Wylde06

Group ride last night, surprisingly only averaged 215 watts for the 1:05 with the group. NP on the other hand was 255...


Might actually go ride some hills tomorrow, as long as the bike shop can figure out what is making so much damned noise on my bike. Its either my pedal (the side I crashed on) or the bottom bracket (haven't changed it since getting the bike last year). Only coming from the left side which makes me think its the pedal. Hopefully an easy fix and I can ride in silence again

jdms mvp

for me, a properly shifting bike and clean bike, offer a mental stimulation worth 1.05x training multiplier

miyata man

Warmed up and did a 30' effort to sort out where my legs are at and get acclimated to the heat. Felt really dehydrated on the way back and near cramping. One of the rare days I would've liked to see power data and a few associated metrics and even happier I don't have it to drive me to mental abstraction.

Ttoc6

Not much time in the day today. Graduation in the afternoon meant I only had about an hour (total) for bike related time. Got in 40 minutes of chasing strava KOM's. Got one of them, probably going for a fwe more tomorrow.

I typically don't even bother getting on my bike if I have less than hour to spend riding. But I made it work today. One more (BIG) graduation tomorrow with a fancy steak dinner with the parents afterwards will probably limit my riding time as well.

aaronmcd

Not sure where to put this, but its along the lines of my previous whining about wind drag.

I'm on 172.5s. I have stages. I want 160s to raise saddle and enable getting closer to the bars a couple inches. But I also want power.

Stages 165 FSA left crank is 350 bucks. I'd need to find a drive side crank as well.

Or I could spend $760 on power2max 165 FSA crankset. Gotta be better than stages.

But, I'm worried Ill really want 160, not 165. I could get p2m 160mm rotor crankset for a grand. But what if I find 160 is a bit short for my liking?

Idk, I wish there was some was way to borrow a 160mm crankset.

Ttoc6

Yep. Another short ride with some intensity. 30 minutes on the bike. Set a new 1 minute power best and worked on some sprinting form. Graduation this afternoon!

miyata man

Aaron, maybe Stages will glue up a set of kid's cranks if you ask sweetly with a cheery little cherry on top. Just for the sake of clarity, you do understand that cranks that short could be replicated with TT rings since all you are going to do is fight to turn them with almost no chance of spinning?

60 miles, 90+ degrees, peak snowing cottonwood season, high winds. I barely survived and got very clear feedback just how far I am off the mark this year. Nearly every KOM on this longstanding and highly attended ride fell today. Downed two Mexican Cokes and crawled home from coffee after.

#morelikethisplease

scheibo

wanted to crush a big hard kitchen-sink style workout ride in preparation for missing some days due to travel, but the ride to the base of the first climb was long enough to give me a chance to talk myself out of it. w/e. im on vacation!

flying to frankfurt in a couple of hours, hopefully can find somewhere to rent a decent bike for the week. looking forward to canada for 2 weeks after that - get to ride on the roads i started out on (though this time, with a power meter! im curious whether whether my efforts and KOMs from back in the day were actually 'any good' or not?). really looking forward to riding on rolling/flat roads with no lights. don't get me wrong, the bay area has some great riding, but every once in a while some nice farmland and escarpment riding makes for a nice palate cleanser.

revchuck 

@scheibo, safe travels!

mattm

Save $$, just bend your elbows more.

rubiksoval

I have a Powertap C1 that I used for just this situation, going from a 172.5 to a 165. I just bought 105 cranksarms for about 90 bucks to make the swap.

I didn't notice any power issues moving down and I was able change my position up quite a bit. I've been watching some race videos the last few weeks, though, and my pedal stroke looks really choppy compared to others and it looks like I'm just coming over the pedals a bit faster. I don't know. It's made me a bit self-conscious. I'm not bouncing or anything, it just looks...weird. But maybe it's always looked weird and I just never had video from behind me to see it. My seat has always been lower than most, relatively speaking.

My seat is quite a bit higher, like over 10mm, both due to the crank difference and moving forward a bit and raising it a bit more over baseline. So I'm also in the "is my whole body higher but head lower" questioning camp at the moment. And is one faster than another? But then I'm thinking 1cm is basically nothing...

I'm not sure. I might move back to the 172s this fall and see.

topflightpro

You know that most track racers are shorter cranks, and they have no trouble spinning or putting out power.

