Links

OK, here is my links page with a short description for each:

Richard Stern Training
(my coaching group)

Specialist Cycling & Training Forums:

The Wattage Forum
The original and the best. This is where the leaders in
training and racing with power will be found.

Cycling Forums cycle training forum.
A mine of information including the famous
"It's killing me..." thread.

Cycling Forums power training forum.
Another mine of information, specifically
on the topic of training with power.


Fixed Gear Fever
Especially for all the track and
fixed gear specialists.



Timetrialling Forum
A predominantly UK based forum
dedicated to all things TT
(and a few that aren't).


Bike Radar
Various cycling & training forums




Wattage Training
A new forum for power meter users.

Information about Training with Power:

Understanding Power by Ric Stern
Learn about MAP Tests and using
power in training


Training Peaks Power 411.
The items on training with power
is a valuable resource.


Train with Power
A quick reference site with lots of
additional links and references


Analytic Cycling
The place to go for working out the
equations for cycling...
e.g how much power is required to
ride up a 6% grade at 20km/h?


Cyclefit Centre
The experts on issues relating to
fitting bicycles to people.
Lots of very helpful articles here.

News sites:

Cycling News.
Nothing fancy, just crammed
full of news every day.


Cycle Sport News
A new news site, Australian based
with world coverage of many cycling disciplines.



VeloNews
A nice alternative, with plenty content.

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MAPpity doo dah, MAPpity day

I did my final of three power tests today to determine my Maximal Aerobic Power (MAP). If you want to know a bit more about what that is, just click the link.

Before we get to the result of my test, a little background Chronology:

11 Apr 07: My accident, admission to hospital emergency and multiple operations ensued.

16 May 07: Left below knee amputation.

15 Aug 07: Discharged from hospital

24 Oct 07: Collect interim prosthetic leg, begin to learn to walk again

04 Jun 08: Collect new prosthetic leg. Start to stand and walk again with comfort.

13 Jun 08: first ride on indoor trainer since accident. 15-min at 100 watts and using special short 100mm left crank arm (as my knee wouldn't bend sufficiently for a normal crank) and a flat bed pedal to rest my shoe and "foot" on.

28 Jun 08: first ride on special indoor ergo bike.

29 Jun 08: MAP Test - 246 watts

31 Jun 08: first ride using special prosthetic cycling leg attachment

11 Jul 08: first ride outdoors at Centennial Park for 45-minutes - now using a 155mm left crank

19 Jul 08: first race

21 Jul 08: now using a 165mm long left crank

22 Jul 08: MAP Test - 289 watts

26 Jul 08: second race

01 Aug 08: first ride on track

08 Aug 08: 500 metre time trial at Dunc Gray Velodrome

12 Aug 08: Some problems with stump - experiencing some pain and skin integrity issues. 10 days break from riding while I sorted this out.

13 Sep 08: now using full length cranks on all bikes (165mm on track bike, 170mm on ergo bike, 175 mm on road bikes)

21 Sep 08: trial use of poly urethane bushing under cycling cleat to aid out-of-the-saddle sprinting control

23 Sep 08: Time Trial test - 20-minute power 252 watts

25 Sep 08: MAP Test - 355 watts


What can I say, other than I am personally a little amazed. My previous best able-bodied MAP test result was 399 watts. So today I hit 89% of that. It's only 6 watts less than my MAP test from August 2006!

OK, if we want to get technical, the MAP tests this time were measured with an SRM power meter, which given it's a crank based power meter, will give ~ 2% higher reading than my Powertap, which is what my previous MAP tests were measured with (since the Powertap is a hub-based meter and drivetrain power losses are typically ~ 2%).

And for the technically minded of you, yes the SRM is calibrated and zero offsets checked and stable.

Even still, I consider it a pretty amazing result so early in my comeback.

Power chart here:

So much more work to do.....

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Testing Times #2

In November 2006 in this post I wrote about one method used for testing my current level of aerobic fitness - the time trial power test. It is a test to see how hard you can ride for a given distance. As a test for fitness, it's not the time taken for the course that matters so much as the average power you can sustain during the effort.

Time taken to complete the course isn't a great indicator of changes in fitness, since time can be readily affected by conditions on the day (wind conditions as an example). But power is power, provided you are conducting the test in a reasonably similar environment (altitude, terrain and it's not hideously hot or cold). It also helps to make sure you are not overly fatigued on the day of the test.

