We’re not sure what to make of Rapha. There are two types of cyclist who ride to compete – those that ALWAYS wear their team or club jersey and those that don’t. We’re in the latter camp. Sure we’ll wear them in a race, but you know the type – as sure as the sun will rise, they riders will have on their team or club jersey no matter the week of the day or no matter ths size or speed of the group. That’s not us and frankly we don’t get a lot of support as the industry lacks good simple jerseys. There are some, but there need to be more and they need some style to boot. Enter Rapha – they have a discerning eye for style and detail and we appreciate their understated tones. The belgium country jersey design is something we would never change. The style is one-of-kind, and the design says classic for years to come, but unfortunately that’s about wear it ends. The cost is up there, as in up there with Assos and for quality we’ll pay it, but rapha fit isn’t for us. It’s for riders with money and in cycling money more often than not comes with weight and girth. Sure it’s a generalization and not all svelte guys are cash strapped and conversely not all portly riders are loaded with another kind of dough. Nevertheless, if this were vegas we know where the house would make their bets. To sum, we like the design and quality, but not the fit and in the end that prohibits us from riding their gear.
The Rapha cycling club in NYC is supposed to be a place for cyclist to come and chill and check out Rapha gear. Since one of us has a job that takes them into NYC three days a week the cycle club was something that got us excited. A lot of press has been written about the cycle club and it’s not just cycling media and blogs. A place to go and get good coffee and watch the tour on a big screen with other aficionados – count us in. BTW, we agree with Rapha’s Mike Spiggs, most cycling fans are coffee freaks and so are we, not all, but most – see what we mean about generalizations ; )
The layout of the club, like all rapha products, was well done and the jerseys, hats and other items made us long to wear their products. The products worked in conjunction with the ever-cool Paul Smith, love his suits, were awesome. The coffee bar looked appetizing and it was confirmed to us the night before that the TV would indeed be tuned in live to the tour. We schlepped over during stage 10 with a work colleague who knows nothing of cycling, but wants to learn and coincidently enjoys coffee.
Well, the experience feel far short. First the coffee: good coffee, should, never, ever be served out of a vacuum pump carafe. We don’t care what the claims are – after 5 minutes in a carafe the coffee comes out luke warm and the taste is substantially degraded. Coffee needs to be ground right, brewed right and served right – if you only do two of the three you’re not doing it right and that was the case. The coffee was luke warm and, well, worse than, say, starbucks drip.
The crew at Rapha cycle club – the guy in the corner had the floor, the entire time.
Who cares, we got the tour, right? Well, not really. There were a lot of people as evidenced by the picture. They were into the race, they were watching the race, the race was live -all ingredients for a cool communal event, but it wasn’t a communal event. Rather than a TV blasting the tour and people talking and drinking coffee – we had some Rapha employee on a call with Mike Creed and Mike Friedman and the TV feed was muted. So no accompanying commentary by the ever-famous, but getting-long-in-th- tooth Paul and Phil. Sure Paul and Phil need to up their repertoire, but if you’re going to mute Paul and Phil then you need to be better than Paul and Phil and this guy wasn’t. To boot he had himself and the Mike’s on a big speaker and the result was everyone sat in silence and watched. If you’ve ever attended a speaker at the library you know the atmosphere. Think of why watching the world cup in a bar is fun – cause they don’t do what rapha was doing. We just sat there in silence and tried to follow the confusing conversation this rapha guy was having with the Mikes. Sure he had one or two pithy comments which made us laugh, but we had to sit in silence for an hour to get two little nuggets. Given it was a flat stage you could tell my colleague was bored (he pulled out his laptop and started coding). Needless to say, I don’t think I converted my colleague into a cycling fan.
In the end the rapha cycling club came out like their products – excellent concept, flawed execution. Nevertheless, we wish them the best, anyone investing in cycling should be commended. We just hope they learn and codify their approach in their stores and in their products.
