Dream Chaser's 'Set a Goal and Capture it!' Mentor Group - CLOSED (Page 24)

So - a couple of updates here:

(1) Got home from the gym last night and went to bed at 11pm, woke at 3 to take the dog out and ... what a surprise ... he won't go back to sleep.  In fact he stood next to our bed and repeatedly tried to hop in so... a triathlete's gotta do what she can to get the rest and find extra time to get those workouts in so ya... I lifted him up and the little guy shared my pillow and we slept solid through to 6am!  I'm officially a furber FAILURE but a well rested one

(2) I can't believe your basement!!  I thought mine was awesome when I cleared the cobwebs, washed the floor, and installed a fan!  Like you I have the low ceiling issue.  I should take a picture of mine as a before and have you renovate it!  This could be a new business - one of those improvement shows on HGTV!

(3) Your note about gearing... To me - someone who clicks the lever and hopes for relief - one who still knows not how to clean or change her chain - it reads like this:

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Sorry bub!

I don't know jack about bike maintenance, either.  I was just wondering why my brand new, just serviced bike made noise in the big ring/big cog, and our friend Google had all the answers.  Then in my usual way I analyzed the heck out of it.

So all you heard was "blah, blah, blah, shift, blah, blah, blah"...got it! 

Hahaa...Marcia, not to be redundant (with the pic) but remember, you're not alone in your furber failure. Sometimes, ya gotta do, what ya gotta do 

1) (and noticed this right away) when you are in the big ring on a large cog (50/21 through 50/28), you have a very sharp chain angle relative to the crank, which puts a sideways torque on the crank, robbing you of power and putting additional stress on your equipment...in the extreme your chain will rub against the inside of your front derailleur (mine was) which creates additional friction and probably a heck of a lot of wear on the FD; and

2) when in the small ring and the small cogs (34/11 through 34/13) you're going to experience the same angle problem (not as acute, but still there) and your chain will slack some

Mike, Really nice analysis, losing power from the sideways torque never occurred to me but makes sense. Did your google travels happen to identify the ratio of power lost as the angle inceases? It would be interesting to understand the diminishing returns as you increase/decrease the angle while switching gears. Your cadence/speed/gear ratio chart would give that answer, assuming the same consistent power applied, but that would require me to do math.

You're both engineers aren't you... come on... admit it! 

You're both engineers aren't you... come on... admit it! 

I present to you...the newly and vastly improved "House of Pain" (a.k.a. "The Pit", as my wife likes to call it):

This is the culmination of a major new treadmill purchase and my putting together of a Wieder gym that we purchased like 8 years ago and never put together.  It took me roughly 15 hours to put it together all told, including the, ahem, dis-assembly time correctly my mistakes (like having two cables switched...machine doesn't really work when that happens!).  The 2nd treadmill is there for the time being while the brand new one is waiting for a replacement board.  It will eventuallybe replaced by my bike connected to a Kurt Kinetic trainer.  Carpet is new, too...basic indoor/outdoor stuff from the depot with some padding under it.

I can't use the new treadmill because I'm too tall and only have like an inch of clearance to the joists above...might do some creative notching and sister-joisting to get around that issue.

The white "walls" are there to keep it brighter as well as hide 1) the oil tank, and 2) the ugly dusty foundation walls.

I will now have NO excuses not to squeeze in my workouts.  I'm looking forward to be able to do 5:30-6:00 a.m. workouts now as needed without having to leave the house.  I'm going to try out the Wieder today post-swim.

Random tip/thought for the day:  Bike Gearing/Shifting

I'm new to cycling.  Or...at least I'm new to modern, 21st-century cycling on a road frame bike.  For the past ten years I've been riding on a 21-speed hybrid with fingertip shifting (triple on the front, 7 cogs on the back).  I rarely noticed anything about the gearing, other than that I almost never went down to the "granny gear" on the triple and it was hard to upshift to the big ring from time-to-time.  Before that I had a 1988 Giant 12-speed, which didn't see much riding in the 90s anyway.

Great information!

What made you go with the compact crank and cassette?

Random tip/thought for the day:  Bike Gearing/Shifting

 I then picked the gears that match the best between the two, keeping the chain as straight as possible and avoiding the two top and bottom cogs where possible when the wrong ring is engaged.  I found the closest to be the 34/13 and 50/19 gear ratios (in orange, above).  These will my crossover gears where I will shift to/from my small to big ring.  For instance...I'm riding the flats at 34/13 and want to accelerate, I will upshift to the big ring while simultaneously downshifting the rear to 17.  The nice thing is that my 105 shifters take care of this nicely, as I can do that three-cog shift with one hard tap to the left on the brake lever.  BAM...I'm now in 50/17.  Downshifting is a little more complex, as I have to tap the inner lever three times to emulate the upshift, and I go down to 50/21 before I move back down to the small ring (see yellow, above).  The downshifting gear progression is a little less steep this way.  Still not too hard with some practice. 

Here you go, boss!

PLANNED:

I'm thinking about:

Swim:  25K yards

Bike:  8-12 hours, depending on weather (I can't go past 90 minutes on the Expresso trainer without losing it)

Run:  80 miles (a manageable, steady, consistent increase from my 17 mi per week right now)

Strength and core work:  1+ hour per week

ACTUAL:

Sooooo...way behind on swimming, way ahead on biking, a little behind on running, but last week's back issue didn't help matters for sure.  I gotta find that swim zone again...it's been really missing this month after a good March.

10K...DONE!!!  PR @ 49:08.  Full race report is here:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=248652

I was struggling a bit going up the last hard hill and I thought of you all cheering me on and just got it up the hill.  Felt really great during the race (well...considering it was a 10K and I was hammering it).

I have another 5K in two weeks where I'm going to push for one of my pre-season goals...breaking 22:30.

Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone!

10K...DONE!!!  PR @ 49:08.  Full race report is here:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=248652

I was struggling a bit going up the last hard hill and I thought of you all cheering me on and just got it up the hill.  Felt really great during the race (well...considering it was a 10K and I was hammering it).

I have another 5K in two weeks where I'm going to push for one of my pre-season goals...breaking 22:30.

Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone!