Cycling Reviews

Think like a thief. You’re strolling along, minding your own business, when you come across a perfectly good bike, leaning up against a tree. You can hardly believe your eyes, but … it isn’t locked!

Now you didn’t leave your house this morning, thinking, “I think I’ll steal a bike today.” It’s not like bikes are your specialty or anything. But this one’s hot and it’s practically got an invitation flashing: STEAL ME!!! So you do. In 6 seconds flat, you’re gone.

That’s all it takes. You think you can just lean your bike against a tree while you pop in to grab a cup of coffee and maybe you can. But if you can’t get back and put your hands on that bike in 6 seconds flat, you can’t catch the guy that grabs it.

The short version? Lock it up. Not sometimes. Any time. All the time. If you’re not on it, lock it.

These are the tips:

• DO NOT lock it to something that can be stolen along with it. Locking the front wheel to the frame, for instance, is not going to do you any good.
• DO lock it to something fixed and unmovable. If it can be cut (like a chain link fence), bent (like a tree) or broken (like a flimsy rail), your bike is not secure.
• DO NOT loop the lock over something. Bikes with their locks looped over the tops of posts make bike thieves laugh. (Just before they steal your bike. And for days afterward.)
• DO lock your bike among other bikes. Why not improve your odds? If you can lock your bike next to an even hotter-looking bike, all the better.
• DO NOT lock your bike in a dark, secluded area. This is like giving a thief privacy. With so much time on their hands, they might just take a nail file to your lock. Aim for busy, well-lit areas that scorn thieves.
• DO take up the slack. The tighter the lock, the harder it is to pry loose. Make the bastards work for it.
• DO NOT lock your bike in the same place. Bike thieves are predators. They prowl their turf like hungry animals. A bike in the same place every day starts to look tasty.
• DO buy a steel chain lock that will require heavy machinery to cut. If it needs a combination, that’s great.
• DO NOT lose the combination.
• DO run the lock through your frame AND your front wheel AND a solid, immovable object. Adding a lock to the back wheel is a good idea too.
• DO NOT leave the key in the lock.
• DO look back. Always check the lock again before you walk away. Not that you’d forget anything. But just in case you did.

Either way, it’s about 6 seconds – to steal it or to get it right — and totally up to you.

Why does nobody read instruction manuals? Deadly dull. The graphs and charts that come with manuals are almost as likely to make you comatose as the words. You need live action, cool music and flash images of cyclists pounding the road to remind you why you care.

That’s exactly what you get from SideEffects.tv on their Mountain Bike Maintenance and Repair DVD. Plus, you get Matt Eames, Shimano’s pro race mechanic, as your instructor, to teach you all this stuff:

• Proper bike cleaning
• Bike specialty tools
• Inspecting your bike
• Disc and cantilever braking systems
• Complete drive train system
• Front and rear derailleur adjustments
• Chain
• Headset
• Wheel truing
• Lubricating your bike

Watch a DEMO of the 46-minute video or check out the BikeMag review.

Next time you burn your way up the most unbelievably brutal climb, you don’t have to guess how steep it is. Now you can know. Sky Mounti Inclinometer has no wires, no batteries, just a little bubble, floating in viscous fluid like a carpenter’s level. The bubble measures on a meter scale up to +/- 21%. It’s cheap and just about as low-tech as it gets – but with authority enough to win a bet.

As the Velimpex people say, “What goes up must come down… but don’t you want some credit for it?”

 
More Reviews: BikeMag

These Hakka WXC 300 tires are so completely over-the-top, you gotta love ‘em. In no way whatsoever will they make you go faster, but they will give you solid traction in the ice and sudden slickness winters brings. BikeMag says to put them on in winter and leave them there till spring. Each tire has 300 soft rubber knobs with carbide-studs tips, so you can move from dirt to ice and back again without losing it. Unless losing it was what you had in mind.

With Race Day, the DVD, US Postal Pro, Robbie Ventura, takes you along with him in a 40-minute race. The built-in display keeps track of the time and cadence, along with Robbie’s HR and power output. But you control the soundtrack and customize each training session to meet your needs. Whatever it takes to keep you on the trainer, when you can’t train outside.

Pro cyclists pedal differently from ordinary mortals. When you’re on the road, you can always tell the well-trained cyclists by the way they pedal.

Some like to stand on the hills, others prefer to sit. Some pedal with a wild, bat-out-of-hell ferocity, others pedal from their center and exude Zen. But strip aside those personal styles and look at their feet. The motion is smooth – regardless of the gears they push, the speed they ride or the assaults of weather in their faces. Efficiency rules.

