Road Cycling

One More Solo · 28 Feb 2019 at 15:31

In gear efficiency is noticeably improved?

Bold claim!

Jonny ///M · 28 Feb 2019 at 15:45

I could believe that to a degree, unless it was changed with a new chain/cassette which would show a bigger benefit.

I've patched the idea of going out again tonight, too cold now and my legs are sore from doing a 3 hour walk up Tinto hill to 2300ft yesterday after 60 miles on the bike.

Steak and beers it is

XE11 · 1 Mar 2019 at 06:41

One More Solo said:
In gear efficiency is noticeably improved? Bold claim!

i actually suspect most of it came from weaker spring in the RD cage... but no way to tell as the J&L pre-drilled holes for the spring dont allow tension to be any where near stock 6800.

Jonny ///M said:
I could believe that to a degree, unless it was changed with a new chain/cassette which would show a bigger benefit.

I've patched the idea of going out again tonight, too cold now and my legs are sore from doing a 3 hour walk up Tinto hill to 2300ft yesterday after 60 miles on the bike.

Steak and beers it is

nope. everything else was as before. didnt even de-greased/re-lube after the modification (not for at least first 50 miles). the chain was always too long on that bike, so i didnt even change the chain.

the feeling is weird at first, it almost feels like something went wrong with the drive train and it skips to the next bigger cog. also you can feel there is something missing where normally should be some tension/resistance. i remeber the first few rides, i keep have to look down to see if my chain is dropped because i cant feel the resistance level that i am used to. but as i said, shifting is really bad lol. i now have this on my commuter and i dont bother change gear. just stick it in the 6th cog and change the front rings instead.

Roady · 1 Mar 2019 at 09:17

XE11 said:
the feeling is weird at first, it almost feels like something went wrong with the drive train and it skips to the next bigger cog. also you can feel there is something missing where normally should be some tension/resistance. i remeber the first few rides, i keep have to look down to see if my chain is dropped because i cant feel the resistance level that i am used to. but as i said, shifting is really bad lol.

XE11 said:
i went to cheapskate route and got the J&L oversized cage/pulley wheels set from ebay

Say no more and probably explains why it's so poor - cheap knockoff! Rather than the optimised/extensively tested Ceramicspeed. To be fair that might be overly harsh on J&L, but your experience would suggest so? If oversized was such a saving on watts we'd see all of the pro-teams on them. Much of them ride ceramicspeed BB's which have even less watt savings.

To be fair it just sounds like the/your J&L needs a tighter spring?! Asked them if they do a spring upgrade?

Although good note about the upper pulley wheel sizing. Although you probably can't just swap that out for a smaller one due to the much bigger cages?

touch · 1 Mar 2019 at 09:44

XE11 said:
the feeling is weird at first, it almost feels like something went wrong with the drive train and it skips to the next bigger cog. also you can feel there is something missing where normally should be some tension/resistance. i remeber the first few rides, i keep have to look down to see if my chain is dropped because i cant feel the resistance level that i am used to. but as i said, shifting is really bad lol. i now have this on my commuter and i dont bother change gear. just stick it in the 6th cog and change the front rings instead.

Could have been a problem with your previous ultegra setup? CeramicSpeed's own published test results show that the improvement from standard Ultegra jockey wheels to CeramicSpeed jockey wheels is 0.5watts. I've never tried them but I cant imagine 0.5 watts would be a noticeable difference to me.
But if you notice a difference, then it was a worthwhile upgrade.

Roady · 1 Mar 2019 at 10:51

He was saying the shifting was poor, the feeling of a slack chain, not the feeling of watt savings!

I figure due to the slacker spring the arm isn't pulling that much on the chain so feels like the chain being dropped with the arm moving with any increase in tension on the chain. Also the sloppy shifting/jumping/skipping. Like a bad index.

touch · 1 Mar 2019 at 11:39

Roady said:
He was saying the shifting was poor, the feeling of a slack chain, not the feeling of watt savings!

He said it was a worthy upgrade despite the poor shifting due to the noticeable improvement in efficiency. I think the "lack of tension/resistance" he mentioned on the chain refers to this efficiency.

it's worthy upgrade in most situation but if you are picky about the shifting quality, you may want to avoid it. in-gear efficiency is noticebly improved

I'm just surprised that it's noticeable but if he does notice the difference then I'd agree with him that it's a worthy upgrade.

XE11 · 1 Mar 2019 at 13:16

not sure if im suggesting something dangerous here, but may be to test it out, just take out the spring out of a regular RD/cage. obivously stick it in the 5-6th cog. then do a short ride without changing the back gear.

im not ruling out that the bike was in worn state before the upgrade. it was clean but also seen quite a few miles before i bought it. Before i changed the cage, i didnt feel it was any worse than my other bike however.

i dont have a power meter so i cant provide any hard data to support my claim. i just feel i am more efficient with it and you guys may very well be right all im feeling is the slacked chain lol.

