Friday, October 30, 2009

WTF is happening??

Ok, it's been a while and posting lately has been slow.

That's actually a good thing - I've just been really busy. I have lots to update on, so I'll get to it all. Eventually, LOL.

I had a fantastic trip to California to ride the countryside around Santa Rosa, participate in Levi's Granfondo and also deliver a seminar on training with power. So I'll get to those in separate posts later.

I also have been doing lots of training leading up to the UCI World Masters Track championships which were held last week. I had a really good championships, riding a good pursuit time and making the finals of both the scratch and points races. More on that later too.

Here I am am up front and personal during my Individual Pursuit last week:


I rode a 3:54 3km pursuit, which is about 6-7 seconds slower than my all time PB but it's still my 3rd fastest time ever. My average power was 375 watts.

Also, as part of the training I did some aerodynamic field testing, mostly for wheel choices, so I'll report on that too!

And some cool stuff on the coaching front as well..... like I said, I have been busy.

Ahead I have a really solid block of training in front of me as I prepare for the Track nationals in early February in Adelaide.

And more cycling performance experiments to perform.

And to finally finish off the leg - with an aero fairing.....

Also I go to Adelaide in late-November for a week long Cycling Australia coaching development course.

Stay tuned folks!!

3 comments:

Andy Coggan said...

Waiting with bated breath!

Bruce Diesel said...

Hey Alex,

Reading your blog made me wonder if there are any regulations regarding your leg, i.e. unfair advantage due to aerodynamics? Maybe the 2:1 ratio rule or some such.

I know that our own 'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius has had to undergo a lot of testing.

Alex Simmons said...

Hi Bruce

There are no such regulations that I'm aware of, however because the leg is still relatively wide for much of its length, going to a full 3:1 would make for such a deep section it would be silly. At its widest, the leg is ~ 130mm, so I am hardly going to have a 390mm deep section leg! Even the lower pylon is 30mm wide, meaning 3:1 is a 90mm section. The aero is more a shape thing than a section dimension per se.

Of course there is one important difference with my cycling leg compared to runners' blades - there is definitely no mechanical advantage from a cycling prosthetic. It is a rigid structure.