my aerobars

Aerobars are about done. 14.5cm outside to outside. About $80 in parts and labor

AOD modified

Going a different direction with the bars:

 

Will miter the tubes myself and have a local welder put it all together for me. 

Bending my own bars

I'm going to be bending my own "base bars" this week. It will be a cross between an aero or die (AOD) setup and a Scott 100k.  The Scott 100k are 11 inches wide outside to outside. Mine will be about 8 inches outer to outer. Extensions will be 6 inches apart inside - inside.

As you can see from the above, the tube will be placed on the left side of the "jig" and then wrapped around the center block. This will create the U shaped basebar. The tubing I'm using is 25.4" outer diameter with 22.2 internal diameter-----aero extensions will slide into it.

P4: the bike is almost done.

Went for a ride two days ago on the bike trail, and it was awesome and fast. Felt really sleek and slippery. I've never ridden such a fast bike in such a low position before.

Just need to finish the headtube area, perfecting the Bondo and paint it.

Just got a set of cheap road wheels ($71 shipped) that I'll put a disc cover onto. That rear wheel will also have a latex tube and low rolling resistance tire. It'll be a special race only wheel.

Ramping

Last few months I've done no working out. Last week I ran 16 miles, this week I'll have run about 24 miles. Next week I'm starting the Hal Higdon Advanced 10k training plan which is 8 weeks long----perfect for the Great Race.

My body feels beat up, but not as much as I thought it would. Sure, my pace isnt awesome, but need that base of mileage first. I'm confident that I'll be able to complete Hal's program and that when I do, I'll be a pretty speedy guy. Respectable at least.

Optimism is a good thing, and I'm trying to hit a 6:20 Eppies pace. I wont be with the leaders if I do that, but if they run 6 flat, I'll be about a minute back. That's not bad. If I can be a freaking motor on the bike AND catch a good draft, perhaps I can catch them on the ride?

Hard to believe I'm doing this.

Eppies 2006 data

Just looking through some old screenshots I had and found my GPS and Heart Rate data from 2006:

Run: 38:41, distance = 5.59 mi, pace = 6:55 min/mile, avg HR = 183bpm
T1: 2:05
Bike: 30:04, 23.8mph, 176 bpm
T2: 1:24, 180 bpm
Kayak: 41:20, 163 bpm

Interesting information there:

• The run is not actually 5.82 (I hit stopwatch at the Guy West Bridge)
• Bike is not actually 12.5 miles but 11.91 as I was probably cutting the corners and taken the shortest route
• T1 was longer than T2

If I could do:

• Run: 6:20 miles = 35:24
• Bike: 26mph = 27:30
• Kayak: 41 mins
• Transitions: take 15 seconds off: 3:14

Total: 1:47:08

This is based on 2006 data, so if we take the winning time of Don Hicks in 1:45:16 I will be just under 2 minutes back.

Maybe I can do this: the Great Race

Looked back on my training log from 2005: I ran San Diego Rock n Roll marathon 6/5/2005, then began training a week later for the great race. i.e. 6/11/2005.

That gave me about 5-6 weeks of training time and I won my division as was third overall Ironman.

I'm thinking I can do that again?!

Just DU it

Since I'm going to be back in California, specifically Herald area, thinking of doing the Just DU it race put on TBF multisport.

Back in 2005, I won overall in a time of 1:20.54

Can I beat that time?

Fast TT bikes

Question: What do all of these bikes have in common? 
Answer: They were all designed to produce minimal amounts of drag. In part, this was done by relocating the brake under the bottom bracket where it is out of cleaner air and down low. While I havent seen any data that this is actually faster, its hard to argue with some of the fastest TT bikes ever built.

 Trek Speed Concept

Cervelo P4

Felt DA

Zipp 2001

Specialized Transition

Specialized Shiv

Ridley

Hooker

Bowerman and race shoes

Bill Bowerman basically invented jogging and running shoes. He went on to co-found Blue Ribbon Sports, which was later changed to Nike.

I'm hoping to conjure up some Bowerman magic and do some cobbling on the racing spikes I recently bought. 

Specifically, I'm going to remove the sole, then the spike plate and then resole with a pair of Vibram soles I just bought on eBay for $12.

The goal is to create a very lightweight racing shoe, have some tinkering fun and save a little cash.

