Author: Cris Bloomfield

This is lifted straight from Cyclingnews – great news for British rider David Millar winning today’s stage of Spain’s grand tour (the full report is up here):

Time trial specialist David Millar (Cofidis) showed his versatility today winning the 17th stage between Granada and Córdoba. Alberto Martínez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) was second, 36 seconds behind, and Oscar Sevilla (Kelme Costa Blanca) third in the same time. The wearer of the golden leader’s jersey, Isidro Nozal (ONCE-Eroski), had a comfortable day without any problems, as did the rest of the top riders in the general classification. Nozal has led the Vuelta for 14 consecutive days now.

David Millar found the perfect place to attack on the climb of Alto de San Jerónimo with 25 km to go, and got a good gap to the field to win his first stage in this year’s Vuelta. “I’m very, very happy,” the Scot told Spanish TV. “I had plans to win a stage in the last week of the race. I told my team early this morning that I wanted to attack and I didn’t know whether to attack at the top, in the middle or at the bottom of the climb.”

The bike show is on down in London village. I’m not going but one year I intend to get myself organised and make it down there in future.

Chilly has his version of events from this weeks race up at Giant Pygmy. I had forgotten about the gazebo blowing away in the night. You might want to take a look.

Some interesting stuff over at MBA, they’ve got a page and animated diagram explaining how the Fox Talas shocks work. This will be handy for a lot of people, because these shocks are appearing on all sorts of bikes, but not many people know much about them. Click here to take a butchers.

Reverse action rear mechs are something that Shimano have been pushing for a few years. When I test rode my FSR back in ’98 there was an XTR one on the market then and fitted to it. I found the action led to good shifting up the block under pressure when you were looking for a lower gear.

This year both the new XT and XTR are as Shimano call it ‘low normal’, i.e the spring in the mech pushes it into the lowest gear (i.e. the 32T) instead of pulling it into the highest gear (the 11T). Read the pros and cons here.

Now doping in cycling has been big news over the last few years. This year any cases seem to have been rapidly passed over by the media, which isn’t that surprising given the Tour De France’s centennial celebrations, but it seems behind the scenes things have been simmering away and now this article has been posted up on bikebiz:

UCI says world anti-doping org has it in for cycling; suspends links to WADA
In March, the Swiss-based world governing body for cycle sport signed up to the tough anti-doping code proposed by WADA, the Swiss-based World Anti-Doping Agency. At the time, the UCI said it had reservations about the code (it was tough on some sports, lax on others) and, in June, withdrew its signature. Now the UCI has suspended recognition of WADA officials at UCI events thanks to leaks to the French sports newspaper L’Equipe over the Independent Observers report from the Tour de France.

WADA calls the leak an “untimely publication” and a “breach of protocols” and has released the full report (in French only) on its website “even though some parties involved, including the International Cycling Union (UCI), have not yet completed their review of the document.”

The UCI is furious about the leak of the observers report to a French newspaper, calling it “unacceptable”, and claiming the WADA “always take[s] cycling as privileged target.”

Hein Verbruggen, the UCI president who is also a leading light on the International Olympic Committee, resigned from WADA in June.

He believes WADA is anti-cycling. The UCI and WADA are currently disputing the use of corticosteroids by by pro cyclists with a doctor’s prescription.

WADA doesn’t believe cycle sport is yet tough enough on dopers, pointing out that Igor Galdeano, who tested positive for the asthma drug salbutamol, in July’s Tour de France, would fail WADA’s tests even though he passed the UCI’s controls.

WADA’s report criticises the way pro cyclists are warned they are to be tested, up to 20 minutes ahead of sample taking in the case of a road race.

This weekend’s Dusk til Dawn race was a bit of a ‘mare. Almost as bad as Sleepless in the Saddle, but less painful. The race report is up here.

Things around here are just manic at the moment. It’s that time of year, when everything kicks off once again and before you know it everything’s rushing by you at a rate of knots. One thing’s for sure, I’m going to lose my voice and become ill in the next couple of weeks. There’s something to look forward to then.

