I've been searching for some wheels for myself - deep section rims, light in weight (so probably carbon fiber), and reasonable in price.
"Reasonable" is a relative term - it's pretty easy to lay out $2000 for a pair of such wheels, but I can't see myself doing that for wheels I'll use for training. It irks me that the beautifully designed, forged, strong, and light wheels on my car cost about that amount - if I can get wheels for the car, I ought to be able to get wheels for my bike for a bit less.
Plus, my main concern are the rims. The hubs and the spokes? I can always rebuild the wheel with new spokes and a new hub but if I can't buy the rims, well, I can't build the wheel. So I have to buy a complete wheelset just to buy the rims.
In the old days riders bought wheels, handbuilt by the local shop, made with some standard hub, 32 or 36 spokes, and a narrow, box section aluminum rim. The shop would make recommendations based on the buyer's requests, the shop's own experience with the parts, their knowledge of the local terrain, and perhaps some unsaid thoughts on the buyer's cycling style (or lack thereof). If the buyer requested (or insisted on) a super-light wheelset and the rims bent really quickly, the buyer would have slightly heavier rims laced on. Not expensive and not really too much of a pain. After all, a bent aluminum rim can usually be ridden home and relacing or rebuilding a new rim would be a sub-hour affair.
Nowadays things are a bit different.
First of all, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a skilled wheel builder in every local bike shop. In fact, I know you'd be hard pressed to find a wheel builder in even "serious" shops - those that have riders/racers working there and/or those that sponsor local clubs and teams. Now that isn't to say that your local shop doesn't have a good wheelbuilder, and I think the two shops nearby would be furious if I claimed that they can't build wheels (both are very serious and one guy probably forgot more about wheelbuilding than I ever knew, but hear me out on this one.
A number of years ago one embarrassing incident vividly illustrated the lack of wheel building skills to me. I had visited a very serious local shop, one that sponsored the team for which I raced. They have all sorts of fancy gadgets for fitting riders for custom frames, they stock and sell the highest end bicycles, and the staff are serious riders and racers.
I was waiting as regular customers were around (and took precedence, as they should, over a high-discount and therefore low margin team rider) along with, coincidentally, another team rider or two. One of them was holding a recently laced wheel - brand new rim, brand new spokes, all the spokes were loose and I figured he was in to have the wheel tensioned.
On a side note - it's actually easier to build a wheel than to tension one that has already been laced so saving that "time" by lacing the wheel for the shop is not really efficient. The builder has to analyze the laced wheel to determine where the tight and loose spokes are located, hope that all the spokes were the right length, wonder if the spoke nipple seats were greased, and hope the spoke threads were properly prepped. In other words, don't try and save the wheel builder time by lacing your own wheels.
Since we were both waiting at an empty workbench, I asked Mr. Wheel what he needed done. He said that the wheel needed to be trued. I could certainly see that - a just-laced wheel is not strong and probably not very true. To my surprise (and a bit of horror), he said that he'd been riding the wheel and it had de-tensioned. In other words, it had been built - by the shop - and the spokes sort of loosened up on a ride.
Looking at the spokes rattling around in the wheel, I couldn't believe he could go ten yards on that wheel.
Being a nice guy who knows wheels, waiting in a busy shop, I offered to check out the wheel for him.
It was pretty straight forward although I had to lube the spoke nipple head to eyelet area on all the spoke nipples. After 10 or 15 minutes, I had returned the wheel to about the right tension and handed the wheel back to him.
At about this time the harried owner (and one of the serious riders etc) walked over. Mr. Wheel didn't know what to do. The wheel was fine now but the shop itself didn't work on it (although I used their truing stand and spoke wrench). The shop politely declined any payment as did I, but Mr. Wheel, a really nice guy, was visibly embarrassed for the shop. They'd built the wheel just a few days before and the wheel totally and absolutely failed.
Not a good sign for the shop's wheelbuilding skills.
A little while later I ran into Mr. Wheel at a race and asked him about his wheel. The wheel had been holding up fine. Nothing wrong with the parts - it was the assembly where things went awry. I think he preferred not to talk about it as he still seemed somewhat embarrassed for the shop.
Nowadays, buying a wheelset is a bit different. With the Internet, liability lawsuits, and uneducated cyclists, selling wheels has become a minefield for the vendors. Therefore, instead of relying on the local shops for judgement decisions and (expensive and time consuming) wheel building skill, the vendors took over the process. Wheels are pre-built using sophisticated and well-designed wheel building machines.
Since the shop is not involved in the build, the wheel companies need to cover their collective rears. One way they accomplish this is to rate the wheels for maximum rider weight. If a bigger rider bends a wheel, the shop can shrug and say "Buy the stronger wheel". Some wheels are recommended for riders up to 200 pounds - I've seen others rated to only 165 pounds.
The shop's experience and advice is no longer customized for their riders, at least not within a certain level.
In other words, the shop loses one of its biggest advantages - its ability to advise individuals for their individual needs.
At the same time, wheels have been dropping huge chunks of weight in order to help the rider build his sub-16 pound dream bike. Curiously enough, the wheels are just starting to get below the ancient "light" wheelsets built by shops using box section rims. Granted, the new wheels are aero, but it's interesting that the first "light weight and responsive" wheelset marketed - the Helium - used the heaviest rim you could buy back then. And they still put a weight limit on them!
A disinterested observer might ask, "Why spend so much money on a wheelset when you are overweight?" or "What makes the wheelset too weak for a 165/200/etc pound rider?"
A Tom Boonen, well under 200 pounds, will probably ride a wheelset harder than virtually any 200 pound rider in the US. He'll race it over cobbles, do a couple hundred kilometers a day, and virtually shred the wheel to pieces with a 1600-2000+ watt sprint. Yet the wheels he uses may not be rated for those over 200 lbs.
Why can he ride the wheel but not someone heavier but riding only 20 miles a day, three times a week?
In a very round about way, it ultimately goes back to that trust in the local shop's wheel builder.
A skilled but heavier rider can use equipment that's officially not rated for use by such a rider. Find me a skilled rider over 200 lbs and I'm sure he can get away with training on some of the flimsiets wheels out there. However, the shop that sold him the wheels would advise him that using such wheels, even with his superior skill, will result in spokes failing earlier, and a missed bunnyhop would virtually guarrantee a bent rim. The rider would consider this and decide, I'll take the risk. The rider takes responsibility for his actions as does the shop for theirs.
I have a feeling that a lot of rider weight "limitations" are really liability and customer service related limits. The wheels rated at 165 pounds? They're bombproof and I'd take them off road if I had tires to match - perfect for 'cross or Paris Roubaix. I'd have recommended the wheels for reasonably skilled riders up to 225 lbs (I didn't know anyone heavier than that).
Before such arbitrary weight limits existed, as a bike shop you'd always have two types of riders always having wheel problems - the ones that had no clue how to ride and the ones that pushed the limits.
The second type, the ones that pushed limits, they usually sheepishly admit that they tried to do x or y and the wheel folded up on impact - I didn't mind those riders. They took responsibility for their actions. We felt comfortable suggesting rims or drillings - they'd also think about what they did on the bike and we'd arrive at a good balance between strength and weight.
The first type, those are the reasons the limits are around today. That type cost you the most time and energy - I had one such rider who weighed 125 lbs and would pound into our heads that "these wheels shouldn't break/go out of true/whatever because I only weight 125 lbs". Another one was a 195 lbs version of the first one. Both would regularly trash very nice rims/wheels which other riders used for years without any problems. Both blamed the components.
In reality, the fault lay in the nut that held the seat down.
The rider.
For these riders we could make recommendations which, on the surface, might have seemed somewhat illogical. The 125 pound rider got better quality spokes (his bike had horribly cheap OEM spokes) and a double eyelet rim (not a single eyelet rim as it came from the bike company). For good riddance we put him on kevlar belted commuter tires (he rode over a lot of glass and claimed tires shouldn't be affected by stuff on the road). The 195 pound rider got a V profile rear rim and 25c tires to replace his factory rims and the "high performance" 20c tires he'd bought elsewhere. Although his riding probably slowed down, he could hit the massive holes he hit (without unweighting the seat - after two years he admitted he didn't unweight his seat when he hit bumps) with relative impunity.
With discretion at the shop level, and qualified shop people to make those decisions, bikes and their components can be tuned to each rider's needs.
A wheel company has no such ability. They're designing wheels in some office and they only know the roads around there, the reports they get back from their testers, and perhaps some private inclinations or preferences. They don't interact with every single rider out there. So they need to make broad statements to address potential problems - weight limits are easy to implement and cover a broad range of problems.
Of course, some criticize the need for light wheels under a heavy rider. I learned the hard way not to sell features but instead to sell benefits. People generally look for benefits and they may not be concrete. Light/aero wheels under a heavy rider may seem illogical to some. Why not just lose weight or train more - enough power and you can go faster than someone with less power but cool gear.
There are a lot of "benefits" to buying a particular something and they're not always functional. That's the beauty of human nature. The new missus and I are looking to buy a house and one we saw has a $6k stove in a perhaps $25-30k kitchen. Will it make our food better? Not for me - I struggle with cooking spaghetti and sauce but it would be fun to have that stove (and related kitchen) and experiment with it (or watch a real chef cook on it). She'd have fun with it I'm sure but a $2k stove (that's what we had before) would probably work 99.9% as well. In our last house the cost to replace our appliances was about $6k and our food was perfectly fine (and it was a nice place to hang out, etc). A trained chef might have scoffed what we made in our ($10k) kitchen - "I can make better food using a camping stove" - but that doesn't make us enjoy it any less.
For a bike related example, you only have to look at me. Last week I bought a really nice new SRM/Record/Fulcrum Cannondale. Will it make me that much faster? Or, as one of my friends once asked me when I was hemming and hawing on buying a set of deep section aero wheels, "Will buying those win you $1600 more prize money?"
No, of course not. I don't think I've won that much prize money in the ten years since I've bought the wheels. And the new bike? Since I haven't even ridden on it, it hasn't done anything for my riding at this point. I can assure you thought that I won't win $5000 more prize money in the next 10 years due to any difference between that bike and my current Record/Eurus Giant, for example.
The reason is one I've stated before - it's the nut that holds the seat down.
I guess this is why I'm not a pro racer.
Anyway, although I bought a bike that's not necessarily magnitudes better than my current one. But man, this is one cool looking bike! I know the pain in the butt things are fine - it'll fit me and all that. This is where that feature versus benefit comes in. I know all the features, all the interesting design things. That's not why I bought my bike though. It's the human nature benefit bit.
I got it because I wanted it.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Monday, November 05, 2007
Trivia
A site I like to visit and see what I know (and what I don't know).
Cycling Revealed Trivia
It's a lot of fun and the "rankings" are there for everyone to see. I actually use my name so when you see "aki" that's really me. I have to confess that there are those who know a lot more than me. If you know your 80s and 90s you'll be reasonably well off. If you don't know your 50s, 60s, and 70s you'll rarely break into the top. And the kickers really are kickers.
It just started again so you can try out the first one. A new quiz comes out each week or so and historically they are during the off season (the road off season).
I should point out there are some practice exams at the bottom of the first page - easy and hard. It'll give you an idea of how things work.
A little bonus is that the scoring is monitored by the guy who runs the site - and he'll credit you for the misspellings if they seem reasonably close. In otherwords, "Hinalt" will pass for "Hinault" but if you type "Tomeke" that won't pass for, say, "Tomassini".
Have fun and good luck.
Cycling Revealed Trivia
It's a lot of fun and the "rankings" are there for everyone to see. I actually use my name so when you see "aki" that's really me. I have to confess that there are those who know a lot more than me. If you know your 80s and 90s you'll be reasonably well off. If you don't know your 50s, 60s, and 70s you'll rarely break into the top. And the kickers really are kickers.
It just started again so you can try out the first one. A new quiz comes out each week or so and historically they are during the off season (the road off season).
I should point out there are some practice exams at the bottom of the first page - easy and hard. It'll give you an idea of how things work.
A little bonus is that the scoring is monitored by the guy who runs the site - and he'll credit you for the misspellings if they seem reasonably close. In otherwords, "Hinalt" will pass for "Hinault" but if you type "Tomeke" that won't pass for, say, "Tomassini".
Have fun and good luck.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Equipment - G3 or not to G3
To misquote an classic writer, "To G3 or not to G3, that is the question."
G3 is actually the trade name for a spoke pattern used by Campy. It's an uneven spoke pattern - the spokes are arranged in groups of three, two on one side, one on the other.
On a rear wheel it makes a lot of sense. The drive side spokes of the rear wheel is under much more tension. This is because the rim is not centered on the hub flanges. With equal spoke counts on each side, the drive side spokes always have increased tension - this can lead to reduced spoke life. The wheel also goes out of true easier because of the bigger difference in spoke tension left to right.
Different companies have tried different ways of addressing the uneven spoke tension. One method is to bring the left (non drive side) flange closer to the center of the hub - this reduces the difference between the left and right flange-to-center distance. Another method is to offset the spoke holes in the rim - move them all as far as possible to the left side of the rim. By offsetting the rim holes, you effectively help recenter the rim on the spokes. A third method involves increasing the spoke count on the drive side, spreading the required spoke tension over a greater number of spokes.
The first method results in a wheel built with a very narrow flange-to-flange distance - this in turn causes the wheel to lose lateral rigidity. Although not a problem when going in a straight line, it reduces stability when turning or when making out of saddle efforts.
The offset rim holes works reasonably well but it requires manufacturers to tool up for front and rear rims, doubling inventory and tooling costs. In addition the rim is uneven in strength left to right.
The final method seems to have found most favor with wheel and rim manufacturers. It uses standard hub designs, standard rims, and involves drilling the left rear flange in a different pattern.
If you double the spoke count on just the drive side (and therefore halve the tension) you can increase reliability. Or if you're going aero, you halve the non-drive-side spoke count to bring the spoke tensions closer together. Either way the effect is the same - distribute the very high spoke tension on the drive side over a lot of spokes and use only as many spokes as needed on the non-drive and lower tensioned side.
Ten years ago I used the third technique to build 24 spoke wheels. The rims were, at the time, relatively radical low spoke count and deep section rims. However, hubs in such low spoke counts were not readily available (32 spoke was standard), and spreading the high spoke tension on the drive side over only 12 spokes meant there were incredible stresses on those spokes.
The third wheel building technique addresses both hub availability as well as the high drive-side spoke tensions. A wheel builder could buy a standard 32 spoke hub and use 16 spokes on the drive side and 8 on the non-drive side. This simply required skipping every other hole in the hub on the non-drive side. The built wheels were very reliable and had reasonable spoke tension on both sides.
Now you can buy wheels like that. One company using this build technique is Campagnolo. They call their particular design "G3". Fulcrum wheels also come like that, they call it "2:1". As Fulcrums are to Campy like Chrysler is to Dodge, they're made by the same people.
The G3 is the same thing but the spokes are grouped in three, not spread out evenly. On the rear you'll have a drive spoke (D), a non-drive (ND), and then a drive (D). Your spokes, if you went around the rim, would be like this:
Note that every ND spoke is opposed by two D spokes. In Fulcrum-speak it's "2:1". The D's (drive side) would have less tension than a normal wheel with just one D for each ND spoke.
An important reminder - all this information about uneven spoke tensions only apply to the rear wheel. In comparison to the nightmare at the back end of the bike, the front wheel is wheelbuilding paradise. Unless you have a disc brake, there is no difference in tension between the two sides. The rim is centered on the hub flanges and, again, unless you have a disc brake, you do not have to deal with hub torque.
