Who Dares ?

So, another training video repeated itself, I wanted to take the opportunity to take a look a the data, as I did previously with the ISLAGIATT session.

The Sufferfest: Who Dares from The Sufferfest on Vimeo.

This is the data from April first

This from May 24th

What can we make of this data? How can it be useful to keep a training diary ?

Let me break it down for you. In this session, the same targets, same efforts are required.
What we are now reviewing is what was the metabolic cost for it.

Regarding the session, we can see that on April I was able to do  155/179W average/NP.
Yesterday's session was 158/182W, so basically the same, but a slight improvement.
It is basically due to not cracking so much on recovery period, or just hitting/sustaining the targets better, but still very close. Only a 400 virtual meters difference for almost an hour.

Regarding on the metabolic cost, we can simply look at heart rate,we have an average of 146bpm vs 136 now. This is a massive improvement !!
Max heart rate is similar, so basically the improvement is due to recovering faster, i.e. heart rate dropping faster after the intense stuff.

Training peaks also has some nice metrics, which are "aerobic decoupling" and Efficiency factor.

This are the ones that tell the whole story !!
Efficiency factor jumped from 1,23 to 1.34, and aerobic decoupling from 4% to 2,77% !!

What this means, is that there is an improvement in my aerobic fitness !!!
Which is exactly what I wanted to improve, due to it being my weakness.

In April, some results were already appearing, as the Pw:Hr was under 5%, but now it is almost half of that !

I think I am on the good way to improve my sustained effort weakness !
(Which kind of led me down a path of a dilema, but I am preparing a post just for that later).

Below the description for Aerobic Decoupling and EF.

Aerobic Decoupling (Pw:Hr And Pa:HR) And Efficiency Factor (EF)

Efficiency factor (EF) is the ratio of Normalized Power to heart rate (cycling) or Normalized Graded Pace to heart rate (running) for a given activity.  An increase in this value for steady-state, aerobic endurance intensity rides may indicate an improvement in aerobic fitness.

Aerobic Decoupling compares the Efficiency factor from the first half of an activity to the second half. A smaller change in EF (less than 5%) from the first half to the second half may indicate improving aerobic endurance.

P.S. I normally use "Golden Cheetah for this kind of analysis, but the computer I have it installed is now permanently connected to the trainer/TV, so I take printouts of whatever web based software I find to illustrate the point).

Gravel build - frame bolts

One thing that was bothering my OCD, was the chrome bolts that came with the frame.

The bolts are on the frame luggage mounts. For a rear rack as well as low-rider fork mounts.
(For bikepacking, etc)

The sight of chrome bits shining on a matte black frame, just ... NO.

I considered simply removing, but that would leave holes and the thread exposed to water, mud, dirt, which is also not good.
I measured them, and they are M5x0.8mm bolts, so they can be easily replaced.

Here are the replacement, black button head screws.

As they are just to plug the hole, they can be shorter. When/if installing racks I will just use the bolts that come with the rack.

Total weight weenie saving was 20 grams ( there are 10 of these ) and my OCD is well rested.

 Much better on the fork.

As well as the rear stays.

I used disc rotor bolts, so if I lose one due to vibrations/cobbles, I have plenty of replacements on the bike, which can be useful for multi-day long trips.
They also fit cleats, which is very helpful as loosing a cleat bolt can leave you walking.

Gravel build - BLING

Just to show GOLD chain, because .... BLING.

I degrease the chain completely when new (place in a bottle full of degreaser for half an hour, rinse well) then wax it.
Wax lubricants do not attract dirt, so it is always GOLD and SHINY !

It is also biodegradable and you can clean it with water and soap. So you will never need to degrease your chain again or leave you with calf prints or difficult to remove oil stains on your clothes.
It has also been tested to be the FASTER lube, so, less friction.

This means using wax based chain lube is a WIN WIN WIN decision.

I use this (in case you want to sponsor me).

