La Vuelta: Final TT

Don't know if anyone has been following the Vuelta this year, but I have. I thought those consecutive mountaintop finish stages were top notch. Great drama, and interesting to see how the big doodz approached those final climbs.

Anyway, the final TT was pretty exciting! Great fun to see the final results of the penultimate stage of the vuelta and the limited "still" photos on the interwebs.

I was stoked to see Samuel Sanchez (who has tested at the wind tunnel here in san diego with me during the winter for the past couple of years) get a great result in the final TT, and a super finish on the final GC (y'know - I think Samuel is the one person I've spent the most time in the tunnel with over the years - Orbea/Euskaltel invest pretty well in their GC riders when it comes to TT performance):



Also, from my perspective, it is really interesting to see how final TT stage winner David Millar (with whom I've tested with here in san diego) has evolved things over the years. It's wild to see how he has been influenced by various folks over the past three years - in the end, though, he proves that "faster is faster" - glad to see him finally win a stage in a grand tour.

Here's a pic of David and I when he tested with Saunier Duval a few years back:

If you had to do it again, what would you do differently?

The title of this blog entry is probably my second favorite question I like to ask folks who have recently completed a goal event/project...y'know, it's a good question for us curious folks to pose to people who have spent some time and energy striving to achieve a goal that really means something to them. It's an opportunity for us all to learn, so to speak.

Though, really, it's not a very good question to ask someone who, on a whim, decides to give something a go at the last minute. These style of folks probably didn't give what they did (their "execution"), or how they approached the goal (their "process") much thought - so, the answer that these folks might give doesn't really mean much, I reckon...

but...the folks who put some effort into the deal...well, I reckon I'd be a bit curious about what I could learn from them and their experience. So, yeah, I think the title of this blog is a good question for these folks.

Case in point: Jordan Rapp - recently crowned 2009 IM Canada champ. I haven't asked him this question after his IMC effort. Nor do I expect that I'll get the chance to. Who knows, though, about that...I mean, I did get a response from him after this blog entry:

http://www.biketechreview.com/kdublog/2008/11/ironman.html

so, maybe he just might indulge me! lol! :-)

But really, I reckon the more interesting time to have asked "the question" to Rapp might have been after his second attempt at IMAZ last fall. Here's how I would have expected him to answer "the question" after IMAZ 2008: -> "focus more on the run".

If, indeed that would have been how he answered that question last November (2008), his result today in Penticton (August 2009) wouldn't be that surprising.

FWIW, I'm not too surprised.

Though, I am curios to see what he might be able to do in the future if he ever explored the "faster is faster" process, rather than the "optometrist" process (which Mr. Rapp is obliged currently to promote) as it relates to how one ought to sit on a bike.

The topic of how to sit on a bike has evolved over a hundred+ years, and the modern day tools - such as a power meter and a wind tunnel - have suggested that history has gotten things pretty much "right".

Well, that's what the demand side data from n=100+ athletes in the wind tunnel (and n=1000+ runs) has suggested to me anyway. Granted, this is only the demand side of things, but once one considers how much "supply" is necessary/targetted for an IM effort, well, that sort of thing becomes secondary, I reckon.

Though, really, in the grand scheme of things, I'm open to all sorts of ways to play around with how one might try and sit on a bike...and, believe me, in individual cases, I've seen things that buck the trends. Which is why I sort of chuckle to myself when I hear the "certainty" and "precision" of some folks out there on the interwebs when it comes to how one "ought to sit on a bike"...

Hence, "faster is faster" is the process I prefer to promote.

All of this, as it pertains to Rapp, is pure speculation on my part, of course, but hey - dood just won IMC, so congrats to him on a fine performance.

To personalize this a bit on my end...if I were to have asked myself "the question" (and believe me, I've already done this a number of times! :-) ) after my IMAZ performance last fall, I reckon I'd have said: "focus more on the run".

so, yeah...What's my "caveman" summary about the whole Ironman deal?




More often than not, on the day of the event, long course triathlon isn't really about the bike.




Next week, I think I'll jot down some of the specifics of what I did for IMAZ 2008 and what I'd have done differently knowing what I know from experiencing the whole deal.

elites might find these thoughts irrelevant...but then again, non-elites might also find them irrelevant! :-D

Regardless - the IM deal last summer/fall was "my" n=1 experience...and I guess my big hope would be that someone reading can learn, or better yet/more importantly - think about their approach a bit more deeply.

