Fred D Mentor Group - Part II (Page 26)

When you breathe, are you breathing directly to the side (not lifting your head at all), and not turning your head to breathe but mostly putting your face to the side through body rotation?

I'll tag along to the computrainer vs power meter questions.  How do the power meters, Quark or Powertap compare to the TrainerRoad watts?  I'm only using power through TrainerRoad on a Kurt Kenetic Road Machine, and I'm interested in how it compares to "the real world".

I do yoga (and should do it more regularly) to keep the muscles and connective tissue around my joints strong, lubed, well-circulated because of arthritis.

I also have had slipped discs between C4/C5 and L4/L5 that tend to be troublesome if I don't specifically do "core" and spine work.

Where I feel it's specifically helpful to me in tri stuff is that I do most of my riding on the trainer and subsequently don't build up a lot of the smaller stabilizers that I would need in road riding, but I feel that it gets covered through trunk work in yoga.

I have a question about my trainer/tyre ... I have a Minoura Mag and when I ride the drum can get really hot. It's literally melting my trainer tyre off ... for a long time I just had the little spray of rubber dust behind the wheel, but now after an hour's ride I'm literally sweeping a handful of what looks like rat turds (same size shape color) off the floor and by then the tyre is skipping and squealing on the drum.

I can squeeze about an hour and a half of decent riding off the trainer if I baby powder the tyre, but it can't be good to be getting baby powder into the bike and trainer parts.

Is this just what happens when tyres get worn down?

I LOVE yoga - and i think it is fantastic for both flexibility and strength - i noticed after I had bad case of ITBS how many of the moves incoporated things i was doing in physiotherapy.  And as you said, it doesn't help you S/B/R better but it does help keep the mobility in areas that might otherwise stiffen up and could ultimately cause injuries.

I also particularly like it for being so opposite to what I call the 'constant forward motion' of endurance sport.  It's great to stop and tune into the body.  I didn't think i'd be the person who like the 'ohm' and meditative aspects but it is really good for the psyche.  It can be hard at first to just let go and let the mind be quiet - IMHO anyway.

Like you, I don't do it as often as i would like - and i don't think i could touch my toes at all right now ...

I've had old cheap tires, good quality tires and expensive race tires on my trainer (when I was lazy...).  I don't get any bits of tire coming off my trainer at all, ever.  I know lots of people do but I've never seen any at all.

I know that doesn't answer your question at all....

Have you experimented with how tightly the drum is pressed against the tire?

I haven't compared but I do know that the tension on the tire makes a big difference.  I can adjust the tension and have it easily affect my speed vs power numbers by 1 km/hr at the same power.

Yup. The closer it is, the worse it is.

I'm always baffled by these problems.  I have been riding my KK Road Machine with a Michelin PR3 for about a year, just under 1,250 "miles".  You could wipe the floor with a white glove behind it without getting it dirty.  I use DanielG's method of setting the tension: crank the knob down, hold onto the flywheel and pull down on the bike wheel hard.  If the wheel slips, tighten the crank.  Keep tightening until no slippage.  I don't know if having no tread (smooth tire) on the PR3 is the answer, but I have zero rat turds in my pain cave. 

To be fair, the tyre has about 5K miles on it (about half road and half trainer). I didn't have any problems (except for just that bit of rubber dust I mentioned) until recently, so it may just be a case of time to change it out.

The drum's okay, but does have this cm-wide band of rubber tyre crud on it. I should probably clean that off.

Mhmm

wow...lots of stuff going on.

As far as road bike to TT power.  On flat ground, I would say there is a ~5% difference in power I can put out in the drops/hoods vs on my aero bars.  When climbing uphill (5-7% grade), I would say there is a 7-10% difference in the power you can put out on either bike compared to flat ground.  So my 20 minute test (95% of 20 minutes) basically "implies" my FTP on a road bike, while climbing is 302 watts.  So if it was on flat ground, subtract maybe 8.5%...so that gives me ~277 watts.  Now subtract another 5% to compare to a TT position and you get 262 watts.  Which is basically what I was shooting for on my two 40k TTs.  Came up short both times for various reasons...but if I put it all together, I'm pretty sure I could hold 262 and be completely wasted at the line.  Next year I may test my 20 minute power on my TT bike on the flats...it's just that the only long flat road without traffic lights is on the other side of the island.

One of my pet peeves in TT is that people try to use too much "coorelation equals causation". 

I have a deal with sharks. I do not eat them; they do not eat me. IT WORKS!!!

It's a pet peeve of mine in life, but the truth is that a lot of people haven't developed or been taught critical thinking skills. Just how it is. If I feel like pointing a fallacy out, sometimes I do.

Hmmm..this could be it, although I do occasionally focus on trying to keep one eye in the water when I breathe, but onestly, for the most part I don't think about how much of my face comes out of the water when I breathe.

The tennis ball drill - is that literally just tucking a ball under your chin and trying to keep it there?

Touch your toes...I'm lucky if I can touch my shins.

Do you use a dedicated wheel/tire for the trainer?  If so, I can't recommend a proper trainer tire enough.  It really makes a difference (and yes, I realise that some people have no issues with a regular tire).  But it's built for one purpose, your road tire is built for another purpose.

Just food for thought.

Interesting.  The last time I tested my FTP (TT bike, in aero the whole time) I was at 261.  I can't fathom the thought of holding 318 on my road bike for a 20 min climb....

That settles it, I'm going to have to go back to Hawaii with my road bike and try!  

I have one setup where I use a Kurt Kinetic connected to Golden Cheetah so it provides the exact same thing as TrainerRoad.

I can put on the bike, turn the crank one turn, and it will read 20 watts less than my PT. Turn another crank and it's bang on, turn another crank and it 20 more than my PT.

So it's shouldn't really be compared to a powermeter, but if setup the same way every time it will be consistent with itself.