Meditations on the V-Meter
There was no need for Rule #74 until the cyclometer showed up on our handlebars. According to the late Sheldon Brown, the cyclometer has been around since the early 1900s.
“Star-wheel cyclometers, such as the Lucas unit, suffered two serious problems. They made an annoying “tink-tink-tink” noise. At high speeds, the star wheel would sometimes turn too far when hit by the fast-moving striker, then, the next time around the striker would hit the tip of one of the star points, sometimes knocking the unit out of position.”
My thought is, these things have been annoying us for much too long. As a youth no one had any measuring device on their bike. There are no old black and white photos of racers staring down at their front hubs to the Lucas meters. Eddy had retired before the Avocet made its debut. He would have caused his to go to failure or he would have removed it because it was extra weight and rubbish.
I bought an Avocet digital cyclometer as soon as I could. It had two slightly inset buttons to better hold water to seep inside. It read speed and elapsed time. That was something to get excited about. Going from no data to data was big, this was going to improve cycling.
Thirty years and many cyclometers later I’m not convinced. My most recent model was a Cateye wireless cyclometer with heart rate and it demanded a new battery every two months…enough! I needed anything else, which made me ask an obvious question- why? Do I care how fast I’m going? I know it’s not very fast and no I don’t really care.
It’s more a question of how hard am I going? Hard or not so hard and again, I’m not trying to quantify this anymore. I’m no quant. I’m beyond quant. It’s not being too old as much as I’ve been riding for so damn long the numbers no longer interest me. Even if I was training for a specific event I have moved past the desire to have data. I did encourage my wife into upgrading to a Garmin 500 as she is into data. I encouraged her because I wanted to know the grades of some of our climbs. I should have kept quiet and emulated a friend who actually went out with a tape measure and long level and quantified the grades to the island’s most “interesting” climbs, bless his heart.
It’s been gratifying to look around on the Sunday group ride I’ve fallen into and notice that some of my cycling friends also have no cyclometers on their bikes. I’m not even sure it’s an interesting point of discussion amongst us. The people who are training with data don’t show up on this ride often because we spend the first 40 km gossiping, riding two abreast, riding a route too curvy, hilly and breath-taking for staring at a watt meter. The second part, I’ve heard*, turns sporty as the big guns get fired leaving bodies scattered along the route home. Training with data requires control of effort. Luckily my people have little interest in that. This Sunday ride is more pleasure than pain and I don’t need a meter to tell me a serious workout was logged.
I was visiting friends who worked and lived in Monaco and was told about the eighty year old owner of the building they rented in. Most every Sunday morning he and his buddies would kit up and go for a ride either east into Italy or west into France. I assume this had been the routine for decades. Eventually they would stop for a nice long Sunday lunch then they ride to the nearest train platform, roll their bikes on the train and return home via rail. Damn, I want to be one of those guys if I get close to eighty. And damn I wish I had a bike and kit when I was there, it would have been a riot to ride with them. I bet those old dudes have V-meters on their bikes.
*either I have turned back before the official turn around or I’m shelled out so early that all I hear are the distant reports. At some point the return always becomes a death slog and as such, a good training ride.
@itburns I have never had the chance to use the flywheel.
I have the 2.25 inch diameter kreitlers and I always can get a good workout, although I completely agree that it is easy to spin them up to 50 kph or more while riding them.
On the rollers, I go by time and heart rate for indices.
@Marcus
Awesome, thanks for the info everyone.
According to the specs online, my rollers are 85mm (or 3.35 in) in diameter. They are some cheap-ish “Travel Trac” brand rollers from Performance Bike, but they seem to work OK. While my legs don’t feel “worked out” like they do when I do intervals on the trainer, it certainly gets my heartrate up and makes me sweat a lot.
@itburns
I have the fan, it’s noisy as hell and I took it off. Seems like if the flywheel “evens out” the feel you’re getting less feedback on the souplesse of your pedalstroke. I’ve been thinking about putting some strips of paper in my spokes for a bit more resistance.
@Nate
Some clarification – the flywheel adds resistance (dead weight that has to be spun up) and gives more of a road feel because of the momentum when you stop your pedal stroke. My experience is that it adds resistance during acceleration, allows a bit longer “spin down” time, but has little effect once you are maintaining a pace. I have the 3.0 rollers and the flywheel additional resistance allows me to destroy myself doing ladder intervals when needed.
