Engine Overhaul

No, not referring to Rolls Royce overhaul of their engines for the A380. And neither am I referring to Qantas service - though I seriously think they should take a good hard look at their customer service coz my recent experience with them had not been acceptable AT ALL. Besides not responding to my feedback, making my whole family wake up at 5am to catch a 9am flight, the ground crew dented and cracked my ZIPP disc on the way back. And you guessed it, they have yet to come back to me after I filed my report. Buggers. This is despite a proper wheel bag tagged as "fragile". Yup, as far as possible, it will be Qantas no more.


My friend faced a situation at his condominium apartment, this time with his estate management people. It is times like these, that I find that by being layman without the proper influential network that issues are really hard to resolve. There is just no direct link for me to get in touch with Qantas with regards to this and it just infuriates me. Although, I have heard there had been issues with Singapore Airlines as well. Its simply amazing that we pay so much for air travel and we get poor service standards like trashing our luggages. Just where is the common sense of airline companies? And all they are interested are the hundreds of millions that they make in a year FROM US passengers.

***

The Bugatti Veyron has a power to weight ratio of 1000bhp to about 2000kg. That is a substantial 500horses to pull a 1 tonne machine by a 8 litre monster of an engine. In stark comparison, the Ariel Atom is a very small  light weight car of less than 500kg but its power is 300bhp for the supercharged version. As you can see, the Ariel Atom is a mighty mighty fast car, and this explains why the need for cars to go as light as much as they can. The Lamborghini Superleggera and Reventon are carbon fibered vehicles so that the acceleration can be increased marginally over the normal road versions.


And so often we have heard about the weight weennies of cyclists attempting to push down the weight of their steeds as much as possible. CF frames, CF pedals, Titanium bolts, etc, just to save a couple of grammes here and there.


This is not surprising because as with the cars, the amount of power generated by the cyclists is dependent on this weight drag. The lighter the combined weight, the greater the power and also perhaps, the more energy saved on the run for triathletes thereafter.


As for me, instead of trying to push down the weight of my bike in terms of grams, I will want to reduce my weight than to spend the money on weight saving nuts and bolts. My race weight for WA 2009 was about 82kg, WA 2010 was a tad under 78kg. I hope to bring this down to 75kg by the time I hit Cairns 2011.


However, I do know that there will be compromise in the amount of power generated if there is too much of a substantial weight loss. Matt Fitgerald wrote about this as well in the Triathlete magazine. So, it will be a fine line to draw between weight loss vs power output. I do not know what my best ratio is going to be like. All I know is that I can lose more so that I can gain more. What an oxymoron. My Coach did say that 75kg would be a good weight to get to with 10% body fats. I will see if I can get to that level this time.

***

Did a short run this morning to see if my legs would be able to fire. Not too bad and pleasantly surprised. My friend from MR25 - group of runners at MacRitchie - paced me. I ran the 5km time trial cross country route in under 27min. The qualifying was 25min. But I started the run still having a conversation with him for half the distance and he said that I should be able to meet the timing for the trial.


Not that I am working towards to join the MR25 running club - if I do qualify, all the better - but I am seeking to improve my run. Some of the group's faster runners do sets of the 5km TT with 1min rest in between, and each set in 18:30. That is incredulous and I am not attempting that feat. I am just seeking to run my ironman marathon with 6/km pace.


I hope to be able to fit in track work with the MR25 runners next year. And hopefully this will whip my running legs to good shape for AVIVA 70.3 and Cairns.

***

Something interesting that I caught outside the cafe in Busselton:


Swimming is the worst part of a triathlon...


If you stop peddling on a bike, you coast,


If you stop running, you walk.


BUT IF YOU STOP SWIMMING, YOU DROWN!