The length of the test is typically 10-miles or 16-kilometres. Doesn't need to be exact as it's power we are interested in, not the precise distance or time taken. Of course, if you ride 10-mile TTs regularly, then they are perfect opportunities to use as tests.

Today I was scheduled to do my first such test since returning to the bike.

So what happened?

Well of course today it decided to be a stormy rainy yukky sorta day, didn't it. And right now I don't need the hassle or riding in the rain.

So that left me with the other alternative - to get on the ergo bike and go for it. So that's what I did. Only trick is I have no speed/distance data on the indoor ergo bike, so I opted for a 25-minute long test.

Unsure of how hard to start with, I decided on starting at 220+ watts and then to go by feel from there. Here is the power chart from my effort (yellow = power, green = cadence):


Overall, for the 25 minutes I had an average power of 248 watts and a peak 20-minute average power of 252 watts.

So that's not too bad all things considered.

Testing continues later in week, with a Maximal Aerobic Power test.

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Kilo What?

Training is going well. I'm back on a program and so far so good. Yesterday was a solid but not super hard roll in the park - an hour at 200 watts, which clearly means my Functional Threshold Power (FTP) is now higher than 200 watts!

I'll have a better idea of that this coming week as I am scheduled to do a 16km time trial test run and also a Maximal Aerobic Power (MAP) test. That should be fun!

Today I ventured back out to the Dunc Gray Velodrome. This was the first chance I've had to test out my experimental "bushing" for my cycling cleat. I had previously mentioned how I found the bike behaves a bit strangely when doing out of the saddle accelerations, as there was no lateral ankle roll anymore on the left side since there is no ankle, just a straight pylon attached to the cleat and pedal.

So I thought about what I could do and had a few ideas but first I wanted to test the theory to see if some polyurethane under the cleat would do the trick by allowing a bit of sideways flexion.

So while looking for suppliers of polyurethane I also decided to have a closer look at one of my other ideas - to use something like a skateboard truck, which I thought would replicate the ankle flexion quite nicely. So off I go the skateboard shop to have a look...

While there and looking at the trucks on display, I told the shop assistant what I was trying to do and had brought my cycling leg attachment with me. He said, hang on - I might have something for you - and showed me this (the black thing with the H cut out of it):


It is a polyurethane spacer which goes between the skateboard truck and the board - used to provide a little vibration damping and protection for the wooden board from the metal truck. It looked about the right size and hardness, so I took a couple with me to try it out. It has a nice flex to it:


I drilled extra holes and then simply placed it between the cleat and the metal adapter plate, like so:

Not worried about cutting it down to size at this stage (since I didn't know if it was going to work or not) I decided to give it a go and see what would happen. Well today I rode it at the track and after about 30-minutes of rolling around, I decided to do some standing starts.

It worked really well. Once up to speed, the bike was giving me the ability to rock it side to side in a more natural manner without the sensation that I might pull my "foot" out of the pedal.

So after a few of those, I started to get adventurous and rolled around mid track, waiting for some others doing acceleration/speed work. As they passed under me I would get out of the saddle and accelerate down the banking, chase and pass them on the finish line if I could (which I did).

So finally, I decided it was time to get right up the banking and do a sprint effort a la the ubiquitous 200 metre flying time trial. So I rolled around the top and gave it a crack, doing a 3/4 lap effort. I had to sit in saddle a bit earlier than I would normally like but that was OK.

I hit a top speed of 55 kph. OK, so it's not that fast but 55 is OK for now (I was using an 80" gear (49x16) for those that like to know those things and had a max cadence of 142 rpm).

One other thing. On my second standing start of the day, I noticed I had a peak power of 980 watts, so I thought, hmmm, what chance of cracking the kilowatt mark today? So on my third effort I gave it a go.

1053W (5-sec MMP 1020W). :D

Mission accomplished.

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On the Radar

Well my first Bike Radar article appeared today. It is meant to be the first of a series, so we'll see how it goes.

Here's the link
http://www.bikeradar.com/fitness/article/training-do-you-need-more-stress-not-less-18287

Ideas for articles appreciated!!

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Benefit

Today's post isn't written by me. It's a copy of an email sent out by Paul Craft, promoter of the Friday night RAW Track Racing Series and all round cool dude.

What else can you say about the sport of track cycling when this is what they do for you?

Well the least I could do is provide a link and show the RAW logo!!



Dear Club members.

