We seem to have chosen the hottest days of the year to go to London in the last couple of weeks, although it was well worth while as it was to meet with British Cycling and Sky and discuss their involvement with cycling and where Wattbike fits into “the landscape”. Our meeting with Sky was related to the up and coming Skyrides and took place at their offices. I was officially quite excited to see what it would be like, but it was just another office building, with a few small changes – it is massive (not unexpected), the Simpsons can be found lounging on their sofa in the waiting area of reception – which I have to admit I did not notice straight away even though I was sat opposite them, and there are a few huge SKY HD ads painted onto the walls – you might come round a corner and be face to face with Spiderman! The meeting was very interesting and I know have more of an understanding of the Skyrides which should really engage people in cycling in the 5 cities (Manchester, London, Leicester, Glasgow and Hounslow). We were looking at providing a Wattbike experience stand at each of the events to provide people with the opportunity to have a go on a Wattbike and pit themselves against the best in the country.
The meeting with British Cycling was in less exciting circumstances, but was equally worthwile with us planning how we can help them to develop indoor cycling, to enable them to maintain the growth in people cycling all the way through the winter.
Yes I know, not our normal gig, but last weekend there were Wattbikes at the Lincolnshire show. Amidst the livestock, diggers and horsey folk the Wattbikes provided a different sort of riding. Two of our bikes were used on the British Cycling stand and provided an opportunity to have a go and test yourself against the best in the country, and infact the best at the Lincolnshire show. As normal the stand was innundated with people wanting to have a go, and a number of kids came back time and time again to see if they could beat there personal bests – at least it kept them out of the sun anyway. One of the more famous competitors was the Gladiator Enigma who had a go on the bike.
Enigma tries the Wattbike
Some of the stalwarts having their 15th go
I was mountain biking last weekend with one of my neighbours who is something of a collector. He is a paddler (races in kayaks) and was explaining that he had at least six kayaks, and then we got onto bikes…. Six was only the start! He has a bike specifically to ride to the kayak club, but more interesting than that was that he also has a bamboo bike. Yes, made out of that stuff that Pandas like. I have to admit that I thought he was joking when he told me but sure enough he does have a bamboo bike, then the day after I find out that they exist I was sent a link to “What’s stopping the bamboo bike from shooting into the mainstream?“. So they are in fact a mainstream (well almost) product.
What was really interesting was finding out that bamboo grows so quickly when farmed that you can cut enough to make a bike on a daily basis and it will just carry on growing, so it is a very eco-friendly material (if we ignore all the carbon fibre that is used to join the bamboo together). It was also interesting to see how much bikes flex, especially when you are out of the saddle and sprinting, forcing the bike from side to side underneath you. This is a problem that you would not think we would have with the Wattbike, except we do. Well, it is not a problem, more of an explanation about why you can change the saddle but not the handlebars. The answer is simple. On a Wattbike the saddle behaves just like the saddle on a regular bike, but the handle bars are different. One a regular bike when you put pressure on one side of the handlebars the bike leans to one side, and you either balance it or fall off. On a Wattbike when you lean on one side it stays there! Which means that when you are sprinting and putting all your effort through one side then the other you are exerting huge forces on the handlebars, as a result they have to be a bit stronger than the handlebars on your bike – infact a lot stronger.
We are developing drop and tri-bars for the Wattbike, and have seen the prototypes which are looking good, and are due out soon. Next time you are on your bike, take a look at the frame and handlebars when you are riding, (but do it somewhere you will not run into a tree/car/person/wall).
I missed this when it first came out, but have just read about Bikeradar’s second round of their Wattbike Challenge. I had been mildly surprised when I saw the photos from the first challenge – jeans/t-shirts, they obviously did not realise that the Wattbike is not just another exercise bike! That had changed by the second challenge – with a bit more knowledge about the Wattbikes, the ability to compare data between the Wattbikes and most importantly the ability to race meant that there was a lot more lycra and the first pair of SPDs. Some pretty impressive times posted as well, with Matthew Cole (of Bikeradar) who posted 1:05.29 for the kilo with a peak power of 711W and an average power output of 598W. Altough the peak power seems quite low the fastest way to ride is of course to even pace the 1000m. Even more impressive than his time though is his power per kilo which came out at 6.72 Watts per kilo.
I am looking forward to round 3, I wonder if anyone will have done any training for it?
| Matthew Cole (BikeRadar) |
00:01:05.29 |
711 |
598 |
6.72 |
Ben was at the launch of Skyride yesterday running a number of small races on the Wattbikes, including a race between Gethin Jones and Victoria Pendleton. Sky are the main sponsors of British Cycling and have embarked on the Skyride project to engage over 1million more people in cycling, starting with their own staff and encouraging more people to cycle more often. They have announced an activity packed summer with rides in Manchester, Glasgow, Leicester and London – see the press release: Sky Gets Britain Back on the Bike
Vicky Pendleton vs Gethin Jones
Getting 1million more people to ride is certainly an ambitious target, but if there was ever a time to do it now must be that time. Obesity is reaching all time highs, we are in the build up to London 2012 and British Cycling are THE golden sport at the moment with an unprecidented winning record in Beijing. I hope that as the summer draws to a close we can keep people engaged in cycling as the winter draws in.
