All time personal best achieved tonight

[Jim Gerwing]

Not a PB, but. . .

So I added a 'storm-door' heat shrink plastic fairing to the seat back of my V AND I covered the front wheel in similar fashion. Tonight's weather was not conducive to an all out assault on my PB so I went out 20k at a sub optimal pace (against a quartering head wind, maybe a 7-8km/hr component head on. I decided to keep it fairly comfortable on the way back but that head wind was now a tail wind so I took what the road would give me. I hit my nemesis light at the 17 km mark and checked my average speed-it was over 45km/hr. What a hoot! Back in town I was going down a through street and decided to see how fast I could go (on a flat, @10km/hr wind behind me, I topped out at 58 point something (speed limit 60). I had an experience of being alive.
JG

 

[marshall2389]

oh my god you're fast. 

oh my god you're fast. sooooo cool. How do you deal with hydration? Short enough rides that you don't need it?

 

[Jim Gerwing]

Hydration

Yeah, that's an issue.
The bottle under the boom does not work for me.
I tried mounting a bracket on the back rest but it's not accessible at speed.
I tried placing a bottle in between the bottom rear stays but, again, not easily accessed.
I thought about a bottle behind the head rest, but that space is being used.
Then I filled in the space below the seat back for aerodynamic efficiency(?). At least I made it accessible when stopped.
So, on a one hour, time trial type ride, I take a drink before leaving home, I get about 150ml at the turn around (from a bottle hidden in the under seat space) then I can have a drink when I get home (if I want one). Oddly enough, it's not a high priority when I get back.
I would drink more if I had a better solution.
JG

 

[marshall2389]

A possibilityy would be a

A possibilityy would be a bladder behind your seat or headrest with the hose coming out of your aero housing and resting on your shoulder.

 

[Charles.Plager]

A possibilityy would be a

A possibilityy would be a bladder behind your seat or headrest with the hose coming out of your aero housing and resting on your shoulder.

That's exactly what I would do.

Wait.... That is what I do (except that it's just strapped behind the seat and I'm not cool enough for an aerobox.

 

[Jim Gerwing]

A day at the track

Edmonton, a city adjacent to my home, has an outdoor velodrome. It was made in 1977 for the 1978 Commonwealth games and has since been maintained on a shoestring budget. It's surface is concrete and through the years has been patched and shaved to retain a semblance of surface credibility. I've been on it before and recently decided to have a go with my aero V. They normally prefer track bikes only but Monday mornings are not too busy (read-virtually abandoned) and the controlling body was desparate for my $5.
I took a walk around the perimeter of the 333.3m track and it looked pretty good so out came the bike.
As I took the bike out of the van a pedestrian comes by, oogles my bike and asks if it hurts my neck, to which I reply, 'does reclining on a couch hurt your neck?'
The track is well designed with banked corners but I stay on the flat apron during my warm-up. That was not too bad and as I got up some speed I started to climb up the banks. There is a black line around the oval that defines the track proper. I assumed that if I were to follow this line around once I would travel 333.3m. Great. So I get up to speed, outside the black line and there are more bumps than smooth spots. I was less concerned for my amalgam fillings than I was for my bike to rattle to pieces. I dropped back onto the apron and was thinking about giving it up when I thought, 'what the heck, I'm here so why not tool around on the apron for a bit. After 4 or 5 laps I found my speed getting up, I found a relatively flat orbit that included some of the bank. The upshoot being, I thought I might as well give it a 15 minute trial.
It was a fairly warm, calm, humid morning. After 15 minutes my computer tallied 10.9km for an average speed of 43.6km/hr. Pretty good, I thought as I looked around for that smart aleck pedestrian and rubbed my neck.
I must admit that I don't think I could maintain that pace for an hour but after a short break that included my ration of water I set out again. I decided on a slightly less aggressive pace and finished with 10.8km in 15:07 which I think is just slightly under 43km/hr.
The attendant told me that she knew of no standing track records but recalled a group ride of 150 laps taking an hour and 20 minutes. That's37.5 km/hr so comparatively I'm pleased with this showing.
JG

 

[Jim Gerwing]

New Personal Best

40.7km in 56:10 for an average speed of 43.5km/hr.
A) I was out this morning and missed the 43km/hr mark by 4 seconds.
B) tonight the weather was close to perfect with a slight push on the return leg.
C) my splits were 22k outbound in 30:03 for an average speed of 43.9km/hr and
18.7 inbound in 26:07 for an average speed of 43.0km/hr
D) my inbound leg should have been faster but I had to stop once to put my chain back on (!) remember, by my clocking, if I stop, the clock stops so the penalty is deceleration and acceleration time, not fix it time.
E) my inbound leg was shorter because I hit my nemesis light (but I anticipate this possibility by making my outbound leg longer.
F) I'm reporting this but I'd really like a clean run to 'own it'.
G) I carried on to my original starting point and still made +43km/hr. That light really gets in my way.
H) besides the perfect weather, the newest addition to my equipment is the covering on my front wheel, the effects of which are noticeable.
Feeling good,
JG

 

[marshall2389]

show a pic of your front

show a pic of your front wheel cover!

