New Technology

Being a bit of a bike geek, by bit I mean that I spent three hours with a tooth brush cleaning my bike inch by inch removing each molecule of grime on th emachine. I must say it was a dream to ride a noiseless bike again. I ride an Epic and the newswire has been burning up with the new World Champions trusty steed. Mr Sauser's bike is a carbon wonderland and bikeradar have an excellent writeup on his 2009 Epic. The rear shock position has moved which is a rather big change and with the help of carbon have managed to shave off 700g. At this level that is alot!! cyclingnews has also released some titbits coming out of the elite circles of equipment. Bibkeradar also followed up with a report with the new stuff seen at the Valley of the Sun.

Anger Management

Do not push your fellow competitors:

Green with Envy

The first week of the tour generally see's the men in green come to the forefront. The flat stages before we hit the steeper stuff lends itself to the rock stars of the cycling world as they fly down the finishing straight, or sometimes bend, for the glory of the maillot vert. The green jersey came about in the 1953 edition and becasue the sponsor was a lawn mower producer the color decided on was green. The exception to this was in 1968 where it went over to red again to satisfy the sponsor. So with color established how did the riders actually get hold of the elusive jersey. In the start the system was a penalty calculation!! Thats right, you were penalized for poor placings and the person with the least points was the winner in the end. In 1959 the system as we know it today, the winner gets the most points and then it less points for each place, came into play. the intermediate sprints that come up during a stage started with an additional jersey, red, but was eventually joined together with the green jersey.

Why are the Belgium's so batty about cycling? Well the answer could lie in the fact that they have worn the green leading into the Arc de Triomphe on more occasions than any other nation. The greman Eric Zabel though has dominated the sprinters jersey, who according to cyclingnews is set to hang up the boots come the end of this Tour. He did not relinquish the jersey between 1996 and 2001.

Next Belgiums at the Tour...

Double Whammy

Yesterday
Distance: 54.7km
Duration: 02:46:16
Calories: 2434
Terrain: Service Roads

Today
Distance: 89.7km
Duration: 04:55:30
Calories: 3868
Terrain: Service Roads with single track between

June Mileage: 584km

Twice the blabber in one post, you can consider yourselves lucky. Went for a ride in the afternoon yesterday, get some mileage in these legs of mine after the technical course during the middle of the week. I ended up spending quite some time on the saddle but there was not much excitement going down as the trail was all service roads making it a slog all the way. Did go through one of my favorite places though, Nahal Kziv. Beautiful valley where you can still find some water a green during this time of the year. Everything is tinder at the moment and you sort of expect a fire to break out just from the heat of the day. We're getting close to the forty degree celsius now and the air is hummid as hell, thats basically 104 fahrenheit. We havn't even gotten close to August when things really get uncofortable. The nice thing about leaving in th eafternooon heat is that it gets cooler as you go along, not much but every bit counts.
This morning rolled out the door for my big ride of the week and I swear the temperature was the same as the afternoon. Spent almost five hours pedalling away up to Misgav, my group training area. Erez was taking some work collegues for a farewell ride and asked me to join to help keep the engineers under control, they have a tendancy to turn forrests into brindges and there would be none of that today. I was planning on riding there for my weekly ride so I would join the group and then see how the legs felt. Did some great single track up and down the mountain which I feel is already like my back garden. Stumbled home with almost 90km on the odometer and was stoked. The legs are tender now but I'll go for a easy spn just to get the boold moving aroudn and a complete rest on Sunday. Have a fantastic weekend.

Technical

Distance: Not important
Duration: The whole morning
Calories: Enough to pack in a few pies afterward's... but didn't
Terrain: Rocky steep and technical course
June Total: 440.3km

Erez organized a technical course for some of the Spider Team mates. Decided that my skills could use a bit of polishing and I was super glad that I made the effort to get to the course. A bonus was that I also managed to take half a day off and ride so this was a two-for-one special. The course involved uphills today and we still have two more lessons where we'll pick up so more goodies. Basically the goal today was getting up and over obstacles while maintaining momentum. Sounds easy and as you ride you probably pick up the odds and ends that get you over most boulders or rocks but there are those finer points on doing it with finese.

There are two ways to get over a step, you can use the rebound of your shock basically pumping your way over some object lying in the track. This does however limit you to smaller rocks and steps so the more effective way I learnt how to deal with these bigger obstacles was the pedal kick. You start with the pedal in the one o' clock position and then give a quick burst of power to get the front wheel up. After you've cleared the problem you move your weight forward and this gets your back wheel following. Cleared some really high boulders and was in my element on the technical hill.

The Badger

I have previously written about Le Blaireau during the Paris-Robaix and it seemed a logical place to continue after entering Brittany for my Grand Depart of delving into the richness and glory days of Tours gone by. He is one of the best that France had on display during this canter around the French counties and by far the cream to settle on the top of Brittany. Le Blaireau is the French word for badger due to his tenacity as a ride although he insist's that the name is from boyhood like we use the names buddy and mate. Either way I think the first meaning stuck firmer as was evident before he even started riding the Tour. He had been advised against entering the Tour of '77 by Guimard, his directeur sportif for the Gitane so that he could gain more experience. He took the advice a little to the extreme when entering one of the mountain stages of that years Dauphiné Libéré. He came off his bike on one of the slippery descents in quite spectacular fashion. He jumped back on his bike and went on to win the race.

Arogance and the badger were never far apart, I guess a man who wins five Tours has somewhat of a right to be arogant. He was the strength of the peleton orchestrating fellow riders to his iron will. If a stage was difficult the next day he was able to hold the group back. Any sign of imputence from a commetitor was followed by a harsh comeback from Hinault. He would rip the rider to pieces with his strength, in other words he was not to be messed with. As you can see in the photo he rode to his final tour victory with a black eye received in a crash. It is this determination that makes a great rider and something that I try to keep in mind on each ride when thinking about giving up.

Sources:
Wikipedia
Bernard Hinault Homepage
Hall of Fame

Velonews - Candy Overhaul

This one is for Paul over at Mountain Biking New Zealand:

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor

Distance: 57.4km
Duration: 3:22:12
Calories: 2722
Terrain: Rocky jeep track, technical climbing and some singles
June Mileage: 390.6km

Rather clever last night with a bottle of tequila that didn't see the rising sun. Well it did but just through the pores of my creaking body. Felt like I had cement filled legs going up the first climb, it is was rocky and technical on a nromal day but today it was torture. Got to the top and thought about throwing in the towel but perspired through it. Glad I did because the hours spent in the saddle today were fantastic. Warm but fantastic. It was an up and down route, climb a technical rocky trail and then drop down and repeat. I wanted to continue but the body was not happy by the time I had got to the forty kilo mark so made my way home. Maybe next week I'll be able to complete the full planned circuit. The great thing is that I can lengthen the route to my desire and there are plenty of trials leading off in different directions and rejoining later. Till next week for the long ride.

Velonews - Shimano Pedal Overhaul

Fun in the Sun

Distance: 77.4km
Duration: 4:10:22
Calories: 3575
Terrain: Hilly but mostly on tarmac, did about 1000m of climbing in total
June Mileage: 316.6km

