About 7 years ago I was hit by a car resulting in my face being smashed up and surgically reconstructed. Part of that effort was placing my right eye in a little titanium 'egg basket' replacing my shattered orbital bone. The plastic surgeon did a bang up job, but the result is that my right eye sits a smidge lower than my left. Last year, after years of struggles attempting to address the resulting double vision, I was fitted with special contact lenses with built in prism, which fix the double vision, most of the time.
Last winter I finally had my tri bike (P4) properly fitted, after years of sub-optimal positioning. The result was that my saddle was moved up by quite a bit, and my bars slammed down as low as they could go. And this is great. I go much faster on lower Watts. So that's good.
Last week I raced the duathlon AG Worlds in Denmark. And there I found out that after riding in aero for about 30 minutes I start to see double (from craning my neck in order to see), which I had to clear by sitting up for a second or so. After 45 minutes sitting up didn't immediately clear it and I had to sit up longer. After 50 minutes (of about 58) I basically had to ride on the horns the whole time (also because at that point we rode through an industrial part of town with shitty roads and lots of curves).
Reason I didn't experience this before is that Denmark is much flatter than where I usually ride in Ontario - I wouldn't know where around here I could ride in aero for 45 minutes without beingkilled interrupted by traffic and nasty steep hiils.
My question now is - what to do about this? I'm planning to return to triathlon next year, because I really want to race that Muskoka 70.3 I didn't get to do 7 years ago because I was in the trauma ward with a broken neck and smashed up face when the gun went off, so I need to be able to ride in an aero-like position for longer than an hour. I see my options as
What say you, ST?
Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.
Last winter I finally had my tri bike (P4) properly fitted, after years of sub-optimal positioning. The result was that my saddle was moved up by quite a bit, and my bars slammed down as low as they could go. And this is great. I go much faster on lower Watts. So that's good.
Last week I raced the duathlon AG Worlds in Denmark. And there I found out that after riding in aero for about 30 minutes I start to see double (from craning my neck in order to see), which I had to clear by sitting up for a second or so. After 45 minutes sitting up didn't immediately clear it and I had to sit up longer. After 50 minutes (of about 58) I basically had to ride on the horns the whole time (also because at that point we rode through an industrial part of town with shitty roads and lots of curves).
Reason I didn't experience this before is that Denmark is much flatter than where I usually ride in Ontario - I wouldn't know where around here I could ride in aero for 45 minutes without being
My question now is - what to do about this? I'm planning to return to triathlon next year, because I really want to race that Muskoka 70.3 I didn't get to do 7 years ago because I was in the trauma ward with a broken neck and smashed up face when the gun went off, so I need to be able to ride in an aero-like position for longer than an hour. I see my options as
- Ride in aero on the trainer more, i.e. apply more mental toughness and don't effing sit up as often - a good option, but I'm not sure my problem is one of adaptation
- Look down instead of ahead more, i.e. apply more mental toughness and don't be afraid to be run over or hit a pothole - also a good option but I'm not sure I can do that. That damned accident still leaves its marks on my psyche. And you have to look every now and then, don't you? Because cars and potholes are things?
- Move my pads up a bit so I don't have to crane so much to see. This will however have an aero penalty, and I'll still have to figure out how much higher I need to go to have an optimal aero-don't see double trade-off.
What say you, ST?
Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.