As I was sweating all over my BMC and Zipp wheels yesterday like a soggy Labrador after a romp in the lake, I couldn’t help but wonder about the great debates raging in my mind.
Oh yes I may have forgotten to mention that the reason I was dripping wet was because I was changing my third flat in the blazing mid-day Colorado sun. A nice ride with a good friend had turned into a death slog as I deeply slashed my race tire on my race wheel on some mystery chunk of glass.
The slash was so long and deep that the inner tube just popped like a 12-year-old’s gum bubble every time I rode on the repaired wheel.
Lesson #1 learned: Always, and I mean always, carry a tire patch kit in your tool and tire bag. The kits are tiny and they could mean the difference between getting home and sitting on the side of the road for hours in the blazing sun and traffic.
Luckily I got home thanks to my friend’s spare inner tube and a friendly ride by cyclist with a patch kit.
Anyway, the entire debacle got me thinking about the great debates raging in my mind just 4 weeks before the Ironman show in Madison. So here’s a short list of these, some new and some that seem to rage on year after year with no particular resolution one way or the other. I’d love to know what you think about my simple, but for me all too serious, problems because I’m completely on the fence and your experience and ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Training wheels vs. Race wheels
The conventional school of thought on this matter is that you train on training wheels (not the kiddy kind of course) and race on race wheels. Now I consider myself very fortunate to have this debate as an issue as this is the first year that I have actually owned race wheels. I love my Zipps so much that I prefer to train on them because 1) they are very fast 2) they look cool 3) My Powertap is built into the rear wheel 4) Did I mention that they look really cool mounted on the BMC.
But the conventional wisdom says that you are supposed to only race on these wheels and get a second set of conventional training wheels for training rides. The idea being that when you do race you’ll feel so much faster and perform better on the lighter and faster race wheels.
By the way, this is the same conventional logic that swimmers use when they completely shave their bodies just before a big meet.
However, the fine folks at Zipp will tell you that their wheels are great for both training and racing. Plus, having two sets of wheels breaks my # 1 rule which states that you never ever ever ever, and I do mean ever, do anything new or different in a race from training.
Every time I’ve broken this rule I have paid a mighty price including having to repair eight flats during my first Iron distance race.
Plus, to make matters worse, switching between wheels is a royal pain in the ass. The gears on the two sets of wheels and the bike chain never perfectly mesh so you have to adjust the shifting on the bike. And if you have ever tried to do that on your own you’ll know exactly how well that works for us non-mechanical bike types.
Traditional Bike Helmet vs. Aero Helmet
The new Aero helmets are all the rage now. You can usually tell the serious tri types by their helmet. I’ve even heard it said that an Aero helmet is one of the most important items of equipment that you can buy to shave time from your bike split.
The problem that I have with Areo helmets comes down to 1) They are crazy expensive 2) They are hot and of course 3) They look completely goofy.
Every time I see someone wearing the helmet I can’t help but remember that old SNL cone head skit. I just want to take a ring a chuck it over anybody wearing the bloody thing.
I suppose it boils down to the fact that I find it very hard to spend so much money on something that makes me laugh so much. What do you say?
Bike shorts vs. Tri Shorts
Now this is really only an issue at the Ironman distance. I’ve raced up to the half Ironman distance in tri shorts. My butt was sore but I made 56-miles in relative comfort. I have however never biked past 56 miles in tri shorts. The issues really comes down to padding or lack thereof.
My 2XU bike shorts have a wonderful thick pad that provides plenty of cushion for my big butt on the long ride rides. The pad in the tri shorts is much much thinner and frankly I’m worried about how my tush will take 112-miles of rolling Wisconsin hills.
In both of my previous Iron distance races I have worn bike shorts on the bike. However this is a slow process in the transition area as you really can’t swim in bike shorts because the pad swells up to the size of an extremely dirty diaper when it gets wet. This means I have to change both in and out of them before and after the bike. Just more stuff to worry about in transition and more time wasted changing.
So do I go for ease and speed and wear the tri shorts, or do I go with the proven but slow solution of wearing bike shorts?
To Shave or not to Shave
I have never ever shaved my legs but recently I’ve been getting a lot of advice saying that I should. But for heaven’s sake folks this is everyman triathlon and I don’t think that most everyman types even think about shaving let alone put razor to leg, I keep thinking to myself.
My old roommate in college used to bike for a local team and he shaved his legs all of time. I soon realized that our relationship had all of the downside to living with a girlfriend with none of the upside. He would spend what seemed like hours shaving his legs to a silky smooth sheen.
Then and there (20-years-ago now to be exact) I swore I would never do this but now I’m not sure anymore. My wife says I should think about it and that carries a lot of weight.
The funny thing is that I should be worried about more important stuff like nutrition, race plan, or even training, but in fact I’m all wound up about these silly debates. So please help move past these issues so that I can get on with the last few weeks of training before the big show in Wisconsin.
Thanks!