Therefore, in a front wheel, there is no need for an uneven spoke pattern.
Here lies the problem.
Campy, in their marketing wisdom, has marketed, and is selling, a G3 front wheel.
A G3 front wheel would look like this:
Since the spokes are grouped together, the trio with a D bias will tend to pull to D. The ND biased trio will pull to ND. The spokes will naturally pull the rim from left to right. Since that's not a goal for a front wheel, the spokes will have to be tensioned unevenly. So in a D, ND, D triplet, since the three spokes need to exert equal tension left to right, the two Ds need to equal the opposite and single ND.
In other words, the Ds need half the tension.
At the next triplet, the opposite is true:
A G3 laced front wheel requires double the spoke tension on the single spoke (of a triplet) versus the pair on the other side of the rim.
This is absolutely illogical.
Not only do you have to tension the spokes unevenly, since spoke tension on the paired side is half that of the single side, the paired spokes will tend to loosen quicker, especially when flexing the wheel side to side (like when the rider stands up on the pedals). To counter this the overall tension of the wheel has to be increased so that the "half-tension" of the paired spokes is high enough to resist this "automatic spoke loosening". This means the single spoke opposite the pair will be tensioned to an excruciating pressure, reducing the lifespan of said spoke.
Wait, it gets better.
The relatively long expanse of rim between the G3 spoke trios is unsupported and therefore needs to be stiffer - this is in addition to the requirement that the rim fight the tendency to wander left to right due to the left-right spoke-triplet bias. Ultimately this requires a much stiffer than normal rim - in other words, a heavier and not optimized rim. You'll still get unusual rim movement around the spokes since there will always be local distortion due to spoke tension. So the rim snakes back and forth anyway, it just does it really quickly.
Think about what would happen if the same wheel were built without the G3 pattern. If the wheel has evenly spaced spokes and they alternate left to right like normal, the tension for each spoke will be about the same. The rim only needs to be stiff enough to bridge the standard gap between each (evenly-spaced) spoke hole. The rim moves back and forth between spokes in a normal fashion and can be optimized for a given spoke count.
Looking at it from a different point of view, if the G3 spoke pattern is so good for front wheels, Campy's top line wheels would be G3. Study Campy's top line wheels - they are distinctly not laced in a G3 pattern.
It is because G3 front wheels are an inferior design.
Along those lines, if G3 was good for front wheels, that would mean 2:1 would be good for front wheels too. There are no 2:1 laced front Fulcrum wheels. Again, it is because a 2:1 spoke pattern in a front wheel is an inferior design. In fact, on their spec page, they describe the 2:1 pattern as a rear wheel specific design.
Incidentally I had Vento wheels (G3 front and rear), and the G3 up front was so flexible it was downright scary. The rear wasn't bad so I'd use the rear, but the front I virtually never rode. The Vento rim is not that stiff and therefore the rim, and the bike, moves around a lot, especially when standing up.
In contrast I also have the Eurus wheels - G3 in the rear, a standard radial spoke pattern in the front. They are extremely tough, dependable, and have performed above my expectations. They are rigid, fast, reasonably light, and very strong. I double-pinch-flatted both front and rear tires (approx 130 psi in 700x23 tires) when I hit a pothole while drafting a truck at about 45 mph. Although the tires were unusable due to massive snakebike cuts and I had to ride back on flat tires, the wheels were perfectly in true. Impressed me for sure.
So to answer the question, to G3 or not to G3, it's both yes and no.
G3 for rear wheels is great.
G3 for front wheels is stupid.
G3 is actually the trade name for a spoke pattern used by Campy. It's an uneven spoke pattern - the spokes are arranged in groups of three, two on one side, one on the other.
On a rear wheel it makes a lot of sense. The drive side spokes of the rear wheel is under much more tension. This is because the rim is not centered on the hub flanges. With equal spoke counts on each side, the drive side spokes always have increased tension - this can lead to reduced spoke life. The wheel also goes out of true easier because of the bigger difference in spoke tension left to right.
Different companies have tried different ways of addressing the uneven spoke tension. One method is to bring the left (non drive side) flange closer to the center of the hub - this reduces the difference between the left and right flange-to-center distance. Another method is to offset the spoke holes in the rim - move them all as far as possible to the left side of the rim. By offsetting the rim holes, you effectively help recenter the rim on the spokes. A third method involves increasing the spoke count on the drive side, spreading the required spoke tension over a greater number of spokes.
The first method results in a wheel built with a very narrow flange-to-flange distance - this in turn causes the wheel to lose lateral rigidity. Although not a problem when going in a straight line, it reduces stability when turning or when making out of saddle efforts.
The offset rim holes works reasonably well but it requires manufacturers to tool up for front and rear rims, doubling inventory and tooling costs. In addition the rim is uneven in strength left to right.
The final method seems to have found most favor with wheel and rim manufacturers. It uses standard hub designs, standard rims, and involves drilling the left rear flange in a different pattern.
If you double the spoke count on just the drive side (and therefore halve the tension) you can increase reliability. Or if you're going aero, you halve the non-drive-side spoke count to bring the spoke tensions closer together. Either way the effect is the same - distribute the very high spoke tension on the drive side over a lot of spokes and use only as many spokes as needed on the non-drive and lower tensioned side.
Ten years ago I used the third technique to build 24 spoke wheels. The rims were, at the time, relatively radical low spoke count and deep section rims. However, hubs in such low spoke counts were not readily available (32 spoke was standard), and spreading the high spoke tension on the drive side over only 12 spokes meant there were incredible stresses on those spokes.
The third wheel building technique addresses both hub availability as well as the high drive-side spoke tensions. A wheel builder could buy a standard 32 spoke hub and use 16 spokes on the drive side and 8 on the non-drive side. This simply required skipping every other hole in the hub on the non-drive side. The built wheels were very reliable and had reasonable spoke tension on both sides.
Now you can buy wheels like that. One company using this build technique is Campagnolo. They call their particular design "G3". Fulcrum wheels also come like that, they call it "2:1". As Fulcrums are to Campy like Chrysler is to Dodge, they're made by the same people.
The G3 is the same thing but the spokes are grouped in three, not spread out evenly. On the rear you'll have a drive spoke (D), a non-drive (ND), and then a drive (D). Your spokes, if you went around the rim, would be like this:
D, ND, D,,,, D, ND, D,,,, D, ND, D
Note that every ND spoke is opposed by two D spokes. In Fulcrum-speak it's "2:1". The D's (drive side) would have less tension than a normal wheel with just one D for each ND spoke.
An important reminder - all this information about uneven spoke tensions only apply to the rear wheel. In comparison to the nightmare at the back end of the bike, the front wheel is wheelbuilding paradise. Unless you have a disc brake, there is no difference in tension between the two sides. The rim is centered on the hub flanges and, again, unless you have a disc brake, you do not have to deal with hub torque.
Therefore, in a front wheel, there is no need for an uneven spoke pattern.
Here lies the problem.
Campy, in their marketing wisdom, has marketed, and is selling, a G3 front wheel.
A G3 front wheel would look like this:
D, ND, D,,,,ND, D, ND,,,,D, ND, D
Since the spokes are grouped together, the trio with a D bias will tend to pull to D. The ND biased trio will pull to ND. The spokes will naturally pull the rim from left to right. Since that's not a goal for a front wheel, the spokes will have to be tensioned unevenly. So in a D, ND, D triplet, since the three spokes need to exert equal tension left to right, the two Ds need to equal the opposite and single ND.
2 x D = 1 x ND
In other words, the Ds need half the tension.
At the next triplet, the opposite is true:
2 x ND = 1 x D
A G3 laced front wheel requires double the spoke tension on the single spoke (of a triplet) versus the pair on the other side of the rim.
This is absolutely illogical.
Not only do you have to tension the spokes unevenly, since spoke tension on the paired side is half that of the single side, the paired spokes will tend to loosen quicker, especially when flexing the wheel side to side (like when the rider stands up on the pedals). To counter this the overall tension of the wheel has to be increased so that the "half-tension" of the paired spokes is high enough to resist this "automatic spoke loosening". This means the single spoke opposite the pair will be tensioned to an excruciating pressure, reducing the lifespan of said spoke.
Wait, it gets better.
The relatively long expanse of rim between the G3 spoke trios is unsupported and therefore needs to be stiffer - this is in addition to the requirement that the rim fight the tendency to wander left to right due to the left-right spoke-triplet bias. Ultimately this requires a much stiffer than normal rim - in other words, a heavier and not optimized rim. You'll still get unusual rim movement around the spokes since there will always be local distortion due to spoke tension. So the rim snakes back and forth anyway, it just does it really quickly.
Think about what would happen if the same wheel were built without the G3 pattern. If the wheel has evenly spaced spokes and they alternate left to right like normal, the tension for each spoke will be about the same. The rim only needs to be stiff enough to bridge the standard gap between each (evenly-spaced) spoke hole. The rim moves back and forth between spokes in a normal fashion and can be optimized for a given spoke count.
Looking at it from a different point of view, if the G3 spoke pattern is so good for front wheels, Campy's top line wheels would be G3. Study Campy's top line wheels - they are distinctly not laced in a G3 pattern.
It is because G3 front wheels are an inferior design.
Along those lines, if G3 was good for front wheels, that would mean 2:1 would be good for front wheels too. There are no 2:1 laced front Fulcrum wheels. Again, it is because a 2:1 spoke pattern in a front wheel is an inferior design. In fact, on their spec page, they describe the 2:1 pattern as a rear wheel specific design.
Incidentally I had Vento wheels (G3 front and rear), and the G3 up front was so flexible it was downright scary. The rear wasn't bad so I'd use the rear, but the front I virtually never rode. The Vento rim is not that stiff and therefore the rim, and the bike, moves around a lot, especially when standing up.
In contrast I also have the Eurus wheels - G3 in the rear, a standard radial spoke pattern in the front. They are extremely tough, dependable, and have performed above my expectations. They are rigid, fast, reasonably light, and very strong. I double-pinch-flatted both front and rear tires (approx 130 psi in 700x23 tires) when I hit a pothole while drafting a truck at about 45 mph. Although the tires were unusable due to massive snakebike cuts and I had to ride back on flat tires, the wheels were perfectly in true. Impressed me for sure.
So to answer the question, to G3 or not to G3, it's both yes and no.
G3 for rear wheels is great.
G3 for front wheels is stupid.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Equipment - UPS Rules or How I Got My Bike
UPS is awesome. When I was at the shop we'd joke that the UPS guy was like Santa every day of the year. He always brought us stuff, he was a good guy, friendly, and it always brought smiles when he showed up.
But I get ahead of myself.
Yesterday I decided to do some early morning recon on the bike, check out yet another house that's made our short list. We're ready to buy a house, we can't buy one in March or April (she does taxes, I do the Bethel Spring Series), and we'd rather move sooner than later. Hence the recon.
I knew the bike I'd ordered was on schedule for delivery that day, and since the UPS guy shows up in the early afternoon, I decided to have a last good ride on my primary Giant. The bike has done me well - Cat 3 CT State Champion (twice), Bethel Spring Series overall, big rides in California and Florida, trouble free. A good frame. In a few days though my primary bike might very well be the Cannondale - perhaps a little more focused in purpose, less compromising in certain ways.
I looked up the house and it sits a little closer than the Mountain Road house I'd ridden past on Saturday. Since I could cross over Mountain Road to get to this other house, I decided to stick to what I know - go up to Mountain Road, ride to the end, and come back via this other house's street.
Connecticut's terrain is such that doing north-south rides are generally flat, with a slight uphill bias when heading north - this is because all the rivers eventually flow south to the Atlantic. East-west rides cut across those river valleys and make for a very choppy ride elevation-wise. Since Mountain Road went east-west, and the first third of it was a steep climb (I struggled for 10 minutes in a 39x25 the whole time), I just assumed that there'd be a nice descent on the other side of the road. Mountain Road, after all, didn't end at the top of a ski slope - it's not like L'Alpe D'Huez or anything.
Right?
Well, my 20 minute estimate for Mountain Road (10 for the climb, 10 more for other 2/3 since it would be a descent) ended up taking 35 minutes - the road essentially climbs the whole way. That along with an oxygen befuddled estimate to get to the "top" of Mountain Road (I thought that it took me 40 minutes, including the 10 minute climb, to get there on Saturday - looking back I realized it really took me over an hour) meant I ended up over 30 minutes behind schedule.
To compound matters I took a wrong turn on a very swoopy and fun descent. 45 mph while braking - it's a descent I'll have to revisit as I now know the road better and there are no obstacles to letting the bike fly down the steep and curvy road.
Anyway, I was over 30 minutes further out than I wanted to be and I knew I was dipping heavily into my "cool down and shower" time. I made some big efforts to get back in time for work. This meant pushing into the upper 20s and low 30s on the mainly downhill flats, tucking aggressively on descents, drafting a truck or two, and raising my average speed to over 15 mph.
Sad, right?
Unfortunately it's about what I do when I do a solo ride and there are a couple hills.
I rolled back to the townhouse, barely on time to log in for work. I had already started thinking of how to shower, change, dress, and log in in the one or two minutes I had - and then I saw the sticky note on the door.
UPS had tried to deliver the bike. About three hours earlier than they normally show up.
Ironically I'd been out for a ride, one to celebrate my primary bike's good service to me, myself, and I.
My heart sank, my motivation disappeared, and I logged in while still in bike gear. After our morning meeting I relayed my disappointment to the missus. She suggested I call UPS. I recalled that our office manager would do the same thing at work. So I looked for a number - and the only one I could find was the national one, 1-800-PICK-UPS. I called and the conversation went something like this.
"Hi, I got a note saying the UPS guy tried to deliver a package but I wasn't here. It's my new bike and I've been dying to get it. Is there any way to get the UPS guy to make another attempt today? I've been dying to get this bike."
Stretch the word "dying" out to about one second for good effect.
I could hear a smile on the other end of the line. It's an American thing I think - empathy, help out the customer, find another path to the solution.
"Let me call the regional office and have them get back to you."
A short time later my phone rang.
"Hi, this is UPS in somewhere in Connecticut. We got a request to make a second attempt to deliver a package. Is this correct?"
"Yes, I'm waiting for a package. It's my new bike and I've been dying to get it."
UPS must have a lot of smiling customer service reps because I could hear this one smile too.
"Well, let me page the driver and I'll call you right back."
A short time later, again, my phone rang.
"The driver will be delivering the bike, um, package, in about 30 minutes or so."
So, for the next half hour, whenever I heard something larger than a car drive by, I ran downstairs and opened the door. Mind you, we live just off of a big road and let me tell you, I never knew how many trucks drove by in half an hour until then - I must have run downstairs 15 or 20 times.
The missus called and I told her excitedly my bike was about to show up. Since I was talking and couldn't hear trucks, I went downstairs.
I was standing next to the door when the doorbell rang.
I have no idea what happened with the missus because I basically said something like "The bike is here, bye!" and opened the door. The UPS guy was there, perhaps a little surprised at such a quick response.
"I really haven't been waiting by the door for you to show up," I reassured him. He looked at me skeptically.
And I got my bike.
At first I thought it was new, it was packaged so well. But a couple things pointed to perhaps a floor bike. Seatpost with insertion marks. A previously clamped fork (meaning a wheel was in there). Extra, non-factory cardboard between the box and the bike. Shopping bags containing miscellaneous things like the various manuals and stuff.
