Volvo Challenge Sdom Race Photo's

Erez and Sharon coming over a climb

Descent into another carved out wadi

The feeding point mid-race, look at those mountains

Oren and I coming over the line

Headwind

Done and dusted

Back now from the weekend at the Dead Sea. Great weekend and had some good racing, most importantly had a fantastic time with friends.Took some pics but not many. Full report to follow.

Volvo Challenge Sdom

This weekend I have the lowest mountain bike race in the world coming up. Well the race is at the Dead Sea and being the lowest place on earth and being the only bike race that I know of down there makes it a historic race in my books. I can't say I'm in any sort of shape to be riding at the moment let alone racing. Luckily its a team event so I'll be going with one of my team mates from Spider, Oren. He's a great guy and into motocross so a bit on the crazy side. Should be great fun to be riding down there with someone from the team. This is my third running in the race, the first one my initiation into the world of cycling. It took another year to get into the racing scene and more serious about the sport, or as Mirit puts it addicted. I was on the bike about a week when I attempted this challenge in the desserts surrounding the Dead Sea. The start is at the lake itself so you can imagine that there's not much else to do than climb. Nothing too serious though if I judge by years past but still a challenge. The canyons that you wander through are from another planet and have you playing around on the walls as they've been carved out over the centuries by the flooding that occurs on a yearly basis. We've just had some rain and they are predicting some flooding so should make for an interesting trip.

Premier League

I've been thinking about the ProTour vs Big Tours and how they could go about making some changes. The UCI insists that each ProTour be invited to the Grand Tours due to the fact that they are part of the federation's premier tour. I can see their point in that these teams are putting big money behind their teams so they would like some sort of garunteeee for the investment. On the other hand the Grand Tours have taken years to build up to where they are today so they are not going to simply give away places in a race where they are limited to the number of teams they can host. So where do you find the compromise. Well I suggest a system similar to the soccer league over in Europe. There are various divisions and then their is the Champions League. A team needs to qualify for the Champions League and only a few teams from the top of each make it through. The ProTour could be this league where the top 5 contenders are given a place in the Grand Tours and the rest are up to the various organizers to invite who they feel should be invited. Even this could take the form of a pre-race where the teams not gaurenteed a place race against each other for a place in the final Grand Tour. Just a something I wanted to get out there.

Respirocyte

Just came across an old article about a proposed development of the nano-technology of respiocyte. From what I understand they have plans on creating a nanobot that would travel along in the blood stream pumping oxygen as it goes along its merry little way. Apparently one of these miniscule artificial red blood cell's would pack the punch of your entire blood system, imagine what a syringe full would do. It is being developed to help patients suffering anemia, a word I'm sure the UCI and ASO cringe at hearing. As you might not know this is the intended use of EPO so I'm sure every development that comes along only causes the govering bodies headaches. Robert A. Freitas Jr. seems like the Frankenstein of red blood cell work on the nano technology level and his research seems truely amazing but if this treatment found its way into the peleton you could only guess what the reults would be. At a nano level I'm not even sure how they'd be able to track something like this, if by what they say is true you would only need one of these in a top athlete to give them double the effect of their blood system. You would also have to be extremely unlucky to have that one nanobot extracted during a test. Something to chew on for the boys and girls thinking about taking on a job at the UCI in twenty years.

Read this for the full interview

Trail Work

Last year I was still as green as could be. I virgin in the cycling world with so much ahead of me and tons to learn. Well I've learnt so much through blogs and just searching for things. I enjoy the scientific side to cycling and find myself reading but not always understanding. It may take another year or lifetime but I'm happy knowing that I have a hobby that not only keeps me healthy but stimulates my curious nature with a plethora of information that can make you a better rider.
One thing that I have been really been keen to get going is some community work in building some trails in the area. I started a bit last year but its hard going. I've seen there is 18 square kilometer area that I normally ride around that is prime for some single track. The great thin is that the land is national land so building there is not frowned upon or at least not that I'm aware of. Luckily I have a kindred spirit in Erez. We went yesterday near his place and opened up a really great flowing single. Its normally in my longer rides that I get that side so it'll be great to go bombing around these trails knowing I helped build them. here's some photo's from yesterdays action.

Omer, Erez and Roi building the fork

Tricky uphill in process

Fresh trail waiting to be opened

Erez pondering the master piece

Bike Cleanup

So during my rest period off the bike I've been keeping myself busy. I really wanted to get a new bike by the finance minister of the house(read Mirit) has made it clear that in the next year we'll be spending money on more important things. One small issue is the wedding we have to organize and that will be a drain on yeah old bank account. I'm really happy that I'll be spending money on something else other than my black hole hobby. I love cycling but it must be the first sport where I find myself wondering where the hell all that cash has gone. Walking into a bike shop already makes my credit card shrink to the deeper recesses of my wallet and my bank manger rubbing his hands with a wicked smile across his face. So no road bike this year and I'll be hanging onto the Epic for one more year...

The Epic however was looking a bit abused with the decals being rubbed off in certain places. Our team is also sponsored by Kona so showing up to the races brandishing the Epic always made me like feel a bit of a traitor to the people supporting us. So I decided to remove the logo's for both reasons and then when I sell it I'll just put new ones on. So enough said and here's the results. I might get some decals made with the team logo because she's looking rather naked. I'll also be taking off all the smaller stuff thats still on the frame and a new carbon bottle holder may be in order.

Foot in his mouth

Images by Gary Boulanger from CyclingNews.com

I must say that I've been looking at the Armstrong fiasco with some interest. In a time when cycling is suffering some serious image problems i thought that with his return we could see the cycling community to use this to get some positive spin in our crazy upside down world. I mean the US has just elected a black president, who would of bet on that five years ago? So we definitely are in times of change although cycling seems to take its lead on the other side of the Atlantic. Europeans though are old school, change is no good. The ASO and German television is still stuck in the ice ages with their school ground fighting and sulking tactics of getting to the bottom of a problem. Not to mention the impotent UCI who can't make up their minds and of course bend the rules every now and then so get around certain problems. I believe the greatest problem is consistancy. This can be shown in Armstrongs latest comments on returning to the tour: "So, I have to find this balance of 'do I want to try to go for an eighth Tour or help the team win a Tour' or 'do I want to help further the international cancer campaign' and all this over the animosity that exists"
Now don't get me wrong, I really want to see him riding for the yellow jersey again. I'd like to se if he could pull it off. I don't understand why the ASO doesn't use this to increase their veiwership during the race. I mean every American will be rooting for their boy and the rest of the world too. We would all be anticipating something to happen, thats what would ignite some passion back into the riders. But back to my consistancy complaint, when Mr Armstrong decided to announce his comeback from retirement these were his words: "I am happy to announce that after talking with my children, my family and my closest friends, I have decided to return to professional cycling in order to raise awareness of the global cancer burden"
So we were all under the impression that he was going to be doing this for the cause. To raise awareness and focus attention back onto cancer. As the most famous survivor of the disease he would surely make the best role model, not to mention the awesome Livestrong organisation that has been devleoped to support the cause. There were questions straight away as to why he was returning. To proove a point? To show he did it all clean? Boredom?
Well what I see in his intial statement it was to raise awareness. He even got an early go ahead from the UCI, an example of the rule bending I mentioned. Now its the Tour or the campaign. Come on Lance be honest with us!! If you want to rasie awareness and see the bad vibes being created from the ASO why do it. I understand that it is the biggest race in the world but if you want to promote awareness surely do it in a positive light. Also don't try to pull th ewool over our eye's and use this campaign as a proxy for you trying to get back into the racing scene, to settle some old score. But then again even bad publicity can be good...