Loads of stuff over at Cyclingnews, least not the Vuelta. There’s press coverage of the EICMA bike show in Milan here and some spy shots of bikes from the recent Mountain Bike World Championships in Lugano here. Meanwhile, everyone was pretty excited when Marzocchi unveiled their 6″ travel single crown fork, well how does this 12″ single crown monster grab ya?

Now if you caught someone stringing up a wire to garotte riders in the woods how would you handle the situation? Dom took a certain approach which has received a mix response.

From: Dom
Subject: Trees and barbed wire

I know i should of been riding but i went for a walk with the dog today in the woods and as i was walking in Cann woods looking at the trails i saw a strange bloke in his sixties tieing something to a tree.
So me thinks i will just creep up on him slow and ask what he is up to.
I think when i said hello he was going to die he jumped so far, and i asked what he was doing.
He says to me he is fed up with all the bikes flying through the tree with no respect to others that use the woods so he said he would give them something to think about ( barbed wire )…!
I told him you will only kill one rider and not affect the others but if he has a gripe he should contact the Forestry commision and apart from that i said i ride a bike through the trees as well where upon the topic gets heated a little and he takes a swing at me.
I am now waiting for the cops to turn up at the door as i kinda lost it and hit him but not with my hands or boots.
He went down quick and i took down the wire and took the rest of it and chucked it into the woods.
I told him whilst he was sitting on the deck that me hitting he once was alot lighter than he would of got had a bunch of riders caught him in the act.
I even said sorry to him, but i did say that i would tell all the local riders what he looked like so he better not walk round these woods for a good while.
And i left him, doubled back to watch him get up and walk out to the fire trail and of to the carpark.
I reckon he wont report it.

Read the reactions here.

E-bay is a wonderful place with some absolute crap on it. Here are two cracking examples, somebody’s Mum’s car and a very frightening wardrobe addition. On the subject of MAXing up cars, this tongue-in-cheek page might go down quite well.

Finally a lot of mountain bikers like to think of themselves as endurance athletes these days, well I guess it’s all relative. I mean in comparison to this monk that has spent the last 7 years running 24,800 miles, 24 hours racing a bike ain’t much is it?

Erik Zabel won yesterday’s stage of the Vuelta España beating Tom Boonen by a whisker. Isidro Nozal has the leader’s golden jersey for the eighth consecutive day, while third placed Manuel Beltrán (USPS-Berry Floor) lost over a minute after being caught in the wrong half of the peloton when it split in the final kilometres. Full report over at cyclingnews.

Preparation for this weekend’s race down in Thetford is in it’s final stages. Chilly and I are up for a good placing.

In the US, a road rage incident has led to a cyclist being shot by a motorist. I hope they send him down for a long stretch.

Did you know there’s a Blackbox Rock Shox Duke fork on the market? I didn’t until I took a look at the new Blackbox site. SIDs make a usual appearance, but what’s happened to the Boxxers? On the topic of product information, there’s a whole page from WTB about their rider Mark Weir, right here.

Downieville is reasonably well known over here because so many went over there to ride the World Single Speed Champs not so long ago. There’s a big old set of photos from the place and the recent US Classic race there up on mtbr.

The students are returning and it’s getting a bit frantic around here.

Monday’s stage of the Vuelta was won by Zabel, who managed to get one past Pettachi, which given the latters current form was no mean feat. Meanwhile Richard Virenque (Quick Step-Davitamon) and Sergio Pérez (Labarca 2-Café Baqué) were expelled after using their team cars on a climb. Not much more detail on what happened, but seems a bit harsh on face value. Yesterday was a rest day and today’s 162km stage takes the peloton from Utiel – Cuenca. More from Spain over here.

How much to charge for a spoke to be replaced in a wheel?

A simple question but one that I reckon uncovers a can of worms within the bike retail trade. On a recent discussion suggestions on this topic ranged from the idea that the work should be done for free while a coffee is made for a good and regular customer through to £20 for the half an hour a through job should take (involving taking off tyre, tube and rim tape, loosening the tension on all the spokes, inserting the new spoke, retensioning and truing, stressing the wheel and finally checking the tension and the wheel for being in true, before reassembling it as it was brought in for repair).

