Shequaya Bailey and Marty Merritt from The Black Foxes join the podcast to discuss the goals of their organization, The Black Foxes, plus riding in wet conditions, racing and training with a fixed gear bike and more in Episode 265 of The Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast.
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YES!! So cool. Just read about them last night!
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@Tucker did you not cover the * What to do after your training camp for the most benefit topic in the pod? If you did what time was it discussed?
Unfortunately, that topic was not covered this week. Apologies for the last minute change there, but due to time constraints it had to be pushed to next week’s Ask a Cycling Coach episode.
@Tucker no worries I’ll tune in next week, great episode this week 
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Great interview. I will have to check out the Black Foxes website to learn more about them.
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Great interview. Just one comment about tire choice and rain. I don’t think it is quite right to say that there are no rain tires. Of course, we do not have rain tires like they do in Formula 1, but I have seen people switch tires to adapt to the conditions.
I always run 28 mm tires, but a team mate of mine switches to 28 mm Corsa Controls when it rains instead of 25 mm Corsas. Not only are they wider, the Controls can be run at lower pressures (max pressure is 85 psi) and they have a fish bone pattern on the side, which in my experience significantly increases grip. Lowering the pressure increases the size of the contact patch and makes the tires “less bouncy”, i. e. your tires will tend to stick to the road better even if you run over bumps, potholes and other obstacles.
While I do not change tires for races in the rain (I run 28 mm Corsas), I will lower the tire pressure. If I were to have a race over e. g. cobble stones, I might also put on my Corsa Controls, which I run in the offseason.
Thanks for this one. Podcasts get better and better, despite the weirdnesses of Zoomland.
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Enjoyed this episode quite a bit, but got confused on where that info came from on track powermeters. Bottom bracket compatibility is a complete non-issue, I’m struggling to think of a single frame besides the Look olympic frames that use anything besides a BSA bottom bracket.
There are compatibility concerns besides that, specifically:
- Chain line. Using a road crank powermeter puts the chainring in a different alignment laterally relative to the rear cog. You can adjust for this in a limited way with spacers, but it’s not ideal.
- Bolt Circle Diameter. Track chainrings are 144 bcd and 1/8" width. There are adapters out there to convert from a 110bcd spider to 144, but availability is spotty, and they’re a hassle to use or swap rings quickly.
The most common choices for track powermeters from least to most expensive are:
- Stages makes (or made? availability is low) left-side dura-ace cranks.
- Send in a crank to Stages or 4iiiis to get a left-side installed.
- Powertap track hub. limits options on race wheels, but bulletproof and often available used.
- Any of the power meter pedals (although personally I had a lot of issues with weird data with my Powertap P1 pedals)
- Power2Max makes a spider-based pm for Rotor cranks. 144bcd, but with a road q-factor.
- SRM: spider-based. checks all the boxes but $$$
- Verve InfoCrank: supposedly makes a track crank but doesn’t currently list it for sale
In terms of using it to track overall TSS and calorie burn, I’d be shocked if the amount of backpressure from normal road fixed riding is going to be enough to throw that off in a meaningful way.
