In the old days (80s) when I build wheels (boxes or rims) with mostly round spokes I would lace the wheel loosely. Then I'd take a red marker and mark every spoke on one side. When I would tighten I'd see the spoke twist around - and untwist appropriately. At the end all marks needed to line up as they started.

Blades made this a non issue.

Careful, our kid that uses those gets flats easily.

what, clinchers?

or are you just setting me up for the "all your kid's seem to get flats easily" line?

No - those rings - I was trying to be funny - and failed.

I don't know if you heard it in the video (I may have cut it), but the kids in the back seat were commenting on how "that guy is so strong he was going up the hill at 70rpm and hammering".

I often wonder about non-round rings. Trainer uses them. World class guys go on and off them.
If you have a crank based power meter I'd be curious if they give the same readings as round ones. The plan Sunday was to put a PT on the rear of our rider, Bo, who uses them and see how it compared with the SRM numbers. But Sat plans changed.

I did hear it. You mean they were talking about me? My cadence is good! Maybe they saw [MENTION=74778]mattm[/MENTION] pushing 70rpm.

Quarq says the rings return a bit higher power, but my first test on them came out 3% faster and 10% more power. Realistic numbers. Close enough for me to not worry about it.

I was saving this for test 2 which was supposed to happen last Fri - and didn't.
The question we wanted to resolve was what front wheel to use for a 13 mile out and back TT with likely side-winds with the turn-around 300ft higher than the start. This is the VOS TT. We are testing light 50mm profile 25mm wide vs. 90mm profile 22mm wide 250g heavier front wheels.

So we are 4 runs into an 8 run series - this was the side tail-wind test.
I did calculate based on no side-to-side movement, not tire friction differences that the more aero wheel would be faster. I'm not so into calculations when a test can be done.
For a long time I've noticed that the side to side/and handling of the bike is an impact that is not measured in a lab wind tunnel - because its hard, and hard to calculate too.

While not conclusive - I think it was conclusive that it is far from obvious which is better with a side tailwind. More testing to do.

Details:
Pressure was about what we would run for the TT - 130psi on the 23s 90mm and 120PSI on the 24s 50mm
Power was held to average 225W - rider did not see HR or speed.
Wind on the last two tests was about the same, about 6-9mph 45degrees off riders right rear - tail side-wind
Speed was 3-4 mph slower than real TT speed on this bike (maybe)

crazy or so crazy it just might work

http://i.imgur.com/Pb6VyYl.jpg

a straw would be cheaper.

maybe my asthma made my diaphragm stronger so when I got rid of the asthma I got the boost!

In the 80s I used to hack a lot when north of 180BPM. I got this thing called the lung trainer (I may have it and will post a picture if I find it), which was two 2" hoses that connected to a mouth pies and exited behind my head - about 18" from the mouth piece.

As CO2 remained in the hoses I had to breath deeper to get O2. As I had to breath deeper I also had to do it with more vigor/harder. I ran with this thing and road with this thing and provided endless fodder for jokes.

While it may/may not have created a physiological change in ability to expel air with force, it certainly trained me to take deeper and fuller breaths. I cured my hacking problems and my lungs have never been my limiting factor (HR is) since.

I expect due to the weirdness of how it looked they went out of business. I had Puppy climbing a hill on mic and heard he also had short breathing. Had him use it about age 12 - short breathing no more.

Reminds me of



(nsfw kind of not really, via bikesnobnyc)

I did a ramp/vO2 test and felt like the mask was a huge limiter in my intake. I would be tempted to try this thing if I rode a trainer with any regularity, but I don't so I won't.

Question for the powermeter bunch. I want to get an Ant+ powermeter but I don't know what computer head to buy. Does everyone use the Garmin because it's that much better or are there alternatives? I am thinking of stuff like if I ever use the data to feed into an active-resistance trainer, like one that replicates your ride (like I think the CycleOps stationary bike), etc.

Or is it just get an Ant+ thing and get it done?

I'm looking to download into Golden Cheetah. I have WKO+ but rarely boot up the Windows machines. I do the Strava thing and may consider uploading actual power files versus just the map and avg power/HR/cadence.

I'll be parallel recording power/data with the wired SRM for a while, to compare/check stuff.

I don't use the computers for training, meaning I don't look at my wattage or HR or whatever while I ride. If I had a watch on my wrist I would almost never look at the powermeter. In other words I don't care about intervals or laps or whatever. I just want to download the data and look at the graphs.

The nose plug added a funky layer of claustrophobia for me in addition to the odd breathing from the mask.

Almost everybody uses the Garmin because there are few alternatives, not because it's better. Probably 95% of the ANT+ bike head units out there are Garmins. They generally work, except some people seem to get lemons, or get their data dropped the day they went for a PR or whatever. Personally I've never had a problem with a 500, though I did briefly have a 510 unit that was dropping data consistently, which I returned for a 500.

I think ygduf tried to go off the Garmin reservation, not sure how that worked out.

Just to throw it out there, it seems like the future of these devices is BTLE rather than ANT+. There are various power meters and HR monitors that use BTLE or dual BTLE/ANT+. There are a few head units on the market, plus any smart phone can receive and record BTLE data using one of an increasing number of apps.

The world expert on all this stuff is, of course, DC Rainmaker ... you can find a comprehensive review of any possible device you might want to buy, there.