As it is completely dry, you can also use it on cleats, cables, or other interfaces.

Gravel build - Cable routing

Here is the plan

Cables enter the frame on the down tube, gear cables go to under the bottom bracket, where there is a cable guide, and the up to the front mech, or straight inside the chainstay for the rear mech.

For the rear brake, housing (or hose if you run hydros) runs inside the frame, above the bottom bracket area in to the chainstay. Housing exists the chainstay near the brake caliper.

There are some stories on how internal cable routing is the bogey man, and hard to install/service etc, but if you take some care, no rush, and do it properly it is a good thing.
Looks nicer, and cables are not so exposed to the elements, mud, sweat, so they keep running well for longer.

Nice things to have
1 - Install cable liners ! Makes everything smoother, cables are protected from corrosion, they do not contact other parts and only move inside the liner.
So, less friction, no wear on cable guides.
BONUS : When you want to replace the cable, just feed it into the liner, no fishing needed.
2 - For housing/hoses inside frame, use dampening foam,otherwise it will rattlle.
Bare cables are always stretched, so they do not rattle (as much), but housing WILL make mind altering knock knock knock noises on rough surfaces.
3 - Magnetism is awesome. Have difficulties routing cables and inners inside the frame? Use a magnet.

 Jagwire liner, it has an endcap, so just plug that to your housing, and liner goes in the frame.

Do not forget to run the liner through the frame port before inserting.

The centerpiece for internal housing, the area under the bottom bracket. The frameset came with 2 guides, one for 1x drivetrain, and this for 2x. It also has a nice screw-on cover for this area.

 Liner coming out on the front mech area. Rubber grommet to keep water/mud ingress limited.

 Rear mech cable exit.

 Brake Housing inside the foam liner.

 Here is the brake housing exiting the frame (inside the foam)

Cable port installed, connected to caliper.

Rear mech cable exits on the top of the chainstay. Add another bit of housing and DONE !

(Notice the GOLD chain, because... BLING ! )

(Also notice the adhesive protection on top of the chain stay, to protect from chain slap).

Trim cables to size, place anti-fray caps (or super-glue) and we are almost done !

(We will need to index gears, center brakes, etc, but I will do that with the bike on the stand as it is much easier that way).

Gravel build - Power !!

Installing the crankset also means installing the powermeter.

In this case a 6800 Stages Gen2, remanufactured for Gen3 (thank you Stages for making this happen) in left-side only option.

I assembled everything on the bike, tried a spin test and ... "ffftttttt ffftttt ftttt" 

????????????

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

?????????????

Took a closer look and ... the HORROR, the DRAMA, the TRAGEDY ! 

The battery door is scraping the chainstay !!!!!

How/Why can this happen you ask ?

Well... This is a Gravel bike, so maximum tire clearance is wanted, that can still fit a road crankset.
The specification for the chainstay / crank clearance is of around 6mm or so.

So, if you use tighter manufacturing specs/etc, you can tap into that "hole" and use it.

In the frame, this space was used to make chainstays larger, so you can fit larger tires, so you can have more FUN.

In the crank, this space has been used to add a pod that will allow you to measure power/cadence.

So... TWO components tapping into the same space, and it is now gone...

OPEN has a nice explanation about this that I am going to copy to illustrate :

Some power meter design conflict with the desire to have the most tire clearance.
The reason this is tricky is:

