What About Oval?

Episode Transcript
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Tom Butler (00:04):
This is the Cycling Over 60 Podcast, season 3,
episode 16,.
What About Oval?
And I'm your host, tom Butler?
I ended up doing an experimentthat I didn't really mean to do.

(00:26):
When I got my indoor trainer inNovember, I spent a lot of time
trying to figure out how to useZwift.
For a couple of weeks, I didnothing but virtual rides.
Then we ended up having a realdisruption during the holidays
and I spent a couple more weeksriding Zwift.
That continued on for enoughtime that I decided that I would
only do indoor riding for twomonths.

(00:47):
I thought it'd be interesting tosee how well virtual riding did
in keeping up my fitness level.
One of the last outdoor rides Idid was a 37 mile ride on a
pretty flat route, so I decidedto repeat that route and see if
I could match my performanceafter the two months of virtual
riding.
During the two months, I loggedabout 41 hours, 447 miles and

(01:07):
18,000 feet of climbing.
Over the two months I continuedto set personal bests for power
output, so my question wascould that be enough to keep me
in shape for the road?
When I did the 37-mile ride inNovember, I set a personal best
for 50k, so it was a solideffort.
I averaged 14.7 miles per hourwith a heart rate average of 145

(01:27):
beats per minute.
I did the ride again on January25th.
My average speed then was 14.2miles per hour and my average
heart rate was 150 beats perminute.
I see that as a significantdifference, and I have no doubt
that I wasn't able to keep up myfitness level with the virtual
riding.
The difference between 14.7 and14.2 could be attributed to

(01:48):
just a difference of how I wouldbe feeling on a good day versus
a bad day.
However, it wasn't just theslower time.
My legs were in significantlyworse shape after the January
ride in comparison to what I didin November.
I could feel them consistentlycramping up for the last 10
miles.
In addition, the next night Ihad some of the worst cramping I
have ever had, and there was asection of my quad muscles that

(02:09):
were very sore, like I hadn'tbeen exercising them at all.
One potential explanation forthis is that I just don't ride
long virtual rides.
I find riding by myself on thetrainer to be hard to maintain
for more than a half an hour.
I only had a few rides over thetwo months that were longer
than an hour.
I have no doubt that that leftme unprepared for the 37 miles

(02:31):
that took two and a half hoursto ride.
But I also think that part ofit might have been that I just
don't climb the same way in thevirtual world as I do in real
life.
I do think that virtual ridingfor two months did help me keep
my cardio capacity from gettingdestroyed.
I actually felt great from thatperspective on the ride in
January.
Even though my average heartrate was higher, I still felt

(02:53):
like I had plenty of gas left atthe end of the ride.
It's just that my legs are sotrashed.
Here's my final conclusion Isimply have to keep doing longer
rides on the road to keep up myleg strength and stamina.
The trainer isn't going tomaintain my leg strength, but I
think if I do high intensityinterval training in Zwift and
keep working to increase my FTP,the virtual training will play

(03:14):
a role in building my cardiocapacity for the road.
Also, I need to experiment withways to make longer virtual
rides more appealing to me whenI can't make it outside.
I have been thinking a lot abouthaving a weekly virtual group
ride.
Here is what I have come upwith.
It's helpful for me to ride inthe afternoon.
So I'm going to do a weeklygroup ride at 3 pm pacific time
on Thursday, and I'm starting iton February 6th.

(03:36):
I would do the ride withoutrubber banding so that people
who want to ride fast can do so.
However, I'll personallymaintain a one watt per kilogram
pace for the ride so that thosewho want an easier pace can
have that as well.
I would love it if someonewould lead out with the higher
intensity group.
Let me know if you'reinterested in that.
By not rubber banding the group, it means that people can go

(03:58):
for sprints and climbs and alsorace for the finish and yet
still have an easy going ridefor those who want that, and I
also open up a Zoom call duringthe ride so that we can have
some interaction.
I've set the event to CyclingOver 60 Zwift Club members.
Only that way we can keep theatmosphere positive.
I still have a lot to learnabout running group events, so

(04:19):
expect some bumps along the way.
If you're on Zwift, pleaseconsider finding the Cycling
Over 60 Club and joining ourride.
Final note for this week afterusing Stello continuous glucose
monitoring for a few months, I'mgoing back to Freestyle Libra.
I'm just really unimpressed bythe function of Stello.
Getting the Freestyle Librameans that I'll about double the

(04:40):
price that I pay for CGMs, butfor me I think it's worth it,
and I'm going to be making somechanges and I want a CGM that is
reliable.
I still would like to try Lingo, but they don't have an Android
app, so for now it only workson iPhones.
Continuous glucose monitoringis something that I see as
valuable, and I will continue togive updates on how that goes

(05:02):
for me.
Ever since I got back on thebike a couple of years ago,
there's been something that I'vewanted to investigate.
30 years ago, when I was ridinga lot, my bikes were fitted
with Shimano Biopace chainrings.
I didn't really think about itmuch at the time.

(05:24):
It was just what the bikes camewith.
When I purchasedopacechainrings, I didn't really
think about it much at the time.
It was just what the bikes camewith when I purchased them new.
The bikes I have purchased inthe last couple of years didn't
come with Biopace and it wasnever presented as an option,
but I have been curious aboutwhat happened to non-circular
chainrings.
I decided to get Garen Myler tojoin me and take a look at what
is happening in the realm ofoval chain rings like BioPace.

(05:45):
Here's what we discovered.
I'm joined today by Garen Myler, the official mechanical
engineer of Cycling Over 60, and, as many of you know, my
son-in-law.
Thanks for joining me again,garen.

Garren Miler (05:56):
Yeah thanks for having me on.

Tom Butler (05:58):
You probably have set the record.
I mean, I don't think it'sprobably close, but you've
probably set the record for themost time anybody has been on
the podcast.
So that's how valuable you are.

I'm glad to hear it.
Yeah, I love talking to you andI love the conversations we
have because I think there's alot of really nitty gritty
interesting things to talk about, especially from the
perspective of my field ofengineering.
So I'm excited to talk to youtoday.

Tom Butler (06:21):
Here's what's going on that I want to talk to you
about.
Somewhere around 1989, I shouldprobably know exactly when that
was but I purchased a Trek 1500.
That bike still hangs in mygarage and you're familiar with
that bike, I know Absolutely.
You used it for some time toride to work.

It was actually the bike that got me into
cycling.
Now, uh, it was the first bikethat you loaned me to to
actually get me pedaling and, uh, and that was what inspired me
to, you know, get my own bike,uh, you know, more modern bike.
And it wasn't just that thatbike wasn't good enough, though,
I did get run over by an suv onit, um, but definitely we've
been able to restore it back toits former glory since then we

(07:01):
did have to do a little work onit.

