BikeMax

I find the Power Bar endurance and recovery drinks to be pretty good.

Energade is not going to give you the right CHO balance as it is designed primarily to taste nice, and water is giving you no CHO...

Sorry BikeMax' date=' I always find your posts very informative but that comment I do not agree with Im sorry. There are plenty of good riders here that either never got the chance or had the balls to go.[/quote'] Colonel - I do not disagree with you here, but my point was that the best riders are in Europe. I am sure that many SA riders could step up if they got there, but for whatever reason they have not done so in numbers and so have stayed a level behind.

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Propeller head... You are right that the slime does not generally cause any problem and you do not feel it in the wheel.

The goo will run around the tube and seal the hole and generally not get into the valve too much in terms of gumming it up. Once the goo is in (either pre loaded or when you puncture) then it will be active for a good few months and should be effective in this time. I generally only use it for a tubular due to the cost and so with a regular tube I would recomend changing it unless an important race.

Follow your gut - cycling demands too much at licenced level to do it at anything less than 100%

You can always get an estimate with a coast down test - start at the same spot and try and hold the same position on the bike and see how far you roll before stopping. Good idea to do this down a hill like Suikerbossie for example with the roll on area.

Noted.. But to be fair, all we have been doing is to use current thinking and science to explain why the programme that has been touted is so far off the mark. It has not been the intention to use science to blind, and if this has been the case then I am sorry. Good training advice does not need to be expensive but should be based on sound scientific principles.

Less than 150 - low (recovery generally complete by following day) 150-300 - medium (some residual fatigue may be present the next day, but gone by 2nd day) 300-450 - high (some residual fatigue may be present even after 2 days) Greater than 450 - very high (residual fatigue lasting several dayslikely) You are correct that it is easier to rack up TSS with volume than intensity due to the fact that the algorithm used to caluclate TSS is volume weighted (as volume has a bigger effect on fatigue) - even more reason why this programme is wrong. To do 3 x 1 hour rides at TT pace in one day would be impossible due to the fact that a rider would not be able to hold that power output for 3 hours (as by definition it is 60 min power) So the content of the ride will dictate the TSS achievable. As you can see though - the recovery form 300 TSS is deemed to be 2 days at least...

The Vittoria Pit Stop works very well indeed.

Well, it sounds like a possible front derailleur problem - have you checked the set stop screws - these should prevent the chain from either coming off the small ring or the big ring either way.

I'm not sure but if I look at the data by the hour and relate that to what I remember about the terrain it might be to do with the fact that I didn't pedal much on the downhills??? The 2nd and 7th hours have a very high VI. One more reason why I wish the PT had an altitude sensor. I think we all were trying hard not to pedal on the downhills - looks to me like there were times when either you had to jump hard to get back on the line or that your pace line was not as smooth as it might have been - leading to you closing gaps and using energy here. What we do know is that your pacing for the terrrian was not as smooth as it might have been and this may have cost you time.

Aah' date=' that's cause I have a power meter and "train with power" so I know pretty much know my limits - even though my heart rate was 6-7 bpm higher than usual. If I'd ridden according to heart rate it would have been a lot slower. [/quote'] The other thing I have noticed is that your VI is high at 1.17 - interestingly my VI for 2005 and 2006 was exactly 1.14 and Bruce's for 2006 was also 1.14 In a race like this I would have thought a lower VI would lead to a better chance of a higher sustained power as a result of less peaks eating into AWC. Given that you look to have done a fair bit of the work - why do you think that this might be the case ?

Re arrange these words into a well known phrase.. School Old In all seriousness - this is crazy and unnecesary. There are many very good riders (Bruce included) who train a lot less than this (9-12 hours per week) and achive excellent results (5.30 DC...) Quality and not quantity is the watchword - once you can ride 4 hours then there is not much need for further endurance (the main goal of the sort of volume mentioned here) Riding faster and more comfortably at a faster speed is a better goal and is achieved with less time at a higher intensity.

Overall it does look aas though you did more than your fair share for the team. It also looks like the first hour was very slow (which cost you) and the third hour was also slow.

Don't confuse the issue. Drafting only plays a role if you were to compare the speeds. From a power perspective, what was measured was what was produced. We were comparing the speeds - in terms of how much work the rider was doing for the speed ridden. Or how much extra power was required to increase overall speed.

That's actually a tough call. Bruce's power stats or Minky naked in a bath....

That's why you need the persons weight, because watts/kg will be more important. The other unknown factor here is how much actual work was done by the rider as part of the team - WB may have sat on the front the whole way and as such done a lot of work for less speed in a weaker team, whereas I may have shared thw work equally and we therefore rode a faster time.

Shirkers Thanks Bruce.. Joking aside, this gives us a good example of how overall fitness affects the ability to ride at a higher relative intensity for a longer period of time. Bruce has a higher level of overall fitness at present than either myself or WB and this is demonstrated well here.