Time Trial / Time Trialling / TT

Oh but they're better for 'recovery'. cough bullshit cough

Or even worse due to "smoothness" as mentioned at the end of the 1st para here:

Cyclists participating in the present study were accustomed to ride with circular rings and thus their cycling positions as well as other biomechanical parameters were optimized according to such conventional chainring design (Neptune and Herzog, 2000). When changing from C-rings to Q-rings, the oval chainring design might alter the usual pattern of force application, which may induce changes in the biomechanical patterns of cyclists. In theory, such changes could increase the associated metabolic cost, most likely due to the recruitment of different muscle fibres. However, we found similar levels of lactate production and oxygen consumption for both chainring designs. A possible explanation is that the particular design of the Q-rings not only optimizes the way the force is exerted throughout a crank cycle, but it also makes power delivery through the duty cycle more continuous. Importantly, all the cyclists participating in the experiments reported that pedalling with the Q-rings was “smoother”. Thus, it might be hypothesized that the “smoother” pedal action associated with the Q-rings would bring about energy savings that would compensate for the supposed muscular disadvantage (change in biomechanical pattern) associated with this design. In this connection, it should be mentioned that, while the smooth pedalling of the Q-rings may be theoretically ideal, from a physiological point of view it may be beneficial to reduce pedal force during sections of the pedal stroke to allow localized recovery and reduce pressure to allow blood flow to the muscle, especially at high exercise intensities.

In our protocol, fatigue was assessed directly through measurements of maximal isometric force and also indirectly by the average amplitude of the EMG signal (Vollestad, 1997). It was found that the changes in force between the isometric contractions performed before and after the incremental test were comparable for Q-rings and C-rings (Table 4), which suggests that the same fatigue was experienced under both chainring conditions. Similarly, the decline in EMG produced by the fatiguing incremental test was comparable for Q-rings and C-rings (Table 5), thereby reinforcing the view that circular and non-circular rings result in similar fatigue.

It must be mentioned that, for the incremental maximal test, the maximal power production values were higher for Q-rings than for C-rings (371 ± 30 vs. 355 ± 29 W, respectively), and that, for each of the subsequent short sprints, power values were 2.5–6.5% greater for the Q-rings. Interestingly, the extent of the improvements with the Q-rings found here resembled those obtained by other authors using the Rotor system (Rodríguez-Marroyo et al., 2009). Thus, **although the differences in physiological variables between circular and non-circular chainrings did not reach statistical significance, the possibility that Q-rings result in slight improvement during on-road cycling performance cannot be excluded. **Thus, whether or not the oval Q-rings could induce any improvement in time trial performance remains to be elucidated (Peiffer and Abbiss, 2010). Indeed, the determinants of performance in an individual time trial are more complex and the experimental protocol followed in the present study did not allow conclusions to be drawn in this direction (Abbiss and Laursen, 2005; De Koning et al., 1999).

It's strange riders find them best for TTs and long, smooth climbs whilst this seems to suggest any benefit would be most likely in a sprint.

It's strange riders find them best for TTs and long, smooth climbs whilst this seems to suggest any benefit would be most likely in a sprint.

They 'feel' best when applying smooth, relatively high, power. But they seem to perform best when out of the saddle and pumping the pedals.

Osymmetrics and Q-rings feel totally different too. Q-rings feel a little bit odd for quite some time. Then you dont notice them. Osymmetric feel very odd for 15mins then you get used to them. Q-rings make it seasier to push through the dead spots, while Osymmetrics seem to simply accelerate you past it.

I have terrible climbing ability, and am rubbish at getting the power in my legs to the tarmac in a sprint. So my fondness of using the Osymmetrics this year, has very little to do with why a pro may use them (well its mainly curiousity). But these area are definitely where (I think) I feel the benefit.

are decals on a Bell Javelin removable?

They're an absolute pain in the arse to do, but yes they are. I scraped the front one off with a knife, and used nail polish remover with lots of elbow grease for the side ones. If you've got pure acetone I'd imagine it would make the job quite a bit easier.

The logo on the front is vinyl, and should peel off easily. The ones on the ear flaps are printed; they scratch off quite easily, but it will be time consuming.

The front one is vinyl, but doesn't peel off like regular vinyl. There's still lots of little bits of it stuck in my carpet.

I'm thinking of the pink on the tail of the only ones that still seem to be available for my 59cm head for under £100...

Embrace your inner girlie

Rattlecan it

^^ black and yellow club kit with a pink top, ok...

^ what about the weight!? What would dammit say?!

Post a wanted on TTforum. Someone will have one spare.

Or just get a permanent marker.

http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=89655

Ta, have just signed up to be able to send a message to ask about it/arrange collection, but have to wait till the admin has approved my membership.

I can ping him a dibs if you'd like

If you could that would be great.

.

bear in mind that the Javelin comes up pretty big (in my experience anyway).
I had a medium one and it was too big for me (57cm)

Yeah I'm normally a medium but small Javelin fits very nicely. Sent him a PM.

If I can fit into a large Javelin, they must be pretty huge.

Mersey Roads 24hr kicks off for me in 3 hours.

shits bricks

Only just looked at the CTT site

**518.37

**Bloody Hell!

3rd longest distance ever recorded in a 24hr

just only seen this. mental! well done hippy, hope you've recovered now.

Hippy smash it? Nice one.

Was from last year.
Still getting my head around 21mph average for 24hrs though.
Nuts.

RTTC 24hr is 21st June

Charlotteville 50 tomorrow if anyone else is doing it, going to be a right barrel of laughs in this wind. 104" for me

Xav