My work had a Fun Day as their annual day for the workers in the factory. My first idea popped into my head that it would be fun to spend the whole day on the bike but somehow I still had to make an appearance. The next best thing would be to commute and this I did. I ended up with quite a few kilometer's under the belt for the day including the climb over the Carmel Mountains, twice. I really wanted to put in some big kilometers and am trying to work up to doing 100km at lest once a week, normally it will fall on a Friday or a Saturday. My base is a point I really need to work on if I want to compete in the Expert level so before the races kick off again, there's a lull now becasue the heat is stifling at this time of year, I want to get as many kilometers on the dirt so that I get into the groove of being in the saddle for so long. The ride though showed me I have some way to go because by the 60km mark it felt as if I was sitting on a piece of PVC!
The ride itself was pleasant to say the least but my idea's of arriving by dirt were laid to rest at the first turn where I wandered down a track that ended in a dead end. Knowing full well I'd have a full day of riding plus the added activities from the actual Fun Day I decided on a route I was more familiar with, a knarly technical uphill I had climbed and so did it in reverse to get down to the coastal plain. From there a followed the trail next to the train track, which was flat and took me to my destination.
The day involved building rafts to race against the various departments. We luckily had someone who knew his knots and had a raft of titanic qualities within minutes. I was selected to be one of the rowers and we made our way to the buoy's to retrieve the bottle that would ensure victory. Well that was how it was supposed to happen. We got about 3/4 of the way when my manager jumped off the front to get the bottle by swimming, blatant cheating but as I was everyone had the same idea. I jumped in the water to turn the skiff around only to forget that they had attached a rope to the raft already to pull us back in. Needless to say they pulled faster than I could swim and I found myself with a bit of a paddle back to the shore, the bottle still not on the boat. We then decided that throwing the bottle would be the best bet so played relay to get it to shore. The rest of the day was spent wallowing in the shade, beer flowing freely and food on the way. I stayed clear of the beer as I still had a ride back and didn't want to be wobbling around the road.
My return journey was less adventurous as I left at 13:00 with the sun beating down. I must have drank close on three liters of water and about as much thrown over my pip to keep my temperature down. Note to self: Do not ride in mid-day-mid-summer heat!! The climb was less hectic than the morning as the gradient was not as steep but it was longer. I enjoyed the day and and thinking about building a set of road wheel for my mountain bike. I reckon I could commute to work that way and it'll come to about 100km but on the road the round trip will take four hours.

Brittany

Brittany is no stranger to the Tour with the a few of her sons donning the yellow, Petit-Breton, Robic, Bobet and Hinault. The tour has made the Grand Depart on six occasions from the northwest corner of the country and Brest will claim its hatric this year with the start of a stage from it's cobbled alley's. Well not quite cobbled but the imagery certainly does make the place sound more romantic. In 1911 Brest found itself at the end of what can only be regarded as an insane stage. The riders must have limped in after being in the saddle for470km an 18 hours of turning the cranks, this was the longest in tour history and no surprise that only 24 of th e84 riders managed to finish the Tour. These were days when you ended a day in a town and the next day started from the same town. The riders found themselves facing yet another tough day of riding where the route to Cherbourg saw them again facing upward of 400km. By comparison this years the longest stage is a meager 232km.For the first time in 40 years the Tour will also be without any prologue in the words of Jean-François Pescheux:“There will be a new feature at the departure from Brest: we have decided to replace the usual prologue time trial reserved for a dozen specialists, with a stage of almost 170 kilometers after which 100 cyclists will be in the running for possession of the Yellow Jersey. The race will therefore be enthralling from the opening kilometers and the Monts d’Arrée will be a formidable battleground in this very open first stage, because the arrival at Plumelec could hold some surprises in store. The remainder of the race, between Auray and Saint Brieuc is also certain to be action-packed, with its hilly course and the passage through Mur-de-Bretagne, just like the third stage which will depart from Saint-Malo and cross Ille-et-Vilaine… In short, it is certain to be a Grand Départ full of suspense.”If you take the post war victories claimed by Frenchman then Brittany has indeed provided a plenty making up almost 50% of the overall titles claimed by the French. Of the fours riders to take the top spot on the podium Hinnault has taken five of the eleven. Needless to say this is an area richly enveloped in cycling tradition and seeped with the history of the Tour. Brittany does not lend itself to any major climbs although the undulating terrain makes for some energetic sprint finishing. A comment during the Giro made by one of the commentators comes back to me: "If cyclist were musicians then sprinters would be rocks stars".

Next... Hinault

Bike Jam

Could this be our future:

Shvil Israel - Day 5

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Get your own

Down memory lane

For those of you inclined towards special effects and missed my video posting of the Tour's course this year you need to watch it. If you have seen it watch it again because I did and of its brilliant French cheesiness. The French are after all the self declared masters of cheese and wine so lets celebrate their tribute to this years Tour. If you can still orientate yourself to north with all the panning and swinging I'll be impressed but I do love the lumpy lines that seem to appear after a few days.
I do not have a long history of grand tours behind me in terms of sitting down and watching them start to finish or as a mater of fact in the saddle, US Postal were interested but some big honcho from the triathlon world was embarking on his way to the top. Alas even the days of Lance were just highlights on the eight o clock news to me. I enjoy reading about the history behind the sport that has given me so much joy over the last year and a half all be it that from a purely dirt side of the sport. My tribute will be to dedicate a few posts to the history of the tour and the great moments that have made the tour for the next month or so or until I get bored of all the doping scandal. Lets hope the UCI and ASO wrestling match will not overshadow this great race and that we don't see too many powdered noses hanging onto 16 year old girls.

