The exact bike differences change the limits, the stated limits are quite conservative and longer or shorter chain stays and angles can impact if it works.
Maryka ran 52x34 12-30 on a short cage ultegra for her first national hill climb win, and the bike had been tested on 12-32 but there was a massive tailwind - she used both extremes, I suspect the small bike made the ratios work, so it’s always worth a try.
Casual 
The best ratio I have is 52/34 changed the smaller ring,sram etap chainset sram red 10 speed rear mech and ultegra 12-30 block.
The grub screws all the way out …
Do you not find the amount of changing when you go swap front not really annoying or does the etap make that fast enough to go 4 or 5 different on the back without too much hassle?
I found the jump on a 50-34 annoyingly big, so a 52-34 must be awful. I’ve been running 50-36 for years but it’s never caught on 
On my winter bike, I’m rarely out of the 50, with a 28-12 rear cassette.
I use the 34 up any hills of note, but don’t notice the jump, as it’s straight back up once I’m over the brow.
A 50-36 sounds good!
The little sibling of the 53-39
Only the chainset is etap…
The gears are 10 speed mechanical
I’m a dinosaur !
The front changer is perfect as long as your somewhere near the middle of the block at the back
It changes in any gear, but chatters !
I have no idea how many teeth are on the cassette…is my chance of KQ now out of the window? 
I’ll have a count tonight
Anyoo…training is going well 61miles ran last week and first >1000 TSS week
DEFFO!
(I had to go count my rear one, too)
Last years winner went single 60 up the front and had no idea what he was running on the back when interviewed?
All you need is a 299W average for 5hours 11 mins and 600 watts on tap when you need it and you’ve cracked it.
Sheephouse steepside my mate was leaving me for dead with 36x25… if it’s there it’s there !
Some really interesting chat on here. Thanks for all the nice comments : ) Will try to give my thoughts on the chat (may not necessarily be in a coherent order below but will be loosely based on the order in which the chats were posted.
I had lots of realisations and learned a lot of lessons on this Kona “journey”. Many of them are obvious now with hindsight, but they were hard-learned.
One was that I’m not a pro, I can’t train like a pro, and I can’t race like a pro. I am time-limited and don’t have the back-up they do (massage every day, rest, recovery etc). I think a lot of the training programmes out there are written from the point of view of pro training and don’t give much consideration for “real life” being time- and situation-constrained. I also think they are quite generic and don’t take account for “different horses for different courses” – my long-course stuff is much “worse” than my short-course race results and training would indicate that it should be. So I had to find something that worked for me and my circumstances, and finally in 2019 I cracked it.
I’m not sure how true it is to say, “If you aren’t quick at shorter stuff you aren’t going to be quick at longer stuff.” I know a guy who I usually beat by 2 minutes in a 5K. A marathon is 8 times a 5K. 2 minutes multiplied by 8 is 16 minutes. Which means I should be running a marathon in 2:18…! Which, needless to say, I doubt I could… When I was training in winter 2018/19 (mostly for pure running and cross country), it was one kind of training. Ironman running training was very different. The tempo runs were slower. The long runs were longer. And there were more of the intervals (26 hill repeats when “usually” I would do 14, but done at a slower pace).
I can hugely empathise with all the “misery photos” – been there many times. It’s such a tough sport and I really do take my chapeau off to anyone who does it. The highs and lows are intense. But the lows make the good days so much better.
My training was pretty simple. 2 weeks hard, 1 week easier. Massage at the start of each easy week. Monday rest. Tuesday bike intervals/tempo bike, and core/stretching/strength. Wednesday run intervals/tempo run, and core/stretching/strength. Thursday easy bike. Friday single-leg drills on the bike, and a swim (alternated weekly between endurance, speed and drills). Saturday long hilly bike/turbo sometimes followed by a short run, and core/stretching/strength. Sunday long hilly run and core/stretching/strength.
This was a good mix of training, a good balance, tolerable for me, and backed up with massage/podiatrist, excellent nutrition, good sleep, good body strength and flexibility, and apart from having to go to work, absolutely zero social or life engagements for 3 months. All of which meant I stayed healthy and injury-free and so my training consistency was excellent. I didn’t do any racing in the build-up. Racing costs you 2 weeks – you have to taper into a race, and you have to recover from it. I didn’t feel I needed to do a race to “practice” anything as I’ve done it all so many times before. Similarly, going to a wedding or similar costs you a week at best or an illness at worst. If I’m putting in all that effort and time and money, I’m not going to do anything to jeopardise it.
