Mellow Yellow

No not the softdrink...these


Mavic Fury

After giving The Rhino sh!t about getting a pair a month ago, I ended up buying a pair.
They are lighter then my Sidi Dragons, and the fitter is definitly better. While I have been happy with my Sidi Ergo II's the Dragon's have just never cut it.
And they are lighter to boot.

First ride tomorrow at the CORC 3hr.

Lust

While surfing last nite I came across a picture for this and now I have some serious bike lust. It's just plain sexy, the helix tubing reminds me of a gun muzzle.



Lynskey Pro 29er with Lefty and BB30


mmmmm Sexy

Lynskey Performance Designs is founded by the Lynskey family who originaly started Litespeed in 1986 and later sold the business in 1999. The production facility at Lynskey Performance is operated by David Lynskey and his crew of fabricators. Lynskey work with U.S. milled aerospace grade 6al-4v and 3al-2.5v titanium pretty much the same as what they were doing back at Litespeed.

The Black Hole

One of the latest discussions over on the Wattage group has been focused around the best method for raising FTP. Are there seems to recognized approaches. The first is the old tried and true method SLD or slow long distance, despite the latest trend to shorter harder efforts this approach does work.
However it is very time intensive the recommended dose is 25hrs+ a week in zones 2-3. I understand this is the approach used by both Craig Gordon & Chris Eatough for their 24hr preparations. However for most people this just can’t work through other commitments, work, family, life. I know if I was even inclined to attempt this my wife would probably kill me after 2 weeks.
The other approach is revolves around SST (sweet spot training) and L4/L5 work. With the development of TSS (training stress score) and PMC it was calculated that SST returns the best buck for your time if you are a time limited person. This coupled with FTP intervals (2x20min) and can only train 10-15hrs a week still provides a very effective way to raise FTP. This approach has been nick named “Training for the time crunched cyclist” by Lance’s Coach Chris Carmichael.
Now there was a lot of backwards as to which approach was theoretically better, but what struck me as a comment about people who can stretch their training out to 19-22hrs a week. Where do they sit? What is the best approach for them? The LSD method won’t work as the time is too limited, but the SST approach is too intensive and can cause burnout.
So this time period falls into the black hole region, I know personally I only ever hit this amount of training on peak weeks and it is not somewhere I regularly visit. But for those that sit in this region it could be time to reassess your approach.

Fat a$$

Now I may not yet be fully back at racing weight as yet but I didn't think my a$$ was fat enough to do this.



The rails on my beloved Fizik Aliante have cracked through I suspect a combination of my saddle position on the rails (slammed right back) using a thomson seatpost, and overtightening of the bolts on the seatpost.

So after discovering the cracks I went on the hunt for a new saddle and managed to snag one of these.






A Prologo Scratch Pro TR. These are produced in limited numbers for sponsered pro riders to their specs. A first glance the saddle isn't overly light but it is under the 250gm mark.

Having fitted it up and ridden it, I can say it is comfortable but the padding is on the firm side.

On tap is a 5hr+ ride tomorrow so that will the real test.

NSW Enduro Series Announced

The dates are up for the NSW Enduro Mtb series for 2010. The race series is being run by chocolate foot Surf over to their web page and have a look. The dates are,


18 April 2010 Sunday
Singletrack Mind Series Round 1

16 May 2010 Sunday
Singletrack Mind Series Round 2

13 June 2010 Sunday
Singletrack Mind Series Round 3

29 August 2010 Sunday
Singletrack Mind Series Round 4

25 September 2010 Saturday
Singletrack Mind Series Final Round

After this lot my program for the year is choca-bloc with races. At rough count there is ~ 25 races over the 3hr mark on tap!

Smack Down

For those that might be following the coverage from the Tour of Oman, it seems the smack down was put on everyone's favourite team....Team Sky on the previous stage.

Now as a bit of a re-cap, Team Sky had the yellow jersey on the shoulders of Edvald Boasson Hagen and basically during the stage riding like a bunch of pr!cks using only half width and putting the peleton in the gutter through the feed zone.

Now there are some un-written rules in cycling, the first is you never attack through a feed zone. Now a feed zone is a dangerous enough place in the first instance, but when you have riders attacking or riding the bunch in the gutter at 65+kph it's just lethal.

The second un-written rule is you don't attack when the yellow jersey takes a nature break, well after Team Sky's previous efforts the other teams returned the favour by turning the screw when Boasson Hagen stopped for a bit of relief.

Road racing in the bigger races is about give and take, if you let someone into the echelon in the x-winds you will have the favour returned some day when you need it by them letting you in or maybe a helping hand on the climb when you're struggling.
The flip side is, if "cut" riders up and don't give an inch when you can and that gets remembered as well and will come back and bite you in the a$$ just like Team Sky

In the Post

Maxxis Medusa's 1.55

In all the pre-Husky race talk about rain, I decided I needed to add some mud tires to the arsenal as I didn't have anything. So 5 days before the event I started ringing around shops trying to find out who had what in stock.

Well from all my ringing around I concluded this was most of the importers idea on the subject, "We don't need mud tires because it doesn't rain enough". No one had anything in stock. BikeCorp don't bring the medusa into the country anymore, the distributor for Michelin don't have any in stock, and pretty much the same from the other importers.

Well given the recent conditions at the the Sydney 24hr, Threadbo national round, and conditions at Nowra on Sunday I think they need to re-think their idea.

So I placed a rush order with CRC and paid extra for UPS express shipping to try to get it here by the Friday. As things would have it.. it all turned to sh!t given time differences and the tires eventually turned up today.

So I am now the owner of a set of mud tires, now I just need a race to try them out in.....