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.
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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.
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<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.

Training - Wattage and Me

I promised after my last wattage post that I'd try and ride myself out of the "Untrained" category. I realized afterwards I was looking at the Women's power chart when I saw "Fair". So I wasn't even in "Fair", I was deep in "Untrained". Not a good place to be.

And after taking a day off (albeit an allergy filled one), I started today afresh. No allergy pills (I grovelled for a bit last night too and sprayed my throat with that numbing stuff), no coffee, nothing. Okay, some tea (Liptons), sugar, and a couple slices of bread with cold cuts that are going to expire soon.

I climbed on the trainer (figure it's more consistent - I coast too much outside) and started spinning a bit. Felt somewhat unmotivated.

Part of the reason was I finally read about what happened yesterday at the Landis hearings. The future missus read me part of an article about LeMond, this Will G guy, and allegations and threats about childhood abuse. Normally I'd jump on the computer to read up on it but I was so tired that after she read off some of the stuff, I nodded and said that I was ready for bed.

This morning I was a bit more alert and curious - and there are no shortages of articles on the topic. I read what I figured I needed to read and decided I really need to do something more productive with cycling.

Ride my bike.

I had to visit the rest room (to "rest" so to speak - possibly due to those cold cuts) and noted that I hadn't edited the reading rack there. At the back of the pile - Winning magazine with Lemond on the cover after his '89 Tour win. Since then his life and career seems to have gone sort of odd.

Okay, let's be honest - even before it was a bit weird. His first Tour - sick as a dog. Gets third and the best young rider jersey by a long shot. His second Tour - works for his teammate, cries when he realizes he sat up (team tactics) when he could have taken the Tour. His Tour winning teammate Hinault thanks him for it and says the next Tour is Greg's. In the next Tour Hinault attacks him in the mountains. Twice. Lemond wins regardless. Then Lemond gets shot. Misses a Tour. He gets mixed up with PDM, has surgery on his tendon, misses another Tour. He signs with ADR, an unwanted racer, two years of failure behind him. Wins the closest Tour ever, signs with Z, barely wins the Tour, then, in his last Tour, gets smashed by a super Indurain and finishes 7th. So he got 3rd, 2nd, three 1sts, and a 7th. Not a bad resume for the Tour. Heck, I'd like that resume for the Bethel Spring Series.

And after that his story gets worse. Lemond had a huge falling out with his dad, his long time advisor, the guy who basically ran Lemond's bike company, and Lemond ended up firing him (or something like that - whatever, his dad suddenly didn't work for him). He got in some dispute over some property development. He speaks his mind when asked about touchy topics like Armstrong. And he speaks what he thought or saw or heard when asked.

He doesn't duck punches even when he probably should.

Not being a public figure, I can't relate. For example, if someone asked me about Landis, I'd probably end up getting sued for something. But I'm me. Lemond, he says what he thinks too. But he's a public figure - cover of Sports Illustrated, stuff like that. And it seems that it gets him in trouble.

So with that in mind, I started up the DVD in the player - ironically Stage 16 of the 2007 Tour. Apparently I like to torture myself watching Rasmussen's pathetic descending. For music I started up WinAmp on my computer. I cranked WinAmp and played some of my own clips and when I felt sufficiently motivated, I switched to Linkin Park and prepared to do a big effort. The longest "good" song I could find was 4:33 so I selected that and started hammering.

Hammer, I should point out, is a relative term. For me anything over 300 watts is hammering. I started at what I thought was a moderate pace, turning over the pedals (I wanted to see if higher rpms would help) and not putting a lot of muscular effort into the bike. It felt pretty good.

After a minute I started feeling pretty ragged. That easy effort was killing me. A short time after I started slowing. My 300 watts turned to 250. And eventually to 200. I tried to stay out of the 100's but that didn't work.

But then the sprinter in me rose to the surface. Two minutes to go. 120 seconds. An eternity. Or, from a sprinter's point of view, especially me, two minutes means something else - one lap at New Britain. I was back at 250 watts. One minute to go. Half a lap. Bigger gears, more wattage. 45 seconds to go. 400 watts, my legs screaming. Normally I don't do this - I normally go from pack-fodder to all-out-sprint. The ramp up in effort was foreign to my body.

