My blog chronicling my journey to earn my pro mountain bike license. Also talking about things from the bike shop and stuff that I think is interesting or cool.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Cervelo P5 Thoughts

Cervelo recently came out with their newest Tri/TT bike the P5.  In my mind it's their first significantly different bike since the P3 (I view the P4 as a slightly modified version of the P3). With this bike you can see that they pretty much started new and looked at everything fresh.  One of the things I like about this bike and a few of the newer Tri/TT bikes is that companies are looking at the bike, rider, and accessories as a whole system.  This means they're not just designing the fastest frame, but realize that someone will have to be able to fit on it, that they will need to carry water and other accessories with them.  Having the fastest bike on the market doesn't do you anything if there's no an aerodynamic way of having water accessable to the rider.

One of the biggest innovations on this bike is the hydrolic brakes, which allow for tighter bends in cable/hydrolic line routing than cables.  Hydrolic brakes will likely also give more stopping power than many brakes on Tri/TT bikes (something that have been lacking in many).  Probably the biggest concern with this is going to be cost (they'll cost quite a bit) and servicing (are they going to be easy to work on, will there be any issues travelling with them).

Like other recent Tri/TT bikes you could clearly see that the designers and engineers were weighting integration, adjustability, and ease of use.  Designing everything for a certain bike might give you the best final product, but what about replacement parts, and being able to change specic parts if a customer doesn't like that item.  The other end of the specrum is essentilly designing just the frame and using standard parts (aerobars, seatposts, brakes, forks etc) to go with it.  This provides the greatest amount of flexability, but probably isn't going to be the lightest or most aerodynamic product. 

This is also the first Tri/TT bike that I've seen specifically designed to have a water bottle mounted between the riders arms, I'm not sure this is necessarily better or worse than the Specialized Shiv integrated water bladder, but I'm really glad to see companies looking at different methods to keep hydration easy available and aerodynamic.

Cervelo took a different approach to making the bike work for triathlons and time trials.  Recently Trek designed their Speed Concept as a bike that would work well for both and that accessories could be attached to it for triatlons (storage primarily).  Specialized created to completely separate bikes the Shiv TT for time trial and the Shiv for triathlons.  Cervelo signed one frame that uses different fork/brake fairing set ups, one that's legal for UCI and one that's not for Triathlons.  Again I don't think this is necessarily better or worse than what Trek or Specialized has done, but it does illustrate that more and more things are being thought about with the design of these bikes.

For a very in depth review check out TriRig.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Winter Short Track Race 4 BikeSouce Team Recap

Expert Men
3rd Matt Moosa
5th Bobby Bryson
8th Chris Audet
DNF Chad Hollingsworth

Sport Men 19-39
1st Jake Arthur

Clydesdale
1st Ryan Kelley

Expert/Sport Women
10th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
6th Daniel Lenis

Congratulations to Ryan Kelley and Jake Arthur for winning their races, great job guys.

Full Results with team names
Full Results with lap times

Monday, February 6, 2012

Cyclocross World Championships

While I didn't do any cyclocross racing this year (I needed a break from racing, and some time to concentrate on training) I think it is probably the most fun style of bike racing out there and I still followed the top European races. About a week ago the Cyclocross World Championships were held in Belgium (the epicenter of cyclocross). The Belgian team had seven riders and went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 . . . every Belgian finished before anyone else, an incredibly dominating performance, and from reading the race reviews it didn't even seem like they worked together (which would have been hard with how sandy that course was), they just rode faster than everyone else.  Neils Albert who hadn't had a good season so far made his season by winning the World Championships. For anyone that enjoys cyclocross and what's really not to like: both beer and yelling are ENCOURAGED, the World Championships in 2013 will be in Louisville Kentucky.

Here's a few links that I thought were good:

Video Highlights (see how many spectators there are)

Pictures and Recap/Results

Neils Albert's Manager saying he shouldn't have to split his price money. The Belgian agree to split the price money equally between all the racers. Albert's manager said that since his team didn't help him (Albert rode off the front on lap one and was never challenged) that he shouldn't have to split the price money. I agree that his team didn't do much (if anything to help him), but it looks really bad to split the price money like it had been agreed upon before hand, especially when the price money pales in comparison to the sponsorship oportunies Albert will get as a result of winning. 

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Review: Specialized XC Light Weight Grip

Specialized XC Light Weight Grip

Let me first say I've never been happy with any of the grips I've ever used on my mountain bike, I've used soft, hard, thin, thick, ergo, round, textured and smooth, and never said "I'm happy with these grips."  Some have been better, some worse, but nothing I thought was good.  As a result I'd be ok with something that was just passable, and what works for me might not work for others.

I tried these grips because they're light (really f--ing light, claimed weight 12 grams), when I weighed them they came up at 9 or 10 on our scale and cheap . . . $10.  How often in cycling can you get light and inexpensive in the same product. . . not often, and usually with bad results.

I couldn't be happier with grips: 
-they're more comfortable than anything I've ever used (which isn't necessarily saying much in my case as earlier mentioned)
-they don't slip
-they're plenty grippy with gloves (haven't tried without glove, but I think they'd be fine)
-they're light
-they're cheap
-did I mention they're light AND cheap

The only small issues I can see/have seen with the grips are:
-they're relatively hard to put on (if you don't have an air compressor, pay your local shop the $5 or $10 to put them on for you, it'll be money well spent; I promise.
-they probably won't last too long. . . they're light and made out of foam, but hey they're only $10

If you are a weight weenie about your mountain bike or a competive racer I think you HAVE to try these out, you might not like them but even if they are just ok, you'll be hard pressed to find a less expensive way to make your bike lighter.

They come in two sizes: small and medium (I'm using the mediums and would recommend those unless you like your grips really thin).

Monday, January 30, 2012

Winter Short Track Race 3 BikeSouce Team Recap

Expert Men
3rd Matt Moosa
7th Bobby Bryson
11th Chad Hollingsworth
12th Chris Audet

Sport Men 19-39
3rd Jake Arthur
19th Julius Ulanday
20th John Hennessy

Sport Men 40+
15th Wayne Holden

Clydesdale
1st Ryan Kelley

Expert/Sport Women
8th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
6th Daniel Lenis

Congratulations to Ryan "Coach" Kelley on his win in the Clydesdale division.

Full Results with team names
Full Results with fastest laps

Friday, January 27, 2012

Report Card Results 1/9 - 1/22


Swimming: B-

Biking: C+

Running: C

Other: C+

Overall: C+

I was actually a really good two week block of training, I didn’t get in any long bike rides (but I’ll me making up for some of that during the two week period I’m in now), but other than that I did really well at making sure I did the key workouts on my schedule.  I may also have to change some of the grading scales, they're very reasonable by themselves, but not when you factor in the other workouts.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Winter Short Track Race 2 BikeSouce Team Recap

Expert Men
1st Matt Moosa
5th Chad Hollingsworth

Sport Men 19-39
12th Jake Arthur

Clydesdale
3rd Ryan Kelley

Expert/Sport Women
6th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
8th Daniel Lenis

Congratulations Matt on your excellent win.

Full Results with team names
Full Results with fastest laps
Team Standings