February Goal Achieved...

Thanks to Aimee making today an indoor ride at the shop, I was able to reach my February goal of 250 miles 4 days early...NICE!  This will give me a few extra miles this month with two shop rides left this week.  I usually do about 15 to 20 miles a ride at the shop and around 12 at home/school.  So the extra time should provide about 30 extra miles added to my current total of 260.  I might make 300 this month. For winter indoor training, that is huge.  My legs feel pretty good despite all the miles, so I am excited about getting outdoors. 
In comparing this year's to date totals to last year's, several things stuck out in my mind.  1 was that I had 200 more total miles thus far...HUGE!  Also, My cadence and speed are up as well...NICE!  In the past both numbers are lower, usually, indoor because of the rest periods, but I have been working hard with Power and Cadence that enables my speed to be up slightly.  Last year I had  a 100 miles outside, while this year I only have 15 or so.  This might make the transition to outdoor riding harder, but we will see. 
I believe that making monthly goals and being able to track my progress toward them is key to more miles.  It really helps me get off the recliner and into the saddle on the dreary days like yesterday.  Knowing I only had 20 miles left,  made me ride yesterday.  The goals also make me bring my bike to work on days when I might not have otherwise.  Setting realistic and attainable short term goals has been the key thus far.
Once I get outside I may have to increase my short term goals to realistically match my totals and keep me motivated.  This may in turn require me to rethink my long term goal and move that upward as well.  However, I will stay on the conservative side, unless otherwise indicated in future analysis. I am pumped to be ahead of schedule as last year I was always behind, or injured...Knock on wood!

Feb goal almost done on a dark rainy day...

As you can see above, I am almost at my Feb. goal with 5 days left to the week.  This gives me a cushion in April when I most likely will take a week off before outdoor season starts.  Today was a dreary cold rainy New England day, just cold enough to make it a lazy day.  But I got on my bike and managed a 10 mile ride to Angels in my living room torture chamber.
Tomorrow we have a gathering of indoor riders at CC, just to get together before we can go outside.  Should be a fun ride thanks to Aimee K.  Thanks for pushing Keith Aimee, will give me a reason to ride tomorrow.

PowerTap...First Thoughts..

Well I have had my Cycleops PowerTap G3 Hub and wheel for two ride now, and just wanted to quickly write down my thoughts.  The catalyst for making take the leap to power was using www.trainerroad.com with virtual power during The Tour of Sufferlandia (www.thesufferfest.com ).  I recognized the benefits of training with power over heart rate right away.  Power provides you a more accurate means of determining Intensity during training sessions.  This translates into a more precise way of developing consistent efforts at or around threshold leading to better pacing on the bike.  With HR you end up using perceived exertion more often to determine how hard to work to get to your heart rate zones often leading to overworking and under working during work/rest intervals.  Power provides instant feedback of intensity.

PowerTap and Garmin Edge 800 Pairing and Settings

The PowerTap pairing to the Garmin Edge 800 was quick and easy.  On the Garmin 800 you go to Menu, Settings, Bike Settings, Bike Profiles, Bike, Ant + Power, PowerMeter (set to ON), then Rescan while spinning the wheel. This will par the PowerTap to the Garmin 800.
Big Mike for Cycling Concepts gave me a tip about calibrating.  Each time you turn on the Garmin to use with the PowerTap, you bring up the light dimmer page by clicking the on/off button once, and then select the top far right icon (Power) and tap the Recalibrate button on the screen before pedaling.  Once Calibrated you can then start riding. Mike said that this should be done prior to each ride.
Second, that when place power on your main training page, you need to select Power - 3s Avg. instead of just Power.  My first ride I had just Power on the screen and the reading was to up and down for me to use, as it read instant power fluctuations.  This would be great if working on pedaling technique on rollers/trainer, but for intervals I found Power with 3 second average to be a more consistent predictor of power use.  Last night ride was done with this setting and more closely resemble the trainer road workouts I have enjoyed. 

First Take

After riding with power on both trainer road and now on my G3 PowerTap, I am a believer in training with power.  I have use Hear Rate for Decades (people who know me would say Centuries), but for cycling Power will provide a better platform for building consistently strong efforts, which will lead to better on road riding.  Maybe for me it will not mean faster, but more enjoyable and consistent leading to more miles.  NICE! 

For this year to date I have surpassed 500 miles.  Last year at this time I only had 333 miles, that is a significant improvement, as I felt I road a lot indoors in the beginning of last season.  I guess not!

PowerTap Wheel Build...

Yesterday I built up a my first wheel.  I choose to built a PowerTap Wheel after trying a PowerCal and Trainer Roads.  I just felt I needed more consistent data than the PowerCal provided, and more often than Trainer Roads alone. It is also true that I am a data geek, and needed the PowerTap to provide more accurate and consistent data. The Folks at Cycling Concepts provided me with the G3 PowerTap Hub. They had a Demo Wheel from last season that they sold me at a significant discount saving me around $400 off list (thanks Dave). 