• As you know, the UP/UPPER has the most tire clearance of any performance frame that fits regular road cranks. And that is the defining feature, more clearance = more fun.
• It's also crucial that we can fit road cranks, if you use mountain bike cranks you do create more clearance but you give up efficiency due to the bigger Q-factor (in plain English, you ride like a duck). Less efficient, less aero, less speed. And that would not be acceptable, as we want you to be able to ride with your roadie friends on your UP (or at least go their speed even if you don't want to ride with them). The UP should be ultra-performing on- AND off-road, not forcing a choice between the two.
• Anyway, lots of space for the tire and insisting on running narrow road cranks means there is not much space for the chain stays. To make the chainstays as big as we can, we do two things:
  1) drop the driveside chainstay, which has become one of the defining (and most-copied) features
  2) focus on very tight tolerances in production to reduce the space between crank/chainrings and chainstay
• This second part is very important. To give you an idea, the standard clearance in the bike industry in that area is 6mm, we use 2mm in some areas. That 4mm extra is huge when you're chainstays go from 10mm to 14mm. Taking wall thickness effects into account it more than doubles the stiffness of the tube.
• Problem is, some power meter manufacturers have also been eyeing that 6mm gap and decided to stick a measuring pod on the crank to take advantage of it. That doesn't work for us, if we allow that clearance, the UP would go from fitting 2.1" tires to fitting 1.8" tires or we would have to sacrifice BB stiffness, and both of those are features we and our customers love. Nobody has ever done an epic offroad ride and concluded "that was great, but I would have enjoyed it more if my tires were skinnier and my bottom bracket more flexible."
• If the pod poses a problem with the outboard position of our chainstays depends on how thick the pod is and where it is located. Around the pedal, we have pretty normal clearance (5-6mm) since that is no longer a critical area for chainstay size, but closer to the rings it gets a lot tighter.

With the reasoning explained, time for the solution :
1- Buy a different powermeter ( Right side, axle placement, pedals, etc)
       - Not desirable due to €€€€ost.
2 - Delrin shim
       - In my case the pod was just grazing the chainstay, not hitting it, so a small spacing should be sufficient.

24mm ID spacers available in 0.5 or 1mm should allow some clearance and are not big enough that I run out of axle or splines do not engage properly.


I tested with a single 1mm spacer, and result is

Free spinning !!! No more fttt fttt fttt

I tried also 2mm and still had proper spline engagement and locknut was good,but seemed to be "too much" clearance, so I am considering 1.5mm to be on the safe side,although 1mm looks pretty good unless there is a lot of flex somewhere under power. (The additional 0.5mm is for flexing).

1.5mm should not be noticeable on Q-Factor, centering, etc, and can easily be compensated in the cleat if needed. 

 Additionally, I have replaced the HollowtechII bolt, with a GOLD one !!!

*UPDATED*

So, my OCD made sure I changed this to 1.5mm spacing.

Here you can see the delrin spacers on the spline. (I left separated so you can see the thickness from the side.

Plenty of engagement left, so no issues with adding 1.5mm, well within tolerances.

Should have "plenty" of clearance now for any twisting under load.

Gravel build - Gearing

Gearing choice for the bike is a sub-compact 48/32 double oval-chainring on a Shimano 6800 crankset.
Why not single ring ? Well.... single is simpler and better for the rough stuff, but in the case of a do-it-all bike, if you want to do some "fast" road riding as well, double is still a nice thing to have, as you have more gear range with smaller gaps.
(Not going into why oval right now, as that is topic for a whole new post eventually)

So, in this case, paired with a 11-34 SLX cassette, the resulting gear range comes to:

CLIMBING - 32 / 34 - with 700c-40mm tires

How fast will I be going at 50-90 rpm in these gears?

Cadence Gear	50	60	70	80	90	Cadence   Gear
32x34	6.22	7.46	8.71	9.95	11.19	32x34

This basically means that for climbing cadences on extreme gradients, I have a gear that allows me to climb at 7 km/h and keep turning the pedals.
Should be enough for all things, as lower than 6 km/h you are better off walking anyway.

Max Speed - 48 / 11 -with 700c-40mm tires

How fast will I be going at 80-110 rpm in these gears?

Cadence Gear	80	90	100	110	Cadence   Gear
48x11	46.15	51.92	57.69	63.46	48x11

So, for descending, flats, tailwind, etc, you are more than covered with this. If you want to pedal at 60 km/h, you can still do it, 110rpm is still manageable.
I don't have the power to ride at more than that, unless it is a steep descent, and in that case you are probably better off coasting and aero-tucking anyway.

