The 41 refugee thread
 

Ask your non-racing road cycling questions here. Keep it civil please. Anyone who asks about shaving, what to wear under their shorts, or any other similarly innane topics will be drawn and quartered.

is it a good idea to wear a base layer?

Yes

Why has the 41 gotten so dumb lately?

Why do I see a lot of racer guys wearing full fingered gloves in the summer?

lately?

What is best, SRAM, Shimano or Campy?
Lance rides SRAM, so it must be the best, right?

much as i dislike giving any credibility to 33 sneering, but the 41 has lurched south in last couple of days. help.

Ok the idea is not to emulate the 41...

Yes, even more so than normal, if you can believe it.

yeah, I can.

i have a question.

what is the angle of your foot at the bottom of your pedal stroke. i rode with my rode nazi friends a few weeks ago and they got me to lower my seat so i could get a bit of ankle down action and it really helped. i had felt my seat was a teeny bit high but not enough to cause hip rocking. the lowering was tiny, but the ankle down really added a noticeable amount of power on the climb. it works for me but i wonder if this is what most people do.

I tend to be nearly flat footed when trying to spin circles on climbs or FTP efforts on the flat. When I don't concentrate I tend to have my toes pointing down a bit.

When you say ankle down you mean closer to the horizontal plane of the spindle but not below that plane, correct?

actually it is ever so slightly below horizontal.

My climbing pedal stroke is different than my flat land pedal stroke. I do have a relatively flat angle to my foot on both pedal strokes but while climbing in the seated position I actually drop my heel after coming over the top. FWIW I've seen some pretty fast guys (Ex for one) who use a more toe down pedal stroke to pretty good effect.

Varies from person to person. I pedal toe down, as did some notable pros like Iban Mayo. Heel down bothers my knee. If something works for you then it works for you.

(EDR beat me to it...)

I tend to be slightly toes down unless I concentrate on it a bit. I tried forcing myself to go heel down for a while some time ago, but long-term it didn't work well for me. I noticed some slight immediate power gains but ultimately decided it was because I was pushing harder while concentrating on it. I started to have some achilles soreness earlier in the season and noticed if I dropped my heal a little more it went away, so I lowered my saddle a few mm and that helped, but that makes me closer to horizontal, nowhere near heel down.

I noticed a bunch of guys wearing them in crits this spring... still not 100% sure why either.

umd: Can I post here?

yes

Do you work? Does your work involve a keyboard? Ever try typing with road rash on your fingers?

It's like a base-layer for your hands :thumb:

God I hope so. So is this the Ellis Island equivalent of the 33?

Something like that

Give us your tired your humble huddled masses yearning to post harassment free.