There are a lot of things we love about riding our bikes. One of them is new experiences. We enjoy trying new routes, meeting new riders and trying out new equipment. Sometimes the monotony of the sport gets to you – same old, same old. To spice it up the slightest change can have a substantial impact. When you have cables installed by a professional you’ll know what we’re talking about. It’s like you get a whole new bike, but yet you have the same frame, wheels and groupset. Try new a brand of bibs and the same thing happens – new bike feeling with the same old bike. Given that a good set of bibs can easily run more than a $200 how does one get that new bike feeling for under $50?
Replace your cleats and you'll thank us later.
Simple – a new pair of cleats. A new pair of cleats is a major transformation. It’s amazing how much better you clip in. Yea, we all try to baby our shoes, but the cleats take abuse even when you stop at a red light or just mounting your bike.
While we’re on cleats – we see cleats as being a litmus test for a real bike shop. We’re into bikes and bike racing and we also happen to be a capitalist. What we aren’t is a capitalist who sees bikes as a conduit to money. There’s a distinction. How many new bikes shops have you been into where they have the latest 8k Trek or Specialized but none of the basics like good socks, cleats, lube or sports drinks? Yea, we know there are several brands and it’s difficult to carry it in inventory – whatever. We just don’t get how you can be a shop and have none of this stuff in stock, but you can have spot lights on a 8k bike.
Wow really hard! When I read the description of the course I had a feeling it was going to be difficult given the nature of the technical the sending and gradual climbs. It turned out the race was much harder
As you can see the course is rolling.
than it would read on the posts. Quick course description you started a school neutral roll out and make a left turn onto the course continuing neutral down the Hill and then being allowed to race with a small sign on the side of the road. This first road has a few short rolling climbs in a couple stand uppunchy climbs make your next right here turn it was a long gradual climb into another right hand turn this next road at some gradual ups and downs and then took another sweeping right-hand turn got a bit steeper here with a few something grates. It climbed up to another right-hand turn fall flat at the top sweeping descent by big lake and then a right turn the final climb which is approximately 1 columnar with a few steep pitches in the first 500 m and then rolling up to the spot finish. You then sweep down the Hill and make a right turn onto the decent that you started the initial lap on.
Yea, try doing it seven times and then it REALLY gets to be rolling.
The field was pretty small maybe about 50 guys in the weather was humid and warm. Start off with some fairly fast riding would people sprinting over the small rollers on the initial decent. A familiar pattern began to emerge small groups would roll away get a large gap and lose probably 30 seconds of it on the finish climb. the field was either tired or hot because we frequently slow down in the breaks were not making any progress up the road. The funny thing is most of the first hot races of every year follow the same pattern,everyone over heats and rides slower. At the race occasionally the whole field would be coasting along no one wanting to pedal. So gaps opened up easily but groups would come right back without too much effort at least at first.
We showed up with three guys, Shawn Forsythe Dylan McNicholas and myself. Since we had a good chance of winning the race with Dylan, Shawn and I both sacrificed our races so that he might have a chance of winning. Shawn pulled hard into the bottom of the climb to bring the race back together and he got popped. Later on I did the same thing the first time getting dropped in catching back up and the second time leading into the final climb on the next-to-last lap was the last pull I did for the day. Dylan finished the race off with getting third. I stopped with one to go,honestly thinking it was the finish,but it didn’t really matter. They said one more and I said not for me!
Main Stats for Race:
- Distance 70 miles
- Climb 5,355
- Average Speed 23.1mph
- Steepest Gradient 14%
- Max Speed 48mph
There it is, a frame by the man himself.
There was a time when a bike frame was as much art as it was science. In this day of Asian-made carbon fiber those days are quickly fading. Thankfully there are still a few custom frame makers and as of now choices are thankfully still plentiful. You have everything from custom carbon, ti, aluminum or steel and you can get it made by one-man shops to multi-departmenal corporations. Still, if you want to ride a bike that’s ridden in the pro peleton – you’re going mass produced carbon and more and more this stuff is manufactured in China. We’re not saying this is bad, it’s just different.
Even with all these advancements there was a bike ridden in the pro peleton that elicited an intangible response. Don’t take our word for it, competitive cyclist, ten speed hero and bicycling magazine have all fawned over this one special bike. We’re talking about a Merckx Team SC, specifically one that is made in the DOMO livery.