Single-leg drills on the bike were great. Done every week. 30-40 minutes. Built up over weeks/months from 30 seconds per leg to 5 minutes per leg, at a range of cadences. With regular 2-legged pedalling as well to reinforce the drill. I built up from the “clunk” on the deadspot every stroke to being really smooth. The difference it makes on the bike is significant. When you are pedalling along and you think “pedal circles” (as per the single leg drills) you become so much more smooth and you get more power for the same effort, or the same power for less effort. Well worth it. Now when I pedal a bike with flat non/clippy pedals, my foot shoots up off the pedal on every “pull”, it’s quite funny.
New chain and cassette, absolutely. Apologies if this is common knowledge to people – it wasn’t to me until I was told. The chain wears and stretches, quicker than you’d think when you’re putting 200 miles a week on it with a mix of intervals, high/low cadences etc. If you let it stretch beyond a certain amount, it wrecks the cassette and chainrings, so when you put a new chain on, the teeth are now too spread out and worn (from the old stretched chain) to intermesh correctly with the new non-stretched chain, and the whole system is messed up, needing new chainrings, cassette and chain. So keep on top of changing the chain regularly and it’ll preserve the more expensive cassettes and chainrings. I always had a new chain put on a couple of weeks before race day.
Also – oiling the chain. It’s not just a case of slopping oil on. The oil has to go into the pins and links of the chain. So you lightly run the tip of the oil container along one edge of the chain to oil it, then lightly along the other edge. Then you take a rag in your hand (a rag that won’t shed fibres into/onto the chain), hold it in the palm of your hand, make a fist around the chain, and vigorously wipe all the excess oil off. All that’s needed is what has gone into the pins/links. Anything else will attract muck and dirt and will foul up the chain in no time. Keep the jockey wheels clean with a brush as well. Makes such a difference. On race morning I’ll re-lube the chain and wipe it down. I used ProLink lube and have been told by an expert that it’s excellent stuff.
I definitely don’t run as well/fast in an Ironman as “conventional wisdom” says I should be able to, given my shorter distance times. Nor can I cycle as fast in an Ironman as “conventional wisdom” says I should be able to, given my numbers in shorter events/time-trials. I ran a 15:22 5k and 32:17 10k in the early part of 2019. I can do a sprint tri 5k in 16 minutes (I won a silver medal in the world sprint tri not long after IMUK19 but I would never ever be anywhere near this in an Ironman). I can do a standard tri 10k in 35. 70.3 half marathon in 83 minutes (which would have been quicker had I been able to train). I could probably do a standalone marathon in 2:30-2:35. But could I break 3 for an Ironman marathon? Not in a million years… but it took me a while to realise this…
I’ve heard it said/written I should be under 3 hours for an Ironman marathon. I’ve done 100 miles on the bike in 3:58 (265 watts) and so I’ve heard it said/written that I should be able to hold much higher power than the 203 watts NP in IMUK2019. So I tried to go with the “textbooks”/“conventional wisdom” etc in previous years, riding 220-240 watts on the bike, fading massively in the final quarter of the bike, starting the marathon at 7 minute mile pace and then ending up walking/collapsed/covered in puke/diarrhoea/in an ambulance at half distance.
So for me IMUK2019 was based on my own learning and experience: 200 watts on the bike. I actually aimed for 210. But it was a long, tough bike course and ended up 200. That’s around what I knew I could tolerate and sustain, from experience. That would enable good digestion of my nutrition. There is a huge difference between 220 watts and 200 watts. In previous years it was easy to be going even 10 watts too hard and saying “but it’s race day, but I’ve tapered, but I’m racing, but look at all these people flying past me” – this year I did my own race to my own numbers and ignored everyone else. I went backwards for the first hour on the bike. People were blitzing me on the hills. But I was confident in what I was doing, not necessarily that it would good enough to qualify, but that it was what I needed to do to race strongly to the very end, which I always believed would give me a chance of Kona. It was 203NP and 193 average if I remember right, at about 63kg. So a variability index of 1.05, but given the amount of freewheeling I did, this isn’t bad. On a hilly course it’s more about watts per kilo. On a flat course it’s more about the watts you put out for the drag you produce. Which is why the big powerhouse bikers kick my ass on the flat.
In Kona, there were about 200 in my age group. I was around 70th in both the swim and the run, but 160th (160th!!!) on the bike. My first reaction to this was “WTF?! That’s terrible!” But. There was a lot of drafting going on. My bike was honest. It wasn’t like IMUK (proper hills and proper freewheeling which played to my strengths and minimised my weaknesses). And, on reflection, my bike was as good as it could and should have been. I rode to my numbers. I could see my heart rate going up before the sensor packed it in. So because I didn’t want to be walking most of the marathon or suffering along at 10+minute mile pace, the bike was what it was. For me it was about as good as it could and should have been. And I ran 3:27, which I’ll take!
