Tag Archives: cycling

New bike stuff for this season

On Wednesday evening (from 11 PM to 2 AM… – the latter was not part of the plan…) I finally put on the new Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheels I bought a couple of months ago, along with a new chain (I started the whole night session with destroying a chain tool, by the way…), fresh brake pads, and I also cleaned the bike for ‘her’ annual portrait picture.

When comparing it with the photo from last year, you can see that now (already since my holidays in France last year) I have a nicer white bar-tape (matching the saddle), new wheels (the front one of the Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL aero wheels from last year was broken in an accident, and I decided to go with a different type/style this year), and I will also very soon have a pair of sexy carbon pedals, but those are not yet on. Thanks to the weight reduction of the new wheel set (the aero wheels were a total of 1740 g, these are 1550 g – and here there is no need for rim tape, as the inner wall is not drilled through, so the difference is even bigger than that), the total weight of the bike (with the to be installed carbon pedals) is now ~7.95 kg :) By the way the wheels are great, they roll like a dream, smooth and noise-free (when you stop pedalling and just roll, there is no clicking noise coming from the hub, it is amazing), feel very responsive and rigid, so it is a very easily noticeable difference when compared to the default wheel set (Mavic Aksium, 1735 g). Of course these are not too aero (they are as aero as a house…), but for climbing on the Canary Islands, Mallorca, or the Alps, they will be much better suited.

Last week I also bough a helmet cam (Contour ROAM) to be able to record our upcoming adventures on Mallorca in high definition, and now that I have already given it a test ride last weekend with Tijl (whom you can see a lot on the video itself), I can say that we will have loads of fun with it :)

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March

Ok, so besides getting my second paper accepted, I also had an extremely successful month on the road bike: 1420 km, 46h 40m, 5550 m elevation gain, 37500 kcal burned, with an average of 30.4 km/h, 158 bpm, and 91 rpm. My best month so far. Yeah!

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February

Let me give a quick summary of my February. I have been sleeping, training, working and eating (plus watching TV series, usually during eating or training). And this covers probably 99% of my activities. My second first-author paper is basically accepted (I got only minor comments from the referee, and the report was very positive), and I worked some days on another topic for Steven’s paper, which also got accepted in the meantime. In general, I was very motivated this month.

You can see my training log for February above. 1188 km, 38.5 hours, 27500 Calories. For a winter month, this is kind of amazing for me. I had a training every day, except for Mondays, which are my highly anticipated and appreciated rest days now (with an extra day of rest on Thursdays, if needed). The goal (and challenge) is to keep up with this throughout the cycling season (and maybe raise the mileage as the days get longer and the temperatures rise), with let’s say a minimum of 250 km per week (and a maximum of whatever I can manage). Of course this is tiring (but in a satisfying way), but as a positive side effect, I have no problems anymore with going to sleep before midnight, which means I can finally get up at 8, and be at work at 9. (In practice, I have replaced a lot of useless internet surfing time with the extra trainings :D) This means that as soon as we switch to summer time (which is now less than a month away), I can have my two hour outside rides still after work, in a much more convenient way (because now it is not so easy to arrange outside rides during the week – for the indoor trainer, it does not matter if it’s already dark outside). Of course I already feel the benefits of the extra training, for example I felt much stronger during the last Velodrome session (staying with the fastest group all the time, even jumping into some sprints with other guys), and yesterday when I went on a training ride with the KU Leuven team, I could follow the first guys on the climbs, and it was me who had to say to two of the other guys after the last climb, that we have to wait a bit, as we had lost the other half of the group… I do not want to be a champion or anything (the other guys do triathlon and/or real cycling races – I was the only one who was not riding in a team outfit -, so they asked me if I was also racing, and they were a bit surprised to hear a negative answer), because cycling is “only a hobby” for me (and because I have started too late for that), but I want to be able to keep up with the best non-professionals, and I want to enjoy group rides, and I definitely do not want to be dropped… I want to feel strong on the bike, this is my main motivation. And a good training can give me a satisfying feeling every day, while it is much harder to get the same feeling after a day of work.

27, and some minor thoughts

There is no problem with 27. I prefer odd numbers anyway, so this should be better that 26 :) And until my average speed on the racing bike (on a one hour time trial effort on a flat course) – in kilometres per hour – is above my age – in terrestrial years – there should be no problem. So I do not have any problems with my age yet. This is good.

