5 Some Cycling Shorts

No, they aren't smelly, and no pun intended. But let me pass this on..


1. Victory Salutes : New salutes are being added to the Victory Saluta-pedia. The latest addition is called "The PLAYER". For case studies, tips and advice on execution, please visit this page - The Lore of the Victory Salute.


2. 2008 Tour of Battenkill : I realize that I'm racing America's biggest single day road race this Saturday. I have been meticulously training with water filled in my mouth, applying Crest teeth whitening gel for the podium night after night, cruelly picking flower petals going 'tubulars love me, tubulars love me not', loading my muscles with the fruits of the pharmaceutical industry and intimately whispering my bike at night into peak performance. Note that these methods have been recommended by a favorite Italian racer of mine, a certain Peopeele Bettini.

Don't be all legs and discolored teeth on a podium...

To see the intensities of the celebrated 55 mile race course, check this link.

To check out my Tour of Battenkill route at Bikely, complete with elevation profile, cue sheet, start and finish, feedzones, unpaved sections and strategic places to attack, click here.

3. 2008 Equal Parenting Bike Trek : Okay, me being an ass aside, I was made aware of this event by a reader a few days back. 5 Michigan fathers are cycling a long 758 miles from Lansing, MI to Washingston D.C to raise awareness for 'a child's fundamental right to be loved, educated and nurtured by both fit and willing parents'. I think that is a very noble cause indeed.

So if you're in the area, go support these good people and ride with them. Also check out some of their videos here.


4. FEA Webinar for Bike Industry Engineers : Noran Engineering, Inc. (NEi) announced it will broadcast the 2nd part of a series of webinars that will focus on the use of finite element analysis (FEA) during the design cycle with its NEi Fusion FEA tool. This webinar will cover composites analysis in the design stage and focus on construction of finite element models with orthotropic materials, obtaining structural analysis solutions, and the subsequent post processing capabilities to pinpoint problem areas down to specific plies in a composite part.


The webinar is scheduled for 11:00am U.S. Pacific Time (2:00pm Eastern Time) on Wednesday, April 16, 2008. Interested parties can go to http://www.nenastran.com/webinaremail/ for more details and to register for the event. [Source : VeloNews]


5. Vittoria Hydrodynamic Behavior : While Italian tire maker Vittoria extolls the virtues of high TPI (threads per inch) and multiple layers for puncture resistance on its website, I thought this was pretty interesting.

"The application of "rain" car tire design to bicycles: water is driven out of the tread by the rotating forces acting on the tire where deep tread grooves allow water to escape quickly. The Aqua-Flow concept will be a constant feature for future city-trekking models and finds its first application in the new Randonneur family." [Source : VITTORIA]


6. MICROSHIFT Shift and Brake Lever Integration : Microshift is a Taiwanese components company.


Two of the design goals behind the 'independent shifting levers' was to make it more user friendly and to prevent accidental braking while shifting. That seems pretty sound to me.

A very similar design I noted was in the new Sunrace's Driven shift lever. Check out the carbon wrap work and the pretty flat hood top for hand comfort. It also looks to be nice and aerodynamic from the front.



Say, why did Shimano step away from these independent shift levers in their Dura Ace line? The older Tiagra and Sora models had them, didn't they?




That's all for now! I won't be writing another post until after Battenkill. I hope to take lots of race pictures and videos in the midst of fun and suffering.