 

[Jim Gerwing]

He owns it!

44km in 60:36 for an average speed of 43.6km/hr.
Outbound leg: 22 km in 30:12, avg speed 43.7
Inbound leg: 22 km in 30:24, avg speed 43.4
had to slow down but not stop for traffic light each way.
Inbound leg had the day's wind behind me but didn't help.
Hoorah!
JG

 

[Jim Gerwing]

Pushing The Limit

A new personal best.
44.3km/hr average speed
Outbound leg 19.5km in 25:21 for an average speed of 46.2km/hr
Inbound leg 19.5km in 27:25 for an average speed of 42.7km/hr
I started timing at the last set of lights heading out so that became my finish line inbound.
Unlike most of my time trials this summer, I had the day's wind behind me on the outbound leg which was less of a factor coming back. I'm also using the straight arm, hood grip more often suggested by the likes of John and Eric (and thanks, Eric, I angled the hoods out a bit so that my thumb nails don't scrape my outer thighs.
If anyone reading this saw my Facebook front fairing, I took it off and I'm working on an improved version. Everything needs an improved version but that is going to be a winter project.
For now, Yeehaw!
JG

 

[Kenneth Jessett]

Jim, do you have a plan to

Jim, do you have a plan to step up your distance riding, maybe some of the 12 and 24 hour events?

 

[John Tolhurst]

I'm interested in a

I'm interested in a comparison ride without the aero dressing ... to get a fix on how much its doing.

 

[Jim Gerwing]

Two questions, Two answers

I don't foresee myself doing many rides much past an hour and a half. A metric and an imperial century could be possible but that's not in this year's or even next year's plan. My goal is to do a one hour time trial type ride without any 'governing body' dictating arbitrary limitations. (I will listen to reason but I don't always follow it.)
As for John's question, before the season is over, I plan to take all the aero extras off and have a few goes. I was on a site that features a power formula. It indicated that I would require about 290 watts to produce a speed of 44km/hr on a Vendetta type recumbent. Last winter (if you can believe a public gym stationary recumbent type bike's metrics) I could sustain about 230 watts.
So in the ball park of 25% improvement(?). We'll see. There are a lot of factors to take into account.
JG

 

[Eric Winn]

Jim, here is one of the few

Jim, here is one of the few rides I completed on my Vendetta with my power meter before I got clobbered. I was starting to experiment with trying to keep my speed up without spiking my power too much on hills.

You can hover your mouse over the graph at the bottom and move left to right to see my progress (or hit the play button in the bottom right)

If you ever get a power meter I'd like to see what your data looks like.

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/1484929

Metric

• Max Watts: 769
• Avg. Watts: 170 (160 with 0s)
• Normalized Power 190
• Work 810 kJ
• Max Speed: 56.6 kph
• Avg. Speed: 29.4 kph

Imperial

• Max Watts: 769
• Avg. Watts: 170 (160 with 0s)
• Normalized Power 190
• Work 810 kJ
• Max Speed: 35.2 mph
• Avg. Speed: 18.3 mph

-Eric

 

[Jim Gerwing]

iPhone, ridewithGPS, Stages power meter

I'm going to get all the above: iPhone soon, the rest before next riding season begins.
I notice the Imperial summary still reads watts(metric) not horsepower(imperial). I know it's a simple equation but can it be programmed to display both or either?
JG

 

[Eric Winn]

For RWGPS there is just a

For RWGPS there is just a toggle switch that redisplays values one way or the other but doesn't do anything with watts. Maybe because the numbers are "bigger" with watts?

e.g. easier or more comfortable comparing:

• 170 watts to 200 watts

Rather than comparing:

• 0.227973755 horsepower to 0.268204418 horsepower

170 watts = 0.227973755 horsepower
200 watts = 0.268204418 horsepower

I think I would have a harder time trying to hold a particular power level if the display was in horsepower. Or maybe not - but 170 watts sounds more impressive than 0.228 horsepower

-Eric

 

[Charles.Plager]

I think I would have a harder

I think I would have a harder time trying to hold a particular power level if the display was in horsepower. Or maybe not - but 170 watts sounds more impressive than 0.228 horsepower [Laughing out loud]

So now you're a quarter-horse?

 

[Eric Winn]

Neigh Charles, I'm not.  
 

Neigh Charles, I'm not.

 

[Jim Gerwing]

And yet. . .

At your max you're more than a little hoarse.

 

[Eric Winn]

Here is what horsing around

Here is what horsing around cyclists is all about:

Someone recently posted this on BROL and it just seemed appropo at this point..

-Eric