Roady · 1 Mar 2019 at 14:14

It's a minor upgrade to chain efficiency in certain situations. Questionable amount for general type of riding on fairly standard previous worn components, but it is a change so feels 'faster'.

Most of it is probably placebo effect. But much like riding a bike that looks fast - makes you ride faster!

kiteloopy · 1 Mar 2019 at 16:46

Roady said:
Most of it is probably placebo effect. But much like riding a bike that looks fast - makes you ride faster!

naaa...that's the truth!

SoliD · 1 Mar 2019 at 18:15

My oversize on the tt bike runs absolutely fine. So think may just be your install, on mine it had 3 spring tension settings and advised to adjust the chain accordingly. Vaguely remember it saying to have it so the chain was properly tight.

Jonny ///M · 1 Mar 2019 at 23:12

Yeah that sounds like an install problem or a seized b pivot to me.

Usually you just spin the cage to tension it then screw the little grub screw stop in to hold it taught

Berger · 2 Mar 2019 at 11:10

https://www.velonews.com/2019/02/bi...reduce-your-bikes-friction-on-a-budget_483489

Worth a listen with the guy from Ceramic Speed.

Basically clean chain, use a wax based lube (three are mentioned not just theirs).

Ceramic bearings in the wheels make more difference than the BB.

Jonny ///M · 3 Mar 2019 at 14:54

Tough ride yesterday, just dug deep and held on to the two strongest guys there and I turned round at one point and it was just the 3 of us.

Group of 4 or 5 caught back on due to us having to slow up behind a tractor.

Come the finish it was really 3 of us again with me having given a guy a lead out up to 46mph.

Even worse day today, scratch group for a reliability with a who's who of local racers as far as i could see.

Soon as we left the car park it was 28mph average for over 10 minutes, by the time we turned at Stirling 26mph average but we turned into a solid headwind.

Fighting for wheels all over the shop and hearing folk say it was 500w on the front to do 20-22mph.

I was feeling it mid bunch with a group hanging on behind me, couldn't get any shelter at all as the guy infront was riding on gravel so thought I'd move up the line and get shelter when the next guy came through.

Nope! He flew through about 4 bike lengths. Next thing there's a line of good ***** attacking up the left side.

Got back on but was burst a bit having been riding like / against the crosswind.

Hard as ****. Went from about 23.5mph average to whatever it is by the time i got back.

https://strava.app.link/NnYigs94KU

XE11 · 4 Mar 2019 at 07:42

SoliD said:
My oversize on the tt bike runs absolutely fine. So think may just be your install, on mine it had 3 spring tension settings and advised to adjust the chain accordingly. Vaguely remember it saying to have it so the chain was properly tight.

what cassette are you running? im on the "highest" tension already but still feel pretty weak.

Berger said:
https://www.velonews.com/2019/02/bi...reduce-your-bikes-friction-on-a-budget_483489

Worth a listen with the guy from Ceramic Speed.

Basically clean chain, use a wax based lube (three are mentioned not just theirs).

Ceramic bearings in the wheels make more difference than the BB.

thanks. will have a listen. Cheers.

SoliD · 4 Mar 2019 at 09:54

XE11 said:
what cassette are you running? im on the "highest" tension already but still feel pretty weak.

thanks. will have a listen. Cheers.

11-25

#Chri5# · 5 Mar 2019 at 10:26

I've been targeting some gradual weight loss to hopefully improve my climbing, so I weigh myself each week (usually a Tuesday morning before getting dressed). Puzzles / bemuses me half the time - February went 83kg > 84.2kg> 82.6kg > 84kg which can be frustrating when you're digging hard during turbo sessions.

Then this morning I see 81.1kg. WTF?! Still, I was 88.5kg last June so I've more than offset the extra 200g of weight by going for DT 350 hubs (rather than 240s) in my best wheels

FishFluff · 5 Mar 2019 at 12:39

#Chri5# said:
I've been targeting some gradual weight loss to hopefully improve my climbing, so I weigh myself each week (usually a Tuesday morning before getting dressed). Puzzles / bemuses me half the time - February went 83kg > 84.2kg> 82.6kg > 84kg which can be frustrating when you're digging hard during turbo sessions.

I've always prefered a daily weigh-in using the same variables (pre-breakfast, post-morning wee). You'll get smaller fluctuations and then get a more accurate average trend line. For instance I've found out that for some reason I always lose weight consistently through Tue-Sat and then it increases on Sun/Mon. I'm also trying to lose weight at the moment and am struggling to get the balance right between eating enough to fuel recovery and maintaining a calorie deficit. Generally I do OK on days when I'm training, it's the recovery days that I want to stuff my face!

merlin · 5 Mar 2019 at 13:23

Water retention will mess with your numbers big time, water retention will fluctuate on all sorts of things - like being stressed, sleeping less, viral illnesses etc.

UTmaniac · 5 Mar 2019 at 15:03

I've recently started doing more frequent sub 2min power intervals and it seems to be helping me lose some weight, gone from ~80.7Kg to ~79.2Kg over the last few weeks... I'm pretty sure it's not through eating less!