Posts Tagged as "Bike"

The Face behind Ceepo Bicycles

Video courtesy of Jack and Adam’s Bicycles

2011 Felt DA

Years of research, engineering and wind-tunnel development went into the all-new 2011 DA. Already ridden to major triathon wins by Felt athlete Terenzo Bozzone, this is the bike that left the competition in the dust. With UHC Ultimate+Nano carbon fiber material—shaped through extensive Computational Fluid Dynamics engineering and real-world testing—it’s 14% more aerodynamic and 13% stiffer than the last-generation DA. It’s also optimized for Shimano Di2 electronic shifting, with internal cable routing and an integrated battery mount.

Ceepo 2011 Range – Sneak Peak

Choosing the Correct Bike

Now days you have countless choices of frames, wheels, handle bars, saddles, pedals, helmets, nutritional products and even clothing. In fact there are so many mass-produced choices that it’s just plain confusing at the best of times.

Having had a sneak preview of some of the 2011 bike ranges from the recent Eurobike show, I can’t help but wonder how many products are actually made in a factory both owned and based in the same country, let alone the same town, as the actual brand.

It’s common knowledge that a number of large brand companies have a large portion of their range made in the Far East. I think that the Chinese and Taiwanese factory owners must be laughing all the way to the bank. Good on them.

As a triathlete, however, it can be tough to decide on equipment amid the myriad of options. Bike frames and complete bikes are the hardest to choose.

Many athletes ponder questions like: which is the most aerodynamic, which is more comfortable, and, my personal favourite, which is the lightest? The truth is who cares what the answers to those questions are.

What you should be asking yourself is: does this frame/bike suit my ability; is it the right geometry for my body type and size, and, the most important one of all, does it fit into my budget?

Too many of us are caught up in the if-they-have-it-I have-to-have-it-hype.

Everyone, unfortunately, chooses a frame or bike based on what others are riding. No sooner have they bought it and the problems start.

The question most athletes are not asked when choosing a bike is: what is your injury history? This may seem a little weird but it has a significant bearing on both the style and the geometry of the bike that you may need.

Let’s take a road bike for example. You would think that the geometry on a 58cm-frame for one manufacturer would be the same as for the same size frame from all the other manufactures. Not so!

Frames can have as much as a 17mm difference in the head-tube length, which is the section on the frame between the handle bars and the top of the fork.

Let’s say you have lower back or neck discomfort. That 17mm could be the difference between you putting in a strong ride at your next race or having a shocker.

In the same instance,if you do have an old neck injury why choose a time-trial-style frame that is very low at the front thus placing even more strain on the neck than what it’s already going through?

My advice to you is simple. Ask your coach for help.

And if your coach says it is not their area of expertise, appreciate the honesty because it means that your coach is looking after your interests, rather than his back pocket.

In that case, I advise you to find a dealer that has been trained by Dr Andy Pruitt in bike fitting. What this man does not know about bike fitting is not worth knowing. Put it this way, if Fabian Cancellara trusts him shouldn’t you?

“Thanks Jono”

Jono Rumbelo, Certified ironguides Method Coach – South Africa

 

Ironman 2010 Pro-Bike Slo-Mo

If you ever wanted to see exactly how the pros set their bikes up this is the video to do that. Perfect

Triathlon for Beginners – Basic Advice

There’s no doubt that your first triathlon brings many questions. My first advice to you would be to relax and have fun. There’s really no point in making your first triathlon a stressful affair.

For beginners, triathlon training should be targeted to a shorter distance race – almost always a sprint triathlon. I would recommend that you enter as early as possible. This will give you enough time to work towards your goal and maybe even recruit some friends to join in. Most short races allow you to enter on the day, but early entries often involve discount and something free – like a t-shirt.

Come up with a training plan. Either contact a triathlon coach or go online and look for a beginner triathlon training program.

For most beginners, the swim is the problem. Find a pool, find a coach and off you go. Make sure your coach focuses on your technique. I am currently coaching some triathletes who swam for 6 months in a squad. I had to work solely on their technique for an additional 6-8 months before I could get them to go any faster. Also, make sure you get some open water time.

Training distances should be reasonable. If you’re already a strong athlete don’t be tempted to overtrain. Pay attention to your transitions and get some brick sessions in (i.e. When you complete a bike session go for a short run before you call it a day).

When it comes to racing make sure you find something comfortable to wear, something that you can wear for the entire race. If you swim without a shirt, you will need to put a top on for the rest of the race.

Listen to the pre-race instructions carefully and ask questions if you have them. Everyone was a triathlon beginner once and even professionals have to ask questions. This is not a tennis court, every race is different. If you’re unsure I guarantee that there are at least another 10-20% that haven’t a clue either.

