Free speed? You must be joking!

So after my outing at the Charlotteville 50 last week, things have been on a bit more of an upward turn. It was a pretty consistent week's training and I ended up riding over 180 miles, plus a swim and a couple of runs. Saturday morning saw me out for another 70 miles on the road bike on my own and while it was a slog at times into the wind, I felt pretty comfortable and got a pleasant increase in speed over quite a few Strava segments, despite it just being a steady aerobic ride. I did have a minor spill while riding one-handed and eating a soreen loaf. A temporary set of traffic lights had been set up for the Horse Show in Windsor and I just wasn't concentrating as I almost ploughed into a group of pensioners. Doh! Hit the back brake with my one hand and went straight down on the greasy surface with fresh rain. Thankfully, I was only pootling at 5mph and nothing damaged or dented except my ego. I had a lot of bemused stares from the elderly as I picked myself up, but the lady who was controlling the crossing was lovely and seemed quite sure that I wouldn't make it back and I should take care.

So, free speed. The bike speed that can be obtained without the need to train for it. However, free speed is a misnomer. Free speed is bloody expensive. My Catlike TT helmet was looking very tired and it was very large on my head. More importantly it had a very long tail and quite a few pictures taken of me racing time trials showed that the tail was often sticking up into the air as I got tired and lost a good aerodynamic position. I decided to get a short tailed aero helmet instead so I have bought myself a Kask Bambino, as worn by Team Sky. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. It may not be as aerodynamic entirely as the Catlike, but with my head potentially wobbling about a lot more than it should I am hoping that the net effect will be a reduction in the amount of watts I need to push my carcass through the air.

And then there's a skin suit. First of all, my existing one is red and I look like an enormous overweight chilli pepper. It is highly unflattering. More important than that is the fact that it has a lot of wrinkles and wrinkles equals drag. I also have to pin my number onto the back and a pinned number also equals drag. So I've invested in a Nopinz skinsuit, which seems to be the current standard for such lycra items. On their website they claim that their Supersuit will give a 10 watt reduction in power needed at 45km/hr, so in theory over a 10 mile TT, that's a 'free' 16 seconds. So, for these two items I have pretty much spent the same amount of money as my first road bike. On Saturday I am riding the SCCU 10. Last year I rode a 22:47, which is my second best time. In theory if the conditions are on my side I should knock that out the park. If not,

Broken noodle stops play

I never learn. I really never learn. At the start of every TT season I take my Argon off the turbo and begin to tinker. This tinkering usually occurs some 2 hours before I am due to sign on to my first big event. Yesterday was no different. The only thing I dislike with my Argon is the low rear brake under the bottom bracket. It looks great and is maybe marginally more aero than one in the standard position but is doesn't half get covered in road crud. Not a problem if you religiously clean your bikes, but I don't. So with two hours to go before signing on for the Phoenix Open 10, there I was trying to recable my rear brake. Not a difficult job and I do have an engineering degree after all, so it should be a pretty easy job. But no. Despite much mucking about and vocal blasphemy, the new cable wouldn't go through. Five minutes later, and the noodle thingy which guides the cable into the caliper is in two bits when it should only be one piece; completely sheared off in my hands.

Broken noodle thingy

Twenty minutes later and I am on my road bike, heading to the 10. It wasn't all bad. A solid 60 miles in the afternoon, but the 10 was very hard. No aero benefits and tired legs battling the winds. particularly on the way back. I was the minute man for the joint winner, Liam Maybank. He's winning everything in the district at the moment and I was hoping that on the Argon that I might be able to hold him off until the turn at halfway, but being on the Van Nic I thought that I could hold him off until Beare Green at quarter distance. Nope, not a chance. He went past me just after the petrol station pushing his 60 tooth chainring like an exocet. The guy is a complete machine. I, on the other hand, spluttered my way round with a mid 26; some 3 minutes slower than this event last year. I'm not too despondent. I did an ftp test earlier this week and that's improved from 226 to 253 watts, which is great news and that test coupled with a hard interval session on Thursday left me feeling pretty wiped, but the test proves that the training's working.

