A Hard Lesson to Learn

Folks, even pro riders can display poor form. Leading up to the sprint in the final 1km of the Tour of Qatar today, the Slipstream train was coming up on the outside with Millar laying down a hard TT effort. Just after 1km to go you see Millar peel off (thanks cycling.tv for the overhead heli shot), and Maggie takes over.

As Maggie pulls Sutton and team to the front of the pack you can tell he's just burying himself and doing a great job. However, from the overhead shot it looks like he's got his head down and isn't paying attention to the lead Quick-Step rider at the front. The Quick-Step rider pulls off, and mind you it wasn't a hard swing to the right, and Maggie rear ends him. Down he goes and early word from the press says he's got a broken collarbone.

I'll just say this...keep your head up and have your eyes down the road. From the replay it looks like this should have been avoidable. Bummer since I really wanted to see Maggie at ToC and the Spring Classics.

More details can be found here: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2008/feb08/feb01news

Today's SJBC Winter Series ITT

The radar showed no rain and thus the ITT was on for this morning. I dragged my daughter and my own father out to the race to watch the mundane event. Come on you say...yeah, I should have taken them to a more exciting event like the squirley birds (aka early bird crits), but my plans to head up that way were cancelled. An ITT was on the agenda and that's what they enjoyed.

My dad took a few photos so enjoy: http://picasaweb.google.com/toddmanley/SJBCWinterSeriesITT1272008

The headwinds down Santa Teresa were no fun and the 417 watts I lay down during the last 2 minutes didn't feel too great either, but it was fun busting out the skinsuit and the belgium knee warmers.

Long & Flat

Tomorrow's route...a ride around the reservoirs just to see how full they are while staying out of the colder, and potentially snowy, roads in the Santa Cruz mountains:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1577594

Man-crush +1: 2007 Quick-Step Team Launch

Cranking up the man-crush (see previous blog post) and sharing the love for the whole team. This is last year's team launch, not 2008:


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Man-crush...you don't say?!?

Before I got back into cycling a few years ago I was educated enough about cycling to hold a conversation around Lance Armstrong and his dominance, but I didn't really know anything else about other teams riding in the peleton. After the racing bug bit me I found myself reading up on teams learning more about the diverse and interesting history of races from the spring classics through the grand tours and the world championships.

For some reason I found my attention as a fan being drawn to the Quickstep team. Don't really know why or how it happened, but they turned out to be the team I follow the closest (outside of my own SJBC race team). It's a mix of their riders, teamwork and results that drew in my attention. And out of this, what happened?

I'm happily married, but I'll admit to my man-crush: Tom Boonen. He just seems to bring it to his competition every time he gets on his bike (ok, maybe not in the hills of the TdF). If I could emulate just a bit of his strength, determination and skill I'd be pretty darn satisfied.

Slave to the plan

Tomorrow and Sunday are big days. Lots of endurance/tempo miles to be put on the Parlee. Here's tomorrows route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1562092
Pretty excited about this since I haven't ridden Hwy 236 around Big Basin and never have climbed up Bear Creek out of Boulder Creek. Since I'm riding solo mio I decided to geek up and bring the extra big saddle bag for my 3 spare tubes and to carry my hand pump just in case I've got to beat down any mountain lions...grrr! At least I won't be taking vodka shots before riding and having traces of mary jane in my system like these guys and their encounter with with the tiger at the SF Zoo.

Q-rings Observation

I've been running Rotor Q-rings on my bikes for the past 10 months and like them a lot. However, today was the first time that I really, and I mean really, felt the elliptical nature of the rings. Over the past week I've been riding the Serotta with the aerobars in preparation for the SJBC 2TT Winter Series event.

Most of my riding has been in the big ring for the past week. I haven't, nor not really ever noticed, the elliptical rings, but today was different. On my recovery ride I was trying to keep my cadence pretty high. At one point I was on a very slight rise heading out to Calero reservoir and downshifted into my small ring. Immediately I could sense the non-roundness of the rings. From the 10 to 1 o'clock positions it felt like my stroke had a little turbo boost! I could really feel the crank turning over quicker as my stroke went through.

Just to make sure I wasn't crazy I repeated this a few times on the way back; big ring to small ring. Same feeling every time. Hmm, I wonder how long this will last. It's not a bad thing, just something that feels different.

So any of you Q-ring guys out there, have you experienced this?