After I got back from Italy it's been a whirlwind of activity to get back in shape. I've spent increased time on the PCs to make up for lost biking. I've also changed the way I'm scheduling my workouts. Due to the higher temperatures and humidty this time of year I'm taking it "easy" 4 days a week (Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri) and riding with PCs on those days. I actually don't know how hard I'm riding on those days as I decided to strip the PC equipped bike of all instrumentation. Staring at the powermeter while PCing away just makes me hate the bike (or rather, a PC equipped bike). I've turned to a heart rate monitor for PC rides, and even then I don't know how hard I'm going as the watch is tucked under my shorts near my knee (thanks to a broken band). So now I ride for enjoyment with the PCs and see how long I've ridden and my average heart rate for the ride once I get home. It really has made it more enjoyable.
PC time the last few weeks - 9 hours 15 minutes
PC time to date - 209 hours 35 minutes
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The last few weeks - Italy, rest, back in the saddle, and PC related injuries?
The last few weeks have been consumed with work issues. I had to travel to Turin, Italy to help out with a modal test of some new hardware. I was looking forward to the trip to also get some good riding in before or after work. Unfortunately Lufthansa got in the way. I've flown my bike to Europe a few times now, and it has always been free. This time, however, Lufthansa wanted to hit me with a $500 roundtrip fee. Guess where the bike was? So I loaded up my luggage with pedals, shoes, helmet, etc with the hopes of a friend coming through with a rental bike. Ricardo called all over Turin to no avail, but when all hope looked lost, he found a wonderful couple. Federica and Francesco of Cuore da Sportivo (Via Domodossola 22 C/D in Turin) have a quaint shop that caters to cyclists, runners, skiers, and mountain climbers/trekkers. They offered to rent a bike to me which wasn't even built. Francesco built up the bike (an Italian brand called "Bike Tool") with a mix of 105, Ultegra, and third-party parts, and I picked it up early on a Saturday morning. A weekend of cycling awaited me, and I spent that entire weekend riding to and in the Alps. That weekend I rode many of the same roads from Tuesday's Stage 10 of the Giro. Saturday was a roundtrip from Turin to past Susa, and Sunday was Turin and about halfway between Pinerolo and Sestriere.
What made the riding more interesting was that I took the same shoes and pedals that I've been using on the Powercrank equipped bike. You may recall that I've had some ankle/foot issues with the PC equipped bike, and it seems to be related to the PCs and/or pedals. In Italy, I was on the bike for 4.5 hours the first day and 5.5 hours the second day and am happy to report that I experienced ZERO pain with the rental bike and Time ATAC pedals and shoes. 10 hours of riding and no pain. I had 5 days of no riding prior to the weekend in the saddle. Hmmm.
I got back late last week and did a quick hour on the PCs after another 4 days of no riding. Wouldn't you know it - after the hour I felt some tenderness in my ankle/foot in the usual spot. Then yesterday I did a 2:15 ride on the PCs and was feeling that pain again. I'll continue with the PCs in an attempt to put many more hours on them prior to July, and it will be interesting to see if the pain persists. Looking back at my experience in Italy and the pain I get with PCs, I can't help but think that the root cause must be the q-factor of the cranks.
What made the riding more interesting was that I took the same shoes and pedals that I've been using on the Powercrank equipped bike. You may recall that I've had some ankle/foot issues with the PC equipped bike, and it seems to be related to the PCs and/or pedals. In Italy, I was on the bike for 4.5 hours the first day and 5.5 hours the second day and am happy to report that I experienced ZERO pain with the rental bike and Time ATAC pedals and shoes. 10 hours of riding and no pain. I had 5 days of no riding prior to the weekend in the saddle. Hmmm.
I got back late last week and did a quick hour on the PCs after another 4 days of no riding. Wouldn't you know it - after the hour I felt some tenderness in my ankle/foot in the usual spot. Then yesterday I did a 2:15 ride on the PCs and was feeling that pain again. I'll continue with the PCs in an attempt to put many more hours on them prior to July, and it will be interesting to see if the pain persists. Looking back at my experience in Italy and the pain I get with PCs, I can't help but think that the root cause must be the q-factor of the cranks.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Overly anal data digestion, part deux
With plenty of downtime ahead of me due to a work trip to Italy, I figured it was a good time to digest some data and look for trends in my performance. I’ve been using Powercranks since July 2008 with the heaviest use from August to February. In February and March I took a rest from them due to some nagging injuries. Now, at the beginning of May I have crossed the 200 hour mark with PCs – a significant amount of time with them which should generate some changes.
