Bike

Stats and comparisons are a wonderful thing — and as they say, trust no statistic you haven’t fudged yourself… For exactly that reason, here’s the bike split comparison between Hawaii 2013 and 2014. Yellow = 2013, red = 2014. Power output: 2013 2014 Normalized Power 209 210 Avg Cadence 83 85 TSS 273 277 IF 0.745 0.751 VI 1.07 1.05 Time not pedalling 10% 6% The red curve’s consistency is great to see — very few outliers up or down. Exactly as it should be, and the VI value reflects that perfectly: much more even than last year. Also nice to see how evenly the power was sustained over time with no dramatic drop-off toward the end. In 2014 I also had to pedal 13 minutes longer — very interesting. Both TSS values are at the upper end of what you’d recommend to anyone. Speed: ...

I got a bit ahead of myself with the bike setup photos — there were two last-minute changes: The spare tube was still missing and has since been attached directly under the saddle The “3” on my disc wheel has matured and now requires a bit more space That should be the final change though — here’s how the bike looks now:

Yesterday I gave my TT bike a thorough clean and then got it set up for the Ironman. What did I change? Swapped the wheelset: from my “Fulcrum Racing 3” training wheels to an “Easton Tempest II” front wheel and a Zipp disc wheel in the back Because of the wheel swap, the brake pads also needed to be changed. The standard Shimano pads were swapped out for special carbon brake pads from Kool-Stop Removed the bottle cage from the down tube Replaced the seat tube bottle cage with a Bontrager aero cage that fits a special aero bottle Additionally mounted a standard bottle cage between the extensions right at the handlebar, for grabbing regular bottles at the aid stations Here’s how the bike looks for race day: ...

After a lot of deliberation I had basically decided to ride my Kuota again this season. The bike already has three years and a lot of kilometers on it, plus a crack in the paint at the seat tube/seat stay junction since a crash (whether it’s just the paint or the frame itself is hard to say). I just couldn’t make up my mind whether and which bike to get. The decision was especially tough because there are very few time trial bikes that are fully compatible with Shimano Di2. Once you’ve ridden Di2, you don’t give it up willingly… ...