Saturday, December 11, 2010

Peak Center Bike Blood-Lactate and VO2max Test... Aborted

I had a 10:00 AM appointment at the Peak Centre for Performance today for a Blood-Lactate and VO2max test on my new Cervelo P2. 


When I tried to put my rear wheel into the bike at Peak I was simply not able to get it in. And I know now how to do it unlike when I first took the bike home! 


What happened was that the slightly too short (got a longer stem) break cables pulled in an odd way on the rear break while the handlebar was turned in the car. This resulted in the breaks being stuck in a too tight position not letting the wheel in. We managed to finagle the brakes open and the wheel in. 


I know I had to go to SpeedTheory afterwards to get this all adjusted. Then we got everything set up and the warm up for the test started. He (the dude administering the test - I forgot his name) had me warming up at 170 watts and it felt super hard -- obviously I was worried. When he did the second calibration he noticed that something was off... so he checked the breaks and sure enough they were rubbing. So we calibrated again and he asked me to warm up a few more minutes at 170 watts. 


Now it felt quite easy and right. So the test started and all was well through 170w, 200w, 230, 260w, and into 290w. With about a minute into 290w I all of a sudden I could not keep my customary 90 rpm any longer -- not even 80 rpm. The dude kept encouraging me to keep up the cadence but I felt like I completely blew up. Eventually I tried telling him -- with the VO2max mouthpiece in my face -- that he needs to check the break and eventually he did understand me. Break was fine he said... but then realized that the wheel was rubbing on the frame. WTF!!?? 


Somehow the retaining screw must have gotten out of whack and when I started putting a little harder effort in the wheel shifted and started rubbing. Of course we needed to abort and the results are pretty much useless as we can not say with certainty when the rubbing started. 


New appointment for made for Monday evening and off I was to SpeedTheory to have them have a look at the whole thing. 


At SpeedTheory I met up with Jeremy who was able to help me out right away and made sure that (a) the retaining screws are placed correctly, (b) there is nothing wrong with the wheel, tire, or frame where it was rubbing, and (c) fixed up the break cable to give it a bit more length so it won't pull in the car. Great service and awesome job as is customary at SpeedTheory! 


So now I have to be fairly good all weekend to be fresh for another go at it on Monday. 


Here is the Garmin readout for the go while I was on: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/59398860
The cadence is all off as it got confused with the second magnet they put on for the CompuTrainer. 

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