Posts tagged “racing”  

Scott Addict SL for the Twenty Ten racing season. DA 7900, Hed Stinger 6s, and nothing stupid light. Should weigh in 15 lbs + .

The tape is Fizik and feels like tennis racquet tape. It breaks in and doesn’t slide or wear. The graphics say something in Shimano/Scott language, but I can’t make it out. When combined it’s like a tribal Mori tattoo. Not very often graphics look like they were made for each other. Initial ride is the same as the Scott ProTour bike I rode last year.

Here’s the business end.

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Photos from the Tour Down Under are being uploaded to Flickr — check the Group Pool.

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Full ride report on Rapha, all 107miles of it.

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Stay focused while a guy in a speedo with a Luchador mask points at his belly and it says, “No pudding for you.” Oh and it’s 38F. That’s Cross racing.

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Like JZ said, “I do this for my culture.” More photos on Flickr and reports from the Pro race to follow today.

The dudes that are good at it have lots of tattoos …

Note: This post was told to us by Chris Mahan who raced the Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships on a Specialized Tricross Singlecross. His first report was published yesterday. Chris designs for Novara.

Instead of a qualifier on Saturday, we made friends with Sunday’s combatants and rode a social ride. It seemed like it was all up hill on dirt roads, and it rained harder all the time. A few beers were drunk, as race prep for Sunday.

The race is all hush hush so you don’t get any details until you are there ready to start. A costume is pretty much a must. Best to select one you can ride in. I went with a dark angel with wings and a halo.

While we recovered from the Mobile Social Worldwide and rode in the Seattle rain, Chris Mahan guest blogged for us at the Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships in Portland. He rode a Specialized Tricross Singlecross.

As Rock the Bike said, “Diggin the cyclocross nuttiness.”

Chris told us

the Specialized cross tires hooked up in the mud and the bike felt balanced and quick, but seemed designed more for the road than raceday. It’s too heavy for the barriers and the v-brakes just don’t have enough mud clearance. A parts upgrade — wheels, cranks —- would resolve that quickly.

Thunderdome

Please tell us that Master Blaster was in the Thunderdome!

Also see photos from PDX Cross. Chris designs for Novara.

Doping cases in cycling often seem so far away. Dope is in Europe and off in that world of professional bike racing us weekend warriors just dream about, as we line up for an office park crit. In the media, Joe Parkin covered dope in his book about racing in the 70s and the notorious doper L’enfant terrible recently died.

Rumors surround the stars, of course, and Tyler never proved his unborn twin theory or Landis that it was the Jack Daniels. It seems drugs permeates our sport, but usually once removed from guys we just read about online. Most of my heros are dopers. I wrote in 06, “I don’t believe anyone. I just believe in the bike.”

Yesterday a local Seattle pro wrote an apology and confession to the WSBA list serve. I’m posting it here not with some insight into why Kenny Williams doped or judging him, but with some surprise that even the local pros dope.

Of the 20 years Kenny has raced, I’ve known him for about 15. We’re not team mates or even bros, we’ve just seen each other on the weekends year after year. For those that follow us on Twitter, I tweeted when he set a new world record at Track nationals.

DHEA

Colnago, carbon everything, Cat 5 racer. Didn’t get to connect with the owner, but would have appreciated the obsession and mentioned that he might want to tone it down a bit on race day, as he moved through the ranks.

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I was at a social event with Pam and didn’t attend, but the reports are it was a rainy, great night of Cross racing with Heule taking the win. Andrew raced Single and should have a report up soon. While all us of aren’t racing yet, we are secretly cross training.

The course lay out featured long grassy straight-aways with riders going in and out of the Marymoor velodrome. As the weather turned for the worse, bike handling took precedence over power as the off-camber turns slickened with rain. Tim Johnson (Cannondale) went down on the first lap and soon an elite field formed: Page, Trebon, Heule, Troy Wells, and Andy Jacques-Maynes (Bissell) and Jeremy Powers.

More Cross

• on Twitter
• Jonathan Page’s report
• Cyclocross page

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At an undisclosed location in Seattle, we are training for Cross. You’ll just see us later in the season. While everyone else is going fast, we’re just getting going.

More Cross.

This Museeuw Flax bike is an orphaned demo bike that Road Bike Action didn’t want anymore and offered to us to test ride. We said "hell yeah" and converted it into a fixed/free with an Eccentric Eno hub.

Why not equipped with SRAM Red and destined for the cobbles? It’ll do that too in the Spring. For the Fall, like other cyclists, we want a fixed/free bike for just riding and spinning the legs. We’ve also been wanting to ride carbon fixed since seeing the District Carbon at Trek World (and before that in Lance’s twitter stream). So we converted a flax/carbon road bike and you can do it too for a few hundred dollars.

Jeremy Honorez hits a bollard and his bike shatters.

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The race caravan, while seemingly chaotic fast, and unnerving, has a certain flow to it and a collegiate spirit. Before the 2009 USPRO Race we talked with Mavic about their setup and then got into the cars with them. Zabriskie attacked early and George won.

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iPhone

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Enjoyed a Fall ride with Hed’s new Stinger 6s to Labor Day Cross and a stop at South Park for photos of the Create mural.

Quick review

The Stinger 6s are the best wheelset Hed has made. It’s an evolution of their C2 platform and equivalent to cavemen dropping their stones for spears. They spent 10 days in the wind tunnel with these and I noticed the aero tweaks right away.

Besides all the wind tunnel numbers, what’s going on is the tire sits in a cradle and not on top of the wheel. That means the wheel/tire interface is minimzed and facing the wind is one large curved shape. No homies it’s not spokes that matter most in the tunnel (or twin-paired spokes), it’s the wheel/tire interface. Decrease that interface and less drag results.

We rode to the Labor Day Cross race in Seattle where racers were digging deep like this.

Accelerate, dismount into a sand pit, a few steps, then run up through the pain.

More Cross

• Cross page
• Cross tag
• Photos

We return to Starcrossed in a couple weeks.

This Fall, we’re back in the Cross scene. We’ll cover it more with racing and new gear. Also working on our Baryshnikov over the Barriers technique, knowing where the saddle is, and more style.

Last year with produced a series of videos, like this one. See more of them on our Cross collection page and Cross tag.

Across the US, Cross Clinics are on and cyclists are working on their skills like this Team Beer Style Dismount in Portland. Here in Seattle, there’s a season ending crit this weekend and we’re onto practicing with our bad selves. We’ll work on controlling the bike when running and more.

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Video from today’s stage in the Vuelta that has taken out Chris Horner.

It’s confirmed that Chris Horner has a broken wrist and is now out of the Vuelta. We’ll miss you Chris—please stay strong.

@TeamAstana. Follow along on Twitter.

Video was pulled by copyright owner.