If It's Not Fun, It's Not Fun...

--Today I rode over to the last of the Pilarcitos Cross races in the park.



Saw some buddies, hung out for a bit, then on the way out I stopped by the Sram pit. I had been having issues with my right shifter for a while so I thought I'd get it looked at. An hour later I left with a brand new right shifter. No joke. The guy replaced the cables and housing, then put a new shifter on. I was shocked.

I've been hooked on Sram since I first tried it but this type of customer service is what keeps me coming back. If you haven't tried Sram yet, I definitely recommend it.

--This Thanksgiving I headed south from Half Moon Bay to climb Tunitas. It was super cold out, by bay area standards. I threw on my thermal jacket and two sets of knee warmers and was set. About a month ago I was going to send my thermal jacket to Dylan (braving the NYC winters) but luckily I held onto it. I've been using it a lot lately.

Speaking of winter gear, I recently bought a few pairs of DeFeet Wooleator socks. They feel really nice but honestly they don't seem to have any effect. My feet don't stay any warmer wearing them. However, I did buy a few pair of Sock Guy wool socks at Interbike and they work well, although they don't feel as good on your feet. The warmest socks I've worn are a pair of Capo socks. They're so warm I don't wear them on warm days. I bought them off eBay so I have no clue the model. I digest.

Despite the cold it was super clear out and the sun was shinning. Once on Tunitas I passed this sign:



Clearly someone knew I was coming. I headed up and about halfway to the top a kid in USA bibs and Trek-Livestrong jersey passed me. I put my camera away and rode up to him. His name was Charlie Avis (@charlieavis) and he rides with Trek-Livestrong as well as the USA team. He's from Palo Alto but goes to school at Princeton.

We chatted about some of his teammates, King (@BenKing89), Phinney (@taylorphinney), and Williams (@JustinAWilliams). He was bummed about the recent cancellation of the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs. Phinney won the last two years and with him headed to BMC and King going to RadioShack, there's a spot open. We also talked about Lance. He's met him a few times and ridden with him.

We rode together to the top. He headed down Kings and I headed back home. Cool kid. The rest of the ride was nice.

--On Wednesday I was riding up to the Legion of Honor after work when I broke a spoke. Luckily I was riding uphill so I wasn't going that fast. I've been riding a pair of HED Bastognes for the last few months. I thought, given the name "Bastogne" they might be, you know, tough enough to handle a bit of wear. Apparently not. I should say I weigh between 145-150 so it's not like they were under that much stress. I've emailed HED for a replacement. In the meantime I'm going back to a pair of Mavic Open Pros. No frills, no problems.

--I started posting pics to my Tumblr account recently. I regularly send pics from rides to my grandpa and friends so I decided to put them all in one place.

--When I went home Wednesday night, post-spoke breakage, I took my spare wheel with me, a tire, and a tube. The next morning when I was putting the tire on the spare I realized I had left my pump at home. I dug around in my saddle bag and found my presta adapter. If you don't have one of these it's definitely worth buying. I've used these in a pinch more than a few times.

--Looks like Stybar is headed to Quick Step! I'm really excited to see what he can do in the PRO peloton. Niels Albert on the other hand, thinks it will just distract Stybar. He's probably right, though.

--Hushovd didn't receive any increase in his contract after winning Worlds. He says that Garmin was all out of budget. To Garmin's credit, they are combining the heavy hitters from two teams into one budget for 2011. Hushovd says "It's just the way it is, so I'm not going to waste my time and energy to dwell on it. It's just part of the risk when signing a new contract early." Props.

--The Gent Six Day is well under way. They've been trying to do doping controls between races to the chagrin of the riders. Ilyo Keisse, who himself was caught doping a few years back, is one of the vocal ones. He likened it to doping controls in a feed zone.

--The Worlds course is possibly under attack in Copenhagen due to, get this, the traffic closure. The city council has yet to decide if it can shut down traffic for three days. Cars, cars, cars...

--This is pretty sad to see, a Masters racer in Michigan has been suspended for EPO and another Masters racer from Colorado has been suspended as well. I think both of these have come out because of Joe Papp's online store getting busted. These guys probably bought their EPO from him. (John Chodroff also bought EPO and subsequently confessed after Papp got caught. He also quit cycling altogether.)