I took the bike out and examined the pieces and parts. The last time I bought a big bike item on eBay (my spare Giant frame) it arrived rattling in a big bike box, the loose fork bouncing around, and various little pieces scattered in the box. No padding, nothing secured. There were chips all over the frame and the fork. A bit disappointing to say the least. The guys who packed the Cannondale were awesome, but that didn't mean something wasn't bent or scratched. And eBay feedback is a one time thing.
I'm pleased to say it all checked out. I have yet to test the SRM but it'll have to wait.
I went to adjust the saddle since that is a pretty straightforward task (and a seatpost on its own is good at scratching whatever it touches). I'd steeled myself for the low looking position prior to buying the bike by putting the tape measure next to the Giant along the lines of the new Cannondale. I must have flinched - the tape measure hit halfway up the exposed part of the seat post on the Giant. But it's where it is, the bars would work with the short headtube so I ordered the bike.
I inserted the seatpost and pushed it down till it looked about right. Measured. Pushed it down till the letters on the post were touching the collar. Measured. Pushed down till the letters started disappearing in a rather alarming manner. Measured. Pushed a little bit more. Measured. It was okay.
My post is so far into the frame...
I stepped back and looked at the bike.
Now I realize why semi-level top tube bikes make your seat position seem so low. The Giant made me feel like I was six feet tall. The Cannondale brings me back to, well, my Junior days.
Of course I've been the same height since I started racing.
I couldn't do a lot with the rest of the bike until I got the proper stem, bars, seat, pedals, and some other stuff so I went back upstairs to work.
Later that night I brought up my spare bike (I've ridden it perhaps 6 or 8 weeks - in California, Florida, and twice at Bethel) and took the stem off - it's one of two stems I have that will work for me on a 53.5 cm top tube, and both my Giants and the Cannondale have just that. They also have 13 cm or shorter headtubes so the bars will also be at about the right height. Just take all the spacers out, slam the stem down, and presto, right position.
The massive stem sitting next to the Ritchey stem
I took the massive stem ("submarine stem") off the Cannondale, looked at the jutting steerer tube, and realized my trusty saw is elsewhere. Even my stem spacers are somewhere else. So I put on the relatively dinky stem, a Ritchey 130mm -17 degree. Because all my bars are 26.0 mm, I had to find one to replace the FSA 31.8mm carbon bar. I swapped over the levers, put it on, and called it a day. To keep things together, I piled all the two inch wide spacers on top of the stem.
It looks like I have a little black mug sitting on top of my stem.
See the black shot glass on my stem?
I didn't know what else to do so I installed two bottle cages originally meant for, well, I actually don't know why I ordered four but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. Two sit on my primary Giant, now the other two on the Cannondale.
Until I saw the top of the steerer tube off I won't be riding the bike so I need to put it aside.
I still have some changes to make.
1. The Fulcrum wheels are on there for now, but I'm inclined to sell them while they're new. I'd like to get deep section carbon clinchers and those would make the Fulcrums unnecessary. They are beautiful, have these cool looking squashed spokes, and feel featherly light (1550 grams or so per pair), but I can't justify keeping them if I get 50mm carbon clinchers.
2. I put some "road" bars on the bike but will eventually swap it out for my Mavic Criterium bend bars. The current bars are my "long steady ride" bars for Florida and California.
3. I'll use my FiR Zenith wheels for now (they're blue so they sort of match my green/black bike and my blue/green/white/black kit).
4. I'll keep the 12-25 cassette since the 19, 21, 23, and 25 are titanium. I'll swap some other cogs around so it becomes an 11-25.
5. I have to buy a new SRM computer mount since I don't have a 31.8mm bar. I might jam a lot of spacers between the clamp and bar though - the clamp is a $60 machined aluminum beauty and I'd rather not lose it.
6. I want to sell the bars (42 cm FSA K-Force), the seat (Ti railed Arione) , and the stem (who needs a 100 mm enormous stem?). I might sit on the seat on the trainer first since it looks so pretty.
7. I have to swap over some pedals - probably off my primary Giant since they have the Carbon Keos. I'll take the other Keos off the spin bike and put it on the primary Giant. My fixed gear stuff (track bike, spin bike) will use SPD-Rs.
What it looks like now
So for a little while at least, no riding the new bike. Just some patient waiting.
But I get ahead of myself.
Yesterday I decided to do some early morning recon on the bike, check out yet another house that's made our short list. We're ready to buy a house, we can't buy one in March or April (she does taxes, I do the Bethel Spring Series), and we'd rather move sooner than later. Hence the recon.
I knew the bike I'd ordered was on schedule for delivery that day, and since the UPS guy shows up in the early afternoon, I decided to have a last good ride on my primary Giant. The bike has done me well - Cat 3 CT State Champion (twice), Bethel Spring Series overall, big rides in California and Florida, trouble free. A good frame. In a few days though my primary bike might very well be the Cannondale - perhaps a little more focused in purpose, less compromising in certain ways.
I looked up the house and it sits a little closer than the Mountain Road house I'd ridden past on Saturday. Since I could cross over Mountain Road to get to this other house, I decided to stick to what I know - go up to Mountain Road, ride to the end, and come back via this other house's street.
Connecticut's terrain is such that doing north-south rides are generally flat, with a slight uphill bias when heading north - this is because all the rivers eventually flow south to the Atlantic. East-west rides cut across those river valleys and make for a very choppy ride elevation-wise. Since Mountain Road went east-west, and the first third of it was a steep climb (I struggled for 10 minutes in a 39x25 the whole time), I just assumed that there'd be a nice descent on the other side of the road. Mountain Road, after all, didn't end at the top of a ski slope - it's not like L'Alpe D'Huez or anything.
Right?
Well, my 20 minute estimate for Mountain Road (10 for the climb, 10 more for other 2/3 since it would be a descent) ended up taking 35 minutes - the road essentially climbs the whole way. That along with an oxygen befuddled estimate to get to the "top" of Mountain Road (I thought that it took me 40 minutes, including the 10 minute climb, to get there on Saturday - looking back I realized it really took me over an hour) meant I ended up over 30 minutes behind schedule.
To compound matters I took a wrong turn on a very swoopy and fun descent. 45 mph while braking - it's a descent I'll have to revisit as I now know the road better and there are no obstacles to letting the bike fly down the steep and curvy road.
Anyway, I was over 30 minutes further out than I wanted to be and I knew I was dipping heavily into my "cool down and shower" time. I made some big efforts to get back in time for work. This meant pushing into the upper 20s and low 30s on the mainly downhill flats, tucking aggressively on descents, drafting a truck or two, and raising my average speed to over 15 mph.
Sad, right?
Unfortunately it's about what I do when I do a solo ride and there are a couple hills.
I rolled back to the townhouse, barely on time to log in for work. I had already started thinking of how to shower, change, dress, and log in in the one or two minutes I had - and then I saw the sticky note on the door.
UPS had tried to deliver the bike. About three hours earlier than they normally show up.
Ironically I'd been out for a ride, one to celebrate my primary bike's good service to me, myself, and I.
My heart sank, my motivation disappeared, and I logged in while still in bike gear. After our morning meeting I relayed my disappointment to the missus. She suggested I call UPS. I recalled that our office manager would do the same thing at work. So I looked for a number - and the only one I could find was the national one, 1-800-PICK-UPS. I called and the conversation went something like this.
"Hi, I got a note saying the UPS guy tried to deliver a package but I wasn't here. It's my new bike and I've been dying to get it. Is there any way to get the UPS guy to make another attempt today? I've been dying to get this bike."
Stretch the word "dying" out to about one second for good effect.
I could hear a smile on the other end of the line. It's an American thing I think - empathy, help out the customer, find another path to the solution.
"Let me call the regional office and have them get back to you."
A short time later my phone rang.
"Hi, this is UPS in somewhere in Connecticut. We got a request to make a second attempt to deliver a package. Is this correct?"
"Yes, I'm waiting for a package. It's my new bike and I've been dying to get it."
UPS must have a lot of smiling customer service reps because I could hear this one smile too.
"Well, let me page the driver and I'll call you right back."
A short time later, again, my phone rang.
"The driver will be delivering the bike, um, package, in about 30 minutes or so."
So, for the next half hour, whenever I heard something larger than a car drive by, I ran downstairs and opened the door. Mind you, we live just off of a big road and let me tell you, I never knew how many trucks drove by in half an hour until then - I must have run downstairs 15 or 20 times.
The missus called and I told her excitedly my bike was about to show up. Since I was talking and couldn't hear trucks, I went downstairs.
I was standing next to the door when the doorbell rang.
I have no idea what happened with the missus because I basically said something like "The bike is here, bye!" and opened the door. The UPS guy was there, perhaps a little surprised at such a quick response.
"I really haven't been waiting by the door for you to show up," I reassured him. He looked at me skeptically.
And I got my bike.
At first I thought it was new, it was packaged so well. But a couple things pointed to perhaps a floor bike. Seatpost with insertion marks. A previously clamped fork (meaning a wheel was in there). Extra, non-factory cardboard between the box and the bike. Shopping bags containing miscellaneous things like the various manuals and stuff.
I took the bike out and examined the pieces and parts. The last time I bought a big bike item on eBay (my spare Giant frame) it arrived rattling in a big bike box, the loose fork bouncing around, and various little pieces scattered in the box. No padding, nothing secured. There were chips all over the frame and the fork. A bit disappointing to say the least. The guys who packed the Cannondale were awesome, but that didn't mean something wasn't bent or scratched. And eBay feedback is a one time thing.
I'm pleased to say it all checked out. I have yet to test the SRM but it'll have to wait.
I went to adjust the saddle since that is a pretty straightforward task (and a seatpost on its own is good at scratching whatever it touches). I'd steeled myself for the low looking position prior to buying the bike by putting the tape measure next to the Giant along the lines of the new Cannondale. I must have flinched - the tape measure hit halfway up the exposed part of the seat post on the Giant. But it's where it is, the bars would work with the short headtube so I ordered the bike.
I inserted the seatpost and pushed it down till it looked about right. Measured. Pushed it down till the letters on the post were touching the collar. Measured. Pushed down till the letters started disappearing in a rather alarming manner. Measured. Pushed a little bit more. Measured. It was okay.
My post is so far into the frame...I stepped back and looked at the bike.
Now I realize why semi-level top tube bikes make your seat position seem so low. The Giant made me feel like I was six feet tall. The Cannondale brings me back to, well, my Junior days.
Of course I've been the same height since I started racing.
I couldn't do a lot with the rest of the bike until I got the proper stem, bars, seat, pedals, and some other stuff so I went back upstairs to work.
Later that night I brought up my spare bike (I've ridden it perhaps 6 or 8 weeks - in California, Florida, and twice at Bethel) and took the stem off - it's one of two stems I have that will work for me on a 53.5 cm top tube, and both my Giants and the Cannondale have just that. They also have 13 cm or shorter headtubes so the bars will also be at about the right height. Just take all the spacers out, slam the stem down, and presto, right position.
The massive stem sitting next to the Ritchey stemIt looks like I have a little black mug sitting on top of my stem.
See the black shot glass on my stem?I didn't know what else to do so I installed two bottle cages originally meant for, well, I actually don't know why I ordered four but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. Two sit on my primary Giant, now the other two on the Cannondale.
Until I saw the top of the steerer tube off I won't be riding the bike so I need to put it aside.
I still have some changes to make.
1. The Fulcrum wheels are on there for now, but I'm inclined to sell them while they're new. I'd like to get deep section carbon clinchers and those would make the Fulcrums unnecessary. They are beautiful, have these cool looking squashed spokes, and feel featherly light (1550 grams or so per pair), but I can't justify keeping them if I get 50mm carbon clinchers.
2. I put some "road" bars on the bike but will eventually swap it out for my Mavic Criterium bend bars. The current bars are my "long steady ride" bars for Florida and California.
3. I'll use my FiR Zenith wheels for now (they're blue so they sort of match my green/black bike and my blue/green/white/black kit).
4. I'll keep the 12-25 cassette since the 19, 21, 23, and 25 are titanium. I'll swap some other cogs around so it becomes an 11-25.
5. I have to buy a new SRM computer mount since I don't have a 31.8mm bar. I might jam a lot of spacers between the clamp and bar though - the clamp is a $60 machined aluminum beauty and I'd rather not lose it.
6. I want to sell the bars (42 cm FSA K-Force), the seat (Ti railed Arione) , and the stem (who needs a 100 mm enormous stem?). I might sit on the seat on the trainer first since it looks so pretty.
7. I have to swap over some pedals - probably off my primary Giant since they have the Carbon Keos. I'll take the other Keos off the spin bike and put it on the primary Giant. My fixed gear stuff (track bike, spin bike) will use SPD-Rs.
What it looks like nowSo for a little while at least, no riding the new bike. Just some patient waiting.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Story - Egos on the Road
I read a post about some of the egos out there in cycling. As a sport you'd think that cycling would draw those friendly, outgoing, fit people, and in general, you'd be right. But there are those who aren't quite so friendly. Cycling, for them, has a more immediate meaning - it defines some significant element of their self worth. It's unfortunate because such competitiveness sometimes makes such a rider overlook the joy of simply riding your bike.
It's one thing to identify oneself as a cyclist. I'm one, and when people ask what I do for fun, I say I race bicycles (not "bikes" because then they ask if I race Harleys). In that sense I identify myself, my personality, as "part cyclist". I'm also part auto enthusiast, part musician, and, more minutely, a cook, babysitter, and computer geek. For some though it's not enough - as a cyclist they have to be better or faster or have a lighter bike.
I feel comfortable in the cycling world. I figure I've learned a few things in the 25 years I've been racing bikes - and the few years before where I simply learned as much as I could about bicycles. At the same time I'm human. I make mistakes although I try and avoid them and I'm flat out wrong sometimes. I'm properly awed by some of the big personalities - put me in front of a famous racer and I'll be slack jawed and at a loss for words. Ask me to adjust his rear derailleur and I'd do it and know I did it right.
At one criterium I got to change a National team rider's rear wheel - I was proud of the quick wheel change, of holding him up so he's not leaning, and the fact that the wheel didn't slip when he gunned it to rejoin the race. I think he won but it didn't really matter - my highlight of the race was simply to be there to help him out.
Being at a race and being out on the road are different things altogether. Out on the road you may meet up with riders who place a lot more of themselves in their bikes and their riding. Their egos are intrinsically tied to their bikes, their cycling, and everything that envelops those two topics. If they falter in their cycling, it's personal. You know them - they catch you, pass you when they can, and hammer away from you, all without a nod or a wave. Just grim determination to be better than that other guy on the road.
I suppose I used to be like that, although I'd like to think I wasn't too negative. I liked it when I'd see other riders in front of me, partly because it was fun to try and catch other riders. In fact, if I see someone plodding along it's quite a bit of motivation for me to maintain my effort. I'd catch them, stay 30 or 40 feet behind for a bit, then roll past them, saying hi as I did so.
When you see random riders out on the road you try and judge them by their appearance (it's the only thing you go on until you interact with them). A local team jersey means the rider is probably a Cat 3-5. A local Elite or Pro team jersey indicates a Pro through Cat 2 rider. Non-racing club jerseys typically indicate serious riders who don't race, and generic clothing, those are the hardest to figure out.
Certain indicators do flash like beacons when judging another rider. For example, wearing the Yellow Jersey or the World Championship Jersey is simply a no-no and is probably someone who rides on their own (and doesn't really observe or comprehend etiquette followed by other riders on the road). Until recently I'd say the same of pro jerseys. I, like a lot of my peers, used to make fun of someone kitted out in a pro outfit (and obviously not a pro), especially at a bike race. Now I think of them as "fans of the team". Or a Cat 5 who doesn't know any better (but they quickly learn at a race).
