Last time I reviewed what blueseventy’s Ben Bigglestone said about wetsuits at the Timex team meeting. This time the blog is about bikes. Dean Gore and Scott Daubert of Trek showed up to talk about their bikes, specifically the TTX. The new TTX is suppose to be faster than the model that Lance rode in the TDF, but since none of us are racing Lance, (and Trek would probably give him the new model anyway) I’ll share their tips that will help against the amateurs most of us race.

Here’s a time saving tip. Next time you see a forum thread on Slowtwitch asking, “Should I ride my road bike or tri-bike in such and such triathlon?” just skip it. The answer is always ride the tri-bike. The position benefit of the tri-bike trumps the weight penalty versus the road bike for every real world triathlon bike leg. The guys from Trek had modeled the first part of the Ironman Wisconsin course to show why. Only when someone creates a triathlon with a one way, mountain top bike leg finish should you re-address this issue.

Want to cut time off your bike split for free? Their next tip was to carry a water bottle on the down tube.Tests in the wind tunnel showed carrying a bottle here reduced drag versus a bare frame. By the way, this was the second time I’ve heard this; John Cobb found the same thing in his wind tunnel tests. Take the advice and carry your spare tube, tire levers and CO2 cartridge in the bottle and ditch your seat bag. Bontrager is suppose to have some cool aero water bottles, but the only place I’ve seen them is in a picture of Karen Smyer’s bike.

The last tip I remember was about tri-bike handling. When Trek was redesigned the TTX the feedback they got from their pro riders was a short stem handled better on the downhills. The jumps between sizes on the TTX are pretty big so if you are between sizes, you might be best served going with the larger size. I asked the Trek guys if there was a stem size that they wouldn’t recommend and that said they offered stems between 7 and 13 cm and all would work but…shorter seems better.
Those are the sponsor’s tips. And when I hear a good pro tip, I’ll post it.

Seconds per 100 that is… The BlueSeventy PointZero3 name actually refers to the frictional coefficient of the swimskin, which is 0.03, compared to ~0.10 for something like a Speedo Fastskin, or 0.50 for human skin. But who really cares about all that? How does that number translate into a number we really care about, namely how fast we go in the pool.

In order to try to answer this question, which I’d heard rumored was as much as five seconds per 100, I headed off the pool. The suit, which works in two ways - reducing the friction over your body AND increasing your buoyancy slightly - is very comfortable, and swimming in it requires no changes to your stroke, unlike swimming in a wetsuit, where you really should change your stroke a bit to take maximal advantage of the suit. In the PZ3, you just swim, and, *hopefully*, go faster.

So I wanted to test a few things - maximal speed, cruising speed, and then consistency over a steady interval set. Maximal speed is a bit flaky, since warm-up, turn-quality, etc. plays such a large role. But I can pretty consistently bang out 31 second 100’s when swimming fast. In the PZ3? 29.5 at what I perceived to be the same exertion level. So far, so good. I also did a cruising 200 just to see how it did for steady, which I can normally nail at 2:35-2:40, and I was 2:28. Again, so far, so good.

But this was all one-off stuff. How about a workout where consistency is key? So I had a good set - 30 x 100 as 10×100 swim on 1:30, 10×100 pull-buoy only on 1:25, 10×100 pull paddles on 1:20. The swim 100’s were really good, and I was consistently 2-3 seconds faster than when I had done the workout the week before. The pulling sets were harder to compare since the pull buoy slipped down so easily on the smooth skin of the suit, so I would call those basically useless for comparison.
So, after my basically unscientific study, I have concluded that I like this swim skin an awful lot. Thanks guys… To give a reference point about this suit, a good wetsuit will save you 8-10 seconds per 100, so to have just a swim skin save you 2-3 seconds is pretty darn fast. As with all these sort of things, I’ll offer the disclaimer “your mileage may vary.” Or rather, I should say “your timeage may vary.” Of course, timeage isn’t a word, but never mind…

Well, it sounds funnier if you imagine some guy from NYC saying it, phonetically, “Wat’s a wat?” Anyway… I digress. The point is, what exactly is “a watt”? Technically speaking, it is a unit of power. Depending on how strict you are in terms of units, it is THE unit of power. Sorry America, horsepower is only for cars… It is named in honor of scientist James Watt, and it is equivalent to one joule/second, or the power required to generate one joule of energy every second. For those who don’t like joules, it is one kg*meter/second^3 (a joule is one kg*m/s^2), which is to say it is the power required to accelerate a one kg object one m/s^2 every second. Which is to say you need to increase an objects speed one meter/second every second every second. Make sense? Good…