The pros have a secret. They know how to pedal to get every bit of power possible out of their stroke.

Most people simply push down to the bottom with their right foot, then start transferring pressure to their left. It’s instinctive. But it’s not what the pros do.

When their right foot gets to the bottom, they dig in their heel, as if they were scraping mud off the sole of their right shoe. They hold that power through the bottom of the stroke and all the way back up to the top, when they start again. They do the same with their left foot, holding the power through in a push/pull motion.

Their right feet are pulling while their left are pushing. As one pushs down and scrapes off the mud, the other pulls up and steps into the next circuit perfectly synchronized, smooth as you please. There’s no wasted motion. This slight shift in effort makes an enormous difference. You get a smooth circle of power and efficiency all the way around.

To improve your efficiency, a good coach will recommend you do single-leg rotations on an indoor trainer to practice until this motion starts to feel natural. Once you’ve put in your time on single-leg drills, take your new skill on the road. Before long, people riding toward you will mistake you for a pro!

If you’re riding on an organized cycling tour, there is usually a van to carry your supplies from one hotel or camping site to the next. When you’ve organized the tour yourself, with friends, you’ll need to know a thing or two about packing.

There’s more to it than simply grabbing a couple of panniers to your bike and cramming them full of clothes and gear. The important things to remember are:

1. Keep both sides of your bike balanced.

If you doubt the importance of this, try loading the panniers unevenly. Double the weight on the left, then try to ride. Feel that strange lilt toward your left? Notice how much harder it is to control the bike? You want balance. It’s important on a long, flat stretch, but even more important on a turn.

2. Keep the center of gravity low – with most of the weight over the rear tire.

This is why panniers hang low over the wheels. But that’s not enough. Take it a step further. Go so far as to put the heaviest gear in the bottom of the bags. It will reduce your center of gravity even more.

If you don’t have much, you can put it all in panniers on each side of the rear wheel. But if you have a lot to carry, be sure to divide the weight, putting about 30% of the weight on your front wheel and 70% on the back.

You’ll know when you’ve got it right because too much weight on the front will make it hard to steer. Too much on the back will lift the front wheel a bit and make it feel loose.

3. Make sure the things you need as you ride are easy to reach.

Unless you plan to interrupt your ride to dig out a powerbar every hour or so, it’s a good idea to keep it in your pockets or in a small, accessible handlebar bag. The same is true for glasses, maps, lip balm, food, gels or anything else you’re going to need on the way.

You may be willing to stop to put on your shell, change to warmer gloves or double-check the map. But they should be kept within easy reach to make the stop quick for you and your companions.

Two principles prevail among packers. There are packers who want to take everything they might conceivably need and packers who prefer to take as little as possible.

After you’ve covered the essentials – extra layers, food, water, maps, spare and basic gear – you’re probably safe to take about half of the rest of the stuff you think you’re going to need.

Chances are, you won’t need it often, if at all, but you’ll be lugging it every kilometer of the way! Give yourself a break. Leave it home.

Granfondo Cycling Tours has just created a Tuscany tour that feature a full day of riding with the legendary Eddy Merckx, an icon of cycling on a par with Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan or Pelé.

Known as “the cannibal” because of his merciless competitive spirit, Merckx reigned in cycling over a 13-year professional career. In that time, he entered 1582 races and won 525 of them. Remarkably, he won an unheard of 35.5% of the races he entered.

From 1961 to 1977, he had no equal. Even today, no one else has a record of wins like this:

5 Tours de France
5 Tours of Italy
4 World Championships
1 Tour os Spain
2 Tours of Belgium
2 Tours of Lombardia
1 Tour of Switzerland
7 Milan-San Remo Classics
5 Liege-Bastogne-Liege
3 Paris-Roubaix
3 Wallionia Races
32 International Classics
17 six-day trials

He is one of only four cyclists who have won all three of the Grand Tours – the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España. And one of only who have won the Triple Crown of Cycling (Tour, Giro, and the World Cycling Championship) in the same year.

Granfondo managed to persuade Merckx to spend a day of their eight-day tour from Florence to Rome, riding on the roads he raced 5 times when he won the Giro d’Italia.

This year, the tour runs from May 13-20. It is expected to sell out fast. If you’re up for 40-70 miles a day, a ride with Merckx and spectacular Italian scenery, check it out sooner than later at Granfondo Cycling Tours. They may not talk Merckx into it next year.

