Bicycle racing for almost anyone

Well I hadn't seen this before.. it's a 'spring frame', where the top and down tubes are bent into large springs to provide comfort on rough roads. Or so went the theory.



You can find the story (and the bike) at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum.

Labels: bikes, Edworthy, spring frame

First it was Mavic's Zap in the late 80's, later renamed Mektronic (or something similar - anyone actually use one??). Looked good but faded away... now Campag and Shimano are having a go. Batteries are smaller and lighter, for starters, and that's a big plus. Potentially smoother and maybe even lighter, the main object of course is to do away with those nasty wires that do a great job but aren't cool in the 21st Century... we gotta go wireless, haven't we? Yes?

Pez has a story and Pics here.

Labels: bikes, electronic gears

You will get the hang of what you need, bike-wise, by looking around and comparing. Feel some bikes, pick them up, sit on as many as you can, do some test rides, and, if you are lucky, buy one that fits you. Then ride it and get that immediate urge to change a few things. For which my advice is, don’t be rash. If you haven’t had a lot of experience on a lightweight high performance bike before it will feel odd. Flighty. Maybe uncomfortable. Too quick in the steering. Too…uncompromising? Just strange. You may not think so after a few hundred kilometres in the saddle, however.

I won’t attempt to give you bike set-up advice beyond my own experience, so here are some measurements that have worked for me - and probably won't work so well for you.

I’m about 169cm tall, and for riders around that height I’d suggest frame sizes between 53 and 55cm (ie pretty small but not the smallest!). Remember, smaller frames are lighter and stiffer, but if too small will compromise balance and comfort. And you will risk damage to components as well as yourself!

Handlebars, for frames between 51 and 55cm should be about 38 or 39cm wide, but shouldn’t cramp you or spread your arms too widely. Shoulders vary in width, but generally speaking arms should comfortably fall onto the drops without any serious effort. You shouldn’t feel ‘splayed’ when you tuck down into the drops of the handlebars.

Your own dimensions are vital, but I lean towards stem extensions of about 9 or 10cm. You used to be able to buy goosenecks that allowed variation, and some modern examples exist, but are less common. Stem length alters your weight distribution more than you'd imagine - a long stem puts you further forward and you'll get a decided feeling of flopping around when out of the saddle. Be warned, it can feel off-putting!

Cranks are usually about 170cm, however you may prefer the leverage of a longer crank, especially for road racing or timetrialling. Riders taller than myself tend towards longer cranks, and lengths from 172.5 up to 180cm are options; but you will find that you lose the suppleness of your spin and may tend towards grovelling in a big gear. Nothing worse, really.

Shorter cranks are suited to track bikes and criteriums, where touching a pedal on the banking or in a corner is not a good idea. I was once racing on a street circuit where we were sharing the road with the local Sunday morning traffic. I broke away from the bunch up a short, short rise and put a bit of distance into them. So when I arrived at the next left-turn I was alone, without the benefit of a big, highly visible bunch. Ahead of me was a car about to turn right across my path.

Many times have I been in this situation – will that car give way, or won’t it? Well, it did, but not before I was distracted enough to turn into the corner a bit late, sharpening the bend. I was riding my road bike, a Colnago, rather than my regular criterium bike and I completely forgot about the longer cranks and lower bottom bracket.

In an instant, at bottom dead centre of the left-hand crank rotation, my pedal struck the road and levered my rear wheel into the air. The bike went up and sideways in one motion, before settling. I didn’t come off but I lost time getting my balance back and found myself heading for the median strip. Rather than turn harder to the left and try to miss it, I went over it, or tried to, anyway.

When I landed I was flat on my back, the bike was up the road and I had (luckily) somersaulted a post and a small bush, to end up facing from whence I had come. The bike was in one piece, just a few scratches and nothing broken. No damage to the rider, just stunned embarrassment

Labels: angles, bike racing, bikeracing 101, bikes, frames

If you want to push the point, in a nutshell you will be looking for a comfortable, easy-handling bike for road racing and a quick-handling, higher-clearance machine for criteriums. A blend of the two is a nice compromise, and how you arrive at that compromise will be trial and error – unless you instinctively know that you want an unstable, flighty, jumpy road rocket and will settle for nothing less. (I personally have never had more than 3 road bikes, all different in character, at any one time.)

