The_Break

Have you tried CWC cycles? They have some pretty good pricing too? Give them a call. www.cwcycles.co.za. They ship anywhere and at good prices. Often for free.

Off these 2 I would say go for the Scott, better bang for your buck. If you are willing to spend a little more cash you may want to have a look at the S1 Cervelo. It is the most under rated bike on the market. Seriously, I have had 6 Cervelos to date and out of all of them I still loved the ride of that Alu one the best. It is as stiff as the carbon ones, costs half and rides like a machine in all different race scenarios. Just saying! You might go after a gem if you take this advice. http://www.racycles.com/road/cervelo/closeouts/cervelo-s1-2010-frameset They even ship to SA for a modest amount.

It has to do with vascular constriction and the obdies ability to open up the veins wider after the cold is removed in order to expediate recovery. I.e. cold makes the veins close and then heat makes them open up which aids in removal of waste products from exercise. In my opinion I would use alternating hot and cold in order to help your legs recover and flush all the wastes out of the muscles.

There is much truth in the say "He who shouts loudest will be heard!" Suppose they had more important things to worry about in their minds.

Thanks, I am sure P&P and all their sponsors would agree that these guys need some direction if they don't alreay have.

ISM Adamo and Zipp 808s put onto my Cervelo P3. Best was the seat. Oh what a difference it made.

Does anyone have any contact with any of the P&P riders in the Cape Town area? I see these kids regularly on my way home and notice one very concerning thing. They are always going absolutely flat out. I have never seen any of them going anything but "foaming from the mouth." My concern here is that generally we are putting money into developing these kids, but then see them to be training, in what any coach would agree, without direction or an understanding of how one should train. So, my question is, does anyone know if these guys have a coach and if their coach knows what they are actually doing out there on the road?

Probably cause they cant attack him cause they are suffering just as much. I recon you get 3 general types of tours: Tours were a rider gets yellow and keeps it for the tour with little need to defend it too hard (or appear to at least), this is normally when the talent pool is pretty even, but team tactics and good luck play a part (as with sky in this tour). Tour were a rider get yellow and keeps it for the tour and is the one doing the attacking so just increases his lead with a few attempts that make progress on claiming yellow (but just not enough). Like most of Lance's winning tours. Tours were the yellow jersey swaps between a few riders at the top and there is not one clear rider who stand out. Generally when teams and individual riders are closely matched on most apsects. The tours get more exciting as one goes down the list. Funny thing is the first and last have almost the same characteristics, except that in the first (this tour) there is a team who has stamped dominance.

Your weight should only be taken into consideration if the bikes has a recommended max rider limit. Weight can always be lost so thats why I say. Check each of the components individually yourself as bike shops want to make sales and imports sometimes dont use website specs. Otherwise as suggested here you need to judge betweent the 26" and 29" based on what type of terrain and riding you want to do. In terms of price if you got it spent it so don't worry about what guys say. A bike is not a bike is not a bike. There is a bit difference to performance between a well engineered bike and a poorly engineered bike and rule of thumb "truly so" is that the more expensive the bike the more develoment work, quality materials and testing have gone into the bike so the better the bike will be. Again, if you can afford it go for it. The bike will probably be better than the cheaper one suggested and irrespective of how good you are, it will make you ride better and that is what it is all about. Not only the pros should be riding good bike, cause if it was based on ability most of the guys here would be riding R3500 MTB (no offense to anyone but you know what I mean).

Cutting it close on those clearances there. What is the lowset tire pressures you can run without interferance?

A dog in a hat. About a US cyclists time in the pro ranks in EU. Has a lot of stories regarding doping, etc.

You try the USA warranty guys yet? Or only the SA agents?

yes, happened to me in an off roasd tri. Unfortunately it took me from 1st to 7th. Lesson learnt, if someone else works on yur stuff check it.

Mmmm maybe that bit of base for a few weeks may be goodafter all added with another visit to someone who can check your alignment to make sure you are going to heal properly to avoid future injuries.

Guess he does visit sometime...

it would not be a bad thing to do that, it is just such a short break that he would not have lost much of his mitochondrial density so getting back into it would not be much of a problem, especially at only 10 hours of training. If it was longer, say 4-6 weeks then yes, somebase would be good, but considering he did the knysna double, I suspect his aerobic base is already pretty good. But like I say, what injury he has will determine the rest of the advice.

