Internal Mono(b)log

I’ve been a long-time fan of the Finis Swimp3.  I’ve evaluated many of the swimming music solutions out there, and found that I come back, without fail, to the Swimp3.

Earlier this year Finis released the Swimp3.2.  I thought: cool 2x the storage = more music (hurray)! But really didn’t give it a lot more thought than that.  I had my Swimp3 and couldn’t see buying v2 just for more storage.  Well after several hundred (maybe thousand) hours my v1 gave it up and I needed to upgrade.  Time do go for the Swimp3.2.

I’m happy to say, that Finis has made the best even better!  Read on.

The profile is the same.  The colours are updated. The interface is the same.  2x the memory.  Same bone induction sound that, in my opinion beats everything else on the market.  The Swimp3.2 still suffers from one of my only beefs with the device: how the wires come out of the earpieces is a bit fragile and prone to wear and damage over time (how both of my v1’s have died).  One definite improvement is the USB plug and cover:

The V1 uses an o-ring and completely removable hard plastic cover (white).  The V1 suffers here in 2 ways: the o-ring can dry out over time allowing for a poor seal and the cap is easily lost.  The V2 has improved on this design: the cover is rubber, the whole cover is a  water seal and it is attached so you can’t lose it.  The wires on the V2 are also supported by some of the rubber housing cover, which hopefully improves their durability a bit.

For what it’s worth: when I’m traveling with my swimp3’s I put them in an old extra hardshell glasses case.  1 pair of swimp3’s fit nicely and the case protects the cables from snags and prevents accidental powering on of the swimp3 in your swim bag.

Years ago when I was a wannabe-roadie I’d built myself  a pretty nice bike (for the day) out of a Bianchi frame and a full set of 2nd-hand Campi Chorus.  I loved that bike and rode it like a boss.  Until one day it was stolen from my garage where it was u-locked to a beam in the garage.  The thieves actually cut through the beam took the bike and my unicycle that was also in the garage.  It was a sad day.

Insurance paid to replace the bike (less my deductible) but at the time, it was near impossible to find street bikes in Toronto.  Mountain bikes were all the rage: hard-tail, no suspension, rock hoppers.  I made the mistake of following the trend and got a bike that I hated.  It was slow, heavy, and poorly fit.  I tried over the years to “fix” it: different stems, seats, wheels, saddle… nothing helped.  Eventually I ditched it and wrote of mountain biking as “not for me”.

Last fall I ran a 1/2 marathon trail run and really enjoyed it.  Loved it in fact! Podiumed (3rd in my age-group). It got me thinking about Xterra racing, but the spectre of trail riding and my bad memories played on my mind.  Still the curiosity was there…

This weekend I had the opportunity to play with a Scapin Oraklo 29er.

Wow!  This is not the mountain bike experience that I remembered at all.  1st I had it out for a short shake-out on the road.  Checking my cleats, saddle height, and just generally getting used to the bike and suspension.  On flat roads I had this bike up to over 40 km/h.  The stiffness and responsiveness of this bike is something that really caught me off guard: more than once on the roads, accelerating away from an intersection in a fairly big gear, I was popping the front wheel off the ground.

After tuning the bike a bit to fit and adjusting the suspension to my weight, we took it for a 25 k trail ride.  Nothing too technical, because it’s all new skills for me, but we did manage some offroad, some easy trail, some road, even a little non-trail (by mistake) exploration.  Beyond my timidness of being on a loaner bike and not having any experience with trail riding, this ride was great fun.  There was nothing that I could throw at this bike that it didn’t seem completely able and comfortable to handle – I’m sure it is able to do much more than I’m currently comfortable attempting 😉

I can’t say that I’m any kind of mountain bike expert, but this Scapin Oraklo was super-fun.  Definitely a ride that I’d consider for addition to my stable if I were to get serious about offroad and/or xterra racing.

The folks at Blacksmith Cycle are the North American distributors for Scapin.  If you’re interested in more info on this brand, this bike, or others they carry, please reach out to them.  They’ll treat you right!  Tell them Rick send you 🙂

How do you say Ass-Kicking in German? | Blacksmith Cycle.