I'm enjoying my running again. Just a few times a week, aiming to get one long one in with a couple of 3-5 milers. No speedwork and nothing stupid. Just slow or steady comfortable miles aiming to keep injury free. Today, I even went for a swim. Well sort of. I took the two little wheezys to the local pool and tried to do a few lengths, dodging the floating mats and inflatables with boisterous teenagers. It was almost like an open water swim start. Ended up doing 900m. A start, but a hell of a long way to go. Onwards.

The Program....

or my version of it, minus the use of EPO of course.

Last weekend, I atoned, slightly, for my complete and utter failure at the Bec Hill Climb by taking part in the Redmon CC 'Grand Prix des Gentlemen' 2 up TT. Simon and I rode it a couple of years ago but this time I was paced by David. It was a bit of a shootout between David and I, and Dale who was pacing Simon. The event works as a 2 up, but the oldest rider, a vet over 40 has to stay behind the younger rider for the entire event except for the last 200 metres. This meant Dave turned himself inside out for 15 miles while I just had to sit on his wheel barely breaking a sweat. Dave did really well, but made the easy mistake of going off a bit too hard and then suffering for it over the last couple of miles. There's quite a bit of psychological pressure on the front man knowing that the guy behind you is inches away and spinning happily while you are having to work insanely hard. Its not a good feeling.

Anyway, that all but sees out the close of the season. There's one last hill climb on Ditchling Beacon at the weekend, but then after that, it's time to get down to some winter training. This has always been the point where I have ended up letting myself go too much and not getting the base miles in that are needed for the next season. In terms of looking at this season it has been a full-on time trialling one and therefore next year will be more of the same. It's been an odd year for me really. A pb over 10 miles (not by much, but a pb nonetheless) and my first time trials over 100 miles and 12 hours, which went very well considering a fairly patchy season training wise. So some good stuff, but to be honest I'm still a little bit 'meh' about the whole season. Not wasted as such, but not exactly satisfying either.

So I've had a good think about how I am going to train over the next four months and part of the answer is that I have invested in a brand new turbo, a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine Smart. I have spent the last three weeks or so investigating different turbos and it came down to the Road Machine and the Tacx Vortex. The thing that I most wanted was power, or at least the ability to be able to measure it. I want a way to be able to record and log power as this is arguably the most important metric for a cyclist to know in order that power based training can then be targeted using different power zones, rather than just guessing or in my case, not knowing at all. There are now dozens of different types of power meters available, and most of them are out of my price league by a long way. This seemed to be the most cost effective way for me to do power based sessions. It will also mean that I can do more training at home without having to go off for a ride which should be more conducive to family harmony and aloew me to make more use of the limited training time that I have available.


After reading dozens of articles and reviews, most notably on the excellent website of DCRainmaker (if you are buying anything tech for swim/bike/run, look here first; his reviews are extremely in-depth and informative) I opted for the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine - Smart, which comes pre-installed with a Bluetooth speed sensor. My reason for this choice over the Vortex was that the KKRM has a calibration feature which allows very accurate power readings to be taken; DCRainmaker had them within +- 1% of a powertap, which is more than accurate enough for my needs. The KK InRide app is used to record the workouts and it comes with a few pre-installed sessions, most notably a Fuctional Threshold Power (FTP) session (more on this later).

I am also going to invest in a Trainerroad subscription. This is a website with over 800 different turbo sessions as well as access to various other videos and media which should make turbo sessions more fun and interactive. I have had a few problems with this because although my laptop has Bluetooth it is not able to record the output from the Kinetic Smart unit without another Bluetooth dongle, purchased seperately. It had me really confused last night before I found out the answer. The guys at Trainerroad were great, with very prompt help and even refunding my subscription until I got it sorted out. Hopefully by the end of the week I will be able to access all the trainerroad sessions and training plans and start getting some serious training under my belt.

So this morning I had my first proper session on the KKRM and it was a million miles from my old trainer, bought for £30, eight years ago off ebay. It's important to understand that it's still not riding on the road and never will be, but if has a lot more 'road feel' with the flywheel giving the unit more inertia. It's a fluid trainer and it's very quiet with the only real noise coming from my chain and sprockets. Another plus feature. My first session was a FTP test. Your FTP is the average power output you can maintain for 1 hour. Basically, anything over FTP is anaerobic and anything below it is aerobic. Knowing this means that the rider can then adapt their sessions and training as a function of FTP by using various zones. Thankfully, one doesn't have to ride hard for an hour to calculate this, instead a 20 minute effort can be ridden instead and then multiplied by 0.95 so that you find an equivalent FTP for a whole hour. That said, the 20 minute test is very hard too.

