If my post grabbed your attention and made you pull out your wallet and tugged on your heart strings then today is your lucky day, I have discovered that one piece of gear that will make you ride like the wind, and sprint like lighting. (ok ok, tons of sarcasm here).

I just read a post over at cyclocosm that left me shaking my head and thinking how so many people turn into gear heads because of the constant marking hype, the post was about speedplay pedals. The problem is like with anything, when truth is mixed with fiction, it makes it hard to know what is what. I do believe that performance cycling gear, and advances in gear technology certainly help with riding faster and with more comfort and control, but too many people make this a compensating mechanism, they fool themselves into thinking that some expensive cycling gear will make all the difference in their riding performance. I think gear is a critical part of the cycling performance mix, as there really are benefits to some gear, but I’d say physical and mental fitness is 90% of the equation and 10% fit and equipment, but a lot of people get these reversed in priority. For the average club cyclist, a 10K bike and all the latest bike gear isn’t going to do much, they only gear I endource is gear that are training aids like, heart rate monitors, power meters, power cranks, stationary, etc.  and not buying the latest carbon tid bit that will save you 0.0005 grams of weight. As much as I love gear, I know it’s place in the cycling performance mix.  Of course if you’re a pro at the top of the food chain where every second and advantage counts, then yes little gear changes like this become more important, but for us mortals, I think you’d be better off spending your money a month of coaching etc.

I’ve been debating on which power meter to get for  my bike.  I’m putting a lot of thought into it because it could be a costly mistake if I go with the wrong unit, but I worse case scenario I could turn around and sell it and lose little if any money since they sell like hot cakes on ebay, even old junky ones fetch more then they’re worth oftentimes, for a $100-200 hundred dollars more you could just buy a new unit in many cases, so you have to figure out before hand what a unit costs new, and if takign the risk on a used unit that might have issues is worth it.  You shouldn’t have to spend more then a few hundred dollars for an older wired unit, if you’re patient you should be able to find one in your price range on ebay, they last for many thousands of miles and can be serviced too so don’t worry too much about it.

I’ve trained a little bit with power in the gym on the stationary expresso bikes, and I love it, it gives me instant feedback to measure my effort, it’s very simple either you’re putting out the watts or you’re not, speed, wind, grade, none of that matters, it’s like a lie detector. Heart rate is good, but still a subjective measurement, but watts don’t like, and heart rate combined with watts is amazing and tells you so much more about what’s going on, there’s just no comparison.

So I’ve been planning on getting a powermeter this season and have been shopping around educating myself, I’ve narrowed it down pretty much to a powertap, and from there I’m just trying to figure out which model, there’s quite a bit of choices esp. since things have changed greatly in 2009 at Saris

PowerTap Options

1. Old wired SL or Pro unit
2. 1st generation wireless 2.4 unit
3. New 2009 Pro wireless units that are +ANT +Sport i.e Garmin 705 able
4. New 2009 SL+ wireless units that are +ANT +Sport i.e Garmin 705 capable

* And you can get any of these with or without a wheel, or head unit, I’d recommend to get a complete kit with the hub built onto a wheel as you’ll probably have to wait 1-2 weeks and paying $100 more to have the the wheel hub replaced. Also with an extra wheel you could get a matchign front and then have different tires on each set of rims for different weather, or if you have race wheels, unless of course you wanted to race with the powertap, then you’d want it mounted on your nice wheels.
*You can find used units on ebay etc. or buy a new unit

There are some other cheaper new 2009 models but they’re heavier, not wireless and or lack features, I don’t find them as much a value personally.

So let’s get into some details and pros and cons of each, for me it’s basically coming down to which features am I willing to pay for

Cost

1. The cheapest is to get a used wired powertap off of ebay, many of them will come on a mavic open pro rim so you don’t have to spend time or money getting a wheel built, and
   have the option of having training vs. racing wheel, but once you ride with power you’ll probably want race data too, esp. since your real threshold and max watts numbers will come out, it’s very hard in training and testing to hit the same numbers you in a race.
2. The next cheapest option is a used 2.4 wireless unit from last year or earlier.
3. After that then a 2009 Pro+
4. The most expensive option is to get either a new SL+ or SLC+ 2009 already on a wheel, or on a set of race wheels like a zipp 404 etc.

