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Lisbeth Caps Perfect 70.3 Season at Providence

Lisbeth finished 2nd AG overall at Providence setting a new PR run split after a typically solid bike. All this was accomplished after a wrong turn on the swim course that resulted in crashing into some rocks on the exit and smashing two toes. They really looked and felt broken but x-rays proved otherwise. She was beaten by a minute by one under 29 woman.

This result follows another 2nd overall at Rev3 Quassy and an overall at the Patriot half. So that is 3 convincing AG wins and top 1-2 overall placings – not bad for a mid 40’s mother of 3! Her work with Coach Al Lyman this year has really paid off on the run while keeping her bike and swim solid. Now to start prep for Kona!

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The Kestrel 4000 is Here!

It sure has been a while since I posted to the blog – I have been so busy with fits and related business that I have had no time to write (or sleep). But I had to take a few minutes to post a video of the first Kestrel 4000 frame to make its way into my greedy palms. Unfortunately it’s not mine and it wouldn’t fit me anyway. One day…

The bottom line is this is a beautiful frame, but you be the judge:

As it says in the video, these are in very limited supply, and only currently available in 52.5 and 55 cm sizes. MSRP for the frame/fork/seatpost/brakes is $2829. I would love to build one of these up with some sick components (hint hint)!

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Lance Tries an Adamo Saddle on his New TT Bike

Check out this vid of Lance’s new Trek Speed Concept TT bike – complete with an Adamo road saddle… There is no sponsorship in place here, so this is totally his own choice. I have heard rumors of many of the Pro Tour Teams at least training with Adamos on their TT bikes, and I even sent a few to a certain famous Euro Pro last year. They all love them, but those sponsors can sure be touchy about riders not using their saddles…

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The Future of Cycling Performance Optimization (it's here…)

  • What if you could magically change the dimensions of your bike while riding at threshold so that you could find that perfect fit?
  • What if you could change the relative fit parameters independently of one another, and incrementally, to isolate and optimize their respective effects on your performance and comfort?
  • What if you could make these changes without ever missing a pedal stroke or reducing power, so that you could immediately feel their effects?
  • What if you and your coach could see and record in real time a wealth of data as these changes are made?
  • What if you could even do this in a wind tunnel, with your coach or fitter magically changing the dimensions of your bike without entering or stopping the tunnel?

Do you think that you might have an advantage if you had a device which could do all of the above?

I have it. It exists. It’s top secret and patent-pending. It is not vaporware, and it works beautifully. I predict it will revolutionize bike fit and performance optimization, but then I’m biased since I designed the thing.

I rode said machine today for 4×9 minutes near threshold, at 270-300 watts, while smoothly, incrementally and repeatedly altering my saddle height, my effective seat angle, my drop and my reach. Independent or together. I started at my current, dialed in tri bike setup and moved through a drop range of 9 cm and 3 cm of saddle height, along with 6 degrees of seat angle range. And I never stopped working at 270-300 watts (I never even had to wield an electric screwdriver either). I quickly determined that my saddle should be incrementally lower and that I should be using even more drop.

ttfb1

We will soon be offering this service to our fit clients. And soon after that, interested parties will be able to get their hands on one of these devices. Let us know if you might be interested, they will initially be in very limited supply.

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Again, I’m biased, and a geek, but this thing absolutely rocks.

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First Clear Spy Shot of New Kestrel TT Bike

Here it is – the first side shot I’ve seen of the new Kestrel “Super Bike” TT frame.

We have no way of knowing how close this is to the finished product, but rumors have it this is nearly a done deal to be debuted in Kona. Rumors also have it this bike is mopping up the wind tunnel with its competitors, posting low drag numbers heretofore unseen (and Kestrel plans to publish the results of these tests). Apparently Kestrel is testing this bike vs competitors in “out of the box” setups to give a fair idea of the drag numbers a consumer can expect to achieve. They are also testing a wide variety of components to determine which work best with this frame. Another goal was to make the bike easy to work on.

Observations (based on the photo only – Kestrel isn’t talking):

  • Center pull cantilever front brake. Eliminates the need for aerodynamically dirty cable housing. Similar to Specialized Transition.
  • Broad fork blades incorporating mounting posts for cantilever brakes. There appears to be some slotting or interesting sculpting of the fork blades, and the fork crown fares into the downtube.
  • No cables. It may be that this prototype simply doesn’t have the cables routed yet. Or, they could be concealed in the steerer/headtube and exit above the front tire, entering the down tube inside the crown faring. Also, there is no front derailleur (now that would be a trick! – I’m sure it’s just not mounted yet) and an electronic rear Dura-Ace derailleur.
  • Concealed rear brake
  • Very clean and low seat cluster area. The seat stays join the seat tube very low, similar to the Airfoil. This, along with the relocated rear brake, presents a very clean and thin trailing edge allowing air flow to pass between the rider’s legs easily, and likely helps it to rejoin flow passing over and around the rider, reducing low pressure (and hence drag) behind the rider.
  • Seat stays form wings around the rear tire near the seat cluster area.
  • Tiny, almost rudimentary seat tube. It fares the rear wheel, yes, but I wonder if it is mainly there to satisfy the UCI “double diamond” requirement. The Airfoil seems to do just fine with no seat tube or rear wheel faring.
  • There also appears to be some unusual sculpting or slotting on the seat stays.
  • The frame look to incorporate a variation on the integrated seat mast – an extended “seat tube mast” with internal post. My guess is the “seat tube mast” may still need to be trimmed to size, but the internal post should allow more adjustment than the caps used with seat masts. It is unclear how the seat post is fastened, and the post itself looks like it may be just a mock-up (quick prototype). In any case this may provide all of the advantages of an integrated seat mast (lighter weight, stiffer, cleaner interface) with greater adjustability. Or, they may add an extended cap onn the outside similar to the D6
  • The seat mast looks to be built at 75 degrees, although there is some parallax distortion in the photo. This will suit UCI regulations well, but will mean that the final seatpost will need a movable clamp (perhaps like the Fuji D6) to get a steep seat angle.

