Hodge Podge

Okay, I will admit that I ate a whole box of Girl Scout Cookies. In one sitting. Every year, those cookie pimps lead me down the wrong path, right at the time I am trying to shed those five winter pounds. And with the recent bout of snow we have had, riding has been lacking. But, not to fear, riding weather will soon be here.

On that note, there are two time trials coming up. The first is the FrostBite Time Trial, up in Ft Collins on March 6. This is the first road race of the season and at only ten miles, a distance most anyone can suffer through, a great way to welcome the season. Here is the link for registration. Also, the Karen Hornbostel Memorial Time Trial series (seven races on Wednesday nights, starting April 7) down in Cherry Creek is coming up. Registration starts March 2, and you can register here. This is a good series to do, as not only does having a weekly time trial help chart your early season conditioning, but, some of the registration money goes to charity.

Also, if I was on TV, I would be vaguely coy about this product review, but let's face it: your thighs got fat over the winter and you just aren't used to long rides in the saddle yet. inyangi sport products down in Boulder makes a great chamois butter. I like their butter not just because they are local, but, their butter works well. The nubutte butter was recommended to my by a friend who swears by the stuff. And of course, being from Boulder, they use all natural ingredients. (I would one day like to open up an all synthetic store that tests on animals in Boulder and see how long forming the protest would take, but, I digress.) Anyway, their nubutte butter has been a life saver these past couple weeks and does seem to help healing. You can find their website, here. And, for some free product, I would be more than glad to send my fourth-grade teaching wife to help them with capitalization drills.

Smart Equipment Choices #1

Okay, the snow is falling, riding is a bust and I have been wanting to enter the foray of equipment debate for awhile. The desire to write about equipment is like a sickness that eats away at you until you finally break down and let your opinions be known. I think there are really only two pieces of equipment that will actually improve performance - aero-bars and wheel-sets.


Aero-bars are an easy topic. Use them when you can, even in training. A flat back with a slight skiers bend to the bars is probably the most efficient general rule, but, comfort is more important. A lighter pair is good if you can afford them. There, done with aerobars.

Wheels on the other hand are much more complicated. I have spent the past year relearning basic physics, reading rants on the internet, technical articles by engineers, and muddling through manufacturers' claims. The real-world decision in wheel choice is aero-dynamics versus weight. The greater the rim profile, usually the higher the aero-dynamic advantage at the expense of higher weight. As a cyclist, considering four (often ignored) principles is paramount to making a smart wheel choice:

1. Moment of Inertia (MOI) - This is the amount of force required to get a wheel rotating. The heavier the wheel, the more force (i.e. energy) needed to get the wheel rotating. And the further out from the axis the weight, the more energy required. Rim and tire weight are much more important than hub, skewer or cassette weight. Also, MOI is a good place to talk about pace. A cyclist that rides at a steady pace (speed, watt) is going to need far less energy (ie, not get tired so fast) than a cyclist that has an oscillating speed. Their average speeds might be the same, but, the amount of energy that riding an unsteady tempo is huge. To illustrate, I did a simple calculation assuming a flying start: a rider at 40km/hr for one hour at a fixed pace versus a rider averaging 40km/hr, oscillating between 38km/hr to 42km/hr. To make this a fair race, the steady rider would need to tow a Mini Cooper as far as energy is concerned!

2. Gravity and friction (rolling resistance) are real forces - I lumped these two together because they are the unseen forces holding you back. (Although, most celebrate on those fast descents when their wheels don't slide out, the other spectrum of these forces.) Gravity on a flat to uphill slope actively slows you down. The question becomes, at what grade does weight take precedence to aero-dynamics? There is no definitive answer, but when the slope starts to hit 3% or greater, a lighter wheel-set makes sense. Conversely, heading downhill, a heavier, aerodynamic wheel-set would be in order. Some people might argue that heavier wheels have a fly wheel type effect - that they store rotational energy. While there might be a small advantage, most of it would be negated by friction and gravity unless you are riding on a pancake flat or downhill courses. Tire choice, tubular versus clincher, is a great place to bring up friction. (We will ignore bearings except to say that sealed are more efficient than cartridge bearings, assuming that sealed bearings are dirt free.) I don't think there is enough data to declare one more advantageous over the other, if you are comparing top of the line clinchers to tubulars. Tubulars have the edge in cornering and possible weight savings (MOI advantage), but as far as rolling resistance goes, I really don't think one is better than the other. Often people claim that tubulars can take more tire pressure, which decreases rolling resistance. But, tires are like a non-compliant balloon - that is, more air pressure, at a certain point, will not help a tire deform less. Tire manufactures know this and design the casings and such to reflect this fact.

