- We're here in Khona at the Ironman World Champs
and we've got 2016 Asia Pacific Ironman Champion
Tim van Berkel and his bike and he's getting ready
to compete in his fourth Ironman World Champs.
(upbeat music)
Well Tim thanks for joining us, can you just tell me
a little bit about the frame.
- Thanks Heather, yeah.
Well I've been riding Giant for seven years now.
I ride the Giant Trinity.
I ride a size small frame.
I like the smaller frame just so I can get in that
aero position.
- 'Cause you're quite tall, that's quite--
- Ya, I'm 5'11" so yeah, I prefer the smaller size,
I get a better aero position.
- Okay, so Tim how long have you been riding this frame?
- So I was lucky enough to be a part of the launch
of this bike.
So I had a prototype in 2015 which I rode
Ironman 70.3 Sunshine Coast, which I won that race
and then I had the full bike for Khona 2015
which we launched here.
So it's pretty much the same one we've launched.
The only think we've changed over the last year
is the storage thing.
We've changed that to a slit now, so you can easy access
to your gels.
You've got your junction box in there as well
and we've also changed the front hydration
which is a bigger bottle now so it fits a full 700ml bottle
and the bigger the frame the bigger the bottle is.
So since I ride a small the bottle is still small
but with the large you can actually fit more water
in there.
- Okay and so as we're on hydration, you've got 700ml there,
how much have you got--
- So here is I think it's about 350 but this
will have my race day nutrition, so that will be
all of my calories, that will be all of my gels.
Here I'll run water and just whenever I pick up
at the aid stations I just top that up with water
or sports drink and here will be another bottle
full of calories, another with electrolyte drinks as well
that I.
I take the one at the back when this is empty
and I really try to avoid getting out
of the aero position reaching back.
I only do it for emergencies.
So I will have special needs at Harvey and if all this
is empty I will grab special needs at Harvey
and put that in there.
- What do you have in your special needs?
- So, I will have some gels, just in case
I might drop this
or for emergencies but mainly it will be
just an electrolyte bottle.
- And do you carry anything in here?
- Ya, so I have a few gels in there as well.
I can fit about 5 gels in there.
The previous one we had on the first Trinity
was a smaller one and it had like a lid, it could only fit
three or four in there, so with the bigger one now
you can fit extra gels.
- Tim, if you can just quickly talk us through
your groupset, what you've chosen on the bike.
- Yeah, so I run the new Dura-Ace,
obviously I've got the old Dura-Ace cranks
because I run the SRM power metre so I've got
the 55-42.
On the back I have the 28-11.
I have the 28 just cause I like to spin a little bit more,
I like to keep my cadence around 90, 95
and I also got the new Dura-Ace pedals
and I run 165 cranks.
- And have you always used 165 cranks because
that's fairly short for someone of your height.
- Yes, I like the shorter cranks, obviously I can get
in a lower position with my front end and it still keeps
my hip angle open and if you close that hip angle,
and that's where I've had in the past a lot of problems
with my hips so I ride the shorter cranks just to take
that bit of pressure of my hips.
- Now Tim you've got some shiny looking wheels,
what've you got on the bike?
- Yes, I've got the new Shimano C60 wheels.
I love these wheels, they're very fast and you know,
they're a lot wider than their previous Shimano wheel
and I'm running a 25 tyre, Vittoria Corsas
and yeah I really love these wheels.
I was hesitant to run the C60 or the C40 but
I've tested out the C60 on the Queen Cay with the wind
and it's been fine so I'm gonna go with that on race day.
- And what pressure are you gonna be running?
- I'll probably just run 110-120
depending on how hot it is
but usually I just run 110,120, I don't like to pump
too much into it.
Back home where we got rough roads, so I'm used to riding
with low tyre pressure but this is obviously
nice smooth road, and fast so yeah.
- So Tim, just bring us forward to the cockpit,
talk us through what you got going on here.
- Yeah, so I run the 51 Speedshop pads
and I usually have the bars in there but I actually
broke them on travelling back from Asia, so I haven't
got them in there at the moment but I will have them
after this race.
And I've also got the prototype 51 Speedshop bar tape
which I really like, it's really really comfortable.
Basically the rest is just Giant.
I've got my Garmin.
Usually my training pages I like to run on race day,
I'll just run power, speed, heart rate,
and time and distance obviously.
- Whilst we're up here, where are your shifters,
what are you using?
- Yes, I don't have the new Dura-Ace shifters.
I tried them but I found it a bit hard
getting used to the Synchro Shift and I found it
a little bit funny but I kinda like it on my roadie
but not on my TT and I like to be able to change
the front derailleur up here, where you couldn't
on the Synchro Shift, so I've just gone back
to the old ones.
You know, I've been riding these doubles ones
for like three years now and it's just, I've just
come accustomed to it and I like it.
So I got the double one here as well so I can change
the front and the back there and the front and back there
and same on the aero bars.
- Cool, and finally, leaving the cockpit behind,
what saddle have you chosen to use?
- So, I've struggled with saddles over the years
and I'm finally, I ride the ISM,
I'm finally pretty comfortable on that.
When if get it on the sweet spot,
I can sit in the aero position all day you know.
Some still cuts me up every now and then, especially
on a long Ironman but I think that's pretty standard
but yeah, I ride the ISM saddle and ya, that's my bike.
- Now Tim, I think we've pretty much covered everything,
just wondering where you keep any patch, repair, pit stop.
- I'll definitely take a spare you know, it's Ironman racing
and you're definitely not out of it,
so if you get a puncture you quickly can fix it
and get back in the race.
They do have a neutral spares for the pro race,
but I will carry my own pit stop care
which I will tape on the back here or somewhere here
and try to hide it along there.
- So finishing on the bike, lets have a look
at the helmet.
You've got two here, what's this one that I'm holding?
- So that is the Giant Pursuit helmet,
it's a aero road helmet and I've got the Rivet TT helmet
which I'm still, I don't know what I'm gonna run yet,
depending on how hot it is, this obviously breathes
a lot better than this one but I'm not a heavy sweater
and I did ride this last year and I found it alright.
I did do a race in Cebu
a couple months ago
and it was hot and it was dripping and I really struggled
with this so I'm kinda leaning towards this,
just for the bit of comfort and the airflow.
- That's more vented than some aero helmets as well.
- Yeah, definitely, it still breathes well
and there's no shield on it
so that you can still
get a lot of air to your face.
They did a lot of testing and they found that
it wasn't any faster with the shield
so it was just as fast with sunny so they decided
not to go it.
- Well Tim, thanks so much for your time,
really interesting having a look at your bike.
- Thanks Heather.
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Now you might have heard Tim mentioning cycling cadence.
Well we've done a video on that looking at how
your cycling cadence can affect your run.
If you want to watch that, just click down here.
- And if you wanna see other pro bikes, click down here.