All that chocolate and pav and stuff doesn't really register.
See you there.
-- LABC's McGechie reports
In a dramatic and taut finish, Gnarls pipped McGechie on the line at last weekend’s Round Lake Taupo Cycling Classic.
Overall victory on the day however went to Trade Tools team member Simon “Calves” Mcleay who saw off the challenge of both Ricochet and Missingham.
Mad Dog Muzza rode gamely on to snatch (is that like a mirkin?) a gallant third place, closely followed by Whizzer Wilson, Wily Webster, and then the Flying Finch, with the Cable Bay kid close on his heels.
Fighting through a haze of cramp induced pain came Mikey Pee, lamenting his lack of performance enhancing substances carried on the day.
As the two teams gathered together in the afternoon to discuss the race and partake of suitable post race refreshments every pedal stroke was relived and considered.
Later in the evening, as the Pinot flowed like the Ganges, a truce was declared and the conversation then turned to plans for next year’s assault on the Taupo ride.
Photo gallery
-- Controversial axing overshadowed by large peleton of strange names
LABC PRESS RELEASE - Auckland:
In what can only be described as controversial circumstances, LABC team captain “Whizzer Wilson” has axed club stalwart Martin “Thomo” Thomson from the club’s A team for the upcoming annual Round Taupo Classic.
In the face of a mounting challenge from the Legendary Trade Tools Team of Mcleay, McFinch and McGechie, Wilson has been forced to bolster his team with club “gun” Richard “Ricochet” Carter .
The team will therefore be made up the aforementioned “Whizzer”, John “Gnarls” McKelvie and of course the indubitable “Ricochet”.
Understandably Thomson is somewhat gutted by this turn of events in what would have been his tenth consecutive year of riding the daunting 160k.
Furthermore it has been reported that Wilson has gone one step further by bringing out even more of his “stars” in what could be construed as almost a desperate bid for honour.
Thus lining up in LABC colours will also be Pete” Lostpork” Missingham , Andrew “Wily” Webster, Doug ‘Cable Bay Kid’ Todd, Mike “ Its All About The Bike” Pengelly‘, and club co-founder, Murray “Handkerchief” Gate.
Predictions are that “Ricochet” should finish so far in front of Clydesdales such as McGechie that he will have time to start the afternoon’s proceedings at about 10.00am.
Ends.
-- Turning the perfect circle
Turns out there’s much more to one-legged cycling drills than just, well, one leg.
Frequent Lunn Ave Blog contributor and Doctor of Bicycle Engineering Mike P mulls a visual display of "the continuous vector" and secrets of the auto brain.
He writes:
Getting more performance mainly comes back to Lance's advice, as one has only so much time. Those who prefer to put a lot of that time into the peripherals look most intimidating on the start line, but that doesn't win. Somewhere in between is getting it right, with pedalling technique the core.
My thoughts therefore are that power can be wasted by way of inaccurate or relatively basically coordinated pedalling technique, and that pedalling in circles can occasionally be exactly right by chance, but mainly not.
So while swimmers pedantically break down every movement, and separately coach and practice, cyclists are somewhat opposite. They just ride the fucking bike. The same approach in swimming would not produce too many Olympians.
I have an objective of getting an electronic display of "the continuous vector". From there components could be seen, and then worked on, but working on that is another area with a whole lot of room for development.
But in the meantime, one-legged pedalling provides a rudimentary guide, and an equally rudimentary solution. I think the whole cycle industry has not taken pedalling technique development very far.
I am trying to use the coordination required in balancing to drive an additional level correctness to my technique, but even that is still rather approximate and hopeful.
Another approach you may be able to use on your wind-trainer is to do very slow one-legged training against a very high resistance that has no momentum for carry-over. If you could get it right while very slow, then do it over and over and over, you could commit it to the same control area of your brain that deals with heartbeat, breathing and balance. Once there, all you need to do is slowly, like very slowly, speed it up, with sleeps between.
The Segway evaluates gyroscopic forces 100 times per sec. I think the auto-brain is doing something similar, especially where the balance is exceptional. Correct pedalling requires the same continuous level of brain activity, maybe more, to drive two legs individually and correctly, at 110rpm. But I think it can be done. Put it this way, pedalling at 110 rpm is done now, but just not necessarily correctly all the way round, or in enough correctly realigned increments.
So... I think now is the time for you to be my Guinea-pig Rich. That shoulder may be what God just done to us so we can get closer to 100% correct power delivery, or put another way, do a whole lot more miles on the same gallon.
-- DIY footrest installation guide
One-legged pedalling won’t win you many points for panache but it may improve the coordination and synchronization of cycling muscles.
When you’re down to one leg you have to pull through the bottom of the pedal stroke and lift the pedal back up and over. In demanding consistent full circle efforts dead spots at the bottom and top of each revolution will soon disappear when both feet are clipped back in.
For best results you should one-legged train like this guy.
However, before leaping into one-legged action, first you should find a safe spot to rest your dangling leg – a crate, small child, or family pet might do.
For others who demand more precision, Lunn Ave rider and Doctor of Bicycle Engineering Mike P has designed and assembled a spare-foot-rest kit.
Components:
· Zenith shelf brackets, Placemakers, $10
· Mountain bike handle-grips, Torpedo, $10
· Foam rubber packer
No mods required to the brackets or the handle grips.
It works out quite comfortable, with the spare leg well clear, but not too far. Easy enough to move to while pedalling with the other foot.
I can do it on the rollers, but it’s like the early days of unicycling. A few minutes and I’m about fucked. I get tired, clunky and uncoordinated. I’m definitely not pedalling in circles. So room for improvement here for sure.
Forgot to mention – installation is as easy as taking out the quick-release, putting the little springs to one side (not essential, but saves damaging them due to the brackets’ holes being bigger than the hole through the axle), then replacing the quick-release, brackets included.
Of course the brackets need to be rotated to an angle where they don’t foul the ends of the seat stays or chain stays, but I think doing that would come naturally enough for any installer.
The worst-case scenario is that a notch, or maybe two notches, may need to be filed into the brackets if the seat and chain stays come very close to where the quick-release bears on the frame.
Note that the only disadvantage here is that when “the others” enhance their technique this way, you may have some serious competition on Mountain Road.
-- Cycling’s unspeakables under the magnifying glass
Lunn Ave rider and Doctor of Bicycle Engineering Mike P exposes winter cycling’s dark underbelly –
“Wednesday morning’s return in the wet had me hardly daring to use the brakes. The sound was awful, even though I had not long since cleaned the rims and pads. Cleaning up this time required a bit of rag for sure, grey grinding paste even spattering the tyre. The brake pads are now past the slots, but there were still lumps catching the screwdriver.
"With the loose crap gone and the light-magnifier on the job, the real problem came to light: the same shit we dig out of the tyres was embedded in the brake block rubber. Some tiny marks after some digging turned out to be substantial lumps of glass and stone.
"I’m not saying I got it all, but after removing 20 to 30 bits from both brake sets, the sound is much better, and I’m sure the stopping be will be too (it had quite deteriorated). The real cure is new brake pads, but that can only be temporary. It is going to rain again. So while we are thinking a bit more than usual about safety, and if you are riding in the wet particularly, best do brake pad maintenance.
"If you don’t, apart from not being able to avoid things as you might have expected, the big surprise can be splitting the side right out of the rim. That happened to a friend of mine on Ngauranga Gorge (Wellington) where 100kph is on. Coming down to land amongst three lanes of downhill traffic certainly ranks right up there with Richie’s blow-out on Clevedon downhill approach."
Who remembers the second place getter? In sport, winners take all, including mindshare.
But sometimes events conspire to distract gazes and steal attention from the winners. For example, Tour de France’s Stage 11 is perhaps better known for Australian Mark Renshaw’s head-butt than the winning rider. Then there’s the other Australian rider, whose squeaky voice overshadows his own head butting infamy by such a margin that no one cares how he performs.
With all eyes on France’s annual bicycle tour it’s hard to imagine the feats of a local rider distracting one's attention from the breakaway heroes of France’s roads. That is until news of LABC rider Mike P’s performance, on Stage 17: Pau - Col du Tourmalet 174km, filtered through.
Perhaps better known for his pre-breakfast marathons and as the inspiration for Heineken’s experimental sports nutrition programme, Mike P’s commendable Stage 17 finishing time of 5:03:29 plus 0:04:15 (coincidentally, just one second longer than the time of that well known rider from Texas) wasn’t the only thing about his performance stealing the thunder of Luxembourg’s fast pedaling, stage winning insect.
As the peleton rolled out from Pau, sometime around 10pm Thursday evening, New Zealand time, Mike pedalled his rollers into life.
Positioned in his lounge and facing a large television sufficiently cranked up so that Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen drowned the whirr of the rollers, Mike found a comfortable position immediately behind team Radioshack.
His race preparation had gone smoothly – a large water resistant mat would contain all the sweat and natural breaks, and three bottles of Raro were positioned within easy reach. The only complicating factor was his Soigneur, who refused to work past 11:30 p.m. His final pre-race act was nailing hardboard over an internal window to stifle the noise coming from his lounge.
Getting down to work, his natural high cadence style helped him ride to the ebb and flow of the peleton. The hours rolled by and it was only during advertising breaks, as other riders radioed team directors, that Mike rose from his saddle, allowing blood to flow back into his nether regions.
Just over five hours later, moments after the Schleck-Contador embrace, Mike crashed, the severe gradient of the Col du Tourmalet disrupting his roller’s gyroscopic forces. However, he quickly remounted, crossing the finishing line behind Radioshack’s Lance Armstrong. 5:03:29 plus 0:04:15 in the saddle – sometime shortly after 3:00 a.m. Friday, Mike stopped pedaling and dismounted.
Bloody legend.
-- Highlights counted on the fingers of one hand
The Lunn Ave Bicycle Club unveiled their club jersey for the 2010 season, this week in Newmarket, Auckland.
The club’s lily-white theme showed up nicely in the dark – a design reflecting safety concerns and absent design.
Significantly, the majority of the club’s 14 paid up members were on hand to display the new uniform.
The jersey was to incorporate sponsor logos, however contract negotiations failed at the eleventh hour, leaving plenty of white space.
-- The Great Coromandel Dream Ride, Saturday 13 February 2010
The ride briefing said it all: ride, don’t race; double check special anti-chaffing measures; enough money for beer and return ferry trip.
Everything went to plan. The weather held – no complaints there, other than the headwind mauling on the coastal beat from Thames to Coromandel. Just one puncture. And a smooth return ferry trip didn’t upset our flow.
Highlights:
- Lunch – the second one - at the Pepper Tree. Outstanding
- Heineken, all 33 of them
- Those hand cut wedges
- The first lunch at the Thames Garden centre - an oasis before the storm
- Stifling jungle heat of the final climb. God it was awful, but we loved it
- Return ferry trip and curative properties of Heineken
-- Hand cut fries - worth losing a finger for (a few Tigers in the Heinenken camp)
Low lights:
- The dodgy Waitakaruru truck stop. Extra cups of truly awful coffee. And the evident disdain in looks cast by the passing bunch witnessing our coffee stop moment of shame
- The Thames Garden centre toilet was sealed off and declared a crime zone. No finger pointing
Lessons:
- Next time pack shorts. There is no panache in beer and spandex
- Consider another water stop before the Coromandel Hills
