October 30, 2009
If you race a bike for money long enough you tend to get a little jaded. I'll admit to being bitter and cynical sometimes, but then something ... someone like Danny MacAskill comes along and I remember - as if by a 2x4 to the head - that hope is not lost, and that being on two wheels is about the best place to be.
I had the good fortune of hanging out with the cool kid from "a really small island" in Scotland at this year's Interbike trade show. He's quite a bit smaller than you might think from watching the videos. I guess it's true what they say ... Tom Cruise is short.
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October 28, 2009
Gary - Dallas, Texas
Well Gary, I’d say that switching from one component group to the next is probably the least of the concerns for the modern pro, regarding equipment. The stuff is so good and it seems to just get more and more intuitive and ergonomically correct as time goes on. Yeah, I screwed up a few shifts when I got on the Campagnolo Ergo Power stuff after spending a year on Shimano’s STI but I got used to it pretty quickly. I think the same can be said for the guys who have moved to SRAM. In fact I heard from some folks who don’t even work for SRAM but rather that big Pro Tour team that they got part-way through the season, that after only a few minutes of testing, the guys wearing the Lycra® were sold.
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October 23, 2009
Dan - DenCo
Dan, sorry it has taken me so long to get your question answered, but I had to go find
Missy Giove .... I kid.
Yes, I have heard tell of this pre-race practice here in the USA but I honestly never heard about that being done over there in Belgica. Holland wasn't all that far away but I never heard anyone talking about recreational smoking either. As far as I know, pre-race enjoyment of the hippy lettuce is uniquely American.
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October 22, 2009
mattio - New York, NY and Northampton, MA
NYC
and Northampton? That sounds like a lot of work to me.
To be completely, painfully, honest ... there are few pieces of modern road bike gear that I would brandish as if I were Charlton Heston. In my current status as a non-racer and someone who hasn't brake-checked anyone or lifted his butt off a saddle in anger for more than a decade, I'd be perfectly happy to pedal around on an old, lugged, Columbus SL frame equipped with non-indexed downtube shifters. Heck, I would even take non-aero brake levers, and toe-clips and straps. I'm really not
into the old equipment mind you, I am just saying there aren't a whole lot of modern road bike hard goods that would keep me from riding if you took them away.
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October 21, 2009
Fernando Castro - Chula Vista, California
Well Fernando, I think this one is actually pretty simple, though I will have to give you the
Stage Racing for Idiots version, since I was definitely NOT paying attention in any of my science classes.
You've perhaps heard that people who chronically diet typically have problems keeping the weight off after they quit the diet, often gaining back more weight than they lost. Sometimes it's just that since they've starved themselves (or eaten horribly boring food) while on the diet, as soon as they stop they eat like crazy, killing all benefit of the original suffering. More often than that though, their bodies react to the end of the famine by storing lots of calories. The metabolism slows down.
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Sean K - Seattle, Washington
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