I have read of people adding a towel under the back roller to add resistance but that seems like a catastrophic failure in the making.
@itburns
I’ve heard of the towel thing too, and reached the same conclusion about it.
Love the authentic buckled front wheels from all the potholes…..
for everyone talking about rollers and trainers…yeah, i’ve ridden them, but to me, riding rollers or trainers is sort of like jumping up and down “training” to jump rope for the day you actually have a rope. same motion, but just not the same. nothing is better than the actual road in my (totally useless) opinion.
@silkrider
I don’t think anyone disagrees with this opinion. Roller sessions are when a ride isn’t an option for whatever reason but an indoor workout is. One good thing about rollers is that as my “roller season” starts (winter – early darkness and end of year work deadlines mess with weekday evening rides) it glaringly shows any bad form that has crept in over the previous months.
@itburns
My friend (who inspired me to come back to USA Cycling) went thru a divorce. He held custody of the kids (2 girls). The rollers became his sanctuary. He never gains weight and is now aiming to come back to race again. I wish that I had rollers (Kreitlers) to maintain training. Rollers seem to be a secret weapon for him to stay sharp.
@itburns
@unversio
i guess i’m a little jealous of guys who can ride rollers. i’ve tried, god knows i’ve tried. i tried in front of the tv, i tried with music, i once tried drunk (bad idea). the longest i ever managed to ride them was about 15 minutes. i just couldn’t take it. i no longer have them.
I’m surprised that no-one has mentioned the one glaring advantage of the newer ‘computers to the Velominatus seeking pastures new – route planning.
With my trusty forerunner 305 I get a simple black line that guides me on new rides. I can spend ten minutes plotting an entirely new route online, then load it up and forget about stopping for signs on roads I’ve never set eyes on before. It completely revolutionised my approach to riding.
Of course, interpreting the single black line is an art in itself – does this slight kink mean follow the lie of the road, or turn onto that motorway slipway?
I’ve come to feel like my 305 is at least trying to channel the V too – if it thinks I’m not working hard enough it will think nothing of ‘Roubaix’-ing my route by sending me bouncing and swearing down bridleways.
It has also given rise to what my friends and I refer to as the UHOD – the Unexpected Hill of the Day. Invisible on the initial route planner, this mount of epic proportions unfailingly looms in the final 20 miles of any ride, with a percentage and length designed perfectly to sap the guns of any remaining ammunition, leaving you enough to crawl home but nothing more.
@Tom
That’s everything that is bad about computers right there.
@Tom
I prefer just getting myself lost, no meters or planning whatsoever. I have found so many nice rides this way. I think that is what Brett means.
@itburns
I’ve had a friend experiment with chopping up a plastic ice cream container into blades and taping them to his spokes for added resistance – basically making overgear training harder but it did slow him down significantly (added a couple of seconds to his lap time at an outdoor velodrome) can’t see the same not working on rollers.
@minion
I couldn’t bring myself to disfigure my wheels in such a manner. How much noise did that setup generate?
@minion
My ancient, noisy Cinelli rollers have plenty of resistance. Dented steel drums and crapped-out bearings make for a pretty good pavé simulation. More deterrent than anything — the very idea of riding this torture rack pushes me outdoors in the worst Rule #9 conditions.
@eightzero
And again for the record – I’ve decided I don’t need more bike shit. I need more time to ride my fucking bike.
Amen to that.
The enduring advantage of the V-meter: I rolled into the café post-ride along with a group coming from a different direction. As they all beeped, booped, and pocketed their computer-gizmo thingies, I was first in line for my espresso.
I had one of these when I was about 8. It was the strava of its day. I covered hundreds of km’s just to see the numbers roll around. A neighbour had one too, so it was a “to the death contest” to see who had the highest mileage covered at any time…….. Im sure I covered more miles then because of that speedo than some pro-team riders did at the time :) Eventually it broke (Sabotage I’m sure :( ) I I could go back to walking occasionally.
Rode for the first time in an age without a screen blaring back at me from the stem today.
Fuck
it
was
good