Functionality

In the end you want to be able to collect all the data you need

1. Watts
2. Heart rate
3. Cadence
4. Speed

You need to watch out because not all units work the same and many of the older units are notorious for having broken heart rate monitors, luckily thought Saris is excellent when it comes to customers support and will often just replace the defective head units no questions asked.

If you get an older wired unit, you’ll want to make sure it comes with a heart strap, and HR is working, and it comes with cadence. If it doesn’t don’t worry as some of these items can be ordered by themselves, just take it all into consideration when comparing items in auctions etc.  Some auctions will include both a front and rear wheel, some will come with or without the head unit, you have to look carefully at them when comparing.  Other good questions to ask are

1. When was the unit last calibrated
2. How many miles on the unit
3. Are the bearing in good shape, are they ceramic?
4. Does it come with a working heart strap?
5. is it a coded or uncoded heart strap and head unit?
6. Is the wheel in good shape is it round and true
7. Has the wheel been crashed at all, this is more important for expensive wheels like zipp 404 etc. that you might buy with a powertap

The used 2.4 wirless units can also be a great value, the biggest different between a new and used wirless unit is that you won’t have the +ANT +Sport ability,

Upgrade an old wireless unit to +ANT

for $100 you can order an updater kit from Saris and convert the 2.4 to +ANT so it will talk to your +ANT type units like the Garmin 705.

Which is better wired or wireless?

I’ve found out that both work equally well, there are some pros and cons to both depending on where you ride and how many bikes you have that
you’d be swapping wheels out on etc. or if you ride in inclement weather often.

GPS and power together like peanut butter and Jelly
GPS, while we’re talking about the Garmin 705, you might be asking so what? Well, having the ability to combine GPS with your ride data watts will give you the ability to see where exactly on your ride plotted on a map you where putting out which watts, so if you did a long ride with lots of climbs, or a race etc. you’d be able to see exactly where you did what effort. You can sort of figure this out by looking at your powertap files by trying to compare a major hill climb and time etc. to and guessing where you where on the course, but with the Garmin 705 you’d be able to download GPS and watts data.

Wired PowerTap GPS Bliss

I made an interesting discovery the other day I found out that if you already have a GPS unit like a Garmin extrex etc. and can download a .gpx file etc. You can merge this file with your wired powertap data with the right software and combine GPS and power data very much like a Garmin 705 does.
So if you want the same data but want to save oh say around $1000 between having to buy a wireless +pro +ANT type unit and a $500 garmin 705 and you already have another GPS unit you can download from here is the solution

1. Get a used wireless Powertap for $300-600
2. Get a copy of TopoFusion $60
3. Buy a handheld GPS unit like an extrex etc for around $200 if you don’t have one

Check out this page for more details on how to do it http://www.topofusion.com/power.php

So essentially there’s little difference in actual data collected in a used wired or wireless powertap vs. a new one with the +ANT.
So unless you have some compelling reason to need to have  the +ANT and Garmin GPS unit both I don’t see it being worth spending $1000-1500 more for it.

Reasons that might make it worth it.

1. You already have a Garmin 705
2. You Plan on getting a Garmin 705 anyway, then you might as well get the powertap that works with it.
3. You race and want to save wait by not having to carry both the powertap wired head unit and your Garmin handheld GPS unit
4. Or if you’re like me and do a lot of back country road riding and exploring then the 705 can be nice to help you  find your way around
5. Also when racing the 705 can be nice to show you whats coming up, how tight a turn, or how much further to the top the climb, this can help you plan your attacks etc.
   or know how fast you can safely go into a unfamiliar corner at.
6. Having +ANT sport is nice as you’ll be able to use with different cycling computers and head units, but don’t let it hold you back and make you feel like you’re held back
   from collecting high quality training and race data. You’ll be able to collect exactly the same data, you’ll just be doing it slightly different and viewing perhaps different on the bike etc.

Conclusion

The good news is no matter your budget you’ll be able to collect the same data regardless of the unit you go with, the down side is that if you have to have the latest and greatest features and a new unit you’re going to pay a lot more, esp. if you want to get a Garmin 705 to work with your powertap unit.

You can get a Garmin 705 for around $400 and powertap PRO+ for $1200 with wheel so altogether expect to spend around $1600 vs.  spending about $1000 less and getting by with a
used wired unit for few hundred dollars on ebay and a cheaper handheld gps unit for around $120.

