From cyclingnews.com:
The first priority for a training camp, aside from handing out the new equipment, is aquatinting the new riders - whether they be new to the team, or new to professional cycling as a whole.
Now we all make mistakes, especially when writing under pressure, but what exactly is aquatinting? Do all the riders get spray-painted in blue? Does it have a performance-enhancing quality? Is it cooler to ride with an aqua tint? Should it be banned?
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
Tour of California - wrap up
It was pretty good, actually. Levi fought off all challengers, especially Voigt, to win overall. CSC won heaps of stages and lots of Aussies won both stages and intermediates as well. Read the CN coverage here.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Cali Tour 2007 - sprinters on form
A few interesting things to look at after 2 satges of the Tour of California. Firstly the win by Rabobank's Graeme Brown, carrying on from late last season; and JJ Haedo picking up with where he left off as well. Brown had to prove himslef last year in to to stay with Rabo - even McEwen couldn't do that, you'll recall - whereas JJ was looking to move to a bigger team. Which he did. So this win is a payback to CSC for their trust.
It's early season, too, so we shouldn't get too excited, but we have a few Aussies up front and the big sprinters are showing their wheels as well. But not (yet) winning: Hushovd 3rd, Davis 4th.
Otherwise, it's interesting to see Leipheimer in the lead overall and back with his old team, Discovery.
It's early season, too, so we shouldn't get too excited, but we have a few Aussies up front and the big sprinters are showing their wheels as well. But not (yet) winning: Hushovd 3rd, Davis 4th.
Otherwise, it's interesting to see Leipheimer in the lead overall and back with his old team, Discovery.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Some technical stuff about frame design
All of this talk about spooky handling makes me want to discuss rake and angles. I bet you want to too. Sure, you say.
So what is it and what does it matter? Well think of your standard triangular frame. Ditch the wheels, just look at the frame. A steep head or seat angle simply means a larger number - say 72 instead of 71 degrees. If that's hard to imagine just think 'straight up' would be 90 degrees or perpendicular to the road. So a slacker angle is just another way of saying it's a smaller number. So 71 is slacker than 72 or 73, say. And a slack seat tube produces a 'laid back' or comfy bike. Your typical Euro road frame is slack, like a Look, or a LeMond (yeah, yeah, he's a Yank, but he's in the 'comfy' zone of frame design).
But that's not all. Frame designers have to consider trail, caster, center of gravity and wheelbase, amongst many other things. You may like to refer to my automotive handling guide for some more definitions and explanations (cars are just 2 bikes lashed together side-by-side after all).
Anyway, caster is like what you see on shopping trolley wheels - those wheels are even called casters. They clearly point backwards and if by chance they point forwards when you push on the trolley they swing around to point back again. This effect is called self-steering and the effect is called caster. The amount of caster you have is measured as trail. Ahhhh, now that's a bike term.
So if you draw one line down the center of your steerer tube until it intersects the ground and then drop a vertical line from your front hub to the ground, the two lines hit the ground in different places. The difference is measured as the trail, and more trail the greater the caster effect. In other words the greater the self-steering effect and thus the more stable the bike. The opposite applies, of course, in that as you reduce trail the bike becomes progressively less stable and less likely to self-steer. It becomes twitchier, or more responsive if you like. Now zero trail would be a real handful; and if you go beyond that you'd have the bike from hell.
Now a track bike must have great stability, as you don't want it to twitch in the middle of a fast pack of riders during a full-on sprint; and a road bike will want some stability too, but a criterium bike will want more responsiveness. So changing the trail is how you go about altering your bike's handling. By changing the forks (easiest way) or by changing the steerer tube angle.
You get it? Combinations of head angle and fork rake will alter your responsiveness. But wait, there's more. You are the biggest mass on a bike - by far. And where you put your weight matters a lot. If your position is rearwards then your weight will be rearwards, too. Less weight on the front wheel will lighten your steering and make it feel "twitchy" but possibly increase the understeer as well (so you'll feel as though you are drifting wide in corners). You'll find your front wheel lifting off the deck when you sprint, too.
The reverse is true, too. More weight over the front wheel will give you extra bite, so you'll track truer and feel more stable. You can easily test this out by shifting your weight around as you ride, or by altering your position. Raising your center of gravity - by raising the handlebars and/or saddle will also change the relationship between you and the bike and make for increased instability. Bear in mind that a long stem will also give you a spooky 'floppy' feeling when riding out of the saddle... so that's another complication!
All told, it's the combination of all of these factors that make you feel comfortable with a bike. And the longer and more often you ride the more you'll sub-consciously adapt to it by simply adjusting how you move your weight around on the bike. Trouble is that you may adjust yourself into a bad position that robs you of comfort and power. Which leads into the black art of position.
So what is it and what does it matter? Well think of your standard triangular frame. Ditch the wheels, just look at the frame. A steep head or seat angle simply means a larger number - say 72 instead of 71 degrees. If that's hard to imagine just think 'straight up' would be 90 degrees or perpendicular to the road. So a slacker angle is just another way of saying it's a smaller number. So 71 is slacker than 72 or 73, say. And a slack seat tube produces a 'laid back' or comfy bike. Your typical Euro road frame is slack, like a Look, or a LeMond (yeah, yeah, he's a Yank, but he's in the 'comfy' zone of frame design).
