Distance calculation for 700C wheels

This morning I decided to compare the circumference based on calculation versus actual. For the workout app I'm writing I used the standard equation 2 x pi x r. For pi, I'm using 3.1416. 2 x radius is the diameter, so I add 622 + (2 x tire height).

In the case of my giant running gatorskin hardshell 25mm, that comes out to 622 + 50 = 172mm. When I plug the numbers into the equation, I get 2111mm for the circumference. When I measure the actual circumference using the rolling technique, I get 2140mm. That means a delta of 29mm. In percent terms, the calculated circumference is off by 1.4%.

Zwift Beta

Hurray, I got invited to Zwift beta. All of my bike sensors are dual protocol, so I'm "almost" ready to go. I ordered a ANT+ usb for my PC. As soon as it arrives, I'm gonna give it a try.

Castelli baselayer

I've been thinking about getting Castelli base layer for a while now and finally got one.  Bike tires direct had them on sale for black friday, so I got one.

castelli-mens-flanders-long-sleeve-baselayer

I've been gradually replacing my Pearl Izumi bike gear with Castellie stuff as things go on sale at BTD. I honestly didn't think the fit of Castellie base layer would be drastically different, but the honest truth is, it's much better fit. The first different is the collar of Castellie is higher than PI transfer baselayer. It's not a turtleneck. It's kind of like a mock/short turtleneck collar. The end result is it keeps makes me feel warmer.

The thing I like most over PI is the fit. Castelli has more compression, which fakes my body into feeling warmer. The second thing I like is the small has shorter sleeves than PI small, so I don't have a bunch of fabric bunched up above my wrist. I'm a short stumpy guy with short arms, so little things like this are quite nice.

Specialized Evade

A month back I bought myself a new helmet for a couple of reasons. The first one is my old helmet was starting to really stink. Even though I replace the pads once a year and try to rinse it out every week, I sweat like a giant hog in a swamp. There's only so much sweat the helmet can take. I'm a very salty sweater, so that makes it even worse. At the end of Covac and Kings Tour of the Quabbin double metric, my jersey and pants are caked in salt. Here is a picture of both helmets. The evade is the first one and the Giro is the second one.

To be totally blunt, I didn't buy the evade for the aero features. I bought it for the looks. Of all the helmets at bike alley, the evade looked the best. Since I was shopping during Tax Free Holiday, I figure might as well get a good helmet this time.

I bought the Giro Eclipse helmet in 2011 from Nashbar for $40.00, so it was a great bargain. For comparison, the Evade cost over $200.00. Now that I've used it for over a month, I'm very happy with the purchase. The thing that surprised me the most isn't the aero features or the look. It's the vents and how much cooler I feel on a hot day.

At 15mph, I can feel the air rush over my head. At faster speeds my head feels cool, instead of like an oven or steamer. I know it's suppose to be designed for aero and save time/watts over 40K, but not overheating is by far the greatest benefit. Feel cooler lets me relax more during rides and lets me focus on riding. I'm not wishing for cooler weather or trying keep the sweat out of my eyes so I can see.

This isn't scientific, but I believe a couple of things contribute to the better cooling and less "sweat in my eyes". The first is the vent design results in much faster flow, which helps evaporate the profuse sweat pouring from my head. The second is the type of padding used isn't as spongy. The Giro pads quickly get soaked with sweat, which ends up pouring down my face and into my eyes. Third is the retention system seems to keep the helmet off my head, which gives air more room to flow. The end result is even when I'm going FTP and sweating up a river, sweat isn't pouring down my face. It's more like a couple of drops every 5-10 minutes versus a constant stream of sweat. I know it sounds gross and nasty, but there's no nice way to say it. I sweat ALOT and have very salty sweat. Back in high school I ran cross country. At the end of a 15mile run, my arms and legs had a layer of salt.

Back to the helmet. The evade is an excellent helmet for those who sweat profusely. It's clear the designers at Specialized took their time to make sure venting worked well. Even if you don't sweat like a hog, it looks great and will save you some watts.

