Cedric Gracia has been riding Rotor Q-Rings on his Santa Cruz EWS racing machines this season, and he has become quite a fan. To be fair, the Spanish component maker that popularized oval chainrings among elite-level racers is one of Gracia's sponsors - so I'd expect him to furnish me with an obligatory gush about their performance. He is a consummate professional, and plugging sponsors goes with the territory. That said, however, Gracia is at a place in his career where he can probably choose any crank or chainring combination he pleases and get paid to ride them, so when he went on about how much he liked his Q-Rings, I figured I'd better take notes.
RC: What is your present crank and chainring setup?Cedric: For the first EWS I was riding with 32
QX1 chainring and 175-millimeter
Rex 1 cranks, because I knew it will be a lot of climbing, and I would need all the help I could on those climbs. At Sea Otter, I put a 34 for the DH and Dual Slalom on my Hightower.
RC: What inspired you to try an oval chainring? Cedric: I wanted to try out oval chainrings because I’d read and heard about stuff like better traction and faster acceleration – two things that are super useful to me. The fact that I can time my chainrings is an added edge, which I think everyone benefit from if they tried oval rings.
RC: How long did it take to get used to oval Q-rings? Did you perceive any benefits?
Cedric: Well, I expected at least a week or two, but at the end, after couple hours, I felt great on it. Like I say, the Q-Rings make me a better climber and my pedal stroke is a lot better and a lot more consistent.
RC: Q-rings have three sets of mounting holes for timing purposes. Which option did you settle upon?
Cedric: I ride with the third position. That's where I feel the best for my enduro style of riding. They’re called OCP and stand for Optimum Chainring Position which, as you mentioned, can be timed to the precise point at which you deliver maximum power during a pedal rotation.
RC: I understand that you are co-developing a new crankset with Rotor, can you tell us anything about it? Cedric: Rotor has products in development all the time, but it’s up to them to make the info public. Rotor depends on athletes like me to test products in real time – to take testing out of the lab and onto the trail. I send them my results and recommendations for improving the products I’m testing - they have the option to take advantage of the data.
RC: What is the possibility that oval chainrings will go mainstream? Cedric: Yes, I am sure. Who will not use free help? More power, better stoke, better climbing - it just makes you a better rider!
www.mrpbike.com/oval-ring-setup
But it turned out we had the wheels clocked the wrong way for optimal power.
"They approached me with cash because Im awesome, so i took it."
That could be my response if I was at his level of trail awesomeness.
for me the major benefit is attacking a steep section of trail - as long as you maintain traction, it prevents those dead zones from slowing you down and getting the pedals rotated around for another downstroke. it felt like cheating the first time i used one
Also attacking a section is not always the best option. If there are big rocks and roots you will be losing power and balance by just ramming into things. Then you run into the issue of rock strikes. After I started Ryan Leech's balance course, I started climbing in a very precise manner. Sprinting where needed, crawling up slowly where applicable. For that you need some good balance. Any idiot can spin fast into sht.
yes, good advice for sure. try using a power meter (Stages or similar) and see your power output whilst climbing, very interesting / revealing...not what we may assume as mountain bikers tacking a technical climb
@vinay - you will notice the benefits of Ryan's course rather quickly, when climbing rocky sections, that ramming into things when pedalling like a maniac is a waste of energy. It is much more efficient to use the whole body to propell yourself forward and allow the bike to roll onto stuff, help it to go over it, rather than fighting it, brainlessly spinning in hope you won't spin out or that your front won't wander off.
Definitely agree that bashing into tech climbs is rarely the best way. Especially when I'm not on my hardtail, I notice that I'm more successful staying seated as much a possible, and generally only standing up shift weight to/from the back wheel, like when you need to hop/shove the bike over a ledge.
Actually quite a few people in my area have given oval rings a shot and are all raving about them now. I plan to try out one of the oneup rings sometime this season.
AB doesn't seem insanely expensive, might as well give it a shot. Could I just put it in the middle position of my (originally triple) Deore LX (2004) crankset, take the granny (and FD) off and leave the bashring on (in the outer position)? I noticed I need to replace my 9sp chain for a 10sp chain for this to work.
Superstarcomponents also has something cheap, but 32t only. I'm going to figure out what I have on my commuter, might work there as well .
No matter what they say the 32t was definitely a slightly harder gear. duh!