There is just something about this bike. Even at tens years of age it still has a certain something – The French call it “je ne sais quoi” and it basically means a quality or attribute that is difficult to describe or express – we couldn’t agree more. So what is it about this one specific bike? We’re not sure how to describe it, but we’ll try.
Notice the little details. This is lost on frame makers of today.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that DOMO was a team that didn’t do anything to the start of the 2001 season and then they stomped all over everyone at Paris Roubaix. We’ve said it before, the 2001 Roubaix race is one to watch. Maybe it was the color scheme. We live in a time where white spokes and red hoods are considered radical. To us those as passing fads and will someday look as silly as purple anodized components. Maybe it was the fact that it was a aluminum bike and it won Roubaix – won it as in swept the podium and then went on to win the mountain jersey at the tour. Isn’t aluminum supposed to be too harsh and carbon the magic carpet ride? These results suggest otherwise. Maybe it’s the fact that Eddy Merckx is and was always be the most dominating rider to ever race a bike and this frame represented the last frame that didn’t contain a mold or glue. Don’t even get us started on Eddy selling the business. Whatever it is, this bike has it in spades and we recently got to build up a frame for a customer.
The frame was originally for Craig Gaulzeti when he racing in Belgium. Craig’s a great guy and another new englander who went over to stomp on the european circuit. Lucky for Craig and our customer this is a custom Merckx spec’d by the man himself. As such it has the famous merckx laid back road race geometry and a custom 60.25cm top tube. Our client is just over 6’3″ with a long torso, so the 59cm seat post and the long top tube fit him perfectly.
Owners are the only ones who are proud - we built the bike and we're proud, too.
A perfect fitting bike and one of the more cooler modern frames to ever grace the professional circuit. We were lucky to build such a cool bike.
Shimano Ultegra looks good, but more importantly it performs and has borrowed from Dura Ace and the results are easy to see.
We’ve long been fans of shimano – the proof is that we’ve been riding and racing shimano dura ace for 20 years. Campy wins for elegance, but shimano wins for utility. It works, even when out of tune it still works and you can rely on it time and time again. The prices are fairly stable across retailers whereas Campy fluctuates about the same as air fares for the major US airlines.
For most of the 80s and 90s Shimano made quantum leaps in cycling technology. Indexed shifting – that probably doesn’t mean anything to most of our readers and customers, but for riders back in the days of “Breaking Away” it meant a lot. On downtube shifters a rider had to move the shifter to whatever cog they wanted without any indexing – you moved the shifter and the derailleur moved. Simple enough, problem is your tired and a fraction of a difference in the length of a given shift means an all together different gear and, as we all know, there is nothing worse when you’re tired than getting the wrong gear. Indexing changed that – for every click of the shifter, you got a different gear. Want one gear, move the shifter one click – want three, move it three clicks. Small change, big difference.
From there shimano gave us another huge change – STI shifting. No more did we have to take our hands off the bar and move it to the downtube to shift the bike. Shifting was incorporated into the hoods and brake levers. Were the shifters heavy? You bet. Did they make a difference? Huge. Imagine doing a crit and taking your hands off the bar and reaching the downtube shifter every time you wanted to shift. Get the picture? We know riders who don’t even take a drink during a crit, not cause they don’t want to or don’t have a bottle, but because they can’t take their hands off the bars. STI shifting was a big deal.
Both times Campy had to be dragged into these advancements kicking and screaming. Over the years Shimano made other improvements, but those were the big two until the recent release and real-world use of electronic dura ace (something we’ll review later).
Recently we put Ultegra 6700 on one of our winter bikes. Shimano made changes to both dura ace and ultegra since SRAM was grabbing market share on aftermarket grouppo sales. SRAM was reasonably priced, used by pro teams and looked good (we’ll review their products later). Were it not for SRAM we think the only changes to shimano might have been the introduction of electronic. Campy has hidden the shifter cables since they came out with ergo shifting in the 90s and shimano refused to make any changes. Shimano claimed the cables had to be exposed since wrapping them under the bars would create too much friction. They had a point – go use any old shimano STI system and the exposed cables make shifting easier. No question. It just doesn’t look good and it’s unsightly.