And not in a good way.

At about 30 seconds to go I was bobbing and weaving like a champion boxer. And at 10 seconds to go my legs just stopped. I was actually surprised since I didn't think I made a conscious decision to stop pedaling. But they stopped. And I coasted past the 5 minute mark.

I thought about blaming the song - it abandoned me at about 30 seconds to go, there was an eternity to the next song, and the next song just wasn't the same. But whatever. I turned the stuff down anyway.

I cooled down a bit, spinning the pedals. I noticed the cadence jumped around a lot - 90-130 rpms when I wasn't varying by more than a total of 10 rpms. So something to check. I got off the bike with about 30 minutes left of my pre-leave-for-work morning left. Normally the PT head sits on the bike and when I get around to it I download it. Not today. I sat down and downloaded the data right away, sweaty shorts and all.

My new 5 minute peak power is 271 watts.

I thought that was fantastic. Until I saw that my previous high was 251 watts. All that work for 20 watts??? I guess I worked pretty hard at Prospect whether or not I admitted it to myself. I did blow up after all.

271 watts means 3.34 w/Kg. And that bumps me into the top of "Fair" on the chart. So with a true effort I'm just below a Cat 4.

To get to the Cat 3 level (4.45 w/Kg) I'd have to put out 360 watts (very unlikely) or get down to (at 271 watts) 134 pounds. Equally unlikely. If I get to 300 watts and 160, I'd still be at 4.13 w/Kg.

But knowing how I ride now, if I was 160 I'd be smokin'.

So that's sort of my goal. Wishy-washy goal. Getting the house on the market, moving, getting married, those are concrete things I have to get done. 160? That's a nice thing if it happens.

I'm not really sure what to do now. I guess I can play with the wattage - do either a surge-recover-surge (that's how I got my highest 8 minute wattage average with the burnt out Cyclops E-Trainer) or do a steady 300 watts. The latter kills me mentally so I might have to do the surge technique. Go 450 for a while, do 180, then do 400 till I collapse.

And find some Linkin Park like music that lasts for 5 minutes, not 4:33.

Training - Wattage and the Pros Revisited

I saw this the today, a post leadout from GMF. To recap, the article mentions that pros have a certain watt/kilogram of body weight output. And although the output is phenomenal for the period of time it takes to, say, climb L'Alpe D'Huez, the output is reasonable when you look at shorter time frames. The writer uses a local landmark, Bear Mountain, which has a decent climb somewhere on the course.

The article states it's probable that most racers could put down some Floyd wattage for a minute. I've said that before but the article does it better. He relates it to Category/Time - like "I am a one minute Pro, five minute Cat 2, and a 30 minute Cat 3". It certainly beats my "Wow, Floyd did 400 watts for an hour and I can do it for a minute."

After my miserable Prospect race (it was semi successful in that I got dropped due to stupidity, not fitness), I reviewed some of the things that could affect my next race. One thing I haven't done recently is weigh myself (I was using the scale to weigh car things - exhaust components, wheels, tires - among other things) so I reclaimed the scale and stood on it.

178 pounds.

For the record I'm 5'7" so 178 is, to be polite, heavy. As a side note Tiger, the adolescent cat who was padding along next to me, weighs about 10 pounds. Tiger, contrary to his food gathering human, is a lean, mean fighting machine.

In metric I weigh about 81 Kg, slightly higher than I was in California in February. To get the 6 watts/Kg mentioned in that article (I'm discounting 7 w/Kg as too "dope-y"), I'd have to maintain 484 watts for the 50 minutes or whatever for Col de Really Hard Climb.

At Prospect my one minute peak average was 431 watts (Floyd, baby!), my five minute peak average 251 (err...). I have a hard time maintaining about 220 for 10 minutes (that's the highest 10 minute peak I've recorded since April 20), and my friend Gene says he TT's at 250-270. So I think I'm a 220 watt kind of guy.

That translates to about 2.7 watts/Kg.

Yikes, right? A long way off from a Pro Tour rider. It doesn't even garner a mention in the article. I guess I should race Cat 5's on the road. Actually I know I should since I've been caught and passed by the 5's in races.

