revchuck 

I'm just starting back to work after about a six month hiatus, so I know the feeling. I might even get caught up with my bills in a couple of months.

I've raced my carbon bike, but my main racing/training bike is aluminum. It's a 2012 Specialized Allez E5 frameset, bought used off of eBay, and outfitted with parts from my previous bike...most of which had been bought used. It's the last thing that's holding me back. Inexperience and genetics are the main things. Some of us are doing better financially than others, but that's not what makes them better racers. Speaking for myself, I need to put more work into it and get more experience before I can race better and smarter.

duncanblkthrne

My cadence has always been pretty good because unlike so many casual/recreational riders I see every day, I always understood the benefit of having a higher cadence and an efficient pedal stroke.
Even so it's evolved over time and with work. My 'preferred' cadence on a flat-to-rolling course these days is 95rpm +/- 5rpm, and on a good day after being warmed up enough I can spin all the way up through 170rpm.
On climbs I try to keep the cadence high as much as I can, saving the lower cadences and the Force I can generate at them for steeper climbs where I don't have the option.

During a road race I try to stay in the front half of the pack, near the front, so I don't have to work so hard, don't have to deal with the "being at the end of the whip" effect, and overall have more options. Whether I'm always effective at maintaining a more-or-less ideal position 100% of the time is another matter.

I sometimes try to launch off the front and make it into breakaway groups, but I usually don't make it there and get absorbed by the pack again.
As soon as I'm off the front and am in the wind, everything gets twice as hard. During races where I used to have my PowerTap wheel on the bike, I'd look at the power and I'd be at maximum or higher while trying to bridge the gap. Poor aerodynamics, I'm sure, as others have pointed out. I generally don't bother trying this anymore anyway, because all these breakaways seem to fail anyhow, so it seems to be wasted effort -- especially if I tire myself out so much that I end up off the back of the main group and have to kill myself off again trying to get back on. I've killed races for myself this way before so I try to not let myself do it.

The bike has the stock stem, pointing upwards not down. The distance from the top of the steerer tube to the bottom of the stem is 0.95". The stem length, center-to-center, is about 4.3".

I developed a sciatica-related problem with my left leg by flipping the stem over and slamming it all the way down for a TT in my first year. I leave the bike fitting to my ex-coach who actually knows what he's doing rather than getting extreme with it and screwing myself up again.
I probably could handle a more aggressive, aero position, but I'd think it'd need to be done in stages, rather than all at once.

duncanblkthrne

For what it's worth, I'm not rich, I'm trying to keep training and racing on essentially no money, and all I'm interested in is the best bang-for-the-buck performance-wise. To re-iterate the original purpose of this thread: If the $1300 bike I've been riding for almost 7 years is holding me back/sabotaging me, then I want to know that; if it's not, then I cross it off the list and move on to figuring out what I'm doing wrong. Not having had any other road bike makes what I'm riding now a possible issue.

Racer Ex 

Not if you made it politely.

But without a super tight controlled environment and test protocol the odds of seeing any meaningful differentiation in the data is slim/none. You'll read a lot of anecdotal "I was 2 minutes faster over my usual route on the Howdy Doody Mark 7" things posted both on the Net and in some less than scientific journals. I most cases they are saying the tinfoil is protecting them from sonic rays. A 5 MPH change in the wind can make something fast. So can having a good day.

Without a weighted jig like Ride Magazine has, subjective "feel" is often a better judge of things like stiffness.

The one thing I would insist on in any test ride is to use your wheels. They can make a huge difference in ride feel between bikes; put on a set of stiff wheels and a "soft" frame might feel stiff. Worth noting too that bars and seat post can play into the "feel" as well.

As G noted push on things, get out of the saddle and sprint, throw it into corners, wiggle the bars while you ride. But use your wheels and ride your bike and the "candidate" back to back.

duncanblkthrne

OK, I believe you. What should I be looking at, then?
Despite what some might believe, I'm not looking for an excuse to spend thousands of dollars on a bike, I'd be just as happy winning races on my ****ty 7 year old $1300 bike with a triple-chainring, if for no other reason than to piss off the guys with the >=$5000 bikes who think they're all that. ;-)

gsteinb

not rude, but ridiculous and pointless. you're not quantifying anything using a speedometer in the amount of time you have to test a bicycle.

Racer Ex 

See my prior post.

At this point I think we have a plan. I'd suggest blowing $20 on a 6/84 stem, or even seeing if the LBS has a take off in a box under the bench that they would let you have for free. That'll drop you around 2cm. Ride it and see how it goes for a few weeks.


