SBR Utopia - OPEN (Page 161)

I usually keep some weight on the bars, but tend to slide back on the seat a bit. The bit of weight on the bars will help keep things under control and the weight back helps so the rear tire can brake a bit better. I can lock it up otherwise. But if I'm still pedaling I tend to stay in or very close to my normal position. I'll shift weight as I need to brake.

Since I'm usually trying to get as much speed as possible, I also keep my upper body low. Then with leg positions when coasting (too fast to pedal), I'll keep the pedals about 3 & 9 o'clock. This should be faster than one up, one down. Same rationale as to why an angled stem is preferred to stacked spacers (to keep things from being overly technical), and the longer straight leg provides more frontal area in the worse position aerodynamically. I might touch knees to the frame, but don't really squeeze that much.

*However*, when more stability is needed, like for wobbles or cornering, get a leg down and put some pressure on that foot. Don't lift your rear off the saddle, but lighten the load. This will make the bike more stable as the force of your body weight is being applied to the bike at a point lower to the ground. Well, more of it is anyway as you're still holding the handle bars. When doing this, it can be helpful to have a leg (or both) near or touching the frame too.

I only think of center-of-gravity for climbing at times when the rear wheel is slipping or the front wheel is popping up. So only in very rare circumstances on the road.  Like on 20% grade or more, possibly a bit less in wet or gravely surface. This was happening to people on Turkey Hill at Poconos, especially on the lines, but can't think of another race I've done that had issues. It's more common in mountain biking.

And for aero vs horns, I tend to stay in aero until the lowest gears. That means in the low teens or so as my usual bottom gear will still have me at those speeds . If there is a headwind, I might stay in aero until a little slower as the relative air speed is greater. If I come up, I'll try more to keep my torso down too.

Usually it's more effective to stay seated much of the time. But do know how to be effective while standing too. Some can do quite well standing and may actually do better that way, but I believe that's more reflective of the training that an individual has done up to that point as opposed to proving one is better or equal. On longer climbs, I don't actually go as far as I can seated, but do go a good ways up and then stand before I *have* to. I might go back and forth a few times if it's a really long ways.

A sprint I normally do has some crows or blackbirds out on the far end of the course that partially dive at people, squawking at them. They'll get inside of 10 ft overhead. It's kind of funny.

TrainerRoad software is a much cheaper substitute if you dont already own a powermeter. 

Thank you so much for this. This gives me a lot to think about and is very helpful.

I guess it's that time of year for bird hazards. These little guys are nesting along a popular route that I rode yesterday morning. Mom and Dad have been wreaking havoc on anyone who gets too close. It looked like a Nat Geo photo shoot when I rode by there were so many ppl with cameras/tripods on the side of the road. A friend of mine took the photo. Btw a Great Horned Owl is fearsome when they swoop. 

Tire question - I have a used pair of 4000S and a brand new pair.  How to figure out which would be faster?  The current pair still looks like it has plenty of tire based on the wear indicators, but I wonder if the new ones will be a smidge faster.  If they are, I don't know how far I need to ride them to "break" them in a little.

Thoughts?

No Osprey, but I had a bird attack my helmet last year.  Scared the crap out of me as I never really saw it, the next thing I know I've got this thing scartching at my helmet and screeching, with me riding down the road trying to swat at it.  Bet it looked funny to watch...

I don't really have an answer for you but I remember reading a thread on ST where the guys at Zipp said it was the fastest tire with the 808 FC aero wise but that once it got a bit worn it slowed a fair amount.  I don't know if that holds true for rolling resistance.

I just use the tires until late into their expected life, then replace. While there are differences sometimes it's best to stop worrying about every little thing to optimize and just go ride the darn bike.

Now this is just crazy talk!

No kidding.  Next thing you know, people will be riding with only ONE power meter.

Grrrrrr.... got back to running last week with a :30, :30 and :40 runs, some rolliing, a couple hills, all of which went fine and had no pain.  Ran 1:00 Sunday, and near the end the underside of the arch where I had the PTTD started getting tight on a downhill. It was near the end so I was stopping anyway.  walked a bit then ran a bit and it felt fine

Couple hours later started getting sore, and is sore today.   This is where the PT tendon attaches to the footbones, I believe.  So don't know if it's a worsening of the PTTD, or just a different manifestation.  Trying to get back into my PT to assess.

Was supposed to do Wildflower this weekend with a friend, definitely out, at least the run.  I don't even know if I can bike with this arch pain.

And of course the whole emotional roller coaster leaves the station again.  It's just that much less time to train for IM C.

Question for Utopians.

I posted up on TT but this was (mis-)interpreted as asking for a magic bullet, so thought I'd ask ya'll.

I have an Oly in 12 weeks (from yesterday).  I've decided to concentrate on nailing it as my first half of the season's A race, rather than throwing a 148 mile ride in the middle of the 12 week period (had to bail on that for a memorial service to be held that weekend out of town, which also allows me to focus on the Oly - more what I wanted to do anyway, but there was "beer pressure" to do the 148 miler - Harpoon Brewery sponsored - in the Boston crowd and it would have surely been a fun one!).

