Ygduf

You don't have to try to be cute!

I've paid for three fits in my life. Three times I've been underwhelmed - generally told that my fit was good and if it was comfortable to go with it as is.

I do most of my fitting on myself from feel, and I do use pics (decent ones, under stress are the best) to tweak stuff.

I've not had the opportunity, but I bet I could set someone else up on their bike and have them fall under the accepted retul measurements. There might be "more to it", but then again, there probably really isn't that much more to it.

grolby

You have to be careful with snapshots but they can be helpful for sure. I was having some serious lower back pain in races in 2013. A pic from a crit that summer showed me bending pretty sharply at my belly button. Basically my pelvis was in a fairly "upright" position and I was bending myself in half to reach the handlebars. I threw a longer stem on the bike to pull myself forward. Surprisingly, it actually worked, I got my pelvic alignment sorted out and all was well. I stopped having killer lumbago in 40 minute crits. I eventually went back down to a shorter stem, but the fix stuck. I've also made numerous fit changes since then that probably helped correct for whatever was going wrong. A picture on the trainer probably would've been pretty useless. A pic of me trying to bridge to a move up the road was super helpful, especially in the context of the discomfort I was experiencing on the bike.

Ygduf

from katie truong

one of many otf moments at the district championship crit, 35-39

scheibo

nice sock game.

mattm

"on fleek," as the kids say

hack

Oof ... maybe the most "suffering" moment I've had caught on camera. This is with 6 or 7 laps to go and me attempting to solo bridge up to the break. Vision blurred, form gone, stuck in middle of nowhere. Made it across and proceeded to promptly blow up.

edit: Pic by Greg Beliera.

calamarichris

HA! Awesome!! Is that the same Look frame you still have?
My first four junior races ended in pile-ups, and two of those were at the Zig.

gaucho777 

@calamarichris, Yep, same Look. Those Zig crits were fun. Site of my first pack race (age 13, iirc). I was in my share of Jr. Crit pile-ups but managed to avoid them there. Once I turned 16 and got my license, I was there a few times each year, usually kicking off the season with the St Valentine's Day Massacre race.

calamarichris

Valentine's Massacre was my first-ever race & pile-up. I used to race there in '86 & '87, and had beef-jerky scabs on my left leg through most of my junior and senior high school years. Two different people who signed my yearbook suggested I should take up something less dangerous than bicycle racing.

grolby

It's September, so here's a photo of me suffering in a 'cross race last weekend. Photo by Topshots.

shovelhd

Great shot!!

Ygduf

Andy STi

Cross is here!!!

First race last weekend in Vancouver, WA.


pic from Brian Hart, Jr

Hermes

Fiesta Island Time Trial at finish. Photo courtesy of San Diego Bicycle Club

Ygduf

you gotta remove that quote. the top woman in my group here uses that in her slideshows and it gives me ptsd.

tetonrider

"The sentiment certainly sounds great. And it sounds like something that should adorn a wall at Foxboro Stadium.
The trouble is that ARISTOTLE DID NOT SAY IT."

maybe a way for you to have some fun with it/her, armed with this?

Doge

I hate misattribution.

Ygduf

via bill bushnell

weight loss coming along still, sock game at all-time form

tetonrider

if there's another picture of you looking more powerful, i haven't seen it.

looks like a tough effort!

Ygduf

honestly I'm super vain and that's of course why I like that picture.

I let the garmin run an update and didn't re-calibrate the meter, or at least somehow the calibration got whacky right before the climb so my average was like 280w.

Calculated average on the climbiest 14-minutes against my friend (we were equal time on that stretch) was 437w.

@scheibo goaded me into drinking $6 worth of beet-juice shots prior to races and I tied a rider who beat me by 50 seconds on a steadier climb last week.

Everything is different and n=1, but I'm wondering if I had been consuming enough beets to get the best enhancement previously.

scheibo

I literally just ordered the beet shots 5 minutes ago. Should arrive before the next race and then we should have n=2 which is almost enough for a medical study it seems (seriously though, half the papers on beet juice have like n=8 or n=15 or stupidly small numbers like that)

Duke of Kent

Blurry pic.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHQLJZZA...isfitsixactual

Credit in photo.

tetonrider

a power meter that is reading low (for any number of reasons) can really mess with one's head -- as in "damn, this 300w feels like 400...i must REALLY suck." good that you didn't let it get to you and still uncorked a great effort.

as for beet juice, the findings i've seen suggest more improvements for sprint/max power efforts...higher contractile force type of stuff. the shorter hill climbs probably fall in there.

if you're juicing, it can be a LOT of beets/liquid before you max out on a dose. i think that's why those shots/powders might be effective -- big dose, not much liquid.

aaronmcd

I've considered beet juice but man that stuff is intense. And pretty expensive. Also doesn't sound all scientific like "beta alanine" or "L citrulline"!

tetonrider

beets in a salad?

i actually like the taste of beet juice. i might be an outlier, though.