Ritchey Breakaway Boys...

There are now two of these in the club, one is abroad at the moment and the second is about to go.  They pack into a suitcase and save on baggage costs.  This is the cross one.

This is the one that is abroad and is road specific.

Olympic hopefuls or just F’ing spoilt?

So you can tell by the title that I have been running again, the weather conspired against me cycling today but my fitness was the winner when I decided to run.  I remember JD always said to me that running is 2:1, meaning that 1hr running is worth 2 hrs of cycling.  Well today I managed a 2hr and 3min run.  The distance wasn’t great but that was more down to me having to run through 8 inches of snow for large parts of the run as I stupidly chose to run part off road and the snow up here has by been bad.

In the snow today I tried these debrisgators, I found them in run4it during the week and I sometimes get stones in my shoes and thought they might prevent that but they even stopped the snow coming in.  At £10.00 an absolute bargain.

But, back to the title, I really don’t know if these kids were to be commended today on condemned.  I always love ingenuity and inventiveness but this took it to a whole new level for me.  I was running to the back of Kilmacolm when I saw some kids out sledging.  Thought to myself, bugger me that’s a big sledge, could even be a bobsleigh, but then it was out of sight as I rounded the corner.  As I continued my run there is was coming down the hill and yip it was big, that’s because it was one of these!!

A bloody boat just like this as a sledge, GENIUS!!!  They were going at a fair rate of knots as well, let’s hope they had permission!  I just wish I had my phone with me to take a picture!

Armstrong in Pussy tumble.......

Heard that Armstrong has been brought down by a pussy, not in the same way as Tiger, in that it ran out in front of him and he has some bad road rash.

Gordon says this is who he dreams of....

He has his new green hudz and green san remo rubber grommets, a pair of classy green chris king r45 hubs onto a nice deep section rim; perhaps edge and he would be ecstatic!  He might even commission Cinelli do do a special edition on their RAM bars for him.  These would look great with a touch of green!

Who's Bob?

Bob; Country Road Bob by Van Dessell,  is who I dream about at the moment.  He used to be quite utilitarian but then someone got hold of him and gave him a make over.  He's got a lot going on hasn't he :-).  For me he will become my commuter.  I love singlespeed commuting but have an aversion to chain tensioners, this has an eccentric bottom bracket so it should be fine.  Lots of eyelets for mudguards and racks with disc brake mounts so I have the prefect commuting bike for next year. Hit of style as well, do you not think so.

Titanium

I know a few of us are odd shapes and sometimes we like to go the bespoke route but that is often expensive. I got some frames made by Setavento a few years ago in ti and they still look great but they went out of business.  These guys seem to be at the same price point and their TT bike looks good value for the small or tall among us! Looks ok for £800 doesn't it.  They even do a stock cross bike with disc mounts and I have asked if they will do a singlespeed one like a country bob.

http://www.fourbikes.com/timetrial-triathlon.html

Rapha

I see most of the new stock is now coming on line including the new country jerseys.
www.rapha.cc

And finally...Thai Green Curry

Thai Green Curry. I have had this twice in the last two weeks and it is lovely.  Get's away from some of the routine food I have. Anyway simple really, 2 teaspoons of thai green curry paste (Blue Dragon's was good) fried off in a wok with a table spoon of olive oil, pop in raw chicken and fry off. Pop in a can of reduced fat coconut milk, 1 red chilli whole, 1 green chilli sliced in half (length ways), seeds scraped out, a few par boiled potatoes (2 per person) and simmer for 17 mins. After this time drop in some mange tout for 2/3 mins and then serve (leave the chilli in the pot) on some boiled jasmine or brown rice. Guess you could use other veg for the veggies among you.

Cyclocross 28th Feb in Edinburgh

Just a reminder that this race is on.  Details on the front page of the Tri Centre web site.

http://www.thetricentre.com/

Wet, Dry & Fast (ish)

I still haven't gone faster on the white one on a TT course as I have on the pink one but I am sure that will come once I am sorted in terms of position, all I need now it a Parlee Cross bike, and get them to do a 29er...

TT

Wee photo of a couple of lovely bikes getting an outing in the cold on Saturday.  The Felt won by nearly 3 mins. I blame the setup myself and the importance of getting the crank length correct.  I went down to 175mm to attempt to spin. They felt awful for me as I am used to 177.5mm so I now have a used once set of Sram Red carbon cranks in 175mm for sale.  Soon to be listed on Ebay if anyone fancies them.

