Fi'zi:k and my money

Sometimes it's ok to just be really really good at one thing.

There is no other saddle quite like an Arione. From crits to centuries to cross, nothing comes close. It's so good, in fact, that I keep trusting Fi'zi:k with my money. Which is super frustrating because literally every other thing they make has turned out to be a disappointment.

I've gone through something like 4 Ariones on my race bike. It came with one, I loved it, and when it got as scalloped as a European horse saddle I bought another. And another And another. The one on the bike right now has close to 14,000 miles on it, and is in desperate need of replacement. More on that later.

On that success I've tried their bar tape. My commuter kept unwinding its 2.5mm LizardSkins tape, so I went with a cotton-backed roll of Fi'zi:k, and it was probably the worst tape I've ever used. The edges were razor sharp and the color was dull & duller. The feel was so bad it made me stop enjoying my commute to work, and with absolutely no damping it transferred all the road buzz straight into my hands. I left it on far too long before going back to the LizardSkins, unravelling-be-damned.

Since that was just one experience I tried replacing my road bike's saddle with their fancy new Vento Argo saddle last year. They look cool and seem to match the recent trends in saddle shape, plus I really don't move around a whole lot during a ride, so it made sense. And that saddle was absolutely amazing in terms of fit, feel, and even power-transfer...for about an hour. After that it felt like it was splitting me in two. Back to the worn-out Arione, and no more long-range discomfort.

I have a Mistica saddle on the TT bike, but as I have nothing to compare that to, I'll just say it's an "experience" to use, rather like sitting atop a perpendicular knife edge.

So you'd think that after consistent failures at 2 contact points I'd maybe not look to Fi'zi:k for shoes, but their new Vento Infinito's were so universally exalted that I figured I'd roll the dice.

Fi'zi:k Fi'zi:ked Fi'zi:kly, and now I have brand new shoes that I literally cannot wear.

To be clear, they felt amazing out of the box. I'd measured my feet 6 ways to Sunday to make sure I got the right size for me, and everything indicated these shoes would transform my life. I wore them on carpet for 30 minutes before committing to mounting the cleats, and took painstaking effort to match the cleat position to my old (5 years, 30K+ miles!) Garneau shoes.

The briefest of Zwift spins suggested it was pretty spot-on, so I confidently reached for them for a 40-mile road ride the next day. I knew I was in for yet another "experience" before I even made it out of the driveway.

Fi'zi:k is rather proud of the stiffness of this shoe. If that's the metric for success, then they should be proud, indeed. Every pebble, every undulation in the pavement, every everything is transferred directly into your foot. Raw and undiluted, like stepping on a LEGO brick. I found myself checking over and over again to see if I'd flatted the rear tire.

After 10 miles or so I kinda started to get used to that, though big bumps were still grabbing my attention, and I started to become aware of how well the shoes are ventilated. A plus after years of steamy stinky feet.

We were rolling hard for the first 30 miles, barely taking a moment to breathe, but when we did stop at mile 30, something happened with my left foot, and for the rest of the ride it felt like someone had jammed a stick into the top of the shoe.

It was excruciating and unrelenting. I tried loosening the upper BOA: no change. Now the bumps didn't just hurt the bottom of my foot, they were so painful that I found myself stepping out of the left pedal. I honestly though I'd broken a metatarsal, and I briefly considered calling for help.

I waited a day before trying them on again, but couldn't even cinch them up without experiencing that same pain. Turns out the upper BOA's base-plate presses very slightly into the shoe, so slightly you can only barely feel it with your fingers, but in exactly the most sensitive spot on the top of my foot, right where an artery passes.

And now, like I said, I can't even put them on.

Fi'zi:k makes a fantastic aftermarket saddle in the Arione, but their desire to be represented across the rest of the cycling world is maybe a bit of a stretch, because literally everything else I've bought from them--including used OE Arione's, which for some reason consistently measure 7mm narrower than even the regular model--has been a disaster.

My trainer and a 1991 Miata have exactly the wrong thing in common

Won't you join me for a brief journey into industrial design?