Spend your money on entry fees and tires for now.

While you're doing that hang around here and the "33" racing forum, read, post your race reports, don't get defensive when people have a little fun with them, and learn who knows what they are talking about and take their race advice and try to implement it.


FWIW there are folks here who have won a lot of races and championships that are willing, in a curmudgeonly way, to provide advice.

Racer Ex 

I covered that. Lighten up Francis.

duncanblkthrne

Of course I was polite. They seemed concerned that 'installing' anything on the bike would 'scratch the frame'. They seemed to be a little annoyed with my actually wanting to have some basic saddle adjustments, too, and paused for a few seconds when I presented them with my own pedals to put on it. They left me feeling vaguely like I was just a waste of their time or something.

Since no LBS around here seems interested in allowing test rides of race bikes I doubt I'll have any future opportunities to test ride anything unless I'm waving hundred dollar bills at them, ready to buy one, or at least that's the impression I've been given. I've asked at least one salesperson how they expect me to agree to buy something that costs thousands of dollars that I can't even try for a few miles first, and am essentially told those are 'the rules' and they don't have a choice.

gsteinb

Can you get a better bike? Yes. What will the helpful differences be? Better fit. Better working and more reliable component group. Stiffer frame and wheels. If you're a big guy, stiffer bars and stems. Red. Red is the fastest color. The differences for what you're trying to improve though will likely be more quickly realized through the other things mentioned (technique, position, training).

gsteinb

sorry there was a whole nuther page of replies I hadn't seen, and I'm doing three things at once. This, conference calling, and writing my coach about my FTP test.

Trakhak

A smart bike store employee would have said "I'll ask the store manager whether we can do that for you" rather than blowing you off. "It might scratch the frame" equals "That's a request I haven't encountered before and I'm too surprised [or lazy] to think about it, so I'll give you a knee-jerk negative response." The manager, given a minute to think about it, might have realized that installing the cyclometer could mean that the shop sells a very expensive bike---or, at least, that a customer will remember being treated with respect at that shop. I haven't worked in a bike shop in decades, but I still cringe when I think of the times I made exactly the same mistake.

duncanblkthrne

Wouldn't I want a red bike for winter riding because it's warmer, a blue one for summer because it's cooler, a white bike if I want to shave my head, and a black one for urban downtown crits?

thechemist

Sounds like money is tight and you don't race much due to finances. I would put the money into race fees and forgo the bike for now. Also, I think Cleave has a good point about the placebo effect of a new bike.

Trakhak

Note that the speeds people were attaining in the list above were on bikes with an 84" gear. For comparison, a 53 X 16 gear is about 87 inches. Might be a good idea for you to try sprinting in a lower gear, using your 12, 13, or even 14 sprocket. If nothing else, you might find that getting comfortable with sprinting at a higher cadence on a lower gear translates to transferring that muscle memory to pack sprinting.

Another tip: a veteran racer around here with many national championships to his name always trained by sprinting down a hill with a 5% grade to replicate the speed and wind resistance of sprinting out of a pack. He never worried about what his sprint speed was on the flat.

duncanblkthrne

I have ZERO dollars since I don't even have a job.
By the way this isn't even an imminent decision. Unless I won the lottery I wouldn't even be thinking about a different bike for at least a year, and the way things are going it might be never. I could literally be homeless by March. I'm just looking for answers.

thechemist

Sorry to hear about that.

gsteinb

The answer is that your financial situation is unfortunate for both your inner harmony and your cycling, as it is indeed all about the bike.

If the answer you got was that it was the bike holding you back what relevance would it have? That there are improvements you can make in the here and now should be a wake call to get after it and do what you can. And if you don't actually have money to buy a bike, you're actually bent that a shop didn't pit a cyclometer on a bike for you to test out?

sarals 

I beg to differ. White is faster.

duncanblkthrne

I should probably also point out that I was never athletic my entire life, and this is the most athletic I've ever been.

gsteinb

While having multiple bikes is always advantageous you're going about this wrong.

sarals 

You're in good company, then!

LAJ

Any color bike you choose, as long as your shoes are red. Of course, I may be wrong, but I read it on the internet, so I seriously doubt it. It's hard to dye black shoes red, but I'm going to try.

Racer Ex 

Clean is more important than color. Have we learned nothing from Cleave?

bigfred 

With regard to shoes: Never mind color. The answer to speed lies with your pets. The cat pissing on mine made me noticably faster! People can't hold my wheel nearly as easily as they used to. Almost like I have to ease in order to prevent a gap from forming. Now, if I could just find the power to create more than a three length lead.