This past weekend was a solid weekend of racing with lots of wins.
First off was Justin Farrar in Maryland. He entered his 2nd category 4/5 road race of the year. There were 75 riders in his field. The race was on an 8 mile circuit on slightly rolling terrain with 2 steep power climbs. After lap 3 a 5-man break got away for 2 laps. Justin’s teammate Iain reeled the break back in on the final lap, with one mile to go. With about 300 meters to go, Justin was boxed in 12th position looking for an opening. He had to push his way through other riders in the field. By the time he hit the front , he was only chasing one other rider to the line and he took 2nd.
Good job Justin.
Justin killin it!
The UCSD Cycling Team managed to pull off two wins, three 2nd places, one 3nd place, and a smattering of top 10 finishes. The first race was the Golden Acorn Road Race on Saturday. Colin Ng (AKA Quadzilla) took 3rd followed by Ben Ostrander taking 4th in the men’s C’s.
The second day of racing had the mens C’s and D’s combined. UCSD fielded a 12-man team and was aggressive from the gun. They sent riders off the front every lap until a break of 3 finally stuck. Colin (Quadzilla) was in the break.
The break put 40 seconds into the field and if the race had another 15 minutes, they would have lapped the field. Coming out of the last corner, Colin turned on the gas and destroyed his opponents. After the race, Colin Marveled, “ I thought it was some sort of new tactic they were doing, going slow to the finish line.” Nope, Colin was just faster!
Matt McKinzie easily won the field sprint taking 4th overall and 1st in the D’s followed by Jeffrey Skacel in 2nd overall.
The athletes coached by Crank Cycling dominated this past weekend. Good job guys and gals!
Coach Jesse
Qaudzilla in the Break
Matt sprinting away from the Field
The first night of Tuesday Night Racing for 2009 at the San Diego Velodrome was last night. It was a nice warm evening and everyone had a great time. Coached rider Todd Woodlan was looking strong in the C group, and will be surely upgrading after a few nights. Chris Daggs raced with the A group and was looking pretty strong himself. I played race director for the evening, so no racing for me just yet. Below is a photod of me motorpacing the A group to get them warmed up.
-Sean
We put a SRM on Elite amateur riders at Redlands Stage race, and then Daggs and I did a write up on his power output.:
How much power does it take to hang with the pros in a big American stage race? For the Redlands Bicycle Classic, we put an SRM power meter on the bike of Eric Marcotte, a 30-year-old chiropractor who races as a Cat. 1.
Marcotte’s power decreased each time up the climb on stage 3. (Wattage is yellow, elevation is red.)
Marcotte lives in Arizona and races with the California-based Pista Palace squad. This year he won stage 2 of the Valley of the Sun and placed fifth in the GC. He then won stage 3 at the Tucson Bicycle Classic from a break. At Redlands, Marcotte was racing in a 190-man peloton that featured 13 pro teams. Here is what the numbers revealed.
How much power does it take to hang with the pros in a big American stage race? For the Redlands Bicycle Classic, we put an SRM power meter on the bike of Eric Marcotte, a 30-year-old chiropractor who races as a Cat. 1.
This clinic is designed to help you get fast! The focus is primarily road time trials, such as the 20K and 40k events, but triathletes can also benefit from this clinic. We will also devote a portion of the class to special events such as team time trials and track events like the 4K, 1K, and team pursuit. The morning session will be indoors at the Crank Cycling Training Studio and the afternoon session will be on the bike at Fiesta Island. This clinic features coach and exercise physiologist Sean Burke, coach and Fiesta Island TTT record holder Chris Daggs. Classroom topics in the morning include: exercise physiology basics and energy systems used during TTs, on the bike training, weight training, flexibility training, warm ups, power outputs, pacing, aerodynamics, and more. The afternoon “on the bike” topics include: proper starts, turnarounds, course management, TTT practice, and more.
This clinic can accommodate a maximum of 20 athletes. To to make sure you don’t lose out, sign up HERE.
Chris Daggs On The Way To A TTT Record
This past weekend the collegiate team I coach (UCSD) won there first race. It was a 2 day race weekend.
The first day was a criterium and the mens D racers were very aggressive, making many attacks and finishing in the top ten. Annabelle racing in the women’s Ds took 4th.
