Originally Posted by
Voodoo76
I had no idea how ingrained that tendency is. As you pointed out it causes a lot of little accelerations, a leg killer. So far I've been working on it by using the gears more. I'm comfortable in a wide cadence range and on the road shift a lot less than most. I'm thinking that contributes a lot to the issue. Planning on going to Di2 later in the year to help this (more stuff
)
I should be able to put a number on time inside or outside a given +/- % from target. That sounds closer to what I'm working on than VI, which is more "macro" averaging out all the little decel/accel stuff.
When I first got the TT bike, I had trouble getting enough leverage on my mechanical bar-end shifters because my hands are small. Its hard to know how much you should stick with trying something out vs just move on. That's why I appreciate my fitter, he will always tell me what is, in his opinion, best- regardless of cost. He is a purist and so am I, we get along even though he is big league and I am rinky dink. But it saves me a lot of time, just tell me what's best and if its inevitable anyway, I might as well just do it now, because I'm going to incur the cost regardless and its false economy to not just make whatever change now.
Anyway, his response to my shifting issues was: "Go with the Di2 now, it will encourage you to shift and the more you shift, the more time you'll spend in the right gear and the better you will race." Ok. Done.
(Haha I remember his advice when I had raced one TT and liked it. I was trying to decide between clip-on aerobars for my road bike vs buying a TT bike. "Get the TT bike. Anything less is just a compromise. And you know won't be happy with a compromise." Love it. Perfect advice for me.)
As to VI, I think it measures surginess for sure. It just lets you get away with more surginess than is ideal while still having a 'perfect' VI of 1.0. Even with 1.0, I usually could have been far smoother. It really takes a lot of focus to do, you have to be constantly anticipating terrain and adjusting accordingly. I'm sure it gets more automatic over time, but for me its still a major work in progress.
Welcome to the world of TTing. Its really pretty cool.