Category: Words

David Millar devastated the field in the World Championships time trial today winning by over 1 minute 25 seconds. Millar’s been on the up in cycling for a few years and it’s fantastic to see him take the rainbow stripes at last. Following on from his recent stage win in the Vuelta, Millar now has the Olympics in his targets as his next goal.

Only problem is with the ongoing feud between the UCI and WADA, cycling may not even be in the Olympics. As Bikebiz has reported: At the World Championships in Hamilton, Canada, WADA president Dick Pound threatened to exclude cycling from next year’s Athens Olympics if it doesn’t adopt the new WADA anti-doping code. A new rule in the Olympic Manifesto makes it obligatory for sports to sign up to the code.

The UCI has stated previously that it believes cycling is being unfairly targeted by WADA.

Chilly has some more photo’s from Dusk til Dawn up on his site, Giant Pygmy, in the photo section, take a look.

Will the music industry ever learn from trying to control music on the Internet? Probably not before they’ve lost several billion. They need to learn to find a way to work with the Internet, not against it. It’s like trying to swim against an approaching Tsunami.

It’s raining outside. She’s off in paradise again, but at least the flat’s tidy. I’m a bit less of a wreck today. Going riding this weekend all seems so much more feasible now.

E-Bay has a lot to answer for. Scumbags and scammers are taking their game to an all new level and this hasn’t been helped by the fact that E-Bay have refused to pull items that are not genuinely what they claim to be and then ignore confirmation from the genuine manufacturing company that the product is infact a fake. Like some rather dodgy Oranges that are discussed here, here and over here.

Talking to Tony today, I starting thinking about whether or not there is some kind of aspirational ladder that mountain bikers subscribe to? Now I guess many mountain bikers would love to be able to ride bikes all day everyday, in fantastic areas around the world and still be able to live a comfortable lifestyle, but there are very few people who can afford to sustain that lifestyle for any great length of time.

I suppose the very best freeriders fall into this category. There isn’t the pressure to be at the peak of physical fitness that is associated with cross country racing or the pressure to get results for the sponsors like with the downhill scene. Tyler Klassen and the boys on the Drop In road trip fit into this perfect picture, riding the best trails all over Canada and North America, Helibiking, etc. Are they the lucky ones?

What comes next? Is it the bike journo’s that get paid a small in terms of salary, but do get to ride thousands of pounds worth of kit and test all the latest products in return for writing and reporting their findings to the world? Or maybe the trail builders whose hard graft goes into moulding the ups and downs, corners and berms, but then as reward they get to be the first riders to test their handy work and ride new trails?

Elsewhere on the ladder office bound cyclists sometimes express their wish to work in the relaxed environment of a bike shop, whilst bike shop workers would love to be paid as much as some office workers, but always seem to be wishing for more opportunity to ride their bikes and be treated as more than just someone who works in a bike shop (especially by fat balding rude South Africans on Bromptons).

Now as for people who work for the importers and distributors, well I guess some of them never see the products other than in pictures or on screens, but talk to people about product all day long on the telephone. Others probably talk about it and show it to people all day long in the hope of selling it, but rarely have any time to go cycling and use it themselves. Whilst somewhere at the top of the ladder some people have made so much money from cycling that they’ve moved on to other sports and now don’t ride at all.

I guess it’s all swings and roundabouts. The grass is always greener on the otherside and if you want to go biking there’s always a way to make time and if you don’t there’s always an excuse. A new bike should be arriving soon. I’m beginning to get excited because it going to be an even better reason to ride more.

I predicted it and I’m suffering the consequences. Fresher’s Flu has me well and truly by the throat and it ain’t pleasant. Fortunately drinking seems to help.

In the pub on Saturday, whilst drinking some medicinal Guinness, there was some talk about British custom frame builders and I learnt a new name that was regarded with same prestige as the likes of Roberts and Yates. That was reasonable local establishment, Flagstaff’s. I was therefore a bit shocked to read this tonight:

Steel-meister George Longstaff of Newcastle under Lyme – the internationally-recognised maker of trikes, tandems and other custom-builds – collapsed on a Longstaff owner’s ride yesterday. He died before he got to hospital (From Bikebiz).

That’s tragic. Sympathies to all friends and family.

The World Road Race Championships started today, but Cipollini won’t be there to defend his title. Read why here.

