EZ Aero Front Dérailleur Guard

We’ve launched the EZ Aero Front Dérailleur Guard on the EZ Gains website, which is quite an exciting time for us.

It’s generated a lot of interest, including some questions about the testing and legality of it in various event formats, so I thought I’d try to give some more details.

The point of this gadget is twofold. It both helps protect the electronic front dérailleur and connector from the elements (specifically rain), and reduces the drag generated by having a roughly brick shaped box housing the electronics.

The weather protection is a serious issue. For example, recently Ironman 70.3 Ireland was postponed for a day due to a storm. It’s common practise to rack your bike the day before an Ironman (meaning leaving your bike outside dangling from a rail). In this case the competitors had already racked their bikes when the race was postponed, so their bikes had to be left out for 2 nights, including during the storm. On race day, some people’s electronic gears failed due to water ingress (I think this happened to Triathlon Dan).

The aero element is important too, as any time trialist will tell you! The front dérailleur housing is generally not an aerodynamic shape, particularly in Shimano Di2 models. Aerodynamic drag is modelled by a simple equation: front area * drag coefficient. The 3d shape of an item can massively influence the drag coefficient. Unsurprisingly a cube is not aerodynamic with a drag coefficient of 1.04. A teardrop, is very, very aerodynamic with a drag coefficient of 0.04!

Racing Rules

It terms of legality for racing, there are various rules for different racing associations, and most require some interpretation. This gadget is aimed at time trial bikes, so I’m focusing on events where you might use one.

British Triathlon and World Triathlon only do not allow fairings for Elite, U23, Junior and Youth draft legal racing, or para triathlon cycling. They are legal for age group racing, either draft legal or non drafting.

British Cycling Time Trial Association

14. (h) The use of recumbent machines, protective shields or windbreaks is prohibited.

I believe this to refer to this kind of shield or windbreak:

And really to avoid this kind of “bike”:

If it did refer to minor additions to the frame to adjust the aerodynamics, such as taping over bolt holes, I don’t think I’ve seen many bikes at time trials that would pass this rule. My bike (a Boardman TTE) comes with a screw on protective piece of plastic which covers the area in the frame where the Di2 junction box resides – this seems very similar and there is no way I’d race without that on, or be expected to! This type of bike used to be regularly ridden at UCI events without issue.

There are also plenty of other similar products that people use without issues. E.g the cover bolted on under these Tri bars.

Similar to this the CTTA rules are the Ironman rules:
5.03 (b) Fairings are prohibited. Any device added or blended into the structure that may decrease, or that has the effect of decreasing, resistance to air penetration, or that may artificially accelerate propulsion, such as a protective screen, fuselage form fairing or the like, is prohibited.

The interpretation of this seems to be very relaxed. Probably because as if you got rid of any device which has the effect of reducing resistance you’d not be allowed aerodynamic bike computers or lights. Let alone Ceramic Speed’s OPSW aero rear dérailleur, which we’ve seen on Pro’s bikes at the World Championships. There is an argument that it’s a structural part of the rear dérailleur, but this rule doesn’t specify anything about that.

USA Triathlon has this rule:
5.11 (e) There must be no protective shield, fairing, or other device on any part of the bicycle (including frame, wheels, handlebars, chain wheel, and accessories) which has the effect of reducing resistance.
Note there is an exception for wheel covers on the rear wheel.

Again, the interpretation of this seems to be relaxed; see the point about aerodynamic bike computers or lights.
It also has this rule:
(f) No additional equipment, whether it is worn under the competitor’s clothing, over the competitors clothing, or is otherwise attached to the athlete’s body, which has the effect of reducing wind resistance is permitted.
But I think you still see people with bottles placed under their tops etc.

UCI Time Trials
The UCI does not take a relaxed interpretation of its rules. I would not recommend attempting to use this item at a UCI event. I’d expect most people taking these seriously are running a single front chainring anyway.

Aerodynamic Testing

We tested this at the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub wind-tunnel, with an independent engineer present running the tunnel. I was riding for the testing of the dérailleur guard.

The testing was done over a range of yaw angles and at different speeds. We were testing several potential products, which included items on the front wheel (which disappointingly didn’t reduce drag), which meant that the wheels had to be rotating at the correct speed for each wind speed. The upshot of that was that I was pedalling at a realistic cadence for each wind speed.

On a personal note, since we were testing several items, suits and helmets, with each test having just a single incremental change, the tests involving the dérailleur guard really weren’t my best drag numbers. So please don’t roast me for that!

The incremental changes for the dérailleur guard produced pretty impressive reduced drag. However, not the nice round headline numbers stated on the launch, and we can only apologise for that.

I’m not sure where those came from. There is always some data lost reducing a complex set of numbers across different axes into something simple, but these were just wrong. I expect it was some miscommunication or mistake comparing against more than one incremental change. However, it’s an honest mistake, and in the interest of transparency and not wanting to mislead anyone, this is the raw data from the test of the dérailleur guard, and still show a VERY useful drag reduction.

Screen shots here come from the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub‘s website which does some nice graphics and conversions – we do have the raw data but showing shots direct from the website avoids any worry about data conversion errors.

Here’s the cda numbers. Top line is the wind speed in kmph. Second is the yaw angle (wind direction). The next line is the first test with the dérailleur guard on, and the last is without it, meaning any increases to the watts or cda is a decrease with the dérailleur guard on.

The change in cda is shown in brackets. Negative yaw angles are from the chainring side of the bike.

Here’s the same shown as power in watts.

If you want a headline simple set of data to take, here’s the power saved with a straight on wind (0 degrees yaw): 1.4 watts at 30 kmph, 4.1 at kmph and 5.8 at 50kpmh

The graphs of power required show the performance graphically and are easier to get visualization at different yaws. The airspeed is in meters per second: 8.3mps is 30kmph, 11.1 is 40 and 13.9 is 50.

Light blue is without the guard, dark with it.

You can see that with the wind straight on and from the chainring side, the results are generally better (which is to be expected as the airflow is shielded by the frame from the other side).