3. Variable winds - Most studies are done in a wind tunnel with a head on wind. Great for marketing, not so great for making wise decisions on the road. Even in the best of circumstances, there is no real advantage in rim profile until it reaches 50mm or more. 80mm and tri-spoke style wheels are close to a disk wheel as far as aero-dynamics. Also, there is not much advantage in spoke count or shape. Depending on wind speed and direction, larger profile rims and disks can make your bike unsteady and may even slow you down. If you are shopping for wheels, I would choose rim's less than 50mm in profile by weight, lighter being better, assuming a reasonable durability. As to wheels above 50mm in profile and disks, weight should be a consideration, but your are really looking for an aerodynamic advantage, which can be significant as your speeds increase. I would choose the largest rim profile without giving up bike stability.

4. Cyclists are not infinite energy sources - You are going to get tired riding a bike. And those heavier aerodynamic wheels are going to make you legs feel leaden after awhile. This is where you have to know yourself. Lance could push just about any wheel all day with no problems. However, if you are pushing your limits distance or climbing wise, lighter wheels will win out over heavier wheels.

So how do you choose which wheel is right? Just consider the four principles above. If you are racing a tight criterium with frequent accelerations or a mountainous course, a light set of wheels are in order. If you are racing a flat time trial with a headwind, dual disks would be in order. The in-betweens are the harder choices. If you have rolling hills, are feeling strong, then aerodynamic wheels would probably benefit you. Conversely, if you just hope to hang on, lighter wheels would be the option. I think the ideal stable of wheels (should budget allow) would be a really light box-rim tubular set, with a 28/32 spoke count and a 50mm front/80mm rear wheelset. And remember, the best wheel-set is the other riders you are drafting.

Newsweek Gets It Right

I was pleased to see in the Newsweek article 'Crimes of the Heart' (Newsweek, February 15, 2010) that the authors actually recommended adding bike lanes to highway bills as a way of helping Americans (and tourists, too, I guess) to keep fit. I have just spent the last decade of my life working uncountable hours placing stents, and later operating life-support machines, to help keep Americans from their premature fate. As the health care debate made headlines on how to fund our sick behavior, I saw scant mainstream articles on trying to prevent being sick. And yes, the bicycle, I believe, will play a vital role in a new health plan for Americans.

My wife and I recently got the chance to live a year in bike crazy Boulder, Colorado. We sold one of our cars and bought a few bicycles for each of us with the money. We drove less than 7,000 miles during that year. But more importantly, my wife kept a log every two days of the miles she rode. She often averaged 30-40 miles, or 15-20 miles a day. I finally dropped those extra pounds I didn't want and we really did have extra money. But, even in Boulder, were one can hardly swing a cat without hitting at least a couple of bike commmuters, over 90% of people still commute by car on a regular basis. I am not naive to think that bicycle commuters will ever out number cars, but, a 25% rate of people commuting by bicycle would be a good goal. Maybe instead of a Bike to Work Day, we could get a whole month to encourage the habit. (Psychologists say for an action to become a habit, one must repeat the action 28 times.)

I also have to applaud the article for it's other suggestions of promoting health. While nothing is ground breaking in the article, I feel the message has to be perpetuated. With obesity an epidemic, I feel true health care reform is falling on deaf ears of people who can create policy. A recent medical study in Spain reported that people who had severe heart disease and adopted a heart healthy lifestyle with no medical intervention actually had a higher survival rate than their counterparts who opted for medical intervention. (I won't float any conspiracy theories about the drug companies here.) But, Americans will never really know good health until we turn away from palliative to preventative medicine.