Could you please include the following letter as correspondence at your next committee meeting.
Cheers Paul

Dear CNSW club

I am inviting your club to participate in the Alex Simmons benefit night on the 1st of November 2008, to be held at the DGV with a post race function being held in the HBT, including an auction of cycling memorabilia and other goods. The plan is to raise enough money to purchase Alex a purpose built cycling leg attachment (est. value $5,500).

Specifically, I am asking your club to enter a three person team consisting of 1 x Women, 1 x Sprinter and 1 x Track endurance rider to compete in a short but jam packed 1 ½ hour race program. Team entry is $100 and all proceeds go towards purchasing Alex a cycling leg.

Information About Alex Pre accident:

Alex Simmons is an accomplished cyclist from BiciSport club. In the summer of 2006/7 Alex won silver at the Australian Masters Points Race (MAS2) and consequently earned the right to wear the Australian skin suit at the pending World Master Championships to be held in October of that year. Other than his accomplishments on the bike Alex had also become a coach of many of Sydney’s aspiring cyclists as well as a number of Master riders. He also became a CNSW commissarie and was regularly seen at open events he wasn’t competing in. Added to all this he is also a cycling columnist for Velosport Magazine as well as his very popular Cycling Blog which takes a big interest in Sport Science.


The Accident:

11th April 2007 - Alex was on a normal morning training ride as scheduled by his coach. As usual it was an early morning ride, out at about 5.30am. He rode south from his home out to Taren Point, a route he had ridden literally hundreds of times over the past decade. Turn around via Sylvania Waters and back over Taren Pt Bridge on the way home using the cycleway on the eastern side of the bridge. That cycleway leads you into the car park of the St George Sailing Club in Sandringham and straight onto Riverside Dr. It was 6.15am as he crossed the bridge. Coming off the cycleway Alex was greeted with a closed boom gate, he hit it flush at speed, no time for braking or avoidance manoeuvres. The left leg, just below the knee took the full force and this impact. Multiple operations and many weeks of treatment later, the complications could not be resolved, resulting in the need to amputate the now non-viable lower leg. Alex spent the next 4 months in a hospital bed.

The below quote is from Alex’s Blog dated August 2007:

“So I went from my best ever personal race result, to losing my leg in a short space of time and dreams of competing at the world champs dashed. I was really looking forward to donning the Aussie skinsuit in the points race (an honour granted due to my result at the Nationals).

Still, I look forward to getting my prosthetic, walking again, losing all this puppy fat and ultimately getting back on the bike and being as competitive as before. It will take a while though but it will happen.”

Post accident;

Alex has become an inspiration to cyclist all around the world, many of whom regularly comment on his blog site; Alex is also the regular commissaire at RAW Track. He was instrumental in organising the Women’s Master Day at the DGV recently and continues to coach a number of Athletes. He has also gotten back on the bike and recorded a 500m time on 8th of August at RAW Track and competed at Heffron Park. Alex continues to give back to the sport he loves.





About the racing event.

• Track program starts at 5:30pm 1st November 2008.

• Program is run as a club omnium with points being awarded to the clubs in each of the three categorised races, Women’s, Sprinters and Endurance.

• The final event is a club team sprint.

• The club who win the most points will be crowned best all round NSW Track club.

• Alex Simmons will be riding a 500m TT to beat his previous time of 46.51 set Friday 8th August 2008.

• If you are struggling to fulfil one of the required team positions please contact us as we may be able to assist.

• Track program will conclude at 7pm.


About the Post race function

• Function starts at 7:30pm in the HBT main room.

• Cost is $15 which includes first drink and Canapés.

• Members of the Australian Paralympics team will be welcomed home from their successful Beijing campaign.

• Video replay of racing event on big screen.

• Winning club from racing event will be presented with Trophy.

• The Auction is scheduled to start at 8:30pm.


About Auction

• All proceeds go directly to the purchase of purpose built carbon Fibre leg for Alex.

• Items can be pre bided on before the Auction

• Successful bidders must put down a minimum 30% deposit on item.

• Items for Auction so far;

1. CSC Jersey signed by Stuart O’Grady specifically for this Auction

2. Australian National Jersey signed by 2002 World Sprint Champion Sean Eadie specifically for this Auction

3. DGV rental for private club training day/night with CNSW coaches including world renowned coach Gary Sutton

4. Velocity Track wheels

5. Framed Signed Photo series of Robbie McEwen’s Successful TDF, Green Jersey, Yellow Jersey and Australian Jersey.

6. Framed Photo of Beijing 2008 Australian Team Sprint, team with signed Olympic ticket.

7. More to come



I have since learned there have been other very generous donations to the auction, including an Anna Meares signed jersey and some carbon race wheels from an anonymous sponsor.

