- Coming up on this week's Ask GCN Anything.
How much power are you losing through your drivetrain?
Is it more aero to be on the hoods or on the drops?
We've got some team time trial technique tips,
which is a little bit of a mouthful.
And why is the final day of a Grand Tour
a bit of a procession?
And is it normal to be constantly hungry
when you're doing a lot of riding?
You know the drill by now,
if you want to ask a question ready for next week's show
just leave it in the comments section just down below
or on social media using the hashtag #TORQUEBACK.
Or, to put yourself in with the chance of winning
a three-month subscription to Zwift
use the hashtag #ASKGCNTRAINING.
Straight on now then with the first question
which comes in from Steven Reeves.
"Are hub-based power meters more accurate
"to our actual wheel power?
"In motorcycles for example,
"there's generally a 12-15% loss in power
"when measured from the crank vs. the rear wheel.
"So a motorbike when advertised 200 horse power
"is only giving about 178 horse power
"propelling you forward.
"So if someone is pulling out 300 watts
"as measured by a crank-based power meter,
"is the wheel only feeling 260 watts?"
Well, it's not quite that bad,
but yes, you're on the right lines there
because there is a loss
through drivetrain friction and inefficiencies.
So modern bicycles apparently have
a variation in efficiency
between 93% and 98%,
which is a wide variation.
So to use your example
of 300 watts at a crank or pedal-based power meter,
at the rear wheel, and actually driving you forward,
is only going to be 279 to 294 watts.
No wonder then that pro teams
are putting so much effort
into making their bikes as efficient as possible
in the modern era.
Because for someone like Marcel Kittel,
for example, is putting out
close to 2,000 watts in a sprint,
if his bike is 97% efficient,
he's losing about 60 watts,
which is roughly my sprint power at the moment,
so that is a hell of a lot.
Now there is a lot you can do
to improve the efficiency of your drivetrain.
A big one is using a brand new chain
versus an old worn out and slightly stretched one.
However, apparently the grease
that comes with new chains
isn't the most efficient.
So you need to degrease it
and but some better lubrication on.
And that's another one,
the type of lubrication you use
can also make a big difference.
Friction Facts have done a lot of research into this,
and you'd be surprised
at how much difference there is
between the best and the worst lubrications.
Chainline is another big one.
Now you often see pros these days
using a 58-tooth chainring or even bigger
for some of the individual time trials.
That's not because they're cruising around on 58 by 11,
but rather, it means they're spending more time
in the middle of the cassette
with their chain at the rear wheel
which means that the chainline is straighter
and therefore their bike is more efficient.
Then there's other things
such as the jockey wheels,
and also the bearings in the bottom bracket, etc.
Plenty you can do, then,
but there are always going to be limitations
with the traditional bike design,
with the chainrings,
the chain, the jockey wheels, the cassettes, etc.
So Ceramic Speed, whose mission
is to make bikes more efficient
have completely redesigned the drivetrain.
There was a prototype on show
at the Eurobike show very recently,
which Si caught a little glimpse of.
You can take a look at that video now,
but I'd like your opinion
because I know this is a slightly controversial subject
which did split opinion widely.
Is this the future of drivetrains?
- This has completely blown me away.
Their goal was to create a bike
that's 99% efficient.
And they reckon that they've done it.
- Nick Lylak, you are our winner this week
of a three-month subscription to Zwift.
This is the question that Nick sent in last week.
"When riding with my buddies,
"I seem to blow up on long, uphill stretches of road.
"Not talking alpine climbs,
"but the ones where you really need to slug it out.
"How can I use Zwift to improve my performance
"on this type of terrain?
"Hashtag #AskGCNTraining"
Well, this is, in fact, a really good example
of how you can use indoor training on Zwift
to improve your outdoor performance,
and therefore enjoy your outdoor riding a bit more.
We're going to assume here, Nick,
you're talking about hills climbs
that are over duration of upwards of three minutes.
Most people can get over one to two minute climbs
by getting out of the saddle
and going into the red
and just about hanging on
with the people they're riding with.
Once you go over three minutes, though,
you're into VO2 max effort type of territory,
which is when it gets a lot harder.
So we've got two workouts for you
focused on VO2 max types of efforts.
The first one far more structured than the second,
and as such, you can use Zwift builder for this.
It allows you to input
the exact structured workout into Zwift
and then you can follow along to it.
This is another one, in fact,
where using erg mode
is going to be a real advantage to you.
Now we touched on this briefly last week,
but erg mode means that your smart trainer
ensures that you're at the right power,
the right cadence,
for the right duration.
Takes all of the guess work
and thinking out of it
so you can just concentrate
on pedaling the bike.
So with this first workout,
what you want to do is get a really warmup in,
at least 20 minutes.
Then, you're going to do five VO2 max intervals.
Now the key to this one, though,
is that the duration of those intervals
lengthens as you go through them.
So for the first one,
you do four minutes at your VO2 max,
take four to five minutes recovery between each,
and then add on 30 seconds in duration
into each of the intervals
so that the fifth and final one
is a total of six minutes.
It's a really tough workout,
but if you judge things right
and pace things right,
you should be able to get through it.
The second one,
is far less structured.
It's like riding outdoors, but indoors
doing repeated hill climbs, in fact.
So on the various Zwift worlds
there are plenty of climbs to choose from.
There's short ones,
very punchy ones,
right the way up to Alps du Zwift,
which me personally would take me
about an hour at the moment.
What you want to do here,
in the initial phase of your training,
is find a climb that takes
three to five minutes to get up,
and then just do it on five occasions.
Now what you can do is
use the u-turn function on Zwift,
either using the icon that's on your app
or by using the downward arrow on your keyboard.
Go up the ascent at a cadence of 85 rpms,
get to the top,
do the u-turn,
ride back down the other side very easily
and then turn back up again
and do that four to five times.
As I said initially choose a three to five minute climb
focusing mainly on your cadence
rather than you power.
Ideally, you want to be doing more power
on each of the ascent,
which means you need to start relatively steady,
but this one is all about focusing on the cadence
and staying in the saddle,
and that should help you
in the scenario that you described outdoors.
What you can do then,
as I was about to say,
is increase the duration of the climb in Zwift
as the weeks and months progress.
So start with three to five minutes.
Eventually, after what 12 weeks of training, or so,
you should be able to do four to five efforts
on a climb that's eight to 10 minutes in duration.
And once you get to that point,
I've got a feeling
that when you go out riding with your buddies
your performance is going to be vastly improved
and you're going to enjoy it a lot more.
Let us know how you get on, Nick,
in the coming weeks with that
and whether it improves your performance or not.
I'd be very interested to find out.
It is now time for the slow fire round,
which is what I've renamed it to
when I'm presenting Ask GCN Anything.
First up this week from Andrew Chalk,
who sounds a little bit angry,
"When did all this last day procession
"on a Grand Tour malarkey start?
"I don't remember it back in Big Mig's day
"or am I wearing rose-tinted Rudy's?"
Possibly, yes, because it has been around
for quite some time.
I'm not sure when all this champagne drinking
and celebrations in front of cameras started exactly,
but what I do know,
is that they've used the Champs-Élysées
for the final day of the Tour de France
every year since 1975.
However, there have been a couple of notable years
where the leaders changed hand on the final day,
and it's no coincidence
that those years finished with a time trial.
The most famous, of course, was 1989
where Greg LeMond overcame a deficit to Laurent Fignon
to take the most famous finish ever.
Eight seconds was his advantage in the end
over the Frenchman after that final day's time trial.
But is also happened in 1968,
there was a 55 kilometer time trial that year
when Jan Janssen managed to overcome
the Belgian Herman Van Springel
on the very last day of racing.
Breakaway successes on the Champs-Élysées
are few and far between.
In fact the last time it happened
was Alexander Vinokourov 13 years ago already
where he upset the sprinters.
Does this tradition need to change?
Quite possibly, yes.
At the end of the Vuelta that finished on Sunday,
Spanish television released some figures
and the last day's processional stage around Madrid
I think got less than half the viewers
of the next lowest stage viewings,
if that makes any sense to you.
So it might be time for a rethink.
The Giro d'Italia does change things up a bit
and you might remember that last year
Tom Dumoulin overcame his deficit to Nairo Quintana
on the very last day,
and I'd imagine the viewing figures for that
was somewhat better.
That said, I know that riders love sipping champagne
and having an easy day,
so you might get a struggle from them.
Next up from Mark Hagen.
"I'm curious, has a country ever swept
"all three Grand Tours in the same year
"with different riders?"
No, is the very short answer.
That's a new record this year.
Two countries have previously won
all three Grand Tours in the same year,
but with the same two riders.
So it happened in 1964 with the French riders
Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor.
And again 10 years ago in 2008,
but it was Carlos Sastre
who took the Tour de France
and Alberto Contador who took
the other two Grand Tours that year.
So never by three separate riders.
This one from bugboy.
"I'm a new road rider
"and recently upgraded to a beautiful Canyon Aeroad.
"I live in Vermont, USA
"and can only pedal indoors during the winter months.
"I only ride for fitness.
"And having trouble deciding if it'd be okay
"to get a decent set of rollers
"or should I drop the extra dollars
"on a turbo trainer?"
Well with most rollers,
there's not much in the way of resistance.
So when I was a pro, for example,
when I was on rollers,
pedaling a 53 by 11 about 100 cadence,
I think yielded a power output
of around about 300 watts.
At the time, that didn't return much
in the way of training gains
because my FTP was 370 or so.
As things are now,
that probably would be a VO2 max session,
so it kind of depends on your own fitness,
but if you really want to do structured workouts,
I'd personally say an indoor trainer the whole way.
It's going to allow you to get far more output out.
Next up from TASH.
"I ride to school everyday
"and I only stop aching at the weekend.
"I started riding about six months ago.
"I always push hard on my ride.
"When will I stop hurting?"
Well if you're always pushing hard,
you're probably never going to stop hurting.
I think Greg LeMond was the man that said,
"it doesn't get any easier, you just get faster."
So you're time to school is going to reduce,
but if you're riding at 100 percent,
you're riding at 100 percent.
If, however, you choose to go
at the same speed to school each and every day,
you'll probably get fitter,
and therefore you will find it slightly easier.
What I might suggest to you is that
if you go easy on the Wednesdays,
you've got like a mini recovery ride
midway through the week.
Two hard sessions on Monday, Tuesday;
Thursday and Friday,
another two hard sessions;
a recovery on a Wednesday
and at the weekend.
Jobs a good'un.
Next up, this from The Inquisitor.
"Polarized or threshold training model?
"I heard base training is more beneficial
"towards pro cyclists in order to cause
"a physiological change (increased mitochondrial density)
"which would be less effective for amateur cyclists
"as we don't spend enough time on the bike.
"Does that mean for an amateur
"to be more efficient in training,
"we should focus more on threshold models?
"High intensity training, FTP, etc."
I personally say, yes.
There's definitely a benefit
to doing the big volume,
but most people, quite frankly,
don't have the time to do that volume
unless they are a full-time cyclist.
So if you're fitting your cycling in
around a full-time job,
or education, family, etc, etc,
you're going to reap more rewards
from doing high intensity, focused training program.
And if you're endurance, you can do two hours straight,
in like sweet spot or tempo,
which really helps.
In fact, I've used that myself a couple of winters
when I was feeling lazy
and didn't want to put the volume in.
Euan Munro asks,
"In a couple of weeks I'm taking part in my first TTT
"with my clubmates at the Scottish Championships.
"I'm not the fastest of the four,
"but hopefully not the slowest.
"Do you have any tips
"for how to gauge my efforts on the front?"
Well, my tip is the same
however good you are
compared to your other teammates.
When you're on the front,
you want to swing off before you've gone too deep
because it's another effort to come after that
because when they come through,
you've slowed down and therefore,
you have to accelerate
to get back up to the same speed
to get onto the back of the train
and start your recovery process
before you hit the front again.
So don't go really deep,
otherwise you might struggle
to get back onto the slipstream
in the first place.
Now the key to a team time trial
is to make sure that the speed
is relatively constant.
So the strongest riders
shouldn't be coming through
and increasing the pace by 5 k's per hour,
they should be doing longer turns,
and the weaker riders,
the same speed, but shorter turns.
What you will generally find in team time trials
is that the ones that seem nice and smooth,
but a bit easier,
are actually faster than the ones
where it's really ragged,
and you've gone straight into the red
at the beginning of the event.
Next up, this from Brian A,
"Dan, what's the etiquette during a pro tour,
"can a rider accept nutrition or water
"from an opposing team?"
Yes, and it happens quite regularly, actually.
The teams do tend to help each other out.
Quite a lot of sportsmanship there
from that point of view.
Especially if the soigneur standing
on the side of the road
has been with that rider at a previous team,
they might choose to hand him off a bidon
if they're desperate for one.
It'd also happen from the team cars, as well.
