SBUndefeated201

I believe you are a sprinter so narrow bars are understandable. Do endurance riders seem to mind the narrow bars? I noticed almost everyone in the Revolution Points/Scratch races were using road bars except Ed Clancy. Preference?

carleton

What I've noticed is that roadies who race track tend to use road bars. Dedicated track enduros go for narrow bars (usually Scattos).

SBUndefeated201

Gotcha. thanks!

gtrob

and even on road bars will tend to go narrower on the track. We race a lot closer more often, especially in madison, so it helps with that a lot. Also the wide bars some people prefer are for leverage on those slow climbs up mountains

queerpunk

Hrrrrmmmm, I disagree. Almost everybody in men's enduro races at national-level and world-level events are using road bars. They're not all roadies. scattos are often used by omnium racers in flying laps. scattos are more popular among women enduros than men.

scattos can't be comfortably used in madisons, so that limits their utility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2bMrL7gknc

Godsight

The only reason i heard to ride wide bars (40-42cm) was some madison rider like the stability that the wider bar give during the throws.

dunderhi

I rode 42 c-c Cinelli Pistas & Pro Track 42cm o-o last year and felt comfortable riding in the pack. I moved to Pro Track 40cm o-o this year (due to recommendations on from this board) and don't think I would want to go any narrower. I don't see a many of Scattos outside the ones that came standard with the Fuji track bike.

P.S. I'm definitely not a roadie, I get queasy at the thought of a hill in any race.

carleton

So you are saying that you haven't tried them?

Aren't you an engineer or something?

dunderhi

You are correct on both accounts and the latter helps me understand that I don't need to spend $300 to confirm a trend.

The only way that I see the Scattos as being workable in my case is to get a frame with a longer top tube, which would ease the chest compression caused the narrower bars.

carleton

For what it's worth, the narrow steel Nittos are like $60 new and because they don't use much metal, they are not significantly heavier than the Scattos. The alloy B123/125 are as light as carbon and similarly stiff around $100.

Hoy used the steel Nittos and V. Pendleton (who can beat all of us) used the aluminum Nittos in like 2007 or so before they started making custom bars.

derekfulmer

My budget for a track frame has dropped almost 50%. Anyone have thoughts on a Pake Rum Runner? Super basic, steel frame. Seems to be really popular with fgss crowd and come from the same factory as all city and soma.

taras0000

I don't know much about the quality or reviews of the rum runner, but the geo numbers look ok.

Baby Puke

Anybody had any luck getting a replacement visor for a Warp Carbon? Mine's pretty worked.

Banchad

velodromeshop.net sell them but they're out of stock at the moment.

Hida Yanra

I used 38s, loved them for Enduro stuff.
In longer races (+40 minutes), going narrower than 37 started to impact me - but given adaptation time I think it'd probably be fine.

defspace

Track cat1,2 guys (enduros)

What's your hourly weekly training load like? I know we don't need to train for 5 hour road races, but I wonder if that just means there's more time for intensity work.

Thanks

queerpunk

I train like a crit racer. I'm a meh cat 2 crit racer, and a decent cat 2 enduro. A lot of my weeks wind up being about 12 hours, with a couple as many as 15 when I'm loading up in the spring. Once I get on 2 or more race days per week, I basically ditch actual endurance. That usually happens in mid-May for me. And there comes a time when i need to keep an eye on my fatigue levels.

There's definitely more time for intensity. on hard weeks I have 3 days of intensity (counting racing). again - watch that pot so that it doesn't boil over. A lot of my volume comes from riding easy. Riding easy lets me ride harder, sooner: it lets me recover faster. This is no mystery. For example, all spring, I'd race a crit on Tuesday, ride easy for 2+ hours on Wednesday, and then on Thursday I'd be ready for hard intervals. If I didn't ride on Wednesday, then I'd have to push intervals back until Friday - at least.