Now that we have all that out of the way, let’s discuss what a watt really means. For you, as a triathlete, it is relevant to your cycling. It is relevant to swimming and running too, but in a more abstract way, since you can’t measure it directly. Well, you can’t measure it outside a lab. Fortunately, on the bike, you can measure it directly, and you can measure it with something that comes with you on every ride. There are three basic systems for measuring power out there: the SRM (the first real on-bike powermeter), the PowerTap, and the Ergomo. By all accounts, the SRM and PowerTap are the best, with the Ergomo receiving mixed reviews, usually dependent, it seems, on who installed it. All three systems measure the same thing, our friend the WATT. If you are considering a powermeter that is not one of the above three, STOP. I won’t name names, but you don’t want it.

Now, forgetting all that mumbo jumbo in the first paragraph, a watt is the power you, as a cyclist to overcome three things - air resistance, rolling resistance, and gravity. That’s it. Those are the only things slowing you down. Sure, it might be hot (or cold) or humid (or dry) or raining (or snowing). But none of that matters to the watt. Power is the same regardless of these things. Which makes power the only way to really gauge power on the bike.

BUT, and this is a big but (as opposed to butt, like wat and watt, only wat is not a word), you can’t forget about the other stuff, since that stuff does affect, to some extent, how many watts it takes your body to apply X watts to the pedals. They are not the same, which is why you get hot and sweaty when you exercise. But, generally speaking, a watt is a watt is a watt. And this means if you suddenly see someone flying away up a hill during a race, it is often a matter of seconds (if you are pacing with power) before you reel him back in because he doubled his power output to do so, and now his legs are toast. Of course, he doesn’t know this, because he doesn’t have a powermeter, so he is attacking the climb “old skool.” Which is fine, because then seconds later I pass him “new skool” style - with steady power.

Watts are also good because all those roads you thought were slightly uphill (or downhill) or slightly into a headwind (or tailwind) can be confirmed as such. Speed ceases to be relevant (not that it ever really was), and power is your new guide. It’s like the Force, only since power is ~force^3, we shoudl really call it THE POWER, since it is that much more hardcore than “the force.” For reference, if you want to be a super geek, which we know triathletes do, the unit of force is the Newton. So if you have buddies with Newton shoes, you can say your powermeter is tres cooler, even though tres is three times and we are talking cubed. But so watt? I mean, so what?

Alright, aside from the fact that you may be thinking I am crazy, how does this really affect you. The simple answer, it means you should get a powermeter. Specifically, one of the three I mentioned. Team CSC uses the SRM. Team Phonak used the Powertap. So either one is good enough to train to win a Grand Tour. Bjorn Andersson uses the Ergomo, so it’s good enough to set a multitude of fastest bike splits in triathlon.

Once you have said powermeter, you will begin training WITH power. This means that you will go out and ride and see what your power is. After you have done this for a while, you will then be able to start training BY power. And this is where you get real gains. Because you can set minimum effort levels for your workouts (and occassionally maximums for those rare recovery rides). So suddenly, you can be assured of a base level of quality on your long rides. And you can also make sure you don’t coast that road that really is slightly downhill and that you don’t toast your legs on that road that is slightly (or even more than slightly) uphill. And once you know how to train by power, you can also choose to race by power, which is the best way to ensure that you run well off the bike. Since that guy that drilled the uphill X seconds before you passed him, he probably isn’t going to run so well either courtesy of said toasted legs.

If you have ever said this (and most triathletes have), “I felt so good on the bike, but then I just died on the run,” the pacing by power is going to help you.

So what is a watt, really? It is the thing that is going to help you take your training (and racing) to the next level…

So Team Timex has been something that I have wanted to become a part of for the past 3 seasons.  Each year, something else has come up that has prevented that from taking place.  Well, this year I wan’t going to let that happen again. 

 I am now a part of what I believe of the greatest multisport team in the world.  I am not just speaking of the talent on our team, which by the way is AMAZING.  I am speaking about the types of people that are here.  Yes, everyone is nice and they are fast and they are have been in the sport for a while.  But everyone is also a ”good” person, they have good morals and intentions…maybe that is why everyone gets along so well???