Holkham Triathlon 2023 – British Middle Distance Championships

This was my third time racing at Holkham. Last time I won my age group, but this time it was the British Championships, so there would be lots of fast competition, including Donald Brooks, so I knew, barring incident, I wouldn’t win this time.

However, I had a more important target – my ongoing battle with Giles. He was 2-1 up in our head to head races (if you count races with punctures, triathlons turned into duathlons and furnace blasted landscapes…). From recent form we knew it would be close between us! Unfortunately, due to Giles’s swim not being up to my magnificent standard, we were in different waves – Giles’s starting 5 minutes behind mine.

I’d been improving my swim times recently, courtesy of swim coaching in an endless pool. My cycling had also been improving, with a big difference in aerodynamics after a visit to a wind tunnel doing some testing for EZGainz.

However, my running hadn’t had enough time to recover after an injury – posterior tibial tendonitis. I’d been doing well improving and increasing distance, but hadn’t actually got back up to half marathon distance.

I had a pleasant evening camping with banter from Giles, Donald, Clinton, Rich, Ali and Dylan (who stole my chair and used it as a bouncy castle)…then it was race day!

We were numbered based on our estimated swim times. I’d put just under 30 minutes and was number 132, and so in the second wave (100 per wave, but with a timing mat at the start you entered the water in pairs).

Even though it was the British Championships and there were over 1000 people racing, I knew 132 was too low – there had obviously been a lot of over optimistic times submitted. I thought I should probably be about 50th. And so it proved… I think I overtook about 40 people! Including someone doing breaststroke…

Off the start (I actually managed to dive in without losing my goggles!) I started overtaking. I soon moved into people from the first wave and continued overtaking! The lake had a nice clear path where the weeds had been cut (which you can see in the photo below) and I stayed in this up until the island where you turn back towards the start.

At this point the weed cutting stopped around around the island, or maybe I was just out of the clear area. It got thick enough that I found the fastest method was to grab some weed and pull yourself along…

Fortunately I got back into clear water on the way back and had no more hassles and really enjoyed it. I didn’t manage to draft anyone, but did manage to get my first official time under 30 minutes (including about a minute out of the water to get to the timing mat)! 29:23, 48th and 4.5% of the field.

Strava link (truncated as my watch cut out)

Onto the bike and it was immediately hard! The route went uphill out of the estate for 4km on a bobbly track, and then out onto the roads. I was trying to average 280 watts normalised power, but wanted to front load it as I knew the course, with the wind direction, would be fast and easy on the way back.

I started off holding something just over 290 watts and was overtaking (although not as many as on the swim!) Occasionally someone would stay with me for a bit, but each time they faded after a while. I began to worry that I’d been putting too much power down by about a third of the way round, but at this point saw a group ahead that I was only slowly gaining on.

Riding in a group is beneficial because even at 12m apart (how far apart you need to be to stay within the rules) you get a drafting benefit. It’s hard though, as it’s easy to get closer when you go up a hill (so you’re moving slower – the same time distance is closer together). I figured I join the back of the group and let my average power drift down for a bit.

However, when I got there I saw some pretty poor attempts at keeping 12m apart. Piss poor. It didn’t take long till I got fed up with this – I decided to try to get into 2nd position in the group so I could ignore this behind me. So when a gap opened I took my opportunity and moved up to 2nd (you can’t just slot in unless there’s a bigger gap than 12m).

After a little while I figured I should just push on and leave them behind, but at that point, going up a hill, someone came past quite a bit faster. I went with him (still at a legal distance!) which I struggled to do going uphill, but found it a bit slow on the flats/downhill. The group also followed, and I realised I wasn’t going to break away from them, so figured I just stay where I was. I think this decision cost a few minutes on the bike, but saved energy for the run.

Turning on to the fast return, Dan of Triathlon Dan fame launched a blistering attack, but didn’t get free (probably my fault as I worked back up to him – sorry!) And then the same guy from earlier went to the front. It was mostly slightly downhill with a few long gentle climbs. On this section I don’t think I put out more than 200w excluding the hills, and was averaging around 50kmph! I loved riding this course!

The route had changed from previous years towards the end. It was slightly shorter, but had some nasty hills on small roads. Dan’s bike made a nasty noise – he stopped; I thought he’d got a puncture 😦 However, he caught back up before the end (it turned out his chain had dropped, but I was mostly confused about this till after the race – sorry Liz for the duff information!)

Coming into the end I’d hit 279 watts normalised! Perfect!

Rolling down into the estate I could see the athletes running up the hills. I couldn’t see Donald, but given he’d had a 5 minute head-start it wasn’t surprising he’d already left that part of the course (meaning he was at least 15 minutes ahead).

2:17:32 – 33rd and 3.1% of the field.

Strava link

Onto the run… I figured I’d be something like 6 minutes up on Giles, so had something like 18 seconds per km I could afford to lose to him. Every second of which I knew I’d need! Holkham is a hard course to pace with 3 laps of a long hill, gravel roads, forest, and somehow an elevation profile that feels like an Escher painting with not enough down for the ups.

This is my excuse for going too fast and getting slower each lap. The first lap wasn’t too bad, and I felt like my nutrition was good throughout. But my lack of running training really showed up. First lap 4:13 pace (normalised 3:52 – waaaay too fast). Second lap 4:25. Third 4:30 (despite a 4:00 last km). 4:25 pace average somehow.

It was all pretty frustrating to see the time seeping away.

1:34:02 – 122 and 11.6% of the field.

Strava link

Soooo then there was the wait for Giles. I didn’t know exactly when he started, but I was near the front of my wave. It needed to be more than 5 minutes… And it was – 7:30 – but that still left us none the wiser, other than it was close! We had a nice ice bath drinking (sadly alcohol free) beer to relax.

It really was close but I’d come out just ahead this time! We thought Donald was first, I was second and Giles third. With results online only, and Norfolk’s dodgy mobile signal, it was hard to find out, but it turned out a later starter finished ahead and bumped Giles and me down a slot, which was a shame.

4:23:27, 53rd, 5% of the field, and 3rd in age group.