Is there are no injuries then you can pick up the riding right where you left off if you like from a riding point of view. Tkae it easier with the gym though as I would guess over 3 weeks some of the neurons may have got lazy so your strength may not be exactly there. Take a week or two of easier weights to activate those extra neurons. But what injury did you have?

With enough experience and just a little bit of fitness on a body with loads of muscle memory it is not that difficult a feet. A year after riding fulltime I was still able to go under 60min for a 40km TT with only a few weeks of training, literally. So yes genetics, but also muscle memory and experience to sit in the bunch and get over the climbs with lung busters.

One more thing about training on an indoor trainer. Never try and average any hEart rates or power that where given to you for the road as it will be too hard. Outdoors you have about 10-15% freewheel time and loads vary, but on the trainer there are no rest and normally just constant load so it is harder to average set for set. You will need to modify sessions for indoor trainers or specify to your coach.

Don't stress, I have the solution for you.

Motorsport, hehe then its easy to explain like this. Base work is like adding cylinders to an engine. Once you have as many cylinders as you can get in you do the interval type training that ads the turbo chargers. An engine that has 4 cylinders will at best be a 4 cylinder turbochared engine, but it will never be able to compete against an 8 cylinder turbocharged engine. The only difference being the base work done at the right time. I.e the extra cylinders added during the initial design of the engine.

Any training whether indoors or on the road should follow the basic training principles of endurance sports. Even though your son is doing MTB, his power should be born on the road. In other words, most of his training should be road type of training whether done on the indoor trainer or on the road itself and should specifically start (due to time of season) with a lot of base work to build him up for the seaon. Once you get closer to season you can start adding in the harder more intense sessions, but generally one does not really go too far with these kinds of workouts with younger athletes as one needs to look at long term athlete development and at his age it is borderline what he should be doing depending on what else he is doing. The reason I say power is born on the road is more to do with one being able to keep a relatively constant and lower HR on the road than one can typically keep offroad due to undulating terrain. It is this constant lower HR type of training that is base training upon which all other type of seasonal training should be launched in order to properly develop and athlete. Especially a young athlete. I must also stress here that it is not recommended for young athletes to spend hours and hours training like adults or older riders do. A good indication of what he should be doing is to search the web for Australian Young Athlete Development recommended mileages and also put it on a good training ratio relative to the races he will be doing. E.g. if he is doing 40km races he does not need to go out and ride 60km in the bush during training. Overkill and total over training for a youngster. There is so much to say here, but I would propose, and it is not exciting or rocket science at all, that he does mostly easy riding at between 50-70% of MHR during the week on the trainer and get out on weekends into the bush to keep his skills sharp on one day and a nice long ride on the road on the other day. Once he has built his base up nicely through season he will have so much more of a base to build upon than interval training indoors through winter that I am guessing most other will suggest here (unfortunately incorrectly in my books and probably most other coaches). It is also important to get him the correct amount of rest even during easy base type training. Training is when the body is strssed and is broken down, rest is when it reacts to the stress and rebuilds itself to a stronger state in preparation for the next stress event. If you dont rest correctly you will not improve. I would further suggest you get some sound long term advice from a coach who knows what he is talking about even if it is on an ad hoc basis. Good luck and nurture the talent!

Depends on the size of the bulge. Did I just say that?

Now there is a noteworthy reason! 10 out of 10

Ok here is a question for you guys. Over the years I have moved through the ranks from newbie cyclist, to mid bunch, then up to A bunch and beyond and have noticed a general (and I am generalizing) trend in the kind of talk that goes on at races, at parties, at the dinner table, etc; this being that more often than not cycling is more about belonging to something and feeling accepted and perceived in a certain way than it is about pure passion for the sport itself. There is a lot of humility in the newbie and pro ranks, but in between there is a lot of "talk." It is this kind of talk about how good you are, how expensive your bike is, what races you have done, how far your training rides are, etc that gives me the feeling that people want to be seen as something more than they are or more than they feel they are. Whilst I admitedly do get rather irritated with all the talk and hype, I realize that there is something deeper behind this all. What do you guys think. What is the real reason why you cycle and spend as much time and money as you do. Is it because it is a real passion or maybe something deeper? Interested to hear.