[click on the map for full size]

Next... Bretange (Brittany for the plebs)

Psssssss

Distance: 41.7km
Duration: 01:50:24
Calories: 1416
Terrain: Dirt roads and Tarmac, more dirt than tar thankfully
June Mileage: 239.2km

That was the sound of my tire this morning going up the hill I decided to throw in for the day. I'm sure cyclists have nightmares about this high pitched whistling and I was no different this morning, especially as I had no spare tube and also no pump. It would have been a long walk home. I need to replace the rear tire as I've worn it down good a proper over the last few weeks doing so much riding on the tarmac. Its gotten to a point where I the knobs are really just hanging on a thread but just don't have the finances to get another one. Sure I can wait another week or two, fingers crossed.
Other than that the ride was pretty usual. My legs are not used to four days in a row and this morning they were reminding me that tomorrow would be a rest day. The Last four days also included some epic climbing and hard training. Glad I was able to manage putting the days together back to back. This morning was a wrestling match to get out of bed but as soon as I was out the door I felt much better. BSNYC also had a birthday over the weekend so don't forget to wish him happy blogday.

Ascending to Heaven

Distance: 46.8km
Duration: 3:17:22
Calories: 2621
Terrain: Uphill for more than half the way on loose gravel track
June Mileage: 197.5km

As you can see by the heading I certainly enjoyed yesterdays climbing. We climbed and climbed for what seemed like hours. My legs were feeling yesterday's practice a bit but after spinning the legs a while they were ready for the days exertion. The gradients got up there in the high twenty's at times but the granny gear came out and I just kept going strong. Great feeling this last week while climbing. What used to be tough climbs are now much easier and I find myself simply gliding up the hill's. All good and the ankle was not a worry the whole time.
We started the day in Gilon, a small communal village where Erez stays. It's situated on a hill so we descended from there and then headed east toward Carmiel from where we would make our way up to Kharashim, a village similar to Gilon. I will keep the route in mind becasue we climbed for a long time before reaching our destination so this makes it a great route to get some climbing done. From there you over look the entire area and the valley bellow, full of olive tree's and in the distance the ancient city of Akko.
On the way down we hit a bit of tarmac where I managed to hit a top speed of 63.7km/h. Great day out and really looking forward to the next weeks training.

Training again

Distance: 21.8km
Duration: 1:37:05
Terrain: Single track and some forest road to join the trails
Calories: 1577
June mileage: 136.7km

My zigzag route to recovery has taken a step in the right direction with me joining the group training this morning. The ankle is still not 100% but as long as I can move the the foot up and down I guess I can ride. There's no serious pain afterwards so I just take it sort of easy on the rides to keep the fitness up. However, this morning was a step up from my regular dawdling in zone 2. We did some spinup's along the flats to help with speed and cadence. Basically its a gradual increase in cadence till you max out in thirty second jumps. The key here is cadence and not power so you don't need big gears. Then things got better with work on our base and the technical stuff, single track. The mountain where we train is full of single track and some of in is really technical so we wound our way up and down these artery's to get the blood in full motion and the legs warmed for our last and my favorite part. Hill repeats in HUGE gears. I was feeling great this morning and ate up the hill, seems like I've managed to get stronger with all this rest as I did some of the biggest gears when going up the hill. So thouroughly enjoyed the ride and am now in R.I.C.E mode again as Trio suggested.

