g2tcycling

[g2tcycling]

Last weekend I was at a birthday party with many of our friends. Food, wine, beer from Funk Brewery. You wouldn’t think it could get better. But it was. Lots of ribbing and joking, birthday cake and wishes, a local music group who played well but not too loud. Enough? Not quite.

I had a number...

[g2tcycling]

[g2tcycling]

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - FEBRUARY 04: Krystian Herba, a Polish extreme cyclist celebrates after jumping up the steps of Eureka Tower on a bicycle as he breaks a Guinness World Record at Eureka Tower on February 4, 2014 in Melbourne, Australia. Herba jumped up 2,919 steps on his bicycle in 1 hour 45 minutes without supporting himself with his hands or feet to break his own Guinness World Record. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images) (via Cycling Photos - Yahoo Eurosport UK)

[g2tcycling]

Joe is probably one of the most fun gung ho cyclists you can read. Great fun for experienced and novices alike.

[g2tcycling]

Winter Headgear Addendum

There is a certain serenity to riding in the snow... only of course if you still can see. While ski or some equivalent goggles might work, there are several nice wool caps which have brims (Gobha, Ibex Coppi, 45NRTH Greazy, Giro, Endura) and in certain situations they work well. I never had much use for brims on cycling caps when I'm riding in a racing posture, it blocks forward vision. Yet on the cyclocross bike and recumbent trike, the brim works well to keep the snow out of my face. In those situations, my posture is sufficiently upright that the brim doesn't block my vision.

[g2tcycling]

Winter Riding (Outdoors)

I'm a big fan of riding through the adversity of winter... voluntary hardship is good mental and physical preparation for involuntary difficulties. So I like to ride outdoors in the winter. For some suggestions about how to prepare and dress, see my Winter Riding Posts. I'll freely admit that unlike may other cycling advice articles you can find, mine offer my opinions and what works for me... no namby pamby fluff without any specific advice. 

So here are a couple of addition things I learned today.

Recumbent trikes work good in the snow as long as you have studs on the rear tire... otherwise you may spin out on the climbs. One real advantage of my recumbent trike is that even with no fenders there is very little that gets dirty from snowy wet roads (front wheel run off is really far from the chain line so the chain and derailleurs stay nice and clean.).. also I don't worry about falling when skidding/sliding to a stop...

For riding in wet and snowing conditions, fenders will keep your feet, hands, and shorts dry, keep spray out of your face, and keep a lot of crud from accumulating on derailleurs and chain.. don't skimp on fenders, get some nice easy to adjust fenders that provide full coverage... like these from Bontranger.

Also when it is snowing, seeing can be difficult, so find some cross country ski goggles or something preferably less expensive to allow you to see when it's snowing... once I find some, I'll post some thoughts on it... all I know now is that regular glasses don't work so well. If you have suggestions, please share them!

Don't forget to clean off your bike after you ride... the salt can really tear it up!

And yes, you will get cold, but hopefully just cold enough for bragging rights...

When you finish, grab a warm cup of coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or soup and jump in the warm shower while savoring your "ride through anything" achievement.

[g2tcycling]

Why you should always go out against the wind

You never have the wind with you - either it is against you or you're having a good day W. Somerset Maugham

Yep, that's why I like to finish the ride with the wind at my back... every day on the bike becomes a good day...

[g2tcycling]

The historic component manufacturer open its factory gates in an exclusive and emotional interview with company director Valentino Campagnolo.    

[g2tcycling]

Best wishes to Martyn to achieve his goal

[g2tcycling]

Too many endurance athletes wrongly assume that being super-fit or posting fast times is the same as being healthy.

[g2tcycling]

Don’t drink soda

[g2tcycling]

[g2tcycling]

Photographer Unknown ‘Gino Bartali and his second victory in the Tour de France, ten years after his first’ (1948)

Cycling Hero for November 14th 2013

Gino Bartali (1914-2000)

Gino Bartali is best known as a cycling legend who holds the record for the longest time span between victories at the Tour de France – ten years – a feat made all the more impressive by the Tour’s status as one of most grueling endurance competitions in the world and the fact that Bartali was an old man (by cycling standards) when he made his comeback in 1948. Looking beyond the marvel of his athletic stamina, Bartali’s life provides a powerful lesson in how moral endurance can empower from within.