By the way, I am speaking about the athletes, the team support crew and everyone else that is linked in with Timex.  There is a reason that they are in. 

 Either way, team camp was great.  SoCal is much different than i thought…at least on the coast.  It is beautiful, but VERY crowded.  Traffic jams at 11pm????  You have to be ok with the fact that you could potentially be delayed for HOURS, sitting in your smog filled car.  If you lived on the coast, the training would be tough, I can see why and how so many cyclists get killed each year.

 Besides a bit of training and meeting the team this weekend, we also got a chance to meet the sponsors. 

 The wetsuits have been updated and are even better than last year.  The big feature is a cuff that blocks water from entering and leaving through your sleeves when swimming. AWESOME!

The Trek Bikes are probably the stiffest bikes on the tri market and I think that it will show by some of the times that people put up.  Just wait, everyone is going to want one.  You won’t be able to miss them either, because the new team color is ORANGE!!!!  BLAZE ORANGE for all the Wisconsin-ites out there.

Ok, that is all for now.  I am currently in Tempe putting the finishing touches on my taper for IM Arizona in 10 days.  Should be a HOOOOT Time. 

 Also, a thank you to Ben H., Keith M. and Tom S. for everything that they put into this team…can you imagine living out of a truck and trailor for 2 months at a time???????????  I owe you all a few beers after the 15th.

 BB

www.blakebecker.com

So, what is the difference, besides the obvious one, of a sleeveless vs. non-sleeveless wetsuit? Overall, the differences can be described in terms of “comfort,” with comfort breaking down into two categories - temperature differences and stroke differences.

If you are fighting for a podium spot that you routinely miss by a couple seconds, then, yes, a sleeved wetsuit will be faster in terms of strict hydrodynamics. But for most triathletes, the issue of hydrodynamics and fractions of a second of speed should take a back seat to comfort in the wetsuit.

In warm water, close to the 78F cutoff, a sleeveless wetsuit can keep you from overheating during the swim. Especially if it is sunny out, and you are in a black rubber suit, the extra cooling of water on your arms and a little more flow through the suit can make a big difference. In colder water, keeping water from flowing through the suit during the swim, as well as keeping your arms covered, can help make the swim a much more pleasant experience.

But beyond comfort with regards to water temperature, there is also the issue of swimming effectively in a wetsuit. A wetsuit should make you swim faster for a couple reasons. First off, it has a very, very smooth skin (which is why you paid for a fancy QR suit instead of a BodyGlove surf suit) which has a very, very low skin friction coefficient.

Think gliding across ice vs. gliding across, say, a pile of boulders. Secondly, it makes you more buoyant, so you float easier, which for many super-skinny runner/cyclist types, can be a big boon. It also provides that buoyancy in an engineered fashion, lifting your hips up especially high, to put you in what is known as a “downhill position,” which makes swimming with proper technique easier. Both sleeveless and sleeved wetsuits do this basically equally well.

The sleeves *can* get in the way of proper swimming, though. For some athletes, their rotator cuffs are not strong enough to flex the suit for an entire 1.2 or 2.4 miles of swimming. Moving the rubber shoulder, which is obviously molded to want to stay in one position, can be tremendously tiring.

Some companies, including Quintana Roo, have put a tremendous amount of effort into making the shoulders as flexible as possible. The ribbed, 0.5mm shoulders of the QR suit are paper thin. BUT, they are still less flexible than having nothing there. Especially over an IM, if you don’t posses the deltoids of a boxer, moving your arms can become tiring enough without needing to worry about flexing a suit as well.

If you feel this way, a sleeveless suit may very well end up being faster for you than a sleeved suit. I talk to many triathletes who bought sleeved suits because they think they are the fastest, without any sort of regard to how they would work for them specifically.

Wetsuits are a very individual item, just like a bike saddle or shoes. Don’t pick a suit just based on who swims in one. The right suit for the fellow leading the swim at an IM may not be the right suit for you. Of course it might be, but that’s just coincidence.

Many retailers have excellent exchange policies on suits that have only been used in the pool (with an obvious preference towards ones that have also not been peed in!). So try suits out. And, of course, make sure to try both sleeved and sleeveless to see which one works best for YOU.