If you’re racing or doing a lot of exploring or touring around the back country the Garmin 705 can be a nice option.

Either way training with power is within most people’s budgets, so I ask to “Power or not to be”?

So after a few weeks now of lackluster cycling performance, tiredness, sickness etc.  I’ve figured out that I had pushed myself  a lot harder then I realized, to the point where I crossed over a couple weeks ago from overreaching into over-training, and now I’m having to back way off and let my body recovery fully. This is my first year of serious cycling training, I have never trained off-season before so I didn’t really know what to expect from my body in response to the training. So I’m still trying to figure out my body and figure out what my ideal training volume is, and learning what the difference between overreaching and over-training is.

From what I’ve learned in my past couple days research is that over-training is a complex condition that isn’t fully understood, and for all intensive purposes present the same symptoms.

“Overreaching is a term used to describe temporary over-training, which can require 2 days to 2 weeks of recovery time and true overtraining, which can require weeks to months of recovery time. “Overreaching occurs when full recovery is not achieved for an extended time period and fatigue builds up. This usually occurs slowly over the course of a month or two, but it can happen much quicker in the face of a dramatic increase in training volume and/ or intensity. Symptoms associated with overreaching are similar to fatigue, only more severe. Those of you who have overreached may also notice an increased resting heart rate, premature fatigue during training, decrease in work capacity, increased heart rate during submax loads and an increased thirst, especially at night.”

So right now I’m either severely overreached or mildly overtrained, sort of  like when they say in economic terms a recession is a “mild depression” and a depression is a “severe recession” lol. Going off the text book definition I’m probably just overreached, at this point as all of the symptoms seemed to start about a month ago,  so I should be fine in 1-2 weeks of recovery.

Trigger

Seems like a combination of things triggered it

1. I went from training indoors on the stationary to riding outside two months ago.  I seem to ride outside a lot harder then inside so I need more recovery at least at first
   when transitioning to the real bike. Riding outside compared to the trainer is like having dozens of uncontrolled intervals of varying lengths, I live in the mountains so if I’m not going up a hill, I’m going down one on my way to the next climb, flat roads here are hard to find. Every ride here is a hard ride I guess you could say.
2. I didn’t account for how much extra stress the cold weather, wind, rain, etc it was putting on my body.
3. Training to hard in the cold weather, I’ve been testing myself too much out in the cold, and pushing and hammering in the cold, I think this really beats your body up. I should be doing base miles and only doing one short tempo ride per week, instead most of my rides are tempo rides on the road, only the group MTB rides end up being slow to moderate.
4. Training in the gym too late in the day, this really screws me up, if I train after dinner I usually have a lot of trouble getting to sleep or sleeping soundly that night.
5. Training outside through illness, I was sick last month for about a week with a head cold, I rode the whole time outside, I think that took more out of me then I realized and I didn’t give my self time to recover.
6. I’m been very busy at work lately, this extra stress just adds insult to injury
7. I’m waking up several times a night as my daughter started teething last month and has effected my sleep quality which I desperately need with all the training I’m doing.
8. I’ve been dieting the whole last year, losing weight, and I found that’s it’s a very fine line between recovery and overreaching when trying to ride to get faster and stronger while also trying to loose weight.  Probably if I’d just ride around doing L2-L3 rides on the mountain bike then I would have never gotten in the state I’m currently in.

It’s not surprising with all these things added up that something had to give.

Discovery

I started chatting with some people online about how my performance has been down the tubes the last few weeks, and someone mentioned it sounds like I’m overtrained. After thinking about it a bit and going over the different symptoms I’ve had in the last weeks it became painfully clear that they where probably right, at a minimum I was severly overreached. It all added up

1. Loss of appetite
2. Trouble sleeping
3. Big drop in cycling performance
4. Inability to raise my heart rate up to threshold, my legs would give out before I could even get close to my threshold watts.
5. Inability to hold my previous 2 minute max watts, I could only do maybe 30 seconds at the same output before my legs died.
6. Trouble focusing
7. Weak, heavy legs
8. Dizziness, bumping into things, lack of equilibrium
9. Apathy
10. Training hard through illness
11. Prolonged muscle soreness

I think the biggest clue and the thing I first noticed was when I would try to do anything at VO2max or threshold, in other words when I would redline the system, it would show clear signs that something was wrong, that I was not fully recovered. But I ignored these thinking I was off a peak or something. But there is a big difference between not peaking and being overtrained. When you’re healthy and fresh but not peaking, then you’re still strong, just not as strong, there isn’t as big a difference as when you’re overtrained. When you’re overtrained, your tanks are really empty, you’re lucky to be able to do 50% of what you normally could do on a good day.