The following day was Road Race on a technical course. The Mens Ds started out aggressive again attacking and counter attacking the field till Josh Rudiger and Useff Azzasi from (UCSD) got off the front. Within a lap Josh had a minute on the field with help from Useff who then drifted back to the field. By the beginning of lap 3 Josh had 4 minutes on the field.
Thats when the rest of UCSD went into action they destroyed the field in the crosswind doing an echelon. 6 man chase behind the solo rider 5 of them being UCSD. Josh hung on to win and UCSD also took 2nd, 4th(Useff), 5th, 6th and 7th.
I lead race tactic clinics for the mens and women’s Ds in the off season and all their hard work and willingness to listen is paying off.
Go UCSD!!
Till next time
Cheers,
Coach Jesse
I recently got an email from an “endurance supplement” company. The email was full of pro-athlete testimonials. Both the language in the testimonials and the language in other parts of the email reminded me of the language used for drugs.
They kept using the word “on”. ” Shortly after going on XYZ supplement… I won XYZ race” ” When going on one XYZ company’s supplements, you are guaranteed….”
I’ve received other emails from this company, and they always use the same “on” language. Regardless of whether the stuff improves performance (and I’m skeptial of that), the language is similar to what is used when talking about drugs. My grandmother is ” on” anti-inflammatories and pain meds for her arthritis. My uncle is “on” beta blockers for his high blood pressure. Riccardo Rico was ” on” CERA.
I think this habituates athletes to being “on” something, and it can be a slippery slope.
My guess is that it is a marketing thing that they use, because if it sounds kind of like you are using a drug, than it must work like a drug, only this “drug” isn’t banned. ( never mind the fact that if their products had the drastic effects they claim, they would be banned from sport anyway)
The whole email kind of reminds me of one of my favorite SNL clips. The All Drug Olympics.
For a copy of that supplement email I received today, go HERE.
What do you think?
So I am running the financials for the 2010 Red Trolley Crit this morning, and I am always amazed at how much it costs to put the race on. Event though I know going into it, and have the previous years financials to use as an estimate, I’m still a bit surprised when I add it up. Wanna know why it costs $10,000 to put on an industrial park crit?
Here it goes:
USAC Insurance fees: $2000
USAC Permit fee: $100
USAC Officials Fees: $1900
Prize Money $1750
SDPD Traffic Control at the Corners: $1300
Ambulance: $1300
Race announcer $750
City Permit Fee: $ 100
Race Numbers and Photocopies of waivers: $350
Safety Equpment( barricades, cones, signs) $450
Toilets and handsinks: $300
Garbage and Recycling bins: $300
Pizza, Coffee, and drinks for Volunteers and Officials: $125
The biggest expenses are: Prize money, Ambulance, SDPD Taffic control, USAC Fees, Officials Fees, and Announcer fees.
Our Mens Pro 1,2 race has decent prize money, but the prize money for our other categories is admittedly small. The ambulance is required by the city of San Diego. In some municipalities you might save ~$700 by having an EMT but no ambulance. But you have to have the Ambulance in San Diego, and its probably a good idea anyway. The SDPD traffic control is required by the city. It would be nice to be able to use volunteers, but the city wants to send out their own people. To be honest, its probably better that way anyway. I think you get less BS from drivers when the traffic controlers are wearing a uniform that says “SDPD” on it. the USAC insurance fees are charged per rider. They’ve gone up by 50% over last year. Officials fees are the single biggest expense. It seems like alot, but you have 8 people working almost a 12 hour day. Some of them are coming from LA, so that may include hotel and/or mileage. All of them are pocketing less than $200 for the day before hotel expenses, so it’s not like they are getting rich. Ralph Elliot does and AMAZING job as race announcer and he is well worth it. He actually gives us a deal on the annoucing because he has a soft spot in his heart for the SDSU team. All of the volunteers working at registration are SDSU kids, or riders that have volunteered for a few hours in exchange for a few entries. I also typically trade a few entries for people that bring good primes. We have a few other little things that people do for free that really help, Like Andrew Lee from Adama Ave Bikes working in the wheel pit.
People always say stuff like ” Hey, Why don’t you get a corprate sponsor or something?” Well that’s far easier said than done. Espcecially when we are in recession.