Since August of last year I’ve had some good max power values in several time durations. A few of those have been repeatable while others have been one-off performances. One-offs are great for bragging rights, but I’d rather have repeatable performances to draw on for race day. With that in mind, I’ve digested my power data going back to the 2003 season and looked at it from a max enveloping perspective as well as basing my data on my top 10 or 20 performances of the year (i.e., average my top 10 or top 20 powers for various durations). The latter is a measure of my repeatability.
The plots below (for normalized and average) show that the first two years of training with power were by far my worst. I was still within the first years of training in general so the data for 2003 and 2004 are certainly expected. The key thing is that the data from 2005 to 2009 is clustered together.
Because 2003 and 2004 are outliers in the sense that I was still training to get to my peak performance, I will ignore those years from the rest of this analysis. I’m not ignoring the data from the past, but placing importance on the more immediate past (the last 5 years).
Going back to 2003 I’ve got 1120 days of power data stored. That’s 1120 data points from which to extract power data for 5 minutes, 20 minutes, 60 minutes, or whatever duration I want. Most of the data is for years 2004 to 2009, so each year has nearly 200 data points and a good sample size from which to draw conclusions.
If I envelope my top 20 performances in a year I get the data below for normalized and average powers from 3 to 180 minutes. The solid red line represents the current season since starting with Powercranks, and the dashed red line is an average of the 2004-2009 data with error bands (one deviation plus/minus). Within a given year, the deviations are on the order of 3-6 W, indicating high repeatability in my performances. For the cumulative period of 2005-2009, the deviation is on the order of 2-4 W, within the tolerance of the Powertap itself.
Notice how tightly clustered all the data is until you get beyond the 120 minute range. For durations of 2 hours and more, I simply didn’t ride hard for that long in the past. As training evolved and my race team grew, the training rides got longer and harder. The higher power experienced in 2009 for more than 2 hours is primarily due to my weekly training ride being longer.
Since I’m primarily a time trialist, what interests me more is my power for an hour or less. Zooming in on the data above for the 10-60 minute durations we have the plots below. Here 2008 sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s clearly my worst year in the last five years, but even then it’s only off by a mere 5 watts from the average and about 7-8 watts from this year and 2007. Further, 2009 looks to be a carbon copy of 2007.
If I were to instead consider the top 10 performances of the year instead of the top 20, we would expect the curves to rise a bit. And they do. The next 3 plots are for years 2007 to 2009, and I’ve plotted my yearly best along with curves representing my top 10 and top 20 values. There is a difference between selecting the top 10 or 20 values, but honestly the difference is quite small. Indeed, the major difference is between these curves and the max curve. Ideally I’d want to have all three of these lines merge. What the curves do tell me, however, is to be careful with so-called “personal bests” which could be nothing more than aberrations. Was I feeling great that day? Was it from a fresh chain or newly cleaned and lubed chain? Temperature issues with the Powertap?
Another way to look at the data is by date. The plots below are my 20 and 60 minute normalized powers for the last several years. The plot is of all dates, but only rides in the specified wattage range can be seen (in other words, rides with lower normalized power are off the graph). The 2007 training year has better consistency in the 290 W range for 20 minute power, whereas 2009 shows more consistency in the 280-290 W range. 2008 just looks like a lousy year. For 60 minute power, 2009 shows two rides over 280 W for an hour, but 2007 appears more consistent, albeit by a only few watts. Which would a rider rather have? Those two peaks that are 5-7 W higher than the cluster in 2007, or that cluster of consistency?
