Most Recent Tire Rolling Resistance (CRR) Data

If you're a bike tech junkie like me, then this might come as breaking news!  Bike Tech Review forum member Al Morrison has just released an updated version of his highly acclaimed tire crr chart (revision 9 was released on 03/20/11).

I STRONGLY recommend taking a look at this table when selecting your race tires.  Tires are the easiest place to pick up some cheap and free speed and a component on the bike that is often overlooked.  For example, when comparing the Specialized Mondo Open Tubular tire (the lowest crr for a clincher tire) and compare it to the Michelin Pro 3 Race (a tire that is widely, albeit wrongfully, considered a "fast tire"), one can save a whopping 3.6 watts per tire or 7.2 watts for the pair!!  That is a heck of a lot of free wattage to be gained!  Also, take special note of the comparison between latex and butyl tubes.  Again, this is a no brainer in my opinion.  Pick the latex tube for racing (if you race clinchers).  It will always be faster and only cost $5-10 more per tube.

Race Report: MoSpeed TT Series Race 1 of 5

Last night I kicked off the spring time trial season with a 15 km race out in Lewisville, NC.  One of the local bike shops, Mock Orange Bikes, is hosting a bi-weekly TT series on Tuesday nights this spring.  Riders are sent off every minute on the fast out-and-back course of smooth country road.

It was a bit of a rush to get out to Lewisville and register by 6 PM (thankfully I had decided to throw my bike and gear in the back of my car before leaving for work in the morning!), but nonetheless, I made it out there with about 20 mins to get a solid warmup in.  Unfortunately, during my warmup, I saw the screen on my Powertap LYC start flashing "LOBATT".  Sure enough, by the time I finished my warmup and took my place in line for the race, the LYC was completely dead.  I was kind of bummed because lately, I've become so dependent on my power meter for race pacing, and I really wanted see if I could nail a target of ~120% FTP for my power output.  Plus, I love to look/obsess over my power file after a race and see if I can set new personal power records.  But, overall I think that I still had a pretty evenly paced race.  One of my bread 'n butter workouts on the trainer is 2 x 20 min intervals at 95-105% FTP, so I knew if my perceived exertion was at the upper end of how I feel on those intervals, I would be near my target power output.  The only thing difficult about the course were the very long and shallow inclines/declines.  Without my power meter, I typically tend to slack on the downhills when I "feel" like I'm going fast, but in reality, my power output is generally below target.

I have no clue what my true power output actually was in the race, so I have no idea how to interpret my time or speed, but I took 7th overall and scored 57 points in the series with my time of 22:36 (23.9 mph).  I'm happy with the effort, considering that I've been more focused on long course endurance for the past few months rather than short course speed.  I rode this TT with my "training" tires on and I've got a fresh set of Vittoria Corsa Evo CX II's in the mail that I will probably put on before one of the next races.  It will be interesting to see how throwing on a tire with a much lower crr will affect my speed.

Race Report: Wake Forest University Cycling ACC Road Race

It's been a busy spring for me and I haven't had much of a chance to ride with the guys on the Wake Forest University Cycling Team this year as I had hoped, but nonetheless, they were nice enough to let me race in the home race (and my first ever cycling road race!) this Saturday out in East Bend, NC.

All in all, things went okay for my first road race.  I didn't have any mechanical problems and I didn't crash in the jam-packed peloton, so I will consider that a success.  But, as I run the race over in my head, I realize how much strategy there actually is to a road race.  Certainly, strategy plays a much larger role in this style of race than I had given it credit.

The weather was ideal for my tastes as a racer raised in Buffalo, NY.  Low 50's and overcast with a cool breeze is just about the perfect weather to really exert oneself, in my opinion.  However, the rest of the ACC racers and the officials weren't on the same page, and decided to cut my race (men's C) down from 3 laps (~30 mi) to 2 laps (~20 mi) to avoid the potential rainfall on the last lap.  Right off the bat, I already knew that I had lost a little bit of my advantage in the race.  I was really hoping that the 3rd lap would slim down the field a little bit and give an edge to those that had a little bit bigger aerobic base.  Nonetheless, the whistle blew and we started off in a "neutral start" until the first turn.  I jockeyed for position amongst the peleton of ACC cyclists from about a dozen different schools, including App State, UNC, Navy, William & Mary, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, etc.  After the first turn I expected somebody to make a surge and my plan was to just do what I could to hang on the back of the surging group.  However, during the whole first lap, nobody really made a move.  People seemed content to just hang with the peloton and let everybody get a chance at the lead.  As somebody who exclusively raced time trials up to this point, it was incredibly frustrating.  I was literally just coasting along at a power output that was almost 100 watts below my FTP!  Had this race been a 20 mile time trial, I would have been riding the whole thing right at FTP wattage. 

