Cruzbike Time Trial Challenge 2020

[Rich]

I can't seem to get Strava to work on my phone any more. I went out for my TT on Saturday and this is what my phone recorded on Strava:

So it seems I rode off road through the woods and across the pond at 31 miles an hour (I wish!). This was the third time Strava has messed up my ride while recording on my phone. I was so feed up, that I stopped on my way home and picked up a Wahoo Bolt. Rode my TT again on Sunday with both my phone and the Bolt recording. Again, my phone screwed up the ride! Fortunately, the Bolt came through and I was able to upload my ride to Strava. Not a PR, but close enough.

 

[LarryOz]

Just about perfect conditions out there for me today - new PB too! Only 4 secs off of my all time best on my Magic- I am actually surprised I was able to ride as hard as I did - as I road a pretty hard Century on Saturday and thought I might have had more fatigue! Still sweaty humid here at 97% - I did hit my yearly high HR avg at 174 and yearly high at 188 , so I have not pushed this hard all year.

 

[GetBent]

This was the third time Strava has messed up my ride while recording on my phone.

I feel your pain. With me, the opposite. My Bolt screwed up, and my phone saved me.

 

[Veinbuster]

Cruzbike TT Challenge week 20

This might not be my official run.

I didn’t feel great about it as I dressed for 3C, mostly because I wasn’t sure how much of my energy would go to keeping warm. That would be fine in a normal TT because it would impact everyone, but I’m just competing against my own past weeks.

I had the pace I needed outbound in very light wind, but my power was running about 15 watts high. That didn’t seem logical to me. At around 15km I got a school bus stop. This was the first of my TTs school has been in. That slow stretch was too late in my run to really have a shot at making up the time. I finished out the TT anyway to see how the metrics shaped up versus last week.

Average heart rate: up 12 bpm
Average power: up 13 watts
Time: down 33 seconds

The doesn’t really add up to me

 

[Bill Wightman]

I am actually surprised I was able to ride as hard as I did - as I road a pretty hard Century on Saturday and thought I might have had more fatigue!

As always, you are inspirational. Twice recently I have gone out and been stopped by a light rain. There is nothing more scary to me than to go over oblique wet train tracks at 27+ mph, so I don't even try. I think it is very mild trauma memories because my first injury on a bike was a hard fall on angled tracks a long time ago. Will go back out tonight and hope it is dry. Next years segment has no tracks or car crossings but maybe some wild animals. Speaking of, I am seeing more and more Coy wolfs in our neighborhood. They look like little gray short hair dogs and have an attitude of "this is still my land" even though there are now roads and houses where it was once wild. I think they are hunting tree squirrels and little pets.

 

[Rob Lloyd]

t maybe some wild animals. Speaking of, I am seeing more and more Coy wolfs in our neighborhood. They look like little gray short hair dogs and have an attitude of "this is still my land" even though there are now roads and houses where it was once wild. I think they are hunting tree squirrels and little pets.

Just last night I caught a fox in my (car) headlights - he had a gray squirrel in his mouth, crossing the street...

 

[Rob Lloyd]

I can't seem to get Strava to work on my phone any more. I went out for my TT on Saturday and this is what my phone recorded on Strava:
View attachment 10077
So it seems I rode off road through the woods and across the pond at 31 miles an hour (I wish!). This was the third time Strava has messed up my ride while recording on my phone. I was so feed up, that I stopped on my way home and picked up a Wahoo Bolt. Rode my TT again on Sunday with both my phone and the Bolt recording. Again, my phone screwed up the ride! Fortunately, the Bolt came through and I was able to upload my ride to Strava. Not a PR, but close enough.

IPhone GPS is terrible for bike riding. I found this article as to why - Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » The Scourge (or Beauty) of ?Snap To Road? with iPhone Location-Tracking Apps

Apple does it. Seems like a bug from the above article...

FWIW, here's the GPS trace of my ride around the Kenosha velodrome, recorded with Strava on my iPhone. as you can see, the trace sucks. It couldn't even match up a single full lap of the track. Not every course I ride looks like this, but this track is especially bad. Other riders using Garmin's had no such issue (so it's not just a bad location for GPS reception).

Due to the reason above, the iPhone GPS kept trying to 'snap' me to the nearby road(s). I gave up and bought a real GPS; a Lezyne Super GPS. I never have issues like this with it. In fact, the only issue I’ve even had was losing connection to the iPhone during a ride.

 

[McWheels]

I have enormously enjoyed this year's virtual TT season. It's actually been longer than my cricket season, which tells a story in its own right. However my time (and energy) must be spent elsewhere for now. An abrupt end for me, but well done to the regulars and I love to see how it draws so many people into a community when we needed it.

And of course the inestimable Larry. A giant among men - stout fellow!

 

[benphyr]

...the inestimable Larry. A giant among men - stout fellow!

There’s the inscription for Larry’s medallion. And it is bang on - right on the money.

 

[Brad R]

I rode my first TT since week 14 yesterday. The conditions were good and I was able to keep my heart rate up at the same level as my PB.

I was faster than Week 14 by 24 seconds and slower than my best by 74 seconds. By the time I got done, my chain was making “Lube me” noises.

How much speed did I lose to a chain in need of lube?

I guess I will have to try again next week to see if I can get closer to my PB.

 

[Frito Bandito]

Nice going Brad. Hope you can get at least 75 seconds cut off your PB in week 15.
As for the chain loss, it is hard to say. I guess if the squealing was louder than 22.7dB then you probably lost out on a PB

FastFitnessTips on youtube did a very comprehensive study on power train losses by lube type and brands. I don't have the link to the video right now, but I did save a screen shot of the relevant data, which shows that the top performers are waxes. However, for those of us who don't want to buy several chains to wax in a batch and just cycle them off the bike as they need redoing, who dont have the space for all the tools needed to degrease, wax and reclean chains, or who don't want to bother will all of the steps for those last few watts, and here is the warning...