The fact that someone thought that they were being ripped off to be asked for £10 for this work just goes to show that people really don’t appreciate the work involved. Now personally I am one for doing most work on my bike myself and after over twelve years fiddling and working on bikes, there isn’t much I can’t do. Building wheels is one thing that getting a second opinion on is something that I’ll consider, because there is much more to it that most people think.

Now I can lace a wheel up, but I don’t have a wheel jig, so I need to find a workshop with a good one before I can consider doing that. The jig I learnt to true wheels on was a French masterpiece of engineering that weighed about 250lbs and was engineered to last. I’ve recently found out that they now fetch £500. You can buy a cheap jig for a tenth of that, but it won’t do the same job to the same accuracy. Accuracy might not seem important, but when you’ve got bikes worth thousands of pounds, then it seems ridiculous to skimp on a tool that allows this expensive equipment to be kept running within the highest levels of precision.

Then there are different levels of skill when it comes to mechanics. This doesn’t have to certificated on paper, often the best mechanics are known only by word of mouth and may never have sat a qualification, but they know the ins and outs of bikes, because they have been working on them for large portions of their lives and it’s become ingrained in them. Any one can attempt to true a wheel, but a wheel can only be trued perfectly by a skilled set of hands.

Skilled workers tend to command a premium price, like specialists in any field if you want their time and experience, you have to pay for it, but you benefit from the investment. Bike shops that don’t charge a minimum service charge for this time and effort are not going to be able to pay their staff a wage that will retain them and stop them from looking for better paid work else where or becoming disillusioned and de-motivated.

Suggesting that work be done for free, just because you are a good and regular customer is like sticking two fingers up and saying fuck you, why should I pay? If you don’t want to pay learn to do the work yourself or get stuffed.

It seems that loads of bike companies are celebrating anniversaries this year, Specialized are 25 and have launched a special Stumpjumper FSR model to commemorate it. Over in Italy Colnago and De Rosa are celebrating 50 years and have also launched top end super bikes to celebrate the occasion, with a spangly Carbon C50 and a rather blue King.

Meanwhile, not being content with his victory in the World Championships last week, Filip Meirhaeghe has ended the season in spectacular style by winning the final World Cup XC race in Kaprun. Yet again he rode an Epic FSR to victory. Specialized are pretty happy…

Meanwhile over in the US, a new national trail access advocacy organization is now forming that promises a more aggressive approach to protecting mountain bike access. What’s more surprising is that some of the movers and shakers of this new group are disaffected IMBA members, and some were even part of IMBA’s leadership.

I have to say, that whilst I appreciate that IMBA UK is still in early days, they’ve cashed my cheque and I haven’t had anything back from them yet. I appreciate what they’re doing but maybe this idea will give them a kick start and get them back on track. Read more in this Dirt Rag article.

There’s a fair few riding fixed gear track bikes around Manchester these days. It has to be said that it is the bike of choice for the discerning courier. There’s more about the black art in this article and a few interesting links.

Advocate of singlespeeding, Big Jonny from Drunkcyclist has been quizzed by Ride Phat and has been given more scope to air his views:

Oh, I get shit from the absolute stupidest people on the planet. All the tired lame-ass rhetoric like, “Support the troops”, “Move to France” and “You shouldn’t criticize the President while we’re at war.” Well, good people are dying because we have an asshole leading the country. I cannot believe how totally fucked up the world had become during the tenure of our current administration. It’s mind boggling the damage one loose cannon Republican can cause.

Read the full interview here.

And finally Halfords only standalone Bikehut store is no more. It’s being converted into a normal Halfords store doinng car bits a pieces as well as bikes. May be a sign of the times for Halfords and the bike trade as a whole.

Dunc told me about this little project yesterday. Apparently a load of the World’s best motorbike riders are well into their cycling too and now manufacturer of very fast red things with engines and two wheels, Ducati, has teamed up with Italian counterparts Bianchi to make a special edition EV3 road bike.

