Marginal Gains

  “A little change here….

  ….. and there and you can go a fraction of a per cent faster. But if you improve lots of little things, it adds up to a tangible figure, a serious improvement. That’s my philosophy.”

  No, no, not Dave Brailsford, but me in an interview for the UEA campus newspaper in September 1995!

  I’ve always raced on a budget, especially when I was a skint student at UEA. Racing with homemade stuff and turning up to chilly races wearing a pair of your mum’s old black tights etc etc.  For two years running the UEA Cycling Club won more medals at the BUSA’s than any other club and so I was lucky enough to get a couple of bursaries from UEA to upgrade some of my dodgy equipment.  Even so, I still made the dosh go a loooong way.

  Not quite that skint these days but I’m still thrifty and aim to get the biggest bang for my buck.  I’ll never be good enough to be able to justify putting a £5000 TT bike together, in fact I’ve begrudged spending any money on kit since my comeback because I just haven’t had the health & fitness to get the best from it.

  However, the old ‘engine’ is sorted now and I’ve learned from my mistakes in overtraining last winter, so I’m looking forward to some quick rides in 2013. So, perhaps time now to start looking at those ‘marginal gains’ once again?

Bodyweight

  It’s virtually impossible to state someone’s ideal racing weight off the top of your head. Painfully stick thin obviously isn’t good, neither is being four stone overweight.  Words of wisdom I heard from sports scientist were, “Look back and find out at which weight you went the best and aim for that. That’s your optimum racing weight!”

  Simple really. Too skinny gets your CdA right down but you will lose power. Too fat whacks your CdA up substantially. I used to go well at just a smidge under 11 stone but that seems scarily lean for a 43 year old! I’ll aim for 11 ½ initially and see how scary I look!

CdA

  Apart from reducing my profile by shedding the lard, I can do a lot better on my position. I had all sorts of issues trying to lever the power from my puny body and had to compromise things a lot but I can probably go more aero now. I especially want to pull my elbows much closer together and round my shoulders more.  This shot shows that my elbows & upper arms are well outside the line of my legs & knees. That can’t be good.

  I've also seen some research describing the drag reducing effect of filling in the pointy bit at the back of your aero head fairing. Mine is currently open but I will close it in with some spare polystyrene sheet left over from the DIY disc wheel!

Bike

  The same shot above also shows all the cables etc flapping in the breeze. Again, because I was so bloody slow and forever tweaking the position of the bars, I just left the cables as they were. They will be much tidier from now on. Also the cheapy round base bar is being switched for an aero section one.

  Fairly happy with the frame – again, unless I’m getting up into the 50kmh regime, I don’t think spending £1000’s is worth it. I do like those cheap carbon Chinese TT frames though, in fact I’ve heard lots of nice things about them. If I get a spare £400, I may treat myself…

Wheels and tyres

  I still love my Spinergy Rev X wheels – I don’t care what people say, even after all these years they are still up there as one of the most aero wheels ever made. I’ve still got a 1990 something RTTC handbook with a picture of Richard Prebble on the front riding to National TT titles on a pair!  I’m not prepared to fork out a grand for a rear disc wheel – my homemade one is 90% as good as a top spec bought one, although I’m lightening it & modifying it substantially for 2013 (so I can use it in the rain without worrying about the glue dissolving!!)

  Tyres are a different matter however.

  I used to be in charge of a project recycling vehicle tyres and so am very aware as to how the design affects the performance & durability (Ever tried dismantling a 747 tyre without resorting to nuclear fission? Forget it!). Anyway, because I’ve not been going very well, I’ve just shod the TT bike in whatever comes to hand cheap on Ebay. Not any more!  This is quite a good piece of independent research showing the rolling resistances of most 700c tyres out there.

  To my great surprise, the tyre on the front wheel of my bike comes out at #8 on the list – result! However, the tyres on the rear Rev X and the disc are waaaay down the bottom, bloody crap in fact.  So replace those with something with much better performance, plus latex tubes and that’s a good handful of watts saved.

Tada!

  So, there are my proposed ‘marginal gains’ for 2013.  I have hardly spent a thing but there are a good handful of watts saved.

  I reckon about £4 per watt saved in fact.

 Bargain!