Are you ready for a stage race?

I might be a little premature, but I hazard to proclaim that spring is here (despite the weather yesterday). April is fast approaching, and with the sun setting well after 7:00 it looks as though we can leave our vampiric, sunless winter behind us.

As the sun rises on a new season, thoughts turn to long days of tearing up the local singletrack, or for those of us longing for more epic challenges, thoughts may turn to stage racing.

Unfortunately, when preparing for your first stage race, I’m not sure you ever feel 100% ready – you just try to prepare yourself as best you can. In an effort to ease some of your trepidation and potentially avoid some painful lessons being learned in-race, I will impart some sage words of wisdom based off the extensive experience I have (ie. 1 race ;-).

With that said, I’ll apologize ahead of time for the somewhat monumental nature of this post, but I feel (or at least hope) that most of this advice may prove helpful. So grit your teeth and bear it, with strength and determination you can make it to the end ;-)

I’ve pooled my deep reservoir of knowledge into eleven provocative sections:

1. Know yourself
2. Know your partner
3. Keep the calories comin’
4. Check your ego at the door
5. Be able to dig deep
6. You’re not strong enough
7. You are your own wrench
8. Gear up for adventure
9. Know what hours in the saddle feel like
10. Recover
11. Enjoy the ride

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Calgary welcomes BikeBike

It’s not every day you get a new bike shop in town – and definitely not every day you wander into said shop and barely recognize any of the bikes sitting on the floor. I think that’s part of what makes BikeBike so unique, it’s bringing something different to not only the bike scene in Calgary, but in all of Alberta.

I had a chance to sit down with Sean Carter, one of the owners of BikeBike and ask him a few questions:

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iPhone Cycling Apps

Every now and then, Ken will say something that makes sense. It’s not that often though, so I wanted to be sure that I marked this very ‘rare’ occasion.

Several months back, Ken wrote an article on bike gadgetry. Like many trendy, designer-types, when it comes to all things design, Ken is a fan of what I’d call, ‘intelligent or elegant simplicity’ – esthetics come second only to function. So, in an ongoing effort to keep his bike cockpit clear of cables, cords and compu-clutter, he posited on the application of the iPhone as a cycle computer. At the time, it was easy enough to see the possibilities, but the idea of attaching your precious iPhone to your headset as you hurl down some single-track didn’t seem very practical. Even a road ride would pose some risk – pavement isn’t known for its forgiveness. All that said, this hasn’t deterred a number of cycling apps from being designed.

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The Future of Power

I’m sure that if you asked cyclists for the highlights of their Christmas lists, power meters would’ve been pretty high on that list. Sadly however, for most of us a power meter is more of a “wish list” type of thing. Right now most ‘traditional’ power meters tend to be a little out of reach for most of us, or if nothing else, at least a very sincere investment.

Outside of price, the other main problem I’ve had with the traditional crank or hub-based power meters is the difficulty managing one power meter over multiple bikes, especially if you’re racing in multiple disciplines.

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The Tab

“The Tab” is something I ran across over on VeloDramatic which both intrigued and frightened me all at the same time.

I think we can all agree that generically speaking we probably all spend a slightly embarrassing amount on bikes and gear (at least to non-bike-geeks), but it’s a little intimidating seeing it all added up on one page.

I’m not sure I’d be willing to do the same (especially publicly)… I know I’ve made some pretty smart decisions, and I’ve managed to cash in on some pretty smokin’ deals, but I’d think I’d shudder seeing all of my purchases added up all on one page.

From the site:

I doubt publishing the Tab will help any of you persuade your spouse your own gear habit is healthy, that’s a line of reasoning that never seems to work. It may point you in the direction of some good kit that you’ve missed though, and it beats gambling and drinking. And if it strikes you as lunacy, and that makes you feel good about yourself, that’s OK too. Enjoy.

I’m sure even the most frugal cyclist that gets out on anything more than a casual level spends a decent amount of time and money on, if not buying, then maintaining their bike and gearing up.