I checked out this chart. And according to that, my current watts/kilo is classified "Untrained to Fair".

Untrained?! Fair?!

Obviously Cat 5 level. Even when I use my 5 minute peak, 251 watts, I barely break 3 w/Kg at 3.09 w/Kg. I guess when people ask if I train I should answer in the negative now.

"No, I'm not in shape. I hover between Untrained and Fair in level of fitness."

My best years ever were in the early to mid 90's. I had a rocking sprint, rode all the time, and weighed, for a bit, a flyweight 135. I was even strong - sprinting the best I ever sprinted. If my steady state wattage was similar (reasonable assumption), my power to weight ratio would be 3.55 watts/Kg, 4.1 w/Kg if I used my 5 minute peak wattage. That's still below Cat 4 level at Bear Mountain. Having never finished Bear Mountain (in fact getting dropped on the first climb on the first lap) that's not surprising. That power chart mentioned before? It ranks me as a bottom to mid-level Cat 4.

And that's if I lose over 40 pounds! More than two bikes worth of weight!

To be fair, I might be 30 or 40 watts better than I state. But that's not the magnitude of power I need to bridge the ability gap - I'd need something like 250 more watts to do a steady 480+ watts to climb with the boys in the Tour right now. That's twice my output. Fit a second, weight-free me on the bike and that's what it takes to ride with the pros. A tandem bike with no weight, aero, or drag penalty. And I'd be equal to one good pro.

That's incredible.

One thing I haven't seen in these equations is the weight of the bike and gear. Figure the clothing and helmets are pretty close in weight, they probably weigh about one kilo (500g for shoes, 250g helmet, figure 250g for shorts and a jersey). Bikes have to weigh 6.8 kilos. So we should add 7.8 kilos to all the racers weights to calculate climbing efficiency.

What's the significance?

Well proportionally speaking, a light rider will carry "more bike" than a heavier rider. A feather weight 57 kilo rider will add over 13% of his bodyweight by getting dressed and clipping into his pedals. That burly 81 kilo sprinter? Less than 10%. Factor in water and stuff and you'll see that a climber who climbs solely on weight will lose some of his perceived advantage simply because they weigh so little. A more powerful but heavier rider will not be as penalized, and significantly for the stage races, will be able to time trial the flats better.

This is why someone like Rasmussen failed to podium (and has apparently given up trying). He trades weight for strength. A less flyweight rider like Landis has the power to time trial and can haul his slightly heavier body up as quickly as he needs. The Saunier-Duval doctor notes that most Tour racers are over 69 kilos (152 pounds). It takes a bit of power and the resulting mass to make it through the fast opening stages.

Oh, the one good thing about that power chart? Even at my bloated weight and counting my non-optimal sprint (1385 watts), my effort (17.1 w/Kg) ranks at the top of the 3's. I imagine I was putting out a lot more power to top out 46 mph at 135 pounds, but given the same power as my dismal parking lot sprint at the office, my "nice" weight would have put me at the top of the Div 1-2 Pro level.

Now that's more like it. Or as Austin Powers would say, "Yeah, baby!"

So anyway, in reality, based on the charts and the Bear Mountain blurb, I should be groveling in pain during any race that doesn't have hills. If they have hills the Bear Mountain guy says I'll be groveling right off the back. On the chance I make it to the finish, and if I race smart, the chart says I should try and cash in my sprint card to get a place. Based on my peak power, I should place well.

I hate it when it takes me 20+ years to figure stuff out and someone who doesn't even know me says "This is how it'll be." And they're right.

Now I have a new goal. I want to see if I can do a 5 minute effort that gets me a little more distant from the "Untrained" category.

I mean, really, that's simply unacceptable.

Untrained.

C'mon.

Training - The New Me

Alright, there is no new me. But I actually rode this Monday morning (on the trainer, if you must know). I was a bit tired and rode a bit shorter than I preferred but the reason was worth it. Sunday the future missus and I worked our collective tails off, clearing out the basement and the junk I've accumulated through 15 years of living in the house.