For the cyclist, France has everything — spectacular scenery, long smooth roads and breathtaking climbs. The French people have embraced cycling for generations and consider the Tour de France one of the most important sports events of the year. So your desire to cycle the country will be understood and welcomed.

French Cycling Holidays have been the cream of the crop for many years now. Created by an avid Scottish cyclist, they offer a mix of successful holiday cycling experiences, suitable to different levels of fitness.
 
The easiest routes ride through the Loire Valley or Bordeaux. If you’re comfortable riding 250 km a week or so, you may prefer the Dordogne, Provence, Burgundy or Languedoc tours. Hard core cyclists with years of experience in their legs can take on the Classic Cols Tour or Etappé. The climbs are challenging, even for seasoned veterans, but they’re not races. And you always have the minibus for back-up if you need it.

Since most rides finish early enough to give you a leisurely afternoon, soaking up the French ambience, FCT provides guides for additional routes, if you want to add a few more kilometres.

The tourist aspects of the tours are every bit as appealing as the rides themselves. In the Dordogne Tour, for example, you’ll visit the Cromagnon caves of Lascaux, with some of the finest examples of pre-historic art. Because England and France fought over the beautiful Périgord region during the hundred years war, you’ll cycling through charming bastides (fortified villages) and Medieval stone churches as you go.

The landscape is rich with rivers, cliffs, hills and endless fields of sunflowers or tobacco. You’ll get to sample the sumptuous cuisine of the region, famous for its duck and goose dishes, including fois gras, as well as its truffles and its cheeses, not to mention its own Bergerac, Pecharmont and Cahors wines.

Weekly tours run from May through September and cost an average of  945 GBP (1650 USD). Airport transfers, hotels and breakfast are included. On all but the advanced tours, a lightweight alloy framed Trek hybrid touring bike with 24 indexed gears is provided and equipped with a lock, pump and toolkit. Guides are always present to fix punctures and minor mechanical problems. And a bus carries the luggage and any stragglers from one location to the next.

It’s not unusual for these tours to sell-out, so if you’re ready, book it now. For the Etappé, you may even need to book a year ahead.

One of the clearest signs of a healthy, well-trained athlete is their recovery time. Cycling pros can make it through a grueling, three-week Tour, then come to a time trial on Day 20 — when they should be beat — and actually ride faster than they did in the prologue time trial! How do they do it?

It’s not all down to genes and years of racing at a professional level, though those things certainly don’t hurt. Part of the pros’ advantage is knowledge. They know what they need to do to recover and have learned to interpret the different clues their body gives them about fatigue.

There are different kinds of tired. There’s tired because you’ve just depleted all the glycogen in your legs and there’s tired because you’ve overtrained. You can feel beat because your innocent little 2 hour morning ride just turned into the ride-from-hell when you were hit with icy winds and hail. Or you can feel beat because you didn’t recover properly after yesterday’s ride.

Maximizing your recovery is about learning to know the different kinds of tiredness and fatigue you experience and eliminate the ones you can. Do these things to recover FAST:

• Guzzle fluids. As you know by now, the first 30 minutes after a ride is your optimal recovery window for replenishing the fluids and glycogen you’ve just hammered away on the bike. If you’re not sure if you’re drinking enough, weigh yourself before and after the ride. Then keep drinking water or recovery drinks till your weight is back to normal. Even a 1% loss of body weight can diminish your performance the next time you ride.
• Restore your glycogen. You need between 80 to 100 grams of carb immediately after your ride, depending on your weight. Eat a high-carb meal, chug down another power bar or drink a few rounds of recovery drink, but put the glycogen back. You’re going to need it tomorrow. And the minute it’s restored, you’ll feel noticeably better today.
• Get some rest.  Pro racers sleep. A LOT. Even Armstrong often took a nap after a long ride. Pros tend to regularly get 9-10 hours sleep a night on top of that. It’s important to recovery, since they’re working their bodies hard. So are you.
• Have a daily massage. A daily massage is a nice recovery device too, if you can afford it. Bribery and pleading sometimes work if someone loves you, but it’s hard to get consistent service that way. The truth is, some things will always separate even the most rugged endurance athletes from the pros.
• Live like a pro. Pros hand their bikes off to the mechanic after a race for its daily check. They eat the special food their chef has prepared. Then they lay down for a nice long massage before their nap. Some of them even get to kiss the podium girls too. That’s because pros are willing to make any sacrifice at all to boost their recovery…