So if I liked a 36t round I'd probably stick with a 36t oval.
yes technical challenges and all climbs requiring high sustained output, this can include uphill fire road with switchbacks ridden at pace (i.e.Mt Fromme, Vancouver)
difference between seated climbing and standing climbing very interesting looking at muscle firing, peak power, etc. all changes
>Researchers from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences had 10 cyclists perform rides to exhaustion at various percentages of their individual VO2max power (Wmax) on a 10-percent grade.
Based on the results they concluded that, "In general, cyclists may choose either the standing or seated position for maximization of performance at a submaximal intensity of 86 percent of Wmax, while the standing position should be used at intensities above 94 percent of Wmax and approaching 165 percent of Wmax."
(Note that Wmax corresponds roughly to the maximum power output sustainable for six minutes.)
I'd just go for Superstarcomponents then instead of AB. I just put on a new 9sp chain two weeks ago (and have another one spare) and AB requires at least a 10sp chain. Superstarcomponents happily runs a 9sp chain, just no 12sp. Anyone has experience with their chainrings? I've always been using stamped steel Deore middle rings (for 9 euro) so this would be my first 1x setup (currently 2x and a bashring) and more importantly, an aluminium chainring.
Next I see Onza bar ends, long negative raked Stems and Porcupine tires making a comeback.
What little improvement that did appear can't be discounted as due to another variable (psychological or other various physiological factors/differences). It may improve traction via more consistent torque, or even decrease fatigue if you're a pedal masher, but if you're a decent circle spinner then I doubt you gain anything & I also doubt power output changes at all really, at least for people who use a zillion gears. I wonder what it could do for an SS rig though. Ô.o
Im having horible flashbacks to biopace roadies of the 90's.
About those pedals...does that say something good about Crankbrothers, or something bad about Cedric?
I'm still a bit lost with all the science behind it. How does torque at the crank axle matter one bit? I absolutely get a constant torque at the rear wheel is going to help with traction on technical climbs. And as the cassette is (still) round, constant torque at the rear wheel requires constant force in the (upper part of the) chain. So I suppose you want that, constant force in the chain. But as the chainring isn't round, this doesn't relate to a constant torque at the crank axle. A round chainring would do that, but for a constant force in the chain you'd need a torque that oscillates along with the diameter of the chainring. And of course that's what you're doing when you're stomping on the pedals, you don't apply a constant torque at the crank axle but an oscillating torque instead. In short the concept of course thinks the other way around. The rider provides an oscillating torque at the crank axle (that's a given), hence we need a chainring with an oscillating diameter (that is, elliptical shape) to transfer that into a (more) constant force on the chain.
So if the performance of round vs. elliptical chainrings are to be compared, I was expecting the measurement of torque on the wheel axle (or force in the chain) to be related to the pedal stroke. Instead someone has kindly put in the effort to provide us with graphs of torque on the crank axle. Could anyone elaborate on why this matters and where my reasoning above might have gone wrong? Also for the comparison, were chainrings with an equal number of teeth used? It seems like the rider has been able to put more energy into the pedal stroke (the area enclosed by the blue line) with the circular chainring than with the elliptic chainring. Would that imply that on trail sections where traction isn't such an issue, you're faster with the round chainring? I don't mean to be skeptical, I just have a hard time figuring out how to work with something like torque on the crank axle if I don't know anything about the teeth count or diameters (short and long for that elliptical chainring). So I'd be happy if someone could clear this up for me.
Teeth count and diameter wouldn't matter too much in that case, because no matter the diameter or tooth count, chain tension is always in a plane normal to the crank's axis of rotation. And in any case, I think the idea is more to show that the variation between min/max is smaller/smoother than with circular rings, which provides obvious traction benefits. Getting a reliable baseline of effort levels between the two cases would make it tough to compare absolute power outputs between the two.
I still believe traction is an issue you should probably be even less steady, burst where you can and unload where you have to. That said I still like it. I think of it more as a way that allows you to put in much force when you can and requires little when you can't. I'm calling for unicycles with oval wheels. Doesn't even have to be very oval as gravity is going to help you out of these dead spots.
Added benefit, wheelies are easier. During a wheelie, the oval feels more round than a round ring.
vimeo.com/106824486
see brandon's 26 bike check over on dirt?
sooo many people looking at their 'trail bikes' sunday afternoon in the lift line after 20 laps or so in the park.
you could see their brains workin figuring how much money and time its was gonna take to freshen up their trail bikes after 2 solid, and only 2 days in the park.
they just are not build for the pounding.
don't bring a knife to gun fight.