What a bizarre thing to get angry about, when in fact he is white. The Portuguese ethnicity is essentially a mix of early inhabitants which migrated to the Iberian peninsula, Roman, Celtic, Germanic peoples. I know some people like to assign their ethnicity as some sort of race and sign of cultural purity or something, which I find ridiculous. We're european, maybe less pale and blonde than northern european, but european nonetheless.

You all were right. I consulted UK TT forums and have thus bought more ish for the TT bike. Stem, metal stock, and fasteners. Fixing the POS looking splined stem connection thing.

A UK TT legend apparently runs my same bike setup close to the same way and has done this exact thing I'm trying to do. Go figure.

Only $150 total in supplies including the rad stem. I'll be able to sell the plethora of Felt stems I have and probably recoup about $50 of that.

@burnthesheep can you provide more info about the stem adapter? I ride a Felt DA2 and also have the splined stem. I've been thinking about modernizing/upgrading my bar setup and am unsure of what to try. Any links to forums or relevant discussions would be good.

Pretty much what I'm going to do, but going to use an Aeria Ultimate stem. It is a plate using the three original stem mount holes then a cylinder off of the plate to mount the stem on as usual. I ordered the shortest Aeria stem so I don't gain any reach I can't dial back in the arm pads and extensions.

https://www.mikeanton.com/Cycling/a3...une09/nikb.jpg

I'm must be an ass. I'm sure the forum blocks that word, so.......a ess ess. Ass.

You can say ass.

Ah, I see. Sweet.

Well, if I am one on the forum I'll go ahead and own it. But forums aren't to be echo chambers and self congratulatory substitutes for one's long abandoned MySpace pages. I guess thinking that makes me an ass.

I have no idea what's going on and I feel like I've accidentally opened my Facebook.

What the literal **** are you talking about?

Hey, if you're excited about posting about your new mods to your TT bike, that's awesome. You didn't kill the thread, it's just a bit slow at the moment.

I bothered to post outside of "The 33" and hurt some feelings. Opinions aren't allowed. Asking for data is a sin.

Going through bike withdrawal.

Went from one functional bike to two bikes in pieces.

Waiting for an RD hanger to show up for the main roadie and waiting for a different part to show up for the Trek so I can put the front end together and get these damn things rideable.

Full circle.

No fans, but still exciting to watch for me. Eli Tomac could clinch the championship with a win in the main, but he gets a bad start.

everything is fake news
something something conspiracy
share if you dare

I've been in Surprise, AZ all week enjoying the 100+F heat as junior checks into Luke AFB just east of the VOS TT course.
Junior bought a house in Surprise, AZ (NW of Phoenix) and is a new (guest?) member of Black Widows Fighter Squadron 425 flying the F35 and F22.

Meant to go visit AZ and play some nerd-cards (Magic the Gathering) with me brothers and friends, but with the spike in COVID and the nice weather here I changed plans (camp/river weekend trip with the wife). Our house sale in Arizona is set to close at the end of the month, and we have our focus set on buying a duplex somewhere cheaper (don't know where yet, but west coast is good for structural engineering), try and rent/airbnb and then get a van to accomplish my dream of being a bum on the road except now it's called digital nomad or something lol! So mental space isn't optimal for super consistent training, not to mention I have HORRIBLE allergies this year causing me to sleep 9-10 hours per night.

Not sure when I'll do a team ride. Things are opening up everywhere and folks are out and about like nothing is going on with the numbers. Still no official racing but team up north of town seems to be doing group rides now. There's spittle and breathing and such.

Ugh. I don't know.

Other thing is I'm short on training time in general. The drive up there eats up a lot of time.

How do you guys handle team rides and very small "vertical disturbances" to the route? Like 15 to 20 feet here and there. Does the leader gently hit it just a touch to yank folks over and not lose speed or do you all kind of yo-yo over them as the leader keeps identical pull power? I've always thought the ride smoother if the leader gives it the beans just a hair for like 20 seconds to pull the group over that stuff since they have the draft. I think some boys in the group just don't want to do that, or can't.

My Z2 solo rides average out Z2, but over that stuff I'll hold Z3,4, or 5 for a few seconds here and there to "smooth out" the ride. I'll also generally go over actual hills in SS power and down them at low Z2 upper Z1. It's only like 2 to 3min of SS. Not going to kill anybody. If I can ride a metric century alone and do that, certainly a group could.