Since August of last year I’ve had some good max power values in several time durations. A few of those have been repeatable while others have been one-off performances. One-offs are great for bragging rights, but I’d rather have repeatable performances to draw on for race day. With that in mind, I’ve digested my power data going back to the 2003 season and looked at it from a max enveloping perspective as well as basing my data on my top 10 or 20 performances of the year (i.e., average my top 10 or top 20 powers for various durations). The latter is a measure of my repeatability.
The plots below (for normalized and average) show that the first two years of training with power were by far my worst. I was still within the first years of training in general so the data for 2003 and 2004 are certainly expected. The key thing is that the data from 2005 to 2009 is clustered together.
Because 2003 and 2004 are outliers in the sense that I was still training to get to my peak performance, I will ignore those years from the rest of this analysis. I’m not ignoring the data from the past, but placing importance on the more immediate past (the last 5 years).
Going back to 2003 I’ve got 1120 days of power data stored. That’s 1120 data points from which to extract power data for 5 minutes, 20 minutes, 60 minutes, or whatever duration I want. Most of the data is for years 2004 to 2009, so each year has nearly 200 data points and a good sample size from which to draw conclusions.
If I envelope my top 20 performances in a year I get the data below for normalized and average powers from 3 to 180 minutes. The solid red line represents the current season since starting with Powercranks, and the dashed red line is an average of the 2004-2009 data with error bands (one deviation plus/minus). Within a given year, the deviations are on the order of 3-6 W, indicating high repeatability in my performances. For the cumulative period of 2005-2009, the deviation is on the order of 2-4 W, within the tolerance of the Powertap itself.
Notice how tightly clustered all the data is until you get beyond the 120 minute range. For durations of 2 hours and more, I simply didn’t ride hard for that long in the past. As training evolved and my race team grew, the training rides got longer and harder. The higher power experienced in 2009 for more than 2 hours is primarily due to my weekly training ride being longer.
Since I’m primarily a time trialist, what interests me more is my power for an hour or less. Zooming in on the data above for the 10-60 minute durations we have the plots below. Here 2008 sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s clearly my worst year in the last five years, but even then it’s only off by a mere 5 watts from the average and about 7-8 watts from this year and 2007. Further, 2009 looks to be a carbon copy of 2007.
If I were to instead consider the top 10 performances of the year instead of the top 20, we would expect the curves to rise a bit. And they do. The next 3 plots are for years 2007 to 2009, and I’ve plotted my yearly best along with curves representing my top 10 and top 20 values. There is a difference between selecting the top 10 or 20 values, but honestly the difference is quite small. Indeed, the major difference is between these curves and the max curve. Ideally I’d want to have all three of these lines merge. What the curves do tell me, however, is to be careful with so-called “personal bests” which could be nothing more than aberrations. Was I feeling great that day? Was it from a fresh chain or newly cleaned and lubed chain? Temperature issues with the Powertap?
Another way to look at the data is by date. The plots below are my 20 and 60 minute normalized powers for the last several years. The plot is of all dates, but only rides in the specified wattage range can be seen (in other words, rides with lower normalized power are off the graph). The 2007 training year has better consistency in the 290 W range for 20 minute power, whereas 2009 shows more consistency in the 280-290 W range. 2008 just looks like a lousy year. For 60 minute power, 2009 shows two rides over 280 W for an hour, but 2007 appears more consistent, albeit by a only few watts. Which would a rider rather have? Those two peaks that are 5-7 W higher than the cluster in 2007, or that cluster of consistency?
Finally, what if I were to take my top 10 performances of the year for various durations, average them, and using the critical power model determine my “top 10 based critical power”? I did just that, looking at data at 3, 5, 8, 10, and 15 minutes in duration. Doing this since 2003 I get a performance increase after the first 2 years and then things all blend together. My expected hour power would be 262 W for 2003, 260 W for 2004, 271 W for 2005 and 2006, 274 W for 2007, 272 W for 2008, and 273 W for 2009. When I look at the data, 2007 sticks out the most; I had my highest anaerobic work capacity contribution in that year (though honestly it’s still pretty weak). In that year I spent several weeks doing heavy VO2 work. I had access to the roads west of Paris with several shorter climbs, including one that was ideally suited for 5 minute efforts. I also utilized track racing extensively in preparation for the state time trial championships. Looking back, it appears this VO2 work was the recipe for success. Fast forward to 2009 and I’ve been doing quite a bit of VO2 work, though my 3-5 minute power is 5-10% lower than 2007.