That'd be pretty cool, huh!? Thinking more deeply about process stuff, and whatnot?!

Amour de "Low"

I'm not sure how to spell "love" in french - it's Amor in spanish, and Amore in Italian, that much I'm sure of, and so, well, I reckon it's probably close to "amour" in french...

Anyway, after watching today's ITT in the tour, I'm pretty amazed at how much of the peloton is demonstrating behaviors symptomatic of the "disease of lowness". By that, I mean all the guys who wind up riding the tip of the saddle, only to shift themselves back on the saddle every 5 pedal strokes (I don't know what was more painful - how Contador felt during the ITT or how I felt while watching the DVR'd coverage a few minutes ago). The funny thing, for me, after seeing first hand how reach and drop interact in a wind tunnel with a wide cross section of athletes (from elites like Kristin Armstrong, Sarah Hammer, Phinney, Hincapie, Astarloza, Leipheimer, Popovych, Danielson, Marchante, Simoni, Millar, Sanchez, etc.. etc... to masters National champions like Ruth Clemence, or Alpenrose kilo record holders like BTR member Snigelmannen - way to take the record from Marty Nothstein! - to IM folks like Sindballe, Evans, Andersson, Fuhr, Ferguson, Major - to chubby, amateur, wannabe time trialists/IM'rs named Kraig) is that this disease has a cure...

The cure is simple, and it's called raising the bars in order to decrease the drop. huh? I mean, everyone knows that if you want to be aerodynamic, you have to have lots of drop, reach be damned, eh?

The favorite refrain from the "prophets of low" is: "move the saddle forward" or "get steep" isn't it:

http://www.biketechreview.com/performance/faster.htm

Move the saddle forward and drop the bars "a little", or get "steep" is the magic elixir for the sickness of being too low, according to the pundits. Well, yeah, that seems like kind of an indirect way of solving the "bars are too low" issue, eh?

The fact of the matter is that from an aerodynamic perspective there exists a relationship between reach and drop for each individual, it's not an either/or deal...and despite what the interweb forums are full of, the UCI really isn't limiting things in the "forward" department based on my experience.

I'll use myself as an example of the "disease of lowness" - the last time I tested my TT/IM position in the wind tunnel was just a week or so after my IMAZ effort last november. During that test, I baselined my position, then looked at how reach and drop interacted. At three different bar heights, it became clear that if I "tipped it" (riding the nose of the saddle, rather than sitting on the saddle square), I was less aerodynamic than if I wasn't "tipping it"...and despite lowering the bars (more than "a little") the most aerodynamic overall position came at the highest bar height I was able to achieve - this bar height was probably a couple cm higher (or more) than the position I used for IMAZ.

These tunnel data suggest that if I were to take the advice of the "prophets of steep and low", (i.e - you just need to "move the saddle forward, and maybe drop the bars a little") well, I would be less aerodynamic and, therefore, slower. Thanks for the blanket, mantra-driven advice, but I think I'll pass, and let the beta/yaw equal to and not equal to zero data speak.

So, yeah, I can't really be bothered by all the "get low shenanigans" or "get low theatrics" the pro peloton seems to be brewing up these days. The wind tunnel here in san diego is the medicine that cured me of my own personal "disease of lowness". Keep in mind that I'm not alone with the uniqueness of how my reach/drop interact. Others demonstrate this same unique trade-off (some are listed above) of reach and drop from an aerodynamic perspective.

If one takes a "forest driven" rather than a "tree-driven" approach or process to TT setups, one just might realize that there exists a real opportunity to explore how much power one can produce (or wants to/chooses to produce in the case of IM) for the duration of their intended effort as a function of different reach/drop combinations.

I mean, if one can raise their bars, extend their effective reach, be more comfortable, be more powerful, and have the same (or better aerodynamics), well then, that sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

In the end, I'm pretty much enamored with "fast" and am not burdened by "the disease of lowness" anymore.

Kind of along these lines, I'm pretty sure LANCE demonstrated today, that once again, it's not about the bike...it's really about the floppy, un-aerodynamic jewelry hanging from your neck!!! ;-)

(and yeah, I think LANCE needs to raise his bars back to where they used to be four years ago... ;-) )

Wiggins Stage 1 - Tour de France TT

the Garmin boyz posted Wiggins' tcx file from the first stage of the tour, so I made the same plot as I did for the Giro TT.



yeah, some linear power variation with slope there, eh?

