(whistling)
(metallic spinning)
- Hello and welcome back to another Ask GTN, but this time,
we are talking all things bike.
- We are and we have had some great questions in from you,
which Mark and I are going to dive right into now.
- Yes and this first one here from J.Bur19 says,
"How do I shift gears properly on the bike?
"I know it sounds silly, but I come from
"a swimming background where there's no technical stuff
"involved and I'm not sure how to get it quite right.
"Do I shift before or during the hill?
"And do I do the first, do I first do the chain set
"and then the cassette or both at the same time?
"You can see that I'm lost."
Well, firstly, I do think that if you think that swimming
isn't very technical, well, you're very lucky because
I'm sure there's a lot of viewers out there who will
disagree with you.
But back to your question and you're certainly not silly
because I've witnessed a lot of people changing gears
at the bad or incorrect time.
- [Fraser] Yeah, I mean, you really first things first
have to differentiate between our chain links in the front,
a cassette in the back and decide in your head
what you're going to go for first.
- Yeah, so I think on a really steep hill,
you want to drop into that small chainring first
and then work through the gears,
you definitely don't want to be doing both at once,
because not only will you get a massive jump in the gears,
there is also the risk of actually jamming the gears
and having a bit of a mechanical,
so you actually want to be really gentle with gears.
Any movement that you make, so you're not going through
the whole cassette range at one time, you're just
going through one, two, maybe even three at a time
and just doing it nice and gently.
And also, when you're not putting too much pressure through
the chain, so isn't it really interesting topic we've
discussed before about when you're going up hills,
what you do when you want to change gear.
- Yeah and Mark makes that point really clear and I've been
there, done that is grabbing gears really quickly when
you see a hill because you panic, don't you?
And you think, "goodness, I've got to go up that hill.
"I'm not in the right gear; I need to be in an easier gear."
And hit your shifter to try and grab all those gears
too quickly and that's when you can get the problems
with chain either falling off the back of the cassette,
getting stuck between the cassette and the spokes,
or equally dropping the chain in the front when the,
when it falls off the from the big to the small chain.
- Yeah, so also, when you are going up a hill,
I normally suggest actually sitting down when
you are going to change gears because what happens is
when you're standing up, out of the saddle,
you're putting a lot of pressure and strain
through that chain, which then is going to make it
harder to move through the cassette.
So sit down, take a little bit of pressure off,
change through gears quickly,
and then pop that pressure back on.
For the next question, we have from Paul Cartridge says,
"Is there any science behind the benefits of keeping cool
"with a fan on the turbo trainer, thus allowing you
"to put out more watts versus not using a fan to train
"in effectively hotter conditions? I only race in the UK."
So interesting question.
- Yeah, I mean, I suppose I would always want to use a fan
to answer that question really quickly.
I understand having the turbo set up in the house to try
and feel like you're working harder because you might be
racing, but well he's actually not, he's only racing
UK so the chances of it being really warm in the UK
are actually pretty slim.
That being said, what happens when we're in the indoor
turbo, I guess, it's about extra stress, isn't it,
on the body.
Yeah, and sometimes it's good to just make
that stretch just a little bit more bearable and that's
where the fan's good, I think.
- Well, definitely, I mean, let's take it back
a step here because the reason that we sweat or perspire
is to kind of dissipate heat from the body.
Our body's doing that on purpose, but if we are riding
outside, the wind is almost evaporating that sweat away,
so that's adding to that cooling effect.
If we allow that sweat just to sit on us,
we are going to boil and what we see is when we start
to get hot and overheat, we have a lower output
and less power coming out on the bike.
So, if you are training in those conditions all the time
on a turbo, you're probably not going to be getting
that much from your session.
You might adapt, to an extent, but probably not
overall for longterm.
- You get really good at doing a hot turbo indoors.
(laughing)
- Yeah, definitely, maybe not for your race performance
and if you are racing in the UK, as Fraser said,
just scrap it.
Train hard, put a fan on and do it well.
Now this next question's actually in reference to one
of our recent videos on whether we should ride harder
into headwinds or easier and this is what we had to say
in that video.
- We could go into some complicated sides right now,
but we're going to stick to the facts that have been
successfully tried and tested already by the pros.
It was actually Graeme Obree, the former one-hour
record-holder, who previously stated that,
"It's not the person who goes the fastest that wins,
"it's the person who slows down the least that wins."
- In other words, it's really important as tri-athletes
to maintain or keep our average speed up throughout
our ride, rather than peaking for some sections,
then stalling for others.
And if you think about it,
when we are riding into headwinds,
obviously, we are going slower and that alone takes up
a large proportion of our overall time on the bike,
so if we can increase just by a fraction,
our speed on that part of the ride when we're going
into the headwinds, we're actually increasing our pace
for a large proportion of the race.
- And off the back of that, we have Murat Guc asking us,
"Does this principle apply to climbing as well?
"And I mean by that, is it better to work harder whilst
"climbing and take it easier whilst ruling on the flats?"
