Here I (Lennard Zinn) am with my longtime buddy Dag Selander (in the orange jacket) who pit-crewed for me. I switched bikes four times during the race; one time because I had a stick jammed in my rear derailleur (see photo). Dag power washed my bikes and gave me a nice, clean one almost every lap.
Last photo is with my teammates (who race different categories than me); left to right: LZ, Brandon Dwight, Pete Webber, and Greg Keller.

My custom lightweight magnesium Zinn Cyclocross bike with custom cranks, Enve carbon fiber rims, and all the lightweight components.

Was out on a ride this morning (it’s the middle of summer down here in New Zealand) and was at the back of a biggish bunch when a heard a loud BANG – and then had to take evasive action as a rider in front was obviously struggling to control his bike – and get it to a stop.  Ended up in the grass on the side of the road – no harm done.

Turns out – he’d broken a spoke on his rear wheel – and the wheel was so badly buckled that it wouldn’t turn without rubbing hard on the frame – so it was completely unridable.    Nothing to be done – but to get the cell phone out and get someone to pick him up.

But it got me to thinking about spoke counts and heavy riders…  Not that he was heavy – pretty tall but was a skinny Swiss guy.  But he had a low spoke count and one of those lacing patterns where there are 3 spokes close together – then a good sized gap – then another 3 etc etc…  He told me that this was the third time he’d broken a spoke with the same result each time.    He looked like a pretty handy rider too – which was lucky – as a lesser experienced rider might have gone down – and taken others down too – which would really have spoiled our Boxing Day ride…

As I’d stopped – we got to talking and he looked me up and down and asked if I’d had problems with broken spokes.   (I’m 198cm and 127kg – so I guess I looked like a likely candidate).  But I was happily able to answer him – that I used to break spokes (and frames) regularly- but since I’d had my Zinn bike and the wheels that they put together for me – I hadn’t broken a single spoke in 3 years and a lot of kms.

For someone my size – this is a big statement! (especially since I race on the bike a lot and I only have the one set of wheels – so they are my racing/training/commuting wheels)

When I bought my bike – my brief was something like “give me the best and most robust wheels you can for around $400 ” (this was all the budget would allow)  I knew that they specialised in big bikes and big riders – so I put my trust in them.   What they put together has been absolutely bullet proof.  DT Swiss TK 7.1 36 hole rims (front and back)  laced up to 36 hole Ultegra hubs.  And they have just been outstanding.

The only time they’ve ever had to be looked at – was when I got involved in a coming together on a descent – and ended up riding down a ditch at fairly high speed – and the net result of that was the slightest of buckles in the rear wheel – that was fixed at the local bike shop in a jiffy.  ( the other guy on the other hand went over the handlebars and snapped his forks in two!)

As I said – they are my everything wheels – race/train/commuting – and they haven’t missed a beat.  And that is hugely confidence inspiring…   I know now that I can get out of the saddle and sprint or climb – and that nothing is going to break.

Anyway – that’s my observations and experience from 3 years with a set of wheels that Zinn Built

Boxing Day in NZ.

Emily Zinn after her victory Saturday in the Bowl of Death at the Louisville Rec Center

On Saturday, she was psyched for her home course advantage (the Bowl of Death is just over the hill from her house and where they train at least once a week) and for the foot of snow and plenty of mud, in which she loves riding. She had lots of Bowl of Death Wednesday morning training group regulars, cheering her on, as well as her mom Sonny and cousin Leif and Delilah (her faithful hound).
A bike change would have made a big difference; on the last lap, her rear wheel froze in place on the last run-up so it wouldn’t turn for remounting.
Saturday she beat a big field as it was part of the Colorado Cross Cup series, and she beat the woman who’s leading the series by almost a minute.

Emily on the top step after winning the Adrenalin Cross in Highlands Ranch

She also won the Adrenalin Cross race on Sunday against a smaller field under much colder temperatures (24F; Saturday must have been 30F or so during her race, as the sun was out).
Way to go Emily, the whole Zinn crew is rooting for you. Especially since there is no way the rest of us are going to go out there and race bikes in the snow.

Emily on a challenging, snowy climb. hope she brought toe warmers

Emily on the Adrenalin Cross course in Highlands Ranch, Colorado

This is why cyclocross racers have two bikes.

Emily still relishing her first win at the Bowl of Death after the others have left.

Here is a link to the race results: http://www.americancycling.org/results/cross#year=2011&eventId=905&resultsetId=7606

We have made a convenient entry point for each of the shifting cables so that your custom titanium Di2 bike will look very sleek and very little clutter of cables.

We make a small hole with one of Shimano’s grommets at the very end of the chainstay, so the rear derailleur cable goes right into the chainstay and looks very clean. It also keeps the chainstay stronger than if we were to drill the hole into the side of the tube.

