It's About the Bike

Ride Day- RW

time- 1:15
distance- 18.2mi

Today's ride felt great. The weather was perfect and my attitude was a simple "I'm gonna cruise home from school, no real work going on." I felt smooth, even during the small climbs that roll my route. Averaged around 15mph, which isn't very fast but I wasn't trying very hard. Frankly, part of me is just happy my seat stayed where it was supposed to after I fixed it Monday.
Also, today was a productive day with bike upgrades (hopefully!). Super Awesome Wife and I spent about a half hour getting my new Profile Design T2+ aerobars set up. I'm pretty excited about having these on, but honestly, I'm not sure I saved myself any time. You see, the point of aerobars is to reach a more aerodynamic position, decreasing drag and therefor increasing the effectiveness of the power output. Aerobars will/should allow me to get my chest and head lower, making my back flatter, and getting my arms and elbows in closer. Closer elbows mean more aero, but it also means less control and, because I have wider shoulders, a closing off of chest area making it harder for me to breathe deeply. So my bars are set up about shoulder width apart, as suggested by the below book. Viewed from the front, this presents a much smaller face to block wind. But every tri bike set up I've seen or read about (including in Zinn and the Art of Triathlon Bikes, which Super-Awesome Sexy Wife bought for me a few weeks ago and which was very helpful in getting the aerobars properly placed) has the seat height much higher than the bars, that way the rider gets the proper drop and angles. Well, my seat is already as high as it's going to get before I can't reach the bottom of the downstroke and my bars are as low as the current hardware will allow. So while the aerobars might make me feel faster, I'm not sure how much time I just saved. Feeling faster is good though. Mental improvements often lead to actual ones. Hopefully I haven't sacrificed too much comfort, which is also important, but less so over the shorter distances I'll be racing. More on the whole aerobar issue as I ride. It was too late tonight once they were on.
And finally, I have something I have to admit. I...I just need to get it off my chest. I think...I think I'm becoming something of a cycling nerd. You see, I've been a swim nerd for years and year. Simple goggles or a new kind of suit will have me all excited. And for over a year now I've been becoming a run nerd, starting with my discovery of minimalist running and the wonders of VFFs. But a cycling nerd...this is you. You see, yesterday I was on the internet watching, oh its hard to say, Lance Armstrong videos. That's right, I spent a good half hour yesterday watching YouTube clips of a man from Texas riding a bicycle! And Ohhh-ing and Ahh-ing. In this video he attacks while climbing. So he rides faster than the other skinny guys up a mountain. And I'm totally blown away. And now if you ask me what I think of The Look I can tell you I think it was a pretty badass thing to do and I think he's lying when he says that he was, "just checking to see what the field looks like." It totally was. And you can't watch this without being impressed. He should have crashed and burned four times.
I am now a Total Tri Nerd. I feel complete.