Aaron, before spending money on a short-arm PM, why not just get a cheap crank with short arms to see how you like it first? Someone may even have an extra set they can loan you. Doesn't HeathPack run really short cranks?

globecanvas

Dumb question, but is there a meaningful difference between 172.5 and 165 in terms of being able to pedal through corners without clipping? I mean, I know it's a little over 1/4" but I don't have a sense of whether that's not really much difference in that context, or if it means you can pedal through just about any corner.

globecanvas

(I go through about a season long cycle of pedaling more and more through corners until I clip a pedal, which hasn't crashed me yet but is embarrassing, then I get gunshy and don't pedal enough through corners, then the cycle repeats)

globecanvas

(I did do this at Rockleigh a couple years ago... (they have since changed the design of these pedals, and I don't use Looks any more anyway))

hubcyclist

spent 2hrs doing 3x30 @ 85% last night. ctl is 47, at this time last year it was 58. trying to stick with this sweet spot base plan on trainerroad to see how it plays out (as opposed to sprinkling in threshold via zwift races)

rubiksoval

I think so. I always felt there was a noticeable difference using speedplays vs. Shimanos, when I did that, and this seems a similar difference. I seem to pedal both later into corners and earlier out than others around me, but that's sort of anecdotal and random observations.

rubiksoval

17 hours and 18 minutes this week including one crit. 352 miles. 1122 TSS. 14,000 kJ.

Highest weekly TSS since I started tracking it. Feelin' alright. Hoping to rest up two days and knock out one big 350+ TSS day this week (we'll see if that actually happens) and then start recovering for the big show in 3 weeks time.

aaronmcd

Maybe pedal stroke takes some getting used to with shorter cranks? How long have you been on 165s? I would assume higher hips and lower shoulders is more aero based on the photos of myself I linked.

Wondering why did you move the saddle forward? Seems like I could move it back with shorter cranks.

Yeah 1cm doesn't seem like much but saddle 1cm up plus top of pedal stroke 7.5mm down means knees come up 1.75cm lower relative to torso, so bars could possibly be lowered twice that number 3.5 cm with the same hip angle. And if a position is high like mine, it seems that would be much more aero - frontal area is a LOT smaller and the shape seems more streamlined, less of that scoop shape in the front.

Got a photo of me from a teammate at yesterdays crit in IAB and it looks MUCH better than that "aero" hoods photo. I just can't do power like that very long. I could practice it and stretch of course, and I have been stretching. Still think I could benefit from 165 at longest.

aaronmcd

I could do this I guess, but I'm almost assuming I will like it and short non-power cranks would be a waste. Also I wanna test at the same location with the same power output and see if there's a difference in speed.

miyata man

Which would be relevant if he lived somewhere pan flat and marble smooth instead of on a mountainous coast. Also disregarding the endurance aspect, real life use implications, and fact he is looking at child sized cranks with a serious eye adds just a hint of WTF to your reply.

aaronmcd

What are you talking about? I'm pretty sure cranks are the only think dictating how close the pedals are to the BB. Shorter cranks = smaller circles. Trade torque for leg speed. I'm not worried about power production in general. I am a bit worried about big out of the saddle jumps from 95 rpm. But maybe base rpm goes up to 100 and the required out of the saddle torque goes down and its a wash. Track riders and TT riders often use shorter cranks. Seems like track requires some pretty big jumps. But still 160 would be a bit of a gamble.

Anyway, got to get off the interwebs and hit the road for a couple hours before the weekends over.

miyata man

Which is exactly what I said in the first place about power figures going up and usability going down. 160 is really small, short woman or child small. Even for a race bike where no concession is given to comfort. The wider net that gets cast here the less specific to your use it gets. So let's forget track and anyone else's physiological profile.

I'm going to reiterate the one serious point I made. You can simulate the aspects they will impact negatively by throwing on a set of TT rings. I understand this doesn't accomplish the change in position but it does let you see how feasible going from 0 mph back up to crit speed is out of the saddle. Or to a more performance oriented extent 28-38 mph. Point being any given power is going to happen lower on the cassette and allow you to see how well you can adapt without incurring the full expense of committing to a PM.

rubiksoval

Used it since January or February? Not totally sure. My pedal stroke feels exactly the same. It was just surprising seeing it filmed from behind. Could very well look like that at 175mm, too. Just haven't ever seen it before.

Moved slightly forward to get even more open with the hips and hold a lower position longer. Doesn't impact power. Actually have improved seated power this year and it's had a very positive effect in crazy hard crits in which jumping for 90 minutes just crushes me. Staying seated has really allowed for significant reduction in muscular fatigue late in crits. This is something I've consciously worked on, too, though.

globecanvas

I have a bunch of thoughts on this short crank thing, as it's been something I've thought about trying for years.

I do know guys who are constantly switching stuff up trying to find some magic formula that instantly solves whatever imaginary thing was holding them back from being totally awesome ... I don't what to be one of those guys. But I have wanted to try 165s, partly because of some bike fit thing I read years ago pointing out that range of typical crank arm lengths is tiny compared to the range of actual human lengths, partly because it would open up some interesting fit changes, and partly for the pedal clipping thing.

Why change back?