Ontario GP Course

There are generally five or six Ontario races each season, spaced out from February to August. This year it appears three of them are on the "Grand Prix" course, two on the "Crit" course and the remaining one is (I think) on the "Airport" course. The Crit course is just the southern segment of the GP, I've never ridden the Airport. The good thing about this course is that it's much less boring than the typical four-corners-flat we get most of the time. The GP course is south of Ontario Airport, east of Archibald in an industrial park. Plenty of warmup room on the other side off Archibald, parking is adequate.

A warmup lap has always been offered, so do this if you've never ridden the course. You go south 200m from the S/F line to an easy, wide lefthander. The wind is normally in your face between turns one and two, and this seems to be where a lot happens. For one thing, there are usually lots of primes (hint: the Sette minipump is piece of junk, but you may want the Schwalbe tires) so post-prime couterattacks get launched. Experienced riders know that they'd better be reasonably close to the front on the last lap before turn three so I'd say this 450m stretch of pavement is associated with lots of pain. It's a quick run between turns two and three, watch out for the lane dots and a persistent pothole near the middle of the road close to turn three.

I see more pedal-clipping in the exit of turn three than anywhere else on the course so beware. For some reason the 250m run from three to four usually sees the pack slow down and people are already looking for sled-dogs to pull them to the finish line. Not good, since turn four is a little tight in the exit. Three across is okay, but if you're on the wide line look out for getting squeezed into the far curb. The inside line is not much better and there are manhole covers. I've never witnessed a crash at this point, but have seen cleanup from earlier incidents.

So here's the scoop on the last lap. Turn four is one kilometer from the finish. From this point you go up a 1% grade to turn six followed by a 1% downhill to the finish. Mid-race, the run from four to five is usually pretty easy. Near the end, things are getting downright urgent. Speaking from my own variable results, I'd say the inside line on turn five is just a bad idea. If you have to brake, or even coast, you lose  more ground than you can possibly make up later. Spend some energy and carry speed through the following crooked straight. The finish order of this race is usually hammered out between six and seven since someone's always willing to turn it on and just go like hell. Turn seven is a powerful filter. The exit is a nasty little chicane with a half right turn onto the straight.

At this point there's 300m of slight downhill - things happen fast. This is a very wide street, but the far left and right lanes are closed to accommodate spectators and the announcer's booth. Crashes happen, keep your head up and remember it's just a bike race. If I had to say, being slightly to the left is probably safer, since that's the announcer's side and spectator behavior is less predictable.

Friction Bad, Power Good

Finally I've stumbled on something truly amazing. Even my wife, who frequently rolls her eyes at my equipment priorities, agrees that the VCRC ceramic bottom bracket is just freakin' cool! Bear in mind, I've ridden on this apparently friction free BB for fewer than 100 miles but - well DAY-UM! After the missus installed it I spun the crank (with the chain off). That was two days ago and I think if I hadn't stopped the crank myself it might still be going around. She's getting one.

Skeptics will tell you that the amount of drag produced by a crank just isn't enough to matter, but I disagree. Most people who care about such things put the absolute mechanical efficiency of a racing bicycle at around 95%. For what it's worth, here's my opinion based on degrees in engineering and physics, and a lifetime of bicycling. I'd rank the friction penalty of components in the following order: bottom bracket, deraileur pulleys and wheels last. This is not a statement about the importance of the component perse, but rather that manufacturers have actually paid some attention to wheel friction, and not the other factors. Even moderately priced wheels spin pretty freely, but some really pricey cranks don't.

Back in the late 70s an engineering grad student told me that derailleur pulleys were most important (bear in mind, this was in the day of cup-and-ball BBs so they were much slicker than today's sealed models) and the difference could be about five watts or more. Thing is there are fairly cheap ball-bearing jockey pulleys for $10-15 which eliminate most of the friction compared to the ones with bushings. That's the way I've gone, mostly because my wife would surely believe me insane for blowing $80 on derailleur pulleys. I crunched some numbers and concluded that in a 15 second sprint over 800W that every five watts translates to 0.5 meters at the finish line. That's why basically every pro has ceramic bearings in their cranksets and I suspect in other components as well.

MicroShift Redux

Since MicroShift has generated more interest than other things I've blogged about, I'll try to keep current. The shifters still work. There are two real issues: the shifting of the front derailleur and availability of the product itself. These are clearly four position front brifters. So you can trim on both the large and small chainrings. That's good, and it worked at first. Then, to facilitate racing, I asked my my mechanic (AKA my wife) to change it such that trim on the big ring was effectively defeated. During a race it's kind of hard to tell if you're chain is rubbing, you don't want it to, and you REALLY don't want to look down to see if it is. That's all well and good, but now the front derailleurs requires fiddling so it won't rub on the fourth cog from the inside (a combination I'd like to have for racing). Now the bad thing: no matter what is done at this point, there is no way to trim down from the fourth position to the third. It's as if the spacing between the two stops has gotten larger. On the other hand, this is immaterial for me since I can reach the third cog on the cassette from the outside position on the fron derailleur.

Gripe number two, availability. In the USA it appears to be Nashbar only and the cool new components shown on the MicroShift website (Arsis system and MTB stuff) aren't there. In fact, I can't find the Arsis series anywhere. Some UK sites have something they call the MicroShift 2x10 which looks like the Nashbar offering. The MTB stuff appears to be available in Australia, NZ, Malaysia, the UK and South Africa. Usually a product website will point you to either distributers or retailers, no such luck. So bottom line, Nashbar has two versions of the basic 10s. The more expensive one is clearly the SB-R102Band the cheaper one can't be found on the microshift website, but appears to be the same thing only with the large paddle made of plastic rather than forged aluminum. Pricing appears to be random, I've seen the expensive ones marked down to $150 from $200 and the cheaper ones at half price ($100) on occasion. Imagine that, 10s brifters for $100.

I'd have to say these things are a buy at $100. Compare that to over $300 and up for Ultegra SL and so on. Give me a break, who the hell in his right mind lays out $800+ to shift gears? My wife thinks I'm kind of a kook because I'll lay out $100 for a bottom bracket, but try to save money on brifters or derailleurs. I'd argue that this makes sense since the BB is directly in the power transmission sequence and, as long as the shifting works reliably, it's less critical.

As far as the slightly more expensive model is concerned, I may give it a try. A small improvement may be realized from the use of aluminum rather than plastic on the structure which bears the largest load.