This image shows the InRide app during the session. The blue line is duration of each effort and the app gives you a percentage of FTP for each one. The default is 200W, so for this first session, while I was determining FTP, it was pretty accurate. The yellow line is my power trace during each effort. It is a handy visual guide to ensure I am in the ballpark for each one. This is nearing the end of the warm up before I am about to start the 20 minute maximum effort which determines my ftp (the longer blue line).

 So the results are in. My FTP currently stands at 205 watts. I don't think that's great but the good news is, I can mow actually do something about it and start to work on increasing it. To what, I don't know. I don't think it's about attaining a particular number that will get me a 58 minute 25TT, but training the various systems to increase it to its optimum level. A couple of years ago I took part in #Turbovember and it seems opportune to do this again and basically cycle/turbo everyday in order to start laying a solid foundation for the rest of the winter. I will test my FTP on December 1st and see where I have got myself to.

Ultimately, all this tells me where I am. It's up to me to figure out what I need to do in order to get to the performance level that I want to achieve next season. Devising the program; now that's going to be the hard part.

A tale of three rides

Worthing's a long way to go for a pastie and a latte

Last week I took part in a 50 mile time trial, my first event over this distance in three years and my first time riding the Argon this far in a TT. After my operation I only had a handful of short rides so I was not sure how this was going to go. As it turned out; badly.

The first 20 or so miles were so-so. I was ticking off the miles and went through the halfway point in 1:04:xx, so pretty much what I would expect but it didn't feel particularly comfortable with my heart rate up, but within the next 5 miles I just absolutely blew to pieces. I mean, properly blew up. It just so happened that Simon was my minute man and around the various turn points I was timing myself when I saw him and we were only 40 seconds apart. Just after halfway I saw him ahead of me and I was no more than 30 seconds behind him. In the next 25 miles he stayed on the same pace while I ended up losing almost 10 minutes! I got more and more tense in my upper body and was spending less and less time on the tribars. My legs had completely run out of energy and I was also getting a very upset stomach even though I only had water in my bottle. Something I have never suffered from before.

While I had not had a lot of training this spectacular disintegration had, I believe, other causes.

A month before I had lowered my bars in the hope for better aerodynamics and speed and while this had been ok for the 10 and 25 mile time trials, at this longer distance it just wasn't comfortable or sustainable. The extra one inch drop was just too much for the flexibility in my back and upper body and the closing up of my hip angle also meant my stomach was not digesting and absorbing what was in it. If it couldn't cope with water, then it would never handle carbs in solid or liquid form.

I felt properly awful when I crossed the line and extremely hacked off and worried, with a 100 mile tt only a month off and then the 12 hour a couple of weeks after that. In hindsight, it made me re-evaluate my entire position on the bike.

So yesterday I was out on the Van Nic with the purpose of getting some easy miles under my belt. I cycled out on the A24 towards the coast and turned off towards Ditchling Beacon. At the 2 hour mark I turned around and came home. I didn't get to Ditchling but it was a solid 70 miles which was my longest ride in a very long time.

This morning I was back out on the time trial bike but this time with a new position. I raised the bars back up by one spacer and also put a slight upward angle on my tribars which I hoped would have a few benefits. The most important one would be to give my stomach more room and the upward slope would keep my wrists a bit straighter which had been getting very achy. My neck and shoulders were very sore last week so I moved the bars apart by 20 millimetres to relieve this. Obviously all this would have a negative effect aerodynamically but if it means I can maintain an aero position for longer then it will be a net gain.



Homemade aerobottle; worked like a charm

The slightly upward slope on the tribars would also help with my home modification for an aerobottle on the front bars which I had seen done at a few events. A speedfill bottle holder to do this is about £40. I was able to make my own by drilling a hole in an old standard bottle holder an 4 cable ties at the bottom of my tool box. So today was a long ride down to Worthing with Simon; a 90 mile round trip. It went brilliantly. Despite having the 70 miles in my legs from yesterday I felt pretty good. I was able to drink my carb drink all ride and even digested my Cornish pasties from our halfway stop.


