Tom,
Sorry that I overlooked your taking the thread off-list in my response.
Ken and Tom,
> If you shift 200 times in a brevet and lose a comparative and
>seemingly imperceptible half-second per, that's an effect of 1 2/3
>minutes over that event.
>
>If you also consider it might take 10s of seconds to regain lost
>momentum, the penalty can be significantly worse.
As you say, the problem is not the loss of time during the shift, but the loss of speed. If I enter a short hill at 19 mph instead of 20 mph, I climb most of the hill 1 mph slower, and that adds up. It always amazes me that guys on STI can't keep up with me on the initial part of a hill, and then have to catch up. It happened all the time in PBP. On a mountain pass, where you climb for an hour, not a problem. But on these short, steep rollers, you lose time or have to ride harder.
In our brevets, I often find that people who can climb mountain
passes as fast as I do, lose 10 minutes over 30 miles of rolling
terrain.
>I like threads where I learn something, and this is a good one IMHO!!
But illegal! Good thing Dale wasn't watching closely...
Best,
Jan
--
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.bikequarterly.com