At some point I outgrew the "no pro jerseys" thing, maybe 10 years ago when Mapei was ruling the one day Classics scene. Their riders looked so tough - their Brikos, colorful outfits, Colnagos, and their domination of their target races. One day my friend Mike told me that he and his friend Will were going to buy Mapei kits, go to Gimbles, and destroy everyone there. Ends up that most of us on the team did just that - we all bought Mapei kits, went to Gimbles, and put the hurt on people. It wasn't mean spirited - we just went and rode Gimbles and had a lot of fun attacking and counter attacking. It'd make for a good laugh or three, we had a lot of fun, and we really didn't care how things ended up. I guess that for us the whole Mapei phase was simply a sort of doing a hero worship kind of thing.
A story comes to mind, one that took place in 1993 or 1994, after a certain Lance Armstrong won the Worlds in Oslo. A group ride in Connecticut started catching a solo rider cruising along in a white jersey. As the group got closer they realized that the jersey was in fact the World Championship jersey. Disturbed by this obvious lack of respect of the current World Champion (an American no less!), the group accelerated and caught the offending rider. One of the more outspoken of the riders challenged the imposter.
"Who do you think you are, Lance Armstrong?"
You can guess who turned and looked at him.
It took me a while before I learned that it really doesn't matter how you ride when you're just training - it's the races where you decide who's who. I've been on recovery rides and been passed by very competitive looking guys who refuse to acknowledge my existence.
Okay by me. Look, if their egos prevent them from saying hi, it's their problem.
It's gone the other way too, where I was riding hard but got caught off guard by riders much better than me. On one of the Gimbles rides I was sort of tooling along, checking out the mood of the day's ride. A good sized group as usual, perhaps 100-150 total riders. There were some good racers around (ex-pros, a couple domestic pros, and a smattering of Cat 1s and 2s) so I lurked in the background. Some of the not-so-experienced racers were launching attacks here and there but with such horsepower covering moves, no one got away.
Unusually all that strong horsepower didn't do very much - they just kept things together. Normally when you get such talent together they hammer at the front until they've split away from the group and you don't see them until you pull up to the convenience store at the end of the ride.
As I'd mentioned there were those who were not pros or Cat 1s. One stranger was an obvious rabid Rabobank fan - he had the long sleeve jersey as well as the tights. I happened to be riding near this tall fan when I realized he had also bought the Rabobank Colnago frame. A really expensive frame - quite the fan I suppose. I noticed too that he had Spinergy wheels.
The Spinergys had, you guessed it, Rabobank colored decals.
He had a lot of money tied up in that bike.
My Spidey Sense started to tingle - I looked at his gloves - Rabobank - and his hat.
Rabobank.
The only weird thing I noticed about his "riding" was that he stuck his 20 ounce bottle of Coke upside down in his cage. He looked slim, fit, and pedaled with a fluency which echoed a lot of miles in the legs.
I drifted away, looking for my friend who raced pro in Europe. I found him chattering away nearby and rode up to him.
"Who is that guy in the Rabobank outfit?"
"That guy?", he pointed.
"Yeah"
"Marc Wauters"
"Who's that?"
My friend turned and looked at me.
"You don't know who Marc Wauters is? He did the Giro, 15 World Cup races, Worlds..."
I looked at him like he'd just sprouted fifteen eyeballs. "What the heck is he doing here?"
"He's here on vacation, knows John C."
I digested this information. Apparently he's friends with this ex-pro from Portugal who does the ride regularly. And when the ex-pro started hollering stuff in some European language and Wauters started chasing things down, I figured out the plot. Wauters would use his insanely strong Euro Pro strength to keep things together and lead out the Portugese ex-pro for the two sprints.
Since Wauters didn't know where the lines were, leading out would be a lot more straightforward. I've been in situations where people are trying to tell me where the line is while we're sprinting - it makes for awkward sprinting when you've jumped and you're still trying to listen to your leadout guy's instructions, the poor guy hollering from 50 meters back.
"The line is just past the big tree - that tree, not that tree.. by the sign.. not that sign, the white one... it's.. man, you just passed it."
Anyway, with Wauters leading out in comfortable oblivion (those World Cup legs would be able to leadout for a while - exact details of things like where the line was wouldn't be critical), the ex-pro could go and annihilate the others with a good sprint.
I love when I can figure these things out.
Knowing someone else's tactics makes it much, much easier to determine your own course of action. I figured I could keep tabs on Wauters, fight for his wheel (no one fights too hard on Gimbles), and use him to lead me out. He wouldn't know me since I don't do the World Cup circuit and I'm just some Hack 3 on Gimbles. The ex-pro would probably sit on my wheel, thankful for a little more draft (or he'd fight me for Wauter's wheel in which case I'd give it up gladly and stick on his wheel).
We started approaching the first of two sprints - the Route 120 sprint. It's my favorite sprint - a long, slightly downhill leadout for a couple miles (a couple rises thrown in there for fun) followed by a reasonably long, slight uphill sprint. The terrain favors a strong jump and lots of power rather than all out speed and anaerobic endurance.
With a few miles to go, Wauters, true to plan, started actively chasing things down. All the various racers were going for it now and usually he or the Portugese ex-pro would go rocketing after them, everyone else scrambling to stay on their wheels. It was pretty exciting - I felt like I was in the last kilometers before the end of Worlds when all the racers are just attacking one after another.
Wauters hit the front with about a kilometer or so to go, his legs churning steadily. I was on his wheel. I had no idea where the ex-pro was but it didn't matter - I would go when I'm ready and I knew I could get to the line once I committed. The only thing was that I wanted to wait for the speed to top out - I prefer to jump from 38 mph, not 28 mph. And we weren't going much faster than 28 at that moment.
I waited, tensed, ready to go. Wauters kept rolling - now under the bridge where the leadouts usually start.
Still he rolled.
He cruised around the last, slight bend.
Rolled up the start of the sprint.
He wasn't accelerating.
The ex-pro must have told him to keep the leadout slow or something.
A non-racer guy took off, struggling fiercely to escape the clutches of the soft pedaling bunch.
Still Wauters rolled.
Another guy went. And another.
Finally we were inside 300 meters, well inside the sprint. I realized that Wauters wasn't doing any leadout, no ex-pros were going to sprint, and they were just having fun riding their bikes.
I stood up and released some of that nervous energy by standing and pedaling past Wauters. When I looked back I saw every guy I'd consider a good sprinter on the ride doing the same thing behind me. One of them, a good friend of mine and a friendly rival sprinter, called out to me.
"Hey, Aki, why didn't you sprint - I was waiting for you to go."
A chorus of "Me toos" and "Yeah" and less polite phrases ("What the eff was that?") came up from the riders around him.
I pointed at Wauters.
"I was waiting for him but he never went!"
Wauters looked at me, pointed to himself. Laughed.
"I'm tired, I've raced enough. I'm just riding for fun now."
We all enjoyed a good laugh.
I talked a bit with him afterwards. I didn't know him from Peter Pan so drilled him on some topics. In the middle of describing why I don't race road races, he turned to me with an experienced eye.
"You must be a good sprinter..."
Wow.
Marc Wauters, without ever seeing me sprint, knew I was a good sprinter.
I must be exuding "I jump" talent or something. Maybe it's my pedal stroke. Or my fluency on the bike. Perhaps he can simply see it in my legs - 11 tooth smashing power. Yeah. Images flashed through my head - track sprinter, Nationals, crit championships... But then he finished his sentence.
"...because all Japanese riders are good sprinters."
Oh.
My fast sprinting ego hit a proverbial rock, flipped over its proverbial handlebars, and landed on its proverbial face.
What did I take away from that ride? Sticking a 20 ounce Coke upside down in your cage is more secure than trying to put it in right-side up.
Sometimes you get a chance to be good, to be nice or supportive to someone else. Take them because, well, just because you should.
One day I'd gone out for easy ride after work. I did a 8 or 9 mile loop around my office a few times, trying to be a nice, steady, disciplined rider. Normally I go sprinting after everything and my easy rides end up killing me, so this ride exercised my self control. On one particular false flat, the site for many a blow-up, I churned away in the small ring, being a good rider, disciplined, on an easy day. I avoided the temptation of the big ring, the 15, of pulling on the bars like I was trying to peel the cork off of them, of stomping on the pedals trying to snap bottom bracket axles and warping my chainrings.
At the top of the false flat, I stopped at a light - a car blocked the shoulder so I couldn't make the right on red like I normally do. It was a bit disappointing since it's a steep climb and a rolling start to it helps a bit to take the edge off the effort - this would help keep me in the "recovery" zone and exercise my self control.
Suddenly I heard panting behind me.
I turned around. A guy on a bike, in all probability not a racer, pulled up and put his foot down.
"Man, I can't believe I caught you. I've been chasing you for a couple miles now. Man, my wife is not going to believe this. Wow. Hey, do you race?"
I smiled. It's so unusual to see such unbridled enthusiasm. Maybe in an eight year old it's normal. But not for an obviously grown man.
"Yeah, I race. You've been chasing me for a couple miles?", I replied.
"Yeah, from that one intersection. I was killing myself to try and catch you. Man I didn't think I'd catch you but I went as hard as I could and I can't believe it. Wow."
He took a swig of water so I decided perhaps I could say something.
"Well, that's a really hard stretch of road. I'm impressed. Do you race?"
"Yeah that uphill is really hard. No, but I've been thinking about it."
"Well, racing is a lot of fun. Find a club, ride with them, and I think you'll have a blast."
"Yeah, maybe I will. Man, I can't believe I caught you."
The light turned green.
"I'm turning right", I told the guy with a questioning look on my face.
"I'm going straight. Later man!"
"Later", I called out, "Have a good ride."
I could hear him as he rolled away from the intersection, obviously stoked from catching a "racer".
"I can't believe I caught him."
It's one thing to identify oneself as a cyclist. I'm one, and when people ask what I do for fun, I say I race bicycles (not "bikes" because then they ask if I race Harleys). In that sense I identify myself, my personality, as "part cyclist". I'm also part auto enthusiast, part musician, and, more minutely, a cook, babysitter, and computer geek. For some though it's not enough - as a cyclist they have to be better or faster or have a lighter bike.
I feel comfortable in the cycling world. I figure I've learned a few things in the 25 years I've been racing bikes - and the few years before where I simply learned as much as I could about bicycles. At the same time I'm human. I make mistakes although I try and avoid them and I'm flat out wrong sometimes. I'm properly awed by some of the big personalities - put me in front of a famous racer and I'll be slack jawed and at a loss for words. Ask me to adjust his rear derailleur and I'd do it and know I did it right.
At one criterium I got to change a National team rider's rear wheel - I was proud of the quick wheel change, of holding him up so he's not leaning, and the fact that the wheel didn't slip when he gunned it to rejoin the race. I think he won but it didn't really matter - my highlight of the race was simply to be there to help him out.
Being at a race and being out on the road are different things altogether. Out on the road you may meet up with riders who place a lot more of themselves in their bikes and their riding. Their egos are intrinsically tied to their bikes, their cycling, and everything that envelops those two topics. If they falter in their cycling, it's personal. You know them - they catch you, pass you when they can, and hammer away from you, all without a nod or a wave. Just grim determination to be better than that other guy on the road.
I suppose I used to be like that, although I'd like to think I wasn't too negative. I liked it when I'd see other riders in front of me, partly because it was fun to try and catch other riders. In fact, if I see someone plodding along it's quite a bit of motivation for me to maintain my effort. I'd catch them, stay 30 or 40 feet behind for a bit, then roll past them, saying hi as I did so.
When you see random riders out on the road you try and judge them by their appearance (it's the only thing you go on until you interact with them). A local team jersey means the rider is probably a Cat 3-5. A local Elite or Pro team jersey indicates a Pro through Cat 2 rider. Non-racing club jerseys typically indicate serious riders who don't race, and generic clothing, those are the hardest to figure out.
Certain indicators do flash like beacons when judging another rider. For example, wearing the Yellow Jersey or the World Championship Jersey is simply a no-no and is probably someone who rides on their own (and doesn't really observe or comprehend etiquette followed by other riders on the road). Until recently I'd say the same of pro jerseys. I, like a lot of my peers, used to make fun of someone kitted out in a pro outfit (and obviously not a pro), especially at a bike race. Now I think of them as "fans of the team". Or a Cat 5 who doesn't know any better (but they quickly learn at a race).
At some point I outgrew the "no pro jerseys" thing, maybe 10 years ago when Mapei was ruling the one day Classics scene. Their riders looked so tough - their Brikos, colorful outfits, Colnagos, and their domination of their target races. One day my friend Mike told me that he and his friend Will were going to buy Mapei kits, go to Gimbles, and destroy everyone there. Ends up that most of us on the team did just that - we all bought Mapei kits, went to Gimbles, and put the hurt on people. It wasn't mean spirited - we just went and rode Gimbles and had a lot of fun attacking and counter attacking. It'd make for a good laugh or three, we had a lot of fun, and we really didn't care how things ended up. I guess that for us the whole Mapei phase was simply a sort of doing a hero worship kind of thing.
A story comes to mind, one that took place in 1993 or 1994, after a certain Lance Armstrong won the Worlds in Oslo. A group ride in Connecticut started catching a solo rider cruising along in a white jersey. As the group got closer they realized that the jersey was in fact the World Championship jersey. Disturbed by this obvious lack of respect of the current World Champion (an American no less!), the group accelerated and caught the offending rider. One of the more outspoken of the riders challenged the imposter.
"Who do you think you are, Lance Armstrong?"
You can guess who turned and looked at him.
It took me a while before I learned that it really doesn't matter how you ride when you're just training - it's the races where you decide who's who. I've been on recovery rides and been passed by very competitive looking guys who refuse to acknowledge my existence.
Okay by me. Look, if their egos prevent them from saying hi, it's their problem.
It's gone the other way too, where I was riding hard but got caught off guard by riders much better than me. On one of the Gimbles rides I was sort of tooling along, checking out the mood of the day's ride. A good sized group as usual, perhaps 100-150 total riders. There were some good racers around (ex-pros, a couple domestic pros, and a smattering of Cat 1s and 2s) so I lurked in the background. Some of the not-so-experienced racers were launching attacks here and there but with such horsepower covering moves, no one got away.
Unusually all that strong horsepower didn't do very much - they just kept things together. Normally when you get such talent together they hammer at the front until they've split away from the group and you don't see them until you pull up to the convenience store at the end of the ride.
As I'd mentioned there were those who were not pros or Cat 1s. One stranger was an obvious rabid Rabobank fan - he had the long sleeve jersey as well as the tights. I happened to be riding near this tall fan when I realized he had also bought the Rabobank Colnago frame. A really expensive frame - quite the fan I suppose. I noticed too that he had Spinergy wheels.
The Spinergys had, you guessed it, Rabobank colored decals.
He had a lot of money tied up in that bike.
My Spidey Sense started to tingle - I looked at his gloves - Rabobank - and his hat.
Rabobank.
The only weird thing I noticed about his "riding" was that he stuck his 20 ounce bottle of Coke upside down in his cage. He looked slim, fit, and pedaled with a fluency which echoed a lot of miles in the legs.
I drifted away, looking for my friend who raced pro in Europe. I found him chattering away nearby and rode up to him.
"Who is that guy in the Rabobank outfit?"
"That guy?", he pointed.
"Yeah"
"Marc Wauters"
"Who's that?"
My friend turned and looked at me.