 No aches or pains at all. Bloomin' brilliant and 160 miles ridden in the weekend.  I feel so much more confident about the long rides coming up because of this. I've put my training wheels on the Argon and the plan is to use this bike exclusively for the next few weeks and really get my position on it nailed. After all, I'm going to be spending 12 hours on it next month.

Argon 18 E-80

So rather than my usual whinging and whining I thought I would try to put together a useful post about my thoughts on the Argon 18 E-80, my reasons for purchasing it and my first thoughts on riding it.

Why buy a specific time trial bike?

Well, this was a bit of a no-brainer. I have owned a road bike for the last 7 years, first my entry level Trek 1000s which was then replaced by my Van Nicholas Euros. In that time I have done everything on this bike and it's great for most things, but particularly what it's been designed for, that being all day comfortable riding. I always think of this bike as the equivalent of a GT car; long legged comfort for all day cruising but ultimately it's not designed for aero-efficiency. It has fat tubes, cables sticking out everywhere and a very relaxed seat tube angle which makes it great for hill climbing but it's all but impossible to get into the most optimally powerful and aerodynamic position. I was able to put on clip-on tri bars to improve my body position but ultimately my hips were still a long way back, I was very stretched out and my clip-ons had to be quite wide apart owing to the design of my drop bars which meant my elbows were acting as parachutes in the airflow. Most definitely, sub-optimal.

 This is where a tt bike comes in and with my increased involvement in time trial riding with the Kingston Phoenix I knew that I basically had a considerable handicap over the other riders who were on full time trial rigs when I was riding the 10, 25 and 50 mile tts. It seemed to me that a tt bike would be a worthwhile investment. Not free speed, but definitely extra speed.

So I have ended up buying an Argon 18 E-80. How did I come to that choice?

I guess I was looking for the 'most bang for my buck'. I was always going to have a fairly limited budget by tt bike standards, absolutely no more than £1300, but around that price point there are an awful lot of tt bikes to choose from, mostly frames with fairly basic wheels and running gear, so I was looking at the best frame that would fit me and allow the potential to upgrade over the years as funds become available. The usual advice is to ensure that you get a bike that fits. I am lucky in that I am 'Mr Average' and my anthropometrics are not particularly unusual. I'm slightly long in the leg but no excessively so and at 5' 10" tall, most medium frames would fit somehow. The one other useful piece of advice I got was to pick a bike that would allow the most amount of adjustability so that the bike position could be tinkered with as much as possible.

So, aero benefits, budget, fit and adjustability. The last thing I wanted was a certain degree of exclusiveness. I wanted a bike that was at least a little bit unusual; a bit of a head turner. You can imagine then that that pretty much ruled out every Trek, Giant, Scott bike. I ended up narrowing it down to three bikes.

Nice, but not nice enough.

Planet X Stealth. There's no doubt that this bike cannot be considered unusual or exclusive. Every TT start sheet and triathlon transition area is littered with them. They are amazing value and Planet X have become a leader at selling road and TT bikes where it does not seem possible for them to be able to sell them at the price that they do. A couple of months ago they were doing their Stealth, complete with a set of Planet X deep section wheels for £1100. I very, very nearly signed up on the dotted line. There were two reasons that I didn't. Firstly, the carbon frame. I would be absolutely paranoid about dinging, dropping, scratching or otherwise ruining it. I am quite haphazard and accident prone and I like to ride my bikes in all weathers and I don't want to be prissy about ruining it through my clumsiness. The main reason was though, that it just didn't excite me looking at it. Yes, it would be a great tt bike but I wouldn't feel great on it. So, that was the Stealth out of the running.

Yummy

Cube Aerium Race. I looked at this bike for a long time too. Aluminium framed, so tougher if dropped. The paint scheme looked fabulous and the build quality and components looked great but the thing that put doubts in my mind was the geometry of the frame. The seat post angle was 76 degrees and while this is not unusual for some tt frames, many others were 78 and I wanted to be able to achieve a more aggressive fit. I saw this almost as a fast aero road bike rather than an all out time trial frame.

Lush bike. Stupidly long extensions. Lawn needs raking.

Argon E-80. I had seen a few Argon frames at various tts, usually the carbon framed 112 or 114 and they were stunning bikes but well out of my budget, but when I did a bit of research I found out about their bottom of the range aluminium framed model, the E-80. Firstly the geometry was right, being the same as the 112 and having a reversible seat post  that could give either a 78 or 76 degree seat tube angle.

