Cycling uphill

Preparing for long distance ride

June 23, 2016 by tejvan

For a long ride of 3-4 hours +, it is worth making some preparations and calcuations about how much energy to try and take on.

Carbo-loading

For anything of 100 mile plus, I will eat more carbs in the day or two before. For example, if I go out for a 1-2 hour ‘warm-up ride’ Normally I wouldn’t take any energy drink or food. But, in this case I would take a 750ml energy drink, to take on more carbs than usual.
I haven’t researched carbo-loading enough, but you have to be careful not to place undo stress on stomach by eating much more than usual.
It is also important to be well hydrated the day before and for the morning of the race.

Carbohydrate consumption

The first issue is what is the maximum amount of carbohydrate that the body can absorb per hour?
The most common figure I have seen is 60 grams of carbohydrate.
However, recently, energy drinks manufacturers have cited research that if you take a mixture of maltodextrin and fructose, you can take up to 80-90 grams. Increasingly energy drinks have maltodextrin and fructose in the ratio of 2:1. But, high quantities of fructose can be problematic for the stomach, you would have to test on yourself to see your tolerance.

Garmin Mount for TT bike

November 1, 2016June 21, 2016 by tejvan

When I use a water bottle on the aerobars, I can’t use the standard Garmin mount, so looked for alternatives which can be fixed to the bike.

K-Edge TT mount

garmin-mount-2

The K Edge TT model has a locking mechanism underneath. This is suitable for awkward positions – you don’t have to twist the Garmin, put you can twist a locking mechanism underneath the Garmin mount instead so it can work in tight areas with little room for manoeuvre. This was good for placing the Garmin between the tribar extensions. It is quite adjustable.

ECCA 100 – 2016

June 20, 2016June 19, 2016 by tejvan

Today was the ECCA 100. I have won the event in the past two years, and this year promised to be faster times because the course had been moved to all dual-carriageway on the A11 and A14 south of Cambridge. I was looking forward to the event because in recent weeks I’ve had good form, set some pbs, made some significant aero improvements and the weather forecast looked very good with low air pressure and low wind.

In fact, I tried to add up all the potential time savings in the past 12 months – watts of drag saving, faster course, better form, low air pressure, new special waxed from watt shop. On the back of an envelope, I calculated all these factors, using the formula of ’20 seconds gain per 40km per watt of drag reduction’ and I came up with a time of 3.14. Marvellous! perhaps I should have just stayed at home and stayed with my virtual time. It’s wonderful what you can learn from the internet and a bit of ‘positive thinking’. If only riding a 100 mile time trials were as easy as writing a ‘back of a fag packet’ calculation.

Converting to a single chainring

June 13, 2016 by tejvan

For both hill climbs and timetrials I have been tempted to run a single chainring in the pursuit of a few marginal gains. From an aesthetic point of view it also looks good. The only downside is a potential risk of chain unshipping and undoing any marginal gain you may have benefited from. Therefore, it is not just about taking everything off; you need a sufficiently good mechanism to stop the chain unshipping. Also, the loss of gears are a problem for some courses and training.

Single chainring

The important thing for running a single chainring, is to make sure you get a chainring designed for single chainring use. A specific chainring will:

Lack ramps and pins (which help with shifting).
Also its teeth are taller its geared counterparts, which aids in chain retention.
Narrow-wide chainrings have alternating widths between teeth to help with chain retention.

Even, if get a specific single chainring, you might still want to consider a chain guard (e.g. front derailleur / chain catcher) to be 100% sure against chain slip. Though opinion is mixed. If you have a special single ring use chainring – some will say you don’t need a chain-catcher, others will say ‘better safe than sorry’.

Redmon CC – 25 mile time trial

June 13, 2016June 11, 2016 by tejvan

In recent years, I haven’t done many 25 mile time trials. But, this was the second of the season. The previous one was Newbury RC H25/1 (51.54)

Like last week, conditions were very good. Warm – 21 degrees, very low wind and low air pressure; it would have been hard to have better weather conditions. I have been training quite a lot in past two weeks with National 12 hour TT and National 100 in mind. Two century rides in the past 8 days. Although a lot of miles, I haven’t been doing any hill intervals for quite a few weeks.

Last week, 15 mins pre race, I was scrambling around in the car for an allen key and had to dig one out of a saddle bag, right at the bottom. So I went to local bike shop and bought a set of allen keys – specifically to live in my car boot. It was a great idea, though I managed to leave this set of allen keys at home and I didn’t have any allen keys to hard. I warm up on training wheels, then with 20 mins to go, put on racing wheels. The problem is that the Zipp 808 are much wider than any other wheels, so the brakes were rubbing. I looked for a fellow competitor who might help. Number 71, my minute man was making a last minute change to his shoe cleats (so it wasn’t just me), but he still found time to dig out a small multi-tool and I was able to undo the brakes and was free to ride.

If all else fails – read the manual

February 18, 2017June 8, 2016 by tejvan

Many consumer goods these days are designed to work straight from the box. It can make us reluctant to read manuals, assuming we can work it out on the fly. This is often a good quick approach, but not always the case with bike maintenance, where small errors can have big effects.

Quark Power meter reading calibration error

At the weekend, my Quark Elsa started giving exaggerated power meter readings. I’ve had for two years, and although it has died twice (and Quark sent replacement). It has been pretty consistent in power meter reading, which is main thing for a power meter. So higher power and calibration errors was disconcerting.

