Team BKool CycleChat

[BILL S]

I was waiting for you Bill to give you some drafting assistance as I had written off my own attempt due to how I was feeling. Thought I may as well help you get a good time at least! I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised at my time to be honest

ThanksPaul. That makes total sense as you did wait for me a few times and at least once I wondered if your chain came off or something but then you sped up and was right with me again. For me it was a lot of flat out riding so quite surprised to be well down on my previous times.

 

[Soarerv8]

I was going to tow you for a bit Soarer, but you kept racing me, and yo be honest I was struggling. And then you disappeared! For a moment I feared the crocodile had got you....

Yes I had been in a little world of my own then for about ten minutes and when I rejoined you were about 5 seconds behind but it was totally impossible to try to pace you as I kept bouncing in and out. Really frustrating ride oddly I seem to have been properly in my own world, where I was I kept passing @CXRAndy in the last couple of miles and @bridgy was about 8 minutes behind me really strange.

 

[bobinski]

I moved my best bike, a giant carbon frame, ultrega onto the turbo a few weeks back. I am using the same wheel as used on the aluminium framed kinesis I had on before, my winter bike. But I cannot get it to sit on the turbo without rocking from side to side and making all sorts of creaking noises and rhythmic clicking noises. All seems ok but it is really disconcerting somehwhat exacerbated by the quick release coming loose tonight and the wheel slipping in the turbo. Yet another excuse to get a kickr...

 

[Perky77]

Great ride Martin, and everyone else. I felt i was going backwards at the end

You were incredibly hard to chase down - it was only in the last mile I managed to get past you

 

[CXRAndy]

@Soarerv8 Never saw you on the course

 

[Perky77]

Well at least Tommy and Martyn will be starting behind me next time . I assume that's how it works

I'm still in shock I managed to finish just ahead of you for the first time

 

[Perky77]

There are some huge performance gains. Ignoring the fact that you're obviously fitter. Has anyone changed there setup in anyway, interested? It comes on the back of Bridgy saying a certain tyre really worked well with the bkool pro

I haven't changed anything - I am noticing a big improvement purely from completing each league session over the past two months and the summer cup.

 

[Perky77]

@Perky77 That was a Blue Team qualifying time, well done indeed!

Is that a good thing?

 

[AAAC 76C]

You mean like this?
View attachment 152203

Noah. To be honest, looking at your stats and Monte's one place above you you seem to be in about the right place.
If you take the first 7km of the ride as climbing and use your climbing average of 9.5 kph that would take you roughly 44.2 minutes to get to the top of the climb.
If you take your average speed for the descent to be 85 kph that would take you 3.8 minutes to complete, total being 48 minutes.
To make it 49.5 minutes total your descending time would have to be 5.3 minutes which would be and average of (for 5.4 km) 61 kph which does seem a bit low however I can't see how you would have done the ride below 47 minutes.

 

[Perky77]

@Soarerv8 Never saw you on the course

@Soarerv8 kept appearing and disappearing like Mr Ben

 

[<Tommy>]

I moved my best bike, a giant carbon frame, ultrega onto the turbo a few weeks back. I am using the same wheel as used on the aluminium framed kinesis I had on before, my winter bike. But I cannot get it to sit on the turbo without rocking from side to side and making all sorts of creaking noises and rhythmic clicking noises. All seems ok but it is really disconcerting somehwhat exacerbated by the quick release coming loose tonight and the wheel slipping in the turbo. Yet another excuse to get a kickr...

You're braver than me!

I do not fancy putting my carbon frame on the turbo. Mostly through paranoia probably but also because the frame comes with a lifetime warranty unless damage is caused by a turbo. I just have images of it cracking which is probably illogical but...Bob if you got the kickr would you not find the performance drop on BKOOL frustrating? Or would you chop and change?

Andy - I've not changed anything recently. I did order a couple of the tyres bridgy uses after kipster found a deal on them but I'm still using a conti gp4000 I took off comuting duties when it looked nearly spent. I'm surprised how long it's lasted to be honest.

Perky where the bloody hell did that come from! Great effort.

 

[Perky77]

Bl**dy hell, I've just seen that I have jumped to Active 9

Gents, I can assure you no biological or mechanical doping is taking place

I would just like to give a massive thank you to those of you who give up time to set up and run the leagues and also everyone on here for making the community what it is. I'm really enjoying being part of it.

It sounds like a bloomin Oscar speech but I haven't won anything but importantly it's true and I believe you should always thank others when you can

 

[Noah Street]

Noah. To be honest, looking at your stats and Monte's one place above you you seem to be in about the right place.
If you take the first 7km of the ride as climbing and use your climbing average of 9.5 kph that would take you roughly 44.2 minutes to get to the top of the climb.
If you take your average speed for the descent to be 85 kph that would take you 3.8 minutes to complete, total being 48 minutes.
To make it 49.5 minutes total your descending time would have to be 5.3 minutes which would be and average of (for 5.4 km) 61 kph which does seem a bit low however I can't see how you would have done the ride below 47 minutes.

AAAC, I appreciate you looking at it but something is not right when my reported time gap to other riders (upon completion of ride whilst doing cool down) is different from what ultimately gets recorded. I'm going to take photos of actual readings on next cycle.
Not a new issue, see Breedon's second comment on Pg 1739. Thanks again

 

[Goldwolfie]

Well at least the turbo held up better than I did tonight.

Looks like my top cover had taken a bash and was probably catching the roller. I have patched it up with some gaffer tape and will see how it goes. I could run without the top cover if it happens again to isolate the problem, as AAAC suggested.

I also got well and truly defrocked by Bkool after tonight's ride - knocked back from Active 3 to Amateur 8, which is probably a lot more realistic - so Team White for me, at least I won't have to buy a new strip.

 

[bobinski]

You're braver than me!

I do not fancy putting my carbon frame on the turbo. Mostly through paranoia probably but also because the frame comes with a lifetime warranty unless damage is caused by a turbo. I just have images of it cracking which is probably illogical but...Bob if you got the kickr would you not find the performance drop on BKOOL frustrating? Or would you chop and change?
.

I wasn't really worried too much before but I am now. I am going to look again at my set up and try and reduce the movement of the turbo. It may be a q of technique. A stronger core might reduce my lateral movement otherwise known as flailing under pressure How do the rest of you avoid sideways movement? I know Bkool introduced the extended legs because the turbo was unstable under load but I am not convinced they are long enough or solid and heavy enough.
I am increasingly cynical about bkools ability to overhaul and improve the user experience of the software and so when my subscription runs out I am not likely to renew. I love the racing and the crack with you guys and would really miss it and may buy the occasional month to take part. But I also enjoy Zwift and find the user experience much more satisfying. And Sufferfest. So if I get a kickr I won't lose out too much for too long and in the meantime will just have to try harder when using Bkool. Also the latest Bkool updates may mean there is less difference than before. I think migration to ant+fec has removed some of the differences. There is only one way to find out. I am waiting to see if Friday produces any kickr deals.