Polar H7 HRM

I know Polar is one of the most popular brands of heart rate monitor out there, but my experience so far is the reliability sucks. I say this out of frustration. Over the last 3 years, I've bought 2 H7 and 2 replacement soft straps.

The thing is, they work fine for the first 10 months, and then go dead. The first one I had started not emitting a BTLE signal, so I sent it to Polar support. I had to pay for the shipping. The first time they spent 3 weeks on it due to the holiday and then mailed it back. That worked for roughly 3 weeks before it started to act up. In good faith I bought a second unit and sent the first unit back for service. Polar replaced the old unit with a new one, which was nice.

The second unit I bought started having issues after 5 months. At first I thought it was the sensor unit, but turns out it was the soft strap. I figured this out by testing the sensor with different straps. Rather than wait another 3 weeks, I went ahead and bought a replacement strap. Two more months went by and the new sensor unit started having issues. The behavior was the same as the first H7 I bought, the sensor stopped sending a signal. I sent the second unit in for service and again it took 2-3 weeks.

Polar didn't replace it, but they did get it working again. 4 months later the replacement unit Polar sent me died and stopped sending a signal. I tested it with new and old soft straps, no luck. This week, the second H7 died.

At this point, I've lost faith in Polar H7 and Polar products in general. I can understand some defect rate with hardware, but all three units died. Based on my experience, that's a 100% failure rate. I use my HRM almost every day and I do sweat alot. The thing is, these issues are fixable with proper design and QA. Earlier this year I got wahoo tickr to replace the first polar H7 that died.

Now that the second H7 died, I'm going to get another tickr instead. The other thing that sucks with Polar is their customer service. First thing is I paid 75.00 for each H7 HRM. Why do I have to pay to ship it to them for service? The right thing is to pay for the shipping. The second thing is the turn around time. It's never taken less than 3 weeks for polar to "service" the sensor.

In contrast, when my Wahoo speed/cadence unit died, they still sent me a replacement when it was beyond the warranty. They didn't have to, but they did. I got the replacement in 2 days and I was back in business. Another example of good service. When my stages power meter battery cover broke, stages sent me replacement covers. Both Wahoo and Stages provide excellent customer service.

Polar is a much bigger company, so they probably forgot what it means to provide good service.

Power numbers on Reservoir street climb

Last nite I went and did the Monday Night Ride. Once we got on reservoir, george and I took off. I was for 7:50 on the segment, but I didn't go all out. I pulled for most of it and felt good. I ended up just shy by 3 seconds, which I could have done if I sprinted the last 200 meters. Looking at my times for this year, the power output seems to be in the same range.

The fastest time is from earlier this year on MNR with a couple of guys taking turns pulling. We also had a nice tail wind, which made a big difference. From what the data shows, times faster than 8:30 is consistently over 200 watts for the segment. According to Strava, my best 8:00 min avg power is 266. Last nite's effort was 261 avg for 7:53.

I know the goal is attainable, so it's just a matter of training and a proper warmup.

Looking at Watts and Weighted Avg Power

Now that I've ridden my regular lunch route a couple of times, I decided to look at my data. Here is a chart with the average watts, weighted avg power (WAP) watts, elapsed time in seconds and elapsed time in hr:min:ss.

	avg watts	WAP watts	time secs	hr:min:ss
5/21/2014	180	198	3722	1:02:22
5/20/2014	174	192	3877	1:04:37
5/12/2014	189	216	3650	1:00:50
5/5/2014	183	214	3793	1:03:13
4/11/2014	188	214	3687	1:01:27
4/10/2014	194	214	3703	1:01:43
4/8/2014	182	204	3795	1:03:15
4/6/2014	174	200	3946	1:05:46

So far my fastest time is 1:00:50 for an average of 189 watts or a WAP of 216. According to cyclemeter the wind that day was 10mph WSW. The day with the highest avg watts was 194, WAP of 214 and wind of 22mph SW.

