Myth # 9 Round wheels are faster ?

Not everything is as it seems. I have received nothing but positive feedback from my post entitled, “Myth # 2, your tires need to be inflated” that when you remove air from the tire it becomes lighter which naturally makes it faster at the same time.  So simple yet so profound.

Today we challenge the assumption that round tires are faster. There was a study done by the German magazine, “Der Spiegel” that used a metal drum to measure rolling resistance.  Like many of you I only ride on metal drums when it rains.  What about the “real world” situations we all encounter?  Is a round wheel always the right choice?

Let’s look at the photograph below.  As you can see the rider is riding over rolls of fabric.  A round wheel would just get stuck whereas the square wheel is able to ride up and over the humps with ease.  What are our roads, if not an assembly of humps and imperfections?  For those situations a round wheel will be out performed by the square wheel every time. 

Since most of us don’t live in a laboratory, knowing what works in the real world is what counts.  As a point of reference, I see plenty of men riding in polyester cycling jerseys. “Fools,” I say to my companions, “Fools!” Our group of testers has found that wool jerseys have the ability to store energy for use later. 

Let’s say you are riding uphill in a polyester jersey.  As you warm up you might start to sweat a little.  The jersey wicks the sweat away, cooling you down and you continue to ride to the top and when you go down, your jersey dries quickly and you are warm on the descent. This is what you get for being a fool.

The experienced rider wearing a wool jersey on the climb starts to sweat much earlier.  The wool absorbs the sweat and begins to stink.  The stink makes the rider go harder and increases the sweating. By the time the wool-wearing rider reaches the top his jersey has a good pound or two of sweat in it and that added weight helps speed the rider on the descent.  The ability of wool to store the riders sweat and use it as ballast on the descent is something polyester can’t do.  I can’t imagine why all the pro cyclists aren’t wearing floppy rag wool sweaters.  By the way, in my post entitled, “Myth #1 Aerodynamics are more important than drag” we see that riders in loose fitting wool are, in fact, much faster than riders in Lycra.

                                        These people just smell like  S P E E D  

Alas, like a doddering old man my mind has wandered and there is nobody here to slap me back to reality.  Perhaps I could benefit from a fact checker.  Just kidding.  Who needs facts when you have a monopoly on wool?

Back to the square wheels.

What happens to a square wheel on a smoother road at high speeds?  We have all seen how the latest versions of The America’s Cup boats get up on a hydrofoil the size of a canoe paddle.  As they go faster they need less contact with the water.  At high speeds only the corners of the square wheels will be in contact with the ground.  This hydrofoil effect will allow a cyclist to maintain top speeds with less effort.

As an added benefit the square wheel will “capture” the air between the corners and it will serve as a cushion as it is compressed by the rolling wheel, smoothing out the contact of the next corner.  As the wheel goes faster the cushion gets firmer and firmer.  Soon the rider is gliding along, barely touching the ground at all. Once airborne the imperfections of the road are irrelevant.

Once you understand that square wheels are faster on rough and smooth roads you will never go back to round wheels.

Just another brick in the wall

The band is just fantastic. 

That is really what I think. 

Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?

My alarm went off a tad earlier, and it felt like it.  I got moving and made coffee as usual. I was able to carry those extra minutes forward and arrive at, and later leave, work a bit earlier.  

Rushing home I changed from slacks and dress shoes into my team kit and road shoes.  I filled bottles and pumped my tires.  Sixty minutes from desk to clipping is pretty darn good. 

Soon I was headed for the bike trail as the roads can be scary during the evening commute.  My legs took some time to shift from nothing to pedaling.  I was glad to be riding outdoors.  I’ve spent more time on the trainer already in 2018 than I did in all of 2017.  Riding on a trainer indoors has a lot of similarities to dental work.  You only do it because the alternative is even worse.

I hit a short downhill and coasted for a few moments.  You can’t do that indoors!

Indoor riding sucks!

If I trusted any of the half dozen weather sites/apps I use with OCD regularity, Tuesday was the last dry day.  Five days of rain were coming, starting that night.  A mix of tempo and short intervals was on the agenda. 

As I hit the first hill I got out of the saddle and the climb felt easier than expected.  THAT was a nice surprise.   After multi hour rides Friday, Saturday and Sunday I expected my legs to be dead on this Tuesday evening.   I didn’t have the motivation required to be watching a stopwatch so I had decided to attack each uphill and then ride tempo in between.  The bike felt faster than usual and I just went with it.  I was going out and back and the kilometers were ticking by.  Soon I reached my turn around point and I still felt good. "Time to push even harder," I thought to myself.

I was flying that day!

On the way back my legs still felt refreshingly strong, but my quads were now starting to complain. The intervals hurt just enough to be enjoyable.  If you don’t understand what that means, you are dead to me. 

Daylight savings time means sunset was a tad before eight pm.  I got home in the light and by the time I cleaned myself and dropped my clothes in the washing machine I was starving. 

Another unremarkable ride.  I was glad I had felt good. It was another brick in the base.  It all counts.

Wolume

Not yet, but soon!

The Friday emails announcing Saturday team rides have been steady and will continue until June.  In an effort to log the all-important back to back to back long rides I got up thirty minutes before o’dark thirty (that would be straight up o’dark, and it hurt) and spent two hours on the trainer Friday morning before work. 

Look who joined me for a three hour ride Saturday!

Then, I added some good hours in the saddle Saturday and Sunday, and come Monday morning the stairs at work seem taller than usual.  The legs are tender. There is a mountain of bike clothes on hangers, air drying, in our laundry room.  Welcome to spring.

The law of accumulation says, “Everything counts.”  The individual ride may not matter, yet what matters is all of the individual rides.  Read that slow until it sinks in.  Those rides are, by the way, referenced by hours as opposed to distance.  Just about every ride starts with two bottles and pockets full of food.  “Put a foot down, eat something,” is our slogan.

This is the phase of the buildup that is daunting.  This is when you often find yourself with ten to twenty km to go and thinking to yourself, “I would not mind being done right now.”  Yet those “stretch” rides pave the way for the final part of the buildup when you ride for five or more hours and finish ready to do it again the next day. 

Right now, the next day starts with heavy legs and hungry muscles.  It can take nearly an hour to get on speaking terms with your legs.  Even then, any out of the saddle efforts trigger an instant reminder of the prior days exploits.    You become constantly aware of what training zone you are in.

The days of going from riding very little to high volume are long past for nearly all of our clan.  Everyone has been on some kind of methodical build up as our summer adventure approaches.  McWoodie is following a plan that is so detailed it accounts for moon cycles, his bio rhythms, the Mariner’s game schedule and solar flares.  Cramps (the man formally known as Whiplash) follows his plans like a Zen master.  If some of us get excited on a Coffee and Lies ride, Cramps doesn’t get tempted to join in the Reindeer games unless it is part of his plan.

It is a complex mix of riding alone and riding with others that leads to the fitness that is the price of admission for our summer adventures.  There is peer pressure to show up fit enough to finish the rides.  Speed on those rides is a personal matter, but showing up out of shape borders on disrespect.

It is all about the party!

This past Sunday there was a 110% chance of rain.  NOAA told us we would start damp and end wet. Typically that would have meant a smaller crowd.  Eight brave/foolish souls set off creating rooster tails as we rode on the wet roads.   A flat tire early on ensured hypothermia would be along for the ride.  A few of us had hoped the rain might let up (contrary to all known data) and we could add some kilometers.  In the end we just did a single loop on the Isle of Mercer and dashed back for coffee.

It wasn’t a great day for training.  It was just a ride.  One of many.  Hopefully, one of enough.