I've got some more plots from the stage 1 TT I've been playing with over on the forum. Check 'em out here:

http://forum.biketechreview.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2560

The words in that picture at the top of this page

I got a good reminder of it this past week during a discussion on the BTR forum. I made some off-hand comment about aero helmets and the stage 12 giro TT. Well, it turns out that that picture at the top of this page has got it about right.

check out the thread here if you are open to the possibility of seeing things from a different perspective:

http://biketechreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2532

on another note - hey, it's pretty crazy to think that the structures guy (check out the downtube on the giant):

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2009/giro09/giro0912/PIC31528576.jpg

made the aero guy:

http://www.grahamwatson.com/gw/imagedocs.nsf/2ad5fc39030e64aa86256c8600642e1a/bbf308cffdd4279e862575bd006b9e82/$FILE/4.jpg

look silly on this stage. ;-)

LSWT.com World Champion Alums

Wow!

That's just about all I can say about the most recent lswt.com alum:







to post a world championship victory on their palmares!

I'm pretty impressed with Taylor Phinney's world championship ride and pretty much all of Team Phinney, to be honest - they run a tight ship! The guy is pretty "cool under pressure" too, if you ask me - I mean, think back to when you were 18 years old, and gave an acceptance speech like this:



to a group of strangers. I was in attendance during that ESA ceremony, and believe me, the video doesn't do his "presence" justice - to think that he's only 18 is pretty crazy.

Congrats Taylor, and the rest of team phinney!

Thread #9

Back in 2004 prior to having any real rider positioning experience in the tunnel here in San Diego, thread #9 (we're at around 2500 threads these days) on the BTR forum dealt with the topic of elbow width.

Pretty interesting to read my perspective of 5 years ago - boy, that's an eye opener for me to be sure!! This stuff isn't always as "easy" as folks would like to make it seem.

Anyway, the images in BTR thread #9 didn't make it over during the site migration I did last year, but here's an interesting frontal area look at upper arm aerodynamics as mentioned in the BTR thread:



the numbers below the images are frontal area in m^2. All sorts of things are changing between images as I reached out, huh?! It would be interesting to see what might have happened if I had controlled for elbow width and hand elevation relative to my elbow when taking those pictures.

I reckon a vertical humerus would have turned out relatively worse than it did when I took those pics 5 years ago.

So, if you look at your position and you notice that you have a vertical or near vertical humerus/upper arm, you might want to consider tweaking your reach and drop in order to explore how things change with your upper arm geometry from an aerodynamic perspective.

Pics like I took back in 2004 can be insightful...but so can a full length mirror!

-k

Frame and Rider Aerodynamic Interaction

There was a thread over on the BTR forum a couple weeks ago that sparked my memory of a data set on the topic of frame and rider interaction.

So, I did a little internets digging, and finally found an online source of what I remember seeing.


(you might have to be signed in to google to access that link above, but check out page 34 and 35 if you'd like to verify for yourself)

In the mid 80's and early 90's, it seems, Chester Kyle did some tunnel tests at a couple different venues that looked at bike and bike+rider test runs. I think the idea was to gain insight into whether or not the floppy human pedaling on the bike made certain frames perform better or worse than when evaluated solo. There's not much background on the numbers I dug up out of the book entitled "High Tech Cycling" by Burke, so this could be a dog's breakfast published data set so to speak...

...but anyway, I made this plot based on what is publicly available:



so, what does everyone think is the frame(s) that, according to this data, are the least likely to exhibit appreciable frame/rider interaction?

Position Evolution Update

I resurrected my simple TurboCad program this past weekend, and went crazy trying to compare the positions I used in 2004 and 2008.




My personal observations regarding these two positions are that the one on the right was way more comfortable. I'd probably attribute this to a couple of things:

1) actually sitting on the saddle with my sit bones
2) not having to support my body weight with my arms

#2 above is also probably what allows me to relax and narrow up my shoulders via narrower elbow pads, and also maintain a better head position without neck pain - I can ride in the position on the right for 112 miles - not sure about the one on the left, though.

It seems as if when I am actually sitting on the saddle as the old-skool europeans imagined, things are more balanced, relaxed, comfortable, and in my case, much faster.

Just something to consider when you are paying for a bike fit, or setting yourself up on the bike for this years goal events.

Rainy Day TT Positioning Activity - Garage Wind Tunnel?

Had the day off for President's Day, but it was raining, so I fiddled around in the garage a bit. Originally, I wanted to see if I could set the TT bike up in a UCI legal Superman position.

I thought that I was pretty successful - y'know, I whipped out the look ergostem and tried to make the bars even with the top of my saddle. Next, I put the ends of the extensions right at 75cm in front of the bottom bracket. I took some video of me riding in the position, and it felt eerily familiar. yep, I'd basically re-created how I have been riding for the past 9 months or so!

Seein' as how I had the fiddle-with-your-position bars out, I figured I'd just do some fartin' around with the whole forearm angle thing.

I shot some video and tried to do a sweet voice-over/narration (that's a link to a *.wmv) of the exercise, and have quickly come to the conclusion that I need some practice doing the voiceover thing! Holy cow that's pretty funny! "Fiddle-futzin!" Oh dear...

:-)

Check out what happens to my shoulders when I do the snowplow thing with my forearms with wide elbows (ala Jan Ullrich) - pretty crazy, huh!? Here's the lo-fi version of the video (sans my sweet narration!) :



Here's something similar when I have narrow elbows (not as big an effect, but still there):



The side views during this exercise also show how stable the rest of the body is when elbow position is more or less controlled for - the exception appears to be when doing the snowplow to the max - that's just not going to work out, eh?




What was my point with this whole thing - oh, I don't know if I really had one, other than to encourage everyone to try stuff out when it comes to your TT position. You never know the things you might notice when using something as simple as the supercomputer between the ears, a video camera, or even pedalin' in front of a mirror!

Have fun with it, and I'd encourage you to not "sneak up on the problem". Fartin' around with a cm here and a cm there is a good way to confuse yourself. Big changes at first and explore the design space - that'd be my recommendation.

Peace,

Fast Geometry Table Updated

I was asked to take a look at the Boardman geometry since it has a short headtube. By my math, the stack on that bike isn't too different than everything else out there. Anyway, it does seem to have some other things going for it as it climbs to the top using the same evaluation methodology as below.

Fast TT/Tri Geometry Part Two

Last time, I pretty much just documented what was available out there on the internets with respect to how different manufacturers make and sell bikes.

If the goal is to somehow take a stab at saying which manufacturer has "faster" geometry than another, well, one could simply take a look at the demand side of things. What's the demand side?

From a simplified perspective, the demand side on a flat TT course or triathlon venue pretty much boils down to total package aerodynamics (there are other variables such as weight, crr, mass, drivetrain losses, dark matter...). Now, I'm not able to say definitively one way or another how the frames themselves will behave in a wind tunnel, but this blogseries isn't about the frames...it's about the geometry they employ and the resulting way it forces folks to sit on bikes that is being evaluated.

The first way I chose to look at this whole deal was to simply say that I, as a rider, have a saddle height that I need to hit and a single stem that I'm going to put on all the frames out there. So I asked the dataset the question: "How would the resulting CxA I would have whilst sitting on these bikes, as measured in the tunnel turn out on average?"

Now, I understand that this might not be the best way to take on this challenge, but you'll have to give it to me that it's _one way_ to git 'r dun, eh? ;-)

So, the above is what I did... Along the way, I did some fancypants math to take the publicly available stack/reach values and transform them into the variables that I measure in the tunnel (I've got probably 1200+ data points at this time) and then run them through the stepwise, multiple, linear regression model I constructed that relates those measured position variables to CxA/aerodynamic resistance.

If the manufacturer offered a seatpost with an adjustable seat tube angle, I averaged the predicted CxA values from both ends of the STA spectrum.

Anyway here's how this method wound up ranking things:




So, what's everyone else think is a better way to do this sort of evaluation of TT/Tri bike geometry.

I'm happy to give your ideas a go when I get the chance!

Next time, we'll see how the recent trends of the manufacturers may have influenced performance at the world championships in Kona.

"Fast" TT/Tri Geometry - Part One

Thanks to the guys over at Slowtwitch.com, us regular/caveman folks have access to a database of TT/Triathlon frame geometries. This is pretty cool, and I'm glad those guys have taken the effort to put this together.

It's always intriguing to me when datasets like this are published, as I think a closer look can reveal an additional layer of insight. But, I'm never really sure about this until folks other than the original publishers actually dive into the data.