I can personally attest to the quality of Storck bikes.  I absolutely love my Aero2is.

The folks at Blacksmith will treat you right.  Check this bike out for sure!

June 8-10th I organized an Ironman Mont Tremblant Training camp.  It was a “ruffing it” style event where people were generally on their own for meals and accommodations.   The majority of us were camping at Camping Boreal, but some, in light of the terrible weather when we arrived on Friday, chose to find a nearby motel and rough-it a little less 🙂

Read more… »

OH.. MY.. GOD!  An Ironman race in Baja California!!! In March!!

I’ve been drawn to Baja for years, for no reason that I’m aware of, just a strong desire to go there.  A pull.  Undefined but so real.  Sort of like Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind with is draw to the bute.  No I haven’t sculpted Baja out of mashed potatoes, but close 🙂

Ironman adds Ironman Los Cabos to Global Series » IRONMAN.com.

I may just have to do this!

I’ve already raved (a few times) about how much I absolutely LOVE my Sportiiiis from 4iiii.com.

Well good news! They’ve dropped the price on Sportiiiis to $149!!

4iiii Innovations – makers of Sportiiiis Heads-up Display system for Athletes.

I’m in the beta program for Sportiiiis and I can tell you that some amazing stuff is coming down the pipe to add to this already amazing product.

I cannot imagine training or racing without my Sportiiiis.  Try them and you’ll be hooked too!

Good article on tapering: why and how

Tapering for Endurance Events | Ironman, Triathlon and Running Specialist Coaching – Kinetic Revolution.

Last night I finally got time to take my Rogue wetsuit for a test-swim, but before I get into the in-water performance, let me give you some of my thoughts on initial unpacking and comparison with last year’s Frequency model suit.

Here’s a pic of the Rogue beside last year’s Frequency:

Unpacking and Initial Design Thoughts

Here is the suit as it arrived: carefully bagged and with paper folded into the suit protecting the zipper and reinforcing it’s basic shape so that it didn’t get mangled in shipping.  On top of the suit is Nineteen’s silicon cap in crazy neon “see me” green.  You definitely won’t be missed swimming in open water with this cap on – it’s bright!  Thanks to Nineteen for the cap – it’s not included with the rogue (and it clashes rather badly with the red) but with all the open water solo swimming I do, it’s nice to know I’ll be seen out there 🙂

Unpacked and stretched out on my deck:  Initial, purely cosmetic, thoughts: “Wow! This is one sexy suit!”.

But of course, I already knew it was a pretty awesome looking suit, and it looks so much better on Angela Naeth:

Starting to examine the suit, I first checkout the updated zip design.  Note that this zip starts at the top and fastens going down.  Strikes me that this may be easier to self-don.  I’ve frequently found the Frequency, with it’s bottom-start zip difficult to zip up by myself.

Here’s a pic of the Rogue’s zip compared to last year’s Frequency:

After checking the zip, I looked at the seams and internal taping.  This is top-notch, as I’d expect from Nineteen.  The stitching is very consistent and smooth, with seam tape reinforcing stress points.  I love this attention to detail: definitely the mark of a good suit and a thoughtful manufacturer.

As you start looking at the design of the suit, one of the most immediately apparent differences in this suit is the forearm, catch area design.

Not easy to see in this pic, but the forearms are a bit more stiff than the Frequency (perhaps offering some compression) and have integrated thicker neoprene panels that make the catch area on your forearm just a little wider.  There’s also a thicker piece of neoprene near the elbow to help reinforce a high elbow during your stroke.  Looking at how small these changes are, I’m a little dubious about whether they have any real impact in the water, but more on that later.

I spent a bit of time comparing the Frequency’s neoprene panels and design compared to the Rogue.  Things that I noted on visual (and tactile) comparison:

• zip design
• catch panel changes
• thicker (more buoyant) neoprene in the crotch area
• anatomic matching of body panels improved over Frequency
• similar super stretchy neoprene under arms and in shoulders
• similar (super comfortable) neck seal

The biggest changes in the Rogue from other suits in the World (not just Nineteen) is how we sourced our neoprene and jersey linings separately so that we could control the exact feel we want to achieve in each panel of the suit.  We use two different kinds of neoprene, in six different thicknesses, and with three different jersey linings, all in different permutations in order to create extreme stretch, stability, and even compression where it is required.This kind of design and engineering is not obvious to an observer or tester.  It does, however, speak to the engineering invested into making the World’s fastest and best fitting wetsuit.