My only other comment is a minor correction - I won the Bronze medal in the MMAS3 Points Race at the Australian Masters Track Championships, behind the ever fast Graeme Albon and uber-cool dude Victorian Stuart Vaughan. It was an honour to share a podium with riders of that class.

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Stumped

I have a new T-shirt on order. Can't wait to wear it out.

It was spotted being worn by a British Paralympic track sprinter (running). I suppose you have to appreciate "amp humour" to get it.

Bit like how I can only count to 15 now.

Or the poor guy that suggested I give myself a kick up the bum, which I explained was going to be harder than normal to do.

In an argument I often don't have a leg to stand on. But I usually put my best foot forward. Of course being stumped has a whole new meaning!

I'll leave you with these images:

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Team Bicisport

Shane Sutton must be pretty pleased with himself at the moment. The Aussie and former Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist is head coach of the Great Britain track cycling squad and has overseen their rise to a remarkable dominance at the Beijing Olympics (and the most recent World Championships). It was great to watch all those world beating performances and the world records by the Team Pursuit and Team Sprint squads were tremendous. The bar has well and truly been lifted.

I coach myself, mostly individual riders but at times I help out with squads. Over the last couple of months I've been helping out with my own club's (Bicisport) efforts at the State Team Time Trial Championships. It's a great event to participate in. Four riders work together to complete the 40+km course in the shortest time possible. Just like the team pursuit, it is the time of the third rider across the line that matters.

Our club fielded five teams, all in the Masters racing categories. Two womens and three mens teams. The race was yesterday.

All the teams rode very well, with no mishaps. The women went one-two but unfortunately only two womens teams qualified to ride, which was disappointing.

The big result came with our MMAS 1-4 squad (under 50's), who won the championship in a time of 1:01:30, with a margin of only four seconds to the second place Manly Warringah team. I believe that is a course record for Masters. Team2 were one minute off the podium in ninth place and our MMAS 5+ team were eighth in their division. Unlike the women, there were 40 teams in the Masters mens.

A winning combination:
Ian, Phil, Mike, Alex (coach) and Jayson

It was great to watch them ride, with the key elements of team work showing through.

A big thanks to Mike O'Reilly for getting much of the logistics sorted. Nice work Mike. Also to all the others who helped out and riders that supported the training efforts.

The photo at the top is of the winning squad with me on the right showing off Schooner II. For my mate Phil, this was his 12th attempt at the event. Persistence pays off! Well done lads, a great ride.

As for me, well training had to take a back seat for the past week and a half. I was beginning to have some problems with my leg stump - a kind of bruising type of pain and it was aggravated when I rode and hurt when I walked. Not good. I thought it might go after a couple of days of rest but it didn't, which got me down a bit as I was going along really well with my training.

I called my prosthetics guy (George) last week and arranged to go and see him today and we talked it through. It would seem the solution is about the way I am using the socks that go over my leg liner. I won't bore you with the details but I now have something to try. I mocked up a sample of what I need and then did a 30-minute trainer ride this afternoon. Got through that no problems, so will get back to training again now.

George looked at the way I walked and could see the dramatic improvement in my gait from last time.

Everything is new again and I keep learning about the challenges along the way. I have said before, the mental challenge is the hardest part. Recognising what's important now and doing what you can do now to get to the next step is what matters. I can be a little hard on myself, which is OK when you are trying to train hard but I also have to temper that with the realisation that losing a leg ain't no small deal and in reality I am doing well.

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Benchmark

OK - a couple of pics for your viewing pleasure. Here I am on he start line about to do a 500 metre time trial at Dunc gray Velodrome on Friday night 8th August.

That's Brad Cox (Lionel's son) doing his best to lift my considerable mass off the ground so I can get the pedals in the right place for a start.

Normally I'm a natural left foot starter, so I need to re-learn the start using the right leg. I suppose I could try to start with the prosthetic leg but the forces are highest on the first push down and I think using my good leg first makes sense.

On my first start attempt I pulled my prosthetic "foot" out of the pedal so I had to roll around for a second go. No issues second time out of the blocks. You can see the way the pylon of my leg attaches directly to the pedal. It is like having a pedal cleat placed directly under your ankle, just forward of the heel.

And here I am at some stage on my way to a world of suffering as I try to hang on after lap 1.

