devashish_paul wrote:
kileyay wrote:
I could write up a race report Dev. Those are good points. The gear is cool just because I feel like it's connected to larger issues here. Which is, sort of ironically, to see how big of fools we might be for being so focused on the speed of these bikes.
Was your Oceanside set up one of the set ups from the tunnel? I assume the answer is yes? In which case your final result would be the same on all bikes tested?
Actually, it's neither the same frameset -- it's the same exact B series frame, but new and a different color scheme -- bar, stem, or wheels that I raced at Oceanside. The full bike I rode at Oceanside I sold in the parking lot of my hotel the morning after the race to someone who contacted me about an ad I put up on that bike over a year ago. The guy lived in San Diego and drove down to check out the bike and dropped $5k right there.
To pull off this test I had to do a lot of equipment horse trading. I'm good at equipment horse trading, and I tend not to lose that much money because I'm sophisticated at buying things for low prices and selling them for similar prices. By selling that bike, I was able to build the new frameset Felt provided for me up to spec consistent with the position and component choices to facilitate this test. So I built it up with Enve 7.8 SES rim brake hoops, which I bought used, whereas before I had Zipp 808s. I replaced my previous base bar, which had a habit of cracking at the clamp, with the Enve bar for product integrity reasons. And I tossed on a slightly longer stem so that I could stop having to put my elbows so far forward on the pads.
So I can't tell you if my result would have been the same. I missed the turn off to the finishing chute at Oceanside, ran up the biggest hill on the course and quite a bit past the top of it, and then realized my mistake and had to retrace my steps, losing over two minutes. The sign pointing to the right said "2nd Loop -->" and in my tired, foggy brain, that was for me, because I was on my second loop. I lost out to the second place amateur, GLindy, by six seconds.
I guess an interesting and logical question might be, if I had actually known the course, where the run ends, or had not been a complete idiot, does that correction alone trump the decision to ride the slowest bike relative to the fastest bike on this test (if we assume the B2 is slowest, like everyone here likely does)? How much does choosing the fastest bike benefit me in time -- or the inverse, how much does the slowest bike hurt me in time -- for a race of that distance, at my speed, at my weight, at that pressure, assumed rolling resistance, etc.? We could get pretty crazy with the time prediction model. Somebody has already mentioned that I reach out to Best Bike Split, and it's a great idea. I just don't want to take my eye off the prize if the simple model I have for time prediction right now is basically sufficient for answering the core questions of this test.
Right now I'm more worried about yaw weights that I am about time prediction modeling or whether I would have beat GLindy on a P5-X. Unless my Felt was fastest, I already know riding the next fastest bike in the lineup would have pushed me up into runner up position in the amateur race. So there's your context. Does this shit matter if these bikes are close or doesn't it? That is entirely personal.
