Chesapeake Crit - In the Money

Trying to bridge the 23 seconds

The night before I started getting the bike and immediately noticed that the rear tire was flat. Now normally this would not be a big deal, but on a set of tubulars, less than twelve hours to the race, its a big problem. Armed with a can of fix-a-flat and some superglue I did a hasty patch. No idea if it would hold.

The day started off as if it was going to be a nightmare. Started off with a four hour drive from Washington DC to Chesapeake Virginia. Once there I began the normal setup of the bike, was pleasantly surprised that the back tire was holding pressure. Got setup and began to roll and realized that the seat was way to low. Oh yes, last weekend my son was in town and we went riding, now he is two inches shorter than me so the saddle was lowered. I grabbed an allen wrench guestimated the height and tightened it down. This left a total of about 10 minutes to warmup.

The race started off fairly fast, we were strung out from the go. I settled in about mid-pack. I guess around the third lap two guys went off the front, they were never seen again. For the next 40 minutes it was pretty much five of us on the front doing the work. I would stay around third or forth wheel take a pull then work my way back into forth. With about six laps to go, two of us moved to the front and did some pretty massive pulls to get back the 23 seconds from the guys off the front, but we were unable to gain any time back. I figured at that point in time were were racing for third place.

Last lap I got myself into a pretty good position and was sitting second wheel. With one turn left, one of the guys took off from third or forth wheel. I decided that I need to go right then and was able to get on his wheel. I came out of the corner in first with about 300 meters. At this point I decided that all I could do was ramp up the speed and hope that I did not get caught at the line. My 21 second, 800 watt average, yielded 35 mph, 200 bpm heart rate and second palace in the field. One ride nipped me at the line for third overall. Great sprint on his part.

All in all, great day. Finally placed in the money. I was really happy about my results. Hey, it is always rewarding when other rollup afterward and congratulate you on a good race, not something that I have had happen before.

Product Review - Saris Joule 2.0

Is the Joule a real Jewel?

I was persuaded to place my Garmin 705 on the shelf and give Saris’ Joule 2.0 a test. Typically, when I test a product I give it a good two-month run. Also rate the product on ease of use on the bike, post ride and support, if required.

My initial setup was Zipp 303s with a Powertap SL+, Garmin 705, Garmin cadence sensor, and TrainingPeaks WKO+ software (loaded on a Windows 7 computer). My test setup was the same Powertap SL+, Joule 2.0, WKO+ and Saris’ Power Agent. In many ways I am reviewing several products at once, Joule 2.0 and Power Agent.

At the beginning of my use in May , Training Peaks had not worked out their issues with using their Device Agent, so to get the data from the Joule to WKO+ took a few steps but this was just a ease of use issue. By July Training Peaks fully supported Joule direct download and works very well. Connect the Joule to the computer, start WKO+, hit download from device and works great.

Power Agent is a completely different animal. This is one piece of software that has potential but has been problematic from the beginning. The first issue that I had was during the device download I would get an error message that stated that there were “one or more rides have not been saved”, I still have not figured out this one. What happens if you get this error, you cannot pull the information into Power Agent. Fortunately, WKO+ does not have this error and can download the information, so the data is not lost, just not in Power Agent. Side note, if you still want it there you can export from WKO+ to a CSV file and import it to Power Agent, works but not ideal. The next issue is more of a Windows 7 and Joule issue, but to get the Joule to eject or “be safely removed” you are out of luck, almost always it errors out, so each time after you are finished you have to disconnect and get the Windows device eject error. My concern was that this could be corrupting data.

Now, on to the Joule itself. The unit was about the same size as the Garmin 705, so no concerns there. The first two positives that I found right out of the box was the ability to pair several Powertaps and the TSS function. So I could instantly setup my Zipp 303s and 404s (two different Powertaps). Thus when I went for a ride or race, select which Powertap that you have and it pairs. No more watching Garmin try to figure this out, or having to pedal a quarter mile away from a teammate while the Garmin figures out which Powertap to pair with. I LOVE this feature. As far as TSS, this has been really nice when my coach Kirk tells me that my ride should have a TSS of greater than 150, I can focus my, between interval efforts, to support this goal. The Garmin 705 does not calculate TSS, so you are forced to figure this out long after the ride is complete.

But these were the only to functions that I found positive with the Joule. I had cadence spikes being registered on the Joule but that was eventually solved by adding the $49 additional Saris cadence sensor, the cadence spikes probably occurred with the Garmin 705 but since I was using the Garmin cadence sensor I was pulling the measured data from there not the calculated cadence from the Powertap. So if you are using the Joule with the Powertap, add the cadence sensor. Side note, Garmin Cadence Sensor is not ANT+ so you cannot use it with the Joule 2.0, but not Saris issue, Garmin’s.