You may recall that I bought a "new" trainer a couple months ago: a CycleOps Hammer H2 from the "garage sale" section at REI. In every way it's been an improvement, save for the ~10% power discrepancy, but that's been solvable by just using the on-bike PM's.

It even turns out to be relatively future-proof, with end-caps for easy conversion to 12mm thru-axle support, and even an available XDR freehub conversion.

But what it is not, evidently, is an exercise in good industrial design.

Yesterday I jumped on the trainer for just a short recovery ride and was instantly greeted to neat-o grinding noises. And that's when my afternoon turned into a pile of tools and mild panic.

Distinctly NOT what a quick recovery session should look like

A quick inspection of the outer shell revealed that I was going to need some non-standard bike tools, namely some big Torx bits and FOR SOME UNGODLY REASON a 1/8" allen key: exactly the sort of tool every cyclist with a set of metric hex tools has lying around. Fortunately I found mine before rounding off any of the bolts with the so-close 3mm NORMAL bit. Anyway...

I had a sense that things had gone poorly inside the unit when I saw the molten plastic through the side:

That's not licorice gum

But what I did find inside surprised me. Of all the things in the world from which to draw design inspiration, I would never have expected to see a resemblance to a 1991 Mazda Miata's crank nose, and yet:

Woodruff keys and all. Did we learn nothing the first time with this design?Anyway, this is almost exactly how I first found it, and you might notice that something is missing. Something, say, to hold that pulley and woodruff key in place.

Something like a bolt. Maybe this bolt, melted into the plastic housing:

And along with that melty bolt, a rather tidy shaved detente for that pulley. Notice what else isn't there? Thread locker. Like maybe this thread locker, that they thought to apply liberally to all of the external housing bolts:

So let's fix that and put things back together nice & tidy, shall we?

And once that was done, a quick clean out of all that burnt up plastic:

So the good news is there doesn't appear to have been any significant damage. Once again I seem to have gotten lucky in both timing and the availability of tools on-hand. Had this happened in a race, for instance, I either would have kept riding until it detonated or have lost 45 minutes to the repair.

The less-than-great news is that this piece is clearly under-designed. The bolts for the plastic housing are beefier than this critical bolt that literally attaches the flywheel to the drive-unit. While torque applied to the trainer should, in theory, run in the same rotational direction that tightens the bolt, if it DOES come loose, even slightly, its impact into the housing will cause it to instantly back out completely, which is clearly exactly what happened.

The housing actually created a phillips head driver of molten plastic to facilitate removing the bolt.

After getting it all back together, I hopped on and knocked out a short ride, but now my power meter wouldn't pair, and wouldn't ya know this was the first time the unit reported power numbers that jibed with what my heart-rate suggested. I look forward to re-doing my power test on the trainer now that it's actaually assembled correctly.

The end is the beginning: Monstercross '21

 Yadda yadda "these difficult times", but if you'd told me I'd start my 2021 season with the last race I did in 2020, I'd have had to assume there was some MASSIVE injury involved that took a full year's recovery. But that is exactly what happened, and in a way it felt like closing a loop. I truly cannot think of a better way to have started my outdoor racing season this year than to resume exactly where it stopped last year.

This was my 4th crack at the monster, a race that, while I'd finished twice before, I never felt like I had a clean run. The first time I did it on a poorly-adapted road bike and quit after a lap. The 2nd time we had to stop for 30+ minutes in the steamy sun for a medi-vac helicopter. The 3rd time my fueling strategy failed so badly I had to walk most of the last mile.

This time would be different. This time I would stay hydrated. I would eat. I would pace myself better. All lofty goals, but I did help myself by parking the car on the course so I could swap water bottles mid-race. That meant there was no need for the Camelbak. And it was going to be in the 60's & 70's (benefit of April over February!), so I could wear a roadsuit with pockets instead of a skinsuit without, which in turn meant easier access to food.

So with food and hydration plans in order, I was able to set bonus goals: sub-3 hours. With COVID restrictions in place, riders would start in waves of no-more-than 50, so I was hopeful to not blow myself up chasing toward the front of a 700-strong peloton in the first 10 miles, but would be able to find a steady group to roll fast. This course is very much fast enough for drafting, so going solo would definitely be the hardest way to try to crack 3 hours.