I stuck around for the awards. Which meant waiting 6 hours; by that point not only had everyone finished, but also left. The party had finished. The food trucks shut down. I’ve no idea why the organisers think this is a good idea. It was a bit of a lack-lustre affair with just a few of the winners still there. I wouldn’t bother waiting around again for it even though for me it was only a 2 hour drive home. For those further afield it really wasn’t an option.

Still, I got my British Championships bronze medal and massive wooden trophy!

Full Results

Note something odd happened with these results a few days after they were originally published. I didn’t have time for a nap and a cup of tea in the transitions… The times in this blog are correct though, as is the overall time in the results, which turns out to be the same as the last time I did this! So that’s promising if I can get my running sorted…

Aerobar aerodynamic cover testing

Some time we’ve seen a widespread acceptance of some form or raised hand position for aerobars, ranging from minor angles for comfort, to “praying mantis” in the hope of better aerodynamics.

In the last couple of years we’ve seen various forms of single piece aerobars which appear to be designed to improve aerodynamics combined with these raised bar position.

Not being shy at EZGainz of trying to save some watts without splashing out a great wad of money (these can cost over £3000), we thought we’d try an attachment to see if it gave us any aerodynamic gains.

This is a 3d printed prototype, designed to not just cover the aerobars, but also the arms. The hope was that this would smooth airflow, and that would overcome the extra frontal area this entailed.

Testing this at the wind tunnel at Silverstone showed some modest improvements, mostly when direction of the wind was at an angle. At 45kpm it averaged out across the yaw angles as 3 watts gain.

It’s only a prototype and not yet enough to put into production, but it is encouraging that there are gains to be had with further refinement. Exactly how something like this performs will be much more personal than for wheels, as people’s front cockpit setups are much more diverse, but this could potentially involve some significant drag reduction.

Abu Dhabi Triathlon World Championships 2022

Hot. A simple word to describe a race. Maybe it should be inferno? Not that it was a surprise, but racing, particularly running, in midday sun in the UAE was toasty!

I’d travelled to the race alone, arriving at 2am the day before, which made it all quite hectic. But was lucky enough to be staying in the same hotel as some friends; the irrepressible Giles and rubberneck Tom. Despite the gutter-level banter, it made the whole experience a lot of fun! A significant amount was about someplace in Hawaii Giles had been to recently…

I just about had the time to do all the pre-race faffing; rebuilding my bike, getting to the race venue, registering and finally racking my bike.

This left enough time to watch the elite women’s race.

And try on some silly leggings.

I also met up with the other awesome athletes from Cambridge Triathlon club

And there was an opportunity to go out on the swim course. There were some large jellyfish, but they seemed to be a little deeper than swimming depth. The exit was next to a huge head and pair of hands.

We had an evening meal. I was feeling a bit bloated after travelling, eating meals at odd times and being on the wrong timezone. I was being careful what I ate – not too much, carbs, not much fibre. Unlike Giles, who had 5 desserts. Might have been 6.

My race started at 9:17am. This meant a relatively civilised alarm time in the morning, 6am, although that was 2am UK time. However, it also meant I’d finish around 11:17am. Did I mention it was a hot race?

Tom, being a superb swimmer and irritatingly younger than me, started earlier and got off to a great start. It really looked like he had a good chance of being in the top three Brits in his age group! (There were only two…)

Meanwhile, I had a cunning plan for my start. The 3 athletes who’d beaten me in the European Championships were racing. Two of them, Donald and Artur were 3 minutes faster than me swimming, but Patrick was only 1 minute.

Unlike that race, this would be a non wetsuit swim – meaning I’d likely be even further behind. However, my swimming had been improving, so I figured I might be able to draft Patrick. So I stuck next to him at the start.

With a quick “Attention, Go!” we were off! Patrick swan to the right of one of the start buoys but I had to go left. I squeezed past someone else and set off in hot pursuit. Well, thrashed around more quickly than usual and hoped I’d catch up to him.

I started to gain and got within about a meter. Drafting at that distance certainly helps, but it’s not as good as 1cm! Sadly, my thrashing about was no longer making inroads and I was working too hard.

Fortunately, being in an age group with 60 people, unlike in Poland, there were other athletes around so I had options.

There was someone off to my left that was a little further back, so I switched over. Now I could get to 1cm drafting! I spent the next km trying to tickle his feet, which worked pretty well, only interrupted by slower swimmers from the previous wave, or when we got to a turn. Either his or my speed was a little erratic, so I occasionally had to sprint a bit or ease off, but we were moving faster than I’d manage by myself. I found out afterwards that this was another friend, Gary – I hope I didn’t irritate him too much!

Just before the last turn we somehow joined up with another swimmer from our wave, a German athlete. He and I both spent a while trying to draft Gary, but at this point, we seemed to slow down.

I tried breaking right while the German went left, but I only got level by the time new guy was completely ahead, and the original tucked in behind him and I stopped gaining ground. I shrugged (mentally – actually shrugging would definitely have slowed me down…) and got back behind him.

We did the last turn towards the enormous head and were now overtaking a lot of the previous wave.

The water wasn’t particularly rough, but there was a little chop and lots of splashing from other athletes; despite being happy breathing either side I still managed to swallow quite a lot of sea water.

Coming up to the exit I started kicking harder and flexing my calf muscles. It slowed me down a bit, but got me ready for the run from the swim to the transition; 500m barefoot, quite a bit slightly uphill. Then transition itself must have been another 200m.

I’d done the swim in 23:20. I measured the course as being slightly long, and that time includes getting to the timing mat. Going by my hat watch, I’d actually done 23:05 by the end of the actual swimming – 1:29 per 100m pace for 1548m – a massive non wetsuit PB!

Strava link

I knew there were helpers with water bottles here and really wanted one to swill my mouth out and get rid of the brine. I spotted one and tried to take the bottle he had, but he wasn’t looking and was trying to take the lid off.

I missed it and actually stopped, race back and grabbed it. I got the top off, cleaned my mouth and had a small sip. Then I spotted Juan’s young family – obviously I splashed them with what was left. It was a hot day after all!

