of its cooling properties when on a trainer.

Nowadays, in our house, we have air conditioning in the main part of the house but not in the basement, so the ambient (trainer) humidity is typically 70% or higher in the summer. On the first floor it ranges from about 50% to maybe 60% if the AC is falling behind. Temperatures in the basement range up to about 80 to almost 90 deg F; upstairs it seems that we aim at keeping it at 76-78 deg F, and at 80-81 deg F we want the AC on.

During recent trainer rides, with trainer room ambient temps into the mid 70s deg F and humidity about the same, I've had to use medium speed on the powerful fan, and I've started rides with it on low. Normally I use just low speed and I don't turn the fan on until about 10-30 minutes into a ride.

When it's super humid in the basement (I don't have a % number to reference but I'm guessing at 85% or higher) the problem is that so little sweat evaporates that I have to move a lot of air past me. Even on high I find that the sweat drips off me before it can evaporate effectively. These are the worst rides, I have to focus on making sure I have ice cold water in my Podium Ice bottles. The thing is that if you can't cool off from sweating then you need something else. Ice cold water helps a bit, at least a bit more than luke warm water. It also helps to douse a towel in ice cold water and then rub it on my neck, sort of the rubbing alcohol hack without the rubbing alcohol.

The Open Secret To Training Indoors

So that's my secret to training indoors so much, the high velocity fan. It's not that much money, about $45-60. I know the box fans are much less, but for you, someone interested in riding a trainer or rollers, it's a small price to pay for the difference in comfort going those trainer sessions. Even frugal me bought one of them a long time ago, I simply couldn't do trainer rides with a regular box fan.