Power

Have you seen the video news available on Velonews? Some are very interesting. I would recommend the bicycle fitting videos for Cesar Grajales with Todd Carver and Andy Pruitt at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine. Good stuff. Pruitt is just as obnoxious as he comes across in the Specialized literature, however the fit process they go through is informative, although you may not agree with it.

Anyone who pays any attention to how films are made will recognise the computer mapping of the body in order to measure things objectively (rather than by hairy eyeball) and assess the biomechanical position of the rider. But it is still fascinating. One can't help but wonder about one's own position-afterall don't we all secretly believe we are thwarted world class riders? You may very well just have to fit that new, in-line post afterall...

The other video that is of great interest is the interview with Allen Lim (for his extensive bio see the link). His relationship with Floyd Landis is well known: he describes himself as Floyd Landis' number puncher. His main area of interest seems to be power output, and its measurement and use for training. Some of the numbers discussed are a little easy to gloss over (during the stage to Morzine, Floyd put out 281 watts for 5 hours...do a little poking around and find out what an average athlete's power output is and you may just be as surprised as I was.) but he is clearly animated, intelligent and his thoughts may well be useful to those looking to train more seriously.

See Velonews here.