In terms of outside nutrition and drinks, etc,
you won't normally find any of the pro riders
accept a drink from a member of the public
to actually drink
just in case it's contaminated.
So generally when you're watching,
what you'll find is that if they take a bottle
from the side of the road,
it's literally to douse their head with
and try to cool themselves down.
That's it for the questions
in the slow fire round this week,
but we've not got a poll.
There was quite a different viewpoint
in my answer last week
whether you should wear socks over
or under your leg warmers.
So let's get his settled once and for all.
There's a poll on the screen now,
let us know what the etiquette these days is.
Because some of the younger generation
didn't appear to agree with what I said.
I still think socks under leg warmers,
but don't let me sway your vote.
The next question is all about aerodynamics,
and it came in from Clifford Romina.
"I always watch GCN videos about riding fast and/or aero,
"and I noticed that you guys often use the hoods
"instead of the drops.
"Why is that?"
Well, for me personally, Clifford,
it's because I felt like I was more aero
in that position.
Not the most scientific, I know,
but I did have some reasoning behind it,
and that's because I ride quite a slant position,
i.e. my bars are pretty low at the front end,
and therefore I can get my back flat
with my hands on the hoods
and my elbows at 90 degrees.
And secondly, with my hands on the hoods
and elbows at 90 degrees,
it of course means that my forearms
are out of the wind, too.
Whereas even further down on the drops,
what I would find was that once I got my back flat,
my arms were still reasonably extended,
and so quite a lot of my forearms
were exposed to the wind.
That said, out of the saddle,
I would always sprint on the drops
because when you stood up
and you're a bit higher up
it's quite hard to get your back
into a flat position
when your arms are extended on the hoods.
That said, if you haven't got a sound position,
and your bars are quite a lot higher at the front end,
you're pretty going to struggle
to get your back flat
with your hands on the hoods,
and therefore, for you,
it's probably going to be more aerodynamic
to have your hands on the drops.
Cos the main thing is always to get your back
and your body out of the wind
as much as possible.
Does seem like I might
have been getting things, though,
if this advice from an aerodynamics guru over at Zipp
is anything to go by.
Cos Si was picking his brains
on this very subject a couple of years ago.
You'll find that video here.
- There is quite a big difference
between the hoods and the drops.
That'll save you up to 20 watts
if you get low enough.
So in race scenarios, drops are always better.
- It's time for our last question now,
and it comes in from Robert Repka.
"I wonder whether it's normal being super
"and insatiably hungry, even binge-hungry,
"the day or two following several days of riding.
"However, those days of riding were well-fueled
"and not fasted.
"Is it something that's experienced commonly,
"for instance among the professional riders?"
Well, I would say, yes.
It's very normal to be very hungry
for a couple days after a lot of riding
because your metabolism is revved right up.
So to give you a personal example,
there were plenty of times
when I was riding full-time
when my brain would never tell me
that I was full up.
I was constantly craving a little bit more.
To the point where you eventually have to say to yourself,
I've probably consumed enough calories
to replace what I burned today.
So it's a difficult one.
Personally, I've got quite a good
internal hunger suppression
when I'm not doing too much.
So, for example, in the three weeks
when I used to take off at the end of the year,
or at the moment when I'm not doing too much
in the way of bike riding,
I'm not generally that hungry
in between my three main meals of the day.
Other people I know do struggle with that.
So it's a real fine balance
between making sure
that you replenish what you use
and not over eating
because even when you're exercising a lot,
there is the chance of putting on weight
and sometimes even manage to do that
during Grand Tours.
What is really important, though,
is that you do adequately fuel your recovery
because if you don't
your training and your racing
is really going to suffer.
We did do a video on this a couple of years ago
on how to use nutrition to improve your recovery.
So that might be something that you'd want to watch now.
- A normal, balanced diet is gonna be sufficient
to allow most of us to recover
from the riding that we do
in order to carry on with our normal lives,
but the harder you train,
or the more stressful your life,
the more you might want to consider
certain aspects of nutrition
to make sure that you are recovering optimally.
- That's all for this week.
So I should do a ceremonious closing of my laptop.
And don't forget to leave in the comments below
your questions for next week's show.
And give this video a like
if you have enjoyed it.
We've got another video
that you might think is relevant to you now.
If you'd like to know how to improve
your drivetrain efficiency,
we have got a video on that very subject,
and you can find a link to that
just down here.