I realised it may have been affected by switch from double chainring to single chainring set up. I looked up Quark Power meter calibration and found advice that after change of chain rings, you may need to recalibrate 4-5 times.

This proved correct, after 4 attempts at calibration, it finally calibrated correctly. It was tempting to give up after two or three attempts, but reading manual encouraged me to try and again. Simple solution.

100 Climbs Yorkshire

June 7, 2016June 7, 2016 by tejvan

A review of Simon Warren’s Cycling Climbs of Yorkshire. The book features 75 climbs from all corners of Yorkshire from the East Riding to the Yorkshire Dales and south Yorkshire climbs.

I was brought up in Yorkshire, learning to cycle amidst the dales and hills. Climbs like Park Rash and Fleet Moss were enough to create a little fear and trepidation in the average club cyclist. It was only on rare summer days, we would go ‘over the top’ to Hawes and leave the comfort of the lower Wharfedale slopes.

These days I’m fortunate to often go back to Yorkshire and I often end up searching some new hill climb challenge. There is a great variety in Yorkshire, from the big hills of the Yorkshire Dales, to the ridiculously steep 30% gradients of the North York Moors and also the short cobbled climbs of Halifax and Calderdale. It was only in recent years, I started to learn the joy of climbs around West and south Yorkshire – built up areas, but still some great hills and good for cycling.

The 75 climbs offer a broad overview of the Yorkshire climbs. Of course, you could easily find another 25 or 50 climbs to add to this selection, but it is still a lot to be getting on with.

Keeping track of position on bike

June 6, 2016 by tejvan

When I went for Aero Testing on Friday, Xavier said, make sure you keep measurements of your new set up.

Fortunately, I took his advice seriously and did actually do it. Two days later, my aerobars fell apart and, without those measurements, I’d be back to square one.

One way is to take photos with a ruler by the side. Always worth writing down on paper too.

Even if you are not a racer, but just someone who enjoys riding a bike – it is still worth doing for things like saddle height, fore-aft saddle. If you get a new bike, knowing past measurements is important for keeping continuity between bikes. Big changes in position can cause discomfort, loss of power, even injury.

It’s not the most glamorous job, but important to do.

If you’re a time triallist and looking to eke out marginal gains, it is even more important. Small changes of a few cm, can have big impact on drag factors.

These are my measurements, which will be of no particular interest to anyone, but if I post to my cycling blog, it makes it easier for me to find. And I’m going to use as I put my aerobars back together.

Cirencester

June 5, 2016 by tejvan

I have entered some longer distance races this so was keen to do a long ride. I have been wanting to do a 100 mile ride all year, but for various reasons, have never made it beyond 88 miles. Today was a good day, so I set off for a five hour ride, the longest of the year.

I still had a 56 single chainring on my TT bike. I didn’t have time or the right tools to switch it over. A big chainring limited my options. Normally, you don’t worry about terrain; in fact I often try to find steep hills. But, a 56 *23 severely limits where you can ride. I set off to Cirencester, which is one of flatest areas. Even hills of 8% had me pedalling a very low cadence. The first 60 miles were mostly fine, but then I got a bit lost in the Cotswolds and I was struggling up a few steep inclines. This is what it must have been like in the days of fixed – always worrying about coming across steep hills. I could have ridden road bike, but I feel it’s important to train on the time trial bike because it is quite a different position.

trees-cotswolds

Anyway it was mostly a good day out. I took this photo in the Cotswolds and a few yards later my aerobars broke going over a pothole, you can’t quite see. It was 40 miles home with loose aerobars. Still it could have been worse like happening yesterday in the race or on Friday at Newport velodrome. I could do with replacement bolts pretty quick, but last time it took Trek a long time.

Aero Coach session

June 6, 2016June 5, 2016 by tejvan

Recently, I visited Newport velodrome to have aerodynamic testing with Aero-Coach, a company offering aero-testing for cyclists.

A position from 2010 pre-wind tunnels — A position from 2010 pre any wind tunnels. It’s hard to imagine winning races with this position and equipment.

I visited the Drag 2 Zero wind tunnel in 2011. When I came out of the tunnel, I was noticeably faster. Previously my position was not very optimised, so it was relatively easy to go faster. Five years later and the science of aerodynamics in cycling has progressed quite a lot. It is noticeable by the way times are falling. Times which used to be good enough to win an open, may now only be good enough for the top 5, even top 10. You hear on the grape vine of people doing 280 watts for a 19 minute ten mile time trial and things like that. I often felt last year I was losing out to people who had a better optimised position. Last year, I was stuck waiting for a new skin suit and didn’t help myself by doing National 100 with round bottles on the seat tube and another on the down tube.

Anyway, this year, I felt it was time to book a session with Aero Coach and see if I could catch up some lost time. It’s a pretty smart set up, you use a power tap discwheel and just ride around the track and they measure CdA from knowing speed and power. I don’t know exactly how it works, I was happy just to ride around the black line and leave calculations to others. I have toyed with trying to become an expert on self-calculated cdA, but I don’t have time / am reluctant to invest in the knowledge, and don’t trust myself to get it right given so many variables affecting data. In the field of marginal gains, you need to be pretty switched on.