I recently contacted srm about a chainring change. Their answer:

Calibration is only required when changing chainring style/construction. Chainring construction causes slope to vary more than tooth count or variances among similar styles, so unless you’re changing to an ultralight ring or TT-style ring, I don’t think calibration is necessary. Crank arm length is also not a factor with the slope calibration method employed by SRM USA.

Would any of you race on a bike with downtube shifters or is that a big no-no?

There is a guy around here that has been racing on a 90s steel frame bike with downtube shifters for the last few years...he just upgraded to cat 2

1x on a crit bike is dumb. Weight is not a factor. You need the small ring for warmups. A big wide range cassette and mid cage derailleur is not optimal for crits at all. You want one tooth cog changes.

Downtube shifters will work fine but you will be at a disadvantage if you are a windup sprinter that shifts during the sprint.

Thanks.

I'm on the road for most of a month, so cobbling this together on small devices

https://www.giant-bicycles.com/us/tcr-advanced-0-2013

small

vs

https://www.racycles.com/road/bmc/bm...egra-bike-9802

51 cm

I've been riding the 1x bike all around here (central NC) as a training bike with no issues for the past month or so, with 11 speed 11-28. I've never seen a need for 1 tooth cog changes on any crit bike, the jumps on that cassette aren't big, and having an XC background I'm OK with minor variations in cadence (and they are minor).

I'm confident it will be fine as a crit bike setup, especially considering I have an identical bike that has a standard 53/39 crankset.

I wouldn't race it in the mountains, but I've never used the entire cassette in a crit no matter how hilly (I weigh sub-140 in season), and warmups on a flat course in a 52 or 54 aren't a problem.

Cool, man.

Still dumb.

Still mid-table Cat4 over here. :p

I don't think I have ever shifted during a sprint. I really need to work on my sprinting technique, I am just awful at it.

Thankfully, you don't have to ride it :)

Sometime 1990s sprint one rider reaches over and slaps the down tube shiftier of his opponent...and wins.

Sometime 2014 one is a manager on son's junior team and one is my son's coach.

rock & roll lube. good recommendation. I like it.

Red or Gold? Being up there I'm guessing Gold.

This time of year I switch to blue from gold. November-March is pretty wet around here.

Well my Quarq finally died from the Rain I rode in on Saturday (Or maybe it was the difficult crank removal process? Required a fair bit of torque to remove.) Regardless the BB was basically dead as a doorknob, removed the crank and replaced the BB before a ride yesterday morning. Got it all back together and I started to get the really funky calibration numbers.

I am not surprised this happened though. A few times during the season the unit would go through these random fits where the numbers would basically fly out of bounds, then they would come back to a regular calibration an hour or two later. Quarq told me that if it kept going back to normal values 90% of the time there was nothing they could do.

Better it dies now than how it died last year (A week before my biggest A-Race). Wondering if they will upgrade me to a DFour?

Shifting during a sprint is huge, huge, huge. The best sprinter around here for a long time was the guy that basically founded Zwift, Eric Min (another guy sort of did a concept thing for himself, Eric was the guy that made it big). He had an insane jump, just insane. In a given gear he could out-jump me and he could out-sprint me. However, for many years I used a bar end shifter on the right side. I could match his jump by jumping in a lower gear then shift up a couple times to beat him at top speed. This was at SUNY Purchase Tuesday Night Sprints, we'd do anywhere from 15-30 sprints in 3 or so hours, group was 50-150 riders, 2 mile loop, a sprint every 7 minutes or so, I had teammates leading out, etc. It was like a graduate study course in the art of field sprinting.

Sprinter della Casa: Story - SUNY Purchase Tuesday Night Sprints

Then STI levers came out, he got them, and I literally never beat him again in a fair straight up sprint. If you read the above story the guy/s I write about were his teammates for the longest time.

If I were you I'd get a right side bar end shifter. Even if it's not indexed. Cut the bar down to put the shifter in your hand when you're on the drops.