But my group was fast and furious out of the gate, and by the time we hit 2.5 miles (of 50!), I was in deep trouble. My heart rate was deep into zone 5 (of 5!), which wasn't going to scale. And so I got off the gas and was dropped in the 3rd mile. Wow. The race seemed like it was already a wasted effort with only 5% of it done.

But I didn't just stop. I got my heart and my pacing under control and pressed on, hard but not too hard, and within a couple miles I was in a pretty steady cat & mouse with a couple other riders, and by mile 7 it was just two of us: he was faster on flats and descents, I was faster on climbs. We'd gap each other off by 50 - 75 yards and always come right back together when the terrain changed. And we did that for another 18 miles, occasionally reeling in another rider or two, and only being passed once. Suddenly what felt like a ruined race started to feel like it might work out, because our average pace was above what I needed to make 3 hours.

And then he broke his bike, and I nearly crashed on the next turn without a line to follow.

Help came 30 seconds later in the form of a charging group of 4, and I settled into their group to the end of the first lap, stopping briefly at my car to swap water bottles and chase back on. And I stayed in that group, doing an awful lot of work in the wind, for another 5 miles before realizing that I'd suckered myself into working for other people again. I was running out of steam, and it occurred to me that I hadn't eaten any of the food I'd stuffed into my jersey.

Easy to solve, except my hands were so numb I couldn't even find my pockets. My hands always go numb when I spend too long near the limits. So once again I sat up and let myself get dropped. I had time in the bank to meet my goal, needed to eat, and needed to refocus on racing "my" race. I stuffed my face with as much food as I could choke down and forced myself to slow-roll for a couple minutes before settling back into a moderate chug.

I didn't see another rider for the next 45 minutes.

It's a mighty weird feeling to roll 11 miles in a race completely by yourself, like you've slipped out of time and gotten wedged between realities. Deep into a race like Monstercross, the only way to focus on NOT PAIN is by chasing other riders or striking up conversations about how "fun" this is. Without that, and with the sun beating down on your loneliness, it's tough to stay focused. Everything hurts and it all feels incredibly pointless.

But I reminded myself that it was basically a 50-mile dirt time trial and that I'd passed a lot of folks, and nobody was passing me, and that meant I was still racing. And I was still racing the clock, but starting to lose time. My once-impressive pace of almost 18 mph had slowed to barely 15, and it was time to pick it up.

And on the north side of the reservoir on the 2nd lap, with less than 10 miles to go, I knew I could make it to the end. My pace picked back up and I pushed past a few more riders into the final segment, taking a few seconds off my first lap's final mile.

My finish was incredibly anti-climactic, as a minivan and several walkers were effectively blocking the road to the finish line, but I rolled across the line with the race clock showing 2:55 and change, and an official chip time of 2:49:54. I'd met my goal of going sub-3, nothing had broken, and while my whole body was on fire, I was able to dismount without falling off the bike and didn't even have a saddlesore.

I'd held my heart rate in zone 4 for almost exactly 2 hours, with less than 8 minutes in zone 5, which was night & day from last year's 45 minutes of murder-death before I completely imploded. I'd consumed much more water than last year, although that really only amounted to a little over a single bottle. I'd eaten. In so many ways it had been perfect.

But.

I came in 8th of 37 for my class (Men 40+), and while that was my best result ever, I unintentionally hamstrung myself by not racing the Men's Open category, where my time would have been good enough for 5th of 37. But for a category change I would have been on the deep podium.

And while I did crack the 3-hour mark, the course had been rerouted to avoid the campground, taking 1.4 miles off each lap. Had we gone the full distance (and applying the same speed), that would have translated to 3:00:25.

So I have work to do. My yoyo-ing on the first lap showed me that I can make up  a LOT of ground with more confident cornering and descending, and my overall speed of 16.6 mph suggests that an aero road helmet would be a better choice than a traditional mountain bike helmet. That I can fix right now, as (sssshhh: don't tell anybody) my fancy brand new aero helmet just arrived today. The former can only come with time and practice, and I have a whole year of gravel adventuring ahead of me to work it out.