Wow!

...that's the hip, errrr.... kinda odd ad campaign the Trek folks are running during the US coverage of this years Tour:

http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/

while researching that link above, hey, check this video out that I found:



and this screengrab :30-odd seconds in...so, is that CxA value below for Contator, Leipheimer, or rider "misinformation X"...




anyway, "WOW!!!" is about all I can say after seeing what happened today between kloden and the NEW LANCE and what happened four years ago by my calcs:

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

and, within that article this image strikes me as the heart of "WOW!!!" :



yeah... WOW!!! That's a big reversal, there between Kloden and the NEW LANCE, eh?

Kloden and LANCE

I was watchin' the tour coverage this morning as events transpired...it was pretty amazing to see Kloden and LANCE, two, what I perceived as, bitter rivals of the past - remember stg 17 of the 2004 TdF:



Anyway, to see these guys "teaming up"...well, that's a bit strong, I reckon...I mean, one of them was working on a salary basis setting tempo for the other who was dropped, and limiting losses...the LANCE, well, let's just say it's a safe bet that he's probably betting on something longer term, financially, than this year's efforts, with a higher ROI than the UCI minimum salary, eh?

Anyway, pretty crazy to see how someone who allegedly/is accused of taking on blood transfusions three years ago:

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2009/may09/may13news3

stacked up against LANCE on the alpe d'huez four years ago:

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

and more specifically this chart within the linked article above:



Which estimates (hey, that's an estimate, lawyer guys, eh?) LANCE at 6.4 w/kg and kloden at 6.0 w/kg. The NEW LANCE is going better than he was during two of his 7 previous victories, according to pre-tour interviews, though? As Trek likes to say during their tour de france versus coverage: "WOW"...

both of these guys (Kloden and Armstrong) are getting a bit long in the tooth (kloden is 34 while the NEW LANCE is 37 - which is, hey, the same age as yours truly - so I guess I know a thing or two about how performance at 37 rates against performance 3-4 years ago...or heck, 10 years ago for that matter...), but, how today's events transpired became a bit of a head scratcher for me, given all of that previous data/information... Though, now that I think about it a bit, well, I'm pretty sure Kate Hudson is what is behind it all for the NEW LANCE's performance:



Bring on the new generation of bike racing and bike racers - can't wait to see how things shape up 10 years from now!

Bring it!

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,

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!

Lemond and Trek

I'm a huge Lemond Fan (I finally got to shake his hand and pose for the pic above during the 2006 Interbike show). I'm also a big Trek fan (that was my very first "racing bike" back in the day. LANCE? Hmmm.... Not so much.

So, it kind of made my gut hurt a bit when I read this:

http://www.velonews.com/article/74387/

It feels a wee-bit like Trek is compromising on some core values to me... But that's just my opinion, and I don't have all the facts on the whole deal, eh?

Anyway, I did get a chuckle out of some of the letters on VN.com:

http://www.velonews.com/article/74447

primarily the one about "LT training" near the bottom! ;-)

Trek Tour

Saw this one out there in blogville:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/08/my-visit-to-tre.html


Trek flew me out to their facility for a job interview a long time ago - didn't get the job, but I did meet some nice folks while there and got a tour that was pretty similar to the one described.


I flew into Madison, WI and made the drive out to Waterloo on that trip - pretty cool area even though I was there during the winter and it was a wee-bit cold!


I've crossed paths with some of the engineers and reps of the Trek crew over the years at various wind tunnels (most recently at lswt.com - Scott, Mark, Brad, and Damon: keep up the good work and I hope you're keeping it fun and the chins up even though the disco boyz have pulled the plug!

Oooh, I wonder if I can get 13-15 cm behind the BB on one of those new Trek TT frames?!

That'd be sweet.