I use the Garmin 510 on golden cheetah. No issues. GC's UI has gotten worse in my opinion but it is all I ever used.

back to my bladed spokes mini saga.. got the special tool, damn things still twist! I think I need lube or something.

the park tool I have has 4 sizes, I'm using the smallest .9mm one that seems to fit well, but the damn spoke still twists. even when holding it as low/close to the nipple as possible.

its only a year old, barely ridden in the rain.

life: it's hard.

"the damn spoke still twists. even when holding it as low/close to the nipple as possible." It sounds like the nipple has some strong threadlocker on it. Or perhaps the aluminum nipples are corroded? You can't get the nipple to move independently of the spoke at all? It doesn't sound good.

When I'm touching up truing on my cxray spokes, brass nipples and aluminum rim, I turn the nipple 1/16 turn or whatever is needed, then twist the spoke back straight after removing the spoke tool. The nipple easily stays in it's new orientation when I do that. I even put some low strength purple 222 loctite on the non-drive side threads when I built the wheel, and it doesn't stop me from turning the nipples.

( I made my own cxray tool, a $2 plastic screwdriver handle cut in half so there's no metal center. Then a fine 32 tooth hacksaw blade cut a slot in the end of the plastic. )

cdr--what do you want to accomplish?

long story short, garmins are pretty ubiquitous. they do many things right and sometimes can be found for a song (like the edge 500 which many people dismissed when the 510 came out). the 510 doesn't really replace the 500.

there are lots of alternatives. i personally love the pc7, but it is quite a bit different to a garmin and a non-starter if one needs gps. what it does right is always recording, and it is pretty bomb-proof in terms of data integrity.

as GC mentioned, most garmins are fine though every one i've owned and everyone i've worked with has -- at some point -- lost data due to a garmin. it's infrequent (i'd say 1 file per year). you can decide it that is important to you or not. for me it's an issue, but i still have 2 garmins sitting on my desk. i use one of them to update the slope on SRMs (funny that the pc7 can't do it!) and for an occasional ride where i want/need gps.

i expect the pc8 to replace it.

there are other options but i can't really speak to them with personal experience.

i think BTLE might be the future, but i don't think it is the near future. i think we'll have ANT+ for a while.

if you decide you want a pc7, let me know as there are some deals to be had. also, when the 8 does show up (roll your eyes--delivery time has become a joke!), i may wind up selling my own pc7 for cheap. i won't sell it before i am 100% convinced about the 8's data recording, though.

dcrainmaker does very long reviews. IMO, the reviews sometimes miss the mark for people who race/train in scenarios where there are lots of short spikes or intervals. his testing is usually centered around endurance stuff/longer triathlon efforts, and i've read many reviews from him where he declares something "good" but hasn't really considered test cases that might be important for, say, a crit guy. just my $0.02.

I'm looking to get the Precision which is both Ant+ and BTLE. Initially I was thinking of it for the tandem and the mtb, as a super cheap PM to get some idea of what I'm doing on those bikes. But then I realized that I'm really at the end of the service cycle for my wired SRMs. My crank arms are starting to get a bit played, one spider is starting to tilt a bit, etc. I'm no longer in the same situation I was a few years ago where I had gobs of disposable income so I waited for some entry level PMs to come out. I know some of the folks at 4iiiis and although I won't get a discount on my own PM I do have some faith in their dedication, passion, and drive to get a good product out. They're giving away a Precision at (my) Aetna Nutmeg Spring Series this year.

some builders use various loctite stuff on the spokes. Spoke prep and similar things will help increase friction but allow the nipple to turn once you put enough pressure on it to break the seal. It's sort of like paint.

What you probably need to do is break loose the nipple. I was trying to imagine myself truing a wheel after some time and I realized that I'll regularly unscrew a nipple quite a bit to get it so I can feel how much resistance there is, if there's stuff in the threads, etc. The last wheel I fiddled with was a HED so I didn't build it, and it seemed like they had something on the spoke threads. Anyway I'll unscrew the nipple maybe 1/2-1 turn then retighten it the same amount then do whatever truing.

With new wheels I like to lube the nipple/rim junction, I use spoke prep on the spoke threads. If I have to retrue that wheel I usually put a drop of lube on the rim/nipple junction to let the nipple move more freely.

On wheels I don't know I'll put lube on the nipple/rim junction as a last resort, also on the nipple/spoke if it feels like I broke a loctite seal. I don't want the spokes to squawk at me when I turn them.

Disclaimer: I did build wheels for part of my living for many years, I built hundreds of wheels, I've built a front wheel in 20 minutes or so and raced it no problems, etc etc, but I haven't built wheels regularly for 17 years. Never built a wheel with straight pull spokes, not that many with bladed or aero spokes, blah blah blah.

the wheel is from wheelbuilder.com, they must've used some kinda thread locker on there..

I'm afraid that if I try to break the seal I'll just break the spoke.. I guess they aren't that expensive tho..

thx for the advice dudes!

The irony is, most "thread lockers" mostly serve to PREVENT nipples seizing up. The classic is boiled linseed oil. It fills up the space so that water cannot penetrate, and thus cannot cause corrosion between the spoke and nipple. Boiled linseed oil is sticky and holds the nipple, but it stays soft enough such that one can easily turn the nipple when needed.

why don't you just call wheelbuilder, they have great customer service and I'm sure would talk to you about your wheel & how it was built. I know they look like an anonymous internet entity, but it's just a few very knowledgeable people.

In separate news, my shifting still isn't right after 2 more trips to the bike shop. blah.