Looking at the data, there’s several things which could be stated:
1) One-off performances are great, but unless you can back them up they are useless if done out-of-competition.
2) Consistency is more important, and by looking at the top 10 to 20 workout and race performances you get a better measure of where your fitness currently sits.
3) I’ve been remarkably consistent the last 5 years. I busted my butt in the fall with Powercranks (tempo, threshold, and VO2 workouts with them) but still I seem to be right smack dab in my physiological limits. My workouts, as measured by TSS, are up about 10% over past years with zero gain. In other words, lots of extra work for nothing (or at most one or two more watts).
4) 2008 was my worst year in the recent past, but even as bad as it was, it really wasn’t that bad, just a few percent lower than past years.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Week of April 20
Coming into the week I've been carrying a lot of load in an effort to continue to drive up the chronic training load. I just hit 100 yesterday after a low of 78 just 5 weeks ago. A nice, steady ramp rate to get back to form. But with the increased load comes some residual fatigue...
Monday - I was simply tired. No motivation to ride and I fell asleep on the couch after work. Body was telling me something...
Tuesday - Still carrying some negative TSB but I think the main point was carryover fatigue from a hard weekend. Intended to do some VO2 work but the legs weren't there.
Wednesday - An hour and 45 minutes of PC riding at a nice endurance/low tempo pace. I have to admit that by the end my hip flexors were barking at me. Still, no problems spinning out for nearly 2 hours.
Thursday - A long tempo ride of 2.5 hours including a stretch of 1:45 at about 260 W. I was dead at the end. The negative aspect of bumping up your threshold.
Friday - No riding due to a ton of rain in the area.
Saturday - Good hard group ride.
Sunday - Ditto Saturday's effort but an extra 2 hours on my own to increase load.
A good week ending up with my CTL at just under 103. The ramp rate is decreasing a bit due to the threshold number getting reset. No personal bests but the form is back to the levels I was hitting over the winter.
PC time this week - 1 hour 45 minutes
PC time to date - 200 hours 20 minutes
Monday - I was simply tired. No motivation to ride and I fell asleep on the couch after work. Body was telling me something...
Tuesday - Still carrying some negative TSB but I think the main point was carryover fatigue from a hard weekend. Intended to do some VO2 work but the legs weren't there.
Wednesday - An hour and 45 minutes of PC riding at a nice endurance/low tempo pace. I have to admit that by the end my hip flexors were barking at me. Still, no problems spinning out for nearly 2 hours.
Thursday - A long tempo ride of 2.5 hours including a stretch of 1:45 at about 260 W. I was dead at the end. The negative aspect of bumping up your threshold.
Friday - No riding due to a ton of rain in the area.
Saturday - Good hard group ride.
Sunday - Ditto Saturday's effort but an extra 2 hours on my own to increase load.
A good week ending up with my CTL at just under 103. The ramp rate is decreasing a bit due to the threshold number getting reset. No personal bests but the form is back to the levels I was hitting over the winter.
PC time this week - 1 hour 45 minutes
PC time to date - 200 hours 20 minutes
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Week of April 13
Some new personal bests this week! Yippeee!!!
Monday - 30 minutes of light indoor riding on the PCs
Tuesday - I wanted to do some quality VO2 work on the race bike, but I came into the workout with a highly negative TSB and my legs just weren't there. So instead I carried a mix of levels and rode for 47 miles just to keep the CTL increasing. I had some decent midrange, but the upper end was just flat.
Wednesday - Outdoor ride with the Powercranks just doing some endurance pace work for 75 minutes. Could have gone longer, but the winds were demotivating.
