Operation Ötztaler Cycle Marathon - Part 5, Equipment
It's not just the rider who needs to be fit for the mountains, the racing bike also needs to be prepared. Part 5 of the training series looks at the right equipment. What is important? Which road bike is ideal for the Ötztal Cycle Marathon?
Our man for the Ötztaler has a good laugh - his racing bike is exemplary light: at 7.2 kilograms in full race trim, Joe Ramming's BMC Teammachine is on a par with light professional bikes. In view of the 5500 metres of altitude to be climbed in the Ötztal Cycle Marathon, low weight is a great advantage. Every kilo counts.
In addition to weight, aerodynamics also play a decisive role in a mountain marathon (see also calculation below) - after all, the downhill times on the Ötztaler add up to around two hours. If it was about performance and best times for Joe, we would have put a more aerodynamic bike on his tyres. But Joe rides for fun and above all wants to finish - so it's more important that his usual bike, which he was also fitted with, fits him very well.
The right gear ratio for the Ötztaler Cycle Marathon
In terms of gearing, Joe had made provisions in good time and bought a new gearbox with a 1:1 mountain gear. With a 50/34 crank and sprockets with 11-34 teeth, he is well equipped to tackle long climbs. However, we have changed the tyres on his bike, which are now fitted with Continental's Grand Prix 5000 in 28 millimetre width and TPU tubes.
They minimise rolling resistance while providing very good puncture protection. In the unlikely event of a puncture, the tyres are easier to handle than tubeless tyres with sealing milk. This was important to Joe, who has no experience with tubeless tyres.
One upgrade that we have been discussing intensively is a dropper post. The dropper seat post would provide more speed, comfort and safety on the downhill. "In terms of riding technique, I still have a few deficits, so the dropper post sounded exciting to me," says Joe. "But I couldn't fit one on the BMC, and buying a bike just for that seemed excessive." Plus point of the original post in the BMC: it definitely provides better suspension than a dropper post.
Joe will start the race with a familiar and proven bike with a slightly improved seating position, better gearing and optimised tyres.
Ötztaler Cycle Marathon - Recommended equipment
>> Material for a competition - that's important!
- No experiments - only use material that has been tried and tested in training (also applies to clothing, accessories, nutrition)
- Have your bike technically checked. Ideally a few weeks before the start so that you can intervene if necessary. Focus on: brake system, drive, tyres, bearings, screw connections
- Brakes with sufficient pads, good pressure point and clean disc (brake in new pads beforehand)
- Drive should be clean, well lubricated and run in
- Tyres should be free of defects and run-in. Do not go into the mountains with brittle old tyres!
- Bearings should all be free of play and run smoothly, the wheel should run without rattling
The racing bike
Which bike is ideal for a lot of vertical metres? The bike should support hours of climbing - this means that the riding position should not be the most athletic (always measured against your own abilities). A slightly more upright position, as offered by endurance bikes, tends to be the right one. However, a thoroughbred racing bike is also suitable if riding it for hours on end does not cause any problems.
Ötztaler Cycle Marathon - The fastest bike
Which road bike is the fastest on the Ötztal Cycle Marathon route? A light racer, a normal endurance bike or an aerodynamic competition bike? We simulated the riding performance with different bikes on the computer:
- Light separator7.2 kg, flat rims - 11:18 hrs.
- Endurance bike8.2 kg, flat rims, same aerodynamics - 11:22 hrs.
- Competition bike8.2 kg, 40 mm rims, better aerodynamics - 11:16 hrs.
>> For every kilo less system weight, the total journey time is reduced by around four and a half minutes, with the same aerodynamics.
Basis of the simulation
Joe's competition weight of 74 kilograms, three kilos of clothing and equipment including bottles; average power 140 watts.
From a performance point of view, it is usually the case that an aerodynamically optimised bike also offers advantages in a mountain marathon when it comes to the fastest riding time. However, to fully utilise such advantages, you also need to be a good downhill rider. You benefit from the lower weight uphill regardless of your riding technique.
The seating position
The range of possible seating positions is wide and depends not only on the type of bike, but also on personal body proportions and settings such as the selected handlebar height. The long descents during a cycling marathon should not be underestimated, as they put a strain on the neck and shoulders; reducing the cant slightly is easy on the entire musculoskeletal system.
It makes sense to find out in good time before the marathon whether your bike and its settings are really suitable for long climbs in long, demanding training sessions (preferably in the mountains).
Joe's position on his racing bike was minimised as part of the bike fitting process: shorter seat length, slightly lower, different saddle and higher mounted grips. A spring training camp on Mallorca showed that this made sense: Joe rode a hire bike there - and by the end of the week his neck was aching.