We put everything on the driveway and sorted out what to keep and what to toss. There was a lot of stuff on the driveway and more than a few cars slowed to check out a potential yard sale. But when they saw the piles of garbage bags they probably wised up and none of them actually said a word to us.

We did this for the whole day - with a 20 minute break to eat some food - and celebrated a virtually empty basement by going out for Indian food. We still have the bike room and the garage to do but trust me, this was a huge accomplishment.

The immense fatigue of the cleanup combined with a blanket of food-induced eye-drooping sleepiness meant a very restful night's sleep. But an open window caused the temperature to plummet in the bedroom and I woke up chilly and still a bit fatigued.

Nevertheless I decided to ride. My brother called asking for a ride to work the previous evening so I decided to ride the trainer so as not to screw up the commute schedule.

I was watching a 2007 Tour DVD as well as the full 100 MB versions of the stuff I put on YouTube. My stuff I know about - effort level, feeling, etc. But the Tour is harder to comprehend.

One stage a break went for a nice ride over the mountains (yes, I was trying to inspire myself - I actually watched mountain stages). Phil and Paul were talking about the wattage the break was putting out - 400 watts or so.

That's almost incomprehensible to me.

If I go all out for a minute, I barely hit 400 watts. Yet these guys were doing it all day!

Incredible.

The future missus came downstairs to see how I was going. I pointed out the insane wattage the pros were putting out to her. She peered over my PowerTap to check out what I was doing. I might have subconsciously upped it for a millisecond but the reading didn't vary much.

200 watts.

She looked up at me.
"Didn't you say these guys have some genetic talent that makes them so strong?"
"Well, yeah."
"And they're pros in the Tour."
"Yeah."
"So what are you worried about."

You know, she has a way with words.

So far I learned two things with the Power Tap.
1. I put out very low steady state power.
2. Spinning seems to increase power without a matching sense of effort.

So for my first ride on the bike after my disastrous Prospect race, I decided to spin and see what sort of wattage I generated with a moderate level of effort. Although I haven't reviewed the stats (the PT never lies) I noticed a "moderate" level of effort is about 130-140 bpm and just about 200 watts (180-205 ish watts).

Since I was on the trainer it's hard for me to motivate a lot. And although I go harder outside, even then it's hard to motivate. In fact, when I really think about it, it's even hard to motivate in a race. I simply get to a certain level of effort (170 bpm), I blow up, and I ease up.

No turning myself inside out. I got out of that phase a long time ago - maybe 10 years ago. Only very, very occasionally do I make such superlative efforts. In the past five or six years they've only been in very significant races - one being the Nutmeg State Games when I bridged to a break.

My goal is to be able to revive the ability to extend myself like that. I think it works better when I'm on the road, hence plans to get out there Tuesday, Wednesday, and maybe even Thursday. I guess it depends on rain too - if it's raining I just wimp out nowadays. Not because I can't ride in the rain but because it's such a pain to clean up afterwards.

Curiously enough, I go through this "search for form" virtually every year. The exceptions were the mid-90's when I used EPO... Okay, I'm just kidding. The exceptions were in the mid 90's when I trained all the time, raced all the time, and the form simply showed up and didn't leave for a number of years.

On with the search.

Equipment - PowerTap SL

(above two pictures) My primary bike as it is now. It recently acquired Look Keo Carbons, a PowerTap SL, and I put some matching tires on a black front wheel (Campy Eurus) to match the DT rimmed SL hub. I happened to have ridden to a local deli to buy lunch and my Coke was still in the cage. I learned to carry it that way when I saw Marc Wauters (of Rabobank, now retired) carry a Coke bottle like that. So I emulate the pros. Sue me :)

(above) A close up of the PT SL head. Wires and all that, I know. My Specialized cyclometer for races - my Reynolds DVs still have a magnet and I still have the fork mounted pickup for the Specialized. Usually I care about average speed and max speed. If things work out, I'll have a racing PowerTap wheel at some point.