Wow!  I could tell that there was material differences between the Rogue and the Frequency, but 3 linings and 2 types of neoprene in 6 thicknesses… I thought I went over the suit in pretty tight detail, but that’s amazing!

With the unpacking done it was time to head off to the pool.

In the Pool

Putting the suit on in the change room of my local YMCA definitely got some attention, I expect a lot of folks were wondering why this guy was putting on a wetsuit in the Y change room, but hey!  You have to test these things right?!  Lake Ontario is just *way* too cold to be swimming in, so, the pool it is 🙂

The suit goes on well, and you can definitely feel the slight compressive design built into the torso and forearms.  Because of the catch panel design, a little more care needs to be taken when putting this suit on to make sure that the panels are properly aligned on your arms.  The firmer design of the catch panel area also requires a little more effort to don, not crazy, and a sport-glide-type product may make this a bit easier.

Starting and closing the zip took a few attempts, but was eventually successful as a solo endeavour. Definitely easier and smoother than the Frequency suit zip. Of course, the top-down zip design also means that if it gets tugged by someone in the water, it’ll just serve to make sure the zip is closed, and not unzip your suit 🙂

In the water this suit felt fast! The flotation panel design had me flat in the water.  I felt like a kayak skimming across the top of the water column.  I swam my 1st 1000m in the suit before it’s warmth was too much in the pool, this was enough to get a feel for the suit in the water though.  It swims really well!  Super comfortable, stretchy in the right places.  Nicely buoyant (I don’t usually have sinky-feet, but the extra buoyancy was really noticeable – better than a float-buoy for sure).

The catch panels and high-elbow float were surprisingly noticeable in the water.  They cosmetically seem very small; however, the impact to your stroke is big.  I could really feel the difference in my lats and speed with the suit on.  It may be psychosomatic (or because I was paying attention), but I felt that the high-elbow floats also helped maintain my form during the stroke.  Nice additions!

After the 1000m I hopped up on the deck and doff’d the suit to finish my swim.  The suit came off easily: the zip quickly unzipped and with the lubrication of the water the suit seemed to almost slip off, only really needing extra encouragement over my hands and feet (as one would expect).

Summary

This is a very nice suit.  Definitely improvements over Nineteen’s Frequency suit from last year, an evolution so to speak, of the suit design.  I can’t wait to get it in the open water at Lake Pontchartrain in a few weeks for a pre-race shake-down and then for IM70.3 New Orleans.

Made this tonight, took less than 5 minutes!  My blendtec blender even warmed it as it blended it.  The only addition I made was a few pinches of smoked ancho chile powder.

Creamy Tomato Soup | Raw Food Home Recipes.

So good!  Wow!  Assuming the recipe makes 4 servings, here’s the nutrition breakdown.

Today I had to do a 3.5hr ride and brick run, the weather in Toronto was finally cooperative and I decided to take my new Storck Aero2is (aka Gertie) out for her maiden voyage, and I have to say that I’m very happy I did so, on a number of fronts.  The boys at Blacksmith Cycle did a great job putting her together and for her maiden voyage there were very few glitches.

Here’s a pic of me and Gertie:

Was a great day for a ride today, temp in the low teens (Celsius), light winds, full sun: hard to beat especially in April in Toronto!  I was a little concerned about being cold (especially my feet) but was pretty good with a jersey, shorts, arm and leg warmers and gloves.

For fuel today I relied exclusively on First Endurance EFS Liquid Shot.  Liquid shot is amazing stuff: 400cal’s per flask, comes in bulk quantities, has no gelling agents (which are sometimes causes of GI distress and are frequently diuretics), and has very high electrolyte levels (over 1.5g) and amino acids (over 1g).  If you haven’t tried Liquid Shot, you’ve done yourself a disservice.  Also, First Endurance just released a new flavour of Liquid Shot: Kona Mocha.  This is probably the best flavour going (followed, in my opinion, by vanilla).  You have to try it!

