Michael Hanslip Coaching

If you want to go faster, you have to pedal harder

March 2025
Writing | February 2025

Trailside post service

30/03/25 15:38 Filed in: Gear
My Spot bike came with a Bike Yoke Revive dropper post. It has worked without issue for 150 hours of riding now. Every so often, especially when it has hung on the wall for a while unloved, it sags a bit under my weight when sat upon. Like the last ride.
But the lever for purging the air out is attached to the seatpost head and comes with you - every ride. Unlike the Vent Valve on my Reverbs, which require removal of the post from the bike, I pulled over, flicked the lever, slowly lowered the post and - voila - the post was purged of air and back to rock-solid immediately. (Sometimes I have to do it twice.)
 
I like the Reverb. I particularly like the hydraulic actuation of the manual post compared to cable and I really like the wireless actuation of the AXS version - no cables are the best cables. But the Bike Yoke post is excellent. Overhaul is supposed to be simple too, but I haven't felt the need to try it yet.

The short crank trend

15/03/25 16:36 Filed in: Gear
Pogacar swapped his 172.5mm cranks for 165s and suddenly the shorter length is sold out everywhere. I do not know if these are connected, but they seem to be. Pogacar is unusually gifted at winning bike races and so what he's using MUST be right for me - right?
Not so clear to me, but maybe.
It would only apply if you were of a similar height to Pogacar, and probably only if you had an amazing cardiovascular system like Pogacar. Meaning, probably not.
 
Incidentally, I swapped to 10mm shorter cranks over the past years (it took about two years to change all the bikes). I did this not for any aero- or bio-dynamic gains, but for homogeneity across bicycles. I moved to 170 cranks on the Enduro bike in 2018 (for fewer pedal strikes). The trail bike followed in 2020. My singlespeed has 175s on board, but I always have my eyes open for a sale pair of cranks in 170mm length to bring it into line too. When my long Red cranks broke, I replaced them with lightly-used second-hand Rotor cranks in 170mm. When that frame was warranty replaced, the new bike was built with 170mm Red cranks. The Rotor cranks went on my trainer bike, changing it from 180mm to 170mm. Finally, I put new Record 170mm cranks on the race bike, removing the 180mm Super Record cranks that were on there.
I really like consistent crank lengths across all my bikes.
 
Should you go shorter? You can get lower at the front and not get knees in your chest. You have to remember to diminish your gears by a similar amount as you decrease your crank length - you can't push the same gears with the shorter cranks. It seems particularly useful on a TT bike, where getting an aero position with long cranks can be challenging. Remember that most studies have shown the power benefits of long cranks (a minuscule 1% per 5mm increase). And that this shifts load from "strength" to "cardio". So what is right for Pogacar is not likely right for the rest of us, but people are very adaptable and shorter is probably not worse!

New brake pad day

07/03/25 22:57 Filed in: Gear
No matter which disc brake I am using (Shimano, SRAM or Campagnolo) and what sort of bike (road or mountain), there is nothing quite so good for the brake lever 'feel' than a new set of pads. A hydraulic system, in theory, feels the same from the first application of the pads to the rotors as the final one, but the reality is that the lever throw increases with wear on the pads. Brakes feel softer when the pads are thin than when they are new (and thick).
I just replaced front and rear pads on my commuting bike (thin enough that the spring which pushes the pads apart had evidence of contact with the rotor) and the levers went from pretty good to rock solid. If you bleed your brakes with the brake block in between the pistons, you cannot achieve that rock solid feeling with thinner, worn pads. If you do bleed specifically for thin brake pads, you won't be able to put new pads in there when they wear out (without re-bleeding the system).
 
And because I only had one of each, there are organic and sintered pads in the bike at the moment. I intend to replace the sintered with organic and keep the sintered for the MTB. Honestly, the sintered took a few more stops to bed in but otherwise there has been no difference in use.

Single Speeding

01/03/25 17:52 Filed in: Riding
I looked at my maintenance app the other day and noticed I only had about one hour per month on my single speed bike over the past year. That's not much. Given I ride it about 2 hours at a time, that's like every other month for a ride.
No wonder it felt so "hard". The gearing never felt too hard for places like Stromlo (it is definitely too hard for Cotter Pines, with a few steep pitches that I couldn't get up on the SS even on a pretty good day). But it requires riding regularly to adapt to the big pushing as well as the timing of said pushing. I tried riding up a not-very-challenging climb segment twice and couldn't push through the final two pedal strokes either time. Only went 20 km and was tired at the end.
Maybe the single speed bike is the domain of the young rider - and somewhere I've gotten too old? I'm going to keep riding it. It's a fun bike and I like the challenge. Going from Stromlo event centre out towards the bush fire memorial I was spinning away at 160 rpm. It's hardly worth pedalling at that cadence - but fun.
Fun is really the reason for single speeding. Getting rid of derailleurs makes the bike super quiet (no flopping or crashing chain, no cables or shifters, no wondering if you're in the correct gear - just a quiet bike and a challenge to navigate the trail).
 
At one point I was short on a hop over some rough rocks and the rear wheel landed heavily. I heard a nasty noise. The sort of noise that signals something breaking. I got off and checked. Frame OK. Axle OK. Rim OK. What else could it be? Just the hollow frame echoing/amplifying the noise of landing on rough rocks.
 
As my only hardtail bike, I like jumping it but I don't want to come up short as the rear wheel thumps pretty hard if you case it on the landing. Suspension can take the sting out of cases.

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