Wattbike at Skyride Manchester

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Alex Skelton @ 1:05 pm

Sunday will see the launch of the Skyride series with Skyride Manchester. The Skyrides see Sky and British Cycling teaming up to provide an opportunity to ride around the centre of Manchester, Glasgow, Leicester and London without the traffic or pollution. Along the route will be a series of different events, with a chance to ride through the velodrome, a family section, the go loud tunnel and Albert Square which will have British Cycling and Wattbike set up to offer a chance to find out more about Cycling in the UK and an activity zone – the Wattbikes.

The road is closed for the whole route and is open from 10am to 4pm. The Activity Zone is also open for the same time, so come and have a go on the Wattbikes where we will have a 200m challenge going on, but be gentle on us, we will be there from 6am for set up so maybe drop by with a coffee – mine will be a cappuccino if possible.

A pause for thought

Filed under: General — Tags: , — Alex Skelton @ 8:58 am

I caught the “Pause for Thought” feature on Radio 2’s Wake up to Wogan, and although it started with one of those Wogan links where they are having a conversation about something completely staged – in this case how fit Wogan is looking – then seemlessly drop into the visiting speakers thought, it hit a nerve with me today. The speaker today was Sarah Joseph, editor of emel, the Muslim lifestyle magazine. The bulk of her thoughts surrounded the fact that with 3 kids, a full time job, speaking engagements and some volunteer work she had become unfit, and her solution was to get a pedometer and some decent shoes to walk in and put it right by walking over 10,000 steps per day. It had made a huge difference to her life, she was feeling fitter, had more energy and enjoyed the challenge of going from 3,000 steps per day up to 10,000 and beyond.

It was the motivational value of her targets, and specifically the need to have some data so that she knew if she had acheived her target or not, that was most interesting to me. As we get older I have found more and more of my friends getting unfit and becoming overweight. Much like Sarah Joseph we all have busy lives, but those that are able to fit some exercise into their lives have more energy, and stay slimmer! The key motivator seems to be a target, whether that is running a half marathon or riding 1000km it is reaching towards those targets that is key, and setting some data points along the way so that the target it not 6 months away. That is what we like to do with the Wattbike, set a target work towards it, one pedal revolution at a time, and it is the data feedback that keeps it interesting, can I average a few more Watts each session, can I go further with the same average power (improve efficiency), am I lighter, stronger, fitter, healthier. In the end though it always comes down to one thing, does all this effort make me happier, and if done right the answer is most certainly yes.

Wattbike Talent ID athlete wins at Paralympic World Cup

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Steve Marshall @ 11:46 am

Ben went up to Manchester Velodrome last Friday for the DHL Sprint School where the young athletes were practicing the Team Sprint and Kierin on the track. They also had a session on the Wattbikes where up and coming BC riders Helen Scott & Chris Lyte gave the guys some tips for the 2 events especially on their starts, griping the bars, their position on the bikes and using their body weight to maximum effect. Using their new skills they them had team sprint competition.

http://www.sprintschool.com/content/home.asp

Whilst we were there Dave Reedle one the BC psychologists popped down, Dave, a former shot putter and now GB track cyclist, first realised his potential as a cyclist at last year’s World Cycling Championships on a Wattbike. Whilst having a go a the Wattbike peak power test he managed just short of 2000watts. He has since taken up the sport and last May was selected as a tandem rider and won Silver in both the Kilo TT and Tandem Sprint at the Paralympic World Cup.

Fantastic work by Dave!

Wattbike à L’Etape du Tour Mondovélo sous le soleil du Ventoux

Filed under: General — Tags: — Steve Marshall @ 9:49 am

Setting up the Wattbike tent at the Mont Ventoux étape

Setting up the Wattbike tent at the Mont Ventoux étape

Wattbike at L’Etape du Tour Mondovélo under the sunshine of Mont Ventoux

Wattbike France launched the Wattbike at L’Etape du Tour Mondovélo to the thousands of the competitors who came to attempt one of the most famous and tricky mountain stages of the Tour de France, Mont Ventoux.