Lap 1 was OK, not quite as fast as I thought I might go, but it's a start and I can only get better from here.

Lap 2 was pretty forgettable, I really tried to keep it going but I have no anaerobic endurance whatsoever (understandably) and well it wasn't a pretty sight. But I finished OK. 46.something seconds.

Track TTs are not my favourite event. But the skills involved are crucial for good trackies, so I'll keep trying to improve on that and all the other aspects of track riding.

I have been thinking about the pedal security issue (really important when riding in general but especially critical when on a fixed gear track bike - believe me I know having previously suffered a broken bone through pedal failure).

I sense a different feel when out of the saddle acelerating. The motions are different, the firing sequence is a bit different and so I'll need to re-learn so that it becomes natural again and can give it a maximal effort with confidence.

Since there is no longer an ankle on my left side to naturally manage the sideways forces caused when the bike is rocking side to side, when I push down on the left it tends to straighten the bike up more than normal - but only on that side. If I use the upper body to create the opposing force, then I get that feeling I might be putting too much lateral force on the pedal which might cause it to disengage.

So I was think of experimenting with a hard rubber bushing at the cleat to give that little bit of natural side ways flex so that the foot can pivot sideways slightly on the pedal before it attempts to disengage.

It's just another idea to play with. Each step along the way throws up new things to consider and I learn something new each time. In a weird sort of way I'm rediscovering the pleasures as everything on the bike is new again.

Other than that, it's not complicated. Just get on and pedal. Hard. For as long as you can.

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On Track

This morning I had not intended to ride as we had our club Team Time Trial training session scheduled up at Calga/Peats Ridge (which I am supervising/coaching). That went well. When I got home, well it was such a glorious winter's day, clear blue skies, light wind and about 17-18 C, so I decided to throw the bike in the car and head on down to the park for a roll. Back to that later.

On Friday, the planets aligned for me and so I had the opportunity to dust off the track bike (poor thing, it's been badly neglected), get down to DGV and get myself on the boards for the first time since my accident. So I circulated no problems. Saddle height needed an adjustment (I had installed slightly shorter cranks so the saddle needed to come up a bit). About 30-minutes of rolling around just reacquainting myself with the boards.

Then it was time to see if I could do the sort of stuff I'll need to do when riding on a track - namely accelerate, hard!

I rode up the banking to do an acceleration down the banking, which I did without incident.

So then I rolled slowly along the front straight and then popped out of the saddle and tried an acceleration. OK, so I wasn't going to set the world on fire but I was able to do it and that was the main thing. One more half lap effort, this time a bit harder and out of the saddle for the whole turn and down the back straight. There sure is a bit of re-wiring needed and the sensations are difficult to explain. Some stuff is the same, some I need to re-learn. Practice Alex, practice.

While I was there, Sean Eadie (2002 World Sprint Champ) was there coaching a Chinese rider. So I got Sean to time a standing 250 metre lap. 24.9 seconds. But the nice thing was simply being able to go out of the saddle for more than half a lap.

So back to today. My legs were a little sore but after a couple of laps they came good and I ended up doing a solid hour and a bit. That then gave me a 5-day block of riding and a nice little boost to my training loads. That blue line is on its way up :D



I also tried something new - putting an extra sock over my leg liner before riding, which provides addition compressesion of the leg stump inside the socket. This had the effect of maintaining a more secure fitting, not allowing the leg to sweat as much and so there was not much pooling of perspiration in the lower part of the liner creating that insecure squishy feeling. So that was pretty cool.

I'm going to sleep well tonight me thinks!

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Two by Twenty - Take 2

Way back I posted about a workout known as the 2 x 20. It's pretty simple. Ride for 20-minutes at around your time trial pace/effort/power, have a short break and then do it again. Combined with a warm up and cool down, it makes for a nice tight one-hour workout that's exceptionally effective at developing one's aerobic engine.

On a power meter chart - it looks a bit like this:


The squiggly yellow line denotes power output and was around 200 watts for two efforts lasting around 20-minutes. The horizontal dashed line shows 200 watts.

In between efforts I stopped and hopped off the ergo bike to remove my leg and dry the liner and leg, and replace so I could go again. It's a challenge I face at the moment as the leg liner tends to fill with perspiration making it a little weird to pedal. Imagine pedalling in loose gumboots with water in the bottom of them.

