2 The Foxy Win

"According to Visconti, Voigt was also complaining that he didn’t feel good. When the German attacked, they didn’t believe he’d have the legs to hold off a chase...." - Velonews


Photo Courtesy : Philippo Monteforte (AFP)

3 Plan de Corones - Giro d'Italia 2008 Stage 16 TT

What : A never before used 8 mile uphill GRINDER with almost 3600 feet of climbing.

In Layman's Terms Please ? : "Hmm. let’s see… why don’t we start off with a gentle 16% hump leading up to a moderate 20% incline and finish up the stage on a 24% gravel road?" - Velo go go

Ideal Road Surface : Must be a little wet. Too wet or too dry both will result in loss of traction.

Gearing Used (Pro only!) : Bettini went with 34 x 28 T, Leipheimer apparently chose the same too - Cycle To

Danilo Di Luca, after a scout on the climb earlier this year, immediately said 34 x 29 T was ideal for him - EuroSport

Gearing (homely humans) - Multiply above with any number greater than 1.

A Nice Preview




Video courtesy : Holimites


Actual Stage 16 (English Coverage)

GIRO THE ITALIA 16.etapa
Uploaded by miha2007

Video Courtesy : Miha2007

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.

9 Are you Ready?

Who'll be here raising arms up in glory?

3 This Week in Pro Racing

MILAN SAN-REMO 2008

"Fabian was capable of expressing an average output of about 700-800 watts on the last 2 minutes of the race."

- Dr. Michele Ferrari, Italian Cycling Coach

Picture Courtesy : Graham Watson




In Fashion : This handy performance upgrade, called 'faith', may buy you anywhere from zero to an infinite amount of power. Since it exists only in the confines of the heart and mind, it is very quite lightweight and suited by many professionals.

Picture Courtesy Tim de Waele

RONDE VAN VLAANDEREN 2008

The infamous Koppenberg presents a behemoth 22% gradient. This makes it extremely difficult to negotiate even for top professional cyclists. Quite often, riders slow almost to the point of losing their balance (especially those at the back of the peloton) who have to dismount and scramble to the top on foot, pushing their bikes.

Phil Liggett was right. You get off your bike in dirt and pain and keep fighting the question, 'why am I making a living like this?'

Picture Courtesy : Graham Watson





Forward the video below to 3:05.

Angel Gomez, a Saunier Duval rider loses concentration and hits a right curb (called a 'traffic island'), throwing him violently in the air and dead onto the road. Notice the front wheel separates from the bike and rolls mangled like a toy. Loose quick release skewer, broken hub or should this really happen?

According to PPOL News, "he was immediately taken to AZ Hospital in Oudenaarde, where X-rays showed he had fractured his right radius. He´ll be operated on this evening and discharged tomorrow, only to return to Spain for a rehab process that´s going to take several weeks."

I'm surprised he only broke his radius!

Video Courtesy MIHA 2007.

6 Milan-San Remo 2008

Here's for those who missed one of the most exciting classics of Spring - the Italian Milan-San Remo. The looming idea for any strong rider who wanted to win this baby was to get away on that last climb of the famous Poggio, essentially keeping the main pack at bay.

After riding 180 miles, who the heck wants to give all the sprinters an easy victory?

The tactic would be good, as chances were that a single rider or smaller group of riders would better maneuver around the dizzying narrow corners of the descent to the finish line at San Remo. All the top names were there off in the front break, including Cancellara and Rebellin whose racing is always a pleasure to watch since he's one of those amazingly persistent race campaigners that Italy has ever produced.

While I frantically shouted 'forza Rebellin' during those final minutes, an unsurprising turn of events took place. Cancellara manned up, bit his teeth and decided to time trial to the finish line himself, emasculating all the top sprinters of the world and some 150+ riders behind. Letting him escape would be the biggest mistake of the day.

Notice some of his race winning elements :

1. Being at the front of the race or in a break at the crucial time.
2. Being a world class time trialist.
3. Efficient cornering technique.
4. Catching riders unaware and bumping up speed.
5. Hitting the hammer at the right moment, reeling in an attack by Inigo Landaluze and counterattacking him when he had no legs anymore.
6. He finally accelerates, ensuring that he takes no rats with him in his solo move. Landaluze is fried.

Brilliant!

