An interesting article from Bicycling magazine, September 2006, p. 32. Great insights into bicycling aerodynamics and the science of cycling.
1. Time trialing is about efficiency, not power. It’s much easier to increase efficiency rather than increasing power.
2. Your bike accounts for only 15-20% of overall drag.
3. 75% of drag is determined by your body’s resistance against the air.
4. There is a relationship between biomechanics and power output and aerodynamics. You have to balance all 3 to maximize power output over time.
5. A non-aero helmet creates four times the drag of a non-aero wheelset. So spend money on an aero helmet!
6. How the race number is fixed to the bike matters – make it as flat as possible against the bike.
7. On a round tubed bike frame, a water bottle on the seat tube is more aero than without. It is more aero to put it there than putting it on the down tube.
8. Wearing gloves creates more drag than having a non-aero front wheel.

Last week my coach and I were discussing a workout whereby I am supposed to cycle up Kings Mountain twice. I told him that my cadence is about 60-70 RPM usually, at which time he tells me about compact cranks.
Compact cranks are a crankset that have a smaller bolt pattern to allow smaller chain rings on the front. Basic mechanics says that using smaller front chain rings will allow more direct power transfers although at a higher cadence. And as Lance Armstrong always preaches, pedalling at a higher cadence is much better than burning your muscles out at a lower cadence.
I head out on my newly installed compact cranks. The feel is different as now the ratios favor a higher mechanical advantage for power transfer, although at the higher pedalling rate.
The first hill I encounter is a short 6 percent or so. I drop to a 34/25 and roll over it at 75 RPM. Not bad for 5 min out of the house. Normally, I am either grinding or out of my seat as it is only a stone’s throw away from my house and I’m barely warm.
As I move down Foothill Expressway, I find that my cadence is definitely higher for a given gear on the back. It also presents an interesting adaptation challenge as now I am shifting a bit more to compensate for my higher cadence. I also find I sit in a higher cadence a little longer because I am used to watching my speed and cadence together.
At the end of Foothill Expressway, there is a little steep climb up to Page Mill Road. It is probably a 5% grade or so. I downshift and make it up that hill at 85 RPM. Now I’m warm and going over a hill that normally requires me to stand and grind, even though it’s a short distance.
After that, it’s just a rolling ride to Woodside Road. There is yet another challenging, longer hill from Alameda de Las Pulgas to Canada Road. Again, I am about 10 RPM higher than normal, about 70-80 RPM. I cruise over the hump past Buck’s and onwards to Kings Mountain Road.
At Kings Mountain Road, I proceed up. My coach has asked me to do this twice and the day is warming up. I head up and on its very steep sections, I am about 70-75 RPM and on its flatter steep sections, I am about 75-80 RPM. As I spin up the hill, my HR is rising, as is the temperature. Some sections of Kings Mountain Road are fully in the sun, and as I pass through them, I am feeling the heat. About half way up, I start to crater because of the heat and the knowing sign is the drop in cadence to about 50 RPM, and general weakness through my legs. I grind the rest of the way up and decide to not the next climbing rep. Instead I continue down Skyline and 92.
One weird thing here is the competing climate. The very warm sun constantly beats back a chilling wind and in general, I do cool down. But I feel the energy has been sucked from my legs for sure. I recover as I blaze down 92 and hit Canada Road.
Here I am supposed to practice Ironman Race Pace. But it’s difficult because the heat has sucked my energy away. I proceed to spin and shift gears to maximize my speed relative to my energy level and while maintaining 90-95 RPM. On certain stretches, I do notice that my speed is higher, due to the higher mechanical advantage. I zip home and am glad to make it there. I run a quick 10 minute brick run and then I’m done.
Notes:
Need to take some time to adapt to the higher cadence pedalling. It is driving my HR higher to maintain the higher cadences. I need to shift more and be aware of the new power transfer ratios at each gear.
Definitely the compact cranks are great for hill climbing. Better spinning is going to allow me to get up and over hills without grinding and burning my legs. I am looking forward to getting used to them, especially prior to Ironman Austria.

