I also said I’d try to put together some numbers, so the review was a little less subjective. Today I got around to doing a rollers test I usually do once a month to see how I’m progressing.

The test is basically a pyramid of wattages. I warm up, then do sets of three minutes on, one minute rest, starting at 180 watts and escalating each time by 20 watts to just past my FTP, then back down to 180 again. So, for me, this is 180, 200, 220,  240, 260, 280, 260, 240, 220, 200, 180. Going just past my FTP stretches me a little, and the descending intervals then reveal how I’ve recovered from the big interval.

I did the test this morning in pretty much the same conditions as I did last month’s test – rollers, in my office at home, fan on, relatively rested. For the WKO junkies, my TSB had just gone above zero today, following a big week of training in Majorca.

First off, the subjective stuff. This was the first time I’d ridden on rollers with round rings. And I really noticed it. Much more ‘vroom vroom’ pulsing noise – I was obviously not pedalling as smoothly as I usually do. As the efforts increased, I was also very much aware of how hard it was getting. Not that I didn’t know that from the week riding in Majorca on them anyway.

Bearing in mind I’ve had quite a bit more training load since I last did the test (four weeks ago, exactly) I’d expect some improvement – testing in early Feb, then early March already showed an improvement. So I would expect to see lower heart rates for a given effort now, regardless.

Here are the comparison graphs. The test on the 3rd was done with Q-rings on the bike, and the test done today, the 31st, was done with round rings on the bike. The 260w data has laps 11 and 15 included – they straddle the 280w interval (you’ll probably have to click on the inline image to see the ‘Avg HR’ column, it’s the last one):

Although the difference is quite small, I saw larger differences when comparing three minute windows picked out from rides on the road – and again I’d like to point out I’d expect to be fitter now, four weeks later, anyway.

As Flamme Rouge pointed out, the difference of saving a few beats soon mounts up over the course of hours of riding, and especially over the course of a multi day event – like the Haute Route, which I’m riding in August.

The subjective feeling of a lower RPE and the fact my legs feel better at harder efforts is enough, alone, for me to stick with Q-rings. But factor in the efficiency savings of a lower heart rate too and I’m totally convinced.

I shall be refitting the Q-rings tomorrow.

Before owning them I was skeptical of the benefits, I remember when Shimano brought out their Biopace rings and their subsequent disappearance from the market. They obviously failed for a reason – were, are, manufacturers trying to address something that isn’t really a problem?

In case you’re not aware of Q-rings, Osymetrics or their forebears here’s the lowdown. Ovalized chaninrings are designed to reduce the ‘dead spots’ on a pedal stroke – typically at the bottom and top of the stroke. Maximum power is usually produced by your legs when the crank is at the three o’clock position. Making chainrings oval changes the size of the ‘lever’, helping your legs get through the dead spots faster and with less effort. Rotor have a bunch of studies on their website.

I never considered that my pedal stroke was in dire need of some assistance – I didn’t feel like I was a ‘masher’, so when the opportunity to try the Q-rings came along I did so with skepticism but an open mind.

On the first outing I actually felt like they helped when pedalling hard – for the power meter junkies reading this, when I was working at a wattage pretty much in between my FTP and VO2max the effort felt easier to maintain. A great start.

After a few weeks my pedal stroke started to feel lumpy – there was a noticeable problem with the stroke, so I read the fine manual that came with the Q-rings. A small note on this actually – Rotor make a big deal about starting out on position 3 and giving your legs time to adjust – don’t give up on them too soon. They have a quite comprehensive table of issues, and what position to change the rings to in order to cater for these problems. I would like to stress that they’re not saying this for effect – you really should do precisely what they suggest. My problem turned out to be one listed which had an easy resolution, change to position 4.

As soon as I rotated the rings around to position 4 my stroke felt smooth again. I carried on riding like this throughout last autumn, through the winter and into the early part of this year. Throughout this time I’ve had an ongoing knee problem, which has been diagnosed as tightness in a couple of parts of my body. I should roller my ITB and stretch every day, but I do tend to get a bit lazy with that! Anyway, the problem started to get worse earlier this year, and despite seeing a physio and doing exercises things were not getting any better.

This made me wonder if the Q-rings were to blame, so with a heavy week’s training in Majorca approaching I decided to give round rings a whirl again.

