The already lightweight, maximum rotation, Speedplay X series pedals have just been taken to the next level.
BC2A Design pedal plates use hardened aerospace-grade inserts with CNC machined 7075 series aluminum. That shaves 20 grams off the rotational weight of the standard Speedplay stainless steel. Anodized to US Military specifications, these inserts are built to last.
The colder it is outside, the more work your legs have to do to warm-up when you start your ride. Leg warm-up creams (aka embrocations) are an easy way to give yourself a head start.
One of the best is Leg Salsa, made by Unconventional Medicinals. It’s made of 100% natural ingredients: menthol, capsicum, salicylic acid, and a whole range of oils, like arnica, hypericum (St. John’s Wort), camphor, wintergreen, eucalyptus, and tea tree. No petroleum products whatsoever.
The thicker you lather it on, the hotter it will get. When you’re out there working up a sweat, things really start to heat up. Once you hook up with warm-up creams, winter will never feel quite so intimidating again.
For more reviews: Bicycle Test
For urban night riding, Firefly Wrist Bands are a comfortable way to increase your visibility. With your wrist wrapped in a 10″ band of neon yellow elastic, you’ll be a lot harder to miss. The bands are designed to fit wrists from 5.5″ to 10.0″ around.
And if you’ve got a craving for yellow neon, you should know that Firefly makes yellow neon belts and ankle bands too – just for you.
If you need to upgrade your visibility, but none of the designs on the market meet your need your needs, it’s time to go DIY.
No need to hit the hardware stores for industrial reflective tape. Firefly High-Viz Stickpak will work better for your cycling gear. It’s made of 3M reflective material that’s ultra-durable and has an adhesive backing that sticks to just about anything.
You can add reflective strips to you hydration pack, water bottles, rain slicker, helmet or whatever crazed, shiny-stripped fantasy you had in mind.
In a lifetime of riding, you may never go down. But if you do, you’ll wonder why you didn’t make it easy for people to find out the essentials.
Nobody plans to need emergency ID, but if the worst happens, you definitely don’t want to end up a John Doe with the med techs waiting for you to regain consciousness, so they can ask you about allergies and contact people.
You need your emergency ID on you, not in your pack. Road ID saw the need and met it. In a lot of cool ways. Check their site. They’ve got it all — wrist bands, ankle straps, dog tags, shoe tags, whatever.
No excuses. Get it. Make it part of your kit. Then don’t go down.
Read Pez Cycling’s intense review: Buy this Product, Right Now!
Another great back-up. If your lights go out on the road or you don’t have enough visibility, having a tiny Barbieri X-Lite in your pack can save you.
It has a 20-90 hour run time on a long-life, watch battery and mounts easily on your bars or post with a mounting strap. The super bright LED bulb gives you 3 choices: steady light or two flash modes. The light shines clear or red. The whole thing weights 9 gms.
This baby is so small and so easy to tuck into your kit, there’s never a reason to get caught without a light.
With RAZRWIRE, your mobile phone or MP3 player are hands-free. They’re built into your glasses. If the phone rings, reach up and touch a button to take the call. No more rummaging around in your pockets. No more dangling wires. It’s lean and clean. The technology you need is built into what you’ve already got on.
Your Bluetooth wireless headset can be moved to either side of the glasses and runs off a rechargeable lithium battery with a six hour charge.
Oakley’s Plutonite® lenses give you 100% UV filtering, impact protection and high definition optics. The Platinum/Gold Iridium/ Rootbeer color scheme doesn’t hurt the eyes either.
More Reviews: Oakley
If you want to keep up a focused training program on your indoor trainer, DVDs can help with that. You can mix and match the screen workouts with the schedule you got from your coach.
The six DVDs in the Cycling Fitness Results series are designed around Joe Friel’s “Training Bible” philosophy. Each DVD contains 3 progressively difficult workouts. And a 20 minute stretching routine after each one. The six volumes focus on specifics:
• Pedaling Technique: Develop suppleness, power and efficiency.
• Pedaling Strength: Produce high tension in fast twitch muscle fibers.
• VO2 Max Training: Increase your VO2 Max capacity.
• Lactate Threshold: Increase your Lactate Threshold.
• Anaerobic Power: Improve your tolerance of lactic acid and train your body to use it as an additional source of energy.
• Climbing Acceleration: Improve your ability to adapt to changes in intensity during long climbs.
More Reviews: Trifuel
Hammer makes the gels that have no added refined, simple sugars and other chemical debris. So you don’t get the “flash and crash” of high sugar products. You get complex carbohydrates – from real fruit.
Unlike other gels, you can add Hammer Gel to your water bottle and mix it with other products to change the taste or boost the impact. There are cyclists who swear by these gels. Give ‘em a try. You might be one of them.
More Reviews: Road Bike
Say you’re out on the road in need of hydration, but you drank your sports drink an hour ago. Now it’s cold and your feet are starting to cramp. What are you gonna do?
If you’ve stuffed a tube of NUUN caps into your pocket, you’re set. Just drop a cap in your bottle of water and you’ll get 700 mg of sodium and other critical electrolytes. Your body will absorb NUUN faster than plain water or most sports drinks, so you can hydrate and restore your electrolyte balance faster.
NUUN claims it’s the most advanced electrolyte replacement and hydration solution available. It’s certainly the easiest to carry. If pack a tube, you’ll always have solid back-up.
More Reviews: Trifuel