I'm not sure what would have been the best strategy at this point.  Surely I could have gone off solo and hammered the wind myself, but the enormous peloton could have easily worked to reel me back in and overtake me eventually.  But, being inexperienced as I was, I decided to hang back and just watch how things unfolded.

As we came around on our second lap of the race, nothing really changed.  The pace had only picked up enough to drop a few straglers off the back and I was still hanging with the lead group of about 25 riders at a power output well below what I knew I could ride for this 20 mi race.  The were 2 significant climbs on the course and as we approached the second hill on the second lap (which was only a few miles from the finish line), I realized that the lead riders were going make a surge.  The riders in front of me rocketed up the hill and surged over the top.  I was boxed in on the outside shoulder of the road when they made the surge and lost about 30-40 yards on the lead group before I could really make an attempt to catch up.  As hard as I tried, I could not catch back up with the lead group despite several surges of 1000+ watts.  At this point my legs were toast and I crossed the finish line solo in 19th place.  I knew that if I had to rely on sprinting at the end of the race I would be done for.  I was hoping there would be a good opportunity to hammer out the last 5-10 mins of the race and break away from some of the sprinters, but after losing the lead group, I didn't even have the chance.

It's hard to review my ride file from the race and see how low my average power was throughout most of the race and see where I lost the pack with some of those huge surges.  It is incredibly different than a time trial effort!  But overall, it was extremely fun and a really good learning experience.  I need to read up a bit and develop a better strategy before my next road race!

Orthotics in Cycling Shoes

I've suffered from horribly poor foot biomechanics my entire life.  I have incredibly flat feet.  This caused me a lot of headaches in my high school track/XC years but for the most part, was solved after I got hooked up with at fantastic sports medicine doctor at Ohio State who fitted me for some custom orthotics.  I used them religiously for about 4 years (ie. I transferred them into every single pair of shoes I wore), but eventually started to get sick of them and wondered if I still really needed them.  In 2008 I started to "wean" myself off of the orthotics and ran in just a regular stability running shoe.  I'm not sure if the orthotics had actually corrected my biomechanics or if I just found better running shoes (since then I have run exclusively in shoes from the Asics 2100 line), but nevertheless, my lower leg and ankle issues seemed to be completely resolved.

In 2009, I started to get involved in triathlons and trained for my first half-ironman distance race in 2010.  During this time, I drastically ramped up my cycling mileage and also started logging some serious time on the indoor trainer.  Slowly, but surely, my old lower leg problems started to creep back into my awareness.  The biggest problem for me has typically been posterior tibialis tendonitis in my left leg with some component of achilles tendonitis.  During my half-iroman training, these problems weren't horrible and I still had a fantastic race, but they were still causing me some distress.  I assumed, of course, that these problems were caused by my increased running mileage, so I tried to mix back in the orthotics into my running shoes, but it didn't seem to solve it.

Over this past winter, I thankfully came to the realization that the re-emergence of my lower leg problems were caused by my cycling shoes!  I went through a period of several weeks where I didn't run at all and the posterior tibialis tendonitis had gotten much worse.  At this point, I decided to try putting my orthotics into my cycling shoes.  Immediately, I felt a huge difference in the biomechanics of my leg movement on the bike.  Something just felt "better".

I have been using the orthotics in my cycling shoes for about 2 months now and have absolutely no tenonitis pain at all in my left leg.  Prior to trying them out, I really didn't think that the orthotics would make any difference at all in my cycling shoes because when cycling, you don't have the typical weight bearing foot strike and pronation motion.  I think that the problem was that although my cycling shoes fit very well, they didn't have any support at all in them.  Even though my shoe is locked in to the pedal by my cleat, there is still an aspect of "pronation", especially under high power output.  If you are blessed with poor biomechanics like me, I would highly recommend giving an orthotic insert a try in your cycling shoes.

Wheelbuilder Aerojacket

There's no question that a disc is always the fastest option in the back for time trial riding.  On just about any course, except maybe the most mountainous of time trials, the aerodynamic benefits of a disc outweigh any weight penalty.  However, disc wheels are quite expensive, and even more expensive if you want a disc with a Powertap built into it (which was my problem).

Fortunately, Wheelbuilder.com's Aerojacket disc cover solves this disc dilema.  It's a really simple and inexpensive product ($89.95 plus shipping) and allows just about anybody to at least have the option of riding a disc.  You can order online or simply call Wheelbuilder and tell them the specifications of your rear wheel (they need to know the rim and hub type) and they will cut one of the disc covers to specifically fit your wheel.  The cover is lightweight plastic and will fit practically any wheel type.  I know lots of people who put one of these on just a simple, cheap box rim training wheel on race day and reap all the aerodynamic benefits of an expensive disc.