My motivation levels are still high, so work is good, cycling is good. I have trained more than twice as much this January than during the same period last year (bit more than 500 km and 17 hours)! In 2010, only May was a better month than January, 2012. Unluckily my indoor trainer broke down, so I had to send it in for repair, and thus I was forced to go and ride outside in much lower temperatures than I am used to. But a new wind-stopper base layer (making it a total of two layers on my legs, and four layers on my upper body) solved the problem, and I managed to stay warm and comfortable even in 0°C. And since then the temperature only got lower, seriously lower, so I have to be very grateful to Tijl, who let me use his old trainer as a backup while mine is gone. And I have to place the weather forecast here, because now it is freezing since last Monday. And as you can see, positive temperatures are off the chart…

Wednesday was already so cold, that I had to wear knee warmers and the upper base layer while cycling to work… Everything is frozen. Luckily it is sunny, so at least it looks nice, so with some good music (and I mean the new Lana del Rey album here) it is easy to fell good about the situation. On one hand I miss the snow (and now I see that Hungary will get loads of it on the weekend), because winter should be snowy, but on the other hand I really don’t mind that I don’t have to clean my bike every evening after riding home from work…

For my birthday – although I do not need occasions to validate a purchase – I had already bought a new lens (Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L IS USM) and a pair of cycling shoes (SIDI Genius 5.5 Carbon Composite, white), but I will not stop here. I am just about to order a new wheel set for my racing bike… To be honest, I do not need anything else (what can be bought). Oh, and we have booked our flight to Mallorca and also the “villa” where we will stay for a week in May (it will be a great week of – finally not lonely – cycling). This year started well, and I have a feeling that it will turn out to be a very nice year. I hope :)

Update (from a day later): we have got the snow too. A bit more than forecasted, something like 5-7 cm… (Image source: NASA/GSFC, Rapid Response) The ice age is real…

Conconi test

Performance tests are important parts of training. Knowing the Anaerobic Threshold (AT) or – as others tend to call it – the Lactate Threshold (LT) is very important, as training below, at, or above this intensity has very different effects and requirements. (Plus it is used to set heart rate training zones, so it is also used in my workout analyzer script, and I can estimate power from heart rate based on the threshold value.) Also, AT can change a lot with training, so it is a good measure of fitness. The principle behind the Conconi test is that there is a linear relation between heart rate and intensity below threshold, where the slope of this linear changes (and beyond this point, the relation might not even be linear anymore). So when heart rate and intensity is plotted against each other, there should be a deviation point, which marks the threshold level. The test is a relatively easy test to perform and retesting is easy, and the good thing is that you don’t need an expensive power meter, only a midrange indoor trainer, which is capable of directly measuring and setting (via changing the resistance) the intensity. How to do the test? Do a proper (but not too intensive) warm-up, then set a low power level, and maintain a steady pace for three minutes. Then every three minutes, increase the wattage level with 30 Watts until you can not hold it for three minutes anymore. (Then you will be completely KO, but try to spin a couple of minutes to cool down, and try to avoid falling off the trainer – because that is what you will want to do if you really did a maximum effort.) Then calculate the average heart rates for the last minute of every three minute interval, and plot them against the corresponding intensity values. You will get something like this (ok, maybe not as fancy as this, but you get the point…):

This is my test data from this month. The larger circles correspond to the last one minute, and just for comparison, I also plotted the averages from the first two minutes with small markers (which should be a bit lower normally). First of all, it is clear, that at very low intensities, a small change in riding position or breathing rhythm can influence the heart rate significantly, so there the linear relation will not be perfect. But from 170 W on, it is a textbook example (look at the large circles, and the solid lines), the deflection happens at 300 W and a heart rate of 184 BPM (so this is my AT), while I finished the test after three minutes at 360 W and with an average heart rate of 196 BMP in the last minute. From the raw data, my absolute maximum heart rate was 197 BPM (and I think I would say that my threshold is more likely to be 181-183 BPM). These are all quite good values for a 26 year old PhD student, who also bikes occasionally ;D

By the way, this month I have not been training that much, because first the weather was crappy after (and while) riding on the F1 track, then I had Mariann visiting me on the 2nd weekend (which was really nice, even though now I have been to Brugge more than my Belgian friends…), then the weather was crap again, then I got sick (just a cold), and as it is the end of the season I had no real motivation anymore. (Luckily my work related motivation is rising lately!) I hope this sickness will be gone by the weekend, because the weather will be nice, and I really need a good ride now…