With these points understood we’re often asked “new ultegra 6700 or old dura ace 7800?” – if you want the short answer, go with the dura ace 7800. Here’s the long answer:
The Ultegra 6700 crank is a huge step up. It performs far better than the previous generation and is far stiffer. By far this was our favorite new upgrade.
Ultegra is a few steps forward and one giant step back. First, the progression: The updated crank is much better. A two piece system with hidden crank bolts. This is trickle down right from dura ace and the result is a crank that looks good and is stiff and light. Not much more one could want. The shifters have lost the exposed cables and therefore your bike wont look like an inspect anymore. So far so good, but that’s where it stops for improvements. The calipers are basically the same as is the bottom bracket and front and rear deraileurs, marketing material will tell you otherwise, but trust us, they’re effectively the same. Now for the bad news. First, yes, the finish is a step up from the old ultegra SL, but what’s up with matt grey? Message to campy, shimano and SRAM – any groupset around a thousand bucks should have a finish of either black or chrome. Everyone seems to get this BUT shimano. Now for the really bad news. Sure the shifters look better, but the hoods are huge and by huge we mean HUGE. One of is 6’4″ and in competitive bike racing that makes us a Goliath and these hoods are just too big. Your opinion might differ and we encourage you to try them out, but too big seems to be the collective opinion. Here is the biggest mistake though – for whatever reason on the upshift shimano changed it so ultegra 6700 only shifts two gears, not three. WTF?!? This is a horrible idea and we’re not sure what they were thinking. Where we live it’s hilly and hardly flat – you hit a rolling hill and you almost always shift two gears, take a few pedal strokes and decide if you need a third shift which more times than not you do – then you power over the rest. With all other 2nd tier groups (e.g., chorus or force) we can shift three gears in one motion of the lever, but not ultegra 6700. It stinks. You quickly notice how often you use this or better yet WOULD use this and you take your two shifts and then keep holding the lever out and take the third – or not. With ultegra do your two and then go through the motion again. Not the end of the world, by any stretch, but not well thought out either. Will this lack of feature slow you down? Probably not, but you will notice it, and you will really notice it if you’ve used other groupsets.
So what about new ultegra as compared to old dura ace 7800? Dura ace 7800 wins in every department except for the exposed cables and we’re not convinced that exposed cables are enough to negate the clear lead dura ace has. First, Dura Ace 7800 is lighter. Second, it looks nicer with it’s all polished finish. Third, it performs better. Fourth, it functions better – the shifting will perform better and you get three shifts in the upshift. Fifth, the hoods are a better fit (yea they might be a bit small for few, but the the converse is too big for most). In our mind it’s a no brainer – dura ace 7800 is the clear winner over ultegra 6700. Still, we know there are some of you out there that hate exposed cables that much – no worries, ultegra 6700 is a perfectly fine grouppo. The only drawbacks being the two gear upshift and the finish which might not be the most atheistically pleasing but is an improvement over previous iterations of ultegra.
In the end Ultegra 6700 is a fine groupset, but it does have some flaws that will leave you wanting more and in a way, perhaps that what shimano wanted, but not us.
Welcome to another race report – the 80 mile Sterling road race! This is a classic New England event. The course is a 8 mile loop with a long flat section on a wide two lane road that lead into a longish climb that starts out with a short steep section, then a small downhill, then a moderate rise that turns into a false flat to the highest point on the course. After that you make a right turn onto a slight downhill that gets steeper as you roll up and down twice and then make a right turn to another road that rolls up and down a few times before leading to a faster section where you make a fast left then a hard right back onto the long flat road. The course is fairly easy as road race courses go. The pavement is anywhere from very good to pretty broken up on the side of the road.
Weather was a factor this year: cool conditions, 56 degrees with anything from no rain to torrential downpours. Since I raced in the afternoon it was wet then dry and the last few minutes were a heavy rain. Realize that when conditions turn for the worse it will take more then a few of your competitors out of the race: either they don’t bother coming, they start the race but really lose motivation or quit early. Needless to say I like it when the competition is reduced due to inclement weather – after all the years in Belgium and New England poor conditions are better for me.