Full-range of the gears is like below.
(Note this is a cheap MTB cassette, so not much optimization done for road/gravel purposes).

How fast will I be going at 80-110 rpm in these gears?

Cadence Gear	80	90	100	110	Cadence   Gear
32x11	30.80	34.66	38.51	42.36	32x11
32x13	26.04	29.30	32.55	35.81	32x13
32x15	22.55	25.37	28.18	31.00	32x15
32x17	19.90	22.39	24.88	27.36	32x17
32x19	17.78	20.01	22.23	24.45	32x19
32x21	16.09	18.10	20.11	22.12	32x21
32x23	14.71	16.55	18.39	20.23	32x23
32x26	13.02	14.65	16.28	17.90	32x26
32x30	11.33	12.74	14.16	15.57	32x30
32x34	9.95	11.19	12.44	13.68	32x34
48x11	46.15	51.92	57.69	63.46	48x11
48x13	39.06	43.94	48.83	53.71	48x13
48x15	33.87	38.11	42.34	46.58	48x15
48x17	29.85	33.58	37.32	41.05	48x17
48x19	26.78	30.13	33.48	36.83	48x19
48x21	24.24	27.27	30.30	33.33	48x21
48x23	22.12	24.89	27.66	30.42	48x23
48x26	19.58	22.03	24.48	26.93	48x26
48x30	16.94	19.05	21.17	23.29	48x30
48x34	14.93	16.79	18.66	20.52	48x34

Translating the table, this is the speed you will be going in a given gear @ a given cadence.

In the above examples, you can use the tools at BikeCalc.com to check if you will have a low enough/high enough gear for your riding.

In this example, I created a table with every combination to check the gear steps.

To ilustrate this, check the 33 km/h speed highlighted in red. This is a common speed for road group riding etc, so a good example on this. Looking at the table you can see that with this gears, I am able to ride at 33km/h at all of my cadence range, from 80 (or even less, just not plotted) to 110, there is a gear that you can use.

You can also see, that each gear change will affect cadence by around 10 rpm.

(same 10rpm can be seen at 30km/h, 27km/h, etc, just check diagonal lines in the table)

If I change from the 17 to the 19 in the back, my legs will need to spin from 90 to 100 rpm to match the speed.

10 rpms is well within my cadence range, so I not caught in an awkward cadence if I up or downshift.

ISLAGIATT

I am a big fan of "The Sufferfest" training videos, and, as it happens, I just completed the same workout three times.

The session is appropriately named "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time" (you can click there for more info),but basically it is a 2 hours turbo trainer climbing session where you aim the combativity award (or most stupid rider of the day,as I heard it called in the pro peloton).

Here is a preview :

First time was trying it out, number 2 and 3 where part of a training plan where it popped up.

Third time I did it, it almost felt easier, so I wanted to check the stats on it !

(It was the day after a very intense training, so it should not have been the case of simply being more rested).

Back to the results, first time I tried this was on November. I remembered the session to be insane !

2 hours on the turbo was a record for me, I had some difficulty hitting and maintaining the power targets, and ended up kaput.

Looking at the stats, it shows virtual "48.80km" (this is based on power, so it can related to average power) and a relative effort (based on heart-rate) of 155 ( MASSIVE in Strava's naming, yeah felt like it). 

While in lockdown I started a training plan on "the sufferfest", and this showed up on the calendar.
A bit better this time !! Roughly same targets but relative effort is "only" Tough.
Could just be the case of being more used to pedaling on the turbo trainer, as it has been my only exercise for a while ...

This is the one that triggered me to check the numbers !

I hit the targets every time ! (Higher "distance") and relative effort was almost half than back in November!!

A lot is getting used to long turbo session, to the open windows/fans/hidration, but for sure there is also some physical improvement there !

This is the kind of stuff that makes you happy, and is proof is a plan going right !