Know nothing about these road wheels, but they invited us to check out their website.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Cyclocross Magazine to Profile Pip
Bill Schieken, who is working with Cyclocross Magazine on their National Champion Profile Project, will interview and profile Pip, and all of the other 2008 Cyclocross National Champions, as part of the project. Be on the lookout for the National Champions issue of Cyclocross Magazine at your local newsstand.
I told Bill that Pip's fellow racers, the Men, Women, and Juniors of Team Putney/West Hill, all of the Members of the Putney Bicycle Club, and the Owners and Staff of our sponsor, the West Hill Shop, are extremely proud of Pip's National Championship, and that when he interviews Pip, he will discover that Pip is an expert mountain bike racer as well.
Will
Tuesday Night Ride Planning Meeting
TNR Season Planning Meeting
Date: Tuesday, March 17th
Location: West Hill Shop, 49 Brickyard Lane, Putney, Vermont (802) 387-5718
Time: 6:00 P.M.
What To Bring:
+ Food (Pot Luck Supper) - Main Dish, Side, Dessert, Whatever - Something Edible
+ Drinks (No Alcohol Please)
+ Paper Plates and Eating Tools
+ A Route You Want To Lead and a Date You Want to Lead Your Ride
+ Ideas To Improve The TNR Series (A, B, and C rides, long and short options, sweepers, should it continue into September?)
+ Your PBC Dues ($20 Individual / $30 Family)
Thanks to Joe Cook for Organizing This Planning Session
The Poll Results Indicate A Clear Majority (88%) Want to Continue The TNR Series
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Economic Stimulus
Have a few extra Euros in your mattress? You might want to ride in Cologne, Germany over the Easter weekend. Got the following e-mail from "Lifestyle Cycling" this morning:
"Join LIFESTYLE CYCLING on the Classics trail from April 11th to 13th 2009 at „Rund um Köln“; the German Classic through the hilly hinterland of Cologne. Experience the 100-km-cyclosportive with the organization, accompaniment and support of the LIFESTYLE CYCLING Team."
"It gets going on Easter Sunday with a ride on sections of the race route. Following a group ride we will form smaller groups based on rider ability - so that everyone can make the most of the wind shelter and experience of our guides. Ex-pro Guido Eickelbeck will be on-hand with tips on riding technique and race tactics. Oliver Elsenbach, a sport scientist and part of our expert network, will also join us on the ride. You can also count on the help of an experienced mechanic to tweak your riding position and quickly fix any mechanical problems with your bike. Reservations have also been made for you in one of Cologne’s classiest restaurants later that evening. There you will enjoy a superior evening meal – in line, of course, with the sporting objectives you have set yourself. You will overnight in the first class Hotel Maritim, just a stone’s throw away from Cologne’s Gothic cathedral and old town. On Easter Monday we make the transfer to the start of the Rund-um-Köln challenge in Leverkusen. For you that means: Free entry! After your personal triumph on the race route we will re-group on the Rhine quays in Cologne to cheer the pros over the finish line."
"LIFESTLYE CYCLING – About us
LIFESTYLE CYCLING specializes in the organisation and running of cycling events. We bring your right up close to the highlights of the pro cycling scene. You can even experience the fun of competition first-hand at cyclosportives – professionally supported by the LIFESTYLE CYCLING team ride leaders."
"Keen for more LIFE.STYLE.CYCLING?!
"Mallorca Training camps: Reads Hotel Santa Maria in March and April as well as the Arabella Sheraton in preparation for March and Apri."l
"Cyclosportives: Frankfurt Sportf : April 29 - May 1 Berlin Velothon: June 19 – 21 Hamburg Cyclassics: August 14 – 16 Giro d´Italia: May 9 – 18 including first-hand experience of mountain stages on May 12 - 13 From May 19: the one week Sella-Runde Tour de France: Pyrenean stage with stopover in Barcelona and mountain stages in Colmar and Mont Ventoux."
$699 Euros is about $900 U.S. Dollars. Do you suppose they have not heard about our failing economy, bailouts, handouts, and unemployment?
Ride For a Reason - Spinning Marathon
The Ninth Annual Ride For A Reason, to benefit Special Olympics, will take place on Saturday, April 4 from 8 a.m. – 2 p.m. at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in Burlington, VT. Participants in the indoor cycling marathon will pedal for six hours while being led by Master Instructor Angie Scott, Master Instructor Anthony Musemici from New York City, Star 3 Spinning Instructor and personal trainer Melissa Marotta and spinning instructor Raquel Schmidt from Buffalo, New York.
"Mixing fitness and fundraising, Ride for a Reason is led by instructors from around the country and will feature live music and hourly raffles. Following the ride, participants are invited to stay for a celebratory luncheon. The fundraiser has steadily grown since its inception in 2000; last year’s marathon brought in 140 participants and more than $60,000, with all proceeds benefiting the Special Olympics Vermont.
The 2009 6-Hour Ride for a Reason will feature a unique Compu Trainer from Dee Physical Therapy, while SUUNTO will outfit riders with transmitter belts worn underneath the shirt. These belts will wirelessly transmit near laboratory-accurate information on heart rate, oxygen consumption and other physiological variables to the SUUNTO Team POD, which will then display the performance data in real-time on a screen.
All participants will receive a 6-Hour Ride short sleeve wick shirt. The more you raise the more cool gear you could win including a 6-Hour Ride long sleeve wick shirt, 6-Hour Ride cycling jersey and/or a 6-Hour Ride soft shell jacket."
Contact Kimberly Bookless with any questions or for more information at kbookless@vtso.org or (802) 863-5222 ext. 105.
A New Trend in Road Racing?
Article in New York Times about challenging 100+ mile road races, on courses of asphalt, dirt, and gravel, titled "Where Riders Tackle Potholes and Gravel." The race the paper examined was in Louisiana, called "Rouge Roubaix." We have our own two famous races in our neck of the woods: Battenkill-Roubaix, and the Deerfield Dirt Road Randonee. Check out the article.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
PBC March News
Renew Your PBC Membership
$20 for Individual
$30 for Family
Pay your dues at the West Hill Shop, mail to the PBC @ P.O. Box 447, Brattleboro, Vermont 05302, or to the West Hill Shop, 49 Brickyard Lane, Putney, Vermont 05346, or register online at BikeReg.Com (the far right drop down menu for Club Memberships). Membership includes the same benefits as last year. Please include your mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address.
Daylight Savings Time
The 2009 Cycling Season Begins
Daylight Savings Time, for me, marks the beginning of the cycling season, despite the snow on the ground and the wet and grimy roads. For those of you who have been cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, riding on snow mobile trails, or training indoors on your wind trainer, rollers, or CompuTrainer, your Aerobic Capacity is probably fairly decent. If you are like me, and have spent the winter on your couch, eating, reading, and napping, you are out shape, overweight, and have lost your fitness.
Humble Training Tips
1. Tune-Up. Get your bike into the shop for a tune-up. New tires, new chain and cassette, new brake pads, maybe that stem or saddle you promised yourself at the end of last year. Support your local bike shop.
2. Weight. Instead of spending money on that Titanium Stem to shave a few grams from the weight of your bike, think about shaving off a few pounds of body fat instead -- it make the hills a lot easier to climb.
3. Weights. Do not neglect weight training. It is important to strengthen your core -- your abs, lower back, and obliques. Without a strