My sympathies to everyone dealing with sick parents. I meant to say this earlier but had a heck of a weekend.

Race went OK but power was way lower than what I was expecting. 7th/15, not what I hoped for, but not too bad. I feel something is off with my training or resting or position, or maybe I just make less power on the TT bike than the road bike... My friend and my coach are saying "don't beat yourself up" - but I'm not beating myself up, I'm looking for some kind of constructive analysis with action items. On the positive side, my first race post-crash went without a hitch, I did all my pre-race stuff on plan (equipment, nutrition, hydration, warmup), concentrated, executed my pacing strategy (apart from failing on the overall number), wasn't paralyzed by fear like i was last year when this was my first race ever, etc etc.

My sewer repair was worse than expected, they had to dig a second 10 foot deep trench when the first one hit bedrock before reaching the attachment point to the pipe. Poor tree has a trench on each side of it, so it has roots in only 2 directions now. Contractor said it should be ok, but I"m doubtful. Guess I'll find out when it does or does not make leaves in a few weeks. $6200 later.... and not covered by insurance... ow.

ouch...

Would it make sense to remove the tree? (you don't want this to re-occur).

I don't think so, they put in plastic pipe to replace the clay, which leaked and was improperly bedded. WTF do I know, though. The tree is my favorite thing in my yard.

Valygrl, oww. The tree, the pipe, the BILL. OMG...well. I know how you feel right now. My gallbladder has cost me $4600 SO FAR, and the bills are still coming in - and I HAVE insurance (so they say). I do hope that beautiful tree does well!

You rode wonderfully, girl. You did what you needed to do, you made a plan, stuck with it - power was down, but that will come. I love, LOVE, your mental preparation. You OWN the race you're in. I so admire that! Great, great job. I know the next time out you'll do very well.

Most of us do!

Got a pic or video on the TT bike?

How much did you ride it before hand?

Position and adaptation are crucial to a good TT. I'm normally at the pointy end of the stick but a screwed up position on the new bike dropped me out of the top ten at VOS...first time in...well maybe ever I finished that far back.

Nothing good

http://www.sportifimages.com/RoadRac...1431&k=3xqXDLJ

http://www.sportifimages.com/RoadRac...5278&k=gkwxZ4s

Edit: I rode it twice a week for the last couple months, more than half of that on the trainer. I have a fit in a couple of weeks. I think I need shorter cranks and different extensions so I can get lower. I'm kneeing myself in the stomach. I'm 5'2" riding 170s.

I'm 6'3" riding 170s. Personally I favour shorter cranks than most people would recommend for my height, but even so - you're running similar cranks to me with legs that are probably at least 4" shorter.

Be careful about listening to me, though, because I'm an idiot. I got on my race bike today for the first time since Sunday's race. Something felt odd and when I checked, the seatpost had slipped about three centimetres. This can only have happened during the warm-up for my race, or during the race itself, or some combination of the two. Evidently I hadn't fully tightened it when I put the bike back together last week. Doh!

Looking on the bright side, racing with the saddle too low must have compromised my performance somewhat. This weekend we'll see how much easier it is to be competitive when the bike is properly set up!

Carbon paste.

You need to go lower and turtle your head which means lower your ears relative to your shoulders. You can practice turtling your head from your current position.

The cranks may be too long but your seat also may be too low.

Seat's too low for sure. Position is pretty "sit up and beg". Looks like way too much stack under the arm rests and the entire front end needs to be dropped. Arm rests need to come closer together, as do the hands. The extensions look uncomfortable and are turning your arms outward. 165's would help. Is that your hair flopping around there out back?

That you have been riding that twice a week makes me both wince a bit in pain and give you a big thumbs up for training right.

Submitted in good faith...you're certainly not the worst position...this is much worse. Holy smokes.

flip it

I'm really glad that, when I clicked on that link, it wasn't a photo of me.

I'm almost that aero in the drops, and I'm a long way from aero.

:lol::roflmao2::lol:

You were not alone.

I was going to say "sit up and beg" but I saved it for the master who should trade mark the phrase.:D

Thanks for the feedback. What I expected. I bought a stock mid-level bike, thinking to save money, but immediately realized that it compromises the contact point details that are so important. Live & learn. :/ This is my first TT bike and I got it mid-season last year. I had a fit from a BG fitter before selecting the frame, and then an initial positioning fit on the bike right after I got it, but haven't done anything since then. In 3 weeks I have a fit appt with boulder center for sports medicine, and I'm hoping I can try different front end configurations there and figure out what I need to do.

It's flipped & slammed so I have to either get a steeper angle stem or new extensions that sit at/below the bar, as these elbow pads won't go any lower. I think I want new extensions, b/c I don't really want the what-do-yo-call-em bull horns? where the brake levers are? any lower.

If/when I get new extensions, I think i need ski bends, these s-bends stretch my wrists and are uncomfortable, as you said, and I don't have good control. I can move the elbow cups in about a cm on each side, I will try that. I am not very confident in the aero position, and I was initially feeling like having my elbows wider made steering a little less scary, but I can see it's time to move them in and try to get used to it. I get blown around a lot in the wind, and somewhere there is a trade off between having enough control (or feeling of control) to stay on the extensions vs. having a narrow position that I get out of a lot b/c I'm scared of gusts pushing me around. I realize this is amenable to practice, and I've been working on it. This kind of mental / fear thing is absolutely my weak point in cycling.

I moved the seat up until my hips rock, then backed it off just a hair. The saddle is almost all the way forward. I have been trying to find a saddle that I can tolerate that is shorter so I can go farther forward and therefore higher, but no luck yet. I could maybe do the Adamo Podium, but it doesn't buy much distance at the cost of a lot of pain. RIght now the distance between the tip of the (cobb) saddle and the front of the bike is so small I barely have room to stand over it.

I suspect I bought too tall of a frame, thinking that I would not be able to get as low as it turns out I probably can (if you know what i mean). I don't really want to buy a new frame, I hope I can make this one work with different bars. If I had it to do over again I would get a 650b wheel TT bike, the toe overlap on this one is terrible. I was (again) trying to save money by sharing race wheels between the TT and the road bike. And after all that, the freaking wheelbuilder wheel cover won't fit in this frame, and the zipp 303 front wheel has 1mm clearance in the fork, so i kind of need different wheels anyway. FML.

:)

thanks for listening.

Oh yeah... that's my hair. I braided it and that is the end of the braid. Guess I need to get it under better control.

Why?

I've noticed a trend towards the outer bars being lower and lower, so that, when you are on them, you don't sacrifice as much from an aero standpoint. Wiggo uses a huge drop, as do most of the guys I was watching in the Paris-Nice prologue last night. That prologue was a short hard effort that had everyone standing a fair amount, and their back positions didn't change appreciably whether they were standing using the outer bars, or sitting using the aerobars.

Are you using a zero setback seatpost? That could be an inexpensive way to get your hips more forward and to rotate your torso. However, you have to watch your hip angle because it could kill your power. There are always tradeoffs.

b/c they already feel really low. I know it's hard to see in the picture, but the base bar drops down, and the elbow pads sit at least 2 cm above the high point of the base bar, so there is a big drop from the extension ends to the outer bar ends. I guess it would be a cheap and easy thing to test, just throw a -17 stem on there.

I wish I had a side view picture. I can easily hit my elbow with my knee if I slide my arm back a teeny bit. I'm thinking if I had shorter cranks I could go lower in front w/o having to go higher in the saddle, which I think I can't do.

I don't have a TT bike, but I use speed bars on my road bike, and I can hit my elbows with my knees in the full tuck. FWIW.

Does someone have a picture of what a 5'2" person is supposed to look like on a TT bike? That might help.

Can't oblige with a 5'2" person, but Cav is pretty small

Or Hermes can post one of MEA.