We've been doing groups rides for weeks. There were six different group rides of 10-40 people just that I saw on Strava on Saturday. Nearly everyone's done with halting their lives for covid around here. The die is cast.

Anyway, I push up the hill a bit harder, as do most. Some too hard, but better than too soft I guess.

But If I were going to do a steady state ride, I wouldn't plan on doing it with a group. Group rides for me are only for going really hard. It's impossible to pedal consistently in a group, so I'd much rather do anything steady (endurance, sweetspot, etc) on my own so I'm not wasting 45 minutes coasting or in Z1.

Pretty much.

My recent metric centuries have all been solo. I generally can get away with one every other weekend, sometimes one per weekend if I am allowed to sneak out earlier and not wake folks.

My solo metric centuries are always around AP of 190w and NP of 195 to 210w for right at about 3 hours. Using an honest hour power figure of 275w instead of a super idealistic fake 285w.

Usually about 40 to 60 feet per mile and 19.5 to 20.5 mph. I only stop if I cramp or there is a major intersection. I try to time my feeding for those spots to grab the stuff. Check the route, check my ride time, plan well. I may also use that to take the bottle out of my jersey and swap to my cages. I don't do c-store stops, I carry in jerseys. If necessary freeze the jersey bottle(s). If over 3 hrs I'll do 2 jersey bottles and 2 cage bottles. I've thought about going "nerd" and tossing my spare saddle mount triathlon thingy there so I have the jersey free.

I've got this strong personal belief that those "long for me" Z2/tempo/SS rides need to be as undisturbed as possible at those powers as long as possible to be effective. So, no coffee or sight seeing stops for 15min to 30min at a time. Total ride time within 10min of "moving time". I feel this optimizes the training effect at that group of z1/z2/z3.

Same when I run. I plan my run routes so I don't get the cute little 1min to 2min "crosswalk" stops all the time. If I'm running for 45min I want to not stop for the entire 45min.

Intervals are different, rest between is implied and necessary.

It is hotter here now. I cramped at mile 58 Saturday. I took just 3 of the Camebak Podium bottles. I had bad food a bit back and stomach still wasn't letting me cram enough fluids fast enough to feel "good" on the belly and stay hydrated well. It killed my average speed I had going and my overall AP. That last 5 miles was limping it home. Still hit 20mph overall with hills and stuff. Would have been nearly 21 probably otherwise.

A bottle an hour is no longer enough. I need to probably experiment with phone timers and using that triathlon bottle mount and making myself drink.

I know it is a problem as even when a long ride goes great, I never have to stop to pee. Ever. If hydrated well, I thought over 3hrs riding plus 10min stoppage time you'd need to pee.

I've been riding solo and when it's hot I take a 70oz Camelbak plus 2 large bottles for a 4 hour ride and still get dehydrated a bit. I plan for a pee stop someplace discreet and I will stop even if I don't feel the need because I don't want to have to look for a bathroom back in town.
I don't like bottles in the jersey and they are annoying even after you empty them. I've used disposable bottles, meh. I tried putting on a handle bar bag and putting 2 bottles in there but prefer the Camelbak.

I have a hard time with the camelbak because I get such a sweaty back anyway and that really interferes with the cooling. Maybe there have been new/better designs since I last tried it (probably 10 years ago), or maybe I just got a poorly designed one.

I've had this issue too. My Camelback is at least 15 years old. I think newer ones are better than older ones, and they sit off the body, allowing for some airflow between.


It depends. If you're doing a drop/hammer/race-type ride, you push the power up and over the top and down the other side. If it's a steady ride, you keep the effort steady on the uphill. Yes, power might climb a little and speed will drop on the uphill, but not that much. Then you pedal faster on the downhill to keep you effort up.

Group rides...We all want our lives back. Personally, I want my life back and I want to be smart about reducing the chances of getting Covid 19. Here is an article from the WSJ, that IMO, does an excellent job of framing what is factually known about how one gets the disease. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-exa...&page=1&pos=20

Group rides seem hard to handicap.

Even if racing comes back this year -- and I'm not yet sure my big target race will happen -- I'm not sure I will be participating. Yes, I've been training for the past year for this event, but I'm not sure it's worth the risk to my health.

Looks like we might get some racing in TN in the next few weeks. Alabama (~2 hrs) is already doing a weekly crit series. I think Indiana (Whiskey City Crit) is planning a race weekend for July. Wonder if Gateway will happen over Labor Day. That'd be worth buying a license for...