If you have mechanical issues or find yourself not swimming, cycling or running like you usually do, then just remember that this is only your first race. You’re just learning the ropes so go with it. If you enter your first triathlon to win, you won’t enjoy it.

Another important aspect of racing is nutrition. Although a sprint event is short it still helps if you know what you going to drink. A little added confidence goes a long way. Make sure you train like you race at least twice before your first race.

My final recommendation would be to read as much as you can. Understanding what to do, how to do it and why can be a huge motivating factor. If you have any questions you can contact me at nic@onceinspired.co.za.

Good luck and enjoy your first race.

Cancellara wins Fourth World Time Trial Champs Title

September 30, Elite Men: Geelong 45.8km

Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland) made history as he crossed the line in Geelong, Australia, more than a minute quicker than his nearest rival with four fingers in the air. The Swiss rider became the first to claim four titles in the elite men’s time trial category.

Cancellara was simply too good for his rivals, despite a strong ride from Great Britain’s David Millar. The only threat to a Cancellara victory came when the rider nearly clipped a barrier and had his rhythm upset as a result during his second lap.

“I’m really happy,” he said. “It feels amazing and it was maybe the hardest one because before I didn’t know about my condition. At the end I focussed on my own race and tried to do what I can. I’m happy.

“I didn’t touch it but every second counts, so I tried to be close without falling because that’s the last thing I want,” he added.

Millar took second place by 10 seconds from Tony Martin (Germany), who amazingly secured bronze despite having to stop for a wheel change. Martin’s mid-race mechanical setup a close battle between he and Richie Porte (Australia) for the final medal position.

Bronze would have made Porte the only Australian to have claimed a time trial medal besides Michael Rogers (Australia), who finished the event in fifth place. Rogers held the top time for the closing phase of the race, having started one group earlier than the favourites. Despite Koos Moerenhout (Netherlands) and David Zabriskie (United States Of America) putting pressure on Rogers’ time in the early stages of their runs, both riders faded to finish sixth and eight respectively.

By: Greg Johnson

Taken from www.cyclingnews.com.

Results

#	Rider Name (Country) Team	Result
1	Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland)	0:58:09
2	David Millar (Great Britain)	0:01:02
3	Tony Martin (Germany)	0:01:12
4	Richie Porte (Australia)	0:01:19
5	Michael Rogers (Australia)	0:02:25
6	Koos Moerenhout (Netherlands)	0:02:40
7	Luis Leon Sanchez Gil (Spain)	0:02:44
8	David Zabriskie (United States Of America)	0:02:51
9	Maciej Bodnar (Poland)	0:03:00
10	Gustav Larsson (Sweden)	0:03:01
11	Bert Grabsch (Germany)	0:03:06
12	Ignatas Konovalovas (Lithuania)	0:03:07
13	Vladimir Gusev (Russian Federation)	0:03:27
14	Carlos Oyarzun (Chile)	0:03:30
15	Nicolas Vogondy (France)	0:03:39
16	Andriy Grivko (Ukraine)	0:03:40
17	José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Spain)	0:03:42
18	Alex Rasmussen (Denmark)	0:03:45
19	Sylvain Chavanel (France)	0:04:00
20	Janez Brajkovic (Slovenia)	0:04:04
21	Artem Ovechkin (Russian Federation)	0:04:07
22	Dmitriy Fofonov (Kazakhstan)	0:04:11
23	Jack Bauer (New Zealand)	0:04:17
24	Tejay Van Garderen (United States Of America)	0:04:41
25	David Mccann (Ireland)	0:04:52
26	Svein Tuft (Canada)	0:04:55
27	Martin Velits (Slovakia)	0:05:00
28	Raivis Belohvosciks (Latvia)	0:05:15
29	Matias Medici (Argentina)	0:05:17
30	Kanstantin Siutsou (Belarus)	0:05:23
31	Michael Morkov (Denmark)	0:05:24
32	Peter Velits (Slovakia)	0:05:26
33	Tanel Kangert (Estonia)	0:05:30
34	Andrey Zeits (Kazakhstan)	0:05:33
35	Dominique Cornu (Belgium)	0:05:36
36	Jos Van Emden (Netherlands)	0:05:47
37	Jay Robert Thomson (South Africa)	0:06:59
38	Jaroslaw Marycz (Poland)	0:07:24
39	Gordon Mccauley (New Zealand)	0:07:46
40	Esad Hasanovic (Serbia)	0:09:02
41	Reginald Douglas (Saint Kitts and Nevis)	0:22:51
42	James Weekes (Saint Kitts and Nevis)	0:23:49

Beauty in a Climax – Ceepo Climax

Bike Review: Ceepo Mamba

They say that when you come across a Black Mamba in the wild you have two options: to die now or to run and die later. Either way you’re not getting out of there alive. It is the single most feared predator on the African Savannah. The Black Mamba attacks with ferocity, it is unforgiving. In the wild only the strongest survive; but against the Black Mamba even they don’t stand a chance.

