brick94513-GoGoGo Mentor Group - Closed For Now! (Page 99)

Jay, I had a discussion with my agent about that. No luck on the Homeowners covering it.

Tim, Below is a post I made on another board that I'm a mod on. If you don't mind could you take a read and tell me what you think? I know some of these things are personal choice, but I really value your opinion. Especially, since Xterra is your thing and that will be my focus next year besides the 2 HIM's.

thanks!



No idea what to do here, enlight of the cracked frame. I've got around $2k into the Trek fuel. Thank God I bought all the stuff on bigtime sale or at cost thanks to someone around here, you know who you are....thanks!

Anyway, My original plan was to keep this Trek fuel for my trail rig. To have it for those all day trail rides. IMO it's cushy to have a FS rig for that. However, I don't really have much off road experience with hardtails or 29er hardtails. I've ruled out FS 29er's because I just think they are too heavy.

My huge dilemma, and what came back to haunt me about the Trek build, was not going with disc brakes. Most every frame that could replace my trek seems to be disc specific like this :http://www.jensonusa.com/store/produ...+Frame+09.aspx

But since I have high end v-brake specific wheels and xtr ceramic v-brakes I would have to scap my high end wheels and v-brakes and spend roughly $900 to get comparable wheels and some disc brakes.

To add to the problems my rear shock is shot as well. So just to fix my Trek I'm looking at $220 for the rear triangle and prolly $300 for a rear shock.

So I guess my options are:
1. Fix the Trek, con't with plan to build race bike over the winter. Buy a new triangle or have it welded and get the rear shock taken care of.
2. Scrap the 2005 Trek and upgrade to a more modern frame with disc brakes. (clearly a pricey option)
3. Swap all current parts over to a cheap hardtail frame to hold me over. then build a more all around bike that will do trail and race duty. When that's done convert bike with current parts over to single speed for training purposes.
4. Part out the Trek and buy a more all around bike.

Lastly, I'll have to choose what the next bike will be. Originally, I planned on building a carbon 29er for a race bike. Most people I talked to about 29ers LOVE them. However, one of the fastest people I know can't stand them. He had an aluminum Niner and hated the rough ride. Plus, if the new bike is going to be more of an all around bike I'm not going carbon with it. I'll do the scandium thing I think. Although, as I now know, metal cracks too!!! So carbon doesn't seem so bad now!

I really don't know what I'm going to do here and want to make a decision to get the ball rolling soon. I HATE being without an MTB!!! I guess I'm just looking for any discussion to help make my decision.

Let me have it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y783Iw8fjiw

OK first I'll say, I'm by FAR no expert!

What I notice was in the first 25 your back end was sinking. It was a little better in the second 25, but I think there is some balance issues there maybe. I like shark fins and catch ups to work on balance in the water. I'm also not seeing much of a kick, which also may be contributing to the rear end sinking. When you breath it looks like you are lifting slightly up and too the side instead of rolling the body and turning to the side. When you do this there is an arch in your back and your body is bobbing up and down in the water, also contributing to the sinking I think I saw. Your arms may be reaching too low in the water also instead of having a high elbow pull it looks like you're "painting the bottom of the pool" as my coach would say.

Edited by Meulen 2010-10-12 10:07 AM

Thanks, all the same things I noticed as well.

Feasible.  Fix or buy a new rear triangle.  Like I mention previously, have the rear shock pushed.  It will cost less money and be more specific to your needs.



This could be very pricy, especially if going for race ready.  My DT wheels with ceramics ran about $2k.  Magura Marta Sl brakes or Formula R1s are going to run you about $700-$800 for brakes.



You could probably pick up a cheap frame on Ebay.  Tomac X-Type, which is a carbon frame, for pretty cheap.  However, at some point, you are going to need to make the conversion to disc brakes.



Don't worry about the toughness of carbon.  It will hold up.  I have a frame with a carbon in the rear triangle, carbon bars, carbon seat post, carbon brake levers, carbon everywhere... have over 1,500 miles on the components without issue this year.

Since you are looking to downgrade the bike, I would lean to option one.  Fix the frame and have the shocked pushed or replaced.  Your back on the road and keep the rest of the money in the bank for your new race bike.

As for the 29er, its a very personal and controversial issue.  Conrad Stoltz, winner at Nationals this year, was riding a Specialized 29er HT S-Works.  He has nothing but praise for the bike.  Personally, I don't care for the bike.  One commonality that I've noticed: the guys that rant about the 29er are on the bigger physcial side.  I'm a lighter, shorter rider.  I like the feel of a small travel, full suspension, 26 MTB.   Also, I'm a far better climber than descender.  So, the extra suspension in the rear gives me a little better feel for the terrain.  On a HT, I feel that I'm bouncing all over the trail.

Hope that helps.  Bounce back any specifics you want to discuss.

that helps, thanks!!

Come to think of it all the guys I know that like 29ers are larger builds. The one guy that doesn't like them at all is extremely fast. He's tall like me but also slender like me. I'm 6'1" 165lbs. How big are the guys you are talking about?

I would say they are all over 6 feet.

cool!!! I lined up a test ride of an Air 9 scandium for this weekend. I'll get to test it for myself since I may be in between.

First, you look a lot better now than at the beginning of the season!

Now, I'll add on a couple things Brian mentioned.  Yes, you are lifting your head to breath instead of rotating.  Also, you have a straight arm pull, aka drop elbow.  To fix this work on swimming laps with your hands in fists.  You'll find that you will get zero propulsion with your current pull with your hands in fists.  Its hard for me to describe, but think of keeping your hands closer to your chest without crossing midline.  This will allow you catch more water with your forearms.  You should feel more effort from your lats than your shoulders.