So, I am wondering if anyone has used a 12 week (or so) advanced/competitive plan for an Oly distance that they really liked.

Note, I am not asking for a perfect plan for me, or one that doesn't need some customization (tweaking is for me and/or a coach, if I go that route).  Rather, just if you've run across and/or used a plan that YOU liked for a an aggressive tilt at the Oly distance.  If there aren't any "boxed" plans to work off, that's fine, too.  Just trying to leverage others' experience in winnowing down the possibilities (which might end up with me just creating one).

Appreciate any experience with it.

Thanks!

Matt

What a bummer - sorry to hear.  Definitely get the assessment, though, as you don't want to turn it from an exacerbation of a previous injury to a new, full-blown one.

Sux for both Wildflower and the training time for IMC...

Did you ride previously with the injury?  That might give you a sense of what's possible wrt training with it.  While cycling is clearly not as directly injurious from a biomech standpoint, there is stress, so I'd be cautious, at least at first (though your previous experience should be a better guide than a general comment on it, I'd think).

Again, bummer!

Matt

Had a good long ride and run this past weekend.  Finally got the quarq on the TT bike and guess what...it starts reading higher than the PT by a few watts.  The good news is that I was able to identify the difference simply by RPE as riding at 200 quarq watts (which I thought would be equivalent to 212 PT watts) felt too easy.  I only did the back pedaling auto zero, so next ride I'll make sure to do the manual auto zero and we'll see what happens.  I will say though that finally moving to compact on my TT bike is so much better for me. 

My GF aslo is borrowing a TT bike from a friend who is looking to sell.  It's a 09 slice decked out in full Red that's barely been used.  I did a pseudo fit for her and she'll be trying it out on some spacious roads for a few weeks.  She'd get a great deal on it if she does want it...probably about 35% of MSRP, but we'll see. 

Yeah, but originally it manifested on the inside of the ankle.  Tried to stay away from really high power efforts that put a lot of stress on that joint.  This is down in the arch. I have pretty stiff carbon soles so I don't think it's going to be a problem, but just have not tried it yet.

I am scheduled to be on vacation for a week starting next friday, and wasn't going to run that week anyway, so thinking I am just going to shut down running for the next two weeks, get three full weeks of rest on it.  If it's bad enough that 3 weeks rest isn't enough, then I've got bigger problems than losing 3 weeks of run fitness (altho I will try to do elliptical and maybe aquajogging, which I've never done, if I can do it without pain)

Nothing to add, but to say this sucks - which you already know.  You're smart enough to be willing to shut things down for a couple of weeks, and given when IMC is, it shouldn't derail you too much.  I'm very glad I took 3 weeks off running for my achilles earlier in the year.  I wasn't happy about, but I've rebounded well.

I was really hoping you'd exited the injury roller coaster BS....it's not a fun place to be, that's for sure.  Really sorry to hear that it's flared back up and it's now causing you to miss WF, but hopefully shutting the running down will allow you to get back to 100% and training for IMC.

If you do decide to do the swim/bike legs of WF, be smart about it -- don't run through T1, and don't let your body convince you to do the run just because you've made it this far.  I raced a couple weeks ago and my knee is just now getting back to the "normal" amount of pain....it's not worth it, especially with IMC on the horizon.

Can we just make it a rule that only one person (max) within SBR Utopia is allowed to be injured at a time?  I'll take this shift

We had a really big storm come through Saturday night and they were predicting 60% chance of thunderstorms throughout the day on Sunday.  I had a three hour ride scheduled and last time I played chicken with a storm, I lost....so this time, I committed myself to riding the trainer.

Managed to ride Sufferfest videos Blender and Local Hero for just north of three hours....I know some of you do long trainer rides, but I hope to never do that again!  Three hours outside (even with minimal coasting and keeping the pace up) just seems less painful than three hours on the trainer!

Of course it turned out to be sunny and nice all day Sunday....go figure.

Great news all around!

I had the opportunity to demo a Slice a couple years ago: awesome bike!

Hey Matt!

Well, first of all congrats on not giving into the Beer Pressure!

I'm not one for cookie cutter plans as I don't think they address the individual athlete's strengths and weaknesses. I glanced at your logs and it looks like you have a good, consistent running base going on. If I were you, I would be looking to focus a bit on the bike, do some intervals on the bike and some good, fast rides on terrain similar to the race course. A good way to build the bike while not losing too much run time is to throw in a weekly brick/transition run. 

I am unofficially training for an Oly right now. Do not look at my logs as an example of what to do. Really, I am in no position to give advice but I did used to do pretty well at Oly distance races.

Hopefully someone will chime in with a better resource for you to check out  

Sorry Chris It sucks but I agree, 3 weeks i nothing in the bigger picture, Best to shut it down. Hope you still get to participate in WF somehow!