Friday, September 23, 2011

How Your Catch Should Feel To You

Feel For The Water! Advice & Tips to Improve Your Swimming.: How Your Catch Should Feel To You

Good article for where I am with my swimming now. I am getting better about keeping my elbows up, but I am probably trying to 'brute force' the pull too much. As always, more practice!

Darren

Monday, September 5, 2011

The Ride of FrankenBike

We have several sets of aerobars lying around the garage, mostly from Donna trying to get the right set on her bike... that got me to thinking. I have already converted my road bike pretty close to tri geometry with Profile Design Carbon Stryke bars and a new seatpost to move the seat forward... why not try to install a set of real aerobars? So I gave it a shot. First I tried her original base bar with my Carbon Stryke bars... that seemed ok so I switched it all to this set of Vision bars. I even got to run the brake cables internally, even though there is a pretty tight bend coming out of the shifter.
From Darren's Fitness Quest
From Darren's Fitness Quest

No, road shifters were not intended to mount that way... but hey, I tried it out today and it DID work!

It was VERY windy here today. We have a 'Red Flag' warning even: * WIND...NORTH 15 TO 25 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 30 MPH. I rode my usual 'one hour' loop, and averaged just a little less than my 'normal' time, even with the wind. It seemed easier to reach higher speeds, and my lower speeds into full headwind were not as low as usual. I am calling this a success!

The shifter mounting was temporary to try it out, I will be ordering regular bar end shifters and brakes now, to clean up FrankenBike a little! :)

Darren