(above) The rear pickup. I have a heavy skewer as that's the Cycle-Ops trainer skewer.
(above pic) Note that the fin is angled inward. At first I couldn't get transmission data (or it was intermittent). There is poor documentation on how to mount the fin so I waited till I went to my next race and looked for PT setups. I saw one guy with the fin tilted inward so I copied him. It has worked fine. I rode my bike over extremely roughed up pavement (they're repaving about a mile or two of a road) and although I literally almost lost my bike from under me a few times, the PowerTap worked fine.

(above) The cadence pickup. I just included this as a reference for people having problems picking up cadence. Note the duct tape residue under the ziptie just behind the bottom bracket - signs of my initial test fitting.

So all those pictures mean only one thing. Well to me it does since I only changed one thing on my bike recently.

I got a PowerTap SL.

I really liked knowing my power output and being able to upload my training ride data seemed really cool to me. I don't train enough to use it too much for any specific purpose - although it'll be cool to try and max out the wattage. I have a GTech Pro - a G-force measurer for cars - and I am by no means any sort of a car racer. But I enjoy checking out my fast exit and entrance ramps and like to try to (safely) hit new max G numbers. It's quite illuminating comparing different cars. For the record I've broken 1.0 G's and my 0-60 best was 5.19 seconds.

Now for those that don't know me personally, I am not a person to buy something on a lark. I research, list things, do a pro-con balance sheet, budget, and when I'm about to make a decision, I do it again. Repeat this three or four times, add a new variable or two, repeat, and you understand how it can be frustrating to go shopping with me. I've adapted and now can buy thngs like a shirt after thinking about it for less than 30 minutes. But bike (and car) equipment - I agonize over every decision.

For example, I recently bought pedals. And I knew I wanted to get new pedals.

In 1997.

As a stop gap measure I bought some total blowout SPD-R's (Shimano was introducing the Lance pedal). I got another set of SPD-R's when a friend/teammate decided to get with the program and get "real" pedals. After pulling out of the pedal while set at low tension, I cranked the tension to prevent a repeat. This worked except I had to hit my heel with my hand to unclip. I searched high and low for another pedal. After years of this I was about to give up and try really hard to get my beloved Aerolites back up to speed when Look came out with the Keo line.

I have to admit, I used my fiancee as an rolling test lab. I got the Sprints for her last year and she loved them. I learned Bicycling Magazine liked them too. And after a total of about 10 years, I took the plunge and bought the pedals for myself. As I pointed out previously, I didn't just buy the pedal. I bought three sets for me. And shoes to boot.

Back on the PowerTap.

After I burnt up my temporary Cycle-Ops E-Trainer (a wattage trainer, basically a stationary PowerTap, and owned by the same folks), I started looking at the crop of wattage "things" out there. Basically there are two types of units - stationary and mobile.

I was looking for something that would allow me to gauge watts, heart rate, and cadence. A big plus would be upload capabilities like the Gtech so I could dissect my training ride efforts in detail afterwards. And finally, a raceable wattage meter would be good so I could see what I actually do in races.

Stationary units typically cost much less than mobile ones - I guess it's cheaper to build a big wattage thing than a little one. $800 gets you a pretty sophisticated looking trainer which will do all the required stuff - wattage and heart rate and all that. But it's pretty hard dragging a trainer around in a criterium.

Although the cost of a mobile unit is more, I felt I'd have to bite the bullet.

My hesitation to spend a bit more money reminded me of a round of purchases I regret to this day - one of night lights for bikes. Unwilling to ante up the (at that time) $300 or so for a minimum Nite Rider, I ended up buying three other systems, all of which failed, leading me to buy, you guessed it, a Nite Rider.

So I decided that if it cost a bit more it'd be okay, within reason. A few years ago the only thing out there was the SRM. These are durable and accurate cranks with some kind of pressure sensors - sensitive to minute pressure changes - which allow one to measure how much power the rider is applying to the cranks. Since only the crank is affected, any wheelset can be used (and without any weight penalty).

My friend Gene rides with an SRM and it's been trouble free - but at well over three grand for the setup, well, let me tell you, I could buy a lot of things for my bike for that much money. These were the exclusive territory of the pros and the most dedicated racers.

Since SRM came out and all the pros instantly got them, competitors have introduced a slew of less expensive wattage units. My search would involve SRM substitutes. Among them are the PowerTap, Polar, Ergomo, and the iBike.

