longe

Staring at the trees, tho? I was on that diet too, only brought to you by every Miyazaki movie. Man, that winter tho..

Ygduf

this is my exact setup, just a little colder. I listen to podcasts and stare out at the yard. You could put table or something and watch whatever on your laptop though.

spdntrxi

I have a tripod and a 24 inch Lcd screen I don't use much. I need to get a holder / bracket to fit the tv and tripod. Together with a laptop atleast I could zwift on a larger screen

tetonrider

the mtb shoes are very nice (as are the road shoes). not sure if you have the asymm tongue version on the road, but i find it is a nice perk.

dz_nuzz

Oh so you didn't just pull up pictures of forests on your computer last winter like me? Weirdo.

gsteinb

I've posted the computer caddy I use, quite a bit. It's on wheels, and I roll it outside, set up a fan, and can ride outside until it's down to around 25. In fact, since I use earphones I actually prefer to watch shows on the computer since the flat screen usually ends up too loud/too quite and I miss stuff.

dz_nuzz

I have decided that this will be my winter trainer bar tape:

Heathpack 

This is what I do. I'm a music-on-the-trainer type, so it's my iPod and staring at my Garmin screen. 42F is the perfect trainer temp IMO.

Plus two box fans. I like airflow.

topflightpro

I bought a TV and hung it on the wall of my garage. I also had the garage wired for cable, and I have a DVD player sitting next to the TV. I also bring my laptop out and hook it up to the TV to watch Netflix or something whenever I'm on the trainer or rollers.

I'd venture that 75 percent of the television shows and movies I now watche are seen while riding in the garage.

scheibo

tl;dr: 'did science' and learned way too much about the garmin vector. my coworkers also now have proof postive i'm insane

Spent several hours over the last two days 'calibrating' my Garmin Vector power meter after physics suggested it was reading low (312W for something that should be 330-340W, as one example). Using the recommended procedure, I brought my bike to the office and set it up on a trainer between two standing desks (which were conveniently adjustable allowing for me to get everything completely level) and weighed my weight/string/hook on a calibrated scale to figure out what value I was looking for (27.84Nm). The pedals were reading low 27's, which wasn't quite the ~10% I was looking for and were at the low end of the +- 2% that the power meter was supposed to be accurate to. I then tried everything I possibly could to get the pedals to read the 'correct' value (though if I'm being honest, if I got them to instead report at the high end of the 2% range I would still have been happy with that...).

Doing this experiment in a building full of engineers meant I had lots of curious onlookers throughout the process with a number of suggested variables to try. I tried altering:

- torque on the pedals (25-30 ft-lbs is what is recommended by Garmin - I tried at pretty much every ft-lb increment)
- the number of spacers between the pod and the crank
- amount of grease on the pedals
- static calibration angle
- pod angle (not supposed to matter)

and several other things I'm now forgetting. Each setup required dragging the bike outside and putting on my bike shoes to do a few hard sprints to settle the pedals and then allow the garmin to figure out the installation angles, followed by numerous weighings on each pedal with numerous static calibrations in between. At one point I had the right pedal pretty much perfect (27.65-27.95 Nm no matter the static calibration) but nothing I did managed to bring up the left pedal from 27.2 (27.0-27.4). After spending way too much time on it I gave up and decided to do a clean install of both pedals and to just accept whatever values I got from it. Somehow, the ultimatum worked and I ended up getting it pretty much on the nose which was rather amusing... I'm looking forward to 2-3 rides at the correct calibration before something 'slips' and its back to crap values again.

The frustrating part of this 'calibration' process is that its not so much 'calibration' as 'continually testing and modifying until the test reports the right values'. It seems like I should be able to enter what the expected torque value should be to calibrate the meter (like you can with known GPS elevation, for example) which would have made the whole process take like 15 minutes. Either way, I'm going to continue to not recommend the vectors to anyone interested in power meters - the powertap hub on my other bike is much less stressful.

spdntrxi

so it's within the 2% out the box and your not happy?

Duke of Kent

Buy one of the many used SRMs on eBay and be done with it. Send it in once a year for re-calibration.

Enthalpic

Even calibrated scales have error, especially when working near the limits of their calibration ranges. If you did one measurement on one scale you have no idea of what the true value is. You need the mean and std dev of both values to compare properly.

2% bias is so far from "crap values" it's funny. We pay for "certified" products where the 95% confidence interval is huge.

scheibo

it was just outside the 2% originally. even when its 'within 2%' i also don't want the L and R to be at different ends of the spectrum (2% high on right and 2% low on left = ~right value for total but then the LR-balance is inaccurate which would bug me). i am admittedly insane.

really what I'm looking for is it to report the same values as when i had it installed on my old bike, even if it was wrong on the other bike.

i just bought a new bike and when i was picking out a crankset i 100% should have just gotten the SRM at that point. next time...

i have more confidence in the scale's accuracy than any of the other variables involved. but you're right, theres tons of variables involved and plenty of room for measurement error all over the place.

as for my unhappiness with 2% - i agree, 2% would be great, and thats all the error I saw when doing the torque test, but its hard to square with the meter reporting on the order of 10% lower (than both my previous bike and any equation would indicate) in my field tests which is what sparked this whole endeavor. i think my main frustration is that i really trusted the values i was previously getting but now that i've switch bikes i'll constantly be doubting it.

Ygduf

I have three separate quarqs. They are all slightly different. Good enough for Nationals.

revchuck 

This is how I got my SRM. Since it's on a non-racing bike, is there a downside to waiting until the battery dies to send it in? My race bike also has a power meter, so I can live without the SRM for a while if necessary.

Duke of Kent

I don't believe so.

Others with more knowledge on the subject will chime in though, I hope.

topflightpro

That's what my plan is. My SRM started giving me warnings of a low battery after just one year - it should last more than that. I called SRM, and they told me to send it in once the batter was dead.

shovelhd

Nope. Battery life depends a lot on age and the model. Newer models are a lot more efficient. I expect to get three years out of a battery set with mine.

echappist

does anyone know if one could run road bike brake calipers on CX bikes?

shovelhd

If the brake bridge and fork crown are drilled for them, yes. The question is, why? Shimano makes a great set of cheap cantis. I use Frogglegg which are also cheap.

gsteinb

disc brakes to amateur racing in 2017.

grolby

Yes, if there are holes drilled, but what shovelhd said. Do some quick research on how to set them up correctly, and you'll get plenty of braking power.

For UCI and (presumably) Nats only. Already legal under USAC.

gsteinb

Given my archaic wheel and derailleur collection, the odds of me going disc brakes before I retire seem pretty slim.

mike868y

as someone who is relatively small i really don't see the appeal of disc brakes on a road bikes. never have i thought "man i need stronger brakes" on my road bike.