I was at the Stoke-on-Trent leg of the Tour Series this week. It is the 7th leg of the 10 leg national tour which races around the closed-circuit, inner-city streets of Britain. BMX World Champion Shanaze Reade, from nearby Crewe, launched the event at the Civic Centre and the cycling festivities carried on through the rest of the day.
We tried to get Shanaze onto the Wattbikes to give a target for the City to chase, but with an arm in a sling following her shoulder injury and subsequent operation she was on doctors’ orders to not take part… A shame indeed!
She did give plenty of inspiration though and the spent a lot of the day encouraging Stoke’s citizens to get active in cycling. The city is the first Cycling City in the country, and the day saw lots of fun activities to watch and partake in with Wattbike racing in the City Centre, live Extreme mountain biking demos and, of course, the tour race in the evening.
Over the day hundreds of people made time to go and see the event in the city centre. We were in the midst of it, in the sunshine, and there were lots of challengers. About 200 people raced on the Wattbikes across the day to get involved with the event. We did some short flying 100m sprints and the cycling club members from Lyme RC and Newcastle RC pushed each other to a great time of 4.91 seconds over the 100 metres.
The Tour Series continues and can be seen on ITV4 and live in the next 3 towns.
Alistair Campbell has written an article for the Saturday Times – whilst on his Wattbike. Although his cadence appears to be a bit lower than we would have expected you can probably put that down to the distraction of typing on a blackberry whilst cycling – I know I could not do both very well. Alastair makes good use of his Wattbike focussing on both physical and technique trainint to ensure that when he gets out on the road he is able to get the most out of his cycling. Using the polar view he is able to determine how well he is cycling whilst monitoring his power output (or speed) at all times.
Alastair also explains his shock at seeing cyclists not wearing helmets – I have to admit that I could go on a rant here, I share the same desire to see everyone who cycles do so safely and for me that includes wearing a helmet. One thing that particularly annoys me is parents with their kids in a child seat – child wearing a helmet, parent no helmet – surely that is not a way to teach young people about safety! Rant over – I might add that I do not wear my helmet on the Wattbike….
We have posted a news article that explains the event that Eddie and Ben assisted with at Adidas last week. The race was a combination of a Wattbike challenge and a challenge on the Concept2 indoor rower. The whole event was designed to prepare teams for the Microsoft Challenge. Both Ben and Eddie reported having a great day and being impressed by the arena and the performances, there is a full story in the news section.
Eddie has also been helping a few cyclists to monitor their training, a review of his time with blogger Graham Bence can be found on the Cyclotherapy Blog. My favourite line is definately “Eddie, our Wattbike representative, showed us with enthusiasm and clarity what the Wattbike static cycle trainer could do – it might have been quicker to say what it can’t do as the Wattbike pretty much tells you everything you want to know, or not want to know, about your cycling capabilities.”
Insurance Group Allianz welcomed Victoria Pendleton to the BIBA 2009 Conference and Exhibition (British Insurance Brokers Association) held in the Manchester Central Convention Complex. Over the course of the day Victoria challenged deleguates, passers-by and members of Allianz to race over 100m on the Wattbike. From 10am the challenges kept on coming, and even though everyone was suited and booted Victoria’s challenge drew very large crowds and had over 70 had a go. The crowds watched the sprint race on the big screen through the Wattbike race system and Victoria encouraged the participants and gave them advice as they went.
Victoria Pendleton Supporting a Competitor at the Allianz Stand
Victoria Pendleton Showing off her Olympic Gold Medal
Activity on the Allianz Stand
The Wattbikes were very popular all weekend at BikeRadar Live with hundreds of people getting peak power and 200m scores. The most famous of the riders were Graeme Obree and Brian Lopes. Both legends in their own area of the sport, Graeme a two time pursuit world champion and former holder of the world one hour record was not really suited to the type of racing that we were doing – infact he posted 885Watts for the Peak Power and 12.09s for the two hundred metres, which would have left him a ways off the leaders – make it an hour though and he would be dangerous! Brian in comparison was much more suited to the peak power and 200m. As a four times World Champion, in 4x, 8x and Dual he understands getting a quick start and certainly has some impressive leg speed. In his warm up he produced a peak cadence of 188r/m and a peak power of 1630W on setting 1. Once we moved the resitance to level 6 and had the 200m race he was even more impressive. He recorded a peak power of 1689W and a time of 9.51s for the 200m very impressiev stuff and the fastest 200m of the day – the second fastest coming in the same race with a 9.53s.
A good weekend all round with much interest in the Wattbikes. The DHL trailer will now be moving around the country visiting DHL centres – we will keep you posted.
