(dramatic music)
- This is a video about not really being good enough
to do something, but then seeing how much better
you can make your bike
to allow you to, hopefully, achieve your goal.
Which, in this case, is riding really fast up a hill.
Making my bike lighter thought isn't going to cut it,
but fortunately, CeramicSpeed have just got in touch
to offer their range of products to try,
and I thought, ah-ha, I can see a plan coming together.
(dramatic music)
We've all got a climb that's important to us, haven't we?
I mean, it might not be a big deal to anyone else,
but we can't all live at the bottom of Alpe d'Huez.
But that doesn't matter,
because any climb can be important.
It might be the one you do regularly,
the one that tells you how fit you are,
the one where you know your best time up it.
Now, this one here, this is mine.
One or two of you might recognize it,
but probably not many of you.
It's called Belmont Hill,
and it's just outside my hometown of Bristol,
in the Southwest of England.
It is, wait for it, 1.44 kilometers long
at an average gradient of 7%.
Yes, I appreciate that that doesn't sound like much.
I did say it wasn't important.
And, yes, it probably barely registers as even a climb
for many of you, but, a few years back, now,
I was actually the fastest rider up here
with a time of three minutes and 19 seconds.
Not any more though.
The record is now just three minutes and seven seconds.
And I think there's probably a big question mark
about whether I've ever been capable of doing that.
But, to make matters worse,
I think I'm now at that age
where instead of getting better every year,
I'm, well, I'm not.
And I don't think it's all age related, necessarily.
I also have less time to train, as well.
The problem for me, though,
is that I've still got competitive juices
flowing through my veins and so I quite fancy at least
setting a personal best up here,
if not having a shot at the record.
So, the question is then,
how am I going to do it?
(dramatic music)
I'm gonna call in some favors and try to turn back time.
That's how.
First up though, let's be clear
there is going to be no cheating
nor am I going to allocate more time to train for this,
nor, sacrifice the rides the rides that I do
to prepare for a three minute long climb.
I'm not even going to try and lose weight.
Even though, theoretically, dropping a kilo
could save me two precious seconds.
Instead, I'm going to do what many like-minded people do
and look to my bike for the answers.
This is the steed that's, hopefully,
going to propel me towards my goal.
It did last time.
It's my trusted Canyon Aero
Now getting on for three years old, would you believe?
But, still trucking along as sweetly as ever
with it's Zipp 454 wheels, Sram Red eTAP groupset,
Quarq power meter.
It weighs just a shade over 7.2 kilos.
So, you can quite reasonably ask the question,
how on earth do you make a superbike even better?
My first port of call is to Jason Smith
who's the Chief Technology Officer at CeramicSpeed.
He's also the inventor of the radical Driven drive shaft.
Which, to be fair, I did ask to see if it was ready.
But, alas, it's not.
Nevertheless, I've heard there are apparently 16 to 20 watts
up for grabs by optimizing
the drivetrain that I've already got.
So, Jason, how realistic is that figure of, excuse me.
(laughs)
Just choking on my breakfast.
Jason, how realistic is that figure of 16 to 20 watts?
- [Jason] That's relatively realistic
especially at the power output
that you're going to be putting out, for this climb.
I believe you're putting out about 400-450 watts,
so, with an optimized drive train
at that wattage, you'll probably be able to save
about 16 watts, give or take,
if you optimize your drive train.
- Okay, so I'm actually aiming for 530,
does that mean I get more savings?
- [Jason] Yes, so, you're pushing 530?
A lot of the drive train optimization, practices,
techniques that I'll tell you about,
a lot of them are fairly linear with rider-output.
So, yeah, at your power output,
you're probably going to be pushing the high teens,
close to 20 watts savings, yes.
- Following on from my conversation with Jason
and here is how I'm going to get my 20 extra watts.
First of all, the chain is the big one.
Now, a clean chain is more efficient.
An optimally lubricated chain is more efficient still.
But to go the whole hog,
and get all the watts,
I've done this: I've swapped it to a CeramicSpeed UFO Chain.
They don't actually make the chain itself.
They buy a top-of-the-range one,
then they strip it right back to bare metal,
polish it up, to make it even more efficient
and then they add their own special coating.
Now I kind of want to say lubricant,
but it's not exactly lubricant like you or I would know it
and it's finished off with rather attractive Teflon dust.
So, apparently, that is worth 10 watts.
Oh yeah, 10 watts.
Then, next on the list, is this, which is the OSPW.
You can see that I've replaced the derailleur case
to have this extra long one.
That is to make space for the 17-tooth pulley wheels there.
The theory being that the less a chain has to bend,
the less friction it will generate.
You can see there's a larger radius there
meaning that the chain is literally bending less.
That, apparently, is worth about four watts,
would you believe?
The reason it is less than the chain
is because it doesn't really deal
with the same kind of load.
All the load on the chain is on the top there.
All the load on the bottom here
comes from the derailleur cage spring
which I have further tuned.