"You don't know who Marc Wauters is? He did the Giro, 15 World Cup races, Worlds..."
I looked at him like he'd just sprouted fifteen eyeballs. "What the heck is he doing here?"
"He's here on vacation, knows John C."
I digested this information. Apparently he's friends with this ex-pro from Portugal who does the ride regularly. And when the ex-pro started hollering stuff in some European language and Wauters started chasing things down, I figured out the plot. Wauters would use his insanely strong Euro Pro strength to keep things together and lead out the Portugese ex-pro for the two sprints.
Since Wauters didn't know where the lines were, leading out would be a lot more straightforward. I've been in situations where people are trying to tell me where the line is while we're sprinting - it makes for awkward sprinting when you've jumped and you're still trying to listen to your leadout guy's instructions, the poor guy hollering from 50 meters back.
"The line is just past the big tree - that tree, not that tree.. by the sign.. not that sign, the white one... it's.. man, you just passed it."
Anyway, with Wauters leading out in comfortable oblivion (those World Cup legs would be able to leadout for a while - exact details of things like where the line was wouldn't be critical), the ex-pro could go and annihilate the others with a good sprint.
I love when I can figure these things out.
Knowing someone else's tactics makes it much, much easier to determine your own course of action. I figured I could keep tabs on Wauters, fight for his wheel (no one fights too hard on Gimbles), and use him to lead me out. He wouldn't know me since I don't do the World Cup circuit and I'm just some Hack 3 on Gimbles. The ex-pro would probably sit on my wheel, thankful for a little more draft (or he'd fight me for Wauter's wheel in which case I'd give it up gladly and stick on his wheel).
We started approaching the first of two sprints - the Route 120 sprint. It's my favorite sprint - a long, slightly downhill leadout for a couple miles (a couple rises thrown in there for fun) followed by a reasonably long, slight uphill sprint. The terrain favors a strong jump and lots of power rather than all out speed and anaerobic endurance.
With a few miles to go, Wauters, true to plan, started actively chasing things down. All the various racers were going for it now and usually he or the Portugese ex-pro would go rocketing after them, everyone else scrambling to stay on their wheels. It was pretty exciting - I felt like I was in the last kilometers before the end of Worlds when all the racers are just attacking one after another.
Wauters hit the front with about a kilometer or so to go, his legs churning steadily. I was on his wheel. I had no idea where the ex-pro was but it didn't matter - I would go when I'm ready and I knew I could get to the line once I committed. The only thing was that I wanted to wait for the speed to top out - I prefer to jump from 38 mph, not 28 mph. And we weren't going much faster than 28 at that moment.
I waited, tensed, ready to go. Wauters kept rolling - now under the bridge where the leadouts usually start.
Still he rolled.
He cruised around the last, slight bend.
Rolled up the start of the sprint.
He wasn't accelerating.
The ex-pro must have told him to keep the leadout slow or something.
A non-racer guy took off, struggling fiercely to escape the clutches of the soft pedaling bunch.
Still Wauters rolled.
Another guy went. And another.
Finally we were inside 300 meters, well inside the sprint. I realized that Wauters wasn't doing any leadout, no ex-pros were going to sprint, and they were just having fun riding their bikes.
I stood up and released some of that nervous energy by standing and pedaling past Wauters. When I looked back I saw every guy I'd consider a good sprinter on the ride doing the same thing behind me. One of them, a good friend of mine and a friendly rival sprinter, called out to me.
"Hey, Aki, why didn't you sprint - I was waiting for you to go."
A chorus of "Me toos" and "Yeah" and less polite phrases ("What the eff was that?") came up from the riders around him.
I pointed at Wauters.
"I was waiting for him but he never went!"
Wauters looked at me, pointed to himself. Laughed.
"I'm tired, I've raced enough. I'm just riding for fun now."
We all enjoyed a good laugh.
I talked a bit with him afterwards. I didn't know him from Peter Pan so drilled him on some topics. In the middle of describing why I don't race road races, he turned to me with an experienced eye.
"You must be a good sprinter..."
Wow.
Marc Wauters, without ever seeing me sprint, knew I was a good sprinter.
I must be exuding "I jump" talent or something. Maybe it's my pedal stroke. Or my fluency on the bike. Perhaps he can simply see it in my legs - 11 tooth smashing power. Yeah. Images flashed through my head - track sprinter, Nationals, crit championships... But then he finished his sentence.
"...because all Japanese riders are good sprinters."
Oh.
My fast sprinting ego hit a proverbial rock, flipped over its proverbial handlebars, and landed on its proverbial face.
What did I take away from that ride? Sticking a 20 ounce Coke upside down in your cage is more secure than trying to put it in right-side up.
Sometimes you get a chance to be good, to be nice or supportive to someone else. Take them because, well, just because you should.
One day I'd gone out for easy ride after work. I did a 8 or 9 mile loop around my office a few times, trying to be a nice, steady, disciplined rider. Normally I go sprinting after everything and my easy rides end up killing me, so this ride exercised my self control. On one particular false flat, the site for many a blow-up, I churned away in the small ring, being a good rider, disciplined, on an easy day. I avoided the temptation of the big ring, the 15, of pulling on the bars like I was trying to peel the cork off of them, of stomping on the pedals trying to snap bottom bracket axles and warping my chainrings.
At the top of the false flat, I stopped at a light - a car blocked the shoulder so I couldn't make the right on red like I normally do. It was a bit disappointing since it's a steep climb and a rolling start to it helps a bit to take the edge off the effort - this would help keep me in the "recovery" zone and exercise my self control.
Suddenly I heard panting behind me.
I turned around. A guy on a bike, in all probability not a racer, pulled up and put his foot down.
"Man, I can't believe I caught you. I've been chasing you for a couple miles now. Man, my wife is not going to believe this. Wow. Hey, do you race?"
I smiled. It's so unusual to see such unbridled enthusiasm. Maybe in an eight year old it's normal. But not for an obviously grown man.
"Yeah, I race. You've been chasing me for a couple miles?", I replied.
"Yeah, from that one intersection. I was killing myself to try and catch you. Man I didn't think I'd catch you but I went as hard as I could and I can't believe it. Wow."
He took a swig of water so I decided perhaps I could say something.
"Well, that's a really hard stretch of road. I'm impressed. Do you race?"
"Yeah that uphill is really hard. No, but I've been thinking about it."
"Well, racing is a lot of fun. Find a club, ride with them, and I think you'll have a blast."
"Yeah, maybe I will. Man, I can't believe I caught you."
The light turned green.
"I'm turning right", I told the guy with a questioning look on my face.
"I'm going straight. Later man!"
"Later", I called out, "Have a good ride."
I could hear him as he rolled away from the intersection, obviously stoked from catching a "racer".
"I can't believe I caught him."
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
How To - Rain Gear for Your Feet
Earlier this year we held the Bethel Spring Series. The last race fell on Sunday, April 15th. And although that was sort of tax day (in Connecticut it was actually April 17th due to a holiday in Massachusetts), most people remember that day for the rain.
It was the worst storm in decades.
Sections of I95 were shutdown, as were many local roads. One road near our house had water running over it so hard it resembled a foot deep white water rapids - and that was a state road!
Our house, usually snug as a bug, gave up and let some water in - my afternoon, evening, and night were spent pumping out water and moving damaged and almost-damaged goods around the basement.
In the morning of this insanely hard rainstorm, we held a race.
As you might imagine, few people turned up - basically the overall contenders, their friends and teammates, and some hardy souls out for a nice race in the wet. That last category - I figure they were scuba divers or fish or something because the rain was just overwhelming in its volume, ferocity, and duration.
The women almost didn't race but a single racer made it theoretically possible for the other women to switch the overall order, so the women went out and raced. After a long, sloggy race, the order didn't switch and things stayed status quo.
I entered my race really to help out a friend. My personal goals for the Series had been dashed after two weeks so I had no chance for the overall. After the race, although I had a rain jacket, I was totally drenched. The rain jacket simply served as a wind break, keeping my torso warm, but my bootie-enclosed feet were cold and sopping wet in the spray and the rain. I'd even duct taped the top of my booties to my calfs so I didn't get that piercing cold water trickling down my calves, but as the booties soaked through, my shoes and my feet ended up soaked.
A long time after the race, I got to talk to one of those women who placed overall. She claimed her feet were dry during the whole race.
Ha. Right. And it wasn't really raining hard, right? Just a little sprinkle?
Without a stitch of sarcasm she repeated her claim. I know there are no booties that good so I asked her to explain. She did.
First, put on some socks and your shoes.
Second, put a plastic shopping bag (think of a thin plastic bag from the grocery store) over your shoes. Tape the ankle area of the bag shut.
Third, put on booties.
You can clip in and out a few times without compromising the integrity of the plastic bag (at least with Look Keos). And the bag will keep out the rain and wind.
I tried this the other day - while kitting up for a two hour ride in a heavy rain, I did exactly that. To give credit, I had to ask the missus exactly what to do with the plastic bag as I'd forgotten. The missus never forgets and so detailed the three steps above.
Properly kitted up, I left on my ride. After the first hour of riding, I felt like I had my feet up in front of a warm fire, cozy, toasty, and comfy. The fact that my quads were wet and cold seemed a bit of a contrast but the plastic bag idea worked on my feet. Since I was reconning houses, I had to unclip a number of times, but the plastic bag remained intact.
I figured out two more things to do but the overall idea works well.
The first addendum is that you need to tape the plastic bag top to your calf/shin, not just tape it shut. Wrapping it in duct tape would work (shaving your legs regularly also helps keep the pain factor down when undressing after your ride).
The second addendum is to tape the top of your booties to your calf. I use black duct tape so it looks clean (and black duct tape works the same as the grey stuff).
The two addendums help prevent water from entering the plastic bag. On my two hour ride my shoes ended up wet, either from condensation (likely) or water coming down my ankles into the plastic bag (very likely based on how wet my calf was above and below the plastic bags - which had gotten loose).
Now I have to figure out a good strategy for protecting my quads in cold rain - they always get wet, my knickers heavy, and my sprint starts to lack umph. I want to figure out a way to reduce the wet weight of my gear as well since I seem to gain 10 pounds in water after riding for an hour.
The shoe thing is a good place to start though.
It was the worst storm in decades.
Sections of I95 were shutdown, as were many local roads. One road near our house had water running over it so hard it resembled a foot deep white water rapids - and that was a state road!
Our house, usually snug as a bug, gave up and let some water in - my afternoon, evening, and night were spent pumping out water and moving damaged and almost-damaged goods around the basement.
In the morning of this insanely hard rainstorm, we held a race.
As you might imagine, few people turned up - basically the overall contenders, their friends and teammates, and some hardy souls out for a nice race in the wet. That last category - I figure they were scuba divers or fish or something because the rain was just overwhelming in its volume, ferocity, and duration.
The women almost didn't race but a single racer made it theoretically possible for the other women to switch the overall order, so the women went out and raced. After a long, sloggy race, the order didn't switch and things stayed status quo.
I entered my race really to help out a friend. My personal goals for the Series had been dashed after two weeks so I had no chance for the overall. After the race, although I had a rain jacket, I was totally drenched. The rain jacket simply served as a wind break, keeping my torso warm, but my bootie-enclosed feet were cold and sopping wet in the spray and the rain. I'd even duct taped the top of my booties to my calfs so I didn't get that piercing cold water trickling down my calves, but as the booties soaked through, my shoes and my feet ended up soaked.
A long time after the race, I got to talk to one of those women who placed overall. She claimed her feet were dry during the whole race.
Ha. Right. And it wasn't really raining hard, right? Just a little sprinkle?
Without a stitch of sarcasm she repeated her claim. I know there are no booties that good so I asked her to explain. She did.
First, put on some socks and your shoes.
Second, put a plastic shopping bag (think of a thin plastic bag from the grocery store) over your shoes. Tape the ankle area of the bag shut.
Third, put on booties.
You can clip in and out a few times without compromising the integrity of the plastic bag (at least with Look Keos). And the bag will keep out the rain and wind.
I tried this the other day - while kitting up for a two hour ride in a heavy rain, I did exactly that. To give credit, I had to ask the missus exactly what to do with the plastic bag as I'd forgotten. The missus never forgets and so detailed the three steps above.
Properly kitted up, I left on my ride. After the first hour of riding, I felt like I had my feet up in front of a warm fire, cozy, toasty, and comfy. The fact that my quads were wet and cold seemed a bit of a contrast but the plastic bag idea worked on my feet. Since I was reconning houses, I had to unclip a number of times, but the plastic bag remained intact.
I figured out two more things to do but the overall idea works well.
The first addendum is that you need to tape the plastic bag top to your calf/shin, not just tape it shut. Wrapping it in duct tape would work (shaving your legs regularly also helps keep the pain factor down when undressing after your ride).
The second addendum is to tape the top of your booties to your calf. I use black duct tape so it looks clean (and black duct tape works the same as the grey stuff).
The two addendums help prevent water from entering the plastic bag. On my two hour ride my shoes ended up wet, either from condensation (likely) or water coming down my ankles into the plastic bag (very likely based on how wet my calf was above and below the plastic bags - which had gotten loose).
Now I have to figure out a good strategy for protecting my quads in cold rain - they always get wet, my knickers heavy, and my sprint starts to lack umph. I want to figure out a way to reduce the wet weight of my gear as well since I seem to gain 10 pounds in water after riding for an hour.
The shoe thing is a good place to start though.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Life - House Hunting
The problem with life is that it sometimes gets in the way of blogging.
Seriously, though, we've been busy looking at houses - with a CPA's schedule (the missus), we either move before January or after tax season - May would be safe. March and April are out due to the Bethel Spring Series but the missus's schedule overlaps so it doesn't make a difference - we simply can't move then. Although moving around the holidays wouldn't be ideal, if we didn't we'd have to stay in our apartment for a few extra months. I know, not a big deal, but it feels like we're on hold and we'd like to hit "Play" on our life movie some time soon.
We spent the weekend looking at houses (online, in the paper, and then a whirlwind tour of open houses on Sunday). I did some recon first - and the best way, of course, it to ride a bike around. This is what I did - on what had to be the rainiest day we've had since we moved up here. I was looking forward to riding in the rain for some reason - I alluded to that in my prior post - and the rain, thankfully, didn't let up until I was well into my ride.
One thought that crossed my mind - if I'm going to get wet riding outside, it better be raining. It would be much worse getting wet from just road spray and dripping trees.
I planned a route, but without using any topo type maps, I had no idea how hilly the route would be - and I learned the hard way when I hit my first major hill out here. Struggling in the 39x25, I climbed this massive hill as best I could, my main goal simply to stay upright. Eventually I got up the hill and saw the house - a nice one, the road seemed reasonably trafficked, so the house went on the list.
A quick descent and I proceeded on my way. The roads up here are quite bucolic and I felt like I was riding into the foothills of the mountains.
Come to think of it, I was.
I avoided them all though - I didn't have that time to ride into the actual mountains - and returned to the apartment a couple hours later, soaking wet and happy.
Sunday we visited many of the houses I rode past the day before. We found two new ones in particular we like - one is about a mile away from here, 2500 sf (so a big house for us), older, and renovated to an extreme level (enormous stove in a beautiful kitchen, 8 foot tv screen in the living room with insane sound system, third floor plumbed for a master bedroom suite, beautiful garage, but only 1.1 bathrooms and a low ceiling basement that sometimes gets wet). The other is perhaps 8 or 9 miles away in the middle of nowhere, bigger (3200 sf), has central air, lots of land, usable basement, but has an old kitchen, tiny garage, and virtually no lawn (the land is mainly forest on a steeply angled valley - we'd own 2 acres on each side - with a stream at the bottom).