Of course there is nothing magical about 20-minutes. Overall it's about getting enough time at these levels. Some do 3 x 20-min. Others 3 x 15-min. Some ride the hour straight at that power. Typically though we break up efforts into smaller duration "chunks" (known as intervals) so that we can maintain perhaps slightly higher power than we may otherwise have the motivation to do all in one go.

So what's actually happening when I train at this level? Well lots of good things. The main physiological changes that are brought about by riding at these intensities include:

- increasing my muscle glycogen storage capacity. Glycogen, along with free fatty acids are key sources of chemical energy which is converted by our muscles into mechanical energy (and heat). Basically this means I develop the ability to ride hard for longer.

- increasing muscle mitochondral enzymes - these are the "mini power plants" inside our muscles, which use the available oxygen for the conversion of chemical energy to mechanical energy (as well as heat). The greater the number and density of these suckers we have the better

- increased lactate threshold - which is another way of saying one can go harder for longer. Blood lactate concentration is one way of determining how effectively our working muscles are performing at various intensities.

Now you gain these benefits by riding at lower intensity levels as well but the rate at which improvements occur is greatest at these intensities, which is an effort level equivalent to how hard you could maximally sustain riding for about an hour.

They are also effective at increasing my blood plasma volume, increasing my heart stroke volume (amount of blood moved per beat) and maximal cardiac output (maximum amount of blood I can pump per unit time) and for increasing the amount of oxygen I am capable of both delivering to my working muscles and actually utilising (my VO2 Max).

There are other funky things too, like increasing the density of blood carrying capilliaries inside the muscles - which enables a greater and faster transfer of oxygen to the working cells. On top of that, our (slow twitch) muscles fibres also grow.

The body is an amazing thing. It knows how to adapt when it is provided with a training stimulus. The trick is to keep providing that stimulus in the right doses.

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Birthday Bash

It's my birthday today!

So what does any self respecting bike rider do on his birthday? Race of course!!

Last week I reported on my effort at a local criterium race, which did me in before 10 minutes had passed. This time it wasn't so bad and I lasted 30 minutes before withdrawing gracefully.

I had a lap out for "leg mechanical" and then rejoined for a lap but lost my momentum and decided I'd had enough and had done what I'd set out to do (which was to show I can get around OK in a race). It's a bit tricky with the leg, the liner I use fills up with (yuk - wait for it) sweat and it gets a bit squishy to pedal when it's like that. The liner also tends to slip down the leg a bit. So I pulled off to the car quickly to remove the leg and liner, dry them off and put them back on again. It's probably not technically a mechanical but I don't think the race officials are too worried!


Here is the race file with 30-second smoothing.


Heffron Crit D Grade:
Duration: 32:30 (34:56)
Work: 354 kJ
TSS: 57.9 (intensity factor 1.035)
Norm Power: 207
Distance: 18.457 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 747 182 watts
Speed: 3.7 45.9 34.1 kph

With my warm up / cool down, that was a 97 TSS day and so that was plenty. I was a little stiff 'n' sore from last week's race, so no doubt I'll feel this one as well in the coming days. But as they say, the more you train, the more you can train.

Proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Here is my training since 13 June:


My chronic training load is just a touch shy of 30 TSS/day.

I also did a MAP Test during the week. 289 watts. That's about 70% of my prior accident MAP level. I'm also ~ 20% heavier at the moment, so on a power to weight basis, I am classed as "untrained".

I upgraded my crank length twice this week. I tried a 165mm left crank arm earlier in the week, and yesterday I did an easy spin on the ergo with a 170mm crank. That was OK once I'd lengthened my leg a bit, so I put that crank on the race bike and that's what I rode today.

This is very cool news. 170mm is the crank length I use on my track bike, so I have already attained a range of motion sufficient for that, and my normal road cranks are 175mm. So I think in essence I have developed sufficient knee mobility for cycling. It still needs to improve but it's a lot better than it was.

From hereon it is about improving the functional performance of the leg, some weight loss through increased training and diet control and developing the aerobic engine required to drive me faster and put the hurt on a few guys.

Tomorrow is the State Time Trial Championships, so I'll be heading up to Calga to support a few of the lads who are riding.

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Race Report

Just a quick post today. No pictures.

I had a race today. One month after I gingerly first turned a crank on the trainer and nearly 16 months since my accident.

I drove on down to the local crit racing circuit at Heffron Park. No idea what grade to ride, I decided to start in E and if that was too easy then I'd pull out and wait for the D Grade to start. Well it turned out there was no E grade so I lined up for D grade. On the line I was seeing if I could do a track stand while we were waiting to start. I could. Geez - it's just like riding a bike.

Chatted with plenty of the guys beforehand and had to laugh at Jason Roberts who, when he saw me lining up and checking out the leg, called me "f***ing hard core man". I suppose that's one version of HTFU! Jason is one of those guys that could audition for the Hulk stand in job.

Before that I did some laps of the circuit to remind myself of those familiar bumps and turns. I also surprised myself by being able to do some pedal revs while out of the saddle. It's not pretty and I'll need a fair bit of work on the technique but it's a start.

As for the race, well not all that much to report really. I lasted 5km before being dropped, simply not enough horsepower to manage the (relatively light) surges of the D grade bunch but I'm not that far off D grade standard, so I have a reasonable benchmark to work from. After that I just circulated solo for a good 45-min training effort.

I had a little trouble as the new chain I have on is showing up the state of the chainring and under load it would skip most annoyingly and when I was attempting to pedal out of the saddle over the small rises, the chain would jump - it was hard enough controlling things as it was and it took a bit of care as I was putting my spokes into one guy's dereilleur at one stage. Will need to attend to that. To be fair, I think I'm due for a new race bike, there were that many creaks and groans coming out of this one...

Here are the stats for the day:

Crit Heffron D Grade:
Duration: 47:00 (1:06:06)
Work: 552 kJ
TSS: 96.5 (intensity factor 1.11)
Norm Power: 205
VI: 1.05
Distance: 24.462 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 748 196 watts
Speed: 3.7 44.9 31.2 kph


Entire workout (173 watts):
Duration: 1:15:55 (2:25:26)
Work: 786 kJ
TSS: 138 (intensity factor 1.047)
Norm Power: 194
VI: 1.12
Distance: 35.626 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 748 173 watts
Speed: 3.6 44.9 28.3 kph


We shall see what happens next week!

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Off the Air

OK - I've been off the airwaves for a little while. I was changing my internet service provider and that turned out to be a small pain in the butt but I'm back on line now - so time for an update on a few things.

Firstly, the above chart tells a pretty cool story so far. Each of those light blue columns is a day where I have ridden on the bike/trainer. The height of the column indicates how much stress I incurred on that ride (a combination of duration and intensity) and the dark blue line indicates my long term training load, curently at 23 TSS/day. Basically my objective for the coming weeks/months will be to keep training in a way that sees that blue line continue to rise at a sustainable rate.


In the one-month since first turning a crank over on a home trainer, I have:

- ridden on 23 of those days (mostly on the home trainer)
- progressed to using a 155mm crank on the left side (I started with a 100mm crank)
- had my special bike leg attachment fitted
- had two rides outdoors on my real bike
- been able to sustain 190 watts for an hour
- for the first time tonight I was able to do a couple of pedal strokes while standing up.

Here is the power file from my 1 hour ride in Centennial park on Sunday morning. I think an average power of 180+ watts for an hour with an average speed of nearly 30km/h ain't going too bad all things considered.



I was considering racing a crit this coming weekend but I just remembered I have some commitments (coaching at an intro to track session on Saturday). Might take the track bike out though and see how that goes....

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Inspector Gadget

OK - another pictorial adventure coming up for your viewing pleasure.

I recently reported on getting a dedicated bike leg attachment made up. Some aren't exactly sure what that means, so let me show you....

First we start with the leg I have today, set up as a normal walking leg.


If we zoom in to look at the special clamp at the bottom of the socket (the large black carbon fibre part that my legs fits inside of), you can see a number of allen key bolts secure the pipe section to the socket.


These can be loosened to remove the lower pipe section which has a foot attached at the other end.


Here you can see the two parts normally hidden from view, showing the unique block style clamping system. There are four of those allen bolts, one on each side and they enable you to adjust the angles at which the pipe section fits onto the socket.


As long as I only ever undo two of these bolts (must be next to each other and not opposite) then the attachments will always clamp back on in exactly the same place each time. If I loosen three bolts, the the positioning changes. Hence I have put some loctite on the two bolts I don't intend to undo.

Here is a picture of the walking foot attachment and my cycling "foot" attachment. As you can see, there is no foot for the cycling leg. It is simply a pedal cleat attached to an adapter plate right under the end of the pipe. This enables direct force transfer down through the leg, the socket, the pipe section and onto the pedal.


Here is a picture of the cycling leg attachment connected to the socket.


