Jon's Jibber-jabber

I have been searching this year for a set of aero race wheels for my triathlon bike.  Last year, I rented a set of Reynolds for my 140.6 to try to make the effort a little easier. I wasn't concerned about speed as much as effort.  That is still semi-true this season, but I am now getting to the point where I am becoming competitive at shorter distances.  Rather than continue to rent, I looked for something that I could call my own.   First, I went through the tubular vs. clincher debate. There was a lot of research on this and enough for a separate post on that debate.  I decided on clinchers for simplicity because that's what I currently use.  Then back to the wide world of the Internet to research wheels.  Again, debates over carbon, alloy, hubs, spoke count, depth, v-shaped versus toroidal.  I felt like I was back in physics class at times.  For every two people, there were three opinions on the best wheel.   In the end, I se...

Sunday our team, Outspokin Multisport Team, did a mock Olympic tri at Clearwater Beach.  Basically it was a supported swim, a bike and a run.  Do as much or as little as you want.  The goal for me was just to do all three back-to-back. I didn't want to simulate a race with transitions as there really wasn't room to set up and none of my upcoming races have the added issue of beaches so that would just frustrate me.  About 40 people showed up to the event, which replaced our usual Sunday OWS.   The swim was a new drill.  We called it the mile washing machine drill.  If you want to know what swimming in a washing machine feels like, this is it.  The Gulf of Mexico was not happy (yellow flag beach) and we had some pretty decent swells.  The waves were breaking at a sand bar about 50 meters or so off shore and then they would slosh around until they would break again at the shore.  I could not see over the swells and several broke over my he...