Seeing these two diametrically opposed houses really stopped and made us think of what we want in our home. Until now we had limited our looking to more cookie-cutter houses (4 bed, 2.5 bath, about 2000-2500 sf, some lawn, garage) and jumped when a house had an extra like, say, an office room. Our world view was relatively limited.
I read in a car racing book once that when you make a suspension change, first you should make an extreme one. Go out, drive it, and you'll see what an extreme, say, shock stiffening change would do to your car. Then you adjust it so it's closer to what you actually want. I did the same for mountain bike suspensions - make it super hard, ride a bit, then super soft, ride a bit. You get an idea of what each does and now you're in a position to make a better judgment on what you want.
These two houses were the extremes of our housing world and opened our horizons a bit. We ended up talking about them until we fell asleep.
We still have a few houses we want to check out but it seems our list of "housing wants" has been refined just that little bit more. We need to talk to our agent, schedule a few showings, and see what we find. However, compared to our prior showings, I think we'll be a lot better prepared for spotting what we want (as opposed to what we don't want - we're pretty good about that).
Seriously, though, we've been busy looking at houses - with a CPA's schedule (the missus), we either move before January or after tax season - May would be safe. March and April are out due to the Bethel Spring Series but the missus's schedule overlaps so it doesn't make a difference - we simply can't move then. Although moving around the holidays wouldn't be ideal, if we didn't we'd have to stay in our apartment for a few extra months. I know, not a big deal, but it feels like we're on hold and we'd like to hit "Play" on our life movie some time soon.
We spent the weekend looking at houses (online, in the paper, and then a whirlwind tour of open houses on Sunday). I did some recon first - and the best way, of course, it to ride a bike around. This is what I did - on what had to be the rainiest day we've had since we moved up here. I was looking forward to riding in the rain for some reason - I alluded to that in my prior post - and the rain, thankfully, didn't let up until I was well into my ride.
One thought that crossed my mind - if I'm going to get wet riding outside, it better be raining. It would be much worse getting wet from just road spray and dripping trees.
I planned a route, but without using any topo type maps, I had no idea how hilly the route would be - and I learned the hard way when I hit my first major hill out here. Struggling in the 39x25, I climbed this massive hill as best I could, my main goal simply to stay upright. Eventually I got up the hill and saw the house - a nice one, the road seemed reasonably trafficked, so the house went on the list.
A quick descent and I proceeded on my way. The roads up here are quite bucolic and I felt like I was riding into the foothills of the mountains.
Come to think of it, I was.
I avoided them all though - I didn't have that time to ride into the actual mountains - and returned to the apartment a couple hours later, soaking wet and happy.
Sunday we visited many of the houses I rode past the day before. We found two new ones in particular we like - one is about a mile away from here, 2500 sf (so a big house for us), older, and renovated to an extreme level (enormous stove in a beautiful kitchen, 8 foot tv screen in the living room with insane sound system, third floor plumbed for a master bedroom suite, beautiful garage, but only 1.1 bathrooms and a low ceiling basement that sometimes gets wet). The other is perhaps 8 or 9 miles away in the middle of nowhere, bigger (3200 sf), has central air, lots of land, usable basement, but has an old kitchen, tiny garage, and virtually no lawn (the land is mainly forest on a steeply angled valley - we'd own 2 acres on each side - with a stream at the bottom).
Seeing these two diametrically opposed houses really stopped and made us think of what we want in our home. Until now we had limited our looking to more cookie-cutter houses (4 bed, 2.5 bath, about 2000-2500 sf, some lawn, garage) and jumped when a house had an extra like, say, an office room. Our world view was relatively limited.
I read in a car racing book once that when you make a suspension change, first you should make an extreme one. Go out, drive it, and you'll see what an extreme, say, shock stiffening change would do to your car. Then you adjust it so it's closer to what you actually want. I did the same for mountain bike suspensions - make it super hard, ride a bit, then super soft, ride a bit. You get an idea of what each does and now you're in a position to make a better judgment on what you want.
These two houses were the extremes of our housing world and opened our horizons a bit. We ended up talking about them until we fell asleep.
We still have a few houses we want to check out but it seems our list of "housing wants" has been refined just that little bit more. We need to talk to our agent, schedule a few showings, and see what we find. However, compared to our prior showings, I think we'll be a lot better prepared for spotting what we want (as opposed to what we don't want - we're pretty good about that).
Friday, October 26, 2007
Racing - 2008 Tour de France - Course Review
A couple days ago the organizers of the Tour presented the world with the route of the 2008 Tour de France. I haven't had my ear to the ground and I didn't hear of any "leaks" on potential host cities and stuff - I guess with all the doping in the news, no one needed any extra excuses for a cycling story. Because of that I was blindsided by the actual route.
There are a few things biggies which pop out at me.
1. Very short time trials - no prologue, a 29km first TT, and a final of about 52 km.
2. No time bonuses for any stage, climbing or otherwise.
3. Five mountain stages.
So here are a few reasonable assumptions (barring, of course, what the word assume means).
1. Whoever wins the first stage (probably a sprint finish, may be a very, very hard fought finish due to a 2.3 km climb) will wear the yellow jersey until the first TT. This is because normally the Yellow changes hands due to time bonuses (or crashes or weird breakaways). Without time bonuses, crashes and breaks will determine who holds the Yellow. Basically whoever wins the first stage will both be very strong as well as have to have a team determined to hang on to it (unless they are a GC team - in which case they probably wouldn't go for the first stage because they know the non GC teams will be dying to get the Yellow). Figure pretty much everyone will finish with the same time so the only ones allowed freedom will be those wearing bandages from a crash which caused them to lose massive time.
"And in the break is poor old So-and-So, his crash on stage one put him 30 minutes down on the field. With the field hovering at 20 minutes, he may win the stage but the Yellow will stay on Sprinter's jersey."
In that particular scenario, unless the bandaged racer is a French idol, the teams looking for a stage win will be chasing him down. Or, if one of my other ideas (described below) pans out, teams with second tier climbers will be whipping up the pace.
2. No chance for TT boys to shine unless they try and TT away from the field. A somewhat predictable pattern would have been to have a prologue specialist win the prologue, lose the jersey to a sprinter (who then trades it with other sprinters), then a big, heavy TT guy takes it, then the mountain guys who TT play a tug-a-war with it. This time, no real chance for the heavy TT guys to take the jersey. They'll be tired from dragging their sprinters to the line (or chasing some break for a hundred clicks or so) and preparing to deliver their climbers to the base of the mountains.
3. The climbers will probably have a relatively easy ride to the mountains. I guess because I can't climb, I'm not thrilled with tons of climbing stages, especially when any racer that does well for more than a day or two will be looked on with suspicion (from me anyway). I'd like to see everyone have at least one off day because that would make for a very interesting race. When one guy dominates the others, it's no fun to watch. But when there's struggle and revival, well, it's a great Tour to watch. Just think 1989.
Unfortunately, because of the lack of big TTs and no time bonuses, the climbers will start the climbs without too much of a handicap (normally they'd lose gobs of time in the prologue, the first time trial, and if there was a team time trial, there too). This lack of a handicap will let them quickly distance themselves from the flat landers and make for a small, select group vying for the overall.
Boring.
Even the "standard" equation is nice. The sprinter guys go for it in the sprints for the yellow, for the green. Then the big power rouleurs on the TT to get the yellow for however long they can hold it. Finally the climbers go out and annihilate guys who are perhaps 5-10 minutes ahead of them - and try and get enough of a gap to hold out through the last TT.
The 2008 Fitchburg stage race, in the 3s anyway, was essentially unchanged from start to finish. The uphill TT mirrored the uphill finish of the Circuit race which mirrored the uphill finish of the road race. The top four in the TT finished the overall in the same order.
Boring.
If Fitchburg opened with a crit, then the flat TT, then the Road Race, with the Circuit race at the end, it would be a much more dynamic race. A sprinter would take the lead on the Crit, lose the jersey to the pesky TT guys in the TT, who would then lose the jersey to the flyweights on Stage 3. The Circuit Race is probably the most even of them all (hard enough climb but sprinters can make it to the finish, plus breaks do work there) so it would be a fitting finish for the final smackdown. Heck I'd even enter to try and get up there on the first day.
Anyone listening up there in Massachusetts?
So the question is, how to alter the scenario in the '08 Tour? How do you defeat the climbers (because, really, that's what you need to do if you're not one of the leading featherweights out there).
The only way to change my overall "how-the-race-is-going-to-turn-out opinion" is to toughen the race on the flats. Kind of like the way Astana or CSC sometimes puts the hammer down, or in the days of past, Raleigh or Renault/Elf. Use the big guys up and really hammer the lighter riders on the flats. When the super light Columbians showed up in their first Tour, they danced all over the stodgy pros. The next year the pros knew what to do and they really worked over the (amateur) Columbians. The pace was so fast on the flats that the tiny climbers, with their limited natural reserves, arrived in the mountains totally and completely spent. They were so weakened they never played a role in the mountains.
If I were a team director with a slightly heavier-than-a-feather climber who can time trial, when the roads get narrow, there's a strong crosswind, or there are lots of turns (accordion effect), I'd put my team on the front to pour on the pressure and try and sap those rival featherweights' reserves. Yes it takes days to do this but that's why the Tour is 21 days, not just a couple TTs and five mountain stages.
Alternately, the really tiny climbers have to really put the hurt down on the climbs, they need to get rid of those who can't perhaps climb as well but can TT (like, say, Evans or Leipheimer, both of whom can TT for 50 km). It'll be payback for those hundreds of kilometers suffering in the gutter when the super light climbers go rocketing up the mountains. Those first couple days in the mountains will be hard, at least until everyone's legs are numb with lactic acid.
Then we'll see who's left.
Here's hoping for some strong crosswinds.
There are a few things biggies which pop out at me.
1. Very short time trials - no prologue, a 29km first TT, and a final of about 52 km.
2. No time bonuses for any stage, climbing or otherwise.
3. Five mountain stages.
So here are a few reasonable assumptions (barring, of course, what the word assume means).
1. Whoever wins the first stage (probably a sprint finish, may be a very, very hard fought finish due to a 2.3 km climb) will wear the yellow jersey until the first TT. This is because normally the Yellow changes hands due to time bonuses (or crashes or weird breakaways). Without time bonuses, crashes and breaks will determine who holds the Yellow. Basically whoever wins the first stage will both be very strong as well as have to have a team determined to hang on to it (unless they are a GC team - in which case they probably wouldn't go for the first stage because they know the non GC teams will be dying to get the Yellow). Figure pretty much everyone will finish with the same time so the only ones allowed freedom will be those wearing bandages from a crash which caused them to lose massive time.
"And in the break is poor old So-and-So, his crash on stage one put him 30 minutes down on the field. With the field hovering at 20 minutes, he may win the stage but the Yellow will stay on Sprinter's jersey."
In that particular scenario, unless the bandaged racer is a French idol, the teams looking for a stage win will be chasing him down. Or, if one of my other ideas (described below) pans out, teams with second tier climbers will be whipping up the pace.
2. No chance for TT boys to shine unless they try and TT away from the field. A somewhat predictable pattern would have been to have a prologue specialist win the prologue, lose the jersey to a sprinter (who then trades it with other sprinters), then a big, heavy TT guy takes it, then the mountain guys who TT play a tug-a-war with it. This time, no real chance for the heavy TT guys to take the jersey. They'll be tired from dragging their sprinters to the line (or chasing some break for a hundred clicks or so) and preparing to deliver their climbers to the base of the mountains.
3. The climbers will probably have a relatively easy ride to the mountains. I guess because I can't climb, I'm not thrilled with tons of climbing stages, especially when any racer that does well for more than a day or two will be looked on with suspicion (from me anyway). I'd like to see everyone have at least one off day because that would make for a very interesting race. When one guy dominates the others, it's no fun to watch. But when there's struggle and revival, well, it's a great Tour to watch. Just think 1989.
Unfortunately, because of the lack of big TTs and no time bonuses, the climbers will start the climbs without too much of a handicap (normally they'd lose gobs of time in the prologue, the first time trial, and if there was a team time trial, there too). This lack of a handicap will let them quickly distance themselves from the flat landers and make for a small, select group vying for the overall.
Boring.
Even the "standard" equation is nice. The sprinter guys go for it in the sprints for the yellow, for the green. Then the big power rouleurs on the TT to get the yellow for however long they can hold it. Finally the climbers go out and annihilate guys who are perhaps 5-10 minutes ahead of them - and try and get enough of a gap to hold out through the last TT.
The 2008 Fitchburg stage race, in the 3s anyway, was essentially unchanged from start to finish. The uphill TT mirrored the uphill finish of the Circuit race which mirrored the uphill finish of the road race. The top four in the TT finished the overall in the same order.
Boring.
If Fitchburg opened with a crit, then the flat TT, then the Road Race, with the Circuit race at the end, it would be a much more dynamic race. A sprinter would take the lead on the Crit, lose the jersey to the pesky TT guys in the TT, who would then lose the jersey to the flyweights on Stage 3. The Circuit Race is probably the most even of them all (hard enough climb but sprinters can make it to the finish, plus breaks do work there) so it would be a fitting finish for the final smackdown. Heck I'd even enter to try and get up there on the first day.
Anyone listening up there in Massachusetts?
So the question is, how to alter the scenario in the '08 Tour? How do you defeat the climbers (because, really, that's what you need to do if you're not one of the leading featherweights out there).
The only way to change my overall "how-the-race-is-going-to-turn-out opinion" is to toughen the race on the flats. Kind of like the way Astana or CSC sometimes puts the hammer down, or in the days of past, Raleigh or Renault/Elf. Use the big guys up and really hammer the lighter riders on the flats. When the super light Columbians showed up in their first Tour, they danced all over the stodgy pros. The next year the pros knew what to do and they really worked over the (amateur) Columbians. The pace was so fast on the flats that the tiny climbers, with their limited natural reserves, arrived in the mountains totally and completely spent. They were so weakened they never played a role in the mountains.
If I were a team director with a slightly heavier-than-a-feather climber who can time trial, when the roads get narrow, there's a strong crosswind, or there are lots of turns (accordion effect), I'd put my team on the front to pour on the pressure and try and sap those rival featherweights' reserves. Yes it takes days to do this but that's why the Tour is 21 days, not just a couple TTs and five mountain stages.
Alternately, the really tiny climbers have to really put the hurt down on the climbs, they need to get rid of those who can't perhaps climb as well but can TT (like, say, Evans or Leipheimer, both of whom can TT for 50 km). It'll be payback for those hundreds of kilometers suffering in the gutter when the super light climbers go rocketing up the mountains. Those first couple days in the mountains will be hard, at least until everyone's legs are numb with lactic acid.
Then we'll see who's left.
Here's hoping for some strong crosswinds.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Equipment - SRM and Cannondale
So I was waiting to post this because I was waiting to bid on one SystemSix Cannondale "Team Edition" with an SRM crank, Record components, and Fulcrum 1 wheels. There's some other stuff on the bike too, like the Alien seatpost and the Fizik seat (probably taking that second thing off). I know I'll lose the bar and stem and put my own stuff on instead.
For some reason I'm looking forward to putting a dinky stem on top of such a massive head tube.