Thursday - Workout of the year. I was debating what kind of workout to do. Should it be 1) threshold, 2) a hybrid VO2 workout that sees some good training benefits, or 3) what I'm calling "300+" where I ride at 300+ W for as long as I can, take a short rest, and hit it again? I decided to go with door #3. I was expecting to have to throttle down after 10-15 minutes, but my legs kept rolling. It wasn't until minute 36 that I needed a break. Unfortunately after that I was a bit toasted, but I set some new personal bests for average power in the 15-30 minute range and normalized power bests in the 20-40 minute range. Mind you I beat my all-time bests by anywhere from 1-7 W, but those bets came a few years ago. After this portion of the workout I wasn't done. I decided to fill in some time with "surge tempo" where I ride at tempo and throw in some half-hearted out-of-the-saddle sprints out of every turn. The workout is shown in the graph below. The horizontal line is 300 W, and my current threshold is ~275 W. All indicators are saying I need to bump that up to 285-290 W (not just this data, but other ride data as well). The dips in the first part of the ride are due to corners on a local 6+ mile loop.
Friday - no riding due to some significant rain in the area. In fact, the rain was so bad that it forced the cancellation of the first day of the MS150 ride from Houston to Austin, the first time that has ever happened.
Saturday - The same weather system from Friday was still in the area Saturday. Pal Alex and I found an open window of no rain early in the morning for some riding. Just rode it hard to get some training load in. It was, however, a rain (lightening actually) shortened 1:45 ride.
Sunday - 4 hour 15 minute endurance ride on the race bike. With the training load I accumulated on the ride, I'm now up to a CTL of 100 and feeling strong again. Good thing as there are some races coming up soon.
I'm extremely happy about the new PBs. The question is why did I set those? I see 4 possibilities (or a combination of these):
1) PCs - nearly 200 hours of use in the last 9 months, using them more and more again after some injury issues in Feb/Mar. PC use has certainly declined compared to the first 6 months but I notice my pedaling style has more variety. I can pull up (hammies and hip flexors?) from 6 to 12 o'clock for significant periods at threshold to give the quads a rest.
2) increased training load and the fitness that comes with that - I'm slowly building my CTL back up over 100. I am running a negative TSB right now, but the higher CTL allows you do dig a little deeper.
3) caffeine - had some of my homemade candy bar of dark chocolate (85% cocoa) and whole coffee beans before the ride - probably about 100-200 mg of caffeine in a little piece. Not so sure about caffeine being the real factor as I've have indicators of improvement for a few weeks now.
4) the type of training I've been doing lately - very long VO2 intervals (sorry, only me and my team know the protocol)
Below you'll see my latest power-duration charts. The red line is the line corresponding to the time since starting with PCs. In both charts (average and normalized powers) note the bump ups in the 15-40 minutes ranges.
Clearly I'm well ahead of last year but still haven't significantly increased my all-time power numbers. I just need to hold the form through the summer so I can have a much better 40k this year than last. It would be nice to hit a low 56 minute 40k or dip into the 55s.
PC time this week - 1 hour 45 minutes
PC time to date - 198 hours 35 minutes
Monday - 30 minutes of light indoor riding on the PCs
Tuesday - I wanted to do some quality VO2 work on the race bike, but I came into the workout with a highly negative TSB and my legs just weren't there. So instead I carried a mix of levels and rode for 47 miles just to keep the CTL increasing. I had some decent midrange, but the upper end was just flat.
Wednesday - Outdoor ride with the Powercranks just doing some endurance pace work for 75 minutes. Could have gone longer, but the winds were demotivating.
Thursday - Workout of the year. I was debating what kind of workout to do. Should it be 1) threshold, 2) a hybrid VO2 workout that sees some good training benefits, or 3) what I'm calling "300+" where I ride at 300+ W for as long as I can, take a short rest, and hit it again? I decided to go with door #3. I was expecting to have to throttle down after 10-15 minutes, but my legs kept rolling. It wasn't until minute 36 that I needed a break. Unfortunately after that I was a bit toasted, but I set some new personal bests for average power in the 15-30 minute range and normalized power bests in the 20-40 minute range. Mind you I beat my all-time bests by anywhere from 1-7 W, but those bets came a few years ago. After this portion of the workout I wasn't done. I decided to fill in some time with "surge tempo" where I ride at tempo and throw in some half-hearted out-of-the-saddle sprints out of every turn. The workout is shown in the graph below. The horizontal line is 300 W, and my current threshold is ~275 W. All indicators are saying I need to bump that up to 285-290 W (not just this data, but other ride data as well). The dips in the first part of the ride are due to corners on a local 6+ mile loop.