If I compare the time for tuesday and wednesday of this week, there's roughly a 2min difference. The wind on tuesday was 22 mph NW, and wed was 5 mph E. The thing that interests me is the relationship between watts and time. Alot of bike manufacturers throw around numbers claiming their new aero bike saves blah watts and gives you a blah second advantage.

In reality, riding in the real world things are constantly changing, so "watt saving" doesn't translate to actual seconds faster. The only sure fire gaurantee for going faster is getting fit, loosing weight and proper training. The data I have so far doesn't prove anything, but it is interesting to see how power varies. As I get more data for my lunch route, I can do more analysis to see the correlation between time and power.

Wheels and Wheels

Between the 2 road bikes I own, I have 4 sets of wheels. The first sets are for my Specialized Dolce. It came with stock bontrager wheels, which were heavy and didn't roll very well. When I changed my cassette to 11-28, I got shimano R500 wheels for it. Between those two wheels, the R500 are definitely lighter and roll better. I don't remember the exact price I paid, but it was around 300-320.

When I bought my giant avail, it came with stock giant wheels. With in the 6 months, I broke 1 spoke and it had to be trued twice. Last year, my in-laws gave me Mavic Aksium wheels for my birthday. The wheels cost 329.00 with shipping it was 350.00. Before I got the mavic, I didn't feel comfortable going faster than 50mph. Above 45mph the stock bontrager and giant wheels didn't feel solid on turns. As a result, I often got dropped on long descents on group rides.

There's a couple of things I like about the Mavic wheels. The first is they're bomb proof! I haven't had to true them at all. I've hit plenty of bad potholes and they handled them quite well. With the other three wheels, it would go out of true. The second thing is the lower rolling resistance. The third is the bladed spokes for extra aerodynamics. The forth is they're much lighter than the other three wheels.

If I had to compare the giant wheels to Mavic, I would say the giant wheel set is like a beat up old Pinto. It works and it's cheap, but it requires more maintenance and it's slow. The mavic aksium is like a Honda Civic. It's reliable, affordable, well built and well designed. It's not an exotic like Ferrari or McClaren with lots of carbon fiber. I can't justify spending over 800 on a set of wheels, so high end carbon aero wheels just aren't in my immediate future.

The bottom line for me is Mavic wheels are bomb proof and a great value.

Comparing Polar H7 vs Wahoo Tickr

Recently I bought a Wahoo Tickr heart rate monitor to replace the Polar H7 that died on me. I actually own 2 Polar H7 HRM, but I haven't had much luck in terms reliability. The first one I bought worked for about 10 months, then it started to malfunction. The symptoms were no bluetooth signal. I sent it in to get it serviced, which took about 2.5 weeks. I decided to order a new Polar H7 before I sent in the old one for service. That first unit ended up malfunctioning again after 2 weeks, so I sent it back again. The second time, Polar gave me a replacement, which seemed to work. A month after that, the soft strap started not working. I figured this out when I tested each sensor with both old and new straps. Once I realized the strap was bad, I ordered a new one and threw the bad one away.

Another 2 months after that, the second H7 started to go bad, so I sent that in for service. Even after getting it back, it still didn't work. I gave up and decided Polar's HRM isn't reliable over time. It works fine for the first 6-10 months, but soon after that it fails. Since I had great service from Wahoo for my speed/cadence sensor, I thought I'd give Wahoo Tickr a try. There's a couple of things I like about Tickr. The first is the 2 lights on the front that tell you the batter is good and sending bluetooth signal. The second is the strap is different than Polar soft strap. With the polar soft strap, the electrodes are bonded to the elastic strap, which over time gets stressed and worn out. In 16 months I've killed 2 polar soft straps. The wahoo strap has a different design, which I "feel" could improve reliability. The electrodes on the Wahoo strap are bonded to a material that doesn't stretch, which means the likelihood of it getting damaged is less likely. In terms of comfort, it feels about the same as the Polar soft strap. The second thing I like about Wahoo strap is it's easier to buckle compared to the Polar soft strap. A third benefit is the Tickr supports both ANT+ and bluetooth. When new firmware is available, you download it to the sensor. Polar H7 doesn't do that.