Ease of use became a little issue for me too on the Joule. I was use to the Gamin being setup where if the bike rolls the Garmin comes on and collects data. The Joule’s requirement to hit the mode button and Stop and Save or Stop and Delete or the Joule going to sleep and not waking until you hit the mode button was a little annoying. Got it. It’s a learning curve; I am pretty good about doing this now but did lose a bunch of data because of it.

The Garmin and the Joule both fail pretty miserably on workouts. Grant it, this might be because of my frustration on the other parts of the Joule that I did not spend a lot of time trying to figure it out but my initial reaction is that it was not very user friendly. You also have to use Power Agent to setup a workout before heading out and executing.

Saris’s saving grace? Technical support! I could go on for pages on the superior support that they provide for their products. I think by the end of my two-month journey, I could have requested a new unit and they would have FedEx’ed overnight without question. I might even be on their Holiday Party invite list, well until this review…. Their tech support is far superior to Garmin’s, probably the best support I have had with any company, so hats off to them.

Overall, I am very disappointed in the Joule 2.0. I have $550 in Joule and sensor. If I opt to sell it on eBay or Craigslist, I will fell obligated to make the buyer read this review before paying me money. I am going back to Garmin 705. It seems to be more stable and have never lost any rides or data. I cannot say the same for the Joule 2.0.

Race Report - The Air Force Cycling Classic Crystal Cup

Great course today. It started on long straight, 90 degree right turn followed by another 90 turn. The course then did a quick right, slight down hill to a left hand turn on the main route Cool part was another right hand turn that went under one of the skyscrapers in Crystal City. Then eventually back out to an extremely long straightaway to the start finish.

As any 3/4 race it started out fairly quick and backed up in the first turn. Yes, it was a 90 turn but for this race there was not one place that the hands should have been on the brakes. The first 6 laps started to shred the field, I did my best to claw my way from the back to the middle of the field. I never made it past the back quarter of the pack.

So what happened. Well, I think I am playing catchup. What I mean is that early in the season I had great form and fitness, lots of trainer miles in the garage and team camp in California. Since then my riding has been hit or miss while others have increased. Their form and fitness has caught and by passed mine. So now I have to figure out how to play catchup and be in good form to start cyclocross this fall.

But for today, I had a good start and held on as long as I could. But that has just got to be better.

Been away but still riding

Yes yes, I know... I know... I am delinquent on a few things, several race reports and just things in general. My cycling has taken a bit of a hit. I am not sure of all of the factors, work, funeral, training plans, meal plans, blah blah blah. Bottom line is that I have slacked off the last month or so.

I am still “recovering” from a series of accidents that left me banged, bruised and piecing together bikes. My Dogma frame is still off in California getting repaired at Calfee’s. I am hoping that it comes back soon. But in the mean while I have been riding a CAAD 9 and working well. I have also upgraded by Garmin 705 to a Joule 2.0. Now that I typed upgrade, I think I might have to reconsider that term to something like equivalent but not necessarily upgrade. I will have a product review on it in the next couple of days.

So what is on the horizon? Several races are coming up, Tour of Washington County, Giro di Coppi, Lost River, Herndon Crit and Reston. I just spent the last few hours with Kirk, my coach from VeloWorks and setup my training plan for this week. It looks as if I will have promising weather and a good plan.

As the week progresses I will update my progress.

Race Report - Leonardtown

Nothing to say except this was a fast race. I threw my hat into the 3/4 race even though I knew that this was a very technical race. We lined up ready for the start and with the whistle it was a full out sprint. The first thing that went through my mind was wondering if this was cross race and we were going for the hole shot. The answer is YES. Why??? Well on turn one there was a 120 degree uphill turn. If you were a 3 and in front, you negotiated this pretty easily at high speed, if you were a 4 in the middle or back, hold onto your backside. Yes, lap one wreck one. I made it through unharmed but there was already a gap. So here was massive effort number one to get back on the back of the main field. This effort would be repeated every time until another wreck that broke the pack into threes. About 20 racers were in the front, ten of us in the chase and a group off the back.

After about 30 minutes, my chase group was gaining no ground no matter how hard we pushed. Finally, after being 1:15 off of the main field, the refs said that we were on our bell lap and the nine of use should sprint for glory. So we came around, out of the saddle for a “chase group” sprint finish so that we could graciously be pulled. So I got second in the nine man sprint, which gave me 23rd overall. For as fast and as technical, it was a good day for me. I just wish I could have stayed in the main group.