Tom Butler (07:03):
So one of the big features of that when I bought
it was BioPace Shimano BioPaceand you know they were excited
about it at that time andselling me on the technology,
and the truth is I really likedit and so you know, when we
restored it it got restored withBioPace on it, which I'm happy

(07:26):
about.
I don't know if you feel likeyou rode it enough to have some
opinion about it.

Absolutely.
From the moment I saw the bikewith Biopace and I learned what
Biopace was and the ovalchainring, I was like why don't
all bikes have this?
This seems like such an awesomeidea to me and conceptually I
love it.
I will say when I rode thatbike and I haven't really ridden
it recently I certainly wasn'tan experienced enough cyclist to

(07:53):
really know the difference.
You know, all I was doing wasspinning the pedals and, like
you said, getting to work mostof the time.
So for me I didn't reallynotice the difference physically
.
But I'm also, you know, I'm notracing the Tour de France, I'm
not splitting seconds and gramsand you know, and calories, I'm
just.
I was just cruising around town.
So I really would love to, uh,to see if I could tell a
difference today on it.

(08:14):
But of course, that bike is soradically different from from a
modern bike at this point that Iprobably wouldn't know what was
due to the oval chain ring andwhat was due to the you know,
wildly different geometry thanI'm used to yeah, that's a
really good point.

Tom Butler (08:26):
When I got back into cycling a couple years ago, I
didn't see bio pace anywhere andI wondered whatever happened to
that.
Those oval chain rings and whatare those things about when you
talk about, like, modern bikesare very different.
And I thought, well, maybe onething is that you know, with all
the changes, that you knowsomething like BioBase is not

(08:49):
warranted anymore.
But I've been curious about it,you know, and I'm still curious
.
So I thought it'd be fun to doan episode around the topic of
oval chainrings and have youjoin me, because I know that you
have some perspective on whythe oval chain ring would be

(09:09):
interesting for people to thinkabout or to use.
So here's the main question Dowe no longer see oval chain
rings because they're a bad idea, or is there maybe another
reason?

I think you see it in cycling a lot.
You see it in many sports.
You see it with cars as well,where the upper echelons of the
sport are really what shape thetrends that trickle downwards
into the amateurs and thenon-professional enthusiasts.
And I think that the chain ringis an awesome idea.
That probably didn't helppeople on the Tour de France as
much as they hoped it would, andnow the average Joe doesn't get

(09:43):
it anymore.
But I really do think thatthere's some merits to this and
I'd love to talk about how Ithink that an oval chainring can
be a huge advantage for aregular guy.

Tom Butler (09:53):
No, I think it's a really good comment.
I think that there's a lot ofthings that you would see that
professionals are using that.
Someone like me.
It's just not.
I'm just not riding the samekind of bike or doing the same
kind of things that they'redoing.
So to me there's an interestingaspect of this, and that's that
if you look back, you can findan image of a bike with an oval

(10:17):
chain ring, and that bike cameto market in 1893.
In 1893.
I find that interesting becausethe safety bicycle, you know,
which is what we think of as thebeginning of the standard bike
design that we see today itwasn't introduced until 1885.
So it seems like almostimmediately, people started

(10:38):
thinking about oval chain rings.
My question is you know, evenback then, as people just start
riding the safety bicycle, whatdo you think people might have
been experiencing?
The pedal stroke that wouldhave been noticed in early chain
drive bikes, and you know whythey might be thinking that an

(10:59):
oval chainring would be good.

Well, I think to answer that question you don't
have to look any farther thanthe name that Shimano chose to
give their oval chain ringBioPace.
Bio, meaning it's about themechanics of your body.
The human body, obviously, ismade for walking and running and
that's what your legs are meantto do.
And pedaling isn't exactly that, but it's close and it's
something that your legs arepretty good at, but it's not

(11:22):
technically a natural motion.
And it's something that yourlegs are pretty good at, but
it's not technically a naturalmotion, it's an adaptive thing,
and so an oval chain ring is away for you to help better
utilize the mechanics of yourlegs to do something they're not
quite meant to do.
And I think that's probably thethinking that would have led
people so early on to trying toadopt an oval chain ring on even
the earliest bikes.

Tom Butler (11:42):
So it was noticed early on in then 80s.
So quite a bit down the road,shimano did introduce bile pace.
I want to acknowledge that someexcellent information on the
topic of non-round chain ringscome from writing done by
Sheldon Brown.
If you don't know who SheldonBrown is, take a few minutes to

(12:02):
pull up his Wikipedia page.
He provided a ton of reallygood information on bicycle
technology until his death in2008.
You can still find thatinformation on his webpage,
sheldonbrowncom.
I'm really happy to havediscovered who he was and the
information that he left behind.
I look forward to going throughit more.

(12:25):
Biopace is different fromclassic elliptical design.
Now I'm quoting Brown here.
Quote BioPace design is basedon a dynamic analysis of the
motion and momentum of movingcranks and legs, unlike the
static geometric analysis thatproduce classic ellipticals, and

(12:46):
you can find that onsheldonbrowncom.
Forward slash biopacehtml andI'll put that link in the show
notes.
I think it's interesting whathe says here, and maybe Garen,
if you could just break thisdown a little bit.
So biopace is designed on adynamic analysis of motion and

(13:10):
momentum of moving cranks andlegs and he contrasts that with
static geometric analysis thatproduced classical ellipticals.
So what's the differencebetween dynamic analysis and
static geometric analysis.

So a static analysis is going to be looking
at the leverage that your footis going to have versus the
pedal at any given point on thepedal stroke, but it's not going
to take into considerationfactors like torque or the speed
of your pedal or the momentumthat you're carrying through the
mass of your foot and the pedalsystem as you go around the

(13:51):
stroke.
All it's going to look at isessentially how much force can
you exert, given the geometry ofyour leg and the geometry of
your bike, for a given locationin the pedal stroke, and that's
a great first pass and that'sgoing to get you a pretty decent
outcome.
But a dynamic analysis is goingto go much deeper into actually
what it's going to feel like toride that bike and I'd love to

(14:14):
talk a little more about kind ofwhat sort of linkages form when
you step onto a bike and howthat's going to affect your
riding.

Tom Butler (14:22):
Well, let's get into that.
Ped know, pedaling a bicycle isa complex process and it
involves a combination ofphysics principles, including
torque, leverage, rotation,motion, rotational motion,
friction, the laws of motion.
So it's you think about ridinga bike and you learn to ride a
bike, or I learned to ride abike I think almost everybody

(14:44):
learned to ride a bike really inthe absence of thinking about a
combination of physicsprinciples.
But if you step back and lookat it, there's a lot going on.
So talk about the mechanics andthe forces exerted.