Loving the DI2

Before I talk about any negatives, I have to rave about DI2.  I’ll start by warning you: Don’t test ride a bike with DI2 unless you’re planning to upgrade to DI2!  Seriously!  On TT bikes and tri-bikes having the shifters on both the aerobar ends and on the brake levers, is ridiculously cool!  And cool in ways that I didn’t expect!

I expected to love the extra shifters on the brakes when I had to stop or pull up a hill or suddenly needed to be in a lower gear than I had been, and sure, they’re good for that.  But, they’re also GREAT when you’re up out of the saddle, cranking hard, and want to be in a higher gear (passing, climbing, getting cadence back up, etc.).  Being able to, with the touch of a finger, be in the gear you want to be in is FREAKING AMAZING!

Historically, I didn’t go to indexed shifting because I found the indexing difficult to tune (especially if you were changing wheels or cassettes frequently)  and, psychologically, I found the indexing somehow more difficult to operate (don’t ask – I know it doesn’t make sense).  So I always turned off indexed shifting and used friction mode.  I found that in friction mode I shifted more often and maintained consistent power output better.  Well, move over friction, DI2 has clobbered that.  I now find myself shifting like a man possessed: “oh this is a little harder” <shift down>.. “this is too easy” <shift up>.  Power output: super consistent!  Love! LOVE! LOVE!!!

Teething Pains and Torhans Woes

Generally, Gertie is amazing! So much fun to ride: stiff, fast and responsive. There is, in fact, nothing about this bike I don’t like! But I did have a few minor teething pains today. The two worth mentioning were the seat height adjustment and my frustrations with the Torhans 30 hydration system.

1st seat height: my 2nd biggest source of frustration on the ride.  6 times I had to stop and reset my seat height as the adjuster had loosened off from road vibrations.  I was a little nervous about over-tightening the adjuster as I didn’t want to stress the frame (I’m going to see if there are torque guidelines for the adjuster, but haven’t yet).   The adjuster is hard to describe, but it’s a wedge that sits in front of the seat post and is pulled into a friction position with a screw.  Anyhow.. I’ve added a little friction tape to the assembly and think that this may solve the problem as there was really very little that the assembly could get purchase on to stop it from vibrating loose.  Definitely happy that I found (and hopefully fixed) this before NOLA in 2 weeks.  Of course, all the riding on the trainer didn’t show this because there were no road bumps to shake it loose.  I’ll have to get out on the road a few more times before I leave for NOLA to make sure this is sorted.

My biggest frustration on the ride though, has to be the Torhans 30 hydration system.  OH! MY! GAWD! I HATE this thing.  In Panama I used it for the 1st time and was sprayed with the contents repeatedly.  I just figured I was doing something wrong, so I hit the net and did some research.  I found some people who said they only filled similar systems 1/2 full to get around spray issues.  I found some other people who said to cut a little triangle out of the inner spray-back flap so that filling put more liquid into the bottle and less in the gap between the 2 covers.  Well, I tried both of these approaches today and I still ended up wearing a LOT of the contents of the bottle.  I got so frustrated with it, that at one point I was really tempted to yank it off the bike and drop it at the side of the road!   Suffice it to say, it’s going (want it?  Make me an offer!)  I’ll go back to a water bottle between the bars or better yet a Speedfil A2.

Baby Pictures

As promised here are some baby pictures of Gertie.

Here she is as ridden today, don’t really love the HED Tri-Spoke but it’s an ok training wheel:

Love the Adamo Podium saddle, looks like one of the surprise potholes I hit dropped the nose a bit – it started the ride level!

Classic speedfil for water – love this system:

Quarq powermeter, Look Keo Blade pedals and DI2 (tasty!):

More Di2 (rear):

The cockpit, 910xt and the soon to be GONE Torhans 30:

Bike Pure:

Want a ride like this?  I bet you do!  Talk to the folks at Blacksmith Cycle, they’ll hook you up.  Storck isn’t  a well known brand in North America (yet), but based on the performance of this beauty, that’s soon going to change!  Wow! Just WOW!