The Castelli Sottile vest is clear so you can have your race number on your jersey and it will still be scene by race officials. Little things like this make the difference.
I have been asked a few times how to dress for this type of condition so here is what I wore. Helmet with no hat as it was not raining enough and I would have been hot. Craft pro cool sleeveless base layer which is good for intense racing and my team jersey. A Castelli Sottile vest (it is clear so they can still see the numbers which is a rule if you didn’t know it – I did take this off in the race when I was getting warm and I threw it to someone in the feed zone). Arm and knee warmers from Assos as they have a fleece lining and not the straight Lycra kind some people use. CCB Team shorts and Assos Lycra shoe covers with Craft wool socks. For my hands I had Santini neoprene gloves(which I took off because I was getting too warm).
Dressing properly isn’t the only factor for success, how about food? For 80 miles of moderately hard racing I ate 3 gels(whose wrappers I kept in my pockets which is a rule if you didn’t know. Plus littering makes a race look bad. Have you ever ridden a race course after the race? Try it, it looks bad.) 1 banana(I admit I did throw out the peel, but it’s biodegradable) two bottles with Gatorade endurance (3 scoops per bottle) and half a bottle of water (I threw one bottle in the feed zone to someone I knew and got it after). I had no feeds at this race which lasted about 3 hours and 10 minutes. I did have to force myself to drink since it was cool and wet since regardless of temperature I still needed the water and food. If you tend to cramp late in a race you really need to look into eating and drinking better.
We showed up with a good size team: Dylan McNicholas, Matty O’Keefe, Chandler Delinks, Sasha and me. Sterling usually works out the same way each year: a early break takes the race. There is always a possible late race move that works, but in general the move will be established before half way and it will stay away the whole time. As such our basic plan was to get in the early move. Easy right? Chandler took the first group Sasha the next. It came back together (team blunder on our part) but split again on the hill with another attack which we missed (mistake number two). Sasha set steady fast tempo and brought the break back into bridgeable distance at the start of the climb. A few riders jumped and Dylan went with them. A rather large group then bridged up making for a large split up the road with only one rider from our team. A little more pressure and that group split again joined by Dylan. For the rest of the team we made efforts to get in any move that looked like it was going to be organized and tried to make it so we could have two or more riders in the break in case the front group were to slow down. One key thing to remember is that having your rider in a break is great but at the same time if the break is 6 or 8 guys and your team mate has a problem you do not want to block yourself out of the race because of his problem. We lucked out, though, with no problems for Dylan.
Mid race Sahsa bridged up to a group and was able to stay out. In the mean time Matty decided to lighten his load and threw out his water bottle when he hit a crack, therefore he was destined to ride it conservatively in order to finish. He did a long push on the main flat road while I took a nature break. Next time up the climb the remaining horse power in the field took off on the climb with about 4 laps to go. We had Sasha in the middle but this group went through them on the way to the break. At this point the race turned into a recovery ride so in order to make it worth me going I rode hard for a minute and then attacked to get in a small chase group. We spent the last three laps riding fast and finished about 3-4 minutes down on the break.
Up front a late bridge to the break was made by a few riders including former ccb’er Will Dugan, Jeremy Powers and a few others. Dylan’s group had been checking their weaknesses so they slowed down enough that they were caught but since they had been riding easy while the chase group Dylan was still able to power away at the end and win the race. I would like to embellish that more but, key fact, I wasn’t there.
Coaching must be working as my client Ale won the Cat 5 race. Dave had a good race in the p-1-2 making the move, Nick did a lot of work in the race which will benefit him later. My masters guys Scott,Mark and Kelly rode in terrible conditions, but I am happy they finished.
LeMond riding with a SRM and Lance - not only were the helmets huge, so too were the SRM computers.