The wire goes from the shifter and into a small hole in the down tube so the wire can be hidden all the way until it reaches the derailleurs.

Instead of drilling the large hole that shimano suggests in their guidelines in the side of the down tube, we put ours in the bottom of the bottom bracket, which has much less effect on the strength of the bike. Then the battery is mounted under the down tube hidden by the chainrings and is very inconsicuous. The chainring gets in the way a little when opening the battery pack, but it’s worth it for the clean look.

Wealthy Venetians back in the day apparently hated traveling by land. To escape the congested island in the lagoon, and because starting in 1345 residents of the SerenissimaRepubblica di Venezia were not allowed to own land on the island, they built enormous villas inland toward Padua along the Brenta Riviera, a navigable canal off the Brenta river (which flows relatively freely to Padua from Trento and Bassano del Grappa) with locks every 10km or so to control the level. The Riviera del Brenta was considered an extension of Venice’s Grand Canal and went all of the way to Padua (35km), and it included many side canals and loops to get all over the place without leaving the boats. Crews would row the luxurious barges across to the mainland from the island of Venice, and then horses would drag the barges up and down the Riviera del Brenta. In the mid 1700s, Casanova and his friends traveled this way from party to party at the huge villas lining the canal.

Check out my daily route (http://bit.ly/nZoEM9). Each day I see more hidden villas with vast, elegant grounds. A lot of them seem abandoned; it would be fun to fix one up and live in it, switching off kayaking to Venice and riding to Venice from there, but the wait for Casanova would be in vain unless he’s on Elvis’s program.

Byron had broken many 26-inch-wheel bikes trying to ride these trails in the past, and he ended up broken sometimes himself. He said, “With my high center of gravity, the short wheelbase, little wheels, and overall size of the bikes, I would have my butt pushed back so far and low that my navel was on the rear tire, brakes fully on, and I’d still go over the bars on steep drops that smaller riders could roll no problem. And there were moves that I just couldn’t make, like a steep drop with a must-make right turn followed by a quick left down a log. But when I got my Gigabike, I could do those things and finally understood what a benefit the bigger wheels, longer wheelbase, longer top tube, longer cranks, and generally better balance of the bike makes.”

Layne said, “After I got my Gigabike, my wife asked me why I was not coming home bloody from mountain bike rides anymore! I used to be so scared on those trails and would go out fully padded up, because you can break an arm here on a zero mph crash; I felt totally naked out here in Lycra with all of this granite below me. I have a lot more scars from riding the North Shore on 26ers than I do from playing semi-professional rugby for years! But now that I got my Gigabike, I can ride this stuff and not hurt myself!”

Layne’s success on the mountain bike inspired him to get into off-dirt riding as well. He’s now got a Zinn magnesium road bike, and on Saturday I’ll ride the Gran Fondo Canada from Vancouver to Whistler with him.

Thanks for reading.

Lennard Zinn

I'd made huge advances with my Zinn - so wanted to now see how far I could go with some serious work.

A year ago I’d decided to take on a coach – train seriously – aimed at the Nationals TT –  and see what I could do.  I’d only ever ridden in a handful of TT’s at that stage – but figured that would be a good place to aim – as it takes the size element out of the equation to a degree.

So this was it!

Not quite do or die – as apart from me – no one would really care a jot about how I went.  But it was going to be a serious test of my years’ worth of work.

And I was worried about how I’d go.

I’d made really big gains in the first half of my year – which showed up in the difference in the test results from the start and then halfway through the year.  But then I’d hit problems.  I had a big performance drop – which saw me heading to the doctors for a full round of medical test.  Tests came back fine – but showed that I had very high blood pressure – which we dealt with via medication.  This didn’t really explain the drop in performance however and in the end it looked like the probable cause was some sort of virus.  Anyhow it took me a long time to come right from that – and it was only in the weeks leading up to the Nationals that I was starting to feel like I did at the time of the previous test just before things went haywire.

And in the TT rides I’d done up to the nationals – I hadn’t gone as well as I would have liked.  One of the early markers that I’d set myself was to break a 40km/hr average in a TT – and this was something I thought I would’ve cracked pretty quickly with training.  But here I was at the Nationals – still having not got past the elusive 40km/hr in a TT.  I was seriously beginning to think that maybe it was beyond me.

So how did I go?…

There were 2 of in our club having a crack in the TT – and we drove up together on the day.  We met up with Bob and Derek, who were the officials from our club, at their motel.

I’d woken up that day feeling pretty nervous and this was building as I got closer to start time.  But it was that good sort of nervous energy that I hadn’t experienced since my days playing in big rugby matches.  So I took this as a good sign.  We got changed at the motel and performed all the pre ride rituals – pinning the number on the jersey – checking the bike – pre ride meal etc etc.

Nerves, nerves, nerves!

How would I go?  Would I come last? It wouldn’t really matter if I did come last – but please don’t let me come last!!!

So with these sorts of thoughts going through my head – we headed over to the course.  I’d already figured I was going to commit a big no no – in changing what I normally did.  My plan was to do a long warm up of 1.5 hrs.  I’d never warmed up for that length of time before – but I’d never really had the chance as most of the TT’s I’d done up to now were evening events after work – so no opportunity to warm up for that amount of time.  And I know I often struggled early on in races and got more comfortable as things progressed – so I figured I’d do a long warmup that started slow and build the intensity into the last half hour.

So that’s what I did – and it was absolutely the right thing to do.   Spent best part of an hour just going for a ride – nice and relaxed.  I stayed pretty close to the Start/Finish just in case I had any bike problems – and I tried not to see all the very flash TT specific bikes and the riders with the skinsuits and all the TT bling.  It’s the rider that counts the most right?

Then with a little over half an hour to go – I came back to the club trailer and Bob and Derek swapped the wheels on my bike over to the quick SRAM S80 wheels that I’d borrowed for the event.  (a bit of bling of my own).  Put on my borrowed TT helmet – and headed off again to build a bit of intensity and get a real sweat up.

Intervals went well – wheels sounded cool (very important J) and  before I knew it – it was time to head to the start.

Still feeling nervous – but still good nervous – amped, focussed, buzzing, ready to go…

Had to get through the scrutineering – where they measured my bike to make sure it complied with UCI regulations.   If you’ve read the rest of my blog you will know that as I’m 6’7” and have a custom built bike – no – it didn’t meet with the UCI’s restrictive regulations (specifically the front half of the bike was too long and the bottom bracket was too high off the ground).  But I’d made sure that I’d complied as much as I possibly could – especially in the setup of the handlebars and seat.  I’d been in touch with the commissairs before the event to let them know my circumstances and they’d told me that if my bike didn’t comply – they’d let me ride but that I wouldn’t be an official part of the results.  They also then went on to tell me how my bike was all wrong and had very strange geometry – which I didn’t appreciate as I wasn’t asking them what they thought of my bike – I was asking if it complied with their rules.  By now I’m used to people questioning the validity of the design.  It’s nice to let the results speak for themselves…

So as I rolled up – the commisaire said “So this is the famous bike”.  Here we go I thought.

In TT mode. Managed to get the seat forward with seatpost turned backwards - so the offset was forward.

He put it up against their jig and saw that the bars and seat were inside the prescribed measurements – and told me that I’d done well to make it comply – off you go…  Wow!   The measurements that my bike fails on – weren’t even on the jig!!!

So I was going to be part of the results…

So that left me with a 5 min wait until my start – in the start box (once you’ve been measured – you can’t leave the start area).  They offered me a seat – but I couldn’t sit – had to keep moving.  Bob came and was a calming influence – focussing on the process I was about to start.

Bob and I in the pre-start area. I think the bike's a little too big for him

Got on the bike with about 30 seconds to go – there was a starter counting me down – and a guy to hold my bike.  I reminded him that I was probably double the weight of most of the other riders – so make sure you get a good hold…

Bob was talking to me as the clock counted down – which was really good stuff – breathing, focus, power etc etc

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO!

The plan – that my coach and I had come up with – was to start in a controlled fashion for the first few km.  In the past I’d been guilty of going out too fast too soon and blowing up.  I’d done that in the Wellington Centre TT Champs only a few weeks previously – and had come second in a TT I should have won.  So – start in a biggish gear and keep the heart rate down a bit just to settle in – and then give it death!

And the course played into this plan for me – as just after getting up to speed from the start – it headed slightly downhill for a good bit and this let me comfortably get in a big gear and settle in without pushing too hard.

It’s a fine line however…

I knew the course – which helped – I’d come up a few weeks previously and had ridden it.  It was an out and back that followed the river upstream in the first half.  So was slightly uphill on the way out – but I knew that it was really a series of flats with short steps up in between.  So push hard on the steps and back under control on the flats.

And it went fantastically well on the way out.  I wasn’t riding with either a heart rate monitor or a speedo – but I knew I felt good and comfortable and that I was pushing a big gear – even on the slightly uphill bits.  And I also saw that I could see the rider that started a minute in front of me and that I was slowly catching him!  Cool – I had someone to chase.  Turns out I caught this guy easily – and he was in fact the guy that had started 2 mins ahead of me – and he’d already been caught by the guy in front of me.   It really is the best feeling to blast by someone – and it also meant something very important – I wasn’t the slowest!

Then I started seeing another rider up ahead – my minute man.  And I was catching him too – not as fast – but definitely catching.  Yeee Haaa!

At the turnaround – I was about 20secs behind him – and had 12.5km of slightly downhill to go.  And when you are my size – slightly downhill is your friend…

I caught him with about 6km to go.  He had a beautiful TT bike, skinsuit and all the bling – so it was a nice feeling to pass him on my road bike with clipon TT bars.

Then it was a matter of hanging on.  I was tiring – and finally had to change down a gear – but I knew I was going way faster than I ever had before.   I died a bit on the uphill bits before the finish – and had absolutely nothing left for a sprint.

I finished in 36:08 – and an average speed of 41.5km/hr!  (click here to see results)  Very very happy – didn’t just break the seemingly unbreakable 40km/hr barrier – but absolutely smashed it!

Looking back now – I think I had the perfect day.  I really don’t think I could have gone any faster.  Terry Gyde (my coach) really did a great job preparing me – especially in the last few weeks.  He’d told me a few weeks before the event – that I would average between 41 and 42 – and I didn’t believe him.  I guess that’s why he’s the coach.

To be sure – I think I can definitely go faster – but that will take more training, hard work and focus.  And Terry agrees “I’m picking you have a lot more development left in you”.  He and I are working together again to see what I can do in the Masters 3 division.

I’d love to have a TT bike for the next one – but I don’t think it’s going to happen (I’m still buying the lottery tickets).  But my beautiful Zinn once again proved itself the perfect vehicle for me to get power down on the road.  I know as a rule people seem to ride longer cranks in TT’s – but I bet not many are riding 210mm beauty’s!  Being a road bike – It’s certainly not the ideal platform for TT’s – and I will need to figure a way to get the bars lower still so I can get more aero.  But I think the proportional length cranks more than made up for any shortcomings.   When I do go for a TT bike – it’ll definitely be a custom built Zinn – so I can take advantage of the proportional cranks…  No brainer for me.  Can do things on the Zinn I could never have done before.   Did a seriously competitive time on a road bike with clip on aero bars!  And as far as I could see – I was the only one in my grade not on a TT bike.    So that bike geometry is not so silly after all

Hi Lennard,

It’s kinda crazy, but finally there is some data to back up what you’ve observed along with every other notably taller person has seen while riding custom cranks. It was always the faster jump in combination with VO2 efficiency that was creating gains.
I think a better way to test the “whole picture” is standing start 250m or 500m time trials. That way everything is included in the test,  and the stopwatch tells all. I tried suggesting that to Andy and crew, but they were VERY against it. Basically worried about it introducing too many variables, but apparently it introduces the most significant ones of all, the speed/time of acceleration and VO2 efficiency at max power.

In any case, this year I’ve been lifting a lot of weights as part of my training. Mostly with my crossfit gym which focuses on Olympic style lifting. The results have been shocking, I’ve won a couple races this year and placed in a few others. What has been shocking is I’ve been sprinting from about 15-20 wheels back, and passing almost everyone on the last 600m typically holding over 1000W for over 20s (nearly 30 in one case) at an rpm of around 120.  So sure my max power isn’t higher on the 200′s but I can hold it a LOT longer and when I jump I gap the guys in my draft, which is what wins races in a sprint.

Here is the video from a sprint from 20th place to win at a criterium a month ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwCJDPQaO2A

Attached is the picture from the Burlingame Criterium (Cat 3) a week ago. I’ll be either forced to upgrade to a 2 by the end of the season or I will just upgrade at the end of the season to start next year as a 2 on the road. I’ll let you know how racing in the P/1/2 field goes.

Here are the power files (and race reports) from each race, notice the cadence and power at the end:
Davis: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/96953987
Burlingame: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/95039152
Wente: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/82934903

-Kieran

Making progress.

I’ve just updated my blog with a whole lot of valuable information from Lennard Zinn about TT positioning and what I can do to turn my beautiful Project Big Dolomite Ti bike into a makeshift TT rig.

What I have to do to it – getting the seat a whole lot further forward – isn’t pretty – but it’s certainly working…..

I’ve still got a lot of things to change – but progress is happening.  And I’m learning what a beautiful – stable – versatile platform my Zinn is.  I’ve had the bike for over a year now and have been racing on it constantly – and it hasn’t missed a beat.

I honestly still get that “I’ve got a cool new bike” feeling every time I get on it.

Quite a few people have been asking me how I’m getting on with the bike now that I’ve had it for a while – and the short answer is that i still absolutely love it.  The long answer will come in the form of another review – which I’ll do shortly for this blog.

But in the meantime – if you want to find out more about the TT’ing – check out this latest over at my blog…

Cheers

Adrian.