On Monday I visited my good buddy, Steve Hogg at cyclefitcentre.com. Steve specialises in fitting bikes to people. So away I went and we worked on getting the bike leg attachment adjusted for length and all the multitude of angles you can adjust. Indeed it's almost as if there is too much adjustment available!

The best part was that we discovered that my knee was able to cope with using a 155mm long crank arm. At the moment I have a short 100mm crank on the bike, as I hadn't been able to bend the knee enough to use a longer crank. On my road bikes I normally use 175mm cranks and on the track I use 170mm. So my leg has improved enough so that I am not far away from using a full length crank.

That is really important as it means I will have a much greater ability to get power through to the pedals.

All I need now is a 155mm crank arm. I have a buddy looking into that for me (he made the short crank up for me), although I know there are manufacturers of cranks that small, normally designed for BMX riders, so I'm pretty sure finding one won't take long.

Then I expect to graduate to 160mm, 165mm and hopefully at least 170mm cranks.

Ultimately I would really like to have a dedicated cycling socket, so I can simply transfer from a walking leg to a cycling leg without having to bolt things on and off. Also, the design of the walking leg socket is not quite ideal for the way I pedal the bike - there are a large number of dynamic factors at play but basically the lower socket shape angles outwards when it would be better if the line between the knee, lower socket and pedal was aligned. It will certainly do for now though.

The best way to make sure that happens is to keep riding!

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Thunderbirds Are Go!

Meet Thunderbird 7:

T7 resides in the spare room, specially cleared out for the purpose.

This new "space age" home built trainer is now set up for some serious workouts. Note the cat killer of a flywheel. Fortunately I don't own a cat. There is a safety cover, it's just not on there yet.

T7 also has inbuilt position adjustability in any direction you like. So I can use it for testing other cat lovers. T7 originated in the minds of some residents of "The Shire", so you can be assured it has some magic about it.



The flywheel gives a very realistic ride. I did my first short workout on it tonight and it felt great. I was able to tap out a much higher cadence and power than on the turbo trainer. A 30-min workout with an average of 169 watts.

The fan blades replicate wind resistance and give a nice cooling breeze as well.

The crank system is an SRM power meter. My buddy Pete helped install it for me. Well actually he installed it and I watched (my definition of helping can sometimes be a bit liberal), although it's not that difficult. But installing an SRM properly requires the right tools and a calibration kit, which Pete has and I don't (well not all the tools - a good torque wrench being the main missing component).

Also note the short crank on the other side. Over time I expect to be able to lengthen the cranks I can use until I'm back to a normal length crank. Next week I get my special bike leg attachment fitted.

The SRM crank then drives a Nexus hub, with an internal 7-speed gearbox (normally built into a rear wheel for commute style bikes). The Nexus hub then runs a chain to the flywheel. This "double reduction" gearing enables the flywheel to turn at very high speeds (in the order of 600 rpm), meaning the fan blades do their job by providing increasing wind resistance with an increase in speed and the rotational intertia of the flywheel replicates the inertia of a rider rolling along at speed.

Here is the T7 flight cockpit:



Ready when you are Virgil....

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Hippy Hippy Shake

On Monday I had a new prosthetic foot attached to the end of Schooner MkII (although some of my Aussie friends suggested I rename him "Middy" due to the smaller capacity of the new model).

The foot is quite a complex bit of engineering and is full of carbon fibre plates and other adjustment pieces you can't see and which replicate much of the feedback you get with a normal foot. You can actually "tune" the foot to provide different levels of feedback.

The one function that is obvious to the eye however is the fully moveable ankle joint. This special ball and socket joint replicates much of the joint motion of a normal ankle. It will move in any direction as well as rotate slightly.

This is so much better to use than the fixed ankle I did have as my foot can now move with the variations in slope and camber of surfaces I walk on. Slopes and cambers on a fixed ankle are a right pain in the butt (well back and hips to be accurate).

It also means that my walking motion is progressing even closer to a natural gait.

This is the foot in its normal upright position:


And here it is with my foot out to the side, shoe flat on the floor and leg now at an angle - just like a tennis player ready to receive a serve or a soccer goalie waiting for the penalty shot to be taken.

It is rated to cope with the forces my current oversize backside will put through it but I hope to stress it less over the coming months as my training ramps up.

These things are not cheap however. All up that's now a $12,000 leg. And I'll no doubt need a modified dedicated socket for cycling. I have the pedal attachment sorted and I go in to have all the bike fitting done this coming Monday.

More on that (and my indoor cycling ergometer project) later.

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