To say the first test ride was astonishing would be an understatement. I realise this is subjective, but immediately I noticed how incredibly lumpy my pedal stroke felt! I could clearly feel the dead spots of the stroke, and the smoothness I had become used to was gone. I decided to remain open minded though, as the test ride was performed with the remains of a hangover – I figured a lot of the sensations in my legs could be down to this.

So the bike was packed, and off to Majorca I went.

The lumpy stroke sensation was not down to the hangover – I noticed it immediately when riding. And what’s more, after a decent 100km ride the inner part of my quads were screaming! Evidently the Qrings used muscles differently to round rings.

As the week progressed and I managed to get some good climbs in I decided to look over the collected data, to see if I could actually quantify the sensations I was having.

A small warning: what follows is far from scientific data!

Before heading out to the training camp I had done a pyramid test on rollers at home, with the Q-rings still on the bike. Using the wattages and corresponding heart rates from this test I tried to compare similar efforts performed whilst on the road in Majorca. Here’s the first glaringly obvious difference – inside on rollers versus outside on the road. But, over a few days, on various climbs and during differing efforts one thing became very clear – for a given wattage my heart rate was always higher on the round rings.

The knee problem hasn’t really changed – although I must admit that with the load performed on the training camp I would ordinarily expect more discomfort in my knee, so maybe that inner quad pain generated whilst using the round rings has started to strengthen the muscle I should be working on with exercises set by my physio. There is a possibility that the Q-rings aren’t helping me in this area – but I feel that the difference in knee pain is so minimal that it’s not enough to make me want to remain on round rings.

To properly quantify the power/heart rate difference I should perform an identical test on rollers at home – and maybe later this week I will. But my initial feeling is that Q-rings have benefits that I don’t want to give up – a smoother pedal stroke and lower heart rate for a given power output.

I don’t doubt that they won’t suit everybody. But I know this for sure – I am going straight back to riding Q-rings.

Addition: Since writing this I’ve discovered this great write up from Flamme Rouge. It’s worth a read.

Looks much harder than last year! Demon stage 3, followed by a time trial up Alpe d’Huez the day after. I fear the Tuesday will be a ‘sandbagging’ day.

Heart rate was noticeably higher for a given effort, but looking at the stats in WKO the drift wasn’t substantial – fitness not totally down the pan then.

The plan was, is, to start bagging the steady stuff now, October, to be in a race ready state much earlier next year.

Just got back from a smashing holiday in Italy with the wife – no riding, just a chilled out week reading, eating, and drinking.

And that’s where I got it wrong.

I have a cold. Haven’t been ill since my epic run of lurgies earlier this year – think I’ve managed to get from February until now without catching anything. It tried to start last week whilst we were away, but didn’t really brew. Then it came back again after the flight home. And now it’s a full on miserable cold.

Oh well. Training will have to start next week now.

After all, who wouldn’t want to do a seven day sportive in the Alps? (one could also probably ask, who would want to do it). To be honest, the only reason I didn’t enter this year was because all the premium accommodation had already been sold. Sorry, I’m not being snobbish here, but seven days, in the mountains, and shared sleeping arrangements?! I’ll confess to being a wee bit precious about my sleep, and sometimes feel like my cycling performance can be drained by a bad night’s sleep.

No, for me, it’s got to be a comfy bed.

So when the organisers tweeted a competition for entry to the 2012 event, I, of course, entered.

A few days ago I found out I’d won!

I like the way they think I’m training already. Ha! The only training I’m doing at the moment is drinking and eating cake.

Can’t wait for the 2012 event details to be published, this will really motivate me to get some good training in over the winter.

This year I’ve experienced a couple of ‘niggles’ with my beloved bicycle, which have required help from Parlee themselves to sort out. One can always moan and whine about problems, but I find the mark of a company is how it deals with issues – I can stay perfectly calm when things are going wrong, as long as the party at fault deals with the issue well.

Earlier in the year I was experiencing some poor gear shifting on my bike. As a capable spanner man I’d built the machine myself, and subsequently managed to keep the gear shifting perfectly smooth. I struggled to get it working right this time, but had to get on it and go anyway as I was late for a group ride.

Once the ride was finished, I asked the organisers of the trip (we were in Majorca, on a training camp) if they had a bit of oil I could borrow. “What’s the problem?” asks Mark. “Gear shift, awful, can’t get it to play ball at all”. “Want us to take a look over night?”. “Sure”, says me, “that’d be fantastic”.