The last few weeks I’ve been riding with a Powertap power meter. What an incredible piece of technology! My training has been taken to a new level!
Previously, I was using a Computrainer and training based on power, as a measure of progress and application of resistance to the cycling motion of pedalling. It was working well, being like weightlifting to cycling. When you enter 200 watts, it will be 200 watts the next time around, just like when you put on a 45 lbs plate, it will still be 45 lbs the next time you try to lift it. It works pretty well as a measure of progress and is very consistent.
Add a Powertap in the mix and then it really adds color to the training. After Computrainer workouts, it brings more depth into rides outside and out of your garage. All you have to do is ride around for a while and then look at the data. It really tells you where you strong points and your weak points are, and espeically where your thresholds are. Amazingly, the data matches up with your wattages that you use with your Computrainer. It’s really incredible that training matches up so closely with what happens when you ride naturally.
So all you do is look at all these graphs. They tell you all this data about how you rode. When you improve, you should see the graphs change slightly. But it does bring out your weak points, and also help you in improving your ride, especially in conserving energy. One thing I try is to go out as hard as I come back. It’s harder than you think. When you go out, you tend to use a lot of energy because you’re fresh. When you come back, you tend to come back weaker because you’ve used up all that energy and you’re slower. But to even that out is really challenging. I’m just now getting the hang of it.
I am looking forward to training with the Powertap more, and perhaps sometime in the future, racing with it.

A few months ago I bought a pair of Powercranks in an attempt to improve my cycling and even out some annoying power differences between my right and left legs.
I have discovered some amazing results with these Powercranks, in that they have really awakened some new muscles for pedalling in that circular motion. These muscles are especially related to the up motion of the cycling stroke.
In the book, Triathlete’s Guide to Bike Training by Linda Wallenfels, she explains the importance of unloading the other leg while pedalling down with the opposite leg. She states that if both legs are pushing down, even though one leg is really concentrating on the down stroke, the other leg can cause unwanted energy wastage by actually resisting the downstroke of the downward pushing leg.
Thus, the upstroke of the leg gains importance in not only helping with the overall circular motion of the pedal stroke, but also in unloading that leg so that it does not tire the downstroking leg.
These muscles require training, as only a set of Powercranks can do. I am finding that I can generate more overall power now by adding the upstroke to help the downstroke of the leg. It seems that Powercranks are the only tool that can truly isolate the legs to exercise this motion and to activate those upstroke muscles. Single leg pedalling just doesn’t seem to cut it.

Wow.
I did a first workout to try out. What a strange sensation!
I attempted to get a rhythm down to warm up but failed miserably. So I pedaled until about 5 minutes at which time I finally figured out an interval which I could work out at.
I moved up from 50 watts to about 90 watts and then started pedalling 30 seconds on, 10 seconds rest with legs just hanging. At about 30 seconds, my legs would get out of sync so I pegged that as my upper time limit for now. I also was at about 60-70 RPM during the interval. Anything above that and my left leg would get out of sync first, and I would have to stop and start over.
I could already see differences between my right and left leg. It seemed like my right leg was more sore than my left, but both definitely were worked.
I am eager to keep up with this. I am also eager to see it’s claimed effects on running as well. But mostly, I’d love to see my two legs even out more effort-wise and my cycling improve.
More on this as the weeks roll by. Read about them on the Powercranks website.

I just noticed something at my last cycling workout. I shift gears incessantly.
I adjust my gearing at the slightest change in pressure to my thighs. I use them as my signal to shift down or up. This is because I don’t want to be powering through the ride, but rather using the mechanical advantage of the bike’s gears to the fullest extent.
So I try to keep to 90 RPM mostly. I watch my perceived effort and try to keep that constant no matter what. If the effort rises on a slight incline, I feel the pressure on my thighs and thus shift to easier cog and go at a higher RPM. I’d much rather go at 95-100 RPM than power through at 80 RPMs. It’s too easy to wipe my thighs on a long ride.
If I reach 100+ RPM, then I shift to a smaller cog and then I’m back to 90 RPM, or else my HR rises too high and stays there too long.
I think about Lance. He is famous for riding at 100 RPM and conditioning his body to do so. There must be something to it if Lance does it….
By doing this, I shaved 6 minutes off what was a 48 minute ride of about 12 miles with a big climb up and down Mt. Eden Road in Cupertino. That’s pretty cool. Something must be working right!
As my coach is fond of saying – “Ride Fast, Not Hard”.
Tour De France coverage on OLN starts tomorrow morning – Exciting!

Yesterday I went up King’s Mountain Road for the first time in my cycling history in the Bay Area.
What a grueling climb it was! I had been up Old La Honda before which is supposedly 3.75 miles from bottom to the top. In comparison, my GPS said King’s Mountain was 5.2 miles although others say it’s 4.3 miles to the top, but all the way it felt like it was just sucking energy away quickly. Great training ride and I hope to do it more often now that I know where it is, especially with the 1+ hour warmup ride from Cupertino to Woodside to get there!
Grueling on the way back too in a different way – the screaming downhill down 84 back to Woodside gets you up to 25+ MPH and your HR cools down until you feel like you’re freezing because it’s still early morning and the fog hasn’t burnt off…!
This time I took my Garmin Forerunner 301 with me to check out some of its PC related features. It’s an awesome little device that is much better than its predecessor, the Forerunner 201, because it’s got a HR monitor in there. All my training is HR monitored and not having to wear 2-3 watches/devices is a good thing.
The GPS actually records tons of data when you use it. Using its training software, I download my King’s Mountain ride onto my PC. WOW. And I start geeking out big time. I had hit the lap button at various points on the ride and now I can see how long it took to get to the top of King’s Mountain, as well as the elevation, speed, and average HR during each lap.
This is way cool! Now when I get elevation maps from races, I can judge how hard the hills will be during the bike portion.
This of course also applies to running as well….