Next, I'm going to venture that your balance issues are coming from your kick.  It seems to me that your kick is coming more from the knee than the hips.  When you kicked, your legs buckle, hips sink, then you splay your legs to gain balance.  When you kick, try to keep your feet close together.  I've been told to try and drag my big toes on the opposing foot as I kick.  When doing kick drills really try to emphasize keeping your legs straight and rotating your hips.  You should feel the burn in your hip flexors and gluts.

I'm far from a strong swimmer, so take my observations lightly....

Test, test, and do some more tests is my advice!  Are you sold on Niner?  If not, I would highly recommend trying the Specialized 29er HT Carbon S-Works.

I'm sold on what works best, which means I'm sold on nothing yet. I like the scandium idea though. I'm curious to see how it rides.

btw....I thought push could do my rock shox air shock but I guess they don't. I swore I saw on the site before!! Anyway, they sell them too though it looks like.

So, I got a 50 mile MTB race this weekend.  Hmmm, should be interesting since I've kind of already went into off-season mode.  No biggy though, its just a fun race to do.  50 miles 6,000 ft of elevation with a combination of singletrack and fire road.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and shoot for 4:30.  I think its doable for me if I can stay away from the flats.  Last year I had four flats.  Err....

Ah bummer.  I just assumed you were running a fox shock in the rear.  My bad.

no biggy, I could look into an finding one on ebay too. Then when it goes send it to push. I just don't know anything about them. I'll have to do some research on which one to get. Looks like there is a Float R, RP2 RP3 and RP23

Thanks guys, tried to work on some stuff in the pool today.  Didn't go so hot.  They started hearting the pool now; it was like 900 degrees in there so I went sans wetsuit.  I SUCK w/o my suit on.  I have confirmed that my full suit also makes it much harder for me to get a breath and makes my shoulder hurt for some reason.  I may have to find a shop that has a demo program or something and try some other brands.

Awesome video quality! Awesome swimming pool!

I'd say you've got two primary things going on here that will keep you from making significant gains. Some of the other stuff is noise in comparison.

1. Catch. Your elbow is leading your catch for sure. This is easily the #1 thing I'd be working on correcting if I were you.
2. Rotation. You could be rotating a lot more...think of how those long skinny rowing boats cut through the water...you want to be narrow. Freestyle is a long axis stroke, meaning your pivot point runs from the top of your head down through the middle of your body.

Both of these are EXTREMELY common problems. In fact, a guy here on BT has a blog where he does stroke analysis for people. I recommend checking it out, he explains these problems well, and offers solutions. What might seem like a decent swim stroke is often very inefficient, and he's got a great eye for it. http://badig.com/

Cool, I'll definitely hit him up.  I actually have a bookmarked search of all his replies on here regarding swimming, didn't know he had a blog.

Somewhat related, have any of you ever worn a Desoto wetsuit?  I'm going to get a T1 after they roll out the Concept 5 tops.  I'm already sold on it, just curious.

Jay, I have the speedfoil trisuit. LOVE IT!!! They are awsome for customer service. Shoot them an email and they will address any questions you have.

where did you get that video done? Is there an under water camera on the market or was this at a training facility?

Cool, thanks Brian.  Yeah, I have read lots of good CS comments about them all over the web, and have no doubt they will be awesome to deal with.  Emilio himself emailed me back when I inquired about a military discount and they offer a whopping 25% off all their stuff.  Our old local team captain works there as well, but I didn't know him personally. 

Nope, those videos are homegrown.  We did it at the 50m pool here on base.  We used a GoPro HD video camera suctioned to a frisbee, screwed into a 2x2 as a pole, then I edited it w/ Windows Live Movie Maker to get rid of the fluff and tie together the actual swimming into one file.  It's a native 720p res w/ 30 fps capture, which as you can see makes for a crisp clear swim video.  We lucked out that our Safety guy here had the GoPro already.  Before I knew about that, I had looked into one a few months back for myself, but $300 to take some underwater vids just seemed ridonkulous.

Nice Jay!!!! I really need to hook up with a group of swimmer peeps around here. I still suck and lack the time in pool to improve. I really have no excuse other than it's just more fun to group ride and waaaaaaaay more conveinient to run. If I had a group to swim with a few times a week I'd totally be more into it. I'm still sadly swimming a bit more than 2 minute 100's. I've been stuck there for some time. I'm sure I'm doing stuff wrong I can't see myself. Hopefully, after masters class starts in December I'll have my breakthrough and start putting times down under the 2 minute mark for 100's!!!!!!!!

I am the only one who goes w/ any kind of regularity other than the team captain.  But he's always training, he's doin IMAZ next month.  I'm not much faster than you, I only avg abt a 1:50/100 in the pool and I end up being closer to 2:30/100 in OW.  I just enjoy the swimming a lot lately now that I have started doing more than just a couple hundred meters worth of drills every time.

Edited by shmeeg 2010-10-13 8:19 PM

We have a tri-swim program I go to. They offer it 3x a week in the winter and 2x a week in the summer. Unfortunately, all year round 2 of the classes are held at 5:30am during the week when I'm already on my way to work. The other class is on Sunday and they drop that one during the summer. So I have to wait till winter to go to one class a week and have to do the rest on my own. Fortunately, the coach is very accessible and helps me via email and in passing at the gym

Whoop whoop! Proud new owner of a Powertap right here! Ordered it yesterday from Rich @ wheelbuilder. He even hooked me up w/ a 20% discount on the PT hub to pricematch the trisports sale price.

AWESOME Jay!!! That'll get you going on the bike. You're going to be flying next year.

I purchased my first round of computrainer classes. I bought 2x per week for 6 weeks starting in Novemeber. I'm going to purchase another 6 weeks when that is done. I'm hoping to put down around a 23mph avg for my Olympic distances next season and above 20mph for HIM's.