Oh yeah, because around the back,
there are actually three holes, three settings,
high tension, medium, or low.
I've got it on the lowest one
which apparently the most efficient.
Not ideal if you're going to ride Paris Roubaix.
Perfect if you're doing a time trial on good roads
or a hill climb on reasonably good roads.
That's 14 watts right there.
I've also swapped out my bottom bracket.
I've now got a CeramicSpeed bottom bracket in there.
That's apparently two to three extra watts.
Even the wheel bearings have got that treatment.
Because I'm going uphill and I'm going a little bit slower,
they're not going to be saving me quite as much
as if I was doing a time trial.
Nevertheless, you add that all up,
and that is 20 watts.
But, brilliantly, I'm not finished there.
It's going to get even more geeky
because we're going to talk about gear ratios.
Yes, when I first heard about Jason's work here,
in this area, I was completely blown away.
I think it's quite fascinating.
What about my gear ratios then?
This is something that I can effectively influence
without necessarily changing anything on the bike.
The decision to go for big ring versus little ring
or what sprocket I'm using on the cassette at the back.
So, when you found out the info about the climb,
my power output, my preferred cadence,
you've done some quick maths, is that right?
Does this work out - Yep.
to what I should be running?
- [Jason] Okay, what do we know about drive train friction
and ring sizes and cross-chaining?
We know that a bigger ring is better, efficiency-wise.
- [Simon] Yep.
- [Jason] We also know that cross-chaining is bad
because that just drains energy.
- Yeah.
- [Jason] How can we, essentially, here's the question
how can we use the biggest ring possible
and minimal cross-chaining?
We look at your stock setup.
Let's say you ran a 53-21.
Well, you're going to have a lot of cross-chaining
because with a typical cassette
that 21-tooth cog is going to be in the 9th position.
- Yeah.
- [Jason] So, there's a lot of cross-chaining.
Well then, let's go back and say, hey this is a climb,
Simon, so why don't you run the little ring
that's for climbing?
Well, in this case, you'd be in a 39-15,
so you'd have a lot of cross-chaining
on the other side of the cassette.
Plus, you're running a 39, which is a smaller ring,
so, that's kind of a double negative.
So you want to throw that out.
- In essence, your gear selection
could have an impact of about five watts
on your efficiency.
The theory goes that, as with our oversized pulley wheel,
bigger is better.
So, your big chainring should be more efficient
than you little chainring.
However, cross-chaining, where the chain is at an angle,
is even more costly than that.
In this case, my problem is
how do I go up my climb in the big chainring,
but in a big enough sprocket at the back,
but still without cross-chaining?
Jason suggested, firstly, I could run a 1x chainring
because those are set slightly further inboard
to improve the chainline at the back
or I could create, in his words, a Franken-crank
by swapping the big ring and the inner ring
and therefore having my big ring on the inner ring position.
But, I wasn't willing to do that because
it just seems all kinds of wrong.
So, instead, what we're doing is looking at the cassette.
With Jason's calculation's he's worked out,
if I use a 53-tooth chainring,
I'm going to need about a 21-tooth sprocket at the back.
That's looking at my speed
that I'm going to do at my preferred cadence
which last time was an average of 86.
Now, I can't run a single speed
because I'm going to need to change gear on here.
What I've done, is I've bought a cheap cassette
where I'm able to swap the positions of the sprockets round
and, as you can see, I've moved all the gears
that I want to use for my climb
right down to the outside of the cassette
and then stuck the other sprockets on the inside
where I'm not going to use them.
I've effectively got
a 5-speed bike.
Going from 18, 19, 21, 23, 25.
Although if I'm in the 23 or 25,
I might as well give up
because I'm not going to be breaking any records.
With this setup now, that is an additional five watts saved.
Winner.
(rhythmic rock music)
(tools clanging)
Ah, look at that.
I'm particularly pleased, not only with the super fast chain
but also the fact that it looks like something
a hipster might put on their fixed gear-bike.
And, it kind of pops against my otherwise murdered-out bike.
Anyway, looks are not the primary consideration here.
One thing we haven't touched on,
which are a big consideration, is aerodynamics.
Now, I'm not really much of a weight-wheelie,
but I know that even if riding up a hill
at 28 kilometers an hour,
aerodynamics are going to play a part,
so I have enlisted the help of another friend,
another very useful friend, called David Morse,
who is an advanced development engineer at Zipp.
Now, he's super-stacked with work,
but he very kindly did some rough calculations for me.
Following on from some information he'd asked for
and I duly sent over.
My weight, ready to right with helmet and shoes on,
my bike weight, and then also
some closeup pictures of the road surface.
Now, he then went on to suggest that,
were I able to do the same effort as last time,
five and 24 watts, on a time trial bike,
in a time trial position, I would go seven seconds faster.
Unfortunately, I can't.
Nor could I do as he suggested after that,
which was put the same power out in the saddle,
in the drops, but it just goes to show
how important aerodynamics are even uphill.