The CEEPO MAMBA is the road bike for triathletes.

I can hear you thinking “who are CEEPO?” and “why should I trust them?”
The official bike partner of Ironman Triathlon; CEEPO are a Japanese company who specialise in triathlon specific frames. The MAMBA was the result of demand from their ITU athletes to provide a light, aerodynamic frame that was ITU compliant.

A road bike made for triathletes; the CEEPO MAMBA incorporates UCI compliant, ITU triathlon specific design. Whilst the average age group triathlete will not need the ITU compliant geometry, they will benefit from the comfort and aerodynamics that the frame provides.

RIDE
I was given the CEEPO MAMBA for two weeks. Each year I ride my TT bike during the summer season and then pack it away for winter as I log some base km’s in the wet, cold and rain. Apart from not wanting to wreck my TT bike; I want to keep it race friendly for as long as possible. When talking to mates, I found that most triathletes were in this position.

The CEEPO Mamba rides like the child of a top end road bike and a TT frame. The first thing I did was to fit some short clip-on aerobars to the frame. If CEEPO was right I should have been just as comfortable, powerful and efficient in both the ‘road’ (handle bars) position as I was when I switched it into ‘triathlon’ (aerobars) mode. They were right. It has completely changed the way I look at my winter training. Now I can incorporate good climbing and longer intervals into the same workout; whereas previously I would have chosen a frame (road or TT) to suit my specific goal.

It has meant that come summer I will have (hopefully) held onto some of my flexibility and be closer to triathlon specific bike fitness. That can only be a good thing.

SIMPLE
So let’s keep it simple. What makes the CEEPO MAMBA stand out from the crowd?

1. Made from 100% High Modulus Carbon and weighing in at only 1000 grams; the CEEPO MAMBA frame is super light, super tough and very responsive.
2. During winter, athletes want to give their TT bikes a rest. When summer comes around they have lost the flexibility that comes with being down in their aero-position. The CEEPO MAMBA gives triathletes the ability to keep a similar position on their road bike.
3. In a world where road bikes are made for pure cyclists; the CEEPO MAMBA was designed for triathlon. This means that you can attach clip-on aerobars and achieve a comfortable and efficient fit for training during winter.
4. The MAMBA is the perfect bike for those who want to invest in a new bike, but can’t decide between a road or TT frame style. It is fast enough to complement the strongest riders whilst also allowing those new to the sport room to ‘grow into their bike’ as their strength and skills improve.

CEEPO has harnessed the collective power of both the high end road and TT frames with the MAMBA. It will change the way you think about winter training. The CEEPO MAMBA is fast becoming the most feared predator in triathlon.

In the wild only the strongest survive. Make sure it’s you.

(Taken from http://www.firstoffthebike.com)

Bike Fit vs. Your Bike Technique

After doing some research on bike fit and technique I realized that this article from http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com is simply as good as it gets.

A lot has been made about bike fitting in recent years. But while qualified fitters can undoubtedly have a massive impact on your speed and comfort, they do not always offer an absolute solution. Sometimes there are slight alterations that you can make in your own technique that can have a huge impact on the way you perform on the bike.

By Jason Goldberg
Something has been lost in the recent bike-fitting craze. We’ve forgotten that it’s not just about the bike. The typical fitting is all about setting up the bike to support an assumed position of the rider. The goal is a setup that creates an optimal blend of comfort, power and efficiency, but to actually get this result, a fitter must devote just as much attention to the rider’s position, which cannot be taken as a given. Unfortunately, few fitters know much about rider positioning.

Worse, many triathletes don’t even bother to seek out qualified fitters to work on their positioning. On many triathlon forums, people post side-view photos of their positions and ask board members to critique them. The problem here is twofold. One issue is that air hits you from the front as you cut a hole through it, not from the side. The second issue is that most of the people replying with positioning advice have never been in a wind tunnel nor are experienced fitters. In other words, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Let’s look at what wind tunnel testing and real-world experience at the elite level tell us about proper positioning.

There are three major forces that will hold you back when riding your bike on a flat to rolling course: mechanical resistance, rolling resistance and wind resistance. Mechanical resistance is the least important. It is generated by the gears of your bike, which are fairly efficient, especially on a race-tuned bike, and in the bearings, which are also quite efficient. Rolling resistance is a little more complicated, as it varies by tire construction, inflation pressure and surface smoothness.