Jan Ullrich has gone from stating that he wants to win the Tour de France on a Bianchi at the recent Italian EICMA show (where there was some fantastic glitzy kit, including the shiny Dogma Ego) to a rather different response. The drug popping and occasionally porky German has returned to his former Telekom team, which is to be relaunched as T-Mobile. This has of course made him loads of friends in Italy.

Mention the wonderful new IMBA UK website and what happens the next day? IMBA membership pack rolls through the letter box including some rather garish IMBA socks. The great sock swap is now in full swing.

It’s been a busy week and bikes haven’t really been at the front of my mind. I can feel myself getting ill. Bastard. Still want to get out tomorrow, even if it’s only for a bit of a ride.

There was a link to rathergood.com posted the other day. Particularly impressed with their ‘cover’ of Electric 6’s recent song. A few will have already suffered the wrath, others may still enjoy/hate it. Guess you have to be in the right frame of mind.

And I still can’t make up my mind whether I like this or not. One think keeps me from liking it, it just sounds so god damn gay bar.

Salsa used to sponsor the MBUK team when JMC was riding for them. Back then I think Ross Schafer still hand a big hand in the production of every frame. These days the name lives on, but production has shifted. The bikes are still great, so check them out here.

Ross speaks about warranty issues over at Dirt Rag.

Well sometime reasonably recently the IMBA UK site relaunched itself. Things have been pretty quiet and it’s all been pretty low profile since the formation of the UK arm of the organisation, but there must have been a hell of a lot of stuff for the UK IMBA crew to sort out, something which can’t have been easy when they’re all doing it as volunteers. So what’s it all about then? Well as it says on their site:

We all ride our mountain bikes to enjoy the buzz of a tough outing, to socialise with friends or to soak up the countryside atmosphere.

Few of us expected to go trail building, or to campaign to defend trails or work to open new ones. But to get the network we all want, that is just what we have to do.

IMBA UK aims to help you to help this to happen by providing a supportive structure which will allow us to speak more effectively with government, councils and land managers, and at the same time provide the facility to share problems and circulate best practice between members.

IMBA UK intends to be a fully democratic organisation working for its members. But to be effective we need to have a strong membership base which truly reflects the needs of the UK mountain biker.

So the UK needs an IMBA UK – and IMBA UK needs you!

The new site’s jam packed with forums and information, so for more go and check it out.

Lurking somewhere in a corner of the rothar.com site is the singletrack magazine information bureau which has details of the content of all of the magazines to date and the increasingly popular suitably far-fetched and made-up cover for the next issue, which should be out in December. Find it here.

Series two of Drop In is hitting the airwaves out in Canada. Pink Bike have the first instalment available for download from their website, cruise over and take a look.

The World Road Champs are approaching and Specialized now have all their 2004 product on-line.

Snowed under with work at the moment. Heras won the Vuelta and Pettachi did it again. Is he the next Zabel? Will Heras replace Lance at USPS when he steps down? Will Armstrong manage a sixth tour victory?

Questions, questions, questions and I’m too tired to think up any answers.

GT are back. Not owned by the same people as before, but they’ve resurrected the brand and launched a new range of bikes. There’s more from Mike Davis over at Bikemagic.

The following was posted on bikebiz and is an interesting slant on an ongoing issue. James Annan sent in a short MPEG of a rider crashing at low speed, on the flat, thanks to a front wheel pop-out. He doesn’t link it directly to his ‘disk brake/QR/wheel ejection’ design flaw theory but it demonstrates, he says, the severity of injuries likely from crashes that fork designers could prevent.The 3MB MPEG can be downloaded from here. James’s comment was:

“I believe the separation was due to a stripped thread on the QR, and the wheel literally fell out as the rider lifted the front wheel over a kerb so it looks superficially unrelated to the disc brake, but of course it is disk brake riders who routinely overtighten their skewers (and yes, the rider does have disk brakes). Perhaps a useful warning to those who say ‘just do up the skewer tighter’?”

“Regardless of the cause, it is I think worthwhile as an illustration of the severity of these crashes. Even though he was rolling on flat ground at a gentle pace, he hits the ground directly head first, sustaining facial injuries and a smashed helmet, without even getting his hands off the bars to cushion the fall.“

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.