I think bicycles, just to start, are something
that we really take for grantedbecause they're such marvels of
physics.
When you actually step back andlook at the fact that you're
flying down the road on twowheels, balanced upright, it's
pretty amazing.
But in particular, pedalingconsists of what we in
engineering call linkages.
In engineering school, you'llhave an entire class where you
talk about the dynamics oflinkages, and when you step onto

(15:20):
a bike, what you're doing isyou're forming a linkage that
includes both yourself your legsin particular and the bike, and
you're creating a system that'sgoing to allow you to transfer
power to the wheels.
So when you pedal a bike,really there's two linkages that
are occurring.
There's the linkage between youand the bike via the bottom

(15:41):
bracket, and then there's thelinkage between the bottom
bracket and the rear wheel.
That's via the chain ring, andyou have to think of those as
separate systems.
You're producing an input intothe bottom bracket by spinning
it, and then the bottom bracketis attached to the chain ring
and that's producing an outputat the rear wheel via a certain

(16:01):
gear ratio, wheel via a certaingear ratio.
So the the linkage that existsbetween the chain ring and the
rear wheel is very simple.
It's obviously, it's just twogears and when you, you know,
you shift to different gears,it's still just two gears, but
of a different size.
Now, and that transfer is theeasy part to understand.
I think we can all understandthe ideas of gear ratios and how

(16:24):
the larger ring on the front,smaller ring on the back is
going to make you go faster, etcetera.
Right, the more complicatedlinkage exists between you and
the bike itself, and thatlinkage is a question of biology
as much as it is about physics.
When you sit down on the seat ofyour bike, you're creating
essentially to simplify greatlya five-bar linkage.

(16:46):
The bars of that linkage arefirstly your thigh, which
stretches from the seat to yourknee, and if you're sitting on
the seat, you can kind of assumethat you're fixed to the seat
right Because gravity is pushingyou into it.
So you have your hips are ajoint and your knees are a joint
and they're connected by yourthigh.
Next, you have your knee,connected by your lower leg to
your ankle.
Your ankle is the next joint inthe linkage.

(17:08):
Then you have your ankle to theattachment point on your pedal,
and the pedal itself is a jointwhich rotates freely on the
crank arm and then the crank armto the bottom bracket creates
the next link.
And the final link is actuallyvia the seat post of your bike,
connecting the crank arm back toyour butt on the seat.
That's the five bar linkagethat you create when you step

(17:29):
onto a bike.
Now, when you create a linkage,a lot of dynamics are at play
and in particular, you're goingto end up with what they call
dead zones.
These are spots of what we callzero mechanical advantage.
You can think of it like if youwere to step onto your pedal
and your pedal was facingstraight upwards and you pushed
down with your foot, youwouldn't rotate the pedal ring

(17:52):
right.
You have no advantage that arerotated.
If all you could do with yourfoot is move it up and down,
then at the very top of thestroke you'd have no mechanical
advantage.
You couldn't push down on pedalas much as you pushed on it.
You would not rotate it becauseyou're at the top of the circle
right.
But if you've got some momentuminto that chain ring and this is
actually if you look at howtrain wheels on like old steam

(18:12):
trains worked and they had thosebars between the wheels it's
the same kind of principle.
But if you get a lot ofmomentum in that, what you'll do
is, when you get to that deadzone, you already have a
baseline velocity.
So to that dead zone youalready have a baseline velocity
.
So even if you're just pushingdown, you're still going to just
scooch past that dead zone andall you have to do is scooch a
little bit past it and then youcan push down and you're in the
front side of your chain ringand you'll get some power

(18:34):
through it right.
So it's that momentum that getsyou past that hump of the dead
zone, right, and that'ssomething that you need to
overcome if you want to be ableto move a linkage, and that's
something that you need toovercome if you want to be able
to move a linkage.

Tom Butler (18:45):
I want to stop you there for a second, and you know
because, like you'revisualizing this, I think, in an
excellent way and doing a goodjob of talking about it, but I
just want to illustrate that bysomething that I think everybody
is aware of.
Yeah, when you stop at acrosswalk or something and you

(19:10):
are waiting for the crosswalksignal to change or the
stoplight to change or whatever,now I always put my pedal
position where I can get a lotof leverage on it to take off.
You know, if you, if you stopthat pedal position with the,
with the pedal all the way downto the bottom of the stroke,
then you have nothing to helpyou get started, especially if

(19:33):
you're not clipped in.
If you're not clipped in andyour pedal is at the bottom of
the pedal stroke, then there'sno leverage that you have to
create motion, absolutely.
I think that's exactly whatyou're talking about, right.

That's a great example of how you experience a
dead zone in everyday riding.
Now, when I talked about when Iillustrated the idea of zero
mechanical advantage, I said youhave to assume that your foot
can only move up and down andthat's what creates those dead
zones.
But in reality, obviously, yourfoot can do a lot more than
that.
You can push forward at the topof your pedal stroke, you can
pull up in the back if you'reclipped in right, your legs can

(20:06):
generate power in any number ofdirections and that's due to
your biology.
And so when you're looking atthe idea of a chain ring and
you're looking at biopace, whatyou're thinking about is
actually the dynamics of whereyour foot and your leg and that
whole system can create theright amount of power at the
right time.
And if you want to optimizethat, that's the direction

(20:27):
you're going to have to startlooking is is how can my legs
produce as much power aspossible, given the limitations
of where they can and can't getthe most leverage, given their
geometry on the chain ring?

Tom Butler (20:40):
When they developed Dialpace.
I think this is exactly whatthey were thinking about, right?

Yeah, I'm sure they were.

Tom Butler (20:47):
So back in.
I don't know when it started itwas, you know, came out in the
80s sometime, but they probablystarted thinking about this the
design well before it came out,I'm sure.
And so you know they're.
They're thinking about thephysics and if you go back to
this quote, they were thinkingabout a dynamic analysis of

(21:10):
motion and momentum of movingcranks and legs.
As you think about this, areyou seeing anything from a
theoretical perspective thatwould say what they were
thinking about was wrong?

I think that they were absolutely on the right
track with the biopace chainring.
I think that examining theinteraction between your body
and the bike as a dynamic and,frankly, very complex system is
going to lead you in a directionof higher efficiency.

Tom Butler (21:41):
For me.
There's another element here.
I don't really feel thatcomfortable that I am doing a
great job of pedaling in acircle and hear about pedaling
in a circle all the time, but,man, when I've tried it, when
I've tried to climb and reallyfocus on pedaling in a circle, I

(22:02):
don't feel like it's really ahuge advantage for me.
So what are your thoughts onthat?

I think there's a lot of truth to that and, of
course, I'm no professionalcyclist and I don't want to talk
about cycling form and what isand isn't correct, because I
know that there's a milliondifferent ways that people will
tell you how to ride a bike whenyou're racing and isn't correct
, because I know that there's amillion different ways that
people will tell you how to ridea bike when you're racing.
But I do think that to purelyvisualize pedaling in a circle,
I think is to ignore some of theanatomical limitations that
your leg system has.

