Alright everyone...lets talk about nutrition.
1. What do you eat before a ride?
2. What do you eat on a ride?
3. If you use a trainer, do you eat while on it?
4. What is your go to meal after a ride?
1. Coffee and whatever I have for a breakfast. Just can't do any kind of milk and cereal, donut or other high-fat-content cake, or anything else greasy. Not fond of refluxing during exercise.
2. I have ClusterDextrin that I mix into my water bottle, which will also either have gatorade powder or Precision Hydration 1500 if I'm feeling fancy. I try to have a banana every 30 miles if it's a long ride. When I did the century they gave us these awesome Clif gel chews. They're also caffeinated so I was wired for the next 20 hours.
3. No, and I wouldn't if I did. That's why Zwift made coffee stops now, right?
4. I have a problem with food, because I will literally eat everything and am limited by supply instead of satiety.
In other equipment-related news, I'm still on my Great Stemventure. As some of you may recall, I had the 130mm Giant Contact SLR stem that came with my bike, then I got the shortest, highest-angle stem I could find that would fit. After buying the flat-profile aero/ergo handlebars, I mounted them back to the original stem because the short one was just too short and I was just too curious. Well, despite doing a century and a few other rides with it, I'm convinced that the original one is still too long. In an attempt to remedy this, I've been searching eBay for something used that would fit the annoyingly-sized OD2 (1-1/4 inch or 31.8mm) steerer tube on the TCR. I finally found an Oval Concepts stem built for a triathlon bike that was seemingly the perfect middle ground at 100mm and 17 degrees. I bought it at a good price as the paint has some pretty ugly cable wear. I mounted it, but not after rounding off the hex socket in my top cap bolt because some idiot (me) torqued it to spec instead of just making it finger-tight. I had to drill it out and use a Tapout bit-- thank god that worked. Anyway the stem went on and it fits great. Feels so much better to ride, and suddenly my saddle feels a lot better too. Problem is, since it was for a Tri bike, the stem's clamping surface is really short but quite broad, and as a whole it feels like a brick compared to the Contact SLR. I think you're supposed to mount aerobars abutted just above this, so I'm guessing that's why it's so broad and substantial. The steerer tube now looks like a toilet paper roll sticking out of a huge anodized donut. Since it's 31.8mm OD, I can't find any 31.8mm ID spacers
anywhere. I bought spacer packs on amazon and ebay but they were incorrectly labeled, and actually 28.6mm like everything else out there. I wasn't going to spend $80 on some stupid rings of plastic from Giant, so I said the hell with it and just checked eBay again for a Giant stem. Voila: that day someone had listed a MINT condition Contact SLR stem in 110mm. It came in the box with the 1-1/4 adapter sleeve, spacers, and all original hardware for just a couple bucks more than the spacer kit would've been ordered through the LBS.
I received it today and am going to install it on Wednesday. It's pretty shocking how much bigger the 130mm looks compared to the 110mm. The extra 2cm is a whole bar-width of reach. It looks about on par with the Tri stem. I'm guessing that the extra 9 degrees of angle is compensation for how short that top edge is.
I've also been fiddling with saddles. I took off the Arione because my sitbones were rebelling. I was pretty sure that if I could find something similar but with a rear area that continued to flare out like a triangle instead of tapering back in like a diamond, it would be more comfortable. I got two Selle Italias to try: a Boost SLR and an SP-01:
Sadly, I think the cutouts are just a little too big. They should call it a prolapse channel instead of a relief channel
. There's not much saddle to actually hold you on. With the SLR on the left, I feel the thinnest section of the saddle just in front of those white bumps sort of jabbing into me, and same thing on the crease of the rear of the relief cutout on each side. The SP-01's gimmick is that it's totally decoupled on each side. Not sure about how that would hold up at my weight.
That said, even at my weight I don't feel much give or flex while pedaling. What I do feel is that super-skinny "neck" section. The Pro Stealth being broader is still the most comfortable of the saddles. I'm wondering if I should try the curved Stealth model, and maybe that would have the breadth of support I need (inwards with less cutout) without being so broad (outwards with massive cutout) as to become annoying on longer rides. Dunno. The stem situation is also changing things, but as things stand I'm inclined to stick with the cheaper option which is to remain with the original saddle. I wasn't broke like this until I started biking, what the hell.
I typically only do this after a 40+ mile effort though.