Rear Aero Wheel Weight

Spinergy Rev X rear 1018 grams (Xtra lite version), 1135g, 1140g
Renn Disc 575 1272g
Hed Jet Disk 1250g
Zipp Sub 9 disk 1003g
__________________________________
CH aero cover  ~ 400g

Racing Flats part two

Got the Saucony racing flats today. They are light! My training shoes weigh 902 grams and the racing flats 461 grams. For a difference of 441 grams which is 15.6 ounces which is almost a pound!

The rule of thumb is that a racing flat is 1-2 seconds per ounce per mile.

So conservatively @ 1 second faster per ounce per mile:

15.5 oz * 1 sec * 5 mi = 75 seconds

@ 2 seconds per ounce per mile:

15.5 oz * 2 sec * 5 mi = 150 seconds

So anywhere on the order of a minute to 2 minutes faster over the distance of the race faster, that is significant. They fit pretty snug (my toe hits the end) but they are supposed to be more snug. We'll see.

Bike Fit again

Just in case it wasnt totally obvious how different my two positions are, I overlaid them in Photoshop:

Bike fit: before and after

The top pic is from March 2006 and basically the position I rode at the 2006 Great Race when I got third in the Ironman division.

The bottom pic was taken just now. Notice how much lower and more aero. Also, my Cervelo is about a thousand times more aero than the Cannondale from 2006. Exciting.

Fork part 4: done

Finished the fork this week. Realized I spent about 20 hours working on this, which is a lot, but it was worth it. I think it looks great, there are some small imperfections, but you have to be within 6 inches to see them.

Blade dimensions are: 14.2mm wide and 80mm deep.

I had been tossing this idea around in my head for a bit, but then it was confirmed as a possibility when I read this post from Mr. John Cobb.

I had been tracking fork blade width and depths to try and see what already exists and came up with this table:

I couldnt get the width of my Cervelo Chord fork down into the range of the Lotus or Time Bandit (~10mm), so I made it a little deeper. But stayed within the depth Cobb suggested. If I started with a Jetstream could get it to be 8:1 ratio!!

Anyway, enough talk, here she is:

Racing Flats

Just picked up these track spikes that I'm going to try and use as a racing flat.

This guy has a local cobbler put new soles on track spikes with some good luck. But, I'm hoping I dont need to do that because the full sole on these look to be rubber and the spike holes seem to be sunk deep enough down.

For $22 shipped, not a bad price to try this out. Also, the heel appears to be narrow enough to fit easily into the footbeds of my Huki.

No more dust

I've been using cheap disposable masks to protect myself from dust lately while sanding the bondo on the fork.

But I just bought this for $8 shipped. Hopefully, less crud gets into my lungs.

Fork part 3

The base wood has been glued on, I applied the Bondo Glass filler and have gotten the outside of the fork blades to be very smooth. Its looking really good.

Now I just need to apply more body filler to the insides of the fork blades.

 

 

 

Fork Add on pt2

This is what I'm thinking for the fork addition:

• sand down fork (to roughen and possibly thin fork blades down past the Cervelo decals)
• glue on base wood strip (wood strip wont be as deep as the final depth of the fork)
• fill in bondo glass to create airfoil
• sand bondo and smooth
• fill in any surface imperfections with bondo body filler
• primer
• final coat of satin black
• satin clear coat

Fork Add on

Here's a before and after of what I'm thinking of doing to my fork. Adding 34mm (1.33 inches) to the back of my stock Cervelo fork to increase the depth.

Edit: the fork started out as 544 grams.

Rear Headtube Fairing Pt 2

 
Just made some changes to the rear headtube fairing: made the trailing edge sharp and smoothed out the surface as well. Bondo is cool. Though I will attach with gray tape instead of white.

Also, repainted to match the frame. I might be making another version that wraps around the headtube as well. But we'll see.

Front Aero Brake

Just installed my Tektro front aero brake. For the price ($20) this was a very good purchase and while it wont be as fast as a Hooker brake, it'll be a lot better than a standard brake. This was technically a rear brake, so I had to replace the short bolt with something longer. Fortunately, this wasnt too big of a deal.

Also, I'm hoping to fabricate some sort of carbon fairing to cover the whole unit.

Rear Head tube fairing

So I made the rear head tube fairing, and I think it came out pretty decent. I still want to sand and finish it so it looks prettier. But check out the cabling, very aero!