Friday - no riding due to some significant rain in the area. In fact, the rain was so bad that it forced the cancellation of the first day of the MS150 ride from Houston to Austin, the first time that has ever happened.
Saturday - The same weather system from Friday was still in the area Saturday. Pal Alex and I found an open window of no rain early in the morning for some riding. Just rode it hard to get some training load in. It was, however, a rain (lightening actually) shortened 1:45 ride.
Sunday - 4 hour 15 minute endurance ride on the race bike. With the training load I accumulated on the ride, I'm now up to a CTL of 100 and feeling strong again. Good thing as there are some races coming up soon.
I'm extremely happy about the new PBs. The question is why did I set those? I see 4 possibilities (or a combination of these):
1) PCs - nearly 200 hours of use in the last 9 months, using them more and more again after some injury issues in Feb/Mar. PC use has certainly declined compared to the first 6 months but I notice my pedaling style has more variety. I can pull up (hammies and hip flexors?) from 6 to 12 o'clock for significant periods at threshold to give the quads a rest.
2) increased training load and the fitness that comes with that - I'm slowly building my CTL back up over 100. I am running a negative TSB right now, but the higher CTL allows you do dig a little deeper.
3) caffeine - had some of my homemade candy bar of dark chocolate (85% cocoa) and whole coffee beans before the ride - probably about 100-200 mg of caffeine in a little piece. Not so sure about caffeine being the real factor as I've have indicators of improvement for a few weeks now.
4) the type of training I've been doing lately - very long VO2 intervals (sorry, only me and my team know the protocol)
Below you'll see my latest power-duration charts. The red line is the line corresponding to the time since starting with PCs. In both charts (average and normalized powers) note the bump ups in the 15-40 minutes ranges.
Clearly I'm well ahead of last year but still haven't significantly increased my all-time power numbers. I just need to hold the form through the summer so I can have a much better 40k this year than last. It would be nice to hit a low 56 minute 40k or dip into the 55s.PC time this week - 1 hour 45 minutes
PC time to date - 198 hours 35 minutes
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Riding the Hooker
What??? Riding the Hooker? Has this blog been hijacked by some not so pure thoughts? Nope. After a few years in hiding, my Hooker has made her way back out of the shadows and whipped into action. Before Cervelo, before Trek TTX, before Specialized Transition, and all the other fancy dancy TT bikes on today’s market, a very special bike designed by Gary Hooker of Hooker Headers (for cars) fame was the be all and end all of aerodynamic setups. There’s a great story on the history of Hookers at Slowtwitch - http://www.slowtwitch.com/Tech/The_Hooker_237.html. 
My Hooker differs from the one highlighted at Slowtwitch. Mine is a 700c version. I was fortunate enough to but it secondhand (or maybe third- or fourth-hand?), though it didn’t come with the entire assortment of Hooker goodies, such as the aerobars of death, the Hooker brakes, and the one-sided Hooker fork. Before I could make the thing race legal I had to find a rear brake (hidden behind the BB shell). I found some Dura Ace AX brakes on ebay and I was set. The rules say you have to have a fixed gear and a brake or two brakes. The rules say nothing about those brakes being functional, and AX brakes really suck in terms of brake power.
I haven’t ridden my Hooker in over 3 seasons, giving it up because while fast as hell, I just couldn’t put the power down. It was no problem averaging over 25 mph on just 250 watts. The problem was I couldn’t take advantage of the ~10% more power I was generating on the road bike. But I need something new. The Ford GT is out, the Dodge Charger is available again, so why can’t I go retro? When I last rode my Hooker, I lived in a different house (so the photo below will likely not pass muster with the Slowtwitch décor nazis). I didn’t even have a proper TT helmet as the Garneau Prologue was the only “aero” helmet legal in the States.
