Nick sent me the following pics, taken during a ride through the Southern Namib desert, near Rosh Pinah in Namibia. He writes, “Lots of sandy dirt roads and rocky double-track make for a fast exciting route that keeps you on your toes. We’ve had alot of rain recently, so its a lot greener than normal!”
Desert flowers
We started out the week with Dan’s review of some of Amino Vital’s energy products. After that, I went camping for a few days in the mountains to escape some pretty uncomfortable weather down in the valley. Aside from a dumbass discharging a can of bear spray into our campsite, it was an awesome retreat — no bugs, comfy temperatures, and lots of swimming. Good stuff.
VeloNews posted up the transcript for Floyd Landis’ chat with Larry King. BikeMagic has a review of the Scott Ransom 10. MTBR.com reviews Niner Bikes’ SIR 9. asilvertouch ‘zine takes a look at some Kona XC gloves and a Kona hydration pack.
One of the world’s premier mountain bike events has been taking place up at the Whistler Bike Park over the past 10 days. Even though I didn’t head up for the event myself, I’ll post up some links later in the week instead of the canned releases that are showing up elsewhere. As a teaser, you can know that Brian Lopes won the AirDH race down A-Line, Giant’s Adam Craig took the Super D race, and Cam Zink won the Slopestyle event.
Oh, and Floyd Landis’ Tour result is under the spotlight after the results from a single test showed a high testosterone : epitestosterone ratio. The results were released prematurely too — how difficult is it for the people involved in this thing to keep their mouths shut for a week while Landis’ B sample gets tested? And WTF is the media doing hounding Landis’ mom? Last I checked, she wasn’t even remotely involved in this thing, other than being on of The Floyd’s parents.
I rolled back into town this morning and, lo’ and behold, another media storm around a drug scandal in cycling. Am I surprised? A bit. But I’d also be choked if I were Landis — how is he going to get fair treatment of his b-sample with all of his dirty laundry already out on the line?
Poking around quickly, I did get a chuckle out when I read some stuff that was credited to UCI prez Pat McQuaid where he lets everyone know that he’s bummed out by the positive test result:
I will say that I am extremely angry and feel very let down by this. The credibility of the sport is at stake.
Pro cycling as credible? Umm, Pat? The credibility of your sport is already in shambles. C’mon man.
At least Floyd has his good health to fall back on. No, wait….
Again, mostly the same stories referenced here, but there are some good little tidbits of info and some fairly strong opinions…
Pretty much the same story from a bunch of different news sources. I’ll update with links to cycling ‘blogs later in the day.
Edit: This writeup was originally posted in 2005 at about this time of year. I’m bringing it back to the front because the advice is just as good now as it was back then.
When you get into the heart of summer (like we are here in British Columbia) your riding habits are bound to change. For me, that means fewer rides that start at 10a or 11a and more that start at 8a. Or it means that I just go for a cruise on the road after dinner to get some spin time on the bike.
Marla Streb recently posted an entry on her website about what can happen to a very fit rider when they’re not prepared properly for high temperatures. Unfortunately, Marla’s experience isn’t an isolated one — I’ve done the same thing and, let me tell you, it’s not an experience I’d wish on anybody (actually, I’d wish it on some people but that’s just me being small).
Here are a couple of things you can do to avoid overheating while biking during the summer:
I’m going camping up in the hills for a couple of days to escape the blistering heat. I’ve still got a back log of stuff to post up, but that’ll have to wait until I get back.
Enjoy the weather but be smart about riding in the hot.
In the last couple of years, the market for energy drinks, bars, gels, tablets and powders has become incredibly watered down, to say the least. Where there once was only a drink invented by students trying to help the University of Florida Gators football team (hence the name Gatorade), there are now dozens of alternatives out there, all claiming to give you the nutrients and elements needed to keep you pedalling.
Amino Vital is a relatively new product to North America, but it is making huge strides thanks to aggressive marketing and more importantly, the fact it’s a solid product that lives up to its hype.
The product was invented in Japan and, under the corporate name Ajinomoto, was a huge seller in Asia. For years professional baseball teams there used the branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) drink to keep themselves hydrated and recovering properly. It’s hard to say exactly when or how Amino Vital first made its way into North America, but the common thought is that Japanese ball players on teams such as the Seattle Mariners brought it with them and shared it with their teammates. Read the rest of this entry »
Like much of the rest of North America, out here in BC, we’re sweating through the start of a major heat wave — temperatures are expected to move into the high 30s (celsius) for the rest of the weekend. Make sure everyone packs their sunscreen and lots of water before heading out on their early morning (or evening) rides!
There was a bunch of stuff I didn’t get to this week — Ashwin has a writeup ready that talks about choosing an xc bike, I’m going to have one about choosing an trail / all mountain ride, Dan has a writeup for us, as does Adrian. It was a busy week around here, but I’ll try to rein things in for next week. Sometimes regular life just gets in the way.
New TBH contributor Evan let us have a peek at his new singlespeed on Monday, and provided some decent tips for converting an existing ride to a single. For Wednesday, Guitar Ted offered up an interesting take on the definition of the endurance race. Yesterday, I posted up pics from one of my rides and I’ll try to make this a more regular occurence too — it’s always interesting to see what and where other people ride. Feel free to send me your pics and I’ll post them up — if you have a blog, make an entry on your site and send me the link!
BikeMagic reviews the CamelBak MULE. PinkBike puts in some time on the Hutchinson Barracuda all mountain tire. Bike continues its series from Japan that looks at the 2007 Shimano XTR lineup. Singletrack discusses the 2007 Trek Bikes lineup. Crank Brothers unveiled the Acid pedal, which is meant to slide in between the Candy and Mallet lines.
Tour de France.
On the day after The Stage of this year’s Tour de France, Jan Ullrich has been fired by T-Mobile for allegedly being involved in that complicated doping affair uncovered last month by Spanish authorities. The best part? It was done by FAX. Ouch.
Bicycle Design looks at some of the bikes from past Tours.
After my bail the other day, I’ve been taking it easy on the bike and going for longer, less technical rides. Last night, I went for a rip down a piece of flat singletrack that I haven’t really ridden for years. It was so nice, I got up early this morning and went for another ride on the same stretch of path. More pictures after the jump.
Nice doubletrack ride along the Alouetter River in Pitt Meadows, BC.
Recently I received the latest print edition of a trade magazine called “Bicycle Retailer and Industry News”. The front page article was about endurance racing and endurance bikes and I was drawn particularly to a quote made by Mark Eller, communications manager for the International Mountain Biking Association: “Any race of more than about three to four hours enters into the world of endurance racing,” is what he said. Now that’s an interesting definition of endurance racing.
I remember when I thought finishing a sport class cross country race was “enduring”. I suppose the term can be different things to different people, but the question remains: Just what is an endurance race? Read the rest of this entry »
Loose corner. Power slide. Saddle. Bruises. Icepack. Ok, but no posting for a bit.