I could see the people I’d been swimming with a little way ahead and considered chasing them down, but decided I would rather make sure I didn’t break my calves, so just jogged as quickly to transition as seemed sensible.

My bike was at the far end of transition. In the morning, I’d practised making sure I knew exactly which row to run up, and where it was in the row. I spotted one lady looking for her bike looking confused. Ha! I’m far too professional for that!

So… obviously I ran up the wrong row. Fortunately just one row too far, and since I was at the end I could just scoot round. The lady came past me with her bike at that point…

I got my socks on. Look I know it’s controversial, but I’ve got it down to a fine art. I do it standing up, toe then heal. It only takes a couple of seconds, and I look after my delicate feet!

Then I was off onto the bike! I’d been looking forward to riding my bike on smooth fast roads in the sun for ages, and it didn’t disappoint! I was flying along and was soon overtaking everyone in sight.

I passed my swimming buddies and just kept hunting down each person ahead. I looked at my speed and was traveling 46kmph. On the flat! My power reading wasn’t high enough for that! I was worried that as the day had heated up since I’d calibrated it, it was now reading low and I was going to overdo it.

However… At the first turn around it became clear that it was actually due to a tailwind; going the other way was slower. And actually despite not really doing the speed that much into the wind on the straights, there were lots of dead turns, one bridge with a little elevation and short technical bits that dragged the average down. So as usual I was fighting a personal battle to keep the speed above 40kmph.

This was made all the more difficult as I was paranoid about overheating and dehydrating on the run. I was trying to drink regularly, but feeling sick every time I did, waiting till the feeling passed, then trying again. I was also capping my power down to 285watts (normalized), which is 90% of my FTP, about 5% lower than I’d normally do for this distance.

I saw Giles a few times going on the opposite direction. He was a couple of minutes back at this point; he’s a better runner than me, so I was hoping to have a bit of a bigger gap at the end of the bike to avoid the patented Giles “bum slap” if get if he overtook me…

I had two 800ml bottles of half strength beta fuel, with half an electrolyte tablet in each. I managed to finish one, but only had a few sips of the other by the end of the bike. I was feeling great aerobically by this point, and the sick feeling had gone.

I did a flying dismount with no issues and got to my racking spot first try, like a pro…

Happily I’d just managed to average 40kmph.

Strava link.

I should probably mention at this point that I have a homemade 3d printed toolbox on my bike and that it was so hot this actually melted. And my GPS watch’s screen was glitching because of the heat. It really was hot!

However, it was time to run. Time for all those turbo sessions dressed up in 5 layers with no fan, and stupidly hot baths to pay dividends. All those practise races with ATW. That and the serious acclimatisation I got from having arrived a whole day before the race.

Nope. I knew I was in trouble from the moment I started running. I could run, but what felt like my threshold pace was about 20 second per km slower than what I’d managed at home in the cold. And with 10km to go in this heat, it was not a sensible time to try to push it.

So, I ran sensibly. Boring! Every aid station I had a sip of water and poured the rest over my head, stuck a cold wet sponge down my top, and held another in one hand for a bit later. There were 3 aid stations on each of the 2 laps. Even so, I really could have done with twice as many! I was melting! Surprisingly I was mostly overtaking, with just the occasional athlete overtaking.

At the end of the first lap was an out and back section. I saw Tom running towards the finish; I was properly jealous! Close behind was Giles. Uh oh! He was about 90 seconds back. A bit of dehydrated maths later and I figured that if I could up my pace by 10 seconds per km, I could stay ahead.

So I upped my pace. Nope. A really big fat NO; I was definitely at my limit already. So I settled down and waited for the the inevitable…

Sure enough at around the 8km mark the run, Giles came past. I actually saw him coming and ran for a bit with both my hands covering my bottom, but still got the bum slap of doom…

I lost most of my motivation at that point. But plodded on. However, a little bit further on I spotted Patrick up ahead. Walking! He’d been in a close race with Artur at the start of the run, and was now paying for it. I didn’t slap his bum on the way past, but did said “Hi” and tried to look like I was running OK!

I eventually got to 10km. Of course, there was still 500m to go as the run course was long (unlike the bike, which was short; not my favourite combination) but I made it. I even managed to try to run with good form along the blue carpet up to the finish. If you look closely you can see how wooden it is though!

I’d managed to average 4:13 per km, which was frustrating compared to what I was hoping for (3:52), but much better than it felt! I’d come 7th in my age group.

Strava link.

Full results

There were buckets of ice at the finish, which was awesome. There were even ice baths, which I’ve never tried before. I may have screamed like a child getting one, but it did wonders for lowering my body temperature!

It was lovely chatting to people afterwards.

And of course meeting up with the EZ Gainz crew.

After a very sweaty ride back to the hotel, we got on with some serious recovery. And yes, those are Mango Mojitos. Also, try not to look at Gile’s shark…

Bilbao European Middle Distance Triathlon Championship

A European Championship is always a big deal. OK, so I was only racing against other people in my rather aged category, but it attracts the best and the standard is high. Unfortunately for me, I wouldn’t be competitive this time; I thought I’d be lucky to manage to complete the run due to a torn calf muscle.

Three weeks before at Belvoir Aquabike I’d failed to run 10 metres between the swim and transition, and at that point thought I’d had no chance. I tried hard to switch from the Triathlon to the Aquabike in Bilbao, but somehow between British Triathlon and the organisers in Bilbao, wasn’t able to.

However… I’d seen a great physiotherapist, and was on the mend. With a grand total of 40 minutes of run/walk successfully completed, I was hopeful I could manage the half marathon after all… Still I was under no illusions – it would suck. Even ignoring the injury, no real running for 7 weeks before a race wouldn’t be the best preparation.

Bilbao is a great destination for a holiday or a race. And being there in team GB added something; the atmosphere was great, and I love talking to other triathletes! Watching friends race the aquathlon the day before really got me excited!

After a week of sun in Spain (not for me – I only arrived a couple of days before), the day of the race was rainy. This was important because the race involved cycling in the mountains! Racing down proper downhills on narrow race tyres would be scary enough, but throw in wet slippy roads, and carbon wheels with rim brakes (water seriously reduces the braking power) made it downright terrifying!