The Power Tap measures torque at the rear hub. The Polar measures chain tension and speed or something. The Ergomo measures torque at the bottom bracket. The iBike measures altitude, grade, windspeed, speed, and extrapolates how much work you have to do to go as fast as you're going.

iBike?
The iBike is the equivalent of trying to measure actual work required to move the bike, not just the energy put into a particular bike part. As it's unproven, even though it's cheaper, I skipped the iBike. The iBike scenario reminded me of all my failed head light purchases - each light promising excellent life with lower cost. And each one failed miserably. Without a lot of time out on the road, the iBike was simply a risk I was unwilling to take. Unless someone pays me (or gives me a free or severely discounted product) I am not willing to be a beta tester. The fact that every pro hasn't gotten one also dissuades me a bit.

Polar?
The Polar relies on some inputs and relies on careful positioning of a pickup. Because of the setup factors, I simply don't believe it's accurate. It also has very poor granularity (the time between measurements) and will miss the cool peaks I'm looking for in a power meter. Independent tests seem to support this idea. A silent verification is seeing how many pros actually use them and how many pay for them on their own - none.

Ergomo?
The Ergomo folks had the bad fortune to introduce their system just as everyone got rid of the mostly-solid axles and went to outboard bearings. To be fair their system is as close to the SRM as possible - no wheel limitations, measures actual torque. Get a quick wheel change and you can still see how many watts you're generating.

The Ergomo's use of an obsolete bottom bracket design (which happens to work with my current cranks, but that's beside the point) forces the user to use what amounts to be obsolete cranks. A lower cost might save them, but to be priced something like twice as much as a PowerTap SL doesn't make sense, not at this time, not with their non-adaptable design. My perceived value on the Ergomo does not match their own perceived value so it was marked off the list.

And the death knell for the Ergomo - my hidden agenda of a stiffer, 200-300 gram lighter crank and bottom bracket. Although that probably won't happen for half a decade, I didn't want to shut that door just yet.

PowerTap!

The only survivor is the PowerTap - but they have three different models. The original was a clunky black-capped hub that virtually melted in water. Okay they didn't melt but they definitely stopped working. The same hub with a more sophisticated computer (and the hub had a yellow cap on it) costs more but melts all the same. This simply meant you lost more data when it rained. They recently introduced the SL, a better sealed unit which also cut a significant amount of weight out of the hub. And finally they introduced the SL Wireless with twice the memory of the SL and no wires from the hub to the head.

Since it rains in Connecticut, the original PT's were out. And since there are tons of EMF type things around here (there are two 50,000 watt broadcasting antennas near my riding routes, one within 500 meters, the other less than 100 meters, and my family's house is next to the second one so I go there somewhat regularly), I didn't trust the wireless. So the SL it was. For some reason, I chose the 32H. I think my choices were 32H and 28H.

By the way, it took me only two years to make this decision - definitely a fast track item.

I was checking out some eBay listings afterwards and almost bought a really nice set of Reynolds DV clinchers (one front wheel, two rears with one a PT). But with an original PT "melt in water" hub, I knew I'd have to buy another hub, probably an SL, and that would push the cost to, well, an SRM. And if I had an SRM I could ride my Reynolds that I already had. So the sweet trio of Reynolds were out.

Since it cost so little to have a wheel built around the hub, I decided to take the easy way out and get the wheel, not just the hub. And later I figured I'd relace it with my Zipp 440, a rim that's been waiting patiently for about 10 years to race again (sound familiar?). I've been saving it for something I'm sure. I insist on it. Ask my finacee.

One problem. PT hubs must be laced with crosses on both sides. Unfortunately, I learned of the cross requirement only after I had the shop order the hub. I was thinking "32H hub, 24H rim, just do a 16 right and 8 left lace up. Done it before, can do it again." Since you can't do even a 1x with 8 spokes, that was out. Actually, it might be possible. I'll have to check it out. But it seems improbable.

Ultimately I think I'll have a race wheel and a training wheel. Probably not an unusual setup for most of you out there but it just means finding a 24 (or less) hole SL hub and an appropriate deep dish carbon rim.

