My Favorite Bike Gear

My favorite piece of bike gear/equipment is without a doubt my E-Motion Rollers from www.insideride.com

I have had my set for four years and have probably rode 12,000-14,000 miles on them.I think I paid around $700 for my set and it has easily been the best money I have invested in my bike training. The price has gone up since then but it looks like a few options have been offered. Mine are set up next to a work bench in the garage. Dvd player on the work bench, several good fans and a Netflix subsription and you are good to go. No need to use a trainer tire as the rollers cause very little wear on your tires. To ride outside I just pick up the bike and go. Other than wiping them down after a ride I have not had to do any maintenance.


Interval workouts are easy to do and the magnet on the rollers provides smooth steady resistance at several different settings. If you have a Powertap wheel or some other way to measure your effort you can mimic any workout you might try on the road including out of the saddle sprints. I've never fallen off of them and despite having never used rollers before I was riding down on the aerobars within an hour of getting on the rollers.

Another great piece of bike related gear is the Aluminum Quik Rack from 1UPSA. www.1upusa.com/product-quikracksilver.html 

This is a picture of my tri bike mounted on the rack. The only parts of the bike touched by the rack are the tires. The arms pivot up and lock into place on the tires. I will occasionally attach a bungee strap to the bike just for piece of mind if I am traveling a long distance but its not necessary. I've driven 350 miles one way with the bike set up this way with no problems. I'm not sure I would want to have a disc wheel on the bike for traveling as the extra resistance may cause the wind to push the wheel a bit.

The rack is exceptionally well made, easy to install and remove and very secure when mounted in the hitch. I've carried mountain bikes and cruiser bikes securely in the rack without having to make any adjustments.  One of those rare pieces of equipment that work exactly as advertised and allows safe, easy and secure transport of a bike.     

NUMBERS

Hard to believe that January and February are in the books and my first race of the 2013 season is only a few weeks out. Training has been going pretty well. My late 2012 calf problems seem to be resolving and my run is slowly building back up to where it was in November when the calf strain happened.

January:
Swim: 52,650 yards      16 hours 32 minutes
Bike:  381.01 miles       17 hours 56 minutes
Run:   59.18   miles         8 hours 35 minutes

Definitely a swim focus in January. Lots of hard intervals on the trainer for the bike and a slow build on the run.

February:
Swim: 38,200 yards     12 hours 27 minutes
Bike:   452.04 miles     21 hours  8 minutes
Run:      78.37 miles     11 hours 23 minutes

Feel like I have plateaued with the swim after some nice improvement in January. More hard work on the bike with steadily increasing long intervals at 10-15 watts above what will be goal watts for Galveston. This past Saturday was 3X35 minutes at 230+ watts on 5 minutes easy recovery and for next weekend it will be 4X30 minutes. Great workouts to get mentally and physically ready to maintain a hard but sustainable effort through the 56 mile bike. The run is returning but the right calf still is sketchy and will require some ART I'm afraid.  

Hopefully March will be a good month with no setbacks and lots of good training.....as well as more frequent blog posts.