I didn’t manage to do any touristing the day before the race, because, as is standard for me, something went wrong with my bike. In this case a repair I’d previously made to a wire on my electronic gear shifting had broken, resulting in one shifting button not working.

So… I spent the day trying to get hold of soldering gear, and then finally actually fixing it. Again. Better this time.

The race was an unusually late 3pm start, so we set up on the river “dock” in the morning. My bike was in the group of bikes on the right near the red tower in the photo below.

There was some, um, interesting entertainment during this racking process:

When it was time to race, we were asked to stand by our bikes and then walk in line over a timing matt, down a ramp, and then jump off a pontoon. It was a rolling start, in age groups (since age groups had bikes racked next to each other). It wasn’t explained properly (a running theme with the organisers unfortunately) so no one really knew what was going on. I got stuck behind someone dawdling down the ramp who didn’t appear to realise the race had started.

However, once I got swimming I was pleasantly surprised! I started overtaking and from about 20th position in my age group (identified by FIS-green swim hats) and had soon worked my way through and out into the next age group ahead.

It was a river swim, with the first “half” downstream and the second longer (really!) “half” upstream. It was slightly curved, but I decided to take a slightly longer route by staying in the middle in the hope of being given a boost by the current.

I worked my way through several different groups of coloured hats but did see a couple of green hats passing – not close enough to draft unfortunately. In fact, due to the range of paces I didn’t manage any drafting 😦 There were a few really fast swimmers from waves behind overtaking, but these were pretty rare.

On the return leg, I couldn’t make up my mind on the best line and switched from a centre shorter line, to going wide to try to avoid the current. I may have switched a few times! There weren’t any jellyfish, just some leaves in the water.

Towards the end I got stuck in a battle with a person on either side. I couldn’t work out why we were all moving at the same pace since we all had different coloured hats on. I felt like I should be able to leave them behind, but every time I pushed faster, I couldn’t get clear, they caught back up and we ended up bumping into each other again.

We made it to the exit, a floating pontoon, leading to some difficulty getting out. Picture a seal hauling itself up onto some ice and partially falling back in. Yep, classy.

Strava link

Transition involved finding a bag with your number on it from narrow school cloakroom style racks holding 700-odd bags, taking that onwards to a changing tent, getting bike kit out of the bag, stripping off your wetsuit and stuffing it in the bag, then running back, against the flow of triathletes, to the rack and hanging your bag back up.

Yep, I thought that was a greeeeeat layout.

These were some of the run bags, but you get the idea.

Then you run barefoot to your bike, grab it, head for the exit, and jump on! The transition was BIG – it was a total of 800m of running. I took this run quite carefully, really trying not to irritate my calf muscle.

Onto the bike, and even with the wet floor, I was in my happy place!

It was a closed roads race – in this case meaning one half of the road was coned off for cyclists, the other side with traffic. I started overtaking people and started taking on nutrition.

I had 2 bottles full of “SiS Beta Fuel” (for a total of 160 grams of carbohydrates) in a carrier behind my seat. I’ve got 2 “Gorilla Cages” on there, which is normally completely reliable and I’ve not lost a bottle out of there. However, this time it was wet and I think I didn’t put a bottle fully back in – I hit a bump and lost the bottle. I should have stopped and got it back, but was in too much of a hurry.

There was a short sharp incline out of town, and I lost a few places going up here, but gained them back quite quickly on the following flat section. I was cruising along at 43kmph, happily overtaking everyone in sight! I was slightly over-biking as every time I got close to someone I pushed to make sure I didn’t get a drafting penalty.

Then we got to the hills… The first challenge was a 6% hill that went on for about 30 minutes. I had plenty of gears so it wasn’t challenging, except that everyone else was going quite a lot faster up it! I had a steady stream of people going past and wasn’t overtaking anyone. Comparing with one of them with a power-meter on Strava and plugging the differences between the flat and the climb into a physics calculator I’ve come to the conclusion I’ve got good aerodynamics, and weigh about 5kg more. This was enough that I’d gone from 2km faster at 43kmph, to 2km slower at 20kmph.

The mountainous section of the bike course lasted for most of the ride – about 55km of it. There wasn’t much flat, not a lot to be gained on the wet, bendy descents, and plenty to be lost on the ascents. Let’s just say it wasn’t a course that suited me, despite being lots of fun!

There were two aid stations on route. At the first I shouted out for energy drink, but got given what turned out to be a bottle of water :(. At the second I did the same, but missed grabbing the bottle on the way past as the volunteer worked out what I wanted at the last second and switched water for the energy drink. This time I stopped, reversed and got it.

It was a help, but didn’t make up for the lost bottle – that had 80g of carbohydrates in it whereas this was a smaller bottle with standard energy drink, so probably only 30g. I knew this would be a problem later in the run, when I’d “bonk”. I can only handle something like 80g per hour (which is 360 calories – I’m burning about 1000 an hour, this is a 4 hour race, and I start with roughly 2500 – it’s not quite enough even if it goes to plan).

However, since I wasn’t going to be running fast thanks to my calf injury, I thought I might get away with it…When exercising at a lower intensity you use more stores of fat, and less glycogen.

The last stretch coming down out of the mountains was on straight roads – so fast! I peaked at over 70kmph. Then there was a few kms of flat (I finally started overtaking people again) before coming over a bridge back to transition.

Strava link.

Again I made my way tentatively through transition barefoot. I dropped my bike and helmet off and made my way to the run bags to get my shoes. I got them on without any drama, got the bag back on its hook and was off onto the run.

I’d decided to limit my pace to 5 minutes per km – about a minute slower than I’d been hoping for before my injury. However, in the last few days I’d decided maybe, just maybe, I could go down to 4:45 pace per km. So, after a brief toilet stop, I set to it. How did I need a wee when I’d not had enough to drink on the bike?! I’ve never had to do that during a race before!