Training with power has been around probably longer than you might think. LeMond at the twilight of his racing career rode SRM cranks. Back then the entire SRM system weighed around 500 grams plus whatever cranks you were running. The computer was the size of a small PC and wires protruded everywhere. Say what you will about Greg LeMond, but the guy introduced numerous technologies into the sport and power was just one. Clearly the industry has come a long way since the days of LeMond. The biggest factor, weight, has gone down considerably but price is still a factor. As mentioned earlier we chose the CinQo system for a lot of reasons and part III of our review will focus on CinQo and the ever-popular powertap hub system by Saris. For now, though, we’re going to look at how CinQo stacks up with any given crank.
CinQo works on cranks with a removable spider: FSA, SRAM, ROTOR are all supported. Campy and Shimano cranks, however, are not supported. We love either campy or Shimano cranks, but third party cranks have come a long way, too. The Cannondale SL, in our mind, is in another category all together. Take Dura Ace 7900 cranks for example: a great crank, stiff, light, looks good, works and is backed by a solid warranty. This crank has evolved over the years and Shimano has found the balance between weight and stiffness. Bottom line – it’s a solid crank and weighs 674 grams without a bottom bracket.
The Cannondale SL system weighs 700 grams – for everything. And by “everything” we mean everything: crank, chainring, bottom bracket AND Cinqo system. So do the math, dale SL cranks, BB and power weigh 26 grams more than just ace cranks that still have to get a bottom bracket and power.
We’re not weight weenies, but those are impressive numbers.
If you’ve ever ridden the SL cranks you will see immediately how stiff they are and how elegant the entire system operates. Q factor is reduced and they’re good looking in the sense that they look like they do one thing: perform. You pay for this, these aren’t inexpensive 3rd party cranks – the cranks and BB cost around $750. In our experience, though, cranks are one of the items you can buy and operate for years. Replace the BB every so often and you can install the cranks on any new frame (as long as the BB shell doesn’t change). We once had a pair of ace 7400 cranks that were in operation for 17 years (they still could be as we sold them on Ebay just this year).
So can anyone install the dale SL crank? Unfortunately, no. These cranks operate on cannondale’s own BB30 bottom bracket system. The BB30 system is now an open standard and in the past few years has seen a number of manufactures use BB30. BMC, Canyon, Specialized – they all make frames with BB30. Some of the hand made builders like independent fabrication will make BB30 specific frames, too.
All in all we’re very happy with the setup. The Cannondale SI cranks on their own are great but given their weight and the fact that we have power, well, then, we’re very happy.
Battenkill 2×100 km loops.
We had two guys that we were ready to support for the race with 4 guys on CCB to help out.
Pre-race plan was to ride conservatively but stay in contention. Everyone was there to help Dylan and Cameron get the best result possible. If anyone had a problem they were to make a max effort to get back into contention, this could prove valuable even if was just handing up a wheel to someone else etc.
Dylan, Yahor and Amos of CCB at Battenkill
As a team we had a good race putting our most capable riders in a position to do something towards the end of the race. Help included giving bottles,pushes,encouragement and whatever else was possible. Feeding and all bike prep was handled by Arnie.
Contrary to some of that online blogger BS that you may have read the amateur teams did not come to spectate,but you have to realize that the longest race we have done was the week before at 80 miles. Most regional teams have only done a few races, look for them to produce better results when the middle of the season come relative to what the pro’s results are. This happens every year and 2010 will be no different. It’s amazing what some people write without ever having lined up for one of these events, but I digress.
My own race was anti-climatic. I was doing better then last week at the amateur event, I stayed with the pack on harder parts of the course but did get popped off at the top of the first hill on meeting house. I continued going hard and latched onto the back a small group, skipped a few pulls and started to work. My first two or three pulls I could barely get by the guy but then we turned onto a small rise and the group just broke down and lost whatever rhythm I established. They said I was pulling ‘too hard,’ but when I looked around I see 5 “pros,” well, then, we can go harder. Contrast this with last week when I was with 5 “amatures” and we chased for miles and caught on only to get dropped on the next hard section of the course. In the end the result wasn’t really different but how I felt about the race was. I went home frustrated to not have gone to my own limits and knowing full well I had more in me and could have helped make more happen. Next week!
So this weekend was my first race of the year that was over 100 miles. The race story from Turtle Pond sounded like a classic strong team working over the field…Rapha took the locals to school.