We’ll post more info when we get it!

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Mavic Reinvents Wheel, Fails, Blames Specialized

Have you heard about those new “high tech” Mavic R-Sys wheels? They actually use carbon tubes instead of spokes! Sort of like spokes made from soda straws, only these are smaller and more fragile! And the spokes are in compression, not tension! Now I bet if you haven’t heard of them yet, you are now itching to part with $1200 for a set! Sure, tensioned wire-spoke wheels have proven themselves reliable over decades of use. And sure, the last time someone built a spoked wheel with spokes in compression, the wheel was attached to a wagon heading for the California Gold Rush. In 1849. And sure, these Mavic wheels immediately started failing and have already been recalled. No matter, French engineering has a long and illus… hmmmm….

In any case the failure issues have been remedied. Now, when a VeloNews editor is racing his bike equipped with a pair of post-recall R-Sys wheels, and one of them explodes in a corner, it is clearly no-longer the fault of these fine wheels. It is Specialized’s fault – they built the frame in question and post-crash, it had a crack in the top-tube. Just another case of a carbon frame cracking and causing the wheels to explode. Happens daily. Just like herds or Zebras regularly thunder across the plains of Wyoming.

See if you can tell what is missing

See if you can tell what is missing

Note that in the exciting video below. the Mavic carbon tubular spokes are shown to withstand the punishing compressive forces of one tiny French guy. Note that they work in “Tensi-ohn”, and “com-presi-ohn”. No word on whether they can handle lateral forces. So I urge you, if you ride these wheels, don’t turn. Or, at least don’t crash. Because at the very least, even if it WASN’T a wheel failure that caused the crash, the wheel disintegrated during the crash. That MIGHT be what happened. Sure, and monkeys MIGHT fly out of my butt.

Please make you own mind up here – after all, the R-Sys are 10% lighter and 30% stiffer (at least when squeezed by a miniature French engineer) and 75% more expensive. I always remember the words of one of my PhD advisors: “What’s the most parsimonious explanation here?” A fancy way of saying, when you hear the thunder of hooves, do you think zebras or horses? Which is an obtuse way of saying, “yeah right”. Kenyon’s rule of carbon engineering: big sturdy structure: carbon good. Thin fragile structures: carbon bad.

For more detail on this situation, please see the NYC Bike Snob’s blog here and here.

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Giant Giro Jerk

Great TT stage at the Giro today. Levi setting up to be the first American ever to podium in all three grand tours. As I said on Twitter, how was today’s hilly TT different from an uphill TT in the TDF? The Italian fans weren’t spitting on Armstrong! Di Luca can at least temporarily retire his pink kits, but all considered he did well. As the video below shows, even a Giant Giro Jerk Dillweed Dumba*s, also kitted out in pink couldn’t slow Di Luca, but he did piss him off. I wish  Di Luca had caught him in the chops.

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Cancellara Rides New TT Frame in TR Prologue

So FC did ride the new Specialized TT rig in the Romandie prologue. For him it wasn’t a great result at 11th place, but it was only 3k so one mistimed turn can be the difference between winning and dropping out of the top 10.

(Graham Watson photo)

(Edward Madden photo)

Note once again no visible cables, brake calipers (front brake pads visible), no stem, faired front wheel. Seat stay junction looks like a Cannondal Slice, and trailing end of top tube looks like a p3c.

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New Specialized TT Frame

So this pops up today on SRAM’s blog:

Supposedly the big boys will soon ride this in Pro Tour TTs. First reaction: UGGGLY! It gives the Giant “icebreaker” a run for it’s money in the “bleeechhh” dept.

Of course that matters not one iota to air molecules whizzing past it at 40mph. And what those molecules will see is a clean, smooth front end sans cables or brakes or other “dirty” protuberances. Said molecules will also not see any stem or spacers as the aerobar and pads are integrated into the aero-schnoz dangling over and partially encasing the front tire.

Clean indeed, as the front brakes, dangling below the schnoz, are also barely visible to marauding air molecules. In fact, the molecules may be so confused by this setup that they’ll pass by without exerting ANY drag.

I do like the gracefully mono-curved trailing edge of the downtube/headtube/toptube. That is nice on the eyes, and sure to confuse the molecules even more. The rear triangle look rather conventional by today’s standards. One might even say that the chain stay/seat tube junction might manage to corral some of those puzzled air particles resulting in a drag coefficient somewhat >0.

So what have we learned? Most of the innovation still to come within UCI guidelines is probably in the front end of the bike (until the UCI outlaws it and specifies round head tubes). I spent probably 2 pints-worth of my Kona “vacation” at Lulu’s grilling Cervelo’s Phil White about conventional front brakes on the P4, and why can’t anyone come up with something better – like him for instance? He said it was not for lack of trying. I assume they drew the line at adding a big fat schnoz to the P4, Cd be damned.

This also brings up a comment I read in RBA magazine from Scott’s VP saying that they realized after the Tour of CA that they would need to build different long and short distance TT bikes (Columbia didn’t ride the Plasma in the TT’s). A bike that works well for 110 miles doesn’t cut it for an hour or less. So maybe that’s what we’re seeing here too. No holds barred machines made to go 35 mph for an hour or less, and then more mainstream TT bikes, made for everyday folk who like to ride 112 miles as fast as they can just so they can get off and run a marathon. Yup, mainstream…

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