Two Wheel Blogs

I'm dragging. Work's been a bear, digging out from the holidays and a week away under the weather. I've been getting up too early and staying up too late this week. And to top it off, I don't think I've quite kicked this thing. it just seems to want to hang on.

Still I couldn't resist hopping on the trainer this afternoon to verify a few things and try out a couple of ideas I got at last night's seminar.

First let me just say, if you ever get a chance to go see John Cobb talk. Take it. This guy is so smart it hurts; but he talks about bicycle aerodynamics in terms so simple anyone can grasp the concepts. I highly recommend it.

What is this, Thursday? Business trips can be so de-stabilizing. It's good to be back home again. Home for the rest of the year, what little of it remains. Now at least I can get back to something like normal. It's hard to believe how out of it you can get in only 3 days on the road.

Maybe it's hydration. As much as I try to stay hydrated when I travel, I still think I don't get enough water. It's hard to gage though; and the last thing I want is to flood myself so much I have to excuse myself from business meetings too often.

I have seen this done before and often wondered why in the heck someone would do this to a saddle...and here I am doing it.

First of all, there is a very good reason for doing it. Second of all, not everyone should rush out and do it.

I have enjoyed the feel and performance of a fine leather saddle for some time now. Recently I acquired this new Brooks Swift model which is a bit narrower than the B-17 that I have used in the past. While I like the narrower profile, lighter weight, and generally stiffer shell, I have noticed something in recent weeks.

Many manufacturers of MTB bars on the market will tell you some things in the advertising/website. Often reported are numbers like width (length), rise (length), sweep (angle), and up-sweep (angle).

Without getting into my disdain for up sweep (excessively), I want to discuss the un-reported data a bit.

Let's say you want to try a new handlebar on your bike. You are a performance enthusiast, and you want to try something different, but you don't want to change more than one variable if possible. As a performance guy, you want to change only one thing and see what it does for you...let's say you simply want to change the angle of your wrist by changing the "sweep" of your bars without changing the reach.

Sort of. If I had bothered to turn on the TV for the news last night I would have seen the same forecast I saw sitting here at my PC. The weather guy would have read it right off the teleprompter, "It's going to rain tomorrow. Take prophylactic measures. Right around 3pm you'll see the day turn to crap right before your eyes."

He missed it by about 30 minutes. The gray turned to drizzle and then rain at about 3:30pm.

Me, I was in no mood for it. Still got that funk going on. It's on me like a bad habit. I'll shake it though. Eventually I will.

I eased through about 72 TSS points in a quick hour's work on the trainer tonight. I mixed things up a bit. Played around with saddle position some. I can't seem to quite get the back pain to go away entirely. Comes and goes, you know. Once I find the perfect saddle position...

Check out this new position and TT bike set up! In short order this design will be sweeping the nation. Pros everywhere will adopt the Dual Bar set up. It will create quite a stir and UCI will ultimately outlaw it stating that this is not "traditional" configuration and therefore can not be allowed. I can not really take credit for this, it is a small change from the Danny Noonan signature position first debuted in 1980.

This is what I had to do today to take some pressure off my wrists, so that I could train. It worked like a dream in that it allowed me MANY additional hand positions, but the more upright position clashes with the nose-down saddle configuration...ho-hum...hopefully this is temporary.

All told, I was able to put in 105 minutes of tempo effort. The elevated heart rate will hopefully aid in my recovery from my stupid little injury. I figure the more blood that flushes past the site, the faster the bruise will dissipate.