caloso

I wouldn't consider 21mph on a -1% road to be fast. Even for a 51 year old. Sorry.

timtak

I am an old nerd, and am happy to be 6th, in the top 10% this year (and 3rd overall). I am not saying that lancing your road bike will make you Lance Armstrong but, it helped this nerd lose weight. It may help others.

I think that the power-to-angle of torso compromise is important and the prioritization of each end ("Do I ride low, with a difficulty to put out power" "Do I ride high, with lower aerodynamics?") will depend upon ones goals. I post my strava segments to show that I am doing okay for speed. But reallly I wanted to fight flab. The long and low posture is great for fighting flab. It is fun, it feels faster than it is, and ones ability to enjoy it, enjoy going fast by slipping through the air rather than putting out the watts, depends upon the lack of belly flab. I therefore recommend getting lower especially to those who want to keep their body weight down. If your goal is to ride fast then a higher position is no worse, and may be better. I am not sure. I see most people I overtake (yup, I have only been overtaken once as far as I remember. No, twice, but I overtook back) in about 45 degree, TDF body postures (even though they are almost all riding on their own) and I think that not only would those young guns that I overtake get thinner but also get faster if they crossed their road bikes with a Time Trial position.

I am confused too. Perhaps I wear my helmet "too" high. You can see in the photos. I have put on a bit of weight lately.

Pair Look by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr (this morning)

As rugged individualist, wphamilton says a visor type arrangement with lenses pegged to my helmet may be optimal.

The red ear muffs are because my big old ears are Dumbo and they catch the wind. I find that ear muffs enable me to hear cars better.

Jakedatc

and then how much does that setup suffer on the uphills.. show us a segment more than 5% that really matters? hell i'm 125lb climber type and not low AT ALL and did 25mph for a mile at 0% the other day (74th out of 450) .. 22mph on 2mi of -1 similar to your segment.. that got me 148/350.. with a cat 1 at 31mph

guys at the front of the peleton and in breakaways are doing invisible aerobars or wrists on the hoods like the Bissell guy.. they are there for a reason.

timtak

I don't feel I suffer on the uphills, where I use my drops out of the saddle often, but perhaps I do "suffer" on the down hills due to the low front end, but then I don't like going more than about 55kmh because I am a wimp. And downhills aren't easy to exercise on.

I could allow full disclosure on strava but I don't want to be fully locatable in case I go for a ride when I should be somewhere else.

Many of my segments are at
Strava Segments - notebook

Including this uphill where I recent lost a KOM by 5 seconds last week (KOM?! eh, this old nerd!?)
https://www.strava.com/segments/7783891

I weigh a lot more that 125lb. wow. I am jealous. I have got fat lately. 143lb. At my best in late summer last year or the year before, when my buddy icon was taken, I was down to 134 lb.

BTW, I have lately stopped doing Strava much since my wife asked me to stop, because she feels that racing on roads is dangerous. But then I am getting old anyway so my times are not likely to improve. I did try to persuade my wife that Stravaring was the reason I got so thin and fit (it was) but there is a trade off between the fitness of thin, and the danger of flying along shouting "STRAAVAA" (not that I actually shouted, much).

milkbaby

Show that to your wife. ;-)

milkbaby

Also wanted to add that if you haven't been riding seriously for many years already, you probably still have room for improvement even if you're over 40, 50, 60, or even 70 years old. I can't remember if you said you ran a yearly 10k in under 40 minutes, but if so, then you have the aerobic potential to ride relatively fast.

timtak

I go for a fun run once a year but I am still over 40, 41 something and got a little slower this year. I don't run at all. I could probably improve my running and cycling times if I did this and that but I like the way I do them.

Cyclo-Stretch-Running (CSR) by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr

CSR: Slipped 11 Seconds by Timothy Takemoto, on Flickr

goenrdoug

have you noticed THESE new glasses?



Maybe a tad expensive, but I stopped by the local Oakley store and tried on a pair and, wow, they are super light and get pretty high up there above the eyes. I think they fit the bill for the purpose of being low and still being able to see ahead of you unobstructed...

Oakley EVZero Range Photochromic in MATTE WHITE / CLEAR BLACK IRIDIUM PHOTOCHROMIC ACTIVATED | Oakley

PaulRivers

There are definitely some glasses that are better for riding than others.
1. The frame needs to be high enough that still easily see through the lens when you're riding - glasses that sit even a bit low on your face can be a problem
2. Wide enough lens to be able to see around decently without turning your head
2. A frame that doesn't block your vision above you or to the sides - the thicker plastic frames can be bad at this
3. The optical center of the lens itself might be better higher than lower so you're looking through the thinnest part of the glasses

Like Oakley Keels work well for me for coverage up and down and being wide enough, and not blocking anything to the sides:


Glasses like these would be crappy for riding because they're both to low on her nose and there's a thick frame - straight ahead she'd be trying to see through the top edge of the frame:


From recent experience ordering super huge lenses, I could never ever wear what the OP (not talking about aesthetics). My prescription is pretty high, and when the lens gets to far away from my face it gets thicker and thicker, to the point where the distortion gets insane and causes me massive headaches. A lens designed with a good shape, like the keels above works well for me, but the oversize black plastic frames that are fashionable right now are very very bad for distortion as the lens gets larger.

noodle soup

I have a set with the Road Prizm lens, and they work great for road cycling.

timtak

But alas the outer lens does not correct my myopia and the inserts never come up to the top, as far as I know. They tend to be expensive too.

