first ride on the bike today. felt fast, but it's placebo for sure. most bikes are fast if you pedal hard enough.

definitely need to adjust the cockpit down a bit but I got the saddle height and fore-aft right on the first try. shifting the rear derailleur with my left hand took a minute or three to get used to. only a couple of mis-shifts. had to concentrate to shift the front ring, but I think I stuck in the 46 for all but the fastest bits anyway.

the dzero quarq dropped out for a few minutes. It's bluetooth and ant+ but I don't know how to know which way it's connected, or which way is better. I'll have to figure that out.

Wait what on the shifting? It's set up backwards? Why? Can you change it?

FWIW for Stages ANT+ is way, way more reliable than BT.

its etap = weird. i dont mind it on my TT bike because shifting is weird on the TT bike anyway, but it definitely takes adjustment.

also - 54/46? damn. those are your TT gears IIRC. i guess you wont be riding that bike when i try to trick you into letting me halfwheel you on coastal rides. funny, i have 52/36 on my TT bike and i kind of wish it was 50/34.

Etap uses Left lever to move up the cassette and right lever to move down. Hit both simultaneously to shift the FD.

Is that the TRP TTV brakes? Or is it something proprietary?

I'm going on three weeks with Etap now coming from Di2. It's becoming second nature but I did have a moment of "wtf" when I got on my 7s STI shifted commuter this morning.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4173/3...0cf3a7f0_c.jpgUntitled by Xela Sknarf, on Flickr

Yeah I know, faster backwards and all that. I find that any more drop than that is NG for me.

New study on the accuracy of PMs. If anyone has access to the academic journal, I'd love to read the actual article.

Huge scientific study shows inaccuracies of popular power meters - Cycling Weekly

maybe because your saddle has like 5 degree rise?

meh - whole premise is stupid. measuring improvement via power is silly. power is for training. hillclimbs, time, and wins are for measuring improvements.

I'm running an experiment with with the back of the saddle level as the tail of the Power kicks up. Honestly I don't hate it. Also the fence is making it look more extreme than it really is.

I stopped using power a few weeks ago, then won a p/1/2 race.

Measure that!

Sent it to you in a pm.

TL;DR
It can be concluded that the trueness seems to vary considerably between current power meters used by elite and recreational cyclists,even when the devices are from the same manufacturer. However,
precision is generally high, apart from devices from Stages that show a lower precision than devices from SRM and PowerTap.
The current study illustrates the value of calibrating and, if possible, adjusting the trueness of every power meter for accurate measurements of power output for training and testing. Calibrating power meters against a first principle-based mathematical model of treadmill cycling is specifc and feasible with every current system.

Thanks. I skimmed through the article. I was amazed at how inconsistent the Stages options were, but the authors did note that the Left-side only could be the problem - and other studies have shown that LSO is insufficient for accuracy.

before you pick on the stages, the authors tested only 1 of Rotor, Polar, Garmin and 2 of power2max. you can hardly draw any analytical conclusions based upon 1 data point. they had 10+ data points for srm, powertap, quarq and stages, while the others were almost an afterthought. that's kind of disappointing.

also, stages and quarq both have an outlier. they didn't mention which model these outliers come from. coincidentally, stages selection consisted one for a carbon crank.

i may have missed something in their explanation though. skimmed it too. doesn't look like they went to deep with error analysis.

Attachment 563473

Alls I know is it says powertap is the best, so you meatbags can bite my shiny metal ass.

In a follow-up to previous tire question: Biketiresdirect price matches Ribble on GP4KS2 tires ($32 IIRC), then gives a discount on tubes so I stocked up on latex ones.

[MENTION=364302]Doge[/MENTION]:

You said you had seen some guys at collegiate nats with arm pads on their bars for the merckx tt. Do you have any pictures of what this looked like? I'll be doing a stage race this weekend with similar TT rules and would be interested in trying out something fun for possible aero gains. Already have a (fairly narrow) aero road bar on my (fairly aero) frame, but would like to see what fun I can have with it.

Also, in general, would an Air attack be better than a synth for merckx TT? Rules from tech guide say no Aerohelmets, even though I know the USAC rules say I should be able to wear any helmet I want, not really interested in pushing it too far.

Not many good pictures/I can't find them.
Every race ref is different. Randy told guys not to take hands off bars. Of course, that is not a rule, but a ref can DQ anyone for dangerous riding. But that made our setup moot.

For the ITT ref Randy allowed IAB position. I had a picture, but can't find it. It was typical flat bar top with padding and tape only over where forearms went.

"Too far" is really undefined. Ref Randy said back east some riders have plastic cups on top. He thought that was too far. I didn't see any in Grand Junction. Another option is put padding under a tight sleeve. It is no different than padding in the shorts. Collegiate rules are pretty vague.

We have not had either of those helmets, but I'd think an air attack would be better.

