Some new projects in my off time

After Rock Hill, it was time to back off, partly because mentally I needed a break from the season and partly because the hope is that a little R&R will bring my TSH back down to normal (for me) levels. My extended bloodwork came back with no flags, so I suppose popular theory now is that I just have a fairly high TSH to start with, but that my increased load leading up to this had pushed it higher still. We'll see in a few months how that goes.

Nonetheless, time off the bike doesn't mean I've forgotten about the bike. There are some things I came away from Giordana thinking would make excellent improvements to the setup... and so here I am keeping myself busy.

The main thing I found uncomfortable at the track was my "Bridie nubs" (look, they probably have a better name than that, but I think that's a cool name and it's what I've always called them, so there.)

Version 1 and 2 were just something I whipped up on tinkercad and printed out on my 3d printer. They worked adequately, but for extended periods they really dug into my fingers and caused some pain, something I don't need more of. So it was back to the drawing board, and after a couple of hours messing with some different designs, I came up with these.

Version 3 is slightly more ergonomic with the cutouts (I wrap my pinky underneath, next two fingers in the cutout and pointer/thumb more on top) and probably more importantly I've totally removed any non-rounded edges. The smooth profile should keep them from digging into my fingers and hopefully the cutout will make for some slightly more secure wraparound. I'll have to do more testing on them, but at the least they are the right direction for v4 I think!

Here you can see the difference in design between v1 and v3.

As you fine readers certainly are aware, I'm an aero weenie. I love to eek out the absolute minute details of position/equipment. But, when you've worked on it like I have, you get to the point where the gains that you can still make require either a lot of time or a lot of money, most likely both. Certainly I'm not against spending either searching for those elusive missing watts, but now I'm taking a little closer look at other ways to save just that little bit extra.

I'm officially making my way into the world of friction weenies. I admit, in the past I've put very, very little interest or thought into friction. Sure, I bought the friction facts reports, but the extent of what I came away with was "wax your chain with additives when you're racing" and I called it good enough. But while searching for anything "free" I could for the track, I read that a lot of folks were pimping out their bottom bracket. Sure I've seen the video's of the BB/wheel/etc that spins seemingly forever, but until the FF report showed it actually could save a watt or two I never got invested.

Well, here we go. I picked up a pretty nice 7700 (needle and ball bearing style) DA7700 bottom bracket, found a pack of 50 ceramic enduro 1/8" balls (after balking at Ceramicspeed wanting $6!!! each for them... holy jeez) and picked up some CeramicSpeed TT/Track grease. Putting it all together and I ended up with... still a bottom bracket. But it should be a slightly more efficient bottom bracket!

Otherwise all has been pretty quiet in my part of the woods. I'm still pouring over the data I did get from my hour... plugging numbers, calculating... My mission was accomplished to get through the hour, and to set the track record, but now I wonder what distance I could have went if I wasn't riding to someone else's schedule. I want to have another go. Maybe sometime early next year when it warms up we'll head back and try to tack on a few more laps.

Anyways, as always thanks so much for reading, I really appreciate it!

- Christopher Morelock