That includes the wheels because I asked for advice on those
and he recommended, not Zipp's lightest, the 202s
nor the Goldilocks dual wheel, the 454,
that was on here before,
but, a full bifta, Zipp 808.
Super deep and super aero.
Not only that, he also suggested
that I swap the 25 mil wide tires on for 23s.
So, I went and found some GP 4000 II 23 mil
tires in a cupboard,
(blowing)
Dusted them off,
because they've not been used in a couple of years
And hey presto, here we go,
pumped up to his recommendation of 85 psi.
So, for hill-climb bike, I'm going for 80 mil deep wheels.
(laughs)
Oh, he also said, take off my ball cage.
(beeps)
A true weight-wheelie would probably leave these off
but they're going back on.
So, here we are then, one ultimate bike
and one insignificant, little climb
that at the same time, actually right now,
feels like quite a big deal.
There is a bit of pressure on.
I'm not going to lie.
And, there's nowhere left to hide.
Other than, I probably better mention, as you can see,
the weather is far from ideal.
There's like a southwesterly breeze
as opposed to a southerly.
And the air pressure is quite high.
Also, I didn't sleep terribly well last night.
I did have a massive curry for dinner, so yeah.
(beeps)
now, I have one confession to make.
I have actually done a specific training session for that.
I know I said I wouldn't, but I did one.
I split the climb into halves
and I did each half at over record pace.
My theory being,
that if I get used to riding a certain pace up there,
or normalize it, and that will mean therefore,
that when it comes to record itself,
I'll be expecting to do that speed
and it won't feel like a big deal.
So anyway, we'll see whether that theory comes to pass.
One final thing to mention
is that I've been umming-and-ahhing
about whether to do a LiveTrack on my wire hoop.
I've got the kind of personality type that means
if I can see that I'm ahead, I will go even faster still
whereas if I dip behind, then I'm completely done for.
I better start fast then
because I'm going to LiveTrack it
and get a massive run-up.
(timer beeps)
Hey, come on, stop with the beeps.
I'm not ready yet.
Told ya, I'm getting a massive run up.
(rhythmic electronic music)
(heavy panting)
It's like.
It's a bit like drowning,
isn't it.
You can't get oxygen in.
So, it's almost like you give up.
And then your legs and your arms still flapping around.
Might have spend my legs, for (mumbles).
Personal record.
No!
Two seconds off.
Ah!
I'm not doing it again.
No way, no way.
Two seconds off.
Ay.
(beeps)
Well, for good news
is that I've absolutely smashed
my personal best by 10 seconds.
Which I'm delighted about, to be quite frank.
The bad news is I have missed out on the record
by just two seconds
which is gutting.
There is literally nothing else I could give.
So, that is me.
But still, two seconds.
Ah.
Anyway, there we go.
I gotta say, although doing that kind of effort
is not enjoyable, in the slightest I don't think,
the first half was absolutely fantastic
before the effort had really started to bite.
I feel like I was absolutely flying.
It was remarkable.
What?
I am back at base.
Marginally recovered,
but also quite surprised at just how tired I am
after three minutes of riding.
Anyway, I have crunched through some of the data
that I have at my disposal.
Turns out maybe I didn't pace it
quite as well as I could have done.
I was two seconds up at the halfway point
and then I lost four seconds on that second half.
Which might explain partly why it hurt
quite as much as it did.
It might also explain why I was putting out 80 watts less
for that second half of the run, anyway, there we go.
Something to work on for next time, if there is a next time.
One other thing, actually,
I signed up for a fantastically geeky app
called myWindsock.com.
Oh yes, there is such a thing.
It confidently told me
that actually the air was quite dense today.
The ultimate excuse.
It was 1.262 kilograms per meters cube, apparently.
Although I can't say that the wind was necessarily a factor.
If it was blowing it all, it was a cross-tail.
So, there we go.
What I can say, confidently, is that I cannot wait
to change this cassette around again.
There is something criminal about having a bike this fast
limited to an 18-tooth sprocket.
Hopefully I can hang on
to all of the new bits and pieces on here
and then actually ride around fast on the flats for a bit.
Thinking of that, actually,
I've got to say a big thank you to CeramicSpeed
for the loan of all this amazing kit
and also Jason for his time
and explaining all these optimizations to us.
And David, as well, from Zipp.
I don't think I could have done it without 'em.
I've got to say though just how much
I have enjoyed looking into the minutia of the tech.
I appreciate that it is massively geeky
but it's been brilliant and if the climb didn't
hurt quite as much as it does
then I could see it developing
into something of an obsession.
Maybe if I chose a longer climb.
That would be better.
Or flat, time trial.
I don't know. We'll see.
Watch this space.
In the meantime, please give this video
a big thumbs up if you've enjoyed it.
If you would like to see an uninterrupted view
of this bike next to me, then we have a closer look at it
over on the tech channel and you can get through to it
by clicking on the screen now.