It's great that these guys publish this data, don't get me wrong, but I think it stops short on the whole global "TT/Triathlon" positioning deal - I mean, a bike manufacturer has a definite "fit philosophy" when they ship a give frame geometry to the general public, don't they?

For all intents and purposes, it seems, that each bike manufacturer thinks their own "fit/geometry philosophy" is the "best" way to make their customers perform optimally (or at least I hope the mfr's are not hoping to make their customers slower!). So, which mfr is "correct"?

That's really the question I have, when it gets down to the core of the whole deal... What does the mfr frame geometry say about the mfr, and in the end, which frame geometry is faster than the rest.

As a first step in this frame geometry journey, let's just look at the raw data as provided by slowtwitch.com, but in a much more digestable, non-tabular format:



yeah, so it seems to me that there's a bit of spread with this data, eh? It's interesting to note that for a given slowtitch "reach", (which is kind of, but not completely, related to how I define "reach") or distance from bottom bracket to the top of the head tube at the centerline of the head tube longitudinally, you can see that some manufacturers have pretty diverse opinions on the whole deal of "fast geometry" from a positioning perspective. Who'd a thunk it, eh?

I mean, these days consumer products thrive on diversification, so it is to be expected that mfr's will attempt to "be different" than their competition and subsequently make claims about how their approach is superior to their competition...

But I digress.

Having had the opportunity to test lots of normal and elite folk in a wind tunnel while measuring different things about how their bikes are set up, I'm in the kind of unique position of trying to attempt to say: "these bike geometry variables will tend to improve, or hurt a rider's aerodynamic position". To put it another way, I've accumulated a lot of wind tunnel data over the years that suggests a thing or two about what is responsible for making a rider aerodynamic.

We'll get to that later, but IME, CxA(a measure of aerodynamics of a given position/geometry)from a positioning/bike geometry perspective, can be boiled down to the following variables:

saddle setback (tip of saddle relative to bottom bracket)
saddle height
reach (distance from tip of saddle to where the aero bars are grasped)
drop (top of saddle to elbow pads/elbows)
pad width

There are, of course, some other things that affect the whole deal, but they aren't really a function of a bike frame's geometry.

It seems like there might be an opportunity here, then, to attempt to draw a connection between how mfr's design and sell bikes, how consumers set-up these bikes, and how the resulting positions are measured from a CxA perspective in a wind tunnel.

In my next blog entry, I'll try to step through the logic of how I would rate mfr geomety decisions along the "fast-ness" spectrum.

Be well,

-k

Cool Qualitative Flow Gadget

For anyone who's got some free time this holiday season, check this sucker out:

2-d Flow simulation

yeah, it's 2-d and qualitative, and there are some obvious drawbacks to that, but it was kind of fun to play around with it. Pretty neat web application that can take your own black/white bitmap image and output some intriguing flow visualization videos.

So, I took the wind tunnel side view image from the 2004 vs 2008 post below and used these settings (which doesn't really match real reynolds number, but does qualitatively match some tuft analysis I've done in the tunnel):



to create this interesting flow visualization:




So, have a go with this online tool and let's see your results! Feel free to share here or over in the forum.


Happy Holidays, everyone!

2004 vs 2008

Position on the right has probably 20cm of drop, while the position on the left has maybe 8-10cm of drop and is the one I used for the Ironman effort of a month ago. Guess which one is more comfortable, more powerful, more aerodynamic, and ultimately faster! ;-)



Current training has been a mixed bag, though - it's been awhile since I've done my mainstay 20MP effort up Couser canyon, and man, it sure did feel like crap doing that climb this past weekend!

A long way to go before I'm feeling ready to toe the line against all the socal pro masters...

4th of July or Turkey Day?

I was taking some video in my garage this morning in order to document my current TT position, and also to put together a little video tip on head positioning...

I mounted up the Trek TTT on the Kreitler rollers and started pedalin'... but, I kept hearing this weird clicking noise that didn't sound familiar. I looked down at the rear wheel contact patch on the rollers, and every once in awhile, I'd see an electrical discharge (yeah, it was like a little bolt of lightning!) streaming from the aluminum roller to the aluminum brake track of my rear disc. Crazy! Here's a frame grab from the head positioning tip video I finally got done today:



With all of those sparks on my rear wheel, I didn't know if today was the fourth of july, or thanksgiving! D'oh! ;-)

awww, crud, yeah, it is november, eh?!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ironman

Well, I don't know what to say, other than I exercised pretty much continuously for a little more than eleven and a half hours this past sunday.