So far the Tickr hasn't had any issues. Only time will tell if Tickr will last longer than Polar H7. One thing is clear though, Wahoo's customer service is better right now.

Power meter

Over the holiday I decided to get myself a power meter. I spent many months researching power meters and read about Stages back in Feb 2013. Early in the season I upgraded the FSA crank to Shimano 105. The change is noticeable. The FSA crank isn't nearly as stiff as hollowtech crank and also it's heavier. Part of my reason for changing cranks is that Stages didn't support FSA cranks at the time. Fast forward to December. I pulled the trigger and ordered it. In late Jan I got the crank and installed it.

Now that I've been using it for a few weeks I'm quite happy with it. The installation was a breeze. I spent more time cleaning and oiling my bottom bracket than installing the left crank arm. I've noticed a few things about my power output the last few weeks.

The first one is correlation between cadence and power. My natural cadence is around 100 rpm. When I tried to follow sufferfest ISLAGIATT cadence, the power output was lower and more erratic. I've known that I prefer spinning to mashing, but it was great to see real data. At 100-105 cadence, my power varies .4watts, which is decent.

Overall, I've quite happy with the stages power meter.

Sufferfest

The last last few weeks, the weather has been cold and I've been on the trainer. The thing is, I used to hate the trainer. By that I mean this. I counted every minute and wished I was done. I tried watching daily show, colbert report, bones, top gear and a bunch of other stuff, but the most I could do was 25 minutes. Every minute felt like torture.

Since I have Strava premiun, I decided to give sufferfest a try. Two friends suggested. The first one I tried was rubber gloves. I had no clue what kind of suffering it would dish out and to my surprise, I managed to finish the whole thing. When I got done, I shocked myself by hitting a max heart rate of 194. Prior to this, my max heart rate with HRM was around 185. At the YMCA, I've gone over 190, but I thought it had a large margin of error. Life cycles and spin cycle HRM aren't that accurate.

After rubber gloves I tried fight club and revolver. Both of them are geared towards sprinters, so I don't really like them. Last week I decided to get rubber gloves due to poor streaming quality from Strava. The next day I also purchased the long scream and ISLAGIATT.

Watching sufferfest videos, I'm getting a better workout and have done several hour long sessions the last 2 weeks. I don't love the trainer yet, but I no longer hate it. That in itself says a lot about sufferfest videos.

Mavic wheels

Now that I've been riding the Mavic Aksium wheels since March, I can report they are faster. I've gone down the same hills enough times to know at speed they give me an extra 2-3mph. When group rides go down route 62 from princeton center, I no longer get dropped. Instead, I'm right there with the group. Usually I have the wheel inflated to 100-110. When the wheels are under inflated, I notice the crappy roads less. On smooth roads, the Mavic are faster than the stock Giant wheels that came with the bike.

Is Mavic Aksium wheels a good value? I would say yes. Given what I paid at Nashbar and the miles I've logged so far, they've been great. A couple of times I hit a pot hole pretty hard and the wheel didn't go out of true like the Giant wheels. The stock tires that came with it are junk though, but I don't mind that. Once the tires were slightly worn, I replaced them with Gatorskin Hardshell 25. I like the extra air that 25 provides. Oddly, I feel the 25 are faster than 23 tires. The first 1000 miles were on the stock mavic tires and they got 2 flats. If the roads were in better condition, it probably wouldn't matter as much.

Overall, I'm very happy with the Mavic wheels and how they've performed.

Mashers and Spinners

Tour de france is into the third week. One thing I noticed is Jens is a total masher. Every time they show Jens in the break away, I can tell who is Jens. His masher cadence is so distinctive. Compare that to Contador and Froome, their cadence is so smooth it's hard to tell who is who by cadence alone.