Next morning, Mark finds me at breakfast.

“You want the bad news or the good news first?”

“Go on then, give me the good news”

“Nowt wrong with your gears”

“Oh, really? What’s the bad news then?”

“Your frame is coming unglued”.

It turned out the seat stays were indeed pulling out of the Ti dropouts.

I emailed Parlee and Bespoke, the UK distributor. This was a Sunday afternoon. Barry from Bespoke replied within 10 minutes. Tom Rodi from Parlee responded by early evening.

Tom was, as ever, calm and helpful in his reply. He accepted that this was a very rare occurrence, but occur it could. He accepted full responsibility and said the issue would be dealt with under warranty at no cost to me.

The Z2 went back to the US on my return, was duly repaired, and even came back with fresh lacquer on the chainstay where an off had scratched it. Superb service – I was pleased with the way the issue was handled.

Fast forward six months, and I’m preparing the bike for another sojourn. The front mech hanger is a band of carbon, and can be prone to gentle stretching over time – which causes the mech to drift down towards the chainrings. This had been happening increasingly, and it was getting difficult to get the mech to stay in place.

I was busy trying to get it fixed and aligned, which meant doing up the bolt and undoing again to move the band alignment. A task I repeated three times, only for the hellish scenario of the bolt head shearing off on the third attempt.

After swearing, quite a bit, I vented a little frustration to twitter. Within a couple of hours Parlee (Tom Rodi, again) had sent me a message asking for an email first thing on the following Monday with the story of what had happened.

Monday came around, on my holiday with another bike. I mailed Tom, explaining what had occurred, and asked if he had any advice for removing the sheared bolt from my Super Record mech.

Tom replied, almost immediately, and [I'm sure he won't mind me quoting this] opened his mail with “Aww man, that sucks“. He then went on to say the supplied bolt should handle more torque than I was applying, and offered to send me a new mech hanger band and a new mech!

Two weeks later and a parcel arrives from Parlee – one new hanger, and one brand new Campagnolo Super Record mech.

Shit happens in life, that’s a fact we can’t change. But the way things are dealt with is important. I don’t begrudge Parlee for the problems I’ve experienced – in fact, my brand loyalty is stronger than ever. Tom Rodi is one of the nicest and most helpful people I know.

If you’re considering buying a bespoke, carbon, bicycle frame then I can still give no higher praise to Parlee Cycles – for pre sales, and post sales service.

Lincoln GP 2011 – Rapha Condor Sharp – Chasing the Team from Condor Cycles on Vimeo.

Bloody hell that was hard.

I’d not raced at Hog Hill before. I’ve ridden around the top portion of the circuit when I was testing a Parlee and a Viner, but didn’t get to check out the bottom portion of the track or try out the infamous ‘Hoggenberg’ climb.

I’d heard the climb was short but steep – 10% at it’s worst – and generally in a one hour race you hit this 20 times. Pretty nasty interval training.

The first lap was pretty steady, not at all like the ballistic-from-the-off start of racing Palace. But lap two soon saw the pace lift, and lap three was the fastest of the whole race.

Making the effort to keep my nose out of the wind (it was really windy there tonight!) but stay in the top 10-20 riders I found pretty easy, but hitting nearly 600w every time up the climb was a killer. About half way through I did wonder if I was going to be able to tolerate it – then, just like Palace, it calmed a little as everyone started to tire just like I was.

On the last lap I had to really hit the downhill hard to get my placing back, as I’d slipped quite a bit after the climb. Around the right hander at the bottom I took a lot of places back on the outside, and shouting at the man in front that I was on his left didn’t seem to make a lot of difference to the line he took (that’s racing, isn’t it?) and I was forced off the track. Cue a 55kph bit of cyclocross racing. Back onto the track, having lost a fair few places, with adrenaline surging I sprinted to gain my placing again.

By the time we reached the climb for the final time I was in the middle of the pack – now a twitchy blob of knackered racers. Shouting. A few swerves. The sprint started. I got out of the saddle and started to pick my way through the mêlée but by the time I could see space on the tarmac I could also see the top ten was decided. I gave up pushing through and sat back down for the finish.

29th. Happy to finish, but recognise I’ve still a lot of work to do on my fitness.