On Sep 16, 10:50 am,
[email protected] wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:58:36 -0700, "[email protected]"
>
>
>
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >On Sep 16, 8:34 am, [email protected] wrote:
> >> You're claiming that a psychological effect causes you to go from from
> >> 8 mph and 377 watts to 12 mph and 587 watts because of an overall
> >> weight change of 1 / 255 pounds, or a 0.4% change in weight leading to
> >> a 58% increase in power output.
>
> >I'm sure the 12 and 8 were more or less just arbitrarily chosen for
> >the sake of the discussion. While I don't dispute the hard figures, I
> >belive the placebo effect and mental attitudes while riding should
> >never be underestimated.
>
> >Speaking as a gravitationally challenged rider, I know first hand it
> >is very easy to have a defeatist attitude when trying to hang with
> >fast riders up steep hills. Having lighter equipment helps keep me
> >focused on not having any excuses, and perhaps allows me to push
> >myself those few extra watts or seconds that I would not have been
> >able to do had I been thinking to myself "oh well, I'm so heavy and my
> >bike is so heavy that I was going to get dropped anyway..."
>
> >For hilly races I use my famous 1200g wheels which are 1100g less than
> >my regular wheels and I swap out my seat (comfy Rolls) and seatpost
> >for a lightweight combo to save 400g. Is this 1500g really going to
> >make or break my race? Probably not, but it allows me to keep a more
> >positive attitude which may just make or break my race.
>
> >That said, I don't think the fork in question will make any
> >difference. ;-)
>
> >Joseph
>
> Dear Joseph,
>
> Painting the fork red ought to accomplish similar results.
>
> 
>
> More seriously, the thread really does illustrate our classic weight
> obsession, where the loss of a single pound leads to wild hopes of a
> Clydesdale increasing his speed quite noticeably up a steep climb,
> followed by even wilder examples of psychology and "lighter handling"
> somehow increasing speed 50% up the same climb while approaching
> Armstrong's watts per kilogram.
>
> The weight removed from the fork will produce less than half a second
> improvement in 150 seconds in the situation described, not the vague
> but impressive results claimed. It's likely that the _obsession_ with
> the weight of the fork produces similarly inflated claims. The placebo
> effect of new equipment tends to wear off quickly when toiling up 8%
> grades that believe in gravity.
If the cyclist is a very consistent machine that can be parked at a
nice effort level, than that is 100% so. But what happens with
everyone when the overdo it on hills is they go too hard over some
magic threshold for too long, and then their power output drops like a
stone. This is all the more drastic with big folks, as they are often
the ones closest to (and over) the threshold, and they lose the most
time when the power runs out.
I train with a few guys much stronger than me, and one of our rides is
up a 3km 4% avg hill that has a 6% at the beginning, a slight
leveling off, and 7% at the end. If I manage to hold somebody's wheel
at 400W on the first part, I'm sitting pretty and can get over the top
with them by saving my 500+ for the last few meters. If somebody
decides to jump in the beginning, even for just a few seconds, and I
have to up the output, I get fried, and finish the hill WAY back.
Lighter equipment (even by very small margins) might allow me to
weather the storm better. It's not that the gear gives me magical
powers of extra watts, but it helps avoid the situation of losing
significant watts from overdoing it. That's my theory at least.
> Of course, a few dozen light-weight aluminum spoke nipples, anodized
> to the right color, might revive--
>
> Er, never mind.
Tell me you don't think my famous Oro 10's don't have gold nipples!
Bling!
>
> For the fun of it, let's send a 235 pound rider up the calculator's 8%
> half-mile grade with a steady 377 watts and 8 mph and see how much
> weight we have to remove from his bike to raise his speed to 12 mph.
>
> http://austinimage.com/bp/velocity/velocity.html
>
> Hmmm . . . we need to reduce the 22 pound bike to -77 pounds. You
> might think that this is possible only with a calculator, but here's
> how to obtain negative bicycle equipment weight:
>
> http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive/DS/DS438.1907.SkyCycle.Dixon.jpg
>
>
I prefer to add weight to my companions. On a ride a few months ago
for laughs one of my buddies took a backpack with weights in it so he
could match my all-up weight. It was funny. At the time we had very
similar threshold power levels, he of course much faster than I due to
his -25kg. But with the weights, I clobbered him. Not even close. Why?
Joseph