Thomas voeckler also has a distinctive cadence. Though some might not really consider it cadence. Voeckler never really looks smoothe or effortless like Contador or Froome. His style is erratic and looks awkward.

Nutrition and Riding

Lately I've been thinking about diet, nutrition and the impact on performance. One personal pet peeve is this whole chocolate milk commercial non-sense. The chocolate milk isn't better than plain milk as a recovery drink. I'm not going to bother providing links, since there's too many of them. Before Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution fought to ban chocolate and strawberry flavored milk, there weren't many commercials for chocolate milk. Chocolate drinks like Yoohoo and others had plenty of commercials. It used to be milk commercials showed the familiar white milk mustache.

I don't buy the whole argument that if it wasn't for chocolate milk, American children wouldn't get enough calcium or minerals in their diet. Most of China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam don't drink regular milk. Do their kids have issues with nutrition due to a lack of milk? Nope, they don't.

I think milk is great, even if I am lactose intolerant. I use Lactaid in my coffee every morning. My kids drink milk and love it. Nutrition for me is about finding the right balance of healthy fresh foods. Not eating processed frozen junk with a ton of chemicals. I find that when I eat a balanced healthy diet, my performance on the bike is much better.

In the mornings I eat some carbs, coffee with Lactaid and fruit. Lunch time it's usually leftovers from the night before, which is rice, veggies and some meat. Night time is usually rice/noodles with stir-fry and meat. Every now and then I splurge. Usually once a year I'll go nuts on a bag of Doritos, since they are wicked evil good. Yes, the ride after the Doritos-fest I ride like the Titanic. If I wasn't so lazy, I would show the nutritional information for plain versus chocolate milk, but that's too much work.

Funny video

I happen to come across this video about Dave mathews getting picked up by a fan.

dave mathew hitches a ride

I happen to notice dave mathews is riding a specialized s works. Can't tell which model, but the SWorks is prominant.

Thoughts on polar blue HRM

Now that I've used the Polar Blue HRM for several months, here's a couple of observations. Compared to my old Sigma HRM, which uses 2032 battery, the Polar blue doesn't last as long. Both 2032 and 2025 are 3 volt batteries, but 2032 lasts longer. Here's the specs for each battery.

Lithium 2032
3V
220mAh

Lithium 2025
3V
150mAh

What does that mean in practical terms? Assuming you use the HRM every day for 1 hour, 2025 will last roughly 2-2.5 months. My sigma HRM with 2032 last for about 4 months on 1 battery. Last year I rode about 5800 miles and needed to change the battery on the sigma HRM once. Basically 2 batteries from March - November.

At the current rate, I will need about 4 batteries with the Polar blue HRM.

Thanks to Salt Stick caps

I had a great time on Saturday riding Mount Greylock Century. For the first 50 miles, the temperatures were in the low 70's/high 60's. When I reached the bottom of East Holly road, my hamstrings started to cramp. Immediately I went into survival mode and went slow. Up to that point, I was doing great and got PR's on the two big climbs.

At the top of East Hawley rest stop, I quickly ate 4 Salt Stick caps. I also drank 2 bottles of water. 30 minutes later, the cramps were gone and I recovered enough to push through to the end. I'm so glad I bought salt stick caps and brought some on the ride. If I hadn't it would have been harder to finish the ride, given there's 11K+ feet of climbing.

I bought them from Run outlet

Why I ride

Today the sky is grey and the ground is wet. Earlier this morning, it was pouring and the water was flowing down the hill like a stream. I felt a sense of dread mixed with a slight bit of hope. The weather report could be totally wrong and I might be able to get a ride in.

Some people have asked me why I ride and why I like big climbs. The honest truth is I am addicted to riding. It helps clear my head each day, gets my heart pumping and forces me outside. Every day I ride, I feel the adrenaline coursing through my body. Before I started riding, my weight was around 185lbs. I had no energy, felt slow and had a tough time dealing with stress.