Tom Butler (22:30):
It's interesting that you say that, and you're
not the only one.
I mean, there is an article andit's posted on gearandgritcom
written by Kevin Curry.
It's called the Cycling Myththat Won't Die Pedaling Circles.
Now that to me is a prettycatchy title.
You know the Cycling Myth thatWon't Die Pedaling Circles and

(22:53):
in the post he pointed outsomething that I have thought
about before.
This is a quote from him.
Extension muscles push againstgravity all the time.
Flexion muscles are only usedto lift up the leg.
The amount of force required tolift your entire body and keep
it there will always be morethan the force required to lift

(23:15):
your leg.
Why, then, would you expect theflexion muscles to provide the
same force on the upstroke asthe extension muscles do on the
downstroke?
So again, what he's saying hereis that when you look at like
your quads that are used toprovide extension, and then you

(23:37):
compare that with the musclegroups that are flexion muscles,
there's just no comparison inhow they're used and how they're
developed.
That seems like that has to betaken into account here, but I
don't hear much about that.
What do you think?

I think that I couldn't have said that better
myself than Kevin Currie did inthat quote, because really, what
this highlights to me is thedifference between a
professional cyclist and anamateur cyclist, and why I don't
think bio pace or any of theseoval chain rings really caught
on at the professional level isexactly because of this concept.
Right, obviously, not all ofthe muscles in your legs are the
same size.

(24:13):
The muscle to lift your foot isgoing to be a lot less than the
muscles used to lift yourentire body, and that makes a
lot of sense.
Now, if you're a professionalcyclist, you know your body is
moldable and you can certainlyget on certain training machines
or on bikes and you can pedalfor six hours a day and you can
train your flexion muscles to bereally, really strong to the

(24:33):
point that you are pulling upwith a tremendous amount of
force because you've molded yourbody for that purpose.
Right, you've transcended that.
Just, I'm just going to use mylegs for walking.
And now you're saying I'm goingto purpose, build my muscle set
for this niche activity that weinvented, that is cycling.
Right, but as an amateur,that's not what I'm doing.
I'm biking to work, but most ofthe time I'm walking, I'm

(24:57):
jogging, I'm maybe swimming, butI'm doing other activities and
I'm not necessarily going to geton a machine and focus on
building those muscle groupsthat are naturally not as strong
.
So if you're a Tour de Francerider, you're going to have
these incredible muscles thatare pulling up on your upstroke,
that you've intentionallycreated that way.
But if you're an amateur,you're not going to have that

(25:19):
same level of bolstering onthose muscles and it can't be
expected for someone who's justriding a bike casually or who's
racing at an amateur level.
So when biopace doesn't catchon at the top, it's because,
frankly, they don't need it asmuch, because they can
compensate for that with reallykind of outlandish training
regimens that most people arenever going to do.

Tom Butler (25:39):
I would love to see, like, some kind of
investigation about this.
Like, take the elite cyclists,that again you know they're
training all day long, they'reclimbing all day long, they're
focusing on their pedal stroke,like all day long as they're in
training, and then you knowusing it as they're racing, you
know using it as their racing.

(25:59):
I would love to see, like, thedifference between their ability
of flexion compared to thenormal person's ability of
flexion and then their capacityfor extension compared to the
normal person's ability forextension.
I think it'd be possible thatyou would see that.

(26:20):
I think it'd be possible thatyou would see that what you're
saying is that they havedeveloped their flexion muscles
in a way that most peoplehaven't come close to, and
they've also developed theirextension muscles.
But I just have a feeling thereis a difference of their
flexion muscles that evenexceeds the difference of their

(26:42):
extension muscles.

That's totally a hypothetical thing, but I think
it's really possible.
It certainly is hypothetical,but I think that there's a
really high probability of thatbeing the case, just given that
cycling is a niche activity thatyou don't naturally do if
you're not in that world, and sothe more you do it, the more
acclimated your muscles aregoing to become to that activity
and there will be musculardifferences from, let's say,
someone who trainedprofessionally as a runner right

(27:07):
, their legs are not going tohave muscle in the same areas as
someone who trainedprofessionally as a cyclist.
I mean, that is, you know, justa fact.

Tom Butler (27:16):
And this kind of comes into play.
You know, as I'm getting older,you know there's going to be a

(27:46):
point.
Now I think I'm still able tobuild muscle.
You know, I'm coming about 62years old and I think I am able
to build muscle.
16 years old and preparing tobe on the professional road
circuit at that age and I start,you know, focused on building
up muscles for a pedal stroke.
You know I'm going to build theflexion muscles a lot easier
that me.
At my age I'm going to be ableto build those flexion muscles
up.
So so, even if you say you knowyou can build those flexion

(28:07):
muscles, I think if you're olderand you haven't stuck with it,
I think that it's going to beharder to you know, to make
those changes.

Yeah, and I think that's exactly the time that
someone should start asking thequestion how can we compensate
for this disparity in other ways?
Mechanically speaking?
A noble chain ring is one wayto do that.

Tom Butler (28:30):
What I find interesting, again, taking a
look at this in preparation forthis discussion, my interest in
non-circular chain rings.
It wasn't diminished at all, itwas actually increased by me
looking at this, and despite thefailure of BioPace, there are a

(28:53):
lot of people who swear bynon-circular chain rings.
So it seems like there is somebenefit that people are seeing
in some situations.
One of the companies that seemsto me that's doing more than
anybody else, or as much asanybody at least, is a company
called Absolute Black, and theyclaim to be the only

(29:16):
scientifically proven oval chainrings on the market.
So you know, this is somethingthat's very interesting to me.
I mean they are saying look,it's been scientifically proven
that this is a better design forchain rings and yet you still
don't see them on bikes.
I know you weren't talked about.
You know no one talked to youabout what you might consider

(29:39):
absolute black adding that ontothis bike.
You don't see Trek orSpecialized, you know, coming
out with their own version ofabsolute black or partnering
with absolute black.
So despite this very strongclaim that they make, you know
that it's scientifically proven,then it's still not making a

(30:01):
dent, it seems like, or a verybig dent in it.
I had wanted to get somebodyfrom Absolute Black on, but
they're kind of hard to get ahold of.
They're European.
I guess they were actuallydesigned in England but
manufactured in France.
I mean manufactured in Germany.

(30:23):
You know, there's like thisreal European aspect to them and
I just wasn't finding somebodycome on.
But you went out and you took,took a look at it.
So, having looked at it, whatwere your thoughts about what
they were saying?

So the the scientific backing that they're
quoting in that mantra comesfrom a research that was done at
a university in slovakia wherethey measured the performance of
the rider through manydifferent metrics, and they used
some pretty high-tech pedals tomeasure the exact power output
that the rider was giving to thebike versus the power that was
seen at the rear wheel right.

(30:59):
And this is the science thatthey're talking about.
But one thing that should bepointed out is that Absolute
Black's design is verydistinctly different from
Biopace's design, andessentially what they did is
they rotated the oval 90 degreesfrom where Shimano had it.
So Shimano's ideology was thisis a performance thing that

(31:21):
we're putting out this biopace.
This is a performance element,anyway, and obviously the 1500
that you bought back in 89 was avery high-end bike at the time,
and so it had thistop-of-the-line performance
biopace chainring right.
And so their reasoning was ifyou want to maximize performance
, what we want to do is maximizethe effectiveness of your power
stroke, which, in simple terms,is just the stroke in the front

(31:44):
end of the chain ring whichcorresponds to the upstroke on
the other side of the bike, onyour other foot, right, that's,
your power stroke is when you'repushing down, so you think
about standing up to climb ahill.
You know, when you push downand you're standing up and you
can really feel the power.
That's the power stroke.
And so what Shimano thought was, hey, let's increase the

(32:05):
leverage, let's make the longpart of the oval on the power
stroke, and then that'llmaximize performance.
And so in your little strokeyou don't have as much
resistance, you can just kind ofpedal through it and get it out
of the way, et cetera.
But what they found doing thatwas that that was actually wrong
.
What that was doing is that wascausing knee pain and it was
causing a kind of an irregularcadence.
When you think about, like Isaid, climbing up a hill and
standing up, you have this likekind of lurching motion to your

(32:27):
bike.
As you go up the hill you'relurching a little bit at a time,
and so that unevenness is goingto take a momentum and also
it's going to take a drain onyour body because you're going
to be kind of chugging throughyour ride.
And so the Biopace ring hadthat limitation.
So what Absolute Black did isthey rotated it the other way.
They said, really what we wantto do, your Power Stroke already

(32:47):
has plenty of power.
What we want to do is betterutilize your dead zone.
We want you to be able to pedalthrough that and have a little
more leverage so you can pushthe wheel a little bit better in
that part of your riding.
And what they found was reallyinteresting.
It didn't necessarily produce afaster ride overall.
What it did produce was lessenergy consumption, and that's a

(33:12):
very simple way.
They measured many parameters,but in essence, less energy
consumption for the same output.
And it also meant less work,work being a physics concept,
but in broad terms, less work inyour legs to pedal the bike for
the same outcome at the rearwheel.
And this is where you have tounderstand what I was talking

(33:35):
about earlier with the twodifferent linkages on the bike.
There's you interacting withthe bike and then there's the
bike interacting with the rearwheel.
And so if you think about, likewhen you set cruise control in
your car, your engine just spitsout the same amount of power
constantly.
It's a constant amount of power.
Your RPMs are the same and youcruise right, but on a bike
that's not what's happening.
Your body is producing verydifferent amounts of power in

(33:56):
your power stroke, in the deadzone, all the different points
in your pedal, and that thatcreates a non-continuous input
that then needs to get rectifiedbefore it goes to the rear
wheel.
So if it's just a circle oneither side of that secondary
linkage from the crank to therear wheel, then the kind of
irregularity of your pedalstrokes that's created by your

(34:17):
physiology is going to gettransferred to your rear wheel.
But if you compensate with theoval chainring, the way that
Absolute Black did, in thecorrect orientation, what you
can do is you can take thatuneven input that you're giving
the bike as a human and you cansort of smooth that out into a
much more constant power at therear wheel, a constant RPM, and
it'll feel a lot more like youhave cruise control set on your

(34:39):
bike as you're riding.
And ideally it's not just aboutmaking more power overall, like
biopace's um thoughts were.
It's about better interactingwith the kinetics of your own
biology and creating a smootherand less painful ride for the
rider, which I think is exactlywhat we need for someone who's

(34:59):
not a professional, for anamateur enthusiast who just
wants to ride on the weekends,and I think it's a better use of
your body, it's a moreefficient way to interact with
your bike.

Tom Butler (35:09):
More efficient way and, it seems to me, more
natural way.
You know again, you're usingyour muscles climbing stairs.
You're using your muscles doing, you know, everyday activities,
lifting things up.
If you use proper biomechanicsto lift things, it's like having
you do work on the bike more inline with how you typically

(35:33):
work.

Right, it's more ergonomic in a sense.
Almost you can think about likean ergonomically shaped
keyboard that doesn't make yourhands, you know, have to be so
straight compared to your body.
Right, and it's the same kindof concept.
It's ergonomics, but for yourpedal stroke.

Tom Butler (35:48):
Again, for somebody that isn't out spending, you
know, eight hours a day training, you know, and training in the
gym and everything, becausethey're a professional cyclist,
right.
So I do think it's veryinteresting, you know, if you go
to the website, which isabsoluteblackcc, and they have a
page why Oval?
And again, I'll put that linkin the show notes.

(36:11):
If you look at that, they wantto make it very, very clear that
they are not Shimano, you knowthey don't want to be associated
with it.
It's so interesting to mebecause, despite the research
that Shimano would have donehere, what they're saying is
that they did the opposite ofwhat you wanted to do and we

(36:33):
have rectified that.
And our research shows thatwhen you rectify that mistake of
biopace, then you do see thisadvantage.
And again, you know, go readY-Oval if you're interested in
this stuff.
And you know it might take alittle time to really understand

(36:55):
what they're saying if you'resomeone like me and not someone
like Aaron, if you're someonelike me and not someone like
Garen, but you know, you kind ofsee what they're talking about,
about the advantages thatthey're seeing in their research
.
I want to talk about anothermodern player in the oval chain

(37:16):
ring market and this is acompany I think it's pronounced
Ozometric.
This is a company I think it'spronounced Ozometric.
If you go to Ozometricde it's aGerman company then you can see
their concept for an ellipticalbicycle chainring.
Ozometric is a French make ofelliptical bicycle chain rings.

(37:40):
What I find interesting is thatChris Fromm, who's a four-time
Tour de France winner, excelledin a lot on the professional
circuit.
We talked earlier that thismight not have made sense for
professional cyclists, but hereyou have Chris Fromm, who is who

(38:04):
has used osometric chain ringsand obviously he's choosing them
.
You know he's got input fromteam technicians and you know
his own writing and, I'm sure,the testing that he did for

(38:28):
himself, you know, and hebelieved in this product.
And Bradley Wiggins is anothersuccessful professional cyclist
that has also used Ozometric.
These were designed by anengineer, jean-louis Tallow if

(38:51):
I'm saying that right I'm sorryif I slaughtered that and he
claims that this improvescycling performance.
It's a non-circular shape butit's tailored very specifically.
So I'm wondering if you had achance to look at that and have
some thoughts about the shapethat they have locked onto here
Garen.

I guess, to use an analogy, it's kind of like
thinking about, like I saidearlier, ergonomics.
Right, if you were to grab,like, a square bar, it's not
very ergonomic, it's kind ofuncomfortable, it pokes into
your hand, right?
If you were to grab a round bar, oh, that's a little more
ergonomic and it doesn't hurtyour hand quite so much, right?
So that's like having acircular chain ring, which is to
be a little dramatic, isunnatural, right?

(39:29):
And then you have a oval chainring, which is generally more
ergonomic.
This is like taking a piece ofclay and molding it straight to
the palm of your hand, you know,and then when you grab it, it's
exactly shaped to your hand,right?
That's kind of what this isdoing for their pedal stroke.
It's looking at the, the powerthat they're creating at
different points of their, oftheir stroke, and it's saying

(39:50):
how can we exactly match, um,the leverage that we're giving
that particular moment of thestroke to the output, so that
the, so that, for, for anirregular input that this
cyclist is giving, and that'stailored to the exact
specifications of that cyclist?
How can we make the rear wheel,the output on the other end of
the bike, be smooth andcontinuous, right.

(40:12):
So wherever they have the leastpower, they're going to
increase the leverage andwherever they have the most
power, they're going to decreasethe leverage.
And what that's going to looklike is, at different points in
your stroke, your ankle ismaking a different angle with
your foot and your knee ismaking a different angle with
your ankle, and et cetera, andso those are going to be
fundamentally different powersat different points in your

(40:34):
stroke.
That an oval doesn't quitecapture the nuance of right.
Because if you have an ovalchain ring, for example, when
you're just getting into yourpower stroke, you're going to
have the same leverage as whenyou're just coming out of your
power stroke.
On the other side and those arenot analog situations it's
actually very differentkinematics up your leg, and so

(40:56):
what this is doing is it's evenfurther refining that sort of
smoothing function that we'regetting between the chainring
and the rear wheel so that youcan get as close to a perfectly
consistent output on the otherend from an irregular input.
And that's going to be when,especially when you're splitting
hairs at the professional level.
That's going to be differentfor every cyclist, given their

(41:17):
dimensions, given the length oftheir linkages, the length of
their legs dimensions, given the.
You know the length of theirlinkages, the length of their
legs and their thighs relativeto everything else, the length
of their feet and, in particular, how their muscles behave and
how much they've tunedparticular muscles in their legs
.

Tom Butler (41:31):
This kind of customization you know of
specifically looking at what isgoing on with the individual's
pedal stroke and then tailoringthis linkage you know, this part
of the drive mechanism betweenhuman and bike to precisely that
man.

(42:04):
It just seems like professionalwas hurting me and not helping
me.
But I really couldn't findanything like that.
But you know, again, I'd beinterested to know why people
are saying, yeah, that thatmakes no sense at all.

Yeah, that makes no sense at all.
I mean, obviously there's a lotof money and prestige and et
cetera in the upper echelons ofcycling and they're going to do
whatever they can you know,tooth and nail to get an
advantage.
So I think that if they're notdoing something, if they are
doing something, there is somedefensible reason for that.
But in this context I can'treally think of what that would
be.

Tom Butler (42:37):
Yeah, yeah, I am really glad that I took this
dive into this and what you'vesaid here has been very helpful
because of the biopace that's onthe track the old track we have
talked about it and wonderedabout it, so it was really fun
to do this.
You know, little bit of a diveinto this.

(42:59):
I can't say that we thoroughlyuncovered everything about this,
obviously, but it wasinteresting.
So here's what I'm going to dowith this information.
First off, there's thescientific evidence, and the
truth of the matter is I don'tfeel like there's much that's
useful as far as the study isdone for where I am as a cyclist

(43:21):
.
The studies were done toevaluate this for pros and for
elite performance.
They really weren't done onsomeone who's you know in their
60s that getting back on a bikeafter a long time being off a

(43:42):
bike and kind of what myphysiology is like.
So I would need to see, I think, science done at that level for
it really to apply to me.

Yeah, and I think that highlights another
difference between professionalcyclists and amateur cyclists,
and that's that professionalcyclists are going to be a lot
more consistent person to personthan amateur cyclists are going
to be.
If you look at them all ridingin the Peloton, they all are
producing about the same amountof power and they're all riding
in about the same style, at thesame pace and they all have
about the same capacity andcapability to ride a bike,

(44:14):
whereas if you take a crosssection of a group ride in the
city with everything from andwe've been on group rides
together, right, and I'm in my20s and you're in your 60s and
that's a very different crosssection.
So if you're doing studies onthings, you're going to be
looking at this reallyconsistent group of professional
cyclists, because then you canapply your findings more broadly
across that group.
But if you're looking at thethe wednesday night group ride,

(44:37):
you know that's going to be avaried bunch and so obviously
the science is going to begeared upwards.
But in reality everyone'sreally different and it's going
to have a different needs and adifferent reason for making a
setup that works for them.

Tom Butler (44:49):
And then there's the whole aspect of subjective
versus objective performance.
There's the scientific evidenceand again I don't know that
that really applies a lot to meevidence and again I don't know
that that really applies a lotto me.
And then there's the, you know,when I rode, I liked it.
When I, you know, way back whenI used Biopace, I liked it, and

(45:22):
I think the aspect of whetheror not I feel more comfortable
if I'm riding a non-circularchain ring, I think that's as
important to me as you knowabout anything.
I don't want to have more kneepain, and so you know there
would be that aspect of it.
If I started experiencing moreknee pain, then you know I would
switch back, but at the sametime, you know there is a role
for what I would observe usingit.

You know, when you think about cycling as a
lifestyle, you start to thinkabout what it means to ride a
bike every single day,repeatedly, over and over again.
I commute to my job on my bike,right, so I spend around an
hour a day on my bike.
And when you're thinking aboutthe longevity of your ability to
ride your bike and the healthof your body, if I'm doing this

(46:05):
every day for 40 years in mycareer, I need to start thinking
about okay, maybe even a verymarginal improvement on the
comfort of my knees could paydividends by the time I hit 60.
Comfort of my knees couldn'tpay dividends by the time I hit
60.
And it starts now for me.
And so if I can have globalchain ring and it doesn't feel
different day to day per se, butover time that marginal

(46:29):
improvement adds up just alittle bit, that could be huge
for me, even if I never am onthe circuit, you know, riding
the Tour de France.