- Yeah, really good question, actually and in a way, yes,
because if you are riding with a power metre,
you'll probably notice a natural increase in your power,
even if you are trying to maintain the same effort level.
So my theory behind this and a few other clever folk
out there have said the same,
well though there was a bit of debate as to
whether this is true, but it's to do with
our pedal stroke and how much pressure we're applying
through the whole pedal stroke.
So you remember riding on the flat,
we often pressure through the down-stroke
and not so much on the up-stroke,
whereas when we're on the climb,
we put pressure through the whole pedal stroke.
Otherwise, we'll pretty much just fall off our bike and
come to a grinding halt.
So that accounts for something like a 20-to-30-watt
increase, just generally speaking for some people.
But should we ride harder on the climbs?
Now, I tend to just ride harder; that's my go-to.
What do you do?
- Yeah, well, we attack them, don't we?
I think that's just human nature, see a hill, go harder.
- And that's actually a really good point, I mean, there's
that psychological side to see a hill and like, attack
and that's exciting and you get an adrenaline from that,
well, most people do, whether it's fear or.
- But it also depends on how long that climb is.
- That's a very good point and also sort of the race
that you're doing, too.
Is it a Olympic-distance race, in which you could go
balls to the wall and really hard or could you, is it
an Ironman race, where you need to maybe conserve
the effort a little bit more?
- Yeah and I think there's also, I like to
think of it's about, especially when you're talking
about shorter, sprint and Olympic distances, it's almost
about con, or maintaining or conserving the momentum
you've built up and if those climbs are short, punchy ones,
which we get a lot of here in the UK, you can afford
almost to override that power cap that you might will have
put on a hill beforehand because, well, it's worth it
in the long run of the race.
- Yeah and that cap idea is a really good, sort of way
of saying it, I mean, I normally say something like
a 10% cap, if you're maybe doing like a half Ironman,
Ironman because you want to conserve energy.
If you're doing a shorter race, where you can afford to get
a little bit harder, put sort of like a 10-20 or maybe
10-15% cap on that intensity on the climb.
But very good question.
Now this next one here from Steven Reeves.
"Can you guys do a video on how to choose a size for a
"TT or triathlon bike?
"I read online that people typically size down
"when going from a road to TT,
"but that could be old school information."
Now, I've gotta say, I used to give that advice
and used to do very similar, I used to ride a 58 centimetre
road bike and then ride a 50, well the equivalent
of a 56 centimetre TT bike.
I now actually ride a 56 centimetre road bike,
but that's irrelevant now.
What did you used to do?
- I'm just wondering if we're showing our age here and
that we're just quite old.
(laughing)
Yeah, I mean when I came into the sport, definitely
it was the same, it was smaller bike is better because
that might be lighter or you can be a little bit more
aero, perhaps and I definitely think that there's been
a change in thinking now and um.
- It was also the brands, as well, as a whole,
the geometry's kind of adjusted for TT bikes.
It was, TT bikes used to be, well kind of just an add on
to their range and their sizes geometries weren't really
thought about.
They're all adjusted now and actually, you are mostly buying
TT bikes in a small, medium and large, so it's completely
different and what I would say with TT bikes
is that their position is so important.
It's actually best to try and see the bike beforehand,
whether that's going to a bike shop, check the bike out,
get fitted up, take measurements and actually find the size
that fits you and, if possible, sit on that bike
beforehand.
- Yeah that is a really good point, but it is
often a tricky thing to do because it's hard to go and see
two bikes in different sizes in one place, but if you can,
I think it would be an ideal way, I mean I always rode a
medium frame on pretty much the same type of bike and I do
wish maybe I'd even be able to sit on a large and just have
a try and see what that felt like because to be honest,
I never did and never had that comparison to make.
- Yeah, I would actually just add to that, I always used
to go for a slightly smaller frame and actually now,
I wish I'd known, actually, I should have been extending
out a bit further, which I probably couldn't have done
on those smaller bikes.
Yeah, so very important.
Okay, well, next question from Jasper W said,
"When cycling here in the north of the Netherlands,
"I never use my smaller chainring up front.
"Would it be crazy to just have one chainring up front
"and save weight at the extra ring and front rail?"
- I mean, I would firstly say lucky you that you don't need
a small chainring because I wish where I've spent most
of my time training, I didn't need one.
- Yeah, well, to answer your question, no not at all.
I mean, people are going to really disagree with me here,
we've had some haters for the single chainring idea,
but if you are, if the course does allow, then definitely
single chainring, if you can, but you just need to make
sure that the gearing is correct for that course.
And we've actually see loads of the top cyclists, time trial
specialists and even many of the top pros go for the single
chainring option, but what you do need to make sure
that you do is that you get a narrow-wide chainring,
so there's that basically longer teeth on the chainring,
which stops the chain from then just falling off as you're
going through the gears.
Another thing to maybe take into consideration is that
gearing and we have seen some pretty crazy gears
as of late, so a lot of the pros at Kona,
the male pros in particular, are riding
over 55-tooth chainrings?