When allergy season started, I felt miserable. My eyes itched and my nose was running. Using flonase made it bearable, but it didn't wasn't fixing the problem. After I dropped 20 lbs and improved my health, I didn't need flonase any more. Since 2010 I've been off flonase after being on it for about 3 years.

Riding has done a lot for me. Emotionally, spiritually and physically I feel better. Why I ride? The real question for me is "why doesn't everyone ride?"

Making progress

Yesterday I did the Wednesday nite ride at the Old Stone Church in West boylston. Usually I don't get to ride on wednesday nites, but when I do it's fun. Compared to the first time I did the ride, I've definitely improved and gotten stronger. The first time, we took Laurel street to holden, up Elmwood to Ball Hill, then to princeton center. My memory of that first ride was "holy shit these guys are fast." On the first climb up Elmwood and jefferson rd, I got dropped. Luckily they slowed down a bit, but not quite enough for me to recover. By the time I got to brook station road, they were long gone. There was a 2 other people near me. I tried my best to grind up Ball Hill road, but there was no chance of me catching them.

The next time I did the WNR, I did better and managed to hang on until the top of ball hill road. Fast forward 2 years and things are different. For the first half of the ride, I can just hang on the climbs. I'm still at the back of the group, but I'm ok with that. Compared to 2011, my avg mph up the climbs are 2-3mph faster. On a good day, I can hold the wheel in front of me.

Without a doubt I've gotten stronger, but the fast guys are even faster now. That's a good thing and gives me motivation. The downside is that my training sucks. I have no rhyme or reason to how I train. I don't have a plan or schedule laid out. Every day I look forward to my ride and just ride. I'm too happy to be riding to think about how I should be training. The thing, I'm ok with that. I ride for health and fun. For me, it's not about racing or killing myself. The act of spinning up a steep hill makes me happy. I don't know how much more progress I can make without getting serious about training, but I don't really care. At the end of the day, I'm just happy to be healthy and energetic. I hope to keep it up and live to 100. My ultimate goal is to ride a century when I am 100. I want to live long enough to see my great grandchildren. If I'm lucky and live healthy, maybe I'll live long enough to see my great great grandchildren.

Skratch Labs exercise hydration - holy pineapple batman

I am a creature of habit. 3 days a week I ride the same exact lunch route. When I go to a restaurant, I always order the same thing. When I get coffee, I get the same thing. I've been using Skratch Labs since last year. Up until last week, I always used the same lemon/lime flavor. Why change flavor when I know what I like.

My son in contrast loves to try new things and new flavors. Back in March I got a few free samples of other flavors with my usual order of lemon/lime. My son tried it and like it, so I bought a box of variety packs. Last week I ran out of lemon/lime and was heading out for a long ride. What do I do? Rather than get dehydrated on a long ride, I decided to try the pineapple and orange.

To my surprise the pineapple kicks ass! If someone asked me "what flavor do you want on a long hard ride?" Pineapple wouldn't be in the top 10. Now that's changed. The pineapple is refreshing, light and a joy to drink. The first taste of pineapple was on a flat going about 25mph. Instead of the usual "Blech, what is this fruity garbage from gatoraid?" I felt refreshed. Before there was Skratch, I used to use Gatoraid lemon/lime. When I was in my teens, the sickly sweet Gatoraid flavors were fine. After my teens, Gatoraid is just too sweet and hard to swallow. Last year my kids got me a 8 pack of orange Gatoraid. Seriously, that is some haneous stuff. When it's super cold right out of the freezer like a slushy, it's ok. In any other form, it's just too darn sweet. Enough bashing Gatoraid.

Skratch guys thank you for an awesome product. You've changed my hydration routine and made me a believer in great taste. Now, when I run out of lemon/lime my first thought isn't "doh! I forgot to place an order." I look forward to trying the other flavors. I'm still a creature of habit and lemon/lime will still be the flavor I drink 80% of the time. The other 20% is a nice change of pace.