Tom Butler (46:38):
It'd be very interesting to know how many
pedal strokes, how manyrevolutions you're doing a year.
You know if there's even alittle bit of difference when
you talk about those linkages,if there's a little bit
different level of exertion orlevel of friction or whatever,

(47:00):
in that you know each pedalstroke, then that's adding up
massively over 20, 30 years.
Oh, absolutely, yeah, you know.
Another thing that I thinkabout is that it's pretty hard
to quantify performance gainsaccurately for me.
You know, there's so manythings that can change from day

(47:24):
to day.
My climbing looks like, orwhatever that it feels like it's
going to have to be asubjective thing, because
there's just too manyconfounding variables in the
picture.
So I'm pretty comfortable, Ithink, looking at using a
non-circular chain ring from asubjective perspective.

Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that to understandthe non-ovular chain ring, it's
better to look at it less from aperformance perspective but
more from an efficiencyperspective.
You're not necessarily tryingto make yourself go faster or
climb that hill better, but froma lifestyle perspective you're
just looking at increasing theefficiency of how you're
interacting with your bike, sothat you're not pushing yourself

(48:10):
so hard to get where you'regoing or to go on those group
rides or to go have fun with thefamily.
And I think a lot of it too isjust psychology.
I mean, if you think you'regoing to perform better with a
certain part, maybe that makes adifference for you.
I know for me, for example, whenI, when I snowboard, I always
ride what's called a true twinsnowboard, so both ends of the
snowboard are exactly the same.
Because if I don't ride a truetwin snowboard, I just feel in

(48:34):
my head like like something'sasymmetrical and it's just.
It feels wrong to me.
And so if I ever switch theboard around and ride the other
way, it just I, even though Iwould never know the difference
on a directional twin snowboard,it's just say I can just feel
it in my head.
Oh, it's not quite the same.
I know for some people that thecircular nature of their chain

(48:54):
ring, they might want that, theymight want to think.
You know it's a circle and Iknow what to expect and it's
consistent and you know and Iknow what's going to happen.

Tom Butler (49:04):
I think that's an excellent observation because,
again, if I'm going out therethinking that something is
benefiting me or slowing me down, you know I'm going to feel
that.
You know, regardless whether ornot that's true, I'm going to
feel it.
We had someone one time thatwas talking about that.

(49:26):
You drag them down when you're,when you're drafting off of
them.
They were convinced that whenyou're drafting off of them they
were convinced that when you'redrafting off of them, you were
pulling them down and theycriticized one of the people
that were riding with us forslowing them down by by drafting

(49:47):
.
And I'm sure, as they wereriding and they noticed that
someone was right behind them,they were feeling that in their
mind, they were feeling thatthey were being pulled back.

You know they were so.
They were so convinced of itthat I actually had to look at
myself, you know, does itactually look the one down?
Is there something I'm missinghere?
Because they were so convincedthat that that was.

Tom Butler (50:07):
That's what was happening I mean, when they
first said it, I was just kindof like it took me a moment to
really understand that they weresaying that, hey, I felt you
when you got behind me.
I felt a drag on me when yougot behind me, I don't know.
I find that absolutelyfascinating.
But anyhow, it's just anexample of what happens when you

(50:31):
have it in your mind, ifsomething's helping or
something's hurting.
And I think that's one of thethings that I'm going to have to
go into this, not knowing, youknow, is this beneficial for me
or is it not?
Let's just kind of see how thisfeels, but it's going to be a
very subjective thing for me.
I have decided to give it a try.
Part of the reason is I'm notgoing to try it on my Roubaix.

(50:54):
I'm going to try it on the FX3because it's a one-by, and this
is one thing that I saw a lot isthat non-circular chain rings
can cause problems with shifting.
But when you have a one-bysetup, you don't have to worry
about shifting, you know.

(51:14):
So you just get that one chainring and, uh, you know, you're
set, and so I think it makessense for me to try that on that
bike.
And if you don't have a one bysystem, maybe it's not so
interesting, but I but I'm goingto give it a try yeah, I'm
really excited to see how thatgoes for you what do you think
about this concept of that itcould cause shifting problems?

I think there's a lot of merit to that.
I mean, obviously, derailers arekind of precise instruments.
You know how hard they are totune and to get right, and
that's on a circle whereeverything's consistent right.
But as soon as you introduce anirregularity to your chain ring
, especially in a dynamicsituation when you're pedaling,
you always have the potentialfor the chain to jump around a
little more.
It might come off of the bigring at, let's say, a large part

(52:02):
of the oval when it disconnectsfrom that ring, and then you're
still pedaling underneath it.
So in that just brief momentthat it falls to the other ring,
that might be just enough timeto cause some issues because
you're now rotating anon-circular shape below it.
That's inconsistent.
So to me it makes sense that itcould cause shifting issues up

(52:23):
front.
I think that what you're sayingis totally right, that it makes
by far the most sense on aone-by system and I probably
wouldn't install it on a two-bysystem, just because there is
that potential for for you know,having issues with that and
also especially for a derailleurthat wasn't specifically
designed for that shape.

Tom Butler (52:44):
If I love it, if I put it on the FX and I love it,
which is a possibility then I'mgoing to want to put it on the,
the Rebay.
But I think I'm going to haveto find someone who knows what
they're doing with oval trainrings and say you know, what do
I do about shifting?

(53:05):
Is there a way to adjust thefront derailleur so that you
know, it's not a problem?
So I think I'm going to have toget some consultation on that.
It's not a problem, you know.
So I think I'm going to have toget some consultation on that.
Now the bummer would be if I,you know, love it on the FX and
I talked to somebody like therethere's no way you can put that
on the on the Roubaix.

Right.
I'd love to see that how thatprocess goes of trying to get
that to work well.

Tom Butler (53:32):
And then what do I do?
Do I like go out and find thebike that it works on and, you
know, sell the Roubaix, or youknow what do I do?
But that's a problem, yeahwe'll have to figure that out.
There's one more issue here,and currently on the FX there's
a 40 tooth chain ring.
I think this is a reallyinteresting aspect of this and

(53:54):
maybe you can describe this alittle bit.
But an oval chain ring is notconsistent as far as the pedal
stroke, like a circular chainring would be.

When they talk about, say, a 40-tooth gear,
we're talking about a standardbicycle tooth and what you're
describing is the circumferenceof the gear, which is obviously
directly correlated to itsdiameter.
And so what you can think about, instead of thinking about the
teeth count, you can think aboutthe diameter count and if you
know how big the teeth are, youcan take the diameter and you

(54:30):
can do some math to figure outhow many teeth would correspond
to going all the way around thatgear, given the standard tooth
size.
So when they say that the ovalchain ring is, say, a 42 slash
38 tooth, that's to say that atthe biggest point it's
equivalent to having a 42 toothgear on, but at the smallest
point it's equivalent to having,say, a 38 tooth gear on.
And that's how they measure thediameter is in terms of how

(54:55):
many teeth would be around thecircumference.