Today the bike looks the same. Same lousy red fork. Do you know how hard it is to find a threaded 1 inch aero fork? I’ve made the decision to remake this bitch, and a new set of aerobars is on the way – threadless version of a similar set of VisionTechs (great bars IMO). Now I just need a 1 inch threadless fork and new headset and my drag should drop even more. The last 2 years I rode a budget Leader TT/Tri frame with aero fork and integrated Oval Concepts A700 bars. Great, cheap, setup that had me go 56:50 in sea-level conditions in a 40k. But I need something different this year.
Last week I did a head-to-head competition between the Hooker and Leader. After a 70 mile ride on the road bike I loaded up the 2 TT frames in the car and headed to a local park with a 1.45 mile loop completely exposed to wind. Winds were 10-15 mph that day but still not bad enough for some testing. Same wheels were used for the tests – 32 aero busting spokes with lousy tires and tubes. Not a go fast setup.
Below is a plot of speed and power (divided by 5) over the course of 6 laps for each setup. I targeted 3 power levels (2 laps at each power level) for each bike. Note the repeatability in power application and also the peaks and valleys of speed due to the wind. But more importantly look at how the Hooker tests faster, even with that lousy red fork which is as aero as a pig. CdA estimates show the Hooker to be 0.015 to 0.020 m^2 more aero than the Leader. The addition of an aero fork should improve that even more. Expected time savings over 40k is on the order of 90 seconds. Free speed if I can keep the power up to the levels I had on the Leader. Should be a fun year.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Week of April 6
Monday - A new way of making life miserable - setting up the Computrainer indoors with my PC equipped bike and doing some indoor riding. The PCs aren't the problem; the problem lies with the pain of getting up out of the saddle with the PCs while modulating the Computrainer power in erg mode. Needless to say, my 40 minutes of PC riding on the trainer wasn't enjoyable. My rear was none too pleased with the lack of off the saddle rest time.
Tuesday - On the race bike for an intense workout, one that simply can not be done effectively with PCs. It's the kind of workout that is getting me in shape again quickly, and I set several yearly best average powers in the 6-10 minute range.
Wednesday - Wife's 40th birthday, so I stayed home, took her to brunch, museum, movie, nursery, and dinner. No riding. Have to have your priorities straight.
Thursday - Wanted to do another race style workout on the race bike but just didn't have the legs. Still got in about an hour of tempo to bump up the CTL.
Friday - Decided to take Good Friday off from work and rode with a pal. Loads of tempo to keep the CTL growing. Later in the day I headed off to the park for an hour of testing on my TT bikes. It's a new year, and I'm trying to decide which bike to use. I haven't ridden my old Hooker in a few years for fit issues, but it felt great. Have some decisions to make... More on this in another post.
Saturday - Group ride with plenty of spunk despite 4 hours in the saddle on Friday.
Sunday - Felt good once more.
Unfortunately only 40 minutes of PC time. I intended much more but I'm having to fit too many workouts of various types in. One thing I noticed on some of the rides, however, was pulling back and up on my regular cranks more than in the past.
PC time this week - 40 minutes
PC time to date - 196 hours 50 minutes
Tuesday - On the race bike for an intense workout, one that simply can not be done effectively with PCs. It's the kind of workout that is getting me in shape again quickly, and I set several yearly best average powers in the 6-10 minute range.
Wednesday - Wife's 40th birthday, so I stayed home, took her to brunch, museum, movie, nursery, and dinner. No riding. Have to have your priorities straight.
Thursday - Wanted to do another race style workout on the race bike but just didn't have the legs. Still got in about an hour of tempo to bump up the CTL.
Friday - Decided to take Good Friday off from work and rode with a pal. Loads of tempo to keep the CTL growing. Later in the day I headed off to the park for an hour of testing on my TT bikes. It's a new year, and I'm trying to decide which bike to use. I haven't ridden my old Hooker in a few years for fit issues, but it felt great. Have some decisions to make... More on this in another post.
Saturday - Group ride with plenty of spunk despite 4 hours in the saddle on Friday.
Sunday - Felt good once more.
Unfortunately only 40 minutes of PC time. I intended much more but I'm having to fit too many workouts of various types in. One thing I noticed on some of the rides, however, was pulling back and up on my regular cranks more than in the past.
PC time this week - 40 minutes
PC time to date - 196 hours 50 minutes
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