Bikes, character? In some respects bikes are bikes – 2 wheels, cranks, chain, pedals, saddle et al. However there are the wanky-looking carbon single piece frames, the conventional triangled tube effect and many variations in between. But that’s not really character, as I see it. It may be style, it may be substance… but not character!

Character is the way the bike handles, how it jumps, how it leans into a corner… Some bikes are built short and high in the bottom bracket, with steep frame angles to give you ‘jump’ out of corners, lifting the front wheel like a 500cc racing motorcycle; which is nice, if a little nervous. You don’t want that all of the time. You find yourself leaning forward, pushing that front wheel down (and thereby encouraging that back wheel to lift!). Sounds like a good criterium (‘crit’) bike to me!

Other, less steep frame angles give a more relaxed approach, where things happen slower and you can take your hands off the bars, get that energy bar out of your back pocket, change out of that rainjacket and write a note home to mum without finding yourself falling road-wards. Now that’s a road bike – it won’t embarrass you at a feeding station or when stopping at the cafe.

Even when you have the frame angles the way you want them, you can still tweak the bike by changing seat height, stem length and height, crank length, gearing… you name it. It will all have an effect of some sort, it’s just a matter of what effect you want.

Get some help, and do be careful, won’t you? You won’t get your bike set up right without proper assistance. Even after seeking such help, you may prefer to do your own thing. It’s a free country.(Depending upon which country you are in when you read this, of course.)

Firstly, whatever you do, get plenty of opinions, and be prepared to try different ideas. I know one 70 year old who is still adjusting his position after over 50 years of racing!

Secondly, when making changes, make only small adjustments, and each one in isolation, to give your body some time to adjust to that new position. By making big changes and then doing a long training ride I managed to injure my knees and put myself off the road for a few weeks. It's a painful lesson. Don't be tempted.

Labels: bike racing, bikeracing 101, bikes

It's self evident that you need a bicycle. The question is, which one? The red ones are quicker, by the way.

There are 5 main forms of bike racing in Australia, if not most of the world, namely BMX, Mountain Bike, Road, Criterium and Track racing. There’s a sixth that I know of: you can also play football (read soccer) on a specially designed fixed wheel bike, but getting a team together may be difficult in this country! And believe it or not there is also artistic gymnastic cycling, but let's not go there right now!

As you can tell by the title of this essay, we are dealing with road, criterium and track here.

Road racing usually means, ahem, riding on a road, as against riding on a track. These races are out and back or point to point. So you are either going somewhere or nowhere or back to where you started. If you string several consecutive races together and add up overall times you get a stage race.

Distances vary according to grade, but road races are usually longer than a criterium, and sharp corners are the exception. So comfort matters more than outright handling, unless you have some technical high-speed mountain descents to consider. Hills are to be expected, so you need to be trained for some climbing and have the gearing to suit the course. Usually you will have 53 and 39 teeth chainrings, although variations like 50/34 and 52/42 are common as well. At the rear you may have an 11 or 12 tooth sprocket as your "big" gear (ie hard to push but goes furthest with every pedal stroke), and a ‘granny gear’ of 21-23 teeth (ie easy to push but you don't go far with every stroke) to get you home after being dropped on a climb. Plus all the other sizes in between. Expect to race 30 to 60km for most club-level races, 40 to 100km for open competitions. However you may race up to 230km in a big classic one-day race like the Grafton to Inverell.

Road handicaps and timetrial events are also held, with specialized timetrial bikes an option.

Criteriums can be held on roads or closed tracks (not velodromes) and are typically shorter and faster than road races. Hills are unlikely but possible, corners are to be expected and excellent bike handling is needed. The bike will not be as comfortable but will handle with aplomb; the bottom bracket may be higher than for a true road bike and the cranks shorter, so that pedaling through a corner is possible. Gearing will be like a standard road bike, except that you won’t need a granny gear. 18 or 19 teeth are all you need at the back.