Recovery

1. Rest, Rest, Rest
2. Food
3. Hydration
4. Reducing the volume and intensity of training dramatically for 1-2 weeks
5. Avoiding stress as much as possible
6. Easing back into training, and watching very closely for signs of under recovery

Prevention

I learned the hard way that we all react and recover to training at different rates, so it’s critical that you don’t ignore your body’s message of needing more recovery or an easy day vs. another hard day even if it’s in the schedule or you have a challenging group ride planned.  Training on tired legs will give you zero improvement, and will mean it will now only take longer to recover fully.

I’m going to cut my training blocks down from 3 weeks down to 2 weeks, so 2 weeks of build,  then a week of reduced volume “stabilization” before going at it again.

I’m going to start keeping track of the symptoms I get when I’m not recovered, and if I see them continuing more then a few days then I know I need to spend some easy days recovering until they go away.

I’m going to do my 2 minute threshold watts test after each 3d week, i.e the recovery/unloading week to see if I’m recovered or not, if I can’t complete the test like I normally, if I have trouble holding the watts for the whole time, and my heart rate is having trouble getting up, and my legs are feeling prematurely fatigued, I know something is up then. I think this will make a great early warning system for me, as this seems to be the first thing I notice when I’m not recovered.

I’ll combine the test results with other subjective questions like

1. Do my legs feel strong?
2. When is the last time I came close or beat my personal best time on the 2 minute TT course?
3. How is my energy level?
4. Am I able to focus and think clearly, or am I tired and cloudy headed and feel unmotivated?
5. Do my legs feel tired and heavy?
6. How do I feel on the bike, am I able to dig in and ride at my maximum? Are my legs giving out when I sprint up even short hills?
7. Am I having trouble holding near my best average speed on my TT course?
8. Do I feel calm, energized and motivated to ride, or do I feel agitated and feel like I’m forcing myself to complete my training session?

I’ve found that our ability to handle training and recovery will change over time, and at different times of the year, and varies for different people, the only way to prevent overreaching for long periods of time is to know what signs to watch out for and to take immediately start recovery when you are needing more recovery. It’s normal to be a bit overreached during your build weeks, but you should not be doing a hard session if you’re not recovered, you should cut it short and call it a day and take more time to recover.

I’ve found that for myself that when I’m 100% I can ride really hard, and suffer at my maximum ability to suffer, this ability is both good and bad, on one hand it helps me reach new levels of riding ability, on the other it makes it so I need more recovery time then usual. Also being a large athlete also requires that I need more recovery time as smaller athletes generally recover faster then larger ones. So my friends might be able to handle 2 races or hard group rides a week where I’m lucky to tolerate one, but when I’m fully recovered I can ride that one ride and turn myself inside out and ride my heart out.

I’m not going to argue if cranks should be different lengths depending on how big or small you are, it’s obvious to me that someone taller should use a longer crank and the opposite if you’re short.  I’m beyond debating that point. But what I’m not clear about is who’s formula is most accurate. Keep in mind no formula is exact because I’m sure leg ratio, the type of riding you’re doing, your preferred cadence etc. all will effect these numbers a little bit.

Formula #1 by Lennard Zinn

multiplying your inseam (in millimeters) by 0.21 or 0.216 = length of crank in mm

http://www.zinncycles.com/cranks.php

Formula #2 by Kirby Palm

L(mm) = 5.48 x I(in)

http://www.polaris.net/palmk/Crankset.html

http://www.polaris.net/palmk/resume.html

I’m currently leaning towards Zinn’s formula and my tests I’ve done so far seem to prove it right, at least to me. Also keep in mind one of these formula’s was made by a bike builder, avid cyclist and former racer, where Palm well, I think he’s a smart guy, but I don’t know where he comes up with his numbers for his formula and I his about page does not paint the picture of someone who practices what they preach. I see Palm not having any history as an elite cyclist or bike builder and avid cyclist, but that of recreational cyclist that happens to be an engineer.

Let me know what you think?

Have you ever tried different length cranks, what was your experience?

If you don’t feel like training today, here’s a video to get you fired up!