Noice!

there is some truth to it-- think it has to do with longer femurs, though (long levers).

some bodies work very well for cycling and not at all for running, for example.

longer lever arms are worse for leverage. it explains poor sprinting more than improved power.

And movement is generated across joints, so I'm not sure how a long muscle pulling vs a short muscle pulling on the same size knee joint, e.g., changes much.

longer lever arms can mean more leverage, no?

it's obviously a complex thing and there's more than one way to be a great cyclist--i'd just read some stuff in the past about femur length as a function of leg length and those with higher ratios tended to generate more power (for longer durations, not sprints).

but whatevs.

I dunno. here's a somewhat educated opinion on a somewhat related topic. tl:dr longer bones = less leverage, but longer muscles are in the optimal contraction cycle to generate force for a wider range of contraction.
http://www.******.com/r/askscience/c...restle/caqx5w5

didn't read but the title implies whatever science is in there is about arm wrestling and may not be universal.

i dunno but does whatever you quoted translate from the loads in arm wrestling (more degrees of freedom but mostly lateral, i'd guess?) vs cycling (pretty limited to extension & contraction)?

the stuff i'd seen was cycling-focused.

i don't know the answer but would ask the above question before applying to cycling. cycling's a pretty limited case--i'd think less complex than arm wrestling.

can you find it again? maybe it's a counter-intuitive-to-me thing.

I'm maybe biased from weightlifting where long-femurs => squats are difficult

seems like the fact that the weight is acting against you with a squat (feet are fixed) while with cycling your butt is fixed.

squatting is probably a lot more like sprinting than longer threshold efforts.

not really important enough for me to discuss further. whatever i find probably won't convince you, so not gonna spend the time to look up some old reference i once saw. i could be wrong, anyway, so just assume that my memory is flawed. (seriously)

OK - you've all seen this before, but not with the monster truck tires/wheels for Chico dirt race. So trying again...
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=436052

^ the gumwalls look great.

also, it is a good time of year for this thread.

I need a guy who stays at my house and pays the bills, fixed my bikes, glues my tires 'n **** so I can focus on riding.

I would do this if there wasn't a rider.

Nice, I like the matching colors.

Sweet ride. I love the look, but I really want all those cables in the cockpit to go away. Let us know how it performs, I haven't hear much about these.

trimmed the housings a bit and zip tied the brake and shifter cables on either side of the inline brake qr. been riding it, it's super fast.

http://i.imgur.com/VlrpwyXh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hZUzv2nh.jpg

Nice bikes @zitter

much better

Sweet...

Let's see some Fiesta lap times!

@zitter Nice Orbea! Which saddle is that?

Race season starts next weekend. Crit Saturday, road race Sunday. Can't wait!
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=436650
http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/...psjcrgdm26.jpg

New team bike this year. Got a nice ride on it today and I like, a lot. Getting used to Shimano again from SRAM though is taking some getting used to.

http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps1qahn3so.jpg

Here are my two rigs. First ever time trial is in two weeks.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...pssnbrdvkp.jpg

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...pseniqdc4o.jpg

Long femurs = power definitely is part of the mythology of cycling, whether it has any basis in scientific fact I haven't seen. Which doesn't mean much, I don't follow the sports science literature. But the use of gears is really heavily equalizing compared to a lot of sports where morphology plays a dominant role in whether you can compete at the international and sometimes even national level. For example, rowing, height is really important, long distance running, really long, slender legs helps a lot, etc. So even if it does make a difference, it is very much at the margins.

Selle Italia Monolink SLR, stock on the bike which was nice

cannibalized the cannondale

http://i.imgur.com/wC0Qhkih.png