Thanks to user BURNIE87 for uploading the Rai TV segment. Boy, those helicopters did an amazing job!

Milano - San Remo 2008
Uploaded by burnie87

8 Mario Cipollini's Bikes : Cracking the Code

Adding more the mystery and oddities of the man they call Super Mario, we have a picture of his road bike at Kahli-fohniya, with the help of some wonderful people at CN.

Courtesy : Huang, Cycling News

Specifications :

1. A mysterious custom Aluminum frame. Who says carbon fiber is any cooler?

Cycling News reports, "According to our sources, his frame was built by Simone Carlesso of Bassano del Grappa, Italy, the same person who built his bikes when Cipollini rode for the big 'S'."

Who are these 'sources'? Who is this big 'S'? And does this mysterious Carlesso figure have a web site? A quality third party reference? Apprently not. Excellent...

2. Shimano Dura Ace components. Quick, ditch your campy stuff before someone sees...!

3. Adding insult to our curiosities, an odd stem that says CM67. CN says its a Bontrager XXX Lite stem - unpainted on one side. I'm choosing to doubt this.

Courtesy : BKW

CM sounds definitely like Mario Cipollini, but that mysterious 67 is looking to me more like some kind of Morse Code. Did you also know that 67 is an odd number, adding to further to the oddity, meaning the total oddity is more than the sum of its parts.

Anyway, what might this 67 stand for?

Some possible clues are :

• A Flirtatious Trophy. He dated 67 different women (err...plausible.)

• Death. He had a premonition one night that he will die at this age.

• Vo2 Related. His VO2 max is 6.7 litres/minute. I don't doubt it, he breathes like a horse.

• Grand Tour Wins. Using a highly sophisticated scientific calculator, I summed up all his wins in the grand tours - at France, Italy and Spain. The number is 57! Very close, but pretty off. Must he have added to this another 10 victories that may have been close to his heart?

• Birth. He was born in 1967? Checking Wikipedia, this seems to be true. Mario indeed was born in 1967.. This almost reminds me of something we all do to give lesser trouble to our brains : Forming email id's and passwords with our birth dates somewhere in it! Wow, Cipo definitely took this to a whole new level!

3. Selle Italia SLR Carbon Saddle

4. LightWeight Wheels

5. Tires - Specialized Tubulars

6. Specialized Water Bottle Cages

7. A headbadge that I'm straining to look into, but it probably says "World Champion" (anyone with me on this?)

The Italian Press also reported that Cipo apparently used his 8 year old TT bike for his prologue run.

He's clearly different, his equipment is different and he chooses what to wear or do during a race. I like the approach and it clearly rings a bell with me.

There must be many more interesting things surrounding the Lion King, but the revelation of his riding tastes after a return to the pro circuit is very interesting. We see none of the flamboyance, Euroness, or eye catching color schemes that is so home to the pro cycling scene. I don't even think this is a portent to a possible Cipo mid-life crisis.

You know what I think? This little story is probably telling us all to reach a point in maturation as cyclists and even as individuals : Old is gold. Custom is king. Expensive is not always better. Be loyal to the people you know. The human component is more significant that any other factor put together. Ride what you like and don't be carried away by the folly of superfluous advertisement.

More importantly, don't give a s*** about what others think about you!

9 Tour of Cipollini (TOC)

There's the Amgen Tour of California '08.

And then, there's Mario Cipollini.




Who cares about the Yellow Jersey, when Lion King just awoke from a retirement slumber.

With some 1 Million Euros to pay back to the Italian government in taxes, a face like this in court will surely scare the prosecutors

Courtesy Graham Watson

The much publicized return of Mario to pro cycling has not failed to deliver. His larger than life celebrity presence just overwhelms the start line.

Whats even more amazing is his ability to stay at the front after all these years of absence from the pro scene. If there's anything more defining about him, it is his veteran status in the dirty, cunning world of speed. He knows this game all too well, perhaps more than anyone else.

Ok, granted the climbs haven't come yet but still... What do you guys think? Tornado Tom Boonen and Lion King put together, who'll win a one to one sprint finish?

The prospects of such a situation, with Boonen's proven track records, Cipollini's legendary tales and a level playing field now that drugs are out of the equation, just spells some pure sporting entertainment for the rest of us. Moreover, today's stage in California was just a humbling reminder to the world that the man they call 'Cipo' is in top form.