All three were doping in amateur races (Chodroff was PRO but only doped on his way to PRO-dom).

--Lately there's been a lot of huff about the Cervelo lawsuit with Canyon bikes. I was a bit worried but according to Cervelo's response it's not that big of a deal. Apparently the original article got a bunch of stuff wrong.

--Speaking of lawsuits, remember those flying squirrel skinsuits Garmin wore this year at the Tour? Well Pearl Izumi is suing Garmin for failing to return ten of them. The skinsuits were prototypes and Pearl is worried Garmin is sharing them with Castelli, its new apparel sponsor. Or more likely, they just tossed them after they used them.

--The other day I tried out the Stack Overflow site for cycling. Stack Overflow is a startup with question and answer sites for math, coding, and other topics. The site has some pretty good questions and answers on it. Much better than Quora's questions on cycling.

--The other day I stumbled upon two classic Velocity Nation interviews. The first was with Mike Friendman when he was on Garmin. I was trying to find the pic of his license plate on his bike that says "Meatball."

The other interview is with Levi. It's funny, they ask him if he's ever heard of the site. Then, they mention "Toto" (their comic strip that regularly makes fun of him and Lance). They also talk about the Astana exclusion from the 2008 Tour. Good stuff.

--I'll leave you with a hilarious quote from an interview with Toby Watson, Garmin physiologist.

"I’m not sure if it was a violation, or adherence above and beyond the call of normalcy, but Pozzato having a spare set of sunnies in his back pocket was a hilarious display of the cliche of the poseur Italian. He hit the deck very hard in one of the Dutch stages of the Giro, and took ages to get back up off the ground, let alone onto his bike. He faffed around for a while with his helmet off, checking his hair was alright, then gingerly got himself back in the saddle, rolled up the road through the convoy and pulled another set of sunnies out of his pocket. Absolute gold."

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Tiburon PD and "The Law"

--I mentioned recently I had been pulled over by the police in Tiburon for riding two wide with another cyclist. Riding two wide isn't against the law per se, but it was against "the law." This, however, isn't the only way the Tiburon PD is fighting "crime." Near one of the stop signs by the yacht club there is a police car parked with a dummy in it. Apparently the amount of crime is such that the TPD has had to resort to alternate deterrents to fight crime.

My buddy Ben forwarded me this article about the dummy in the San Jose Mercury. Looks like we're not the only ones to notice it. If you ride through be sure to check it out. Also, be careful because one time I saw the dummy and then 100 feet behind it a real cop.

--What do you guys think of the new layout? You like? Not like? Read this in RSS so could care less?

--Looks like the Vuelta route has been leaked.

--Speaking of Spain, the poor Xacobeo guys haven't been paid in three months.

--And speaking of Spaniards, the Contador isn't going fast enough for Hinault's liking:

"Why drag the Contador case on so long? It is quite simple: yes or no," Hinault told Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad. "What is the point of WADA buying a steak to see whether or not it contains clenbuterol. The animal which was eaten by Contador has been dead much longer."

He does make a good point. Hopefully they'll have this wrapped up before next year's Tour.

--Looks like Cipo is sponsoring a women's team. Cipo. A women's team.

--Speaking of Italians, here is one more reason to train hard.

--The Fred post is coming. I've enlisted the help of my buddy Dylan who started riding in March. He's closer to Fred-dom so he's been helping me brainstorm.

--Danny McAskill has another video out. This guy does some pretty sick tricks. I read an interview with him after I saw his first video where he said he had to take pain pills before he rides because he's been injured so many times. Pretty gnar.



--The London Velodrome is ready for the 2012 Olympics. This thing looks sick.



--This guy has a PRO photostream. Looks like he's a mechanic or soigneur for Garmin because he has pics like this one of Hesjedal:



--At Interbike I gave Jim (@jwbender) a lot of crap about why he shouldn't but a Ritte bike--lack of testing, no R&D, et cetera. These guys are really funny though.


RITTE BEHIND THE PELOTON: TIRE CHANGE from Ritte Racing on Vimeo.

Check out the rest of their video stream for more funny ones. I also bought a pretty funny shirt from them at Interbike.



--Lastly, I'll leave you with this really funny cross video I found on Velogogo. Jim (@jwbender) knows the guy from the his east coast days of glory as the number one Cat 3 in the nation.



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RIP "Cobra"...