Born in a poor town near Florence in 1914, Bartali grew up in a world of grinding poverty. Day laborers like his father earned the modern equivalent of about a dollar an hour, and the average male life expectancy was forty years, due to diseases like malaria and pneumonia. With few career options, Bartali dedicated himself to cycling: from sunrise to sunset, he rode around the Tuscan hills and built up his physical endurance – his capacity to confront painful fatigue and pedal through it. Bartali’s relentless training paid off, and he made a meteoric rise in the cycling world, turning professional only a few years after his first race.

Then cycling took the one person dearest to him.

Bartali’s younger brother Giulio, also a gifted cyclist, was killed in a racing accident. This loss devastated Bartali, as he had encouraged Giulio to begin racing in the first place, and led him to quit the sport. Bartali, a devout Christian, turned to prayer as he wrestled with grief. When he finally made the difficult decision to return, Bartali funneled his sorrow and guilt into a new motivation to cycle: he would race to honor the memory of his brother.

With his innate ability to tire out rivals, particularly in the mountains, Bartali started winning races again. By his early twenties, his face had become a mainstay of newspapers. Fans hounded him for autographs everywhere, and writers penned long sonnets about him, hailing him as the king of cycling. In 1938, at the age of twenty-four, he won the Tour de France, his triumph heralded as the beginning of what was expected to be a long reign at the top of the most popular summer sport in Europe.

And then it all fell apart again.

Relations between Italy and France deteriorated, and Bartali was barred from returning to defend his title at the 1939 Tour. When war broke out in Europe, Bartali could no longer compete in the lucrative calendar of foreign races and was conscripted into military service, where he worked as a military bike messenger in Tuscany and Umbria.

When the German army took control of Italy in the fall of 1943 and Jews began to experience the full terror of the Holocaust, Bartali was asked by a friend to join a secret initiative to help save them. Few requests could have carried a heavier burden. With the collapse of his career as a top cyclist and the transformation of his beloved country into a nightmarish and dangerous place, he feared for his wife and two-year-old son. It would have been easier – and safer – not to get involved.

But he chose differently.

Risking his own life, he sheltered a local Jewish family in an apartment purchased with his cycling winnings. He also began to smuggle counterfeit identity documents around Tuscany and Umbria, enabling numerous Jews to conceal their true identities and avoid deportation to a concentration camp.

Bartali’s decision to act was heroic not because he felt no fear but rather because he did not let his fear prevent him from doing what he felt was ethically right. He demonstrated moral endurance, forged in a moment of danger that few of us could ever hope to fully understand.

Bartali returned to the Tour after the war and found that physical endurance alone would not bring him success in an event where most of his competitors were now ten years younger than he. It was his mental resilience that would power him through snow, sleet, and rain, to win not only for himself but for all of his Italian countrymen who still were reeling from the aftermath of WWII.

In the end, even as Bartali reached the peak of his sport, he never lost sight of the fact that it was his inner strength that carried him through the most difficult moments of his life. As he would tell his son Andrea, “If you’re good at a sport, they attach the medals to your shirts and then they shine in some museum. That which is earned by doing good deeds is attached to the soul and shines elsewhere.”

[g2tcycling]

Tom Kellogg is a true master. World class; no doubt about it..

Spectrum Titanium Road Bike

[g2tcycling]

Claire Lomas celebrates with her daughter after completing her 400 mile hand bike challenge. (via Claire Lomas - espnW Photos of the Week May 12, 2013 - espnW)

[g2tcycling]

This why Tom should build your next bike... and why the one he built for me is so incredible.

There’s always something different, even though mostly it’s the same each time. Almost every time I am finished with a fitting, I get about ninety percent of the design work done in my head in just a few seconds. But that other five or ten percent takes a lot longer. Sometimes it is a question of...