[HAMR] Distance, speed and heart rate

[Wowbagger]

It has been mentioned on several threads that Steve is deliberately keeping his heart rate below 90 bpm and his speed, correspondingly, is, by many standards, relatively low, about 15mph on average (that's much faster than mine, but that's irrelevant).

Can people who know a lot more about this sort of thing than I do (most of you!) give a rough idea of what his likely heart rate would be if he upped his speed by 1mph? Or 2mph? Assuming he averages 15 hours in the saddle at 15mph, that's 225 miles a day. Would that be better or worse than 14 hours at 16 mph (224 miles)? I am quite certain that Steve is a leading exponent of faffage reduction. 14 hours at 15mph would be 210 miles every day - just, but only just, enough to take Tommy's record, given that he has now passed 12000 miles and there are exactly 300 days of this ordeal left.

[fussballclub]

It is not an ordeal but fun.

[Wowbagger]

Speak for yourself, mate! 

[Man of the Mountains]

Before I start, I know more about cable routing than physiology as you are about to find out 

It is common knowledge that drag increases with the square of velocity (with turbulent air flow) so 15mph to 16mph requires ~14% more energy. The extra work the heart has to do to deliver that energy is not a linear relationship, the increasing HR is accompanied by other physiological effects like increased stroke volume and dilated blood vessels. Below a threshold the graph is almost horizontal, it then rises with increasing gradient until you hit an unsustainable level (oxygen debt, way above Steve's intended range). The question is: where is the threshold at which Steve's HR starts to ramp up? I don't mind sticking my neck out and guessing that Steve is comfortably on the flat part of the curve at 15mph so we are looking at a <10% increase in heart rate to 16mph and <20% to go to 17mph. I don't know what Steve's 25TT PB is but say it's 24mph at 180bpm we start to see the curve take shape. The next question is: what HR can Steve sustain all day? Yeh, I'm not daft enough to stick my neck out on that one! More simply: would the extra hour of rest be worth 100bpm all day? I'm not convinced, especially in the Winter when much of the energy is going into keeping warm and wearing out clothing. I would love someone to blow that theory apart and set me straight btw.

I think there is a secondary effect of great importance. The more intense the effort, the shorter the metabolic pathway needs to be and that means tending away from fats/protein towards carbs. Steve is undoubtedly supremely trained to ride all day on sausages and I'm confident he can do so at higher intensities than 90bpm. Couple that with less clothing, warmer air (less dense) and more vitamin D I think he will blossom in the Spring. Just need to watch that carb/fat threshold because 8,000 kCals is much better to eat as fat/protein, reckon Steve knows that though...

[Karla]

I don't know what Steve's 25TT PB is but say it's 24mph at 180bpm we start to see the curve take shape.

I talked to him about this once.  I think he said it was about 1:01:xx, on a drop barred bike, so 24 mph isn't a bad guess.

[macnark]

Remember also that drag is inversely proportional to inverse absolute temperature, so Steve will have around 9% less drag at 25C (298K)  than he was getting at 0C (273K)

In addition, warm air can hold more moisture, and moist, humid air is less dense that cold dry air, so factor in another 5% for summer humidity.

So, 14% faster due to ineherent aerodynamic improvements in summer.

Then, remove the balaclava, jacket etc which are currently making him wider and you can remove maybe 4% frontal area.

So we are up to 18% faster - AT THE SAME HR - so 17.5MPH according to my finger in the warmer-humifdifying-air estimations.

[vindec]

Brilliant stuff. IFLS!

[Ningishzidda]

What's his Cd?

[macnark]

Hard to calculate Cd from emprical approximations, but a rough fag-packet
scratchout led me to this estimation as the best Cd fit for Steve, based on recent
routing observations and trending vox populi ...

http://tinyurl.com/ojnoz73

[Wowbagger]

What's his Cd?

*googles*

I hope cadmium and Crohn's Diease are 0, but Cairo - Damascus would be one hell of a day ride.

[Karla]

Coefficient of drag, including coefficient of aerodynamic drag (commonly written C_dA) and coefficient of rolling resistance (commonly written C_rr)

[Oaky]

Does this mean there will be a red OYTT skinsuit unveiled come summer?

[Andrij]

Does this mean there will be a red OYTT skinsuit unveiled come summer?

One hopes not.

[Fidgetbuzz]

Does this mean there will be a red OYTT skinsuit unveiled come summer?

Now there is a thought for the team

[marcusjb]

Does this mean there will be a red OYTT skinsuit unveiled come summer?

Last year, Steve and I had some online discussions regarding the practicalities of speed/skinsuits for all-day riding (I used a Castelli SanRemo 3.0 for the 24 and tested it on a number of 200/300km audaxes).

He's not daft and knows how to balance up the pros and cons (primarily time taken to have a wee in a skinsuit - luckily there are speedsuits (an aero jersey with full zip stitched to a pair of shorts - not as outright fast as a speedsuit, but significantly faster than standard jerseys and shorts) which are  easy/quick to have a wee in and offer demonstrable improvements to speed. 

I am sure Blueskies and Steve have had discussions about summer kit and hopefully they will work out what gives Steve the most benefit possible.

[Oaky]

He's not daft and knows how to balance up the pros and cons (primarily time taken to have a wee in a skinsuit

I'd have thought the time to take a wee in a skinsuit would be pretty much close to zero.  It's manoeuvring the wee outside of the skinsuit that takes the time