Team members:Dylan M,Tim Mitchell,Yahor,Sasha and me.
The plan: based on my previous long race experience a early move would work and stay away to the finish. So the plan was to try and get someone in a early move who was capable of staying away to the end. Based on last weeks Battenkill Invitational Tim and Dylan were the people for the job.
What happened: We started off in the rain,downhill neutral with most people shaking by the bottom. A relatively fast start ensued with attacks and counters and some chasing. Since we missed the move we needed to move towards the front and keep the move in check. The break consisted of 4-5 riders with only one Rapha rider, the rest were locals.
Next part gets a little tricky. You have to understand you do not always want to chase and catch the break. Remembering the pre-race plan we want to be in the early break but we only have 5 guys and of them only two that can do something for the end. If we catch the break then we need to be in the next move. A strong rider would be able to bridge a 15 second gap on their own without any help. What Rapha and any strong team could do is get a rider up to the break before we get there and then ride further away. If we were to miss the move,get the wrong rider from out team in the move or our key riders has a problem we are out of contention.
So we set about chasing when the gap had grown too large. But with one longish pull by me and then Yahor and a few others the group came back into sight. At this point it was better to leave the break a little room to keep riding to leave our options open. One thing to realize is that if a break thinks their move is doomed they often sit up, again putting the race in a difficult situation to control with attacks and counters etc.
When the gap was holding steady Dylan made a counter attack and was joined by three others. This would have been good except they missed the turn went back and kept going. The field closed in and a Rapha rider countered through the group I followed. I refused to work because the guy just would have ridden me off on some rise and then the team would have been in a defensive roll again. Then his team mate bridges up with a few riders. I sit in and try and make it over the next rise which I do with the groups help. I continue to sit in in hopes that someone from the team will bridge up.
Tim comes to the rescue. Bringing the group up to about 15 riders. 3 Rapha riders a few westwood velo a few ccns, two Mengoni and some random guys with no team mates. Again this is still not great for us since we are out numbered by Rapha. We roll through for awhile with the weaker riders including me having trouble keeping the pace on the rolling hills. Notably there was a rider who keep forcing the pace on most of the climbs making it harder then needed. More on him later.
With a little less then a hour to go on a longish climb the inevitable attack came and the race for first was over. Two Rapha guys and Roger Aspholm were gone. By the time I bridged back on the race was for 4th. With half the guys in the bag and the third Rapha guy sitting on it was just a matter of riding it in not with any chance of catching the break away. I was not a whole lot of help since most of the time I was getting dropped and chasing back on. I let Tim know not to tow the group around,extra work here would not catch the break and would also likely lead to a worse finish. Just ride with the group and then make a move later. I didn’t say to Tim to attack because with a long way to go the group will normally out pace a strong solo rider or what happens more often then not the group breaks down so badly they get caught much sooner.
I finally came off the last time and rode in at my own pace. Being caught and passed by the groups. I looked up and upon turning into the park entrance I could see that Tim’s group was about to get caught by the chase group. I hoped he had enough left to make a run at the finish. I was cramping badly and was blown out the back of every group and was riding 8 mph all the way to the line. One thing to note was the guy who was forcing the pace on all the climbs and was amply strong didn’t make the move and was in the group that I was in. He should have been in the break
We finally got our hands on the often talked about, but rarely seen CinQo power meter. We’ve been waiting a long time for this system and we want to give you a full and detailed review. Our review of the CinQo power meter will be broken into three parts:
- The first is on the unit itself
- The second will be about the unit on the cranks we ride: in this case the Cannondale Hollowgram SL
- The third will be on the CinQo compared to the ever-popular power tap by Saris
The Quarq CinQo power meter system. As you can see the footprint is small, but the info it gives you is immense.
