Category: Gear

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Gear

X-LAB Torpedo Mount and Bottle Cage

Recently I decided to change things up a bit with my hydration system on the bike. I’ve had a number of different solutions on my bike, from the Specialized aero water bottle specifically made for the bike, regular old metal cages, to the Speedfil tank with the tube. Each had their pluses and minuses. I liked the Speedfil the most of those three, but the problem is that it is very large, not very aero dynamic and a pain in the ass to clean.

For spare bottles I have the XLab Wing with carbon cages. Perfect for carrying two extra water bottles and stays out of the way. It is very convenient to grab one of those bottles and fill the Speedfil, or switch it out bottles on the down tube. I’ll be sticking with the XLab Wing on the seat.

Up front though, wasn’t really sure what a good solution would be. I liked having the tube from the Speedfil in front of me, it reminded me to drink. I also didn’t have to take my hands of the handlebars or come out of the aero position. I saw a lot of the Pro triathletes simply put a water bottle between their aero bars using zip ties. I tried that, but never felt comfortable with the way the zip ties were holding the cage in place. That led me to the X-Lab Torpedo Mount.

XLab Torpedo MountX-Lab Torpedo Mount

This mount worked great. It comes with four Velcro straps that wrap around the aero bars to hold the mount in place. I was going to use a regular old cage, but X-Lab also sells the Torpedo Cage made of carbon as well. This cage isn’t quite as long as a normal cage, which is kind of nice for inserting and removing your water bottle.

I tried the entire system out last weekend on my first outdoor ride. So far so good, it was easy to get a quick drink from the water bottle. So much easier than grabbing one off of the down-tube cages. Also having it right in front of me was a constant reminder to drink. Switching bottles with one of the ones on the wing was also pretty easy too.

The only downside to the setup is the expense.  The price for both of these items is $84.90 on Amazon. That is a bit much for a water bottle holder, which is why you see a lot of people using the zip ties and an old cage.

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Gear

CompuTrainer Improvement CTANT+!!

No Racermate One was not released. Recently I go tired of watching my heart rate disappear during my training rides on the CompuTrainer. It seemed like every ride all of the sudden I would lose my heart rate for a few minutes. I would fiddle with the wires and try to get it to work. I even purchased the ear clip one from Racermate in effort to rid myself of this problem. That didn’t work either. Instead of dropping out, my heart rate would jump all over the place with the ear clip version.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I’d had enough. On the Racermate forums I happen to see someone mention a 3rd party product called CTant+. I’m assuming that CT is for CompuTrainer and ANT+ is for the wireless technology that many of the devices employ to be compatible with each other. I downloaded a trial version from their website http://www.ct-ant.com/ and tested it out. I’m now able to use my Garmin heart rate monitor instead of the CT one. I’ve used it for the last two weeks and it has worked flawlessly! It’s a little pricey at $49.00, but it does get the job done, something that Racermate can’t seem to figure out.

You can also override the Cadence and power source, but if you do that you will lose the SpinScan feature. If you are tired of having your heart rate drop out during your workouts on the CT, I really think you should give CTANT+ a try!

 

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Gear

New Swim Paddles

I bought a couple pairs of swim paddles last week. I’d never really used them before but my swim stroke seems to be kind of sloppy and I feel like my hand is sometimes slipping through the water and wasting effort.

Here is a link to the Paddles that I bought http://www.swimoutlet.com/product_p/2129.htm?color=11590. I actually bought two pair, a medium and a large pair. For right now I’m using the medium pair because I don’t want to put too much stress on my shoulder and get hurt.

The last two days I’ve been in the pool and doing alternating sets of 500 free and then 500 pull. I can definitely feel a big difference in my 500 free after doing the pull set with the paddles on. It will take some time but I think it will definitely improve my swim stroke.

Categories
Gear Ironman Lake Placid

Test ride outside

Tomorrow is the first long ride outside and I needed to make sure that everything was in working order and it is quite nice out today. Hopefully tomorrow will be just as nice. Went for a short 10 mile ride and it was good to get out and actually ride on the road. The new Power Meter, Crank and Cassette all worked great. The deraileurs all seemed to be shifting right on the money as well. Hopefully if all goes well, tomorrow will be more of the same.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/78080388

Weight: 164.4

Categories
Gear

Quarq Power Meter and other toys

UPS and FedEx have been very busy the last couple of days in Boxford. On Tuesday they dropped off my new Power Meter, the Quarq Cinqo Saturn mounted on a SRAM 975 Crankset. Then on Wednesday they dropped off the X-Lab Wing Kit.

I went with the Power Meter on the crank because it seemed to me to be the most versatile. Power Meters that are mounted on the hub can only be used with that wheel so if I decided to change wheels I would have to have a new one built around my power meter or buy another power meter. The Quarq mounted on a quality SRAM Red Chainring seemed like the best option. I also purchased the SRAM Ceramic bottom bracket to go with the chainring. Everything went together without a problem. Connecting the power meter to my Garmin 705 was very simple. Just turn on the Garmin, tell it you have a power meter and it discovers it. Done! I set the bike back up on the CompuTrainer to see how the Watts compared and they were very close. I did my ride this morning recording the power on the Garmin and on the CompuTrainer, unfortunately my legs didn’t show up for the workout. Again I found the CompuTrainer and the Quarq to be feeding me the same data.

I also put the X-Lab Wing Kit on the bike last night. I had to change the bracket around that held the seat on so that I could mount the Wing, but other than that assembly was pretty straight forward. The Gorilla cages seem pretty good, but not sure how well they will really hold a full water bottle when hitting bumps in the road.

Weight: 164.4