Track or Velodrome racing involves a specialized bike: just one fixed gear (ie no freewheeling) and no brakes. Gearing from 46 to 53 teeth on the chainring, 14 to 16 teeth on the rear sprockets. A variety of events take place, from scratch races to handicaps, timetrials to pursuits. The racing is usually in the evening under lights and the tracks are short and banked, with the steepest banking reserved for the shortest tracks. These races are very fast and exceptional bike skills are needed.

Three bikes, then? Although not ideal, you can usually get away with the same bike for both road and criterium racing, but track racing requires a suitable, fixed wheel, ‘look mum, no-brakes’ bike. If you haven't got a clue, stop now and start looking in bike shops, reading magazines and asking around. Join a club, start learning. Get carried away…

Labels: bike racing, bikeracing 101, bikes

Bike racing - the type of wheeled sport where your body represents the engine - is just like running, swimming, golfing, sleeping, fishing or any other activity. In fact it’s just like anything in life. Put the time and effort in and you’ll get better at it. It’s a simple equation, really, limited as much - or perhaps more - by your own motivation or commitment than by any theoretical potential you may or may not possess. If you are looking for easy fitness and a sport that won’t take up a lot of your time, stop now - it doesn’t exist. But don't let that put you off, either. The degree to which you invest your time and effort will pay dividends, no matter how small that investment. It's finding your personal balance that's important.

Multiple Australian and World Point Score medalist Gary Sutton was once reported to have replied to the question, "What’s the secret to success in bike racing?", with the statement: "Ride lots." Of course the greatest cyclist of all time, Eddy Merckx, reputedly said exactly the same. Perhaps Eddy was quoting Gary.

In any case it's a simplistic statement, sure, but not a bad thought either!

In the modern lingo of sports science "ride lots" equates with training specificity. But we won't get too scientific about it here. Instead let's keep it simple. By riding "lots" we adapt our bodies and our minds to what we want to do: ride. And the more highly adapted to "riding" the better at it we get. Of course someone may adapt even better than you (Lance Armstrong or Eddy Merckx spring to mind, amongst many others) but you can only do your best, so let's not get down about it.

And don’t put it off, thinking that you won’t do well, or that you don’t have the time. This is a multi-level, multi-discipline sport with a niche for everyone. You won’t know if you don’t try. Maybe you are a Lance Armstrong waiting to happen.

Labels: bike racing, bikeracing 101, bikes, training

Silly I know but behind every pic there's a story... like how I came to buy a Colnago Mexico and how the stem ended up on a Hopkins frame... or why I bought a Felt F50... and the odd angles saddles can achieve if you go to a bit of trouble... gallery here.

Labels: australia, bikes, Colnago, Felt, saddles

My message for the day: if ever you find your saddle pointing slightly off to one side, don't assume that the seatpost is loose and has rotated slightly in the seat tube. It may in fact be about to do something quite a bit more dramatic.

Yes, it was sudden. I had just put my tyre sock on the bike, so I had looked at the offending part. I saw no cracks. I rode just 2kms and went around a big downward curve at 53kmh. After the curve I noticed the saddle was very slightly skewiff. I checked it 3 or 4 times 'on the move' before slowing to round another, sharper curve at about 25kmh. As I rounded it I stood and then accelerated to exit. I was in a mood to keep up the pace today. However when I went to sit on the saddle it simply collapsed. And yes, I managed to fall off and yes, it hurt.

For the record it was a 16 year old 3TTT 25mm post on a Look KG76. I should have kept a closer eye on it, and cleaned it more often, looking for cracks. I knew that aluminium does let go suddenly, and now I can attest that when it splits it does it in a blink, like a knife through butter. High fatigue items with no redundancy (ie single point of failure with no other support) should be on your list of must-checks.

There are more images here, for the curious.

Labels: aluminium, bike racing, bikes, fatigue, seat post

At Christmas I get lazy and start summarising my own writing...

Labels: australia, bike racing, bikes, drugs