It went as well as I think it could have gone - I mean I finished the thing - though, I reckon the marathon portion could have been a bit better! Weather was perfect, and the day was fast.

More details on my day later, but here's a quick photo for your consideration:



this is a comparison of the positions of the guy who posted the fastest bike split of the day, and myself. hey, do I get style points for having a sweet roadie/farmer tan!? LOL! ;-)

The guy on the left, Jordan Rapp, is a member of the BTR forum and he has a big motor, I'll say! Nice work, Jordan! I wonder how much faster he could go on the same watts if he tried something different? That would be an interesting exercise.

Another quick observation on long course triathlon from my perspective, is that I don't think power in the aero position is a limiter -> most of these guys (me included) go really easy on the bike portion, and I believe it comes down to experimenting with a couple points when working on a tri position...

1) being able to sit square on the saddle in your aerodynamic position for the duration of the effort without adverse consequences

2) satisfying #1 above, find the fastest position/setup for your targetted effort

I don't think supply side issues are a real limiter/constraint from a practical perspective.

That's just my opinion, though! :-)

What's everyone else think about how one ought to go about setting up their long-course triathlon bike?

Chente and a Bike Race

This past holiday weekend was front loaded! Big day on Saturday, as I finally got to see Vicente Fernandez live in Concert. I totally dig the mariachi scene and if you are into that sort of thing - Vicente (Chente) is the man!

his son, Vicente Jr., opened the show promptly at 8PM and sang with the Mariachi for about half an hour. Then Vicente came on stage and lit it up for nearly three hours of unbelievable singing.

It was a real treat for my wife, and this gringo!

A couple of my favorites that he sang and that I could find online:

Lyrics to Mujeres Divinas (a song about love, women, heartbreak, and ther realization that some of the best moments in life have been spent at the side of a woman):

Hablando de mujeres y traiciones
se fueron consumiendo las botellas
pidieron que cantara mis canciones
y yo cante unas dos en contra de ellas

De pronto que se acerca un caballero
su pelo ya pintaba algunas canas
me dijo le suplico companero
que no hable en mi presencia de las damas

Le dije que nosotros simplemente
hablamos de lo mal que nos pagaron

que si alquien opinaba diferente
sería porque jamas lo traicionaron(x2)

Me dijo yo soy uno de los seres
que mas a soportado los fracasos
y siempre me dejaron las mujeres
llorando y con el alma hecha pedazos
Mas nunca les reprocho mis heridas
se tiene que sufrir cuando se ama

las horas mas hermosas de mi vida
las he pasado al lado de una dama

pudieramos morir en las cantinas
y nunca lograriamos olvidarlas

mujeres o mujeres tan divinas
no queda otro camino que adorarlas(x2)





Lyrics to "mi viejo" (kind of a sad song about fathers/sons, in a way - really sad, but you need that every once in awhile, eh?)

Es un buen tipo mi viejo
que anda solo y esperando
tiene la tristeza larga
de tanto venir andando

Yo lo miro desde lejos
pero somos tan distintos
es que crecio con el siglo
con tranvia y vino tinto....

Viejo mi querido viejo
ahora ya caminas lento
como perdonando el viento
yo soy tu sangre mi viejo
soy tu silencio y tu tiempo.....

El tiene los ojos buenos
y una figura pesada
la edad se le vino encima
sin carnaval, ni comparsa

Yo tengo los anos nuevos
y mi padre los anos viejos
el dolor lo lleva dentro
y tiene historia sin tiempo

Viejo, mi querido viejo
ahora ya caminas lento
como perdonando al viento
yo soy tu sangre mi viejo
soy tu silencio y tu tiempo

Yo soy tu sangre mi viejo.......