A fairly ordinary track pre-season (road season) week looked like this for me:
Monday: 1-2 hours easy
Tuesday: 2.5 hours including a training crit
Wednesday: 2 hours easy (commuting plus some extra)
Thursday: 1.5 hours with 6x2-min power intervals
Friday: rest day
Saturday: 3 hours endurance pace
Sunday: 2 hours with a bunch of tempo and some sprints

A fairly ordinary track season week looks like this for me:
Monday: 1.5 hours easy
Tuesday: 2 hours. Maybe with a training crit in here.
Wednesday: 1-1.5 hours easy
Thursday: Track night, ~2.5 hours.
Friday: 1 hour easy
Saturday: 2-3 hours easy endurance
Sunday: 2+ hours with tempo, power, or sprints

Hida Yanra

I did a summer on 4h a week (including 1.5h of racing a week)- did okay too. (Cat3 state champ, season-series champ in 2.25 weeks of racing, upgrade and was quick in the 1/2s & collegiate nats)

Full disclosure, going that hard in training and also racing (basically, ONLY high intensity efforts) on that little training (2103) burned me out so hard I still haven't gotten back on a bike in any meaningful way. There's been a bunch of other stuff going on in my life that has contributed to it, but bike racing got so un-fun trying to chase speed on kinda-no-time that I still struggle to associate the notion of "riding bikes" with "having fun."

dunno, it's doable in the right circumstances to be fast on small amounts of time.
I sure don't recommend it though, wish I would have done it differently.

House_Connect

Ok. This might be a silly or obvious question. But why are all the cranks old school? If two piece is so much stiffer why not make 2 piece for track other than omniums and fsa which seem like they're often put under suginos and dura ace to me.

brawlo

Don't believe the hype!

My way of thinking with cranks is as so. Track racing has little to worry about in terms of equipment. So, on the track, where stiffness is king and development is totally aimed at creating the stiffest bike possible, have you noticed that almost all frames still come with a BSA bottom bracket? With all that money thrown at road bike innovation and development and the countries that pour a LOT of money into track bike development for the Olympics, have you noticed that the BSA BB and DA/Sugino cranks are still top of the tree? Besides some stupidly high dollar carbon cranksets, notice how many 'stiff' carbon cranksets you see on the track.

Most of what you see with road bikes is money making marketing jargon. Take a look at track where they really only develop frames, wheels and handlebars. Even for those countries who have those super awesome carbon cranksets for their Olympic bikes, take a look at what they use everday outside of that occasion.

Hida Yanra

Not a silly question at all.
The volume of high-end (racing) track parts that get sold is so low, its unlikely that the R&D, Tooling, advertising, etc money would be recouped. Additionally, there's precious little to be gained by newer designs - the cranks are already daaaaaarn stiff, and the flex is in the chainrings - there's not much to be gained from newer tech, except for elite-elite sprinters - and you'll notice that there are already national-one-offs from the UK and FES secret labs.

In terms of newer style track cranks - Rotor has some "newer" ones as of a couple years ago - they are Very nice, give them a look if you are in the market.

edit: mmm, sniped while I typed

Not the Slowest

I just bought a used rear Zipp disk and that got me thinking.
What Bag or Bags work best for track wheels to protect them?
Do the Offset DOUBLE Zipp Wheels work well for disks or only for spoked wheels?
Like all of us, I would hate to dent the disk.

FYI, this is NOT for airline travel or shipping but just getting the wheels to the track via car etc
Thoughts?

queerpunk

Just about wheelbag will work, as long as you're careful. I have a Zipp padded wheelbag, and some FFWD much-less padded ones. Both work. One has more padding than the other. Shrug.

Of course, dents may happen over your time with the disc. I've dented every disc I've ever had. I even had one repaired. The one I'm racing now has two dents, no repairs. But it's just fine.

Not the Slowest

Are you talking about the Zipp & FFWD Double bag or single?

carleton

The Zipp offset double wheel bag is especially great for track wheels being that you can't remove the axles like you can with road wheels. With normal road wheel bags, the track axles poke into each other and cause the wheels to fit awfully in the bags. But the Zipp offset sort of helps with this. There is padding between the two sides, so you shouldn't have the axle scratching the other wheel.