Next was the choice of Rim.  I have had a custom wheel set built for me before with Mavic Open Pro, so that was my first choice, and my brother Nick choose a 340 Stans rim.  I looked at both, and then at the RR540 from DT Swiss.  I felt that the Open Pro was the same old same old, and Sondre said they would not have a black one in for 2 weeks, OUT!  The Stans was my next choice, but I was too soft according to Sondre for my Weight, always a factor.  Sondre recommended the RR540 from DT Swiss.  I check that out, but was on the heavy side.  DT had a new rim the RR440 Asymmetrical rim that intrigued me, as it most matched my Shimano Dura Ace.  Dave said they were not available until the end of March, so I found one at Wheelsmith.com and ordered it.  It came in on Monday last, and I built the wheel on Tuesday, a vacation day.

Sondre choose the DT Swiss Competition Spokes and the DT Pro Lock Nipple in Red Anodized Aluminum.  This color scheme matches my Dura Ace 7850 front Wheel which I have chosen to use with the PowerTap Wheel instead of building a new one. 

 

Now that I had all the parts I needed to start the build.  Before I actually built the wheel, I had to get the hub off of the old wheel.  I snipped it off in minutes.

Once I had the hub off the old wheel, Sondre choose the right spokes size  for both Drive and Non-Drive side, and laid them out separately on the workbench.  Starting with the drive side I put the Inward facing spoke in first making sure the the rim decals, valve hole and hub decals faced correctly offsetting by 3 holes to account for the 3 cross pattern for the 32 hole configuration (Chosen for strength and weight bearing ability).  After the inward facing drive side came the inward facing non-drive side spokes.  About half way done...

Up to now was the easy part, now it got a bit tricky.  The outward facing spokes on the non-drive side and drive side require a crossing of the other spokes.  It was over the first two crossed and under the last cross. The non-drive went like silk.  But the drive side ran into a glitch when the spokes shortened and I could reach with my fingertips, one of the nipples slipped into the rim. I took a bit of jiggling around but it finally came out.  Sondre then showed me how to use a nipple wretch to attach the rest of the nipples to the spokes.  Although I was done lacing I was hardly done with the build.

The next step involved using the nipple wrench to tighten each spoke down until the thread on each did not show anymore.  Being as careful as I could to get them evenly done.  I then tightened each on full turn, and then felt for tension.  The spokes that were obviously still very loose I tried to tighten to what I felt the others to be.  Then came the first truing.  Truing and rounding a wheel takes patience and touch.  Taking an 1/8 turn at a time one side or the other to push and pull the wheel into alignment.  I then turned another 1/2 turn on each, and rounded and trued again.   

It was now time to dish the wheel. (Dishing is when you check to see whether the wheel is centered or not using a dishing tool)

I was way off, and needed the wheel to go toward the drive side.  We also checked for spoke tension with of all things, a Spoke Tension Meter.  22  kilograms force was the Max Tension for the Drive Side for this wheel build, and I was at about 18, quite a ways to go.

Sondre was not in the shop, he went to a meeting about Mountain Bike Racing, so Mike told me how to move the wheel toward the drive side, but I would not believe him, so I went the wrong way, (Sorry Mike).  I am a bit stubborn and Mike has only Build 2 wheels to date, so I tried it the way I thought it should go...Not a good idea.  After dishing and figuring out I went the wrong way, I had to loosen the non-drive side and tighten the drive side twice.  I also had to Round and True the wheel twice more, before I had it dished, round and true. 

Video of the final spin.

 

 

Sondre had come back by then, checked my work, and pronounced it Adequate. Sondre changed the cogs from my R500 wheels to the new wheel, put a tube and trainer tire on, and I finished by connecting the PowerTap to my Garmin Edge 800.

I left the shop and headed over to Cycling Concepts in Glastonbury for our Tuesday Night Indoor Ride to test the wheel.  I rolled extremely well, but I had trouble with the Power Reading on the Garmin.  Dave Pilone thought it might be a conflict between the PowerTap and PowerCal, as both were connected the my Garmin.  I will wear a different HR Monitor tonight at Cycling Concepts in Rocky Hill to see if that will make a difference.  Hopefully it will, or I need to change the way in which it reads from the PowerTap Hub. 



Just want to again thank all the great folks at Cycling Concepts for their help and continued encouragement and enthusiasm for the sport of cycling.  Below you see Keith the owner in his Cycling Concepts kit.

 

 

Yearly Mile Goals ahead of schedule....

Above you see my goals graphically displayed as they are on Garmin Connect.  Their goal planner has improved ememcely over the past versions.  I love the use of graphs on anything, being a data geek, and the use of the graphs gives me a distinct idea of where I am and need to go.  The top graph illustrates my Feb. Goal, and it being Feb 11th, I need only 116 miles more to reach it.  Thanks to last weeks Indoor Two Ferry Ride, I am well on my way to my goal, and should surpass it with time and mile left over. 
I am way ahead of my mile compared to last year's indoor numbers, and should continue this trend. I hope my outdoor number match my indoor ones.  This will allow me much more flexibility throughout the riding season.  I just have to remember that miles are my goal not speed, and to take it a bit easier to prevent overuse injusry. 
Right now my legs feel great, and I hope this trend continues.