Tips Archive:

Hot Tip of the Month- June 2004: "I.R.A. – Incremental Resistance Application"
What is IRA? Picture this; your in the middle of a ride, on a flat, you ready to add a little resistance, you turn the knob a bit to the right, looking for a bit of a change, with one turn you go from a flat to Mt. Everest. This obviously is not optimal, not what you want. When you do turn the knob, add a bump, kick it up a notch, you want the resistance of the pedal stroke to increase incrementally. This won’t happen unless you have some sort of compression ratio on you resistance pad or pads. When a resistance pad gets soaked in sweat on a daily basis, the sweat dries and what’s left are mineral deposits from the sweat. When this happens over and over, day in and day out, the pad starts to harden. Hence, no compression ratio. If you’re using a bike with a single top load pad with a leather surface, the leather surface needs to be treated with 3n1 oil to keep the leather supple. If you have bikes with the dual pads made of felt; remove the pads, fluff the surface with a heavy steel brush, then spray some Tri -Flow or some other Teflon based lube onto the pad surface. This will also help to eliminate pad noises. All these tidbits of information as well as hundreds more can be found in “The Ultimate Tech Manual Series”. Check em’ out in our store, today!