I won't turn this review into a How to Train article, but, I will offer my quick advice. I have always been ambivalent towards Lance Armstrong personally, but I have admired how he reformed cycling training. (Also, I sometimes wonder if he remembers my rear derailleur exploding and the pulley sticking to his calf and then falling off to leave a grease mark.) When I started racing, the only training consisted of longer and harder rides. But, now, I recommend eating well (if the food comes in a plastic wrapper, that is probably not good), yoga or strecthing, weight training and cardio-vascular excercise. There is really no order of importance, all must be done to really get good physical health. I will leave mental health alone, but, it is no less important.

While I am probably preaching to the choir if you are reading this post, I really feel this Newsweek article represents a turning point in mainstream media and hopefully will be the first of many articles arguing for preventative medicine as opposed to the plethora of articles debating how to pay for bad health. And maybe us cyclists will get a few bike lanes out of the deal.

Palm Pre/JogStats app as a GPS Trainer Review

I recently switched over to Sprint/Palm Pre after numerous problems with my old network (people really believed I was screening my calls) and smartphone's OS (crashed on regular basis). I have been using Linux on my desktop and laptop for several years and was excited to see Palm adopted a Linux flavor (WebOS). I took a chance and was an early adopter of the Palm Pre and have been happy with my sevice and phone (except for an initial battery issue). You can check out the CNET review of the Palm Pre here.

I have been envious (I know, a sin) of my training buddies high tech gadgetry and decided to start getting my monies worth out of my Pre. At the time epiphany, JogStats was the only app that offered GPS support (among other features desired). But, the Pre library is growing daily and there are now a handful of others (I plan on another review of JogStats, BikePro, WorkOut Tracker, any other newcomers to the app library and a Garmin in a head to head battle royale).



JogStats is fairly basic to use with a few toggles for preferences. After entering my weight and activity (cycling), I was off and riding. You can also choose a live screen mode, which shows your stats in real time, but, I chose to have the screen shut off to save some battery life. Also, there is a metric and English units toggle. I checked the phone a couple of times during my rides against my cyclo-computer and found the distance results to be within several meters. The GPS tracking ability of the Pre has been great so far, although, we are still in winter and I have not made any epic canyon rides, yet.

Using the GPS ability is a battery hog. I started each ride with 100% battery life and left on all my normal Pre functions. The battery seemed to drain in a linear relationship to time, with about 50% life at three hours. This would give a rider about a six hour ride. I never talked on the phone during the rides, but, did send a few text messages. This expedient use of battery life (my Pre can normally go two days between charges - making a few phone calls and lots of data usage) makes me a little worried about the Pre's primary function - to make phone calls. I would assume based on my observations, rides under four hours would still allow you to make a few short calls (or lots of texts) with battery life to spare. However, anything above four hours and you probably are playing on borrowed time. And, when was the last time you saw a pay phone on your ride?

Post rides, I checked the results that Jogstats compiled on the Pre. The distance, mapping (you need to download GPX Mapper (free) in the apps catalog for this feature) and altitude vs time graph all seemed to be accurate. The route feature on the Pre only has the geometry of your route and does not overlay it on a real map, just a solid green background. This would really be a great feature and hopefully future versions will include map overlay. Also, the speed vs time graph never worked for me. I am not sure if, because like the app's name suggests, the graph is scaled to a jogging pace, but, there is no way I could find to reset the scale. (And God knows, I probably will never walk down the block to check if the speed vs time graph works). JogStats also has a calories burned feature, which ran a little high when compared to my heart-rate monitor and a wattage/time calculator, but was in the ball park. Besides, who doesn't enjoy thinking they need to eat a few extra calories post ride. Jogstats can email a .png file or post your results via twitter (I am sure all your friends can't wait to talk to you about your days training session). JogStats also saves your workouts for later viewing on the Pre, and, I would assume is only limited by the free memory the Pre has available (Pre's have a fixed 8gb memory).


All in all, JogStats does it's job great. While this app is the most expensive of the lot ($6.99, there is a week-long free trial), I would have to give JobStats a good recommendation if you are into post ride compliation. The lack of route/map overlay hinders Jogstats value for real time use. Like I said, I am testing out other apps and will post a head to head review in the near future.