Good idea! If possible (I am already using most of the blank perhaps) I will incorporate this suggestion into a future edition.



Have you tried aspherical lenses?

I am not sure but perhaps they could be made to be as thin at the top centre as they are at the mid centre by being shaped like the inside of a toroid rather than the inside of a sphere. That may well be a misunderstand but they are claimed to reduce lens thickness and distortion.

I need the full height of mine.

caloso

Relevant to this thread.

How much does your position affect your speed? - Cycling Weekly

timtak

Thank you. I use my drops most of the time. I can't quite bend my forearms to horizontal without going negative :-), but I am often pretty flat. The other solo cyclists around me seem to be riding like the riders in the pro peloton. It is crazy and lucrative. Wake up folks :-)
https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=pr...h=1482&dpr=0.9

noodle soup

How is it lucrative?

timtak

People go to shops and are sold the symbols - in this case brands - that are used by the pros, based upon the general understand that the proz know best, so we should emulate both their riding style and their branded bikes. If it were accepted that in fact there is no need to emulate pros (or indeed, that it is not a good idea) then I think that there would be a lot more people purchasing Chinese carbon frames, listening to John Cobb for their bike fit (at about the 5 minute mark)
and putting friendly local bike shops out of business. Lately there are shops that employ students who will put together a velobuild frame but I think perhaps a lot of shops only sell UCI pro brands which have a higher mark up, I presume.

In a way it is a shame that there is no funding of Strava races in roads with traffic so that this system could continue to exist but at the same time sell us cycling equipment appropriate to the cycling we do. I guess after a while we'd all be on recumbents, maybe. I only recently (three years ago) realised that recumbents are faster (at least would be on my commute) and that they were outlawed by the UCI, which rather puts them out of my price bracket.

gregf83 

Pricing of recumbents is high because they are low volume. It has nothing to do with UCI. Walmart bikes are also not UCI legal but they're inexpensive.

timtak

What is a Walmart bike?

Apples are cheap and they are not UCI legal either. UCI legality is not a necessary condition of being cheap.

But, if recumbents were UCI legal all the pros would be riding them because they are faster, all the bike shops would be selling them, and they would be a lot cheaper. Bikes that are fast UCI legal and do not involve expensive materials would be cheap. And I would not have to wear goofy glasses.

These folks agree. They are getting cheaper.

FullGas

I'm slow as crap and have NEVER been passed by someone on a recumbent.

noodle soup

Strava isn't "Racing".

gregf83 

Bringing the UCI into the merits of a particular style of bike is a red herring. Mountain bikes are popular, hybrids are popular and neither are sanctioned by the UCI. If people wanted to ride recumbents they'd be popular and less expensive.

noodle soup

Have you ever tried climbing with a recumbent?

timtak

Alas I can't afford a recumbent but this video was top of the hits for climbing recumbent
And would allow me to ditch the glasses. The next paragraph is from the wikipedia article on recumbents (advangtages)
"View angle. The recumbent riding position, if not too aggressively reclined, can enable the rider to face straight ahead comfortably and view the passing scenery. Many upright bikes, particularly those used in competition, on the other hand, have a riding position in which the natural position is to face more downwards towards the pavement; in order to face straight ahead, the neck must be craned upward."

Mountain Bike
oops.

My bike is a hybrid.

If recumbents were in the UCI races they would win.
One commenter wrote "The guys not even a professional rider and he can keep up almost. Give him a velomobile and he would have flogged them. If recumbents were allowed there would be few upright bicycles in any race, and recumbents would be cheaper and mainstream with all their benefits."

But this is my last post on recumbents because the thread is about cylcing glasses.

Jakedatc

"If recumbents were in the UCI races they would win."

like Noodle said... not if it goes up any kind of a hill. we have a few in our club and they cruise along on flats and fly on downhills but going up they get dropped like a large stone. you cannot stand up, you cannot shift fore/aft to change muscle groups, and you can't shift your weight forward to prevent the very light front end from lifting. depending which kind they look pretty tricky to maneuver too

it is one thing to create solutions for problems that you have created for yourself (not being able to see because you are in a stupid position) but now you are talking out of your ass about recumbents that you have never had experience with.

BounceCT

This is such a goofy thread...whatever works though

K.Katso

Of course you could always just do something like this:

View-Speed Cyclops Glasses

then you never have to look up at all.