What do you think? Would you be scared to see all your bike-related purchases added up, or are you content in being blissfully unaware? Is there a sick piece of curiosity in the back of your mind that wonders just how much you dumped into your passion in 2009? How much do you spend a year on cycling? Hundred? Thousands? Tens of thousands?

Let us know your thoughts!

Top Ten for 2010

Well, welcome to the New Year everybody, to help kick things off, I thought I would pull together a little collection of links. There’s nothing like a Top Ten to get things started on the right foot, so I decided to combine two.

First – With all the fixie hype of late, I present “The Evolution of the Hipster,” curating 10 years of hipster culture from 2000 to today. As an added bonus, I also thought I’d include an interview with Steevo Cummings, the man who brought you “Hipsters Discussing Cyclocross.” The article is worth a read and guaranteed to make you grin – One of my favorite questions from the interview:

Since you’re a PRO, when you go out for a long training ride… Is everything “epic” and in black and white like on the Rapha website? Sometimes I do kinda’ longish rides on Saturday mornings… I have yet to see a glimpse of black and white… When was the last time that you saw anything in color?

Second – I wanted to highlight both Sheldon and my top articles of the last year (based on your viewership). As we look to make 2010 a stellar year both on the bikes and on the blog I thought it fitting to pay homage to the articles our readers liked the most.

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The Copenhagen Wheel

Unveiled last week at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, researchers from MIT brought forth “The Copenhagen Wheel.”

On a base level, it’s a special über-hub for your bike that offers cyclists a ‘boost’ of power when needed and is powered through regenerative braking.

On a higher level, when connected to your iPhone (or other smartphone) it can track distance, power output, take pollution measurements, map your routes through GPS, tell you where your other Copenhagen Wheel equipped friends are and even act as a LoJack to a stolen bike. All sent to your smartphone via Bluetooth.

Pretty snappy to say the least…

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Christmas Wish List of a
Bike-o-holoic

Ho! Ho! Ho! With Christmas fast approaching, and I do mean fast, I figured it was time to start thinking about it. I don’t know what my deal was this year; maybe it was the fact we had no snow until last week, but Christmas just seems to have come out of nowhere. That said, now I’m super excited. Christmas has to be my favourite season, only next to riding season, maybe :-)

So, with just two weeks to go, I thought although it’d be cliché, it’d still be fun to run down my 2010 Smart pics/‘personal Christmas wish list’.  Amaze, thrill, and astound your naughty, or nice, bike-addicted loved ones with any of these.

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Radioshack’s new rig

Lots of buzz going on surrounding Radioshack’s kit’s and gear being unveiled, and from what I’ve seen, the swarming masses are lukewarm about the jerseys, but everybody seems pretty stoked about the bikes.

The bike looks hot, there’s no denying that, and at first glance I thought it might be a little overdone, but I think that there’s a really nice balance of micro vs. macro detailing.

From afar, you get some pretty cool colors that are going to stand out in the peloton, along with some unique paint approaches – namely the gradient from grey to black and the ride piping on the top tube and interior triangle.

But as you get closer you’re immersed in all the little nuances. You realize that as the gradient fades the grey is populated with little “Shack” logos. You notice the classy nod to Livestrong on the right seatstay. The red spacer in the headset. The list goes on. Definitely something to soak in.

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The Dark Art of Cantilever Brakes

I’m fortunate enough to live on top of a big hill. I’m fortunate enough to cruise down it every morning on my way to work, and fortunate enough to have to grind back up it every evening. The unfortunate by-product of this is that I go through brakes in fairly short intervals. The really unfortunate extension of this is that the brakes on my commuting/cross bike are cantilevers.

As anybody who’s ridden canti’s can attest, they are, and forever shall be, the devil.

Nothing shakes the fillings out of your teeth worse than a set of badly aligned cantilever brakes howling their way down a hill. Having run canti’s on mountain bikes ‘back in the day’ I can tell you will 100% clarity that installing/aligning them is anything but a science. It is a dark and mysterious art… One that I am still struggling to master. That said, should you find yourself in the same boat as I, I thought I might share some tidbits of knowledge I’ve picked up along the way.

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