Troy Bayliss and some other bloke called Fogarty (who apparently used to be really good) are already Bianchi owners and riders. Anyway there’s more about it in this press release.

On a similar theme, there’s a rather bizarre motorbike and road bike thing going on over at mountain bike review in their caption competition.

Info about next weekend’s Dusk ’til Dawn race is now up over at Singletrack. Team rothar.com will be there trying to defend a reasonably good placing last year in the pairs category…

Yesterdays stage of the Vuelta was won by Fassa Bortolo’s Alessandro Petacchi, which means the Italian has now clocked up twelve Grand Tours stage victories this year. ‘After the stage, Miguel Martín Perdiguero (Domina Vacanze) echoed the thoughts of many when he said about Petacchi, “Every sprint he has, every sprint he wins. There’s no doubt he is unbeatable this year”‘, read more here.

MBA has a report on the recent World Champs – did you know Filip’s win in the Mens XC is the first title secured on a full susser? There’s more pictures and info on the new Specialized S-Works road bikes, the Tarmac and the Roubaix over at cyclingnews.

Issue 11 of Singletrack is at the printers and should be with subscribers by the beginning of next week. In preparation I’ve given the Information Bureau a bit of a face lift and I reckon it looks better for it.

We’re not worthy.

I think I’ve finally found someone with a greater vision than the Designers Republic and that person is Eric Jordan. His web design company, 2advanced studios is pretty much in a league of its own. If you’ve got a reasonable spec computer with the latest versions of flash and quicktime and are hooked up to broadband then link up to it, version 3 of his site is up here.

Want to look at something cool, then look up either the Oakley or Ford GT40 sites under the portfolio section. Not impressed? Then take a look at the 25 milligrams quicktime movie in the exploratory section. What do other people think?

I can totally appreciate the amount work that must have gone into designing and implementing 2advanced. What do I feel when navigating their site? Inspiration. What’s the best aspect of their site? In my opinion, it’s their explicit use of modularity or classes with timely function calls to create seamless rollover effects. Quite frankly, I have not seen anything else like this! Have you explored their portfolio? 2advanced is the bomb!

Oh and by the way, if you thought that was pretty good, then he’s already moved on, the current version (mark 4) is up here. Again more great stuff if you dig around for it. Now there’s a fair bit of arguing going on about the originality of the work, but as it has been said “talent borrows, genius steals”, so have a look at gmunk and see if you think it’s competition or not.

Anyways, if you like this kinda thing take a look at pixelranger’s work here.

I’d been over to the epic rides site once before, but here’s a link to it. They’ve organised a nice looking event on my birthday. I’d love to do it, it’s just that there’s a few thousand miles separating us. Anyway I’m sure I’ll get some riding done, just maybe not in Arizona.

There’s an interview with photographer Matt Scholl over at Pink Bike and his work can be found here.

Last night a documentary on free running aired on the Tv. Now I’m not a great fan of the Tv, at the moment there’s only about one thing worth watching and that’s the Shield, but this looked pretty good.

What the group of French guys who started the sport do is impressive and indicates their level of skill, ability and talent, but the footage filmed for the documentary used arty camera angles and was a bit of a let down. It didn’t show them doing their thing. For more about free running and some amazing videos check out le parkour.

Anyone want to buy a singlespeed? Anyone? No didn’t think so, so there’s a new addition to the collection, might prove to be a bit more popular. Soon see I suppose.

What’s this all about? I don’t know why he left the US, if things were going so well but Malcolm Elliot is on his way back over there to mix it up.

Now imagine a job where you get paid to ride your bike, show people your favourite trails, help them out when their bike gets trashed and get to do all of this in a warm, sunny part of the world, where you’re near mediterranean seas. Sound alright? Well read this then.

Cheeky adverts and one of the best bike shops websites out there, that’d be wrench science then, doing the biz in Berkeley, California. There’s a lesson to be learnt there.

Oh and there’s a few guys riding around Spain at the moment. Find out what they’re up to here.