staytrueracing

Team MTN Qhubeka have released Gerald Ciolek’s race-winning power file from Milan-San Remo 2013. You can see it here.

Here’s a much-shortened summary of the key portions of the race. If you’re into power you’ll understand how stupid these numbers are, especially when an athlete can produce both 400w for 10 minutes and then 19 seconds @ >1000W at the end of a 6 hour race in < 5 degrees.  Lots of people can produce one or t’other – very few have both.

Cipressa Climb:

11:29 @ 396w.

Poggio Climb:

8:05 @ 401w, including 40 seconds @ 536w and a 989w surge.

The final 6.25km (@ 48km/h average speed):

6x accelerations over 800w (including 6 seconds at 1127W) then:

The “Race Winning Sprint”: average power of 1028W for 19s with a max of 1386W.

What a legend.

I put a pic on instagram when my KICKR arrived and a bunch of people wanted a review. I thought I’d use it for a month to make up my mind. 

A recap on my history with trainers:

I’ve mainly used a BT-ATS for the past 3 years. Yes, it is outrageously expensive for what it is. I still think it’s worth every penny because it’s simple, rugged and feels like you’re peddaling through sand. It’s a feeling I’ve grown to love. It provides a different stimulus than the Lemond; Raoul once mentioned something to me about low kinetic energy trainers requiring a different muscle firing pattern, which sounds fairly plausible.

I also like the Lemond, which feels far more ‘road-like’ than the BT (it’s clearly a fairly high KE trainer, although I’ve heard stories of custom trainers with 50kg flywheels….).  I know power is power is power, but a set wattage just feels MUCH easier on the Lemond than the BT.  The Lemond is pretty noisy, but apparently the 2013 model is much quieter.

Note how every trainer I use has the same basic setup, requiring the removal of the rear wheel.  This is the only way to fly.  Shredding tyres on friction trainers is so last year.

Enter the Wahoo KICKR

The KICKR is very similar to a Lemond except it has an inbuilt power meter, is magnetically braked and controlled via BTLE or ANT+ (ie your iDevice or computer with an ANT+ stick.)  There’s an exhaustive review here, which is worth reading if you’re considering buying one.

So after a 4 month wait, a massive box arrived on my doorstep. This thing is heavy, over engineered and clearly well built.  Set up consisted of unfolding the legs, plugging it in to 240v and pairing it to the Wahoo app on my iPhone. That’s it.

Riding

Remove your bike’s rear wheel, put the bike on the KICKR, set up the workout you want on your iPhone/iPad, hit start and you’re away. The KICKR takes care of the rest, controlling power regardless of what gear you select or your cadence. The ‘feel’ is very similar to the Lemond (excellent), as is the noise level (not so excellent).  If you’re a 200w FTP rider, you won’t have a problem. It’s really quiet at that power. If you’re signficantly above that, and you live in an apartment block with neighbors who don’t get up at 5am like you….you’re eventually going to find a horse’s head on your doorstep.

Accuracy

I set the Wahoo app for 300w via my iPhone (screen shot below):

and did an hour, with my Quarq running in parrallel. You can see they are within 5w of each other. Also note my ghetto PC7  TT mount, manufactured by Papa Bens Industries ©

My world view….

The one negative: the software is not as good as it could be. If you want to plug in one W number and sit on that, the Wahoo app is all you need. If you want to do complicated intervals, there isn’t a really simple solution at the moment.  Kinomaps, TrainerRoad, IMobileIntervals etc – all are OK, but could be much cleaner/more intuitive/better.  However, as Wahoo has made every aspect of the KICKR open to developers we’re going to see an avalanche of avenues for riding against your friends over the interwebs on video-enabled courses. So the more people who buy one, the more fun we’ll all have (fun being a relative term in this case).

Final verdict: I give the KICKR unit 10/10 and the software 6/10.

• Refusing to sniff the wind at key moments in the race, then wanting to smash it when you’re dropped and the result is a foregone conclusion.
• Yelling at people for not chopping off with you at 45km/h into a headwind. They’re in the gruppetto for a reason: ie they’re rooted. If you’re so strong then why were you dropped?
• Yelling in general. Everyone is disappointed they’ve been dropped. Suck it up and demonstrates some grâce sous le feu.
• Dropping the bunch when you pull a turn. No one is impressed that you’re strong now.
• Putting it in the gutter.
• Dropping gel wrappers, bottles etc on the road. It’s bad enough doing this in the race; it’s even worse when you have all the time in the world to put your rubbish in your pockets.
• Sprinting for 70th place. This is the key indicator of the special subspecies of the flog, the “King Flog”.

173km. Closed roads. Great climbing. Friendly faces everywhere, on the bike and off. What’s not to love?

Well, not wearing gloves at the start was #1.

#2 was waking up on Sunday morning with a Kirsty B/Beechworth Pub-induced hangover (thanks for the pictures though KB.)

#3 was Lee forcing everyone to climb Mt Buffalo on Sunday when we would have rather wallowed in coffee and panadol. We all thanked him after though.

Mob (plural mobs)

•     An unruly group of people.
•     A commonly used collective noun for animals such as horses or cattle.
•     The Mafia, or a similar group that engages in organized crime (preceded by the).
•     (video games) A non-player character that exists to be fought or killed to further the progression of the story or game.