Current bike. This was allowed, but ref said hands on bars for TTT.
Attachment 563749

Attachment 563750

You can't see them, but they are there. Just lizard skin on top middle taped on the sides.
Attachment 563754

You can see them here.
Attachment 563755

Thanks for the reply. The rules for this race (USAC sanctioned stage race) are as follows.

Time Trial Rule:
In an attempt to reduce costs to riders, reduce travel costs, encourage carpooling, and make stage races hotly contested everyone will be required to race a mass start bike during the Time Trail this year. TT Bikes: The time trail will be contested on mass bikes meeting the following criteria.

• Handlebars: Standard drop bars, no aero clip-on bar and no bull horns
• Wheels: No disc wheels or wheel covers or tri spokes
• Helmets - No aero helmets. Riders must wear the same helmet for subsequent stages
• Frames - Frames ridden in the time trial must be the same frame model ridden in subsequent stages

Thinking I might fashion something with some spongy material or some pads from an aero bar. Putting it in the sleeve of the skin suit is an interesting approach as well. Could always go for the tried and true sandpaper..



I've done the thing where you wrap your hands around the computer mount before and usually feel pretty stable doing that, but feel like i'm arching my back a bit to much with my current setup for it to be useful. The course is pretty flat, 3 corners, one "out of the saddle roller" 10km time trial. Thinking if I can stick the position for <15 minutes, I should be able to manage a pretty fast time. Not sure I'm going to have aero wheels to run this weekend though, so gains in some places, but not in others..

That is as clear as usual.
I wish they just left it at UCI Mass Start bicycle with no weight requirement and then they wouldn't have to fool around with the definition of aero bar.

Wheel is more vague here. It has been 16 medal spokes. Now I guess a dual or quad spoke works.

I do like the must use the same stuff in all events. If they can enforce that, that is the way to go. I think a picture would work fine for enforcement. One bike, one helmet.

Even with the one bike rule, there is an opportunity to change bar position. I always thought cycling was about the rider first, with equipment and crew also a big part of it. Over constraining equipment options does remove some of the fun, but of course allows more to play. Tough call.

You do need flat on top bars.
Then:Compression sleeve on arms.
Then:Stair edge rubber adhesive backed non-slip.
OR
3M 77 spray and Goo Gone spray gel to remove it.

If you can get your bars higher to TT, do it. Flipping the stem is the easy way. Then flip back for RR/crit.
It also helps to have a TT seat/kick it way forward for the TT. Maintain the body/leg angle, by getting torso down and kicking seat up and forward.

Off topic but we got junior more aero raising bars. Most slammed stem setups are less than ideal. It amazes me how badly many ToC riders are setup, but some of that is UCI regulated. No UCI rules - seat forward, up and back flat.

Gonna need to go find a padding of some sort and follow these instructions. Elbows/ forearms were pretty sore after attempting to sustain the position for longer than I;ve ever done before. (two intervals of about 7 minutes). I'll see what I can find.

I'm late to the game, but that's Francois Pervis. I guess that's what well over 2000w looks like making their way through a steel frame.

Pervis spends parts of the year living, training, and racing in Japan on the keirin circuit. I think he uses Makino when he's there. Letters on that DT look like it.

He has some unorthodox approaches to sprint training, but it seems to work out for him.

http://cdn.media.cyclingnews.com/201...595904_670.jpg

feeling like a real idiot right now. friday was a race that I had chosen a while ago as something I really wanted to do well in. put a new chain on my bike on wednesday (old chain was put on in march) and noticed during my efforts wednesday the chain falling off the chainrings when out of the saddle on hard efforts (not while shifting). instead of dealing with it like a normal person I assumed once the chain "wore in" a bit it would be fine. spoiler alert: this is a wildly idiotic idea. got to the race and anytime I stood up the chain fell off the rings. after this happening a few times I stopped risking it and did the rest of the race without standing, which is surprisingly difficult. anyway, real hard to place in a sprint while in the saddle. have a new chainring on order so hopefully that fixes the problem. old one is pretty worn, which is surprising because it's just barely 2 years old and I thought I was good with replacing my chain often, although I don't measure it, just replace regularly. got a chain stretch checking though so I can be better about it in the future.

Bummer.

I had my own moment. Going into the first hairpin I realized my front brake was much tighter than I wanted. I'd adjusted it for a 23mm wide clincher rim, not a 28mm wide tubular rim, so the brakes were dragging pretty hard. I decisively turned the barrel adjuster about 3-4 half turns and suddenly my wheel seemed to loosen and lock.

I got into the second hairpin pushing the pedals like mad, everyone flying by me. That's when I realized that the black bike brakes adjust the opposite as the red bike brakes.

I had decisively tightened my front brake. I could barely move the bike with the pedals.

Decisively double-loosened the front brake but I'd blown myself up by then. I was off within a lap.

TBH I think without my brake faux pas I'd have made it maybe an extra lap, it wasn't like I was enjoying myself. I now know the minimum amount of training needed to race is over 45 hours for the year by late May.