So how is the PowerTap?

The Cliff Notes version - works great, terrible presentation.

First I had to replace the batteries in the head unit and the heart rate strap. The strap is encoded, contrary to the poorly printed manual included with the unit. I say "poorly printed" because there's one part that refers to the chart on the opposite page. That chart is actually in a totally different section and not labeled. Some brilliant deductive research allowed to find the chart and decipher its meaning.

Incidentally, because the heart rate band is encoded, there's no more walking away from the bike and then coming back - at that point the head thinks you're someone else and refuses to pick up your heartrate. The head does a duckling kind of thing - it bonds to the first heart rate band it hears. It doesn't like any new band (including the same band later). If the head falls asleep then it'll wake up and repeat the bonding process.

The manual, incidentally, doesn't mention this at all. It simply says "The chest strap is not coded".

After my deductive logic puzzle work, I mounted everything on the bike. I used tape because it was going to rain for the upcoming race (boy did it ever) and since I didn't want to test the waterproofness just yet, I wanted to remove the rig once I confirmed it worked. After testing it and finding all the batteries on the dying side, I took everything off. I did see a PT SL wheel in the race though and the guy didn't seem to be totally ticked off at his wheel afterwards.

When I finally dried out (and got some other pressing stuff done that had nothing to do with bikes) I remounted the PowerTap stuff and did a shakedown ride on the trainer (again). And since I didn't have a battery for the heartrate strap, I used my Timex HR watch for heart rate. Incidentally I love this watch and its reasonable price - so much so that my fiancee, my sister, and two friends got them as well (I bought them for my sister and fiancee - so beat that). My PT trainer ride went well so I went for a ride outside. That went well so now the SL is on my bike permanently.

Normally at this time, if I were a regular rider, I'd be posting a nice graph showing how I averaged 320 watts for my ride, did a TT effort at 530 watts, and sprinted at 1600 watts.

But I haven't. Please let me explain.

I downloaded my first few rides to the computer. To display the graph you have to put in some personal info like your name. And you put in some personal power measurements - like a 4 (or 5) minute wattage max as well as a 30 minute max. Meaning the maximum average you can hold for that amount of time. The default is pretty optimistic - I think it's 500 watts for the short effort, perhaps 300 for the longer one. I figured mine would be under 400 and under 250.

I have to be very frank here. I didn't expect too much. And I was right, but by a bigger margin than I expected. It seems my 30 minute average (I was working pretty hard) is under 200 watts. And my 4 or 5 minute is well under 300 watts.

So as not to give everyone definitive proof that I'm about to get dropped the whole time I race, I decided against sharing such vital information. It's like a national security thing. Except it has to do with finding out exactly how I ride. And I figure I don't want to share that just yet.

As terrible as it might seem, that aerobic stuff wasn't a surprise. What did surprise me was that a moderately hard try at a jump only netted me 1385 watts.

That was shocking.

Shocking bad. Not shocking good. Although I didn't go very fast - I jumped from a virtual standstill and only hit about 35 mph - it was a slight uphill, a bit of a headwind, and I figured that the power should have gotten well into the 1500's. I've hit over 1200 on the trainer with the tire slipping like mad, so it just seemed like a given I could do a 1500 watt sprint.

But I didn't.

So now, after my break in Vegas, I'll chase that number with a vengeance.

I told someone it takes me about 30-40 sprints to find my sprinting legs. I hadn't thought of it till I was saying it but it's true. It's usually a very hard 2-2.5 hour session which gets me close. I can feel the speed coming on, I get my sprinting second wind, and I start using the right gears more often. The gearing is key as I always over gear when I'm not sprinting well - take a look at some of those helmet cam vids.

The first session would probably cover 15-20 sprints - on a seven minute, two mile loop, my standard sprint workout loop, 20 sprints would take 2:20.

After a second very hard 2-2.5 hour session, I feel a lot better - and in fact in one of the second session sprints, I might have even had a "good" sprint. I define a good sprint as both a fast and smooth one. I can feel the power at a reasonably high cadence. When I say high, I mean road high, not track high, so probably 120 rpms or so - I'll learn when I download some PT data.

The second session would see another 15-20 sprints. Hence my "30-40 sprint" number.

The key is having that "good" sprint. That's when I know I've done my work. A good sprint is really good when I find myself running out of gears. When you run out of gear in a 53x11, you're not going slow. 120 rpms would be about 46 mph. And, although I really didn't want to admit this, that is my target speed based on a leadout and no unfavorable conditions (i.e. no headwind). I don't think I've broken 41 or 42 mph in a few years so 46 is really a pipe dream.

On the same road, with a 54x11 and a lot more fitness, I used to consistently hit 44-46 mph, topping out at 48 mph. That was a long time ago and I was a lot fitter. It's a dream worth chasing though.

Sprints anyone?

wattage and pros

One thing I didn't make clear in my "it's tactics, stupid" post is my thought on pro cyclist's wattage outputs.

I'm definitely NOT a pro. When I first got a wattage trainer, I found myself in difficulty trying to sustain a 190 watt average for an hour. I wasn't really sure what that meant in the realm of things but during a group ride I mentioned the wattage stats (190w average) to a very enthusiastic Cat 4 (he had a PowerTap wheel) and got the kind of pitiful look you give a sorry racer. To top it off, I got dropped shortly thereafter.

Anyway, my threshold is pretty low.

Pros, on the other hand, can sustain some incredible averages. I've read a few quotes where pros sustain a 300 watt average for 6 hours (!). Hincapie was one, another was a lesser known pro who said that the "300w x 6 hr" ride was a record for him. So they can do something like that.

Now the Flandis wattage stats, if they can be believed, seem reasonable. They don't break 425 watts by too much. In fact, they seem to sit below 400.

To put that in perspective to what I do, one of the standard "out of the box" workouts described in the little pamphlet that came with the trainer is doing all out one minute efforts. I set a countdown timer to 60 seconds, start rolling (since I get massive tire slip when I jump from a standstill), hit the start button, and go. I start moderately aggressively, typically at 450 watts or so, start to blow, drop into the 300's, then do a final sprint which might consist of a sustained 450-475 watts. The end result? 402 watts. For a minute. Multiply that enormous effort by, say, 50, and you get a nice climb in the Tour. Oh, and I'd have to be something like 30 lbs lighter.

Pros are just a different kind of creature.

It reminds me of a poster I had when I was a kid. National Geographic, one of the solar system and its place in the galaxy. Anyway, there is a little thumbnail of Earth, with an arrow pointing to where it belongs in a little sketch of the solar system. There is another arrow pointing from the solar system to it's place in a small cluster of "local" stars. There is yet another arrow, placing the star cluster into a larger star cluster. There are even more arrows placing the various exponentially larger bodies of matter until there is an arrow pointing to a spot in the middle of a bunch of galaxies with the note "known universe". It's mind boggling, and I struggle to get past the local star cluster arrow.

Pros are like that to us Cat 3's. At least to me. After all, you get some really good Cat 3 and he will get eaten alive in a regional 1/2/3 race (unless he's destined to be a pro, in which case he'll actually win the thing or something). The regional winners, when they get dunked into big national races, say, Philly, or Tour of Georgia, well, they are not even good enough to be pack fodder. They might make an impression at something "minor" like Superweek. The winners of those domestic pro events, they go to the Classics or the small European stage races and they are nowhere. I mean no where. Minutes and minutes down on GC or crossing the finish line when the Classics winner is already interviewing on TV. Those winners? They're the ones who are not favored in the "big" races, the Tour, the Giro, hence they aim for the dinky pro races like the Dauphine or Paris Nice. Or they'd show up "for training". Sort of like Bugno and Fignon showing up at Tour Du Pont to do some training miles. And chasing down some poor unsuspecting amateurs like Chann McRae when he tried to go off the front.

Anyway, at the peak of the sport is the Tour. Guys who are used to annihilating the top pros get annihilated. Or reduced to that of "get me some bottles". When you watch world champions drop out or drop back to the team car for bottles, you know the guys they're helping are pretty strong.
Makes me think about those galaxy arrows.

And how far away that Tour galaxy is from the Cat 3 solar system.