Cipo's name all over his bikes (Image courtesy BKW)

Just curious...with Rudy Project as sponsor to Rock Racing, Cipo clearly prefers Specialized Optics. A detractor?

Oh well, we all know Cipo likes to do his own things, and if he wants to do something, I guess he will.

For instance, lets look at one of his many idiosyncrasies?

When was the last time you saw a rider throw a water bottle at the motorcycle referee, behind the Liggettisms of "Very Good Shot!"? Later, the same victim was involved in a crash.



Apparently, Cipo's bite is worse than his bark. And thats very important in bicycle racing.

2 The Ticket to the Races : Biological Passports, How Good?

Before I start, I'd like to mention that the results of some wheel tests done on a bunch of new hoops are over at Roues Artisanales for 2008. As always, I'm excited to see new tests done on racing products. This test in particular addresses aerodynamics, inertia, lateral stiffness and bearing resistance of wheels in a 5 part series (of which only part 1 is available today as I type this). Interestingly, some of the latest models of Mavic seem to be on the higher end of aerodynamic inefficiencies.


While NASA is testing the LRO for the upcoming moon mission and President Bush remarks there should be world peace at whatever the oil price, UCI is on a race to implement biological passports for riders. We are told that its introduction has been successful beginning this year.In my understanding, they brought this idea up last year after doping controversies were just flooding the reputation of international cycling and all that called for a solution to tackle the problem lest the whole sport gets corrupted.

What the passport is its a data collection method (probably electronic) by which testing agencies (WADA certified, contracted by the UCI, how else on earth are they going to test 7000+ riders for a total of 8000 tests?) collect blood hematological and urine samples of a rider (which should stay constant over time) and really see how these values evolve over the year. Test samples will be taken on and off the season, during some critical points, such as a few weeks before an international stage race.

Paid analysts looking at all this will then judge whether the profiles tell a true story or if someone is throwing mud in their eyes by faking all that oxygen carrying capacity.

I think cycling is the first to do this in the sporting scene. It isn't very innovative, I mean the concept seems like a no brainier. But the process logistics are the difficult part and its the UCI, oh well, so keep your fingers crossed. They better do a good job of it since its likely other sporting bodies are looking at the same and seeing if it'll work for cycling so they can implement it in some fashion.

Along with urine and blood samples will also come a steroid profile (for instance, what does that unbranded 'asthma relief inhaler' really contain, when did XYZ rider take it and so on) . Whats more, riders will also have to be transparent about their whereabouts during testing. All this information is going to be stored in their 'passport'. No clean passport, no racing.

I feel everything should be done to keep the sport clean. Otherwise, millions of us paying to watch races and cheering for our riders are just wasting time and money, and a genuine passion for bicycling as an avenue for sport and fitness will be shrouded by implications that it is corrupt because there's the smell of drugs everywhere in it.

However, the passport system seems just a little too privy to me. The tough training, myriad wind tunnel and lab tests, media following, controversies and now the biological profile testing system must be really putting a lot of pressure on riders. Will this be a factor in distracting them off what they should be really doing in office? The fact that many of the riders are being invaded like this due some other reckless folks in their own team and peleton must be pretty stressful to them and their families.

Also, with the above mentioned pressures, and the fact that drugs will be cleansed off the scene, I'm wondering whether they'll ever ride the same again? Will races post 2008 be a stark contrast to the ones of yesteryears, where every second brought with it excitement and the classic battles and struggles on the mountains of France and Italy are deeply embedded in our memories, even today?

On the other hand, I think UCI has struck a right note with this one if they do a good job of it.
I hope that the information in the passports remain secure and is not hacked or leaked out. The proper handling of confidential information is important and only authorized people should handle it provided they have some sort of licensed agreement.

I don't really know how these passports work. But my suggestion would be to round up a group of suspect riders and keep them under 'probation', if you will. At the same time, passports have to be renewed every year. So after a threshold amount of time, if there's a rider (say John) who has a clean record and continues to do so, the excessive amount of tests and other burdens should be stopped as a way of rewarding John for his honest efforts towards the sport. Isn't that motivating?

Now if John starts using drugs after this period, I would question the kind of moral character he really has... this guy is really the scum of the earth isn't he? And I don't think any rider in the peleton is immature enough to be on this extreme. I think I keep riders in high regard that way.