I also disagree with the “swim really hard for the first 200-300m” approach. Maybe this applies for the pros, and for shorter draft-legal triathlons, but for me, what a way to ruin your Ironman in the first few minutes. Swim easy, then take the easiness to another level. So easy. I said to myself I’d come out of the water feeling like I’d barely done anything in 2019, as opposed to previous years when I pushed it and then couldn’t get the heart rate down on the bike. Also, perversely, swimming smoothly and easily is actually quite fast (unlike cycling and running where effort directly correlates with speed), so although an easy swim feels dead slow, it’s actually not…
An Ironman isn’t about “leaving it all out there.” You have to spread where you leave “it.” You leave minimal out there in the swim. You leave minimal out there in the first two-thirds of the bike. Then it will start to feel harder and you start having to leave a little out there to get through the remainder of the bike. The first half of the marathon you leave as little as possible. Then you should have a good chunk of “it” left, which you then start leaving equally and consistently spread over the final 10 miles, until there’s nothing left and you’ve got half a mile to go and the adrenaline will get you through and the finish will suck you in. So most of “it” is left in the final 10 miles. I’m sure like most, I’ve done shorter triathlon races, which you do indeed race. In an Ironman, you don’t “race” it, you “pace” it. It’s so counterintuitive. We are racers. We train to race. We want to race. Racing means going hard (usually!) An Ironman is different. You don’t start racing it until 10 miles to go. And even then it’s not cardivascularly out-of-breath type conventional “racing”, it’s just forcing yourself to keep going against the fatigue and not slow down.
Rough roads and fatigue – I bought 5 sets of elbow pads for my bike and replace them every year. I used the same set for a few years initially and they were shot to pieces, with very little cushioning, but again like the noisy transmission, you don’t realise how bad it is until you replace. I love the neoprene idea. I’m sure the new 3D printed full length arm rests make a difference but they are beyond my means. One thing I do when on the bike, and it looks stupid but it works, is every 10-20 minutes I will ride with one hand, and with the free arm I will make a number of massive exaggerated running movements, and the a number of massive exaggerated stretches of the arm up my back, helping in keeping the shoulder and the elbow from seizing up. Obviously I will do this for both arms. Similarly I will ensure I stand up on the bike every 10-20 minutes to keep the blood flowing “down there”. I didn’t do these things years ago and since I’ve started doing them, fatigue on the bike is minimised, power doesn’t drain away like it used to, and I start the running feeling like I can actually run (it’s a good feeling!)
Also, I got really aero when the going was good. No point in scrunching yourself up into a tight aero position at 16mph and cramping up and stiffening up. At these lower speeds I loosened out my arms as described above, drank, ate, stood out of the saddle, and on stretches over 20mph on the flat (e.g. the Chorley new road) I was turtling like a frightened turtle and shrugging my shoulders tighter than a guilty teenager. Drag is way higher at higher speeds so I did what I could at the higher speeds to reduce it. But I still kept to my power cap. It was such a boost to be passing people on the final 10 miles into T2 in Bolton when I had the flexibility to go super aero, and the legs to maintain my power.
Another point of note is I don’t run a bottle attached to either the down tube or the seat tube – I figure (or at least I hope) a lot of science and aerodynamics has gone into making the frame aero, so why ruin it with one or two bottles? Also this encourages carrying more weight than needed. One bottle behind the saddle containing concentrated Tailwind or gels/water or whatever is needed for the whole course, and one water bottle between the aero bars, which can be replaced at aid stations, is enough. I used to carry 5 bottles on my bike. Talk about needless weight and aero disruption… a bit of freewheeling through an aid station doesn’t lose that much time, and the recovery you get in doing it pays dividends later on.
A lot has been said about gearing. Apart from Kona and South Africa, I’ve only ever raced hilly UK based courses. I run a compact 50-34 and an 11-28 on the back. I’ve seen so many people labouring up hills at 40rpm, and trashing their legs because they have the wrong gearing and don’t have a low enough gear. I’ve seen people snapping chains and walking their bikes up the hills because they have the wrong gears. I spin up the hills nice and easy. There’s a big difference between 220 watts at 50-60rpm (fatiguing) and 220 watts at 90-95 rpm (less fatiguing).