This last weekend I went out with another M2 athlete, Chirag, and we went cycling up the west side, up Riverside Dr., across the George Washington Bridge, and up route 9W in New Jersey towards upstate NY.
It was an incredibly beautiful day in Manhattan especially having rained the day before. When we got up to route 9W, it was spring in full force with green leaves of the trees looking full of life.
However, given that this was my first time cycling in a big city, I have found out some really interesting things:
1. Getting from my apartment, which is on the east side, to the west side was an interesting exercise. With all the one way streets and sometimes road closures, you’re zig zagging around the streets to find a way to get all the way over and then to cross the west side highway to finally get on the bike path there. Pretty harrowing as there is no bike lane and the cars are right next to you the whole way.
2. Pot holes everywhere! You don’t notice this when you’re walking around the city, but man are there a lot! You gotta really watch out or else your ride is hugely jarring!
3. What’s with the tar? They are continually repairing something in the roads and there is fresh new tar everywhere. I swerve and one time even got off my bike to avoid rolling through some fresh tar.
4. Ignoring street lights seems to be the norm. I see cyclists roll through red lights all the time. So I do the same.
5. Dodging traffic is a given. Especially taxi drivers. Sheesh.
6. The worst was when I got up to my apartment, I realize that I am covered with this black soot or dirt. UGH! I whip off my cycling stuff and hop in the shower. After cleaning up, I spend some time wiping tar and dirt off my bike. As I do this, I start thinking about the soot that has entered my lungs during this ride. Yuck! So I reach for my vitamin bottle and take another vitamin C for antioxidant protection.
I hope my lungs survive training in NYC. Next stop: endless loops in Central Park.

“A good friend of mine was a writer for a Spanish Cycling magazine in which he would do frame reviews. While he would offer useful insights into issues like geometry, weight, etc., the question would always come back to him, “but will I be faster on this bike.” I always liked his answer, which was if you want to believe that a bike will make you faster, then this is probably the best reason that it will.”

Lessons & Myths on Bike Fit, Frame Materials, Aero-positions, et al., Michael McCormack, M2 Coaching

How interesting to see a comment like that from my Ironman coach.

Before I bought my Cervelo P2K, I rode a Aegis, Cannondale, Guru, Kestrel, and Trek. I drove all over the Bay Area to various bike shops to find out what the difference was between all these bikes. Dura-Ace vs. Ultegra vs. Campy, steel vs. carbon vs. aluminum vs. titanium, triathlon angle vs. cycling angle – I think it all really serves to confuse the average bike buyer and probably makes us spend more money than we should.

How much does a pound here or there really affect your riding? I met one of my coach’s athletes in NYC and we were shooting the breeze about bikes and we both had come to the same conclusion that the parts and pounds and materials really don’t make much difference to people under Lance Armstrong. We’ve both seen riders on what seem to be heavier bikes blow past us on the race course. It obviously couldn’t have been the high tech advanced materials on our own bikes slowing us down – more obviously it was the fact that we just aren’t that strong riders yet and that we needed to spend more quality training on the bike improving our basic technique and strength.

Another friend of mine asked me how she should choose her bike. She and I talked about the pros and cons of the parts, materials, and pounds but I told her in the end what was really important was that she felt SUPER FAST on the bike. Because if you don’t, you’ll always have that nagging at you during a ride or a race, and it will be a constant discomfort that you really don’t need.

That’s how I chose my Cervelo P2K. It wasn’t the lightest bike and had a component set one down from the very top. It wasn’t the most cushiest of rides with carbon fiber throughout, but actually stiff aluminum. But, I FELT LIKE A ROCKET on that bike. Now I don’t ride all that fast compared to some really strong guys out there, but I don’t care. When I’m on that bike, I feel like I have a jet engine strapped to my bike and I am flying down the road.

Once again, how important is the psychological aspect of racing? Super important. Whether it’s your equipment or your technique, you need to have confidence in yourself and your abilities. If you don’t you’ll have yet another barrier to conquer come race day.