The course was 4 1/2 out and backs (the finish was about 2 1/2 km away from the bike transition) along the river. Under the spider and past the Guggenheim.

I didn’t rack my bike here… this was taken the day before.

Some people didn’t like it being lapped, but I liked this course! The architecture was amazing, there were crowds of supporters cheering and high fiving, and some mad guy in devil’s horns pumping out Euro dance on a portable speaker.

What I didn’t like was being overtaken! Lots. The lead pro woman overtook me on the first lap, and by the time it got busy on the second it was just a constant stream of people. Someone in the 60+ age group came past.

I picked up gels at the aid stations, taking one every 20 minutes, which is about as fast as I can handle. They were really thick compared to what I’m used to so after the first I made sure I got some water to drink along with it. Most of the water just went over my head though.

By the third lap I’d run out of energy. In runners terms, I ‘bonked’. I was paranoid about my calf muscle, but it seemed to be holding up as well as the rest of me (i.e. nothing going wrong, but everything aching). My 4:45 kms had turned into 5:00s, and now dropped to 5:15s – no deliberate pace limiting needed! More people overtook. I occasionally overtook someone, but normally that was because they’d stopped, injured…

By the end I was completely spent. It was frustrating having to work soooo hard when not going fast! The combination of time off of running previously and running out of energy really, really sucked. I ached in my calves, hamstrings, lower back, neck and hip flexors.

Strava link

I got given a medal and shuffled round to the recovery tent. There was plenty of food and drink, and some massage tables. The queue for this was slow, but the massage excellent!

This was another exciting experience, with lots of opportunities to catch up with friends and make new ones. Next up is the Standard Distance Triathlon World Championships in Abu Dhabi in November. Hopefully I’ll be full fit and well trained by that point!

Norwich Olympic Distance Triathlon 2022

Norwich triathlon is held at a really beautiful location; Whitlington Country Park, with the swim in Whitlington Broad (you know, party of The Norfolk Broads!), the bike section on rolling country roads, and the run around the Broad.

I’d been lucky enough to stay with friends nearby the night before and there was a good group of us racing from C-Squad. There was much talk of super fast runs and aerodynamic mustaches!

It was a self seeded rolling start. I had a plan to draft one of the super runners, Ali. He had a plan to draft me… Rich meanwhile had a plan to blast off the front and leave everyone behind! Accordingly, we positioned ourselves at the front, guaranteeing some quality photo opportunities!

When it was time to start, one by one we lowered ourselves into the water (no diving – it’s pretty shallow!) and set off, the first 3 swimmers. I was sure that Ali was faster than me so was behind him.

For some reason I seem to have decided to do some pre race yoga…

I managed to start drafting Ali, but was going flat out to do so. I didn’t think I’d manage to keep this going for the full 1.5km, and was a little worried that I couldn’t actually sight well enough into the sunrise to see where we were going! However, the pace eased off and I was able to catch my breath.

After a little bit I thought I could go a bit faster, but  often it still makes sense to draft unless you really think you can go quite a bit faster. A number of times I’ve tried to overtake only to find that I’m going slower when no longer drafting despite trying harder!

At this point I noticed someone swimming past over on my left, so abandoned Ali and swam over to their feet instead. I was hoping Ali would spot this move and join me, but it didn’t happen.

This felt like a challenging pace; perfect! Although we seemed to be going quite wide. Another swimmer joined us and those two swapped places a couple of times, but I wasn’t fast enough to do anything other than draft.

We went round the last buoy and headed to the sandy exit. I did it in 23:08 (23:36 to the timing mat), and measured my distance as 1590m, giving 1:27/100m. I was in 6th. Rich had the fastest swim of the day.

Strava link

Oh yeah. Flattering!

Transition went without any drama, and I left it in 4th. I ran past someone who stopped to mount, so was in 3rd, and was up to 2nd within 200m. I didn’t know that at the time, but I did know that Rich would be somewhere up the road.

The bike course was effectively a triangular route with a tail, with the first third mostly uphill into the wind, the second mostly level with a crosswind, and the last mostly down with a tailwind. I say mostly as it was all rolling hills.

I went harder on the first leg (as that’s what you’re meant to do!). I didn’t see anyone else racing, and kept going expecting to see Rich at any moment. After Grafman I was expecting to see him around 10km in, but got to the end of the first section without seeing him.

Then the end of the second section, again with no sign of him! The third section was pretty fast even backing off the power. There was one particularly fast section towards the end, with a sharp left turn into a minor road, which has a marshal pointing the way. Still hadn’t seen Rich.

At the end of the road there was a right turn where you don’t have right of way, so you have to stop and put a foot down (you get disqualified if you don’t). At this point I finally saw some other competitors – sprint distance athletes going the other way. I got going again although it took a while to clip in again.

The final section was busy with athletes going the other way and cars trying to get into the park. I was lucky enough to get through without stopping but when I got to transition, they weren’t ready for me!

There was a fenced section in transition which you were mean to run down, to avoid giving an advantage to people racked nearest the exit but this was still shut! Fortunately I knew what we were meant to do, so I ran the length of it on the wrong side, turned around and then to my racking spot. Well… I actually missed it and had to backtrack – schoolboy error!

I’d done it in 58:25, which was the fastest bike split of the day. I should mention I’m using an EZDisc here – there were quite a few of us with them on the day!

Strava link

I was racked right next to Rich, but… his bike wasn’t there! It turned out he’d missed the sharp turning after the fast section, so had a lovely extra ride to the local bypass and back… But that did mean I was in the lead! The announcer even said something about me being a super fast cyclist!

I made my way out of transition and ran in what I hoped was the right direction along a road.

That way?

After a short distance there were marshals pointing out the path through a meadow. The route then went through a forest and tracked back onto a tarmac path. It then doubled back on a gravel path, which went all the way round the lake back to the start.

When I was going round the lake I spotted the athletes in 2nd and 3rd going along the tarmac path in the opposite direction. I tried to work out how far ahead I was, but couldn’t really do it at the time (it was actually about 3 minutes).

Unfortunately I had some stomach issues. Of the kind that ends up in a stop in the portaloos…  I spent the entire run worrying either that I was going to get caught, or that I’d have to stop in a toilet.