Using WD40 on a chain requires about 3.2watts more power than the very best wax.

Let the flogging begin hahaha

 

[nobrakes]

Post it on BROL and take cover....

I’m a WD40 user. That already makes me suitable to be burned at the stake.

 

[trplay]

A recent study by MIT (Males in TuTu's) found no amount of wax, special boxes on the back of bikes, nor candy bars disguised as energy bars could provide more power output to the bloke on the sofa than achieved by a dedicated dehydrated old man or an enthusiastic young lad willing to hammer it out with a regular riding program, any program. In fact, one test totally encapsulated a $15K road bike in a 238.5 pound block of wax with molecular graphite added to improve its slickness and this saw no improvements. The testers were caught off guard as this test resulted in an absolute gain of zero improvements to the couch sitter.

We are indeed living in weird times as the juggernaut cycling country of United Arab Emirates wins the Worlds biggest cycling event in the world while the 400 million-plus U.S.of A can't even supply one world-class rider capable of competing for the General Classification spot. USA Cycling is crying foul as they suspect the UAE national training facility is bigger than our own Colorada facility. Surely this is it. Colorado Springs needs to build a bigger building and add more couches.

Would you like a wattage boost? Join us in the TTT, you'll get a wattage boost.

 

[Frito Bandito]

...

Would you like a wattage boost? Join us in the TTT, you'll get a wattage boost.

How about if I coat myself in WD40? If that doesn't make me faster then at least I'll smell pretty.
I just got my "New to me" V20 and it is my first recumbent. But once I get my wheels under me I'll be joining some of the challenges here with you guys. I've got a nice 40km bike path with only 1 traffic light that I've been pounding for the last 3 years or so on my TT bike so I'm eager to take it out and smash all of my Strava PBs and retake some of my lost KOMs.

 

[trplay]

How about if I coat myself in WD40?

I have no doubt you can do a study that proves spraying yourself with wd40 will improve your aero. But beware if you do a study you'll cause 100's of trikers looking like wet lizards to go bombing uncontrollably down the MUP's.

 

[ElyDave]

A recent study by MIT (Males in TuTu's) found no amount of wax, special boxes on the back of bikes, nor candy bars disguised as energy bars could provide more power output to the bloke on the sofa than achieved by a dedicated dehydrated old man or an enthusiastic young lad willing to hammer it out with a regular riding program, any program. In fact, one test totally encapsulated a $15K road bike in a 238.5 pound block of wax with molecular graphite added to improve its slickness and this saw no improvements. The testers were caught off guard as this test resulted in an absolute gain of zero improvements to the couch sitter.

We are indeed living in weird times as the juggernaut cycling country of United Arab Emirates wins the Worlds biggest cycling event in the world while the 400 million-plus U.S.of A can't even supply one world-class rider capable of competing for the General Classification spot. USA Cycling is crying foul as they suspect the UAE national training facility is bigger than our own Colorada facility. Surely this is it. Colorado Springs needs to build a bigger building and add more couches.

Would you like a wattage boost? Join us in the TTT, you'll get a wattage boost.

I thought it was Slovenia won the TDF, and the KOM, and the youngest rider.

I thought UAE just wrote the cheque (check for those in the colonies)

This week for me, my time trial was more Roglic that Pogacar, with a strong gusty E-NE wind, the worst direction for my course. I was on par with last week's PB at the turn just before halfway, the next 4km was where i cna usually gain, but was horribly crosswind and it was just falling apart from there and I ended up 3:30 down on last week despite average HR only 3bpm different.

I need to find a loop course next year - the main influence on a PB or not PB week has been the weather this year, though I can see on the PB weeks where the effort has gone in. A loop course would make wind direction neutral.

 

[trplay]

Nope, Team Emirates won and they are Hq'ed in the well known cycling country of the UAE. I do wonder if an actual UAE citizen has ever ridden a bike? Now if you really want to put it under the microscope its really weird that a city in Australia can produce more World-class GC candidates then the entirety of the US. And yes move over to Slovenia and you can find high schools with more candidates in them than our entire country. Heck, Slovenia doesn't even have to pick a cyclist to wax our best cyclists. They can simply use their used up a ski jumpers. Now, where do I place my head to save two more watts?

 

[Bill Wightman]

I’m a WD40 user. That already makes me suitable to be burned at the stake.

I vote for plain paraffin. I clean the chain several times in an ultrasonic hot soapy bath, rinse, bake out at 170 degF, and leave in a small crock pot overnight in wax. I reapply when I start hearing the slightest mechanical sounds or squeaks from the chain which is running about 2000 miles or about six months. No hassles after you get the cleaning and waxing done, just ride. I keep my bike in the house which eliminates garage dirt and hot salty humidity. Chain has been on my bike since I bought it in late 2018 and replaced the SRAM chain so it is good for chain life.

 

[ElyDave]

Nope, Team Emirates won and they are Hq'ed in the well known cycling country of the UAE. I do wonder if an actual UAE citizen has ever ridden a bike? Now if you really want to put it under the microscope its really weird that a city in Australia can produce more World-class GC candidates then the entirety of the US. And yes move over to Slovenia and you can find high schools with more candidates in them than our entire country. Heck, Slovenia doesn't even have to pick a cyclist to wax our best cyclists. They can simply use their used up a ski jumpers. Now, where do I place my head to save two more watts?

Actually team Movistar won the team competition.

 

[trplay]

tsk tsk, that is a fact. LOL, What's your point. The team Emirates rider won the GC, this is on the pathetic capabilities of an America GC contender. Stay on point, make a new thread, don't try and twist mine.