I got my disc cover from Wheelbuilder in the mail earlier this week and installed it today.  The cover comes with a set of 8 plastic fasteners that pass through small holes around the perimeter of the cover and hold it in place.  I originally installed it using these fasteners according to the included instructions.  Although this method worked pretty well, I noticed that the cover seemed to vibrate against my wheel a tiny bit as I took it for a spin around the neighborhood.  In order to solve this, I used a single strip of 3M Super 33 vinyl tape and ran it around the entire circumference of the cover on either side to create a nice smooth and "clean" seal.  It held so well, that I actually removed all of the fasteners, as they were not needed to hold the cover on.  I then took the wheel out for a hard 25 mile ride for the true product testing.  It was absolutely solid.  Even with hard, out of the saddle climbs at 700+ Watts, there was no movement whatsoever of the cover.  It felt as fast as the Renn 575 disc that I raced on prior to getting my Powertap.  And yes, it does even make the cool "whoosh, whoosh" sound of a normal disc wheel.  I really like the look of the vinyl tape to hold the cover on as opposed to the fasteners.  If I were to order another Aerojacket from Wheelbuilder, I think I would actually ask them not to drill the small holes around the perimeter for the fasteners and just use tape.

Overall, I think the Wheelbuilder Aerojacket is a fantastic product.  It is by far the cheapest way to get the aerodynamic benefits of riding a disc wheel. 

Multi-Tasking

Despite the fact that Jess says I am incapable of multi-tasking, I think that the hours spent on the bike trainer are a chunk of time that is very conducive to getting a couple of things done at once! 

As a 3rd year medical student, my time is often limited and there seems to be an endless amount of material to study, so I find it very efficient and effective to get a little bit of studying done while cruising on the trainer.  I have never really been able to do much of anything besides focus on running when I'm on the treadmill, but the monotony of long trainer rides down in the aerobars on the other hand, can definitely be broken up by watching videos, listening to lectures, or ocassionally flipping through flash cards or review books.  During periods of the year like right now, when the major goal of many of my workouts is simply "base building", I find that I can really incorporate studying into my trainer routine pretty seamlessly.  I often set up my laptop on a stand right in front of the handlebars so that I can watch or listen to lectures.  I have also done workouts where I will go hard for 10 minutes or so, and then sit up and spin easily for 5-10 minutes while paging through a book or a stack of flashcards. 

Although I firmly believe that one can easily multi-task during "base building" or "recovery" trainer workouts, I would say that I have never felt like I could effectively do it during my hard interval or tempo workouts.  In those situations, I feel that focusing on my workout and listening to my body are critical and I am willing to sacrifice a little bit of sleep or free time to get my other work done afterwards.  In addition, when I start to build up my mileage during race preparation I really enjoy the mental break and stress relief that my workouts provide from my busy schedule.

So overall, I would say try giving multi-tasking a shot for easy rides on the trainer, but keep the harder workouts as a separate time for focusing on your body and the task at hand.

Added 2011 Race Calendar

I added a menu for my 2011 race calendar on the right.  Check it out!

I'm still sorting out which sprint and/or olympic distance triathlons I will be doing this summer, so stay tuned for updates.

Owl's Roost & Wild Turkey Trails

Vance and I took out the mountain bikes to Lake Brandt in Greensboro, NC today.  We started at Bur-Mil Park and rode Owl's Roost trail and then rode along the greenway to connect to Wild Turkey trail.  We took a quick break at the marina and I slammed down a couple of Raspberry Hammer Gels before we reversed the whole ride and finished at Bur-Mil Park.  Owl's Roost and Wild Turkey are each about 4.5 mi one way and the greenway connector piece in between the trails is about 0.3 mi.  So all-in-all, the round trip ride ended up at about 18.6 mi. 

Since I'm still in an easy "base building" mode and haven't started any organized iron distance training, I've really enjoyed getting out on the mountain bike more often.  I definitely think that mountain biking is extremely beneficial to overall bike fitness.  Not only does it drastically increase technical handling skills, but it is like a constant interval workout to really turn the legs over quickly and power up hills and obstacles.  Also, it's just really fun!  The trails out at Brandt Lake are definitely conducive to faster riding because they aren't super technical so you can really get a great 2+ hour workout in that doesn't beat you up too much like some trails seem to.

REVOLUTION3 Cedar Point...It's Official!

I finally pulled the trigger and submitted my registration for the REVOLUTION 3 Cedar Point "full rev" on September 11, 2011!  This will be my first full iron distance triathlon (ie. 2.4 mi swim, 112 mi bike, 26.2 mi run).  I've been thinking hard about this for the past couple of months and yet there was something incredibly nerve-racking about actually clicking "submit registration".  It's going to be a lot of work but  I am extremely excited to make my iron distance debut and I think Rev3 Cedar Point will be the perfect place to do it!