Unionvale 35+

This is a fun race, with a bit of turning, a bunch of hills, good organization, and best of all, close to NYC. The finishing climb averages 7.3%. It's 682 feet of elevation over 1.78 miles from the roundabout to the finish line. It starts out steep, but I was able to pick up some speed on the second half.

Elevation and route link for the last climb.
Map for the course not including the finishing hill.
[Click elevation profile to view the hills.]

Finished with the leaders at the base of the climb, then rode up at my own pace and lost a minute to the eventual winner.

It might have been smart to push the pace on the way to the climb or even try to break away, since nobody was chasing and everyone was just about equally well rested at the bottom of the hill. Or simply push harder at the base of the climb where the decisive split occurred.

15th place, 56 starters.

Floyd Bennett Field - flat course and flat tires

Flatted with 3 to go. Extracted a 1.5 inch long nail from my tire.

The wind was blowing capriciously. It seemed to hit hard on the back stretch where we almost always have a tailwind. Riders were tempting fate, riding close to the bushes, and often ducking to avoid shrubbery in hopes of getting a better draft. It was a perfect opportunity to ride in echelon, but as category 3 and 4 dudes (not european pros), this is unlikely.

Was in a promising break with schmalz, prinsloo, shusaku, and a couple of others. When one of Deno's sprinters bridged up I'm certain he didn't want the break to happen. Meaning this: his pulls were not 'Manly'.

Shusaku and i were pulling hard, some of the others in the break seemed willing to work as long as we were willing too keep at it. I have no clear picture of what happened after I flatted but found out the break got caught 1/2 lap later.

Again from what I heard, Prinsloo who rides for southafrica.net recovered for a bit and then solo'd for 1.5 laps to win it. Nice.

Flats suck. Headwinds are awesome.

Peak power numbers:
5s: 12.6 w/kg
30s: 7.8
5m: 4.1

Category 4 park race report

Today's cat4 park race was a crash-fest, no surprise. We had a big showing and I took smash-mouth Yack's wheel for the last 1/4 lap as he bussed it up to the front. I wasn't entirely confident how long he'd last since I'd heard him say he had nothing left going up the hill on the final lap.

BVF was well organized and their sprinter Alessandro took 1st, again.

Riding relaxed makes a huge difference. Two times I was so close to a crash that I'd say I was in it -- but I didn't hit the ground.

The first was at the bell for the final lap, I actually unclipped and put a foot down as I had to navigate the mess of bikes and limbs. The second time narrowly escaping disaster was less than one minute away from the finish. My sprint consisted of bridging back to the tail end of the leaders group then dredging across the finish line on a BVF wheel.

Finished 13th. Meh. Not crashing, awesome!

Power Numbers
Peak 5s: 13 w/kg
Peak 30: 7.8 w/kg
Entire race: 2.65/kg

Average speed: 25.4

Friday the 13th

It's been a horrible year for flats. I seem to get one every time I put on a new tire.

These are significant flat tires not just random punctures.

In the past 30 days, I ripped a tire on a curb (the curb was hidden under freshly mowed grass), tore the sidewall in some unknown way (on a new prorace3 tire), and just yesterday punctured a new Vittoria tubular over a small shard of glass riding out to a race in Rockleigh.

There was an explosive boom at the parking lot for Jiminy peak. That was when I discovered that Vittoria Corsa CX tires and Bontrager Race X Light wheels aren't compatible. They don't seem to share the same circumference.

Here's hoping that Friday the 13th changes everything.

Handlebars, stems, top tubes, and bike fit

Establishing the correct amount of reach and drop seems to be one of the more challenging aspect of proper bike fit.

For me, not enough reach means nether regions, hands, and fingers might go numb. Too much reach and the bike rides like a torture device for stretching out the back, neck, and shoulders.

I've not yet shelled out three hundred dollars for a professional bike fit, as much as I would like to do so. I have great respect and appreciation for some of the more in depth fit methods like wobble-naught, but for that same amount of money I can buy a lot of parts like stems and maybe a different saddle. Having parts on hand can be useful for experimenting, and I feel that bike fit can sometimes be a dynamic attribute.

Bike fit formulas seem at best an approximation of what works. After trying a number of the formulas I have always required small adjustments to make the fit work for me. I usually (always) carry an allen key when I ride and use it to make small adjustments. As a rule of thumb, adjustments are made in very small increments. The rule is as follows: adjust only 1/2 as much as seems necessary.

It would be easy to go on and on about the finer points of bike fit but there are many others with more knowledge and experience in this aspect of biomechanics than me.

Different handlebars have widely different dimensions. These dimensions are width, drop, and reach. For the most part width remains constant. A 38cm handlebar measures 38cm wide, and a 46cm handlebars measures 46cm wide even though some manufacturers measure from center to center and others measure from outside to outside. Still that's not the meat of the issue.

The meat of this post is that a bar with 4cm longer reach will make the bike feel 4cm longer in the cockpit and consequently should call for a shorter stem for the same feel while riding in the drops. A bar with 4cm more drop will require a few more spacers under the stem, or a different stem angle, etc, etc. This little calculator can help figure out stem length and angle. So if a bike feels like it almost fits, don't give up until trying a different set of handlebars.

Below is a table describing what has and hasn't fit me based on what I've been using. My bikes are
* 54cm Felt TK2. 53.5cm top tube
* 51cm Lemond. 53.2cm top tube
* 49cm Lemond. 51.5cm top virtual tube (too small for me)

Handlebar	Drop	Reach	Sum(TT+Stem+Reach)	Experience
DedaPista	173mm	109mm	734mm-752	Doesn't fit on Felt with 90mm stem or on 51cm Lemond with 110 stem. Too deep.
Nitto 123	170mm	108mm
3T Zepp XL	170mm	100mm	752mm	Feels a bit deep on lemond with 120mm -8 degree stem but is working ok for now.
Nitto 125	150mm	88mm	733mm	Fits pefectly on Felt with 110mm -6 stem and some spacers.
Ritchey WCS Logic	144mm	82mm	734mm	A bit too wide for me (42cm), but felt ok with 120mm -8 stem.
Ritchey Biomax II	130mm	75mm	733mm	Love these bars! Was very comfortable on 49cm Lemond with 140mm -6 stem but geometry and handling felt off. The width is 39 on the hoods and 41 at the drops. But it doesn't have enough drop on 51cm Lemond.

[Highlighted rows had good fit.]

It seems obvious. In addition to measuring the top tube and stem length, the handlebar should also be factored in for proper fit. I should probably try a shorter stem with the Zepp XL handlebars.

This leads me to offer one of my bike up for sale. It's a 49cm Lemond titanium bike. It's one hell of a ride, for a medium/small sized person. I'll accept any reasonable offer. :)