Lyrics to "Para Siempre" (another song about love -kind of a sappy one! ;-) )

Vale mas, un buen amor
Que mil costales de oro
Vale mas, un buen amor
Por eso eres mi tesoro
Valgo mucho, junto a ti
Y soy muy feliz contigo
Vales mucho, para mi
Con el corazón te digo
Olvidemos, el pasado
Y lo que diga la gente
La verdad es, que te amo
Y me amas, Para siempre
Olvidemos, el pasado
Y vivamos, el presente
Lo que importa es
Que me amas,
y te amo, para siempre
Vale mucho, un gran amor
Que en el perdón a crecido
Hoy se que el llanto sirvió
Para reforzar el nido
Olvidemos el pasado
Y lo que diga la gente
Lo que importa es que te amo
Y me amas, para siempre
Olvidemos el pasado
Y vivamos el presente
Lo que importa es que me amas
Y te amo, para siempre

My wife totally loves this novela - in which Vicente Fernandez sings the theme song "Para Siempre"

http://www.esmas.com/fuegoenlasangre/

You know you want to check out that Novela link - c'mon, you can't resist, can you!? :-)

Oh yeah, I did a bike race in the morning, too - state TT up in Palmdale - I went as hard as I could, and wound up nearly dead last in the M35-39 category. I've got my work cut out for me next year, eh!? ;-)

More details about my ride (and others experiences) here.

With some solid work, and a bit of luck, I might be able to move up from 20th to 19th in the results! LOL!

Seriously, though, I'm glad I went up there and gave it a go - sometimes you just have to run what you brung! This coming weekend is the state crit in Dana Point, so we'll see how things turn out for that deal.

Finally!

It's been pretty crazy around here the past couple weeks, but today I finally got the new tt bike built up. Still need to slap a chain on it before I can take it for a spin (I need to go to a bike shop and pick one up...)

Not a moment too soon, cuz tomorrow I'll be toe'n the line for a 20k tt at fiesta island.

See you there!

TT Bike

In anticipation of the rain that is supposed to hit SoCal tomorrow, I ripped off a hard 1500KJ ride this morning, then set out to start building up the new TT frame I lucked into...

This bike has been a long term project for me.

I pinged lots of manufacturers in my quest for a TT frame - the one thing I wouldn't compromise on was saddle setback. The most interesting exchange I had was with someone from Cervelo via email - when I asked them straight up if I could get 12-14 cm behind the BB on one of their bikes, they wouldn't answer the question - kept on trying to make things more complicated than need be. A bit odd, actually - maybe someone was just having a off day - it happens sometimes I guess. The other manufacturers gave me straight up answers, FWIW.

Anyway, last fall, Damon Rinard of Trek helped me get a hold of the prefferred seat tube angled Trek TTT - supposedly the one I wound up purchasing was the last one in existence at the Trek facility.

It's a totally sweet frame - interestingly, when I opened the box up and then wiped the drool off my lips, I found myself muttering that I didn't deserve such a nice bike! After building it most of the way up today, I still think I don't deserve such a nice frame. I mean, it's a real TT frame, the first one I think I've had since being a bike racer some 15 years ago.

I'm still working out the bar/stem deal in order to get my position where I need it, but I reckon I'll get it sorted out - I'll have to one way or the other since I signed up for the fiesta island TT on Feb 10 (that sucker is sold out already it looks like!). That TT will be interesting - especially considering how I've been pedaling the bike lately!!! :-)

Anyway, here are a couple pics:

LA World Cup

I took off a wee-bit early from work and carpooled up to Carson with Dave from LSWT.com in order to catch the second event on the schedule: the Women's Individual Pursuit! It was touch and go with the traffic we ran into... but we made it with a handful of minutes to spare

We got the hook-up on VIP passes from our buddy, Dr. Brent Kay from the Ouch! Medical Center in Murrieta - so that was nice! We first met Dr. Kay when he and Sarah Hammer tested at the tunnel a couple years ago. He goes real fast on a TT bike too - he smokes me every time at Fiesta Island!

Dave and I shook hands with lots of folks who had passed through the wind tunnel and old acquaintances of ours - it was pretty crazy actually seeing so many familiar faces at the track! Not only did I go up to this event to see some fast paced track racing action, we were there to show our support for a couple of really cool groups of people - Team Hammer, and Team Phinney.

Well, we cheered our hardest for Sarah during her Bronze medal winning pursuit effort where she layed down the fastest time of the event (you'll have to forgive the quality of the images - not much else I can do with my simple point and shoot camera)!

Nice work, Sarah!

Gold medal ride.

Silver medal ride.

After catching the women's pursuit we mosy'd our way down onto the infield, where it was also pretty cool to finally meet Connie Carpenter-Phinney! Kirk used to race against Davis Phinney back in the day (I did a few races with Davis, but I really can't call what I did "racing" - unless riding around for awhile before getting dropped by the Coors Light Train counts as "racing" ;-) ), and can remember watching the 84 olympics as a punk-kid where Connie took gold in the RR. Super-cool to finally meet her!