- [Fraser] Yeah, they're getting, what I think are enormous
sizes, to be honest, because I am a little bit old-school
and think a 53-chainring's quite a lot.
(laughing)
But yeah, I mean.
- [Mark] It's very good going, mate.
- Thanks, but yeah, I think it is definitely
becoming more popular.
I mean, I do actually remember a race last year,
being passed by a guy, Jordan Rapp, riding on a 1x11,
a single chainring and, it just seemed strange, but
definitely gonna happen more.
- Yeah, well we saw Joe Skipper, Kona on a 60-tooth.
60-tooth.
It's pretty big.
But this is all to do with chain-line efficiency,
which Matt Bottrill explains here.
A 60-tooth chainring, to a lot of our viewers, will sound
absolutely nuts, but what is the idea behind that?
- Again, it's all about chain-line efficiency,
so if we can say, you know, if we not, if we've not
got these massive cross-overs, then we're gonna ultimately
save, save drag.
So it might be a couple of watts that we're going to save
by having the correct tooth chain line.
- And our next question from Der Man, who asks us,
"Are there any TT handlebars that take MTB brakes?"
- You know I think that the answer to that is no.
- No, never seen it.
- Yeah, never seen it.
I'm not sure why you'd want it, but.
- It's a niche-market.
- I would like to see it.
You can however get hydraulic brakes for TT bikes.
I've actually got a set on my Cervelo P5x, got the
SRAM Aero HRD hydraulic brakes, which are very powerful,
so if you're looking for that side of the technology
for mountain biking, there is that.
- [Fraser] Works well.
- Yeah, now I've got a big question coming up now.
From Fuji Wuji, Wuji, FujiWuji,
"I don't understand the idea behind allowing bars
"only as long as your brake levers.
"Is there some advantage that the longer ones offer
"that short ones don't and if so, why would the race
"organisers bother and make their, insist that triathletes
"only use short ones."
It goes on and on.
But basically we're talking about these shorter triath-legal
bars that you see in IT racing.
- So I mean, it's the rules, for IT racing
and short-course racing.
There is no plane that can extend past the edge of our
brake hoods, that would be a good way to describe it,
so you see if you're ever to watch the athletes, you know,
getting themselves ready to go through transition, they'll
be a referee making sure, they'll have a block of wood,
that'll get put towards the front of the bike and just
literally see whether those handlebar extensions go
past your brakes and if they do.
- We won't share the tricks to cheating that one.
- No, another video.
- Yeah, that's another video.
But anyway, I think the idea, I say I think, I'm pretty
sure I know the idea behind keeping them shorter,
is for safety, really.
You, if by having the longer bars, your hands are quite
far away from the brake lever, so if you do suddenly need
to grab those brakes, because you now are in a
pack and draught legal racing, that's a long way to go.
Whereas from the shorter bars, they're just there.
It's a small bit, but.
- But it's also, I mean, you're absolutely right, but it's
also the fact that that's a little bit of a weapon,
the longer it gets.
So if you do crash, or multiple bikes come down, then you
just don't want an extra thing protruding.
- Yeah and then I guess you could also talk about
the race dynamics, as well, is that it would probably
completely change the race dynamics if everyone
had these long TT bars on, so they're time-trialing
through what should have been a draft-legal race.
The draft-legal bit is the fun part of draft-legal racing,
so let's keep that there and don't turn it into time-trials.
- Our next question from Austin Blair is,
"I thought pedals self-loosened?"
- Yeah, well this has quite a good one to finish on
and it is in reference to a video made quite a while
back about how to instal and remove your pedals.
- [Fraser] Yeah and I guess what we're driving at here is
it's easy to think when we're pedalling and the forward
direction that we're moving the cranks and the pedals,
that in theory, the spindles can.
- [Mark] Loosen.
- Yeah, faithfully come out of our cranks,
but that well, what do you think?
- Wow, actually it is due to an effect called precision
that actually means that they don't self-loosen, in fact
they actually self-tighten or maybe they don't self-tighten,
they just don't loosen because what is happening is
although, like you say, we're pedalling in that direction,
they could loosen, the bearings within them,
within a spindle area are actually going the opposite
direction, so we don't get that loosening effect.
- So, really, I mean I have seen pedals come off bikes,
I mean, it can happen, but that's.
- See, I have not.
- That's either because they've sheared and there's a
proper problem or you've just not put them on properly
in the first place.
- Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, like at the beginning
of a training camp, maybe don't put your pedals on that
tight and you think, "Ah, I'll get these off really easily."
By the end of the training camp, after a week or two,
they're always tighter.
- You always need to get help, don't you?
(laughing)
- So yeah, I mean I wonder what would happen if you actually
cycled backwards, maybe they would eventually come off.
- That's too confusing.
(laughing)
- So anyway, that was great fun, we love going through
all your questions there and please do keep sending them in,
whether it's swim, bike or run, we love reading through them
and answering them for you.
Now, if you like this video, hit that thumbs up button
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- And for a video about riding into a headwind,
you can click here.
- And if you'd like to see our triathlon versus TT bike,
with Matt Bottrill, then just click down there.