2 way seat post gives 76 or 78 degrees. A nice touch.

This would give me the adjustability I need to get a really good position on the bike. The other  factor that sold me on this frame was the small aero touches that had been designed in; the hidden front and rear brakes and the internal cable routing. Small things that actually probably make little difference aerodynamically on their own but add to the package and make it look faster and sets the frame apart from the other two I was considering.

Except for one area, the frame is beautifully made with welds that have been ground flat and aero tubing throughout and a fully aero-tubed seat post. You would be hard pressed to recognise it as an aluminium frame and it could easily be mistaken for a carbon one. It just looks like it's really been thought about and the design of the frame has not been skimped on.  The tubing of the seat stays and forks have a very flat profile which with the predominantly black paintwork looks quite 'skunk works stealthy'. I like. :-)   The bit that's not so good? The welding around the bottom bracket which looks like it's been done by an out of control chimpanzee with a welding fetish. The bb is where most of the stresses in the frame get concentrated so the welding has to be integrally perfect and with so many tubes congregating at one point it's pretty hard to smooth the welds out there, but still, it's the one eye sore on an otherwise beautifully made frame.




The hidden front brake.  A nice touch. The rear brake sits under the bb too.

Having said all that, most of the deals on a build with this frame were still too expensive (around £1500-1600), but then a few months ago it started to come down in price, first to £1299 and then all of a sudden TriUK brought it down to £999 and therefore I'd be able to purchase it on the cycle to work scheme and achieve a tax saving too. A double win. The reason for the price reduction was the fact that they still had stock of the 2012 frames and the 2014 frame was about to hit the shelves. Exactly the same frame but with a slightly different paint scheme. My order for one of the final 2012 frames went in the following day. It just goes to show that it pays to be patient and wait for winter and see what the sales bring.


The TriUK build featured fairly basic running gear. Shimano 105 crankset, front and rear mechs with dura ace shifters and fulcrum 7 wheels. I have the fulcrum 5 wheels on my Euros and while basic they are absolutely bombproof and have coped with the worst conditions that the roads of Surrey have dished out over the years. While not particularly aero they would be a great set of training wheels for the rest of the winter. The bars and seat are standard components at this price and the bars in particular could be something else to upgrade in the future with its round tubing to a set of wing base bars would look really nice on here.

The bike arrived fully assembled and I have to say very well made. I checked it over and all was good with the build. I should also point out that with Tri UK being based in Yeovil I was not able to get down for a fitting but they were very helpful and helped sort out an appropriate stem and crank lengths. Pretty good service I thought. There's plenty of stack height left so I am able to tinker around with the spacers and bar height before getting it cut to length. The same with the bar extensions which are stupidly long and will need cutting down so that I can shift gear without having to move my arms.

First Ride

So I have had my first couple of rides this week as up until now it's been bolted to the turbo. I spent the first 10 minutes on the bull horns, spinning gently and it felt very comfortable and stable. The most noticeable thing, coming from a road bike, was that my nose was almost directly over the front axle, a long way further forward that on the Euros, but even so it felt very stable. I have it set up at the steeper of the two seat tube angles but again, while it felt very different it didn't feel weird and was very comfortable. Once I got onto a more open piece of road I got down onto the bar extensions and this is when things really began to perk up. My knees are much further up behind my elbows and my back is a lot flatter than I could ever achieve on the Euros and it feels a lot more compact. The only time that this becomes a problem is when I am stopped and my knees are very close to the bars; I just have to be careful I don't clunk them as I move off.

I didn't push it particularly hard but when up to speed I was able to push quite comfortably and it felt like it was cutting through the air with a lot less effort. The factor I am going to have to adjust to is the gearing. The bike comes with a standard double gearing which is quite different from the compact gearing I am used to with slightly wider ratios. It will require a bit of getting used to in order to keep in the sweet spot but once the bars are cut down and I can shift while remaining aero I am sure it won't be too much of a problem.

I have ridden on it for a couple of hours now and I'm glad to say that I have not had any reactions from my back or joints(blimey, I sound old) and there's still a lot of adjustability left in order for me to find my best position.

So in short, I am really pleased with it and I feel that I have bought the right bike for me with plenty of scope for improvement. I am really excited about next season.