After the first lap, I had no idea how much of a gap I had, and not much hope of working it out as there were a lot of people on their first lap now. However, I did hear Matt shouting out that it’s a “lap of honour”, so figured I still had a bit of a lead.

Towards the end of the second lap my stomach issues were becoming quite “pressing”. I’d seen someone wasn’t too far behind at the last turn around, so I was trying to work out how slowly I needed to go to get to the end without ending up having to stop in the bushes, but how fast I needed to go to make sure I won. There was a lot of looking over my shoulder!

I made it to the finish without being overtaken, or having to stop, which was a great relief! It was awesome to actually have a finish ribbon!

I’d done the run in 40:14, 8th fastest.

Strava link.

Full results

The person I’d seen behind me turned out to be another C-Squad athlete Joe, who was doing the sprint, so I needn’t have worried! After him came Rich, who’d run himself back up to 2nd. Ali came in 4th with the fastest run of the day (and course record!) Ruth won her age category. All in all a good day out for the team!

All that was left to do was to find my shoes (there was a bit of a walk to the start, and the marshals kindly brought everyone’s shoes back).

Oh, and collect the trophy!

Grafman 70.3 Triathlon 2022

The Grafman triathlon is held at Grafham lake – meaning it’s a local race! It’s also now run by ActiveTrainingWorld who run fantastic events and are always very helpful and flexible about accommodating athletes’ needs. I’ve tried to race this once before as an “Aquabike” (swim and bike), but unfortunately that year there was a thick mist so the swim had to be cancelled, meaning, for me, it was a “Bike”. I think it’s run later in the year now, meaning the weather should be better…

However, despite the day of the race being in the middle of some fantastic weather, the forecast was a difficult to predict day, of heavy wind and rain! Pants!

Arriving at the event in the rain, I was consoling myself that the forecast looked like the rain might stop by the start, and stay dry till the end. This was sort of confirmed when it was announced that the bike section would be shortened to just one lap (out of 2) to try to get everyone off the roads by the time the weather closed back in.

This was somewhat frustrating personally as cycling is my strongest discipline, however, it made sense, and the organisers were doing their best to allow the event to go ahead.

You could choose to modify your event however you liked – shorten (1 lap out of 2) or skip the swim, skip the bike, shorten or skip the run (1 lap out of 2). Or do what was left of the full 70.3 – which is what I chose. So 1.9km swim, 46.5km bike, 21km run.

I waited a bit for the rain to stop, and it did, so I set up my bike in the (relative) dry!

I was racing with friends, Richard, Clinton and Ruth. I had plans to try to draft Richard, who is a much better swimmer than me, on the swim for as long as possible. I wasn’t expecting that to be very far, and so it proved! After the start I think I probably managed about 30 seconds before losing him.

Still, that actually left me in a decent group. I think ahead of us were a couple of pro’s (one male, Jack, one female, Rosie), maybe a couple of other good swimmers including Richard, then the group I was in.

The swim is quite fun as it involves an Australian exit in the middle, where you get out of the water, run a short distance then dive (flop) back in. I managed to do that without losing the group, although I think my heart rate skyrocketed!

I kept in the pack for the rest of the swim, although I nearly lost it when I crashed into someone still on their first lap who was almost stationary (I think they were fixing goggles or sighting at the time). By this point it had started raining again, which was a surprise.

I ended up getting out of the water, up to transition and over the timing mat in 31:08, in 7th position (out of 320ish). Strava link.

I dithered a little in transition deciding a) not to put socks on yet as there was quite a run over wet grass to the mount line (they were on top of my run shoes, which were in a waterproof bag), and b) not to keep the visor on my helmet. I ended up with the 7th fastest time though!

I got to the mount line and leapt onto my bike. At this point I should point out that I’d been to a race in Poland the previous weekend, which involved taking my bike apart to travel. I’d put it back together and been out for a test ride on it during the week where everything seemed OK. I had not done a flying mount onto it though, and definitely not done a flying mount in the rain! Unfortunately when I did it now the seatpost slipped down 3cm.

3cm may not sound like a lot, but in terms of bike fit, it’s the size of the grand canyon! I was now hunched over doing my best Quasimodo impression. Any sensible person would stop, whip out some Allen keys and sort it out. Soooooo, obviously not me – I pushed on. I figured if i moved my bum backwards, it would do!

The rain was getting harder, and so was the wind. There were plenty of athletes out who’d done one lap of the swim course – at the first tight corner on the course there was someone who’d slipped over in the wet (they were OK, but giving out warnings!) So, slowly and carefully round the corners it was! Especially since I’ve got rim brakes on carbon wheels – they’re not great in wet weather.

I tried to make up time on the flats. I saw Clinton coming the other way – turns out he’d had a brief sabbatical during the first loop of the swim and joined in on the second! After a while I caught up with Richard. As well as the swimming, he’s also a much better runner than me, so I figured I’d need to try to get some time on him during the bike section. By this point though I don’t think he was that interested in racing anymore. While my body fat was protecting me from the cold, he’s got no such luxury!

On the other hand, I thought I’d finally worked out how he runs so fast; it was his shoes! He appeared to be wearing a pair with wings!

Although… on closer inspection it turned out to be that he’d worn full length neoprene shoe covers an attempt to keep his feet warm, but hadn’t been able to do up the rear zip on them, which left sides flapping down. It was not the most aerodynamic choice I’ve seen in a race!

By the second turn around point I could see I was in second place, with just Jack about 4 minutes ahead. For a little while I lost interest in racing too, as the rain and wind got heavier and there was a slight downhill on a corner that felt unsafe.

My coach Tom was at the race and had wisely retreated to the cafe and took this video, which shows the weather, although at the point above it was, unbelievably, actually worse than this!

I made it through the rest of the bike section without incident – unlike the recovery car which was going round picking people up – it overtook me and then shortly afterwards I came past it as it had pulled over. Due to a wheel coming off!