But that's not all. Frame designers have to consider trail, caster, center of gravity and wheelbase, amongst many other things. You may like to refer to my automotive handling guide for some more definitions and explanations (cars are just 2 bikes lashed together side-by-side after all).
Anyway, caster is like what you see on shopping trolley wheels - those wheels are even called casters. They clearly point backwards and if by chance they point forwards when you push on the trolley they swing around to point back again. This effect is called self-steering and the effect is called caster. The amount of caster you have is measured as trail. Ahhhh, now that's a bike term.
So if you draw one line down the center of your steerer tube until it intersects the ground and then drop a vertical line from your front hub to the ground, the two lines hit the ground in different places. The difference is measured as the trail, and more trail the greater the caster effect. In other words the greater the self-steering effect and thus the more stable the bike. The opposite applies, of course, in that as you reduce trail the bike becomes progressively less stable and less likely to self-steer. It becomes twitchier, or more responsive if you like. Now zero trail would be a real handful; and if you go beyond that you'd have the bike from hell.
Now a track bike must have great stability, as you don't want it to twitch in the middle of a fast pack of riders during a full-on sprint; and a road bike will want some stability too, but a criterium bike will want more responsiveness. So changing the trail is how you go about altering your bike's handling. By changing the forks (easiest way) or by changing the steerer tube angle.
You get it? Combinations of head angle and fork rake will alter your responsiveness. But wait, there's more. You are the biggest mass on a bike - by far. And where you put your weight matters a lot. If your position is rearwards then your weight will be rearwards, too. Less weight on the front wheel will lighten your steering and make it feel "twitchy" but possibly increase the understeer as well (so you'll feel as though you are drifting wide in corners). You'll find your front wheel lifting off the deck when you sprint, too.
The reverse is true, too. More weight over the front wheel will give you extra bite, so you'll track truer and feel more stable. You can easily test this out by shifting your weight around as you ride, or by altering your position. Raising your center of gravity - by raising the handlebars and/or saddle will also change the relationship between you and the bike and make for increased instability. Bear in mind that a long stem will also give you a spooky 'floppy' feeling when riding out of the saddle... so that's another complication!
All told, it's the combination of all of these factors that make you feel comfortable with a bike. And the longer and more often you ride the more you'll sub-consciously adapt to it by simply adjusting how you move your weight around on the bike. Trouble is that you may adjust yourself into a bad position that robs you of comfort and power. Which leads into the black art of position.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Aussie track titles - Thuaux report
Phil Thuaux is doing well after getting in those miles at the Tour of Siam...
Men 4000m Individual Pursuit - Final
Gold & Silver Medals
1 Phillip Thuaux 4.24.955
2 Zakkari Dempster 4.30.070
Bronze Medal
3 Cameron Meyer 4.29.691
4 Michael Ford 4.30.686
Phil set a PB of 4.23.555 (54.64 km/h) in qualifying.
Men 4000m Individual Pursuit - Final
Gold & Silver Medals
1 Phillip Thuaux 4.24.955
2 Zakkari Dempster 4.30.070
Bronze Medal
3 Cameron Meyer 4.29.691
4 Michael Ford 4.30.686
Phil set a PB of 4.23.555 (54.64 km/h) in qualifying.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Why Floyd was not super human at all
Interesting take here on whether Floyd really needed any super-powers to do what he did on that fateful stage, from the BikeBiz website. Of course it wasn't super-human, plenty of riders before him have successfully broken away from a peleton and gained the types of advantages quoted, what's more important in the Landis situation is his co-incidental drug-test positive on that same stage. I think most people now agree that the alleged drug abuse would not have given him more than just a mental kick, if indeed he knowingly took the drug, which of course he denies. Only Landis, or perhaps some conspirators somewhere, really know the truth. Anyway, here's the quote:
"And on the CycleOps website, Dr Lim has an explanation of why the stage 17 victory by Floyd Landis in the 2006 Tour de France was not "super-human" or fuelled by testosterone but was well within typical power outputs of Landis and had a lot to do with tactical errors from the peleton and the fact Landis could take on board more water than the chasers.
Lim said: "What is very interesting about the [power] data from the climbs is that it shows that Floyd gained much of his time on the field not on the climbs but on the descents. He's well known as the most talented descender in the pro peleton, and he definitely put on a clinic on S17.
'Because of the direct and immediate feedback from the power meter, Floyd came to an immediate and extraordinarily important realization during his ride -- that every time he poured ice cold water on his body, his power output went up.'"
"And on the CycleOps website, Dr Lim has an explanation of why the stage 17 victory by Floyd Landis in the 2006 Tour de France was not "super-human" or fuelled by testosterone but was well within typical power outputs of Landis and had a lot to do with tactical errors from the peleton and the fact Landis could take on board more water than the chasers.
Lim said: "What is very interesting about the [power] data from the climbs is that it shows that Floyd gained much of his time on the field not on the climbs but on the descents. He's well known as the most talented descender in the pro peleton, and he definitely put on a clinic on S17.
'Because of the direct and immediate feedback from the power meter, Floyd came to an immediate and extraordinarily important realization during his ride -- that every time he poured ice cold water on his body, his power output went up.'"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)