Swollen

The state of the ankle. Not sore or anything just all big and nasty. Decided to rest it up some more, partly becasue I need to rest the leg, partly due to puncture that I still haven't mended, partly because I forgot to pop into the shop yesterday to buy the tubeless setup stuff. I will go this evening to pick the stuff up. On the way home I was detoured by luck as a car was on fire just ahead of me. The accident apparently had just taken place and I was near a off ramp to get around unscathed. I took the long way home and thus completely forgot about the tires that needing fixing while I was watching the black smoke billowing from the carnage.
In other news seems like summer has brought about the need for ink. Renee and Big Ring have taken there passion for the sport to a whole new level by permanently branding themselves. I've thought about it for a long time but I change my mind so often that getting a tattoo would leave me looking like Mickey Mouse faster than you can say ouch. The needle also aren't exactly what I want to spend an afternoon worrying about.

Climb to the castle of Yehiam

Distance: 34.1km
Time: 2:02:00
Calories: 1591
Terrain: Jeep track with some meaty climbs saved solely for us mountain goats
June mileage: 114.9km

The great thing I have to say about staying in Israel is being able to hop on the bike and travel back in time. Decided to do a long/historic/exploratory ride this morning with some serious saddle time, 3 hours or more. The reason I'm able to squeeze this in on a Monday is becasue we're celebrating Shavuot here in Israel but more on that after the ride, you need to earn those calories. I woke up early feeling a bit crabby and rusty from yesterday's ride, pushed it a bit harder than I thought by the feeling of it. Took me a while to get the legs turning without the squeeling noises coming from my body. First thing I realized was that I had not eaten well yesterday and the tanks were empty, amazing how quickly you feel it. I had some gel in the back pocket but decided to keep them there for the bonk that never came. Glad about that as burned some more calories. I was not feeling well and by the time I reached the castle sitting half way up the climb I was not keen to continue, I had the added calculation that the grass needed cutting before the family came over. So after an hour of climbing I made my turn and was a bit disappointed that I would not be able to put in the full hours I wanted or get the kilometers under the belt. What goes up must come down and boy was it fun. Yet another puncture when I arrived home so it'll be off to the shop tomorrow to convert it to tubeless again. Need to fill up the back tire in anyway, the amount of thorns fighting their way into your path here makes some form of anti-puncture treatment there, solid rubber is not unheard of.
Back to the delicious part of the blog. Shavuot is a day of cheeses,more cheese and then just to top it off some more for good measure. We had white cheese, blue cheese, yellow cheese, cottage cheese, broccoli cheese pie, cheese and mushroom pie, cheese and zatar borekas, greek salad and finally a dessert of cheese cake. It was cheese all round and definitely my favorite holiday.

Blue, green and purple

Distance: 42.5km
Duration: 2:07:32
Calories: 1694
Terrain: 40% Tarmac, 40% Dirt roads and the remaining sweet technical hill that with amazing single track. Well worth the effort to the top
June Total: 80.8km

All the colors that belong in the rainbow but somehow have manifested themself on my swollen ankle. The last few days I've been limping around, well not quite limping because I decided to keep the leg up with ice on it as much as possible. Seems to have worked its magic the great acronym R.I.C.E. Rest Ice Compress Elevation. The ankle's swelling has come down slightly and the color has gone from blue to purple but more importantly the pain has faded. Albeit that I don't have lateral flexibility but am able to move the foot up and down, all that I need to pedal so I was on my bike this morning. Felt no pain from the time I was clipped in till I returned. Wrapped the ankle in ice this afternoon and then compressed with a bandage so I'll see how it is tomorrow as I want to put in about four or five hours on the bike tomorrow. Should be interesting.
The ride today was through the banana fields and then up to a place called Hanita. Awesome climbing hill but decided not to go all the way up because the single track leading down is situated half way up. The stream has carved out a small canyon that wind's its way over and up rock faces with tree branched reaching down to knock you off balance. I really love the area just don't get up there much. The way back was along the beach front with crazy head wind, rather strange as the wind is usually the other way around.

If you had a million lying around

If you had some spare change lying around and really wanted to win a Olympic gold this is another way to go about it. Coming close in the previous games the Dutchman has now taken to spreading the love in the cash department to ge him over the line first.

Logo's

An interesting article showing the revolution of some of the big fish out there. Quite interesting how some of them started, especially Nokia!!