Sprinter della Casa: How To - Bar End Shifters for Crits

Every time you shift you can hit a new peak. My peak power is maybe 1200w in a race sprint. I shift when I jump. Second shift, maybe 1100w. Third shift, if necessary, sometimes I can hit 1100w but it's more like 1000w or less. Much better than one 1200w peak and then a dramatic taper down to 600w sustained. This is how I average a high power for 15+ seconds, I'm not "holding" 1000-1100w, I'm doing repeated 1100w peaks to push the average up but I'm sprinting at maybe 800-900w. My best sprints were repeated 1200-1400w peaks, averaging 1100w for the duration of the sprint.

Also each shift is an opportunity to gap off the rider on your wheel, which is worth more because the less shelter they have the harder they have to go to get back to you.

My Pmax currently sits at 804W. :o

Also, my regular bike has STIs, but I am building up an old frame and I was thinking of going for downtube shifters just to have something different. Still not convinced it is worth it.

I do need to make some time this winter to work on sprinting technique. Right now more often than not I end up either in the wrong gear or wobbling like crazy or just being unable to get the power down when I try. The few times it has clicked it seems like I can get some decent speed going. Not win a bunch sprint speed, but at least not end 300 meters behind bad, which is usually what happens.

I rode my bike set up in 1x10 for much of a season when . I just blocked out the small ring. I didn't think it was a big deal until I fixed it and got to use the small ring again. It was a relief. 53x39, 11-25, and my training is mostly (99%) flat roads and I only do big ring crits. In fact I never shift into the small ring in races because it only increases the chances of dropping my chain, even though I run a N-Gear Jumpstop, I have a well adjusted front derailleur, etc.

Also when I only had the 39x11 in that race I beat a Cat 2 sprinter who runs a 54x11 or a 55x11. He gave it a good shot apparently, I thought he simply didn't sprint. Having said that I prefer to sprint in big gears, 53x11-13 for the most part, jumping in the lower gears.

I've done it, back in 2009. Obviously integrated shifters are much better, but it's still mostly about racing smarts and legs. I found it wasn't as big a problem as you'd expect, partly because I was on a 6-speed cassette, so it's not like you're constantly reaching down to shift. But you have to deal with being in the wrong gear semi-frequently. Biggest thing I had to learn was to downshift before entering a corner, rather than on the way out. That's a better habit anyway, and it stuck.

I only plan to use the 1x in flat crits and the occasional flat, fast group ride. The 28t gives a bailout (it's a 10 speed 11-25 other than the 28 stuck on the end) and the ratios are close enough. I even took it on a gravel ride or two last week; I had to stand on the steeper sections (not necessarily optimal, but not any problem either).

I don't really use the small ring around here except on Z1 rides (or Z2 rides on climby terrain). The last road race of the season was 61 miles, 2800+ feet of climbing (not mountainous, but not remotely flat) and I never touched the front derailleur all race, climbing seated ~95% of the time. I made the break of 3, and stayed away for 40 miles for second place. After that, I figured a front derailleur for our pancake-flat crits would be unnecessary.

I like the simplicity, the clean look, the quiet in all gears, and the extra chain security with a narrow-wide ring. I have dropped chains to the inside in crits on occasion; that wasn't the reason to go 1x, more that I had 2 identical bikes and could afford to limit the gearing on one of them in the name of trying something different.

After all, 2x5 gearing wasn't too incredibly long ago, and had far more overlap between available ratios.

If it were my only or primary bike, I wouldn't have done it. If I don't like it in the long term, it's not exactly an irreversible change.

you know what they say about the best time to sell a Quarq... :)

Best handlebar tape for wet, color black? I received a $50 gift cert to Comp Cyclist and don't know what to buy there. I need new tape, I should have replaced it for 2015 but never did, still have the tape from 2014 on my bike.

Maybe the new Podium Ice bottles. Just saw those.

After you've sent it in for the third time in nine months (total ownership 18 months) for repair/replacement?

I like the Fi'zi:k superlight classic tape - lasts forever, and tacky when wet. Good stuff.

This is Quarq number 2 that has died on me in about 4 years of use. They have a pretty decent track record in my book so far and seem to provide consistent data so if I am without one for a week, big deal. I realize that SRMs have a good track record but the same thing happened to his SRM about a month ago.

I'm a recent convert to the Zipp Service Course CX tape. Nice and tacky when dry, and doesn't get slick when wet. Only downside is the rolls are pretty short.