“What if I spin out and haven’t got a high enough gear?” I used to ask myself. I spin the 50/11 out at about 28-30mph. I’m not a pro. I don’t need to push 250 watts at 30+mph. If I spin out my compact, then I take the recovery! That benefits my race time way more than having higher gears and pushing big watts at high speed and consequently labouring up the hills.
I thought long and hard about putting a standard 53/39 on for Kona. In the end I didn’t. I couldn’t justify the money. On the fast descent from Hawi in Kona, I covered 5 miles in 8 or 9 minutes at high speed, in top gear (50/11), at about 150 watts. I maybe lost a minute (or two at worst) to the pros here (i.e. not much!), but the pros were pushing double my power and got no recovery. On the Palani hill at the start of the bike course, (way steeper than I expected) I spun up at 90rpm at 200 watts. Riders were absolutely blitzing it. 300-500 watts I’d say, out of the saddle, low rpm. It was such a compliment when the only other “sensible” rider (i.e. slow spinner! said tongue in cheek of course) said to me “Look at us, now that’s how to ride Palani!” So my point here is, for me, the highest gear on a compact 50/34 and 28-11 is enough and it gives me the low gears not to trash my legs. Plus I imagine a compact is lighter!
I would say for IMUK and IM Wales, if you’re not a pro, then low gearing is the way to go. Yes it’s a pain to buy a new cassette, crankset and possibly a new derailleur, but when you’re labouring up Sheephouse lane or heartbreak hill at 50rpm and you’re absolutely dying and you’ve got yet more hills to come, and then a marathon, you’ll likely be wishing you had made the change…! I run the same on my tri bike and road bike and I’ve never once said “I wish I had higher gears.” But I’ve always been glad of the lowest gear.
Maybe less directly relevant, but in the last couple of years I have gone mostly vegetarian. I don’t buy or cook any meat for myself. It’s all falafel, tofu vegetarian sausages, and the odd bit of fish. We have a canteen at work and maybe once or twice a week I’d eat meat there, with fish on a Friday. I also used to eat brown pasta almost every day but no matter how much I ate, soon afterwards I would feel hungry again. So I switched to rice and it seems to make me feel fuller for longer and seems to release its energy over a longer time. Anecdotal I know but there you go, it works for me.
All things I have learned the hard way! And all things that worked for me – they may not work for everyone because of “horses for courses”. And I doubt a pro would benefit from doing what I did - they are different beasts. But apart from pros , they all are things that could apply right through the field, not just for Kona aspirants.
If you spent less time training and more time counting spockets and chain rings you might have a chance! 
I have a suspicion that the KQ flood gates will now open, and ever IM you do, you will be in the top 4-5
Nah, I don’t think I am good enough to expect to turn up and finish in a KQ position. I thought Kona would be the end of it. I didn’t really “crack” Kona though. I did as well as I could in the circumstances. But I can do better there. Would love a sub-10. But I could spend another 10 years trying to qualify with no guarantees… Also, finishing second in the world sprint tri was (jokingly) the worst place I could have finished. I thought I’d finish 20th or something and then be able to call time on my triathlon career having been to world championships at all 4 distances, and then go back to running. I made a list of 17 things I can improve on with regards to the sprint, which I reckon could save me 2-4 minutes, which is significant. The worlds are in Edmonton in Canada this year. Do I drop all the money on it now, with the Coronavirus situation? Do I go for another Ironman (would be a shame not to try to re-apply a formula that works for me, even if it may not result in KQ again), or do I want to finish my IM career (or indeed triathlon career) on Ali’i Drive and go after some long-held running goals instead…?
I’ve got a 50-36 on my TT bike. Got a 50T Q Ring and 36 No-Q inner. I figured even on the flat, a 50T was plenty given my FTP; it also gives me a better chain-line.
Do Kona, and then maybe search out some new goals? You’re young enough to come back to triathlon in a few seasons without any deficit.
Kona has been done…! IMUK19 qualified for Kona19…
What he said …!
I taught him everything he kn…
Oh wait!
The slow swim start, compact gearing and water carrying parts really really hit home here.
This is THE model for your fastest race, wether your a podium Chaser or out there for the full 17…
Not sure if your called Jay or Lenny ?!?
But you should be a coach … ive never said that to anyone else in 30 years…
Then this year is your oyster.
Well, maybe the latter part of the year 
Definitely this.
The running ones will be harder to achieve as you age (guessing you want a <65 HM and <2:30 mara?)
Come back to triathlon - people seem to be their best at it when they’re 45-54.
I think part of that is due to experience, not just in triathlon, but in life - they’re much more patient.