--The Cobra no more?? What's gotten into Riccò? Is he going soft on us all the sudden? It's one thing to quit doping, it's quite another to completely shed all remnants of his bad boy image. Looks like he's finally outgrown his "Cobra" nickname. And when I say "his nickname" I mean the one he gave himself... (For those of you who don't remember, Riccò and Riccò's babymama and Italian cyclocross racer, Vania Rossi, were both caught doping. Riccò was caught first, then Rossi, then Riccò dumped her, then her B sample came back negative. As far as I know Riccò didn't take her back after her B sample was negative.)

--Yesterday after a nice Paradise loop in the morning I headed down to Brisbane to watch the cross race.



The back side, where this pic was taken, was super fast and crit-like at times. I only stayed to watch Henry race but had a good time. Last year when Jim (@jwbender) raced was fun, too.

--Tuesday is the SF showing of Chasing Legends. There's a 630 and a 9 showing at the Castro Theater. Marek and Dylan have both seen it and have given it high marks so I'm psyched. I still have an extra ticket to the 9 showing if anyone is interested.



--The other night I went to see Race Across the Sky. I was expecting a play-by-play account of Levi's record-setting peformance--something I wouldn't have been expecting had I actually read the summary. Needless to say, it wasn't what I expected. If you're wanting all the PRO stuff about how Levi won, it doesn't have it. There's no behind the scenes with the mechanics, soigneurs, et cetera. There's roughly 20 minutes devoted to Levi and the real race, the rest is focused on the umpteen different cancer-or some other human affliction-surviving riders who are determined to finish. This is inspiring for the first 20 minutes at least. By the time the second hour started I was ready to leave. If you like this sort of thing, this movie is for you. It also will really make you want to ride MTB.

--Looks like Team Sky will be coming out to the Tour of Cali next year! It will be cool to see these guys out here. They didn't come last year because it didn't really suit the marketing goals of the team--Team Sky, as in the British cable company Sky. I'm not sure how it fits their goals this year given they have no US presence, but I'm stoked they're coming.

--In other local news, Quizno's Pro Challenge (Tour of Colorado) has announced the host cities. Looks like this race is slowly becoming a reality. Notably missing from the list is Boulder. Boulder Report mentioned something about it being their own fault, though.

--La Gazzetta is having a sale on his homemade emBROcations. I've been interested in these for a while but have yet to try them out. I think they're probably a lot better than the DZNuts stuff I tried. One of his posts mentioned they don't do that Icy Hot tingling because it's not good for your muscles. That was the part that was annoying about the DZNuts kind.

--Someone finally tracked down who's making those awful hawk helmets Scarponi has been wearing. The guy is Cornelio Perini. That being said I'd totally wear one.



--In true Inquisition style, some Spanish cycling official is saying Contador will be "punished." Good to know. In the meantime, Cyclocosm has made some Pistolero Steakhouse shirts which are really funny.

Back to the Spanish official thing. Is this just a whole cop out by the UCI? McQuaid doesn't want to be the bad guy so he lets the Spanish handle the case? The whole governing of these cases seems so arbitrary. Sometimes it's the country's court that's making decisions (ie CONI with Valverde) and other times it's the UCI. Where are the lines drawn?

--In another recent example, Iljo Keisse has had his suspension shortened by the Belgian Court of Appeals. The Belgian court has overturned a ruling by the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport). How is this justified? So if you're in good with your local court, you can get out of a suspension? Or if a local court (ie CONI, the Italian court) needs a scapegoat (ie Valverde) they can go after you? What a system! (Keisse did, however, lose his contract with Quick Step over the deal.)

Some of you will remember I actually raced with Keisse in Belgium last summer. By "raced with Keisse" I mean I paid my three Euros, he paid his three Euros. I lined up, he lined up. I hung on for dear life, he made others hang on for dear life. I went in the bar after getting dropped and found a poster of him on the wall, he went in the bar after winning and found a poster of himself on the wall. You get the picture.

--Speaking of doping, looks like the Italian police raided Popovych's house in Tuscancy. This was after the Feds surprised him at some Lance event. Smells like abuse of power to me. First off, he's being investigated for things that happened years ago, so raiding his home is unlikely to yield anything. Secondly, he's being investigated for things that happened years ago, so you could interrogate him anytime, even when he's not at a charity event. Imagine that!