I don't have a huge drop either from saddle to pads, I run 13cm on my summer bike but whilst this looks a lot less the assumed contact points are similar to where my body would be on the drops on my summer bike which feels perfect.  It still didn't feel right, but it shows the importance of getting dialled on the TT bike and spending time working hard on it.  Gordon has perfected his position over a few years and he looks super comfortable and aero on it.

We will have another in 4 weeks or so and hopefully we will get more people and good weather again.

I went for a run the other day...

I don't know if you saw my posting on twitter, but it was the first time for years that I felt I was running.  I define the term running as moving faster than a walk.  Now I walk slow, so my running, well, that ain't much faster but last week I got this momentum thing going.  I mean when I run down a hill my heels act as brakes, good brakes at that, like heel strike=judder right through me, heel strike=judder right through me. You get the idea, but I don't know what happened, perhaps I leant forward a bit, perhaps I was getting fitter but I started falling forwards and using the energy/momentum to maintain speed. It was almost enjoyable until I reached the bottom of the hill that was....  But the purpose of this bio-mechanical bit was to lead you towards my rambling thoughts of how I could compare myself to a dessert, as in sweet, not desert as in Sahara. Perhaps a stage too far for my mind, blame it on oxygen deprivation if you will, perhaps induced from my vast speed, but I got to running through desserts and which one would describe me best. Why?? Well it took my mind off the run for a while anyway.  After much thought, about 73 mins I ended up at a Lemon Meringue Pie, that hard base symbolising my skeletal structure, with the lemon being comparable to my muscle and then on top a copious amount of meringue perhaps representing my insulation, all nicely baked off on top.

Pink

I bought some new shades for the pink look this year, although judging by the weather today it may be a while before I get to sport them, although they do come with an interchangeable clear lens.

They are Scott snipers and for anyone who has trouble with a glasses frame splitting their line of vision then these may be for you.  I have had a blue pair for a year and they have proved very robust compared to my Rudy Project ones that the Heid broke!  The do come in other colours and as I say with a clear lens. RRP is £85.00, but many places have them with 50% off for the moment.  Google away.......

Landis

After getting abused for not blogging enough by a few of you I thought I should try and start again.  This took up a fair bit of time in my head yesterday, so guess I should start here.

I saw that a French judge has issued an arrest warrant against American cyclist Floyd Landis for suspected hacking into an anti-doping laboratory computer. Is it just me or are you beginning to believe that this guy might just have a chance of actually being innocent.  It is a pretty extreme length to go to in order to prove your innocence and you wouldn't try to do it if you weren't innocent would you?  The only other thought I could come up with was that he was trying to tamper with the records before the results got issued.  I am not too sure of the time line, but it struck me as a desperate man trying to prove he was innocent! 

He is still an ugly rider though.

Nike - Pink Fly £5

Not for the Clydesdales amongst us but these have got to fit the bill for those wearing the colours next year.  Nike factory shops selling for £5.00!

G3R TT Sat 20th Feb 7.5miles

He or she has probably been in the garage/bedroom for the last few months and you have glanced at him/her fondly pondering when you will next get the chance to ride them.  Your excuse is here, it's a wee winter TT on the Georgetown.  Something to benchmark from, it's personal so come and draw a line in the sand and watch yourself improve over the season. TT or road bikes welcome :-).

First rider off at 10.00, I am sure we will have riders doing 2 or three laps and if we have a few out then we could do a few 2 ups.  It's 7.5miles long, one wee rise to the roundabout on the way out and a wee one on the way back.

Let me know if you want to ride.

G3R

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00qps5q have a wee listen at 1hr 24 min 41 secs...... It was Edith Bowman on Saturday morning.

Always testing on your behalf.....

So I thought I should ride the new 7900 stuff before the new electronic group set surpasses it, but I fear I may be too late already.  Anyway I bought a new group set for the pink parlee as I could sense spring in the air.  The old girl needed a make over to keep up with all these new bikes appearing so I have gone 7900 and new edge wheels on the new swift Chris King hubs :-).  Word has it that Sram is about to go completely wireless and I guess there will be more from the other two producers over the next few months.

I will post a picture once it's complete.

Cross Season Extended

There is a new CX race @ Meadowmill, nr Prestonpans on 28th Feb. Promoted by The Tri Centre in Edinburgh. Detail on website when we get it.


There is just a telephone number on the Tri web site.


Also, I may have sign off to host a CX race at Bellahouston Park in March and I need help and Marshalls, so fingers crossed you will be able to help me.