I got to the dismount line and got off. By this point I was cold and wet and had a sore back from the low saddle and was very, very glad that it had been shortened to one lap! However, Tom was shouting at me that I was 4 minutes back on the leader, in 2nd, and that I could catch him (which seemed very unlikely to me as I normally lose places on the run!)

I’d done it in 1:17:11 – the fastest bike! Even in this weather I didn’t have any issues with the EZGains rear disc cover, or the aero chainring cover.

Strava link

I had a shocking transition. My fingers were too cold, so it was a real struggle getting my helmet off and socks and shoes on. I also couldn’t get my watch on, but I do that while running (it actually took me 1.5km to do that!). Somehow I managed to get the 2nd fastest transition anyway – I guess other people were worse off!

Since I hadn’t really recovered from the race in Poland (I’d also had a 24 hour bout of food poisoning or some kind of bug) I was planning on taking this as a fun race, not pushing too hard. However, I was in 2nd…

I tried to go at a sensible pace. The first section of the run was across a dam, so was nice and flat. The second section was a gravel path with rolling hills. OK, no one who lives anywhere less flat than Cambridgeshire wouldn’t call them hills, but they’re big to me!

The course had 4 out and backs, so you could check your position compared to others. I was definitely losing ground to Jack, and 3rd was only a couple of minutes behind me. I had a bigger gap to anyone else though. I did spot Paskell, who’d I’d raced at St Neots. He’d come 3rd, just behind me; having lost ground on the swim and bike, he’d been way faster on the run. Given the shortened bike, I was unlikely to hold him off here. Unfortunately he’s in my age group, so I was going to try though, in the hope of winning that!

I couldn’t see Richard but I saw Clinton who shouted that he was still in transition! It turned out he was really struggling with the cold. He showed some grit by getting going again, but took over 10 minutes to get out of there!

I jogged on, holding what I thought was a sensible pace. I dropped back to 3rd about 7km in, then 4th at 10km. I didn’t lose any more places for a while, and it looked like I’d hold onto that position. Tom asked how my legs were at about 11km – they were fine!

However… about 13km it started getting really hard. I think a combination of the cold, the lack of recovery, and more importantly the reduced running I’d been capable of recently was catching up with me. I managed to push on till about 15km, then I couldn’t hold the pace any longer. My pace dropped from about 4:10 per km to 4:30, then to 4:50. I was now rupturing time! It didn’t take that much longer until Rosie overtook. Then at the last turnaround, about 18.5km, Paskell came past.

I saw Ruth, but I wasn’t in a good place to chat! I struggled on to the finish line. Once I stopped I realised not only did my back hurt from the bike, but also one knee. My calf muscles were also shot to pieces. This was particularly frustrating as I’d been so happy that I seem to be getting more robust – I’d been fine after the previous two races!

I’d done the run in 1:30:43 and ended up 6th overall.

Strava link

Full results

I appreciated all the food put on at the finish line, particularly the giant flumps! Clinton and Richard made it safely to the end, and Ruth completed her first (unnecessarily challenging thanks to the weather) 70.3!

I eventually managed to pack up and make my way home for an afternoon of Platinum Jubbly celebrations with a street party.

Hairy Aerodynamic TT Bike Testing

I’ve been doing a little more aerodynamics testing using a power meter and a local stretch of a cycle-path. Here’s a link to the the previous set of testing.

As last time, the protocol is a simple out and back test, but 1km each way this time, aiming at a steady 40kmph. The setup is nearly the same:
Planet-X Stealth TT bike
50mm Planet-X wheels (old style “pointy” profile) with a home made disc cover on the rear.
23m Michelin Power Competition clincher tyres
Bell Javelin Helmet
Tri SPD-L shoes
Tri suit this time (vs speed-suit last time – so no arm coverage).
Elite Crono CX bottle on the down tube.
Small toolkit behind seat

I did 7 sets of tests:

1. Base – the above setup
2. Leggings – wearing compression leggings. These are very tight!
3. Shaved Legs – I’m pretty hairy – quite high on the Chewbacca scale
4. Narrow Bars – I moved my aero bar elbow pads in towards the center by about 2cm each, from 24cm apart to 20cm apart. The center of the front of the bars are 6cm apart (the bar position didn’t change).
5. Bottle Between Bars, no aero bottle – I swapped the Elite Crono CX bottle for a standard bottle, on the tri bars between my arms
6. Xlab stealth pocket – instead of tools behind seat
7. Aero bottle + Xlab – removed the standard bottle and put the Elite Crono back on the downtube.

The weather was slightly windy (3 knots gusting to 12), mostly cross wind, and it was 10 degrees centigrade.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/weather/daily-text.cgi?2017-04-20

I’ve seen various tests of shaving legs in wind tunnels talking about 15 watts savings, but a) didn’t really believe them, and b) figured compression leggings might save me from having to shave even if it was true.

These are the test runs (tip, if you open up strava in a web browser rather than a phone, you can see the “laps” and the power).
Base and Leggings: https://www.strava.com/activities/950221022/analysis

The rest after shaving: https://www.strava.com/activities/950221082/analysis

And the results:

	Watts 1	Speed 1	Watts 2	Speed 2	Av Watts	Av Speed	Change
Base	263	39.9	276	39.9	269.5	39.9
Leggings	260	40.5	256	39.8	258.0	40.2	11.5
Shaved Legs	256	39.9	236	40.2	246.0	40.1	12.0
Narrow Bars	243	39.9	239	39.9	241.0	39.9	5.0
Bottle Between Bars	247	39.9	247	39.5	247.0	39.7	-6.0
Xlab stealth pocket	243	40.2	250	39.8	246.5	40.0	0.5
Aero bottle + Xlab	245	40.1	246	39.7	245.5	39.9	1.0

So, I accept these results are likely to be a bit “noisy”, but even so, it looks like shaving is something I’m just going to have to do! 11.5 watts improvement wearing the compression leggings, but 23.5 watts for shaving!

The rest is interesting but may just be the “noise” (I’ll go for the aero bottle for example, but the XLab Stealth pocket I’ll probably still use in race despite coming out slower here, just because I can fit a can of Pitstop in it).