--Speaking of abuses of power, while riding with no hands yesterday I was told to put my hands on my bars by a police officer. I know this is "law" in Cat 5 races, especially at finishes. But as far as I know there's no real law regarding where the hands must be. (Interesting aside: once on a group ride to Windsor I was actually reprimanded by a Fredly Brit for "gesticulating" while riding.)

I asked about this on Quora and there are a lot of attorneys on there so we'll see what answers I get.

The reason the officer was there was because a group of citizens and police were stopping people at the light at Lake and Arguello. They were concerned because most, cars included, blow through the sign at the bottom of the hill (Washington St.). I had just blown through it and they were kind enough to not ticket me as well as hand me a pamphlet with information about cyclists' rights:



The fourth item is something I've read and was glad to see it's official--the pamphlets were made by SFPD. "Cyclists may use the full lane." I've been pulled over in Tiburon before for riding side by side with another cyclist. At the time I knew it wasn't the law, but realized it was the "law" in Tiburon. I'll have to carry a copy of this when I ride when they pull me over in Tiburon for riding in the middle of the lane I can cite the law on them. And then, they can cite the law on me and write me tickets for the five stop signs I just ran.

--I know I said I'd have a Fred post coming but I'm still working on it. It's coming along, though. In the meantime, this is way, way, way better...

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Koppenbergcross and Foot Bags

--Lately I've been thinking how boring cyclocross news is but this pic changed my mind:



I love the guy leaning into the other sprint style. Those guys are climbing the Koppenberg at Koppenbergcross in Oodenarde, Flanders. I rode up that berg while I was in Belgium last summer. I had ridden out there with some of the guys from the bike house. I remember seeing the signs for it and thinking I'd propose a little game of "last one up buys espresso." Before I had time to decide if that was a good idea Evgeny, 18 year old from the Russian national team, was halfway up it and Steve was a quarter of the way. Nevermind.

The roads were dry but the cobbles were so smooth I had to stay in the saddle the whole way up. I tried standing a few times and slipped. Belgian bergs mean business.

--Good news! I have it on the authority of neo-PRO Lucas Binder that the foot bags work for rain riding. In his words:

"I also tried the plastic bags on the inside of my shoes for when it is wet
and cold outside. Well I guess it has to be really cold, because they kept
my feet dry at first but after a while I started to sweat and the bags
filled with it and got kind of gross. Better warm and wet than cold and
wet though."

He also tried out some of the rice cakes and they worked. I've never actually made them but he says they're good, just don't put garlic in them. Garlic not good for long rides.

--I've been wanting to write a post on "Freds" for a long time now but have yet to do it. Seems by the time I'm ready for a new blog I've already got enough content to do without it. So, in the coming weeks I'm going to write up a full expose on "Fred-dom" and I need your help. Please post any and all "Fred-icators" in the comments. I've also posted this on Quora for those of you on there.

--Looks like Felt is heading back into the obscurity. They've partnered with the Peanut Butter and Co. women's team. If you just said, "Who??" you got the right answer. I love women's cycling, I believe in it, but it doesn't sell bikes.

--Cancellara says the Contador signing affected his decision to go to "Team Luxembourg." This was circulated around the time of the signing, that he would probably leave Saxo because it's hard to have both a top GC team and a top classics team. I don't blame him but it will be unfortunate if Contador is banned. It would have been cool to see Fabian on what would have essentially been "Team Sparta." That being said, it's also cool that the team, which I really like, is basically staying together.

--Speaking of ex-Saxo Bankers, it comes as no surprise that Stuey has made the jump to "Team Luxembourg" as well.

--In other transfer news, Mick Rodgers has signed with Team Sky. It will be cool to see what he can do for them.

--Looks like Cav is already scoping out next year's World's course in Copenhagen. Don't get me wrong, I think being prepared is 95% of the battle. But a year early? Besides, I thought he goes to Paraguay in the winter...

--Apparently there's a road race in Cameroon right now. I think I saw some pics on Cyclingnews but here's a blog by one of the guys riding. It looks pretty intense.

--I'll leave you with this ironical pic of the butchers in Pinto...



--Oh wait, as if that wasn't enough. Here's a pic of me that some guy took at a kermis last summer. (As you can see I was skeptical of the Flemish barbers...)



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