It was a very busy few days where 8500 cyclosportifs fought against the infamous mountain roads, accompagnied by another 20,000 visitors. The sun shone, and the temperatures were high especially when the windy mountain lost its gust for the Sunday.

The Wattbike tent was extremely busy across all the days as it was the only booth around where everybody could come and try the product. Everyone who had a go were fascinated by their power profile on the polar graph, and lots of group were very keen to compete against each other on the Wattbike challenges.

Customer sensations were described as the best ever felt on a stationnary bike, far better then on the usual or top turbo trainers. The information provided by the monitor was very interesting to the customers, with the star is the Polar Graph !

Sunday was very much an international day as 3 out of 4 demos were done to non-French residents. Many came from the UK and Spain, but some came from South Africa (most living in London), Canada & Quebec, South America (Argentina, Mexico).

Look out for our booths at forthcoming events, such as the Cycle Show in Earls Court, and the Skyride events across the UK this summer!

Triathletes World, August 09 features the Wattbike

Filed under: General — Tags: — Alex Skelton @ 2:45 pm

Triathlon World August 2009

Triathlon World August 2009

Have just seen the coverage of the Wattbike in the August edition of Triathletes World. The bike gets a good write up and there is a nice image. They do a section at the end of the piece where they outline if the item is essential, and if there is an alternative. Was obviously disappointed to see that they thought it was not essential, but then they have not seen the effects that understanding pedalling efficiency can have on your cycling! They do however understand the value of the data from the Wattbike and explain that there is really no alternative to the Wattbike if you want to accurately measure your power output and cycling efficiency!

Shows, meetings, Jenson Button and the BBC’s Guestimation

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Alex Skelton @ 9:02 am

It has been another busy week with the Wattbike being displayed at shows, events and meetings all over the country, but without a doubt the most exciting visit was to Brawn GP to test Jenson Button. I will write a full blog post on that session, but for now will just say that he is just like he appears on TV, very down to earth and personable. We also did a bit of testing with his two engineers who were also great guys and very interested in the polar view, especially when they were slightly better than Jenson!

The Wattbike has also been used in filming for the new BBC Show Guestimation, a game sho, which will go out around the National Lottery on Saturday nights. The Wattbike was connected by the show’s technicians to a wall of lights with each one representing a number of Watts. The aim of the game is for two families to guestimate how much power the Olympic BMX rider Liam Phillips can produce. Obviously telling you would be to ruin the surprise, so you will have to look out for the Wattbike Guestimation Challenge to find out more. Liam has also been selected to represent Great Britain at the UCI World BMX Championships in Australia

Henley Royal Regatta

Filed under: General — Tags: — Alex Skelton @ 12:33 pm

After the Lincolnshire show, where else would you expect to find the boys from Wattbike, but of course darling, at Henley Royal Regatta. The rowing community have been very fast to pick up on the benefits of the Wattbike as they are familiar with monitoring their training data from the rowing machine. With this in mind we were ready to explain to them the benefits of cycling, of the Wattbike and of course excite them with the polar view. Well, we did not really need to! Almost as soon as we set up a group of rowers came up to the stand to have a go, with one of them explaining all the features of the Wattbike to his friends. Apparently rowers also read the cycling press, check the website.

A great five days were had at Henley although I have to say that Wendesday, Thursday and Friday were too hot to expect anyone to do any of the ranking distances, but we did have a good peak power from one of the dutch rowers, 1688Watts. Our premise that you cannot predict who will be most powerful without testing was definately proven when he went to get the “most powerful” person from his crew to see what he could get. He struggled to get over 1300W with a final score of 1306W. I am sorry to say that ruined his credibility and his weekend – you cannot hide on a Wattbike!

We also had some good feedback from some of the rowers who have been using the Wattbike to supplement their training or because they have back or arm injuries and cannot row. All of them reported that they were performing better in their fitness tests after using the Wattbike – they put this down to the fact that they are removing the imbalances between their legs that the a-symetical rowing action causes.