The fact is that we made a little money this year ( split between the SDSU team and myself), but there is always the possibility of losing money. As of wednesday, the prergistration was only at $6,000 dollars. If the weather report had not improved, we may have lost money. A few years ago when it did rain, we only had $500 in day of registration. The SDSU team made a few hundred dollars that year, and I personally walked away empty handed. ( after countless hours of prep work and a 13 hour day in the rain!) It would be a bit easier to make a few bucks, or at least ensure you aren’t going to lose money if we only had USCF races. But we do collegiate races all morning, and the collegiate racers only pay $15 each. Most of your costs are fixed costs, so we are essentially losing money all morning long, and trying to make it up in the afternoon. In fact it is always a stressful coming into the race and being concerned that we are going to lose money on the thing, but thanks to the rain staying away for the day, it all worked out.
Many people walked up to me yesterday and told me they thought it was a great race. That is rewarding for sure. Thanks to everyone for coming out, I hope to see you out there again next year.
Sean
This is a long overdue follow up to: Measuring Energy Expenditure on the Bike
So last time we talked about how indirect calorimetry is the gold standard, and why equipment such as heart rate monitors and GPS units are inaccurate. The next topic to examine is typical gym equipment such as stair climbers, and treadmills. These machines suffer from the same inadequacies as the heart rate monitors, in that they rely on equations and guesstimations to measure your energy expenditure. Just hop on any gym treadmill, and it will ask you your body weight so that it can calculate your energy expenditure as your exercise. The problem here is that there are many assumptions, and that the work you are doing is being calculated rather than truly measured. Something else you should know about the calories as given by these machines, is that they include your energy expenditure due to your basal metabolic rate. Most people burn between 50 and 80 calories an hour even if they are just sitting on the couch watching TV. So the calorie count given by these machines is inaccurate to start with, and then you add an additional 50+ calories that doesn’t really count towards your energy expenditure from exercise, because you would be burning those calories even if you were sitting on your butt!
So the most accurate method of measuring energy expenditure is definitely indirect calorimetry (measurement of expired O2 and Co2), but it isn’t practical because of these expense involved, and because you have to breath into a mouthpiece containing Oxygen and CO2 sensors. The next best way of measuring energy expenditure is going to be through the use of power meters. Power meters such as Power Tap and SRM, use strain gauges to measure force. The strain guages are little strips of metal at hub or crank, and the amount of deflection is measured. Power is force X distance/time. If you measure force with the strain gauges, you can measure distance with the rotation of the hub or cranks, and then time is measured with a simple clock. So power meters accurately measure power. From power and time you can easily calculate work, and work is measured in Joules. It’s an easy calculation, 1 watt for 1 second = 1 Joule. Think of it like this: If watts were miles per hour, Joules would be total miles. So if you measure power, you can quite readily get Joules. At the end of the workout, you can look at your powermeter and and it will give the total joules. One joules is actually a tiny amount of work, so this measurement is typically expressed as Kilojoules, or thousands of Joules, also known as KJ.
Now we can calculate how many calories you burned during your workout. We know how many KJ you did, as it was calculated from watts and time. For demonstration purposes, let’s just say it was 1000KJ. Calories and Kilojoules are both measurements of energy. There are 4.18 KJ in every Kilojoule , so you actually did only 239 Calories worth of work. However, the human body about 24% efficient at turning food energy into mechanical energy and pedal power, while the other 76% is lost as heat. So it actually took you about 4.16 times as many Calories to produce that 239 Calories of work. 239 times 4.16 = 996…basically the number of Kiojoules you did. This is why we typically tell riders that the number of KJ they do during their workout is the same as the number of calories burned. Riders frequently ask me if their body weight makes a difference, and the answer is no. A larger rider can typically put out more watts, and therefore do more kilojoules in a given amount of time. But is still takes a 100lb rider just as many calories to do 150 watts for an hour,as it takes a 200lb rider to do 150 watts for an hour. The only difference is that the larger rider will burn more calories as part of his basal metabolic rate, but he would burn those even if he were sitting at his desk typing on his keyboard, so that doesn’t really count towards his energy expenditure from exercise.
So…. indirect calorimetry is still the most accurate way to measure energy expenditure on the bike, but power meters are definitely the next best thing, and are much more practical for every day use.
All of our bikes at Crank Indoor Cycling are equipped with powertap power meters. At the end of every ride, you can use your console to examine your data and a d find out your energy expenditure. This has obvious implications for weight management, but it is also one of many indicators of fitness. If you are able to do more KJ of work, and burn more calories in a similar workout, you know that your fitness level has increased.
Have any more questions about power measurement or measuring energy expenditure? Feel free to ask questions in the comment section or come to class and ask me afterward!