Tom Butler (54:58):
So then, that you know, means what do you do when
you've got a 40 tooth chain ring?
What do you replace that withAbsolute Black, which is the
company that I'm going to gowith.
I'm going to go with AbsoluteBlack.
You don't want to have themtailored under your medical
stroke.
You know I am not finding outhow much that costs, but I feel

(55:22):
very confident that that'soutside my price range.
It might involve a plane ride toEurope as well.
Yeah, so, yeah, so I'meliminating that as an option.
But what they're saying is thata 38 slash 42 is best for

(55:42):
someone who currently uses a 39or 42 chainring, right Round
chainring.
Obviously interesting to me,because what that's saying is
I'm going to drop down only alittle bit where my pedal stroke

(56:03):
.
I don't have as much power, soI'm only dropping down two teeth
.
Yeah, I have less power and I'monly going up two teeth where
I've got more power.
That doesn't seem to me like awhole lot of difference.

Right, and I think that the difference is
intentionally very subtle.
I think if you got too crazywith that ratio, you'd probably
start to feel really wobbly asyou pedaled, and so I think that
the subtlety is probably a veryintentional outcome of this.

Tom Butler (56:35):
It seems to me like I would feel it more in a higher
gear than I would feel in alower gear.
You know, when the rearchainring starts approaching the
size of the front chainring, itseems like I would feel that
difference less.
And that's probably true.

I would feel that difference less, and that's
probably true, I mean,especially when you think about
like if you were to stand up andeither sprint or climb, you're
going to have that chuggingmotion already, and I think that
when you're doing that kind ofemotion, that's when you might
start to notice a difference.

Tom Butler (57:08):
I actually had bio pace on two bikes in the past.
I had it on a hardtail mountainbike that I had and the Trek
1500.
And I stood up and I pedaled alot on both those bikes.
I never remember thinking I'vegot this like vroom, vroom,
vroom, feeling to it where it's.
You know, I can obviously feelwhere the difference is.

(57:32):
So it's going to be interesting.
I, you know, I've ridden a lotof miles now with a round chain
ring and it will be interestingto see how much I feel it and
I'll be reporting on it.
I'll report on the process onthat, on the weekly updates.
Awesome, when I think about youknow, 38 slash 42, the other
thing I think about is I don'tthink I'm going to need a new

(57:54):
chain, a rear derailleuradjustment or something, but I
don't think I'm going to need anew chain.

Off the top of my head.
I really couldn't do the mentalmath to figure out if that
would.
If you need a new chain forthat, because it really I think
depends on the tensioner on yourderailleur and how, what the
range of that tensioner is toabsorb the extra chain.
You know, if you have a lot ofsort of spring left in that that
you can eat up, then you mightbe fine.
But if you're already kind ofon the cusp then it might end up

(58:20):
getting too much slack in it.
I just I think it reallydepends on the geometry of your
bike and I wouldn't know off thetop of my head.

Tom Butler (58:26):
Here's going to be a fun aspect of this I am going
to get the chain ring, take thechain ring and the bike into the
Trek dealer.
It will be interesting ifthey've ever dealt with that
before and kind of what theirwhole, what their whole demeanor
is.
I don't think they would comeout and say this was a dumb

(58:49):
thing to do, you know, but it'svery possible they could be like
okay, yeah, we could do that ifyou want us to.
You know, just kind of likesubtly saying that they don't
approve of this move.
But you know, I think that theywill be able to say, okay,

(59:10):
you've got some slack in yourchain here that'll have to be
taken up, or whatever, and givesome advice in that realm yeah.

So you've got me really excited about oval chain
rings and you maybe want to rundown to the store and buy one
myself.
But uh, the uh.
The question I have, that is,how much does one of these
things set you back?

Tom Butler (59:29):
yeah, that's a good question.
They are not dirt cheap.
I mean, they're going to set meback a bit.
Now.
There's a range of costs and Idon't know exactly what

(59:50):
chainring.
I'm going to have to reach outto them and ask them which one I
need for my setup, and ask themwhich one I need for my setup,
but I'm expecting to paysomewhere around $80 for it.

Garren Miler (01:00:04):
Oh, that's actually a pretty affordable
modification in the context ofperformance bicycling.

Tom Butler (01:00:07):
Well, again, I think if I buy into the notion that
this is something that is goingto make my pedal stroke more
efficient and actually give memore longevity, reduce the
chance.
You know, when I did this rightacross Washington, you know, I
ended up with bursitis reallylike killing my attempt.

(01:00:27):
If I would find out and I don'tknow that there's any way to
find this out for sure but if Iwould find out that this chain
ring made a big difference withme getting bursitis, then it's
definitely going to be worththat money.
But I am committed to givingthis a try and really seeing you
know how it goes.
So it's a, to me, a fair enoughinvestment to make to do

(01:00:51):
something like this.
Awesome, Garen, your comments onthis were perfect.
I just really appreciate youtaking the time to have this
conversation.
I know that you're going to befollowing this with interest and
I'll be really interested tosee if you bite the bullet, if I
find out that I can get them onthe Roubaix, if you're going to

(01:01:17):
bite the bullet and do that too.
But uh, I'm excited to find outall right.
Well, thanks so much for thetime and talk to you later yeah,
talk to you later.

Garren Miler (01:01:28):
Bye, bye now.

Tom Butler (01:01:38):
I have a little bit more information to add to my
discussion with Garen.
I reached out to Absolute Blackto find out what they would
recommend concerning a chainringfor my Trek FX3.
Based on the exchange with them, I purchased their Cyclocross
1xOval 110x4 BCD NW Tr tractionchainring.
I got the 40 tooth size.

(01:01:59):
The 110x4 BCD relates to theplacement of the bolt holes and
the NW stands for narrow, widechain.
I like the fact that it is achainring tailored to cyclocross
because I believe that means itis designed to be able to hold
up in muddy conditions, becauseit's a more durable chain ring.
It's on the heavy side but onlyat 65 grams and that's not

(01:02:20):
going to be an issue at all onthat bike.
I called the Trek dealer aboutputting an oval chain ring on
the FX3, and they didn't scoffat it at all.
I will take the bike in when Iget the chain ring because I
want them to assess whether ornot I need to do something
different with the chain length.
So it looks like everything isfull steam.
Ahead for seeing how this worksout and if I like it or not.
This last week has been coldand snowy so I haven't been

(01:02:43):
outside much.
I'm getting a little nervousbecause, as I talked about in
the update, I'm not getting agood enough workout on virtual
rides.
I have the 32-mile 2,100-feetChilly Hilly coming up in a few
weeks and I really need to getout and climb up some hills.
It's awesome because chillyhilly represents the beginning
of this year's cycling events,so I'm excited that it is only a

(01:03:03):
few weeks away.
Whether you are a few weeksaway from better weather in your
area or are going to have towait longer for good riding
conditions, I hope you'relooking forward to what will
make 2025 an awesome cyclingyear for you.
And remember, age is just agear change.

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