The wheels
High or flat rim?
Joe rides his usual flat, only 24 millimetre high and very light DT Mon Chasseral wheels (1266 grams). The less aerodynamic design costs him speed on the descents, but spares his nerves because it is not so susceptible to crosswinds. Although higher rims are more streamlined, they are also more difficult to steer because the airflow interferes with the steering. Professionals sometimes even race downhill on 60 millimetre high rims, which react very nervously.
Up to a height of 30 millimetres, on the other hand, there are hardly any noticeable side wind effects. For the mountain marathon, we recommend a rim that provides a lot of confidence, i.e. causes as little noticeable steering force as possible and still offers small aerodynamic advantages. Rims with a height of 40 millimetres are therefore a good compromise.
Weight, width, material
In a marathon, the weight of the wheels is hardly more significant than other mass on the bike, as there is rarely any hard acceleration in a mountain marathon. The importance of extra-light wheels is usually overestimated.
The inner width of the rim influences the shape of the tyre: wider rims make the tyre laterally stiffer and allow lower tyre pressures - this leads to more comfort and better control on poor roads. If you ride with rim brakes, it is better to ride on aluminium rims than on carbon rims, whose braking performance drops sharply in the rain.
With disc brakes (recommended in the mountains), the rim material is of secondary importance. The wheels should be well maintained (good concentricity, all spokes with proper tension). Static balancing can smooth the ride at high speeds.
The tyres
With or without milk?
That's the crucial question. Joe votes for TPU tubes and conventional tyres instead of tubeless tyres with sealant. However, he opted for top tyres that roll easily, grip well and offer excellent puncture protection. The choice falls on Continental Grand Prix 5000 tyres with a width of 28 millimetres - they fit well on Joe's rather narrow DT rims (18 mm internal dimension). The Contis are not cheap, but the investment is worth it. 28 millimetres is also the recommended minimum tyre width for cycling marathons such as the Ötztaler: even narrower tyres are demonstrably less comfortable, more puncture-prone and roll even worse.
For the Ötztaler, 30 or 32 mm tyres would also be a good choice with a correspondingly wide rim, which can even be aerodynamically well integrated into wide rims with a teardrop-shaped cross-section, as the pros recently showed at Paris-Roubaix.
The air pressure should be adapted to the rider and conditions. Silca and Zipp have good tyre pressure calculators online: They recommend 5-5.5 bar for Joe in dry conditions and 4.6-4.9 bar in wet conditions.
>> https://axs.sram.com/guides/tire/pressure
TPU tubes roll more easily than classic black butyl tubes, are much lighter and at the same time more resistant. Tubeless would also be an option with a 28 millimetre width, but is more difficult to handle in the event of a puncture, as the tyre is much more difficult to fit or remove. Tubeless tyres roll more easily and have the advantage of better puncture protection, but are not always safer against cuts, depending on the design. The selected Conti tyres have puncture protection layers that usually protect the tubes very effectively. For larger tyre volumes, from 30 millimetres wide, we would favour tubeless tyres.
The gearbox
Top rulesl: There are no gears that are too light. A 1:1 ratio (the largest sprocket and the smallest chainring have the same number of teeth, e.g. 34) should be the minimum, and a reduction ratio (the smallest chainring is smaller than the largest sprocket) is also advisable depending on the performance. Compact cranks are standard today, so 1:1 is always feasible. Gear reductions are possible with gravel components, for example. Worrying about running out of gears downhill is rather unfounded. Joe rides 50/34 on 11-34, so he can easily pedal along at 60 km/h. Only those who ride for the front places may have to worry about large gears - but they also have the power to ride a longer-ratio gearbox with larger blades.
The accessories
Replacement material
You should be able to repair small defects yourself so that the dream doesn't fail due to trivialities. That's why a saddle bag is a must. It should contain: Spare inner tube, two CO2 cartridges (or a pump on the bike), patches, two tyre levers, mini-tool with tools for the usual screw connections on the bike (hexagon socket, Torx).
A spare chain lock is also useful. Ideally, the mini tool also has an integrated chain rivet pusher to be able to rivet out a damaged link, which in turn is a prerequisite for being able to use a chain lock. This means that you can repair tyres and chain punctures yourself.
Computer
A computer on the bike is used for orientation on the route and to monitor your pedalling power and heart rate. It doesn't hurt to also have a sticker with the route map on the stem, with the kilometre markers for the key points on the route. This makes it possible to orientate yourself even in advanced climbing delirium.