The CinQo power meter has been a long time coming. The company, Quarq, out of South Dakota, basically developed a power meter system that is very similar to well known and more famous SRM power meter, but retailes for about 40% less. When this was announced the entire industry sat up and took notice. The CinQo system essentially utilizes the removable spiders found in various 3rd party cranks such as SRM, FSA, Specialized and Cannondale. The spider is replaced with their own system that contains strain gauges to measure power output. Utilizing the growing ANT+ wireless open network a user can supply their own computers such as the Garmin 705 or 500 or the Bontrager Node. Noticeably absent from this list of cranks are Shimano or Campy. The reason is since those cranks do not have a removable spider they can’t meet the requirements for the CinQo.
We found ourselves selling our power tap wheels and switching bikes so we had compatible cranks in preparation of getting our own Cinqo. In our case it was the BB30-specific Cannondale SL hallowgram crank. We’ll review this crank later specifically in part II of our III part series. After selling our power tap wheels and going without power, we waited and waited. . . . and waited We waited almost a full year and just when we thought that CinQo for the dale crank was vaporware and we couldn’t take it anymore Quarq called us up and told us they had a Cannondale Specific unit available. Finally our day had come and it had almost been an entire year: March 2009 to February 2010.
So how does it perform? After riding it for over a month we can say, without hesitation, that the system performs and it performs well. We’re very impressed with the unit, it paired effortlessly with our Garmin 705 and after a year absence we were out training and riding with power. The system itself does have some nuances that should be known to owners or would be owners. Quarq recommends you calibrate or zero out your unit before each ride. This is easy enough on a Garmin – you basically place the cranks with the drive side at 6 o’clock, make sure the cranks have no pressure on them (i.e., you’re not clipped into the pedal pressing down) and hit calibrate on the Garmin menu feature which is found under settings. After you hit “calibrate” total time is maybe 15 seconds. The Garmin unit imports the data into all the big power programs – e.g., Saris PowerAgent and WKO+. We’re on a mac, too, so the two big operating systems are covered. The user replaceable battery has us excited as we know with SRM cranks you have to send it back to SRM. Power Taps also have this feature and we’ve found it to be beneficial as battery power level indicators are basically nonexistent for these svelte units – so when the battery goes you need to replace it ASAP and it’s a good idea to have one on standby.
The unit itself is small and is hardly noticeable, only a discerning eye will pick it up. There is a little bulge on the outside of the cranks due to the user replaceable battery and some of the radio equipment, but it’s de minimis. Weight, at worst, is negligible. So what are some of the problems? Well, within the unit itself there really seem to be only a few. We sometimes notice that after a long descent the power seems a little off, mostly it seems to low by a factor of 10%. When this happens it’s recommended to “zero” the unit. This is done by peddling backwards about four times. Once we do this we see the unit detect power more inline with our expectations. To have to backpedal during training is fine, but not in a race – so we’ll reserve judgment until race season is fully underway. If you find yourself switching chainrings with any frequency, say, from a 39 to a 42 or a bigger TT specific ring, you really should send the unit back to Quarq for recalibration – and by “unit” we mean the entire drive side crank. Something to consider, but for us, like most riders, we keep our 53×39 rings on till they wear out so it’s not a factor. As we’ve in New England we ride rollers a fair share. With the CinQo if you want to get your speed and your distance then you need to install some device to detect these factors. In our case we used the Garmin GSC Speed and Cadence sensor. We typically don’t ride with this unit after the spring as the GPS records speed and distance and the CinQo also records cadence as well as power, but on the rollers, we need it or we wouldn’t have speed and distance. Easily enough solved, but keep this in mind if you ride rollers or trainers. Other than that, there really isn’t too much to complain about – the unit works and it works for a fraction of SRM and so far we’ve been very happy.
The only other item to keep in mind is availability. Since Quarq has to make crank-specific units you need to check on availability. What work for SRAM cranks doesn’t work for the Cannondale Crank and vice versa. So check with Quarq on availability and know if you change cranks manufactures you will have to get an all new CinQo and, as we said earlier, not all cranks are supported. So plan accordingly if you switch out cranks.
If you’re like us, you ride the same crank and the same chainrings for years. If this is the case and you want to train and race with power, then you should seriously consider the CinQo power meter system. On a scale of one to ten we would give it a 8.5 – with the only cons being to train with power is still a little pricey and the limited availability for 3rd party cranks.