Here's some shots from Taylor's Gold Medal ride:

Passing the UCI inspection.

Getting ready to lay it down.

Layin' it down...

After layin' it down.

Awesome result for the current Jr. World TT champion!

All in all, a really fun evening that has inspired me to give track racing a go!

Cycling Weekly (cont)

[cycling weekly] Do these principles differ according to the rider's strengths/body shape/riding style/event?

[kraig] The most important principle, IMHO, is understanding that positioning is a process that relies on the experienced use of the best measurement tools. Folks are pretty different in the positions they wind up with, but a good process will guide them along to the best result. If one focuses on the process the results will come.

[cycling weekly] In the case of each of the following, is it possible to say which is best and what sort of rider should use it? (a very stretched out position like the Superman, but within UCI limits. a Tuck position a la Landis and Leipheimer. A wide arms position like the UK Track team.)

[kraig]I don’t think it’s really possible to say which is best without testing it out. I’ve seen the Superman “work”, I’ve seen the Leipheimer position “work”.

[cycling weekly] Why do the UK Track guys ride with their arms so wide, do you think? Similarly what was so good about the Landis/Leipheimer position?

[kraig] I’m not sure why – I know that those guys test at a wind tunnel under the guidance of Chris Boardman (who is fond of telling Anthony McCrossen of cycling.tv that arm position doesn’t matter), so I’m sure they’ve got some evidence that suggests it’s the way to go. Maybe the ex-2006 Tour de France winner (I'm not quite sure how to phrase that - maybe I'll have to consult Floyd's legal team on that one??) just liked the way it felt for his hip – or he simply thought it was “cool” – or he had documented the supply side (power with his power tap) and the demand side (using the data from the tunnel here in san diego), and found that to be the best combination. Levi also uses power and wind tunnel data to guide his positioning decisions – it’s got to work on the road, though!

[cycling weekly] How important is it to get 'narrow' in the hands/elbows/shoulders/knees?

[kraig] People pedal differently, and this can affect the optimal position. I like to do sweeps on elbow width on pedaling riders under load (some facilities can't load up riders with any resistance, which is something to think about) in order to understand how axial force changes – narrower isn’t always better.

Cycling Weekly e-Interview - part 1

A few months ago, I was sent a series of questions from Oliver Roberts of Cycling Weekly over in the UK.

I spent a wee-bit of time answering all of the questions he sent my way, and some of those answers made it into the final publication (which was cool to see!) - although, I had to purchase a digital copy of it to check out if I was quoted well! ;0)

http://www.zinio.com/cover?is=228905657&img=l

Anyway, since I took the time to answer the questions for him - I reckon my answers would make for some good fodder here on kdublog - I've added some additional nuggets where I felt like it, FWIW!

here goes - question #1:

[cycling weekly] "The received wisdom is 'as low as possible is better' is this in fact the case?"

[kraig] I don’t think so.

I’m living proof that lower is not necessarily better. For the better part of 15 years of bike racing my TT setup was such that I made the bars as low as possible. Then, I went to the Wind Tunnel here in San Diego (http://www.lswt.com/) and explored what I call the "design space".

I quantified how much my axial force changed as a function of reach, drop, elbow width, forearm angle, saddle position, etc… over several different tunnel sessions. What I found out was that I had been riding below my potential in flat TT’s, largely in pursuit of becoming as "aerodynamic" as possible.

Last year (2006), I set lifetime personal bests at the 20k distance with a bar position that was 10+cm higher than previous positions - simply because I intelligently used the tools at my disposal to measure both axial force (I used a wind tunnel) and power production (I used an SRM Pro Power Meter). I also re-learned how to surf the pain curve during the actual time trials - that's worth quite a bit of time, I reckon!

Here's a photo comparison of my position in 2004 vs 2006:



Sure, going lower will generally make you more aerodynamic (that’s why folks tuck on descents!), but at what cost to the other parameter - power production? Going fast is a balance of one’s axial force, power production, and most importantly, putting it all together and executing via the supercomputer on race day.

Here’s an article I wrote that tries to send the message that using tools to help guide the positioning process is often times helpful:

http://www.biketechreview.com/performance/faster.htm