Brain Picking the Best

If you're a racer of any sort of mountain bike the name Julien Absalon would have already rang a few bells. At the age of 28 he has managed to dominate the XC race scene over the last few years winning everything from World Cup races all the way up to the Olympics. Cyclingnews has just released an interview with the legend so get over there to read what he has to say. Here are some excerpts to getting your index finger twitching:

"It's no use to train in ideal conditions, when during the competitions one has to ride in bad weather anyway"

"No. The air is the same for everybody"

"Because of the many changes in rhythm, I'm now concentrating on interval training in order to gain strength"

"Besides, I do not win all the time. But I do win the most important competitions. Do you think that is a coincidence?"

Trip home and a swollen ankle

Distance: 20.2km
Duration: 01:22:44
Calories: 1134
Terrain: Hilly rocky jeep track
June Mileage: 38.3km

Trip home last night was a bit longer than expected and also a bit more challenging than I thought. The 4:30 wake up definitely set in in the afternoon and it was warmer than I thought it would be, I guess summer has sort of snuck up on me sitting in a nice air conditioned office all day. Not sure how Whitey and Groover manage to get up every morning like this but a 4:30 start makes for a super long day. One thing I can say about commuting is that after a long day with everyone jumping on your head there's nothing more stress relieving that hopping on the bit and feeling the miles soak up the tension. The trip back was great as I left the laptop at work and was more into exploring mode than getting to work on time mode. There are so many trails going off in cross roads that I can't see this getting boring anything soon.
That was yesterday and this morning I just could wake up. Dead tired and I was feeling the legs from all the hills. I haven't climbed for a while and being a keen lover of inclines I sort of lost myself in the moment. Just coming back from the Achilles injury I thought it would be better to take it easy and build up slowly for the commuting. Wise decision but completely ruined by my irrational choice of going for a game of soccer here on the kibbutz. The guys generally play and I arrived home from work thinking I'd take an easy ride to keep the muscles loose. I heard they were playing so thought about running around for cross training. But luck saw me go up for a header and land on my ankle. I felt it go and I'm sitting here with ice trying to get the swelling down feeling sorry for myself. We also have four days of holiday coming up, perfect for long rides to get the legs strong. What will I do now?

First Commute

Distance: 18.1
Duration: 01:06:19
Calories: 1041
Terrain: 100% off road on farm roads, 30% technical&rocky climbing
June Mileage: 18.1

So finally kicked off the month with a ride. 3 days!! Getting slack there but what can I do with work and things like people who don't ride bicycles. Need to fit them into your life some time. Did my first commute to work today. Well if by that I meant arrived to work on my bike. Decided to start out with a small distance to work and then build up over the weeks. No point in rushing and glad I didn't becasue I was in unfamiliar terrain. So it was an adventurous commute where most of the time I didn't know where I was going. I had packed everything I thought I needed only to arrive to a mist covered mountain that separated me from work. Didn't see that one coming so other than taking visibility down it just added to the adventure.
Did 18.1km but this will come down becasue I'm sure I didn't ride the shortest path and I had to back track a few times. It was awesome arriving on the bike and I plan on pushing the distance back further and further. The problem is that I still need to do just under an hour drive from there so there need to be a balance between time spent on the bike and drive time. I'd like to get it down to two hours total but that may take some doing. It also means adding two hours to the regular drive. All things in consideration though, I shower when I get to work so this cuts down time spent getting ready in the morning. I will also prepare bike completely, tire pressure and oil the night before so that the bike is ride ready in the morning. Also filling up the bottles in the evening and putting them in the fridge so I have nice cold water. All these things cut down on time preparing in the mornings.
Food is also another factor that I dealt with today by simply forgetting completely about it. No good as the calories I'm burning are not being replenished and I'll probably bomb in the afternoon without helping the recovery in the morning. I will also be cycling home again and haven't taken this into account. The laptop made my backpack really heavy and this is another area I will need to look into.

Clever Idea's - Tire Lever

Read Blue Collar's idea about using quick release as a tire lever in a tight spot. Read the full article here.

Tour de France Overview