Sweat.

I’ve bought a Powertap and Garmin 500 in an attempt to make myself faster.  5 years ago, the last time I was really serious about racing I tried like mad to make the bike lighter in an attempt to be faster.  I was an idiot.  

Someone once posted on mtbr about how to look at bike weight.  Bike weight (if you’re not racing up the Tourmalet in the Tour de France) is immaterial because you have to look at system weight. Say my mountain bike weighs 23 lbs.  I could spend several thousand dollars and get it to 21 lbs.  2 lbs! Wow, that’s a lot.  However, looking at system weight:  I weigh 206 (right now) and the bike weighs 23.  That’s 229 lbs system weight.  Shaving 2 lbs off the bike is 0.9%.  Big wup.  According to last night’s numbers, my FTP is 243 watts.  That means my watts per kilogram of the whole system is about 2.33 watts per kilogram.  Shaving 2 lbs off the bike would get me to 2.34 watts per kilogram.  Not enough to make a difference to me.  If I eat right and take care of myself though, I can shave 20-30 lbs off my frame.  That will make a HUGE difference (2.85w/kg), and it costs me nothing except good health.  No brainer here.

So instead of decreasing bicycle weight, I am trying to make the engine faster.  The easiest way to make myself faster is to lose weight.  Plain and simple, at the same power, the lighter person will always be faster.  I’ve been at it about a year.  Last year on my birthday I got my new license and the picture on it is the picture of a fat, middle-aged, dork.  I hate it.  It says 275 on my license, I’m pretty sure I was closer to 285 at that point.  You don’t weigh yourself a lot when you’re pushing 300 lbs.  I’ve lost around 80 lbs, depending on which scale you ask.  I figure I could stand to lose 20 more, although I’d love to lose 40 more and be at 165, I’m not sure my body can maintain that weight.  Either way, skinnier is faster, so skinnier is what I’m trying to be.

I’m also trying to increase the power I put out through the right kinds of exercise and training.  Without a power meter it’s tough to know what exactly you’re doing.  My heart rate in a one-minute interval never even gets to max.  It’s still rising when I finish. Power output doesn’t lie.  You can see exactly what you’re doing, regardless of how your heart is responding or how you feel.  So I drank the koolaid, I’m using it to be faster.  I’ll let you know how it goes.