Today, I did a 6:20 bike ride, about 102 miles or so in preparation for my Ironman coming up in early March.
When I go for a ride, I usually see at least one thing that bugs me or pisses me off. BUT TODAY – being out there for 6+ hours, I think I just about saw it all.
So here it is: Cycling: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly…but in reverse.
The Ugly:
1. Pedestrians who walk on the wrong side of the road.
Cyclists ride with the flow of traffic, walkers/runners go against the flow of traffic. This is so walkers/runners can see oncoming traffic and react appropriately in case of trouble, versus walking with their back to traffic and risk being clipped by a stupid driver. Cyclists going faster and sometimes as fast as traffic have more time to be seen by traffic and thus can lower the risk of trouble. Also, a bicycle is a vehicle and should thus share the road as a vehicle, going with the flow of traffic.
I don’t know where people learn this but walking with their back to me as I’m going 10-20 MPH is really dumb. If I were walking on the road and tons of cyclists were blowing by me going at such speed, I would get nervous. Yet so many pedestrians are so oblivious to the danger they are in.
1a. Pedestrians who walk on the wrong side of the road AND can’t walk a straight line or are swinging their arms while strolling or during expressive talking.
As I come up to pedestrians, I always start observing how they walk. If they are weaving back and forth, then I yell really loud, “ON YOUR LEFT!!!!!” and prepare to brake as I pass.
1b. Pedestrians who walk on the wrong side of the road AND can’t walk a straight line or are swinging their arms while strolling or during expressive talking AND when I yell “ON YOUR LEFT!!!!” as I pass, they FREAKIN’ DODGE TO THE LEFT…right into yours truly.
Nuff said there.
2. Cyclists who hang out stopped in the bike lane.
Come on guys. Where is your courtesy? You stop at the side of the road to rest, chat, fix a flat,…whatever. Fine. BUT DON’T STAND WITH YOUR BUDDIES IN THE WHOLE FREAKIN’ BIKE LANE. I lost count of how many times I was forced into the traffic lane just to go around these idiots. Get further to the side and be aware that there are tons of cyclists trying to ride. Geez.
Earlier this year, a pro-triathlete was tossed from her bike, breaking her collarbone, because she was powering up a road and as she checked her back for traffic, she ran smack dab into two cyclists who decided to stop right in the middle of the bike lane to do something, and not move to the side.
Would you stop dead in a traffic lane on Highway 280 after going 65-80 MPH and then zero just because you felt like it?
3. Cyclists who can’t pedal in a straight line.
What happened to basic cycling skills? Passing people like these is an exercise in stress management. It is nerve racking to come up to their rear, yell “ON YOUR LEFT!!!!” and then watch them weave back and forth while you try to make your pass.
4. Cyclists who can’t pedal in a straight line AND weave to the LEFT as you try to pass on the LEFT, after yelling “ON YOUR LEFT!!!”
These people must have been born with the “dodge into danger when warning is signalled” gene. Too bad we as human beings have stopped evolution completely….
The Bad:
1. Feeling an impending cramp in your thigh when you’re miles from home.
Aw man…not now…not now….I was at about hour 5 going up a hill when my right thigh gets that familiar tightness. You never know if it’s going to subside or just knot up and you’ll be writhing in pain.
And you know you’ve got more hills, and one more hour to go….
2. Running out of fluids.
I was out there today, thinking that I timed my drinking and how much fluid I brought perfectly. But unfortunately, I ran out about 30 minutes from home. Man, seems like forever, when you want to take a sip of fluid but can’t….
3. Getting a flat.
At least it was my front tire. Changing the rear tire REALLY SUCKS.
It took my only spare about 2 hours in. I hate the feeling of not having another one. Gotta remember to bring another one next time.
4. Realizing that your bike is covered in mud after the ride.
…my beautiful shiny bike is all dirty….(sniff)….
And also because it takes an hour to clean everything, get all the gunk off metal parts so they don’t rust, and regrease the chain. I’d rather put my feet up in front of the TV and recharge….or spend time complaining on my blog…
The Good:
1. Going on the brick run afterwards and NOT CRAMPING UP.
At least my impending thigh cramp did not happen and I got a good brick run in afterwards.
2. Feeling energetic on the bike and run.
Sometimes you go out there and you feel totally abused by the time you get back. Especially in Bay Area winters, this happens a lot when you’re training in the cold weather and it just saps your energy so much. It is a joy to do all that and feel like you could keep going if you wanted to. But instead, you kick back and watch TV and complain on your blog…
3. Knowing you’re over your freakin’ cold so you can get back to training.
Always a positive thing.