Both mechanical and rolling resistance increase in a linear manner, but wind resistance is different because, assuming that there is no change in your body riding position, it increases at the square of the increases in speed. The drag on a cyclist traveling at 20 mph is four times as great as the drag at 10 mph. Thus, the faster you go, the more power is required to overcome wind resistance. In any given riding position, you need about 33 percent more power to go 10 percent faster. The good news is that you can reduce wind resistance at any given speed by manipulating your position. The key is to cut down the frontal area of your position, forming your body into a more streamlined shape on your bike. Watch the Tour de France and you can tell which teams and athletes take this streamlined position seriously and which do not. The same goes for the front of most professional non-drafting triathlon fields.

A rule of thumb developed by Steve Hed, of Hed Cycling Products in Shoreview, Minn., is that you can save three seconds over 40 kilometers for every 10 grams of drag dropped. There are 454 grams in a pound; therefore, dropping a pound of drag can save you roughly 2.5 minutes over 40 kilometers and more than 11 minutes over an Ironman bike course.

Reducing Drag
The most effective positioning change you can make to reduce drag is to lower your head as much as you can toward your hands. This change alone has been shown reduce drag by more than 200 grams in the wind tunnel. Taller athletes typically cannot get their head as close to their hands as shorter athletes because of the length of their upper arms. They can overcome this disadvantage to some degree by angling their forearms upward. When this is done properly, you can actually hear the wind resistance decrease.

The next biggest time savings comes from repositioning your shoulders. The objective here is to narrow your shoulders by rolling them inward. To do this, get into your riding position indoors and look directly into a mirror. See if there is a way to “shrug” your shoulders to make yourself narrower. Modifying your elbow and hand position might make it easier.

The more your shoulders roll in the narrower your shoulders will get and the faster you will be. This can save you another 100 to 200 grams of drag. Again, angling your aerobars slightly upward might enable you to narrow your shoulders more comfortably. Moving your elbows closer together may also help. We use giant calipers that we call “manipers” to measure shoulder width and ensure that as the elbows come closer together, the shoulders follow. Eventually, you will get to a point where your shoulders are unaffected by further reductions in the distance between your elbows, and that’s the point where you’ll want to stop.

Aero Positioning
There is no apparent effect of aerobar shape and aerodynamics. S-bends offer the most powerful position but are not necessarily the most comfortable. Finding a balance between power and comfort is important. While pulling up on the bar (which is a real power position), the more rotated your wrist becomes, the more leverage you can generate. The more angle there is in a single bend, the less power you will have pulling up.

The variety of hand positions that are possible with S-bends makes it easier to find a position that optimizes power and comfort. The key to proper S-bend positioning is to make sure that your ring finger is lined up with your elbow. This will prevent the wrist and forearm discomfort often seen with ill-fitted S-bend aerobars. Also, avoid angling your aerobars downward. This not only increases your frontal area, it also raises your effective bar height, causing you to ride “taller” and further increasing your frontal area.

Many triathletes assume that the surest way to increase the aerodynamics of the riding position is to drop your bars and lower your torso, but this is not always the case. A better indicator of aerodynamic positioning, from a side view, is how low the head is. A greater sternum angle may actually facilitate a lower head position because the rider is not forced to keep his or her head back to see forward.

Using a goniometer, we measure an athlete’s sternum angle rather than hip angle. It is certain that if your sternum angle goes below five degrees, you will be slower than if it were at five to 15 degrees. We actually raise some riders because their net drag is unaffected by going a little higher, as the steeper their torso angle is, the more they can lower their heads.

This is not to suggest that your back position is not important to aerodynamics. However, what matters is not how low it is but how you hold it. You want to strive for a slight curve in your mid-spine, almost like a hump. This will help integrate your aero helmet into your streamlined position. Specifically, it will help smooth airflow over your aero helmet, integrating your aero tuck into a neat little package and lowering your drag numbers another 50 to 100 grams.

There is a principle in aerodynamics that states that air likes to flow over curved surfaces as opposed to flat ones. Consider the toroidal bulges of aero wheels versus flat sidewall wheels. If you have a naturally flat back, work on curving your back into a hump, and if you have a humpback, rejoice, because it will help you ride faster.

It is important to note that the best time triallers and triathletes in the world all work very hard to make the unnatural natural. Almost everyone who attempts to modify his or her position according the guidelines I’ve just given you comes back to me after the first few rides complaining about feeling uncomfortable.

Be patient, as it takes time to first get into the right position and then learn to pedal, steer, corner, drink and feed in it. When it does become tolerable and eventually comfortable (and it always does), your persistence will be rewarded with significantly faster bike-splits.