Are you trained to spend or spend to train?

I am a skeptic.

When Specialized claims they have increased the latest Tarmac SL4’s stiffness-to-weight ratio by 19%, my BS radar goes off. Didn’t they say the same thing about Tarmac SL3 in 2011? I think they did:

With the best stiffness-to-weight ratio on the planet, the Tarmac SL3 is 10% lighter and 18% stiffer than the already exceptional SL2.

Whatever the stiffness-to-weight ratio is, unless the original frame Specialized started with was made from play-dough and weighted a tonne, continuous increase in stiffness by almost 20% is hard to accept.

Numbers, they say, don’t lie. This is why bicycle manufacturers keep numbers to themselves and blow smoke in our faces with “the best stiffness-to-weight ratio on the planet” or “nothing is lighter and stiffer” puffery.

How do we know that “nothing is lighter and stiffer” than Tarmac SL4? Because Cannondale wants you to buy their bikes too and says their Supersix Evo “has the best stiffness-to-weight ever recorded.”

This is not a new game. When, according to Specialized, Tarmac SL3 had “the best stiffness-to-weight ratio on the planet”, the phenomenal Storck Fenomalist also held “the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio of any bike on the market”.

Who do you believe then? More importantly – should you even care about your bike’s stiffness-to-weight ratio at all?

I don’t know if you noticed this: bicycle marketing is never about you, the rider. It’s always about the bike. It’s the bike that will do this for you or that. The focus is shifted from you to the bike.

The message is: you buy this bike and you’ll be a different rider. Like a pro or something. And we fall for it. Maybe not straight away. Maybe it takes time to absorb the message. Sooner or later they get you. The program is complete, you’re converted and are now trained to spend.

Welcome to the Church of Cycling.

The trick works because we like shortcuts. What’s easier – months of systematic, disciplined training to improve your individual time trial result by 2% (e.g. 1 minute over a 50-minute time), or a swipe of a credit card to buy aero gear and achieve the same result?

If your name is Fabian Cancellara and you can buy 1 minute improvement over your time trial result with a piece of equipment, then the answer is obvious – you go for it. But if you’re flying lower than that, then perhaps you should consider to hold on to your money a little longer.

This is because Fabian Cancellara has nothing more to learn about individual time trial and probably has little, if at all, room left to improve his physiological performance.

His bike position has been dialed in, he knows what to eat and what not to, how to warm up and how to pace himself during the race. As far as the actual, quantifiable performance improvement is concerned, he is probably at the end of the road on that journey. So if you give him a gadget to gain speed without digging deeper into his energy reserves, he will take it without thinking twice because there is nothing else left he can do to improve his speed.

Not so with most cyclists who want to improve. Unlike Cancellara, too many choose what looks like an easy path using a wallet and start from the end of the road as if all other avenues for improvement have been exhausted.

They buy the latest and the greatest equipment first, often exactly the same or even better than that of many professionals. Writing a cheque or swiping a credit card isn’t hard. Cutting down on donuts so that you can sit properly on your 6-kilo engineering marvel is a little harder. It takes discipline and character. You can’t buy this.

Which is why I started this blog. I believe cycling is a journey worth taking. I’ve been on it for more than 35 years now. Taking shortcuts, buying your way in is stupid and a waste of time. To enjoy this journey in full, it has to be real, it has to be authentic. You can buy a rainbow jersey on eBay or you can earn it by investing years of training into it. Which one would you treasure more?

This blog’s idea was born years ago when I read a research paper that claimed so many seconds in a 40km (25mi) individual time trial can be saved against standard equipment with this piece of equipment or that.

By “standard” the authors meant a road bike with box-section rims, no aero helmet and no skinsuit. The 40km time trial they calculated time savings for was ridden in 50 minutes or at 48kmh (29.8mph) average speed.

In other words, the argument was: if you rode a 40km ITT in 50 minutes on a road bike with no aero equipment, wearing an aero helmet, for example, would give you a time of 49 minutes.

It got me thinking…

In 1985 I rode my fastest 50km ITT. I clocked 1:03:12 or 47.4kmh (29.5mph). I didn’t even win it, I came 5th.

Note the speed though: 47.4kmh (50km) vs 48kmh (40km). It’s reasonable to assume then that since the speeds are almost the same, time savings I’m talking about below would be almost the same too.

In fact, in a 50km race they would be greater because the race is longer.

In my 50km time trial I had no aero equipment on. Not even a water bottle (apparently, a huge aero device). If the research figures are true:

• an aero helmet would have given me 67 seconds;
• a skinsuit 134 seconds for a total of 3 minutes and 21 seconds;
• wind tunnel tuned position is another 56 seconds and now it’s 4:17 ahead of myself;
• aerobars take away another cool 122 seconds and it’s 6:19 faster;
• an aero frame is a lousy 17 seconds but I’ll take it—6:36 ahead;
• shoe covers push into 7 minutes territory (30 seconds) and a virtual me 2014 is 7:06 faster without doing anything;
• and finally a front deep rim wheel with a rear disc combination is at least another 60 seconds or more depending on how bearish any particular wheel manufacturer feels about their product.

Roughly 8 minutes faster with all the aero gear.

Now, 1 hour 3, take away 8 gives an impressive time of 55 minutes for a 50km individual time trial. This is 54.5kmh (34mph) average speed.

Tony Martin won a 58km 2013 ITT worlds in 1:05:36 or 53kmh (33mph). Does it mean I could have won the 2013 ITT worlds if I had a time travel machine in 1985?

Of course I know that a road time trial in one place can’t be directly compared to a road time trial in another place. The race course and the weather conditions Tony Martin rode in may or may not be similar to my circumstances in 1985.

Thing is, mine was an out and back course with 3 u-turns, roughly 40-45 seconds loss so the time without u-turns would have been something like 1:02:30, pushing my virtual 2013 speed with aero equipment even higher.

Tony Martin rode without u-turns. Unless I raced in a vacuum that day, how this performance can be explained? And what about 4 other guys who beat me? Were they even better in 1985 than Tony Martin in 2013?

Does it mean that aero equipment is a gimmick? Not at all. The advantages are real. A relatively simple power meter test will show that the laws of physics do apply in road cycling.

The question then is not: Is there an advantage in high-end aero equipment?

The question is: Did I explore, did I exhaust every avenue available in my circumstances to grow as a cyclist or it’s the end of the road for me and I should keep spending money on equipment to improve in this sport?