Bike Setup

In past years, I have raced and trained mainly on a Mandaric "DE" (for Dan Empfield) TT frame. This has a 81 degree seat tube angle, short and low top tube...all with for the express purpose of riding low and flat. My bike position in 2005-06 was among the more radical out there. My aerobar armpads were 22cm below the saddle for racing. I could sit at 20mph on only 140 watts.

Today, far more people have figured out the benefits of punching a smaller hole through the wind and the flat-back position isn't considered so radical. I intend to return to this position for the September event. Aerodynamics is important for all racers, but is even more important the slower you're going. All else equal, slower racers gain more time from aero improvements than faster ones. It's just math.

The problem with a fully-committed racing position is that it is a horrible every-day riding position. It's just not safe. You can't see continuously up the road -- you have to "spot." Pedal for a few moments, look up the road. Head back down for a few seconds, look up the road. Repeat. In addition, so much weight is on the front of the bike that you can actually achieve an unintended endo in a panic stop. I did just that once and separated my A-C joint.

Hence, my compromise training position, as shown below. This pic is from 2006, but the bike setup is the same today. The idea here is to have the same leg-torso angle as on the race bike, just rotated back so I can be more balanced and see where I'm going.

I will race on the Mandaric frame, with everything rotated forward and down. On the Soloist frame shown above, the saddle is 3.5cm behind the bb. The race setup will have the saddle nose 5cm in front of the bb.

The other change I made was to acknowledge that my power is down about 50 watts from 2006. Since I live in a hilly area (East SF Bay Area), I need to be able to comfortably climb hills. So I swapped out the 12-27 cassette that I usually ride for a 12-32, and changed the inner chainring from 36 to 34. I hope I don't have to stay with this setup for too long, since a Dura Ace rear derailleur can barely handle the cog size. But -- bike gearing is a function of the rider's power output. Mine is low, so I need small gears.