This is all because of my season long thinking on how to get power readings when I'm racing. A lot of guys pshaw the idea of measuring power while racing but to me, measuring power while racing is critical. Training is fine but it's when I'm racing that my mind and body wake up. A few of the guys have told me, over the years, that whatever happens to me in training is fine (getting dropped, etc., usually comments after a ride where I got dropped). They point out that when I'm actually racing and really wanting to do well, I find the form from somewhere, dig it up, and use it.
It's like those french fries under the car seat - if you look long enough, you'll find one or two.
Anyway, after all my thinking (obsessive wasn't exactly a term I'd have used but now that I think it over, obsessive might be appropriate), I came to the conclusion that I can't use the Power Tap system. I have too many wheels and to spend $800 or so on each of them to PT them simply didn't make sense.
I'd have to find my power elsewhere. Ergomo was out as I don't like that they only measure one side (versus the other). The iBike, to me, is still unproven (give me one on a 3 month, money back guarantee, and I'll give it a go, but otherwise, no thanks). There's a new crank thing that starts with a Q but it's not here yet and will cost as much as its main competitor - the SRM.
So that leaves me with the SRM system. It's good, it's reliable, works, and best of all, I can use any wheel I want with it.
As a gauge of cost, I went to my trusty eBay and looked up SRM. I noticed a formerly local good guy was selling his DA setup (but it's too wide for me and it's since ended). Another guy is selling a pair of cranks with one computer (appealing as I could have two bikes with SRM - this is still open - but they're for a normal bottom bracket). And then I saw a Cannondale Team Liquigas bike, with Record, SRM, everything.
Its opening bid was about $1000 more than the cost of a new SRM setup and about $1600 more than what the local DA SRM sold for.
For a whole bike.
With Record.
Hm.
I spoke with the missus a couple times about this. More than a couple. It started out over the early summer with buying at least one more PT hub. Then a rim for said hub. Then perhaps the SRM and sell the PT (that was recent when I missed out on a 24H Campy PT hub).
Today we spoke again and I mentioned I was a bit nervous because the Cannondale auction was going to end in about 90 minutes and no one had bid on the bike. When I mentioned the cost of a new SRM to her, she said that I really ought to buy this thing.
I didn't even have to go into how light the bike is, how the Hollowgram SI SRM is the best of the SRMs, nothing.
With my mind at ease about this (I wouldn't have done it if my mind wasn't at ease - that's perhaps a bit compulsive I suppose) I decided to bid on it.
Mind you, at that point I had already put in a bid amount, confirmed my account, and only had to click "Confirm bid" to place it officially. I can get that close and if my Spidey-sense goes off, I'll back off. I've done it a number of times, literally making my mind up not to buy something in the last 30 or 60 seconds of the auction.
Speaking of which...
Since every single thing I've bought on eBay (all 8 items) I've waited till the last second to bid, I decided to do something similar. But with a bunch of things with work distracting me for 15 or 30 minutes at a time, I decided to bid with 30 minutes to go, else I'd be kicking myself if I missed it.
As it turns out, no one else bid. I bought the bike :)
This is the first new complete road bike I've bought since late 1982 (!) when I bought a Basso with Campy (Nuovo) Record and Excel Rino. Since then I've always bought either drivetrain parts (rear derailleur, cassette, chain, and Ergo levers), "long term" parts (cranks, bottom bracket, seatpost, stem, bars, seat), wheels (or hubs, spokes, and rims), or a frame set - and never all at once.
I never thought I'd even contemplate buying a new bike. A lot of my muttering in the last year or two has been the insane frame prices. My perceived value of a new race bike is about $3000 (without pedals and with nicer level clinchers). My perceived value on an SRM equipped bike is perhaps $2000 more - and that's just over what I bid for this bike.
I rarely spend this much money at one time. In fact, my last purchase in the price range (other than home improvements - but for example all the very nice stainless appliances in the kitchen cost about as much as this bike) was the beloved Passat I bought about 6 or 7 years ago.
So this is a really big step for me.
There will be a whole bunch of changes when this happens as well.
1. The Cannondale frame is essentially non-compact (it slopes a bit but not really a lot); it'll be the first time in many years I'll be on such a machine. Stiff frame, high top tube. Very stiff - I found some article where they measured how many pounds it took to flex the bottom bracket one inch to the side. Cannondale was around 1200 pounds. The Giant? Something like 700.
Yo that's my bike! 700 pounds? What kind of a wimpy carbon piece of...
I can't wait to stomp on the pedals on this bike.
I also checked the stand over height because I want to have kids (and do all the things you need to do to have kids too) - and for Mr. Short Legs here, I'll be sitting on the top tube when I'm straddling the bike. If my voice goes up significantly after I get this bike, you may know why.
2. 170 cranks. Why not the 175s I've been preaching since I switched to them? I know it's easy to change cranks but not when they cost about $2100 for the SRM version of the crankarms. So I'm not planning on changing them. I've had a hard time justifying this but this year I did a lot of thinking and pondering (obsessive? me?) on going back to shorter cranks. I'd thought about trying to increase my top speed in my sprint, perhaps going to the track and seeing how things work out there. I thought about how I used to feel comfortable at 110 rpms at my threshold - and with 175s it went to around 90 rpms.
Perhaps, then, it's time to get back to the spin days. I didn't do a lot of scientific equations or anything though. Ultimately it came down to this - McEwen uses 170s and he gets the job done. I think (I hope?) that I can exert the leverage necessary to pull off a 1500 watt sprint with 170s (3% less leverage, a loss of 45 watts). My big hope is that my pedal speed will go back up and I'll be able to break through the very frustrating 40 mph barrier that seems to be in the way right now.
Incidentally, this will require the purchase of at least one set of 170s, for whatever my backup bike ends up. If I can find another SystemSix...
3. Weight - 15.9 pounds without pedals, for a 56 cm I think (since that's the frame they weigh for their frame weights). For a 52 it'll be a bit lighter. My current bike, the Giant carbon TCR, size small, with the Reynolds DV46 wheels, weighed 17.5 pounds on a shop's digital scale. As the Reynolds weigh about a pedal set's worth of weight less than the Fulcrums, the bike should weigh in at about 16 lbs complete, maybe an extra 1/4 pound for my old school bar and stem. Say 19 or 20 lbs ready for training (currently my carbon bike easily gets into the 20s when I'm going for a training ride).
This light weight will be my first significant upgrade in weight since I was pedaling around a 17.5 pound Cannondale 2.7 in the early '90s.
4. A fancy bike - my current frame set is the one that came on the Ultegra Giant TCR - hardly the top line bike (and in fact, the top line Giant had a different carbon frame and fork). My previous frame was the aluminum yellow Giant TCR Team - and that was for real, it even had the ONCE bits on it. Before that was an S-Works M2 frame, but again, it was the frame that came adorned with Ultegra.
Along those lines I have a few Record components but never had a Record front derailleur or Record brakes (always cheaped out and bought much lower - as in Daytona/Centaur for a front derailleur and similar or -gasp- Ultegra for brakes). This bike has the whole Record thing on it (minus the cranks since they're the Hollogram SI SRMs). With the fancy paint job (which coincidentally matches my current kit's colors), I'll have to ride faster - no better motivation than that.
So I won, I paid (for some reason I can't wait to pay once I win), and now?
Now to wait for the bike.
I'll be selling a few things of mine as I won't need them anymore. The Power Tap setup of course, and a few fit related things on the new bike (seat, bar, stem). And since I'll be getting a sweet set of training wheels (Fulcrum 1s), I'll sell one or perhaps both of my Eurus wheelsets. Or the Fulcrums.
I don't know yet, I'll have to obsess over this for a bit.
I may sell all those wheels (perhaps put a set on the missus's bike) and just buy a set of carbon deep section clinchers for proper training ($1000 from Williams Cycling - sounds pretty good to me, and they weigh just about the same as the Fulcrums). The Reynolds will be my race wheels. Perhaps I can buy a disk wheel too. It would be a cool wheel to use in certain races (crazy for others).
They're all good things to think about.
I have to confess something though. I knew my gut instincts were steering me towards the SRM because somehow, in my drowsy "just woke up and haven't had coffee" state, I took the PT wheel and computer head off my bike this morning.
See, it was raining outside.
And if the PT gets wet and grimy and something happens to it, I can't sell it as easily (both in practical as well as conscientious terms).
I put on my kit (it's nice having all the right gear - matching knickers, SS and LS jerseys, wind vest and black booties, gloves, and head stuff, perfect outfit for 50 degree rain) and ventured out. Once the initial shock of cold wet wore off I was okay. I hunkered down and tried to keep the hoods dry by keeping my hands there. I stood up when I could because you can't do that on a trainer. I felt secure on the bike - stable, no sliding, wheels nice and solid on the ground.
Felt very flahute with the booties, knickers, layered top, and long gloves. The peeking shin is critical in this flahute feeling, as is the long sleeve top.
Didn't avoid all the puddles or pavement cracks.
Intentionally.
Thought about SRMs and aerobic base and slid forward on the seat to do a little speed effort when I got too excited thinking about such things and thought about training in the rain and how much I liked it as a kid.
Got back, rinsed off the bike, lubed the chain. Threw all the gear in the washer, then the dryer. Laid out my shoes in front of a fan.
They're all dry now, ready to go again.
I hope it rains tomorrow.
For some reason I'm looking forward to putting a dinky stem on top of such a massive head tube.
This is all because of my season long thinking on how to get power readings when I'm racing. A lot of guys pshaw the idea of measuring power while racing but to me, measuring power while racing is critical. Training is fine but it's when I'm racing that my mind and body wake up. A few of the guys have told me, over the years, that whatever happens to me in training is fine (getting dropped, etc., usually comments after a ride where I got dropped). They point out that when I'm actually racing and really wanting to do well, I find the form from somewhere, dig it up, and use it.
It's like those french fries under the car seat - if you look long enough, you'll find one or two.
Anyway, after all my thinking (obsessive wasn't exactly a term I'd have used but now that I think it over, obsessive might be appropriate), I came to the conclusion that I can't use the Power Tap system. I have too many wheels and to spend $800 or so on each of them to PT them simply didn't make sense.
I'd have to find my power elsewhere. Ergomo was out as I don't like that they only measure one side (versus the other). The iBike, to me, is still unproven (give me one on a 3 month, money back guarantee, and I'll give it a go, but otherwise, no thanks). There's a new crank thing that starts with a Q but it's not here yet and will cost as much as its main competitor - the SRM.
So that leaves me with the SRM system. It's good, it's reliable, works, and best of all, I can use any wheel I want with it.
As a gauge of cost, I went to my trusty eBay and looked up SRM. I noticed a formerly local good guy was selling his DA setup (but it's too wide for me and it's since ended). Another guy is selling a pair of cranks with one computer (appealing as I could have two bikes with SRM - this is still open - but they're for a normal bottom bracket). And then I saw a Cannondale Team Liquigas bike, with Record, SRM, everything.
Its opening bid was about $1000 more than the cost of a new SRM setup and about $1600 more than what the local DA SRM sold for.
For a whole bike.
With Record.
Hm.
I spoke with the missus a couple times about this. More than a couple. It started out over the early summer with buying at least one more PT hub. Then a rim for said hub. Then perhaps the SRM and sell the PT (that was recent when I missed out on a 24H Campy PT hub).
Today we spoke again and I mentioned I was a bit nervous because the Cannondale auction was going to end in about 90 minutes and no one had bid on the bike. When I mentioned the cost of a new SRM to her, she said that I really ought to buy this thing.
I didn't even have to go into how light the bike is, how the Hollowgram SI SRM is the best of the SRMs, nothing.
With my mind at ease about this (I wouldn't have done it if my mind wasn't at ease - that's perhaps a bit compulsive I suppose) I decided to bid on it.
Mind you, at that point I had already put in a bid amount, confirmed my account, and only had to click "Confirm bid" to place it officially. I can get that close and if my Spidey-sense goes off, I'll back off. I've done it a number of times, literally making my mind up not to buy something in the last 30 or 60 seconds of the auction.
Speaking of which...
Since every single thing I've bought on eBay (all 8 items) I've waited till the last second to bid, I decided to do something similar. But with a bunch of things with work distracting me for 15 or 30 minutes at a time, I decided to bid with 30 minutes to go, else I'd be kicking myself if I missed it.
As it turns out, no one else bid. I bought the bike :)
This is the first new complete road bike I've bought since late 1982 (!) when I bought a Basso with Campy (Nuovo) Record and Excel Rino. Since then I've always bought either drivetrain parts (rear derailleur, cassette, chain, and Ergo levers), "long term" parts (cranks, bottom bracket, seatpost, stem, bars, seat), wheels (or hubs, spokes, and rims), or a frame set - and never all at once.
I never thought I'd even contemplate buying a new bike. A lot of my muttering in the last year or two has been the insane frame prices. My perceived value of a new race bike is about $3000 (without pedals and with nicer level clinchers). My perceived value on an SRM equipped bike is perhaps $2000 more - and that's just over what I bid for this bike.
I rarely spend this much money at one time. In fact, my last purchase in the price range (other than home improvements - but for example all the very nice stainless appliances in the kitchen cost about as much as this bike) was the beloved Passat I bought about 6 or 7 years ago.
So this is a really big step for me.
There will be a whole bunch of changes when this happens as well.
1. The Cannondale frame is essentially non-compact (it slopes a bit but not really a lot); it'll be the first time in many years I'll be on such a machine. Stiff frame, high top tube. Very stiff - I found some article where they measured how many pounds it took to flex the bottom bracket one inch to the side. Cannondale was around 1200 pounds. The Giant? Something like 700.
Yo that's my bike! 700 pounds? What kind of a wimpy carbon piece of...
I can't wait to stomp on the pedals on this bike.
I also checked the stand over height because I want to have kids (and do all the things you need to do to have kids too) - and for Mr. Short Legs here, I'll be sitting on the top tube when I'm straddling the bike. If my voice goes up significantly after I get this bike, you may know why.
2. 170 cranks. Why not the 175s I've been preaching since I switched to them? I know it's easy to change cranks but not when they cost about $2100 for the SRM version of the crankarms. So I'm not planning on changing them. I've had a hard time justifying this but this year I did a lot of thinking and pondering (obsessive? me?) on going back to shorter cranks. I'd thought about trying to increase my top speed in my sprint, perhaps going to the track and seeing how things work out there. I thought about how I used to feel comfortable at 110 rpms at my threshold - and with 175s it went to around 90 rpms.
Perhaps, then, it's time to get back to the spin days. I didn't do a lot of scientific equations or anything though. Ultimately it came down to this - McEwen uses 170s and he gets the job done. I think (I hope?) that I can exert the leverage necessary to pull off a 1500 watt sprint with 170s (3% less leverage, a loss of 45 watts). My big hope is that my pedal speed will go back up and I'll be able to break through the very frustrating 40 mph barrier that seems to be in the way right now.
Incidentally, this will require the purchase of at least one set of 170s, for whatever my backup bike ends up. If I can find another SystemSix...
3. Weight - 15.9 pounds without pedals, for a 56 cm I think (since that's the frame they weigh for their frame weights). For a 52 it'll be a bit lighter. My current bike, the Giant carbon TCR, size small, with the Reynolds DV46 wheels, weighed 17.5 pounds on a shop's digital scale. As the Reynolds weigh about a pedal set's worth of weight less than the Fulcrums, the bike should weigh in at about 16 lbs complete, maybe an extra 1/4 pound for my old school bar and stem. Say 19 or 20 lbs ready for training (currently my carbon bike easily gets into the 20s when I'm going for a training ride).
This light weight will be my first significant upgrade in weight since I was pedaling around a 17.5 pound Cannondale 2.7 in the early '90s.
4. A fancy bike - my current frame set is the one that came on the Ultegra Giant TCR - hardly the top line bike (and in fact, the top line Giant had a different carbon frame and fork). My previous frame was the aluminum yellow Giant TCR Team - and that was for real, it even had the ONCE bits on it. Before that was an S-Works M2 frame, but again, it was the frame that came adorned with Ultegra.
Along those lines I have a few Record components but never had a Record front derailleur or Record brakes (always cheaped out and bought much lower - as in Daytona/Centaur for a front derailleur and similar or -gasp- Ultegra for brakes). This bike has the whole Record thing on it (minus the cranks since they're the Hollogram SI SRMs). With the fancy paint job (which coincidentally matches my current kit's colors), I'll have to ride faster - no better motivation than that.
So I won, I paid (for some reason I can't wait to pay once I win), and now?
Now to wait for the bike.
I'll be selling a few things of mine as I won't need them anymore. The Power Tap setup of course, and a few fit related things on the new bike (seat, bar, stem). And since I'll be getting a sweet set of training wheels (Fulcrum 1s), I'll sell one or perhaps both of my Eurus wheelsets. Or the Fulcrums.
I don't know yet, I'll have to obsess over this for a bit.
I may sell all those wheels (perhaps put a set on the missus's bike) and just buy a set of carbon deep section clinchers for proper training ($1000 from Williams Cycling - sounds pretty good to me, and they weigh just about the same as the Fulcrums). The Reynolds will be my race wheels. Perhaps I can buy a disk wheel too. It would be a cool wheel to use in certain races (crazy for others).
They're all good things to think about.
I have to confess something though. I knew my gut instincts were steering me towards the SRM because somehow, in my drowsy "just woke up and haven't had coffee" state, I took the PT wheel and computer head off my bike this morning.
See, it was raining outside.
And if the PT gets wet and grimy and something happens to it, I can't sell it as easily (both in practical as well as conscientious terms).
I put on my kit (it's nice having all the right gear - matching knickers, SS and LS jerseys, wind vest and black booties, gloves, and head stuff, perfect outfit for 50 degree rain) and ventured out. Once the initial shock of cold wet wore off I was okay. I hunkered down and tried to keep the hoods dry by keeping my hands there. I stood up when I could because you can't do that on a trainer. I felt secure on the bike - stable, no sliding, wheels nice and solid on the ground.
Felt very flahute with the booties, knickers, layered top, and long gloves. The peeking shin is critical in this flahute feeling, as is the long sleeve top.
Didn't avoid all the puddles or pavement cracks.
Intentionally.
Thought about SRMs and aerobic base and slid forward on the seat to do a little speed effort when I got too excited thinking about such things and thought about training in the rain and how much I liked it as a kid.
Got back, rinsed off the bike, lubed the chain. Threw all the gear in the washer, then the dryer. Laid out my shoes in front of a fan.
They're all dry now, ready to go again.
I hope it rains tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Story - 8th Grade Art Class
Back in the day when I was just starting to discover bicycle racing, I was a geeky kid trying to get through middle school. For me, sixth through most of eighth grade were probably the hardest years for me as a kid. Move to a new place (back to the US, from Holland), new school, and, if it's okay to admit this, a much more close-minded place. My ethnicity, never an issue in Europe, became a major one here, at least at my age at the time.
Still though the area had some good things going for it - my parents selected the town mainly because of its superb school system. So superb that when the family moved to a different town a couple hours away, my mom quickly withdrew the kids (due to the poor school system) and promptly moved back while my dad tried to figure out a way to work in the "old" office.
One teacher in sixth grade, Mr. Morris, taught me how to write. I think he taught History, but I don't know. All he really taught was writing - and, to be honest, what he did got me through all of high school and college. My only As in college? English (where I had to write). Such teachers are treasures but unfortunately he's since passed away.
Another teacher, this one in middle school, encouraged my love for cars. Mr. Zellner taught art and all my projects were inevitably car related. However, I remember this teacher more for his social lessons than the school related stuff.
Back then, with no internet spreading the news, I had very little contact with the "popular" world. We had no TV, which, in pre-cable days, meant the only place we got news was from an occasional newspaper (or TV at a friend's house). The first football game I ever watched? The 13th Superbowl.
I know. "What? You mean there were days where there was no cable? 13th Superbowl???" Yep, there was such a Dark Age.
We didn't have a TV until sometime in eighth grade, and although we had TV in Holland, the government broadcast the programming, all two channels worth, starting at about 4:00 PM and ending at about midnight - and naturally most of the programs were in Dutch. Not really conducive towards watching TV and since it was safe to roam around as kids, that's what we did instead. We'd dig little tunnels under the fences, shoot paper blowgun darts at each other, and have cap gun fights. Oh, and take buses and trams all over that part of Holland.
Anyway, in seventh or eighth grade I did have an FM radio and managed to listen to one station, a classic rock station still around. I managed to learn of bands like Led Zepplin, Yes, Queen, and the like. Such stations, though, neglected to point out things like, well, that the Beatles had broken up. I mean if you listen to a station now, they don't say, "And here's a classic from that now-broken-up band, The Beatles!". So I didn't know that many of these bands no longer existed. I thought of them as, well, timeless.
I learned the Beatles fact in art class. I think I learned this when the art teacher announced (for those of us, like me, who didn't listen to current news) that John Lennon had been shot to death. I wondered out loud what the Beatles would do without their "lead singer" - and that's when everyone in the class looked at me like I'd sprouted a third eyeball. Naturally I took some ribbing, but it was okay. Learning such things is important.
I also learned about a comedic pair named Cheech and Chong. The teacher, Mr. Z, would play the records all the time. My favorite was the teacher (Sister Mary Elephant) who would say "Class... class... SHUT UP!". His classes were relaxing, fun, and I got to learn a lot about the outside world.
As I mentioned, he liked cars too, and had a nice BMW 2002. We'd talk about cars but since I only knew about Hot Rod magazine, I thought Chevy small blocks were the sizzle and the big blocks, well, they were just out of this world.
He'd smile, shake his head, and move on to the next student's problems.
It was about this time that I started getting interested in racing. Somehow this came up one day and, lo and behold, ends up his son raced bikes. But Mr. Z had some bad feelings about this, mostly due to a start/finish banner falling on his son, no medical assistance for 45 minutes, and yada yada yada. Whatever. He didn't want to talk about whether 4130 was really better than 1020 steel so I didn't pay him much attention.
When I started racing, I heard about this banner incident. Apparently two guys were away in a crit in Connecticut, Cat 1-2 race, windy day, and as they passed the start/finish line the banner fell on top of them. One racer broke his collarbone and for some reason it took a long time to get him assistance.
Mr. Z's son.
Incredible.
He was a lot older than me though (i.e. not in middle school) so I didn't feel like I could talk to him. So I didn't. I managed, with the help of other riders, racers, and friends, to get into racing. Got my bike, gears, wheels, clothing, and started riding with a local team.
Fast forward about 10 years.
I now managed a bike shop. The state championship road race was approaching - in 1992, a 10 or 11 mile loop which ended in a moderate 1 or 2 mile climb. A kid Mark that worked for the shop I managed was super motivated to do well in the Junior race and put up a banner over his work bench - 1992 State Championships or Bust.
Ballsy, right? The last guy who I knew of that made such a list was Greg Lemond.
He wasn't even the team leader. So he ends up he worked his butt off on the hill every lap, pulled three other racers free of the small field, and worked for the team leader, a great sprinter (and son of the founder of the Bethel Spring Series). Mark worked to drag the sprinter to the line and led out the sprint from the top of the climb, about 300 meters to the finish.
Incredibly, he dropped everyone, including his sprinter teammate. He won perhaps 10 or 20 meters clear, essentially solo, after doing massive amounts of work the whole race.
The Senior race was the one I wanted to check out. I didn't enter (2 mile climb, are you kidding?) and was there to feed and support any teammates or friends in there.
The first lap the field crawled around at about 15 mph. The second lap wasn't much faster. I started regretting not entering - if I'd gone on a nice solo break, I could average my normal 17 or 18 mph and have a great lap or two off the front, great photo ops, something to talk about in the off season ("At States I went off the front for two laps on my own and then..."), the possiblities were endless. At this rate guys would have time to stop, have lunch, and still bridge back to the field in reasonable time.
Finally, an unknown guy in a somewhat generic white jersey rocketed by us at the top of the hill (which was also the feed zone). He was riding like they were breathing down his neck. So we anxiously waited for the "breathers".
It was an incredible 3 minutes before the field went by.
Who was this guy?
One of the old hands said it was Robin Zellner.
Mr. Z's son. Back from Italy to try and claim a state championship. Unimpressed with the negative racing. And willing to change it on his own.
His move sparked a fire under the favorites, and a few laps later, he was in the lead group of four. Eventually someone else won (I think Doug of Benidorm Bikes) but Robin managed a decent place, perhaps second or third. I didn't talk to him that day, and he went back to Italy where he apparently preferred racing.
I guess they tie their banners a bit tighter or something.
Fast forward another 10 years or so. A new team formed with some pretty cool looking kits and bikes. Kodak Gallery Sierra Nevada.
And when I read the article, a familiar name popped up.
Robin Zellner.
Zeke's son was still in the race scene, but now he sat in the team car, not on the saddle. For 2008, he and the other guy that runs the team, Kurt Stockton, are splitting the team back up. So Robin will be running his own smaller team.
I'll have to see what happens in another 10 years.
Still though the area had some good things going for it - my parents selected the town mainly because of its superb school system. So superb that when the family moved to a different town a couple hours away, my mom quickly withdrew the kids (due to the poor school system) and promptly moved back while my dad tried to figure out a way to work in the "old" office.
One teacher in sixth grade, Mr. Morris, taught me how to write. I think he taught History, but I don't know. All he really taught was writing - and, to be honest, what he did got me through all of high school and college. My only As in college? English (where I had to write). Such teachers are treasures but unfortunately he's since passed away.
Another teacher, this one in middle school, encouraged my love for cars. Mr. Zellner taught art and all my projects were inevitably car related. However, I remember this teacher more for his social lessons than the school related stuff.
Back then, with no internet spreading the news, I had very little contact with the "popular" world. We had no TV, which, in pre-cable days, meant the only place we got news was from an occasional newspaper (or TV at a friend's house). The first football game I ever watched? The 13th Superbowl.
I know. "What? You mean there were days where there was no cable? 13th Superbowl???" Yep, there was such a Dark Age.
We didn't have a TV until sometime in eighth grade, and although we had TV in Holland, the government broadcast the programming, all two channels worth, starting at about 4:00 PM and ending at about midnight - and naturally most of the programs were in Dutch. Not really conducive towards watching TV and since it was safe to roam around as kids, that's what we did instead. We'd dig little tunnels under the fences, shoot paper blowgun darts at each other, and have cap gun fights. Oh, and take buses and trams all over that part of Holland.
Anyway, in seventh or eighth grade I did have an FM radio and managed to listen to one station, a classic rock station still around. I managed to learn of bands like Led Zepplin, Yes, Queen, and the like. Such stations, though, neglected to point out things like, well, that the Beatles had broken up. I mean if you listen to a station now, they don't say, "And here's a classic from that now-broken-up band, The Beatles!". So I didn't know that many of these bands no longer existed. I thought of them as, well, timeless.
I learned the Beatles fact in art class. I think I learned this when the art teacher announced (for those of us, like me, who didn't listen to current news) that John Lennon had been shot to death. I wondered out loud what the Beatles would do without their "lead singer" - and that's when everyone in the class looked at me like I'd sprouted a third eyeball. Naturally I took some ribbing, but it was okay. Learning such things is important.
I also learned about a comedic pair named Cheech and Chong. The teacher, Mr. Z, would play the records all the time. My favorite was the teacher (Sister Mary Elephant) who would say "Class... class... SHUT UP!". His classes were relaxing, fun, and I got to learn a lot about the outside world.
As I mentioned, he liked cars too, and had a nice BMW 2002. We'd talk about cars but since I only knew about Hot Rod magazine, I thought Chevy small blocks were the sizzle and the big blocks, well, they were just out of this world.
He'd smile, shake his head, and move on to the next student's problems.
It was about this time that I started getting interested in racing. Somehow this came up one day and, lo and behold, ends up his son raced bikes. But Mr. Z had some bad feelings about this, mostly due to a start/finish banner falling on his son, no medical assistance for 45 minutes, and yada yada yada. Whatever. He didn't want to talk about whether 4130 was really better than 1020 steel so I didn't pay him much attention.
When I started racing, I heard about this banner incident. Apparently two guys were away in a crit in Connecticut, Cat 1-2 race, windy day, and as they passed the start/finish line the banner fell on top of them. One racer broke his collarbone and for some reason it took a long time to get him assistance.
Mr. Z's son.
Incredible.
He was a lot older than me though (i.e. not in middle school) so I didn't feel like I could talk to him. So I didn't. I managed, with the help of other riders, racers, and friends, to get into racing. Got my bike, gears, wheels, clothing, and started riding with a local team.
Fast forward about 10 years.
I now managed a bike shop. The state championship road race was approaching - in 1992, a 10 or 11 mile loop which ended in a moderate 1 or 2 mile climb. A kid Mark that worked for the shop I managed was super motivated to do well in the Junior race and put up a banner over his work bench - 1992 State Championships or Bust.
Ballsy, right? The last guy who I knew of that made such a list was Greg Lemond.
He wasn't even the team leader. So he ends up he worked his butt off on the hill every lap, pulled three other racers free of the small field, and worked for the team leader, a great sprinter (and son of the founder of the Bethel Spring Series). Mark worked to drag the sprinter to the line and led out the sprint from the top of the climb, about 300 meters to the finish.
Incredibly, he dropped everyone, including his sprinter teammate. He won perhaps 10 or 20 meters clear, essentially solo, after doing massive amounts of work the whole race.
The Senior race was the one I wanted to check out. I didn't enter (2 mile climb, are you kidding?) and was there to feed and support any teammates or friends in there.
The first lap the field crawled around at about 15 mph. The second lap wasn't much faster. I started regretting not entering - if I'd gone on a nice solo break, I could average my normal 17 or 18 mph and have a great lap or two off the front, great photo ops, something to talk about in the off season ("At States I went off the front for two laps on my own and then..."), the possiblities were endless. At this rate guys would have time to stop, have lunch, and still bridge back to the field in reasonable time.
Finally, an unknown guy in a somewhat generic white jersey rocketed by us at the top of the hill (which was also the feed zone). He was riding like they were breathing down his neck. So we anxiously waited for the "breathers".
It was an incredible 3 minutes before the field went by.
Who was this guy?
One of the old hands said it was Robin Zellner.
Mr. Z's son. Back from Italy to try and claim a state championship. Unimpressed with the negative racing. And willing to change it on his own.
His move sparked a fire under the favorites, and a few laps later, he was in the lead group of four. Eventually someone else won (I think Doug of Benidorm Bikes) but Robin managed a decent place, perhaps second or third. I didn't talk to him that day, and he went back to Italy where he apparently preferred racing.
I guess they tie their banners a bit tighter or something.
Fast forward another 10 years or so. A new team formed with some pretty cool looking kits and bikes. Kodak Gallery Sierra Nevada.
And when I read the article, a familiar name popped up.
Robin Zellner.
Zeke's son was still in the race scene, but now he sat in the team car, not on the saddle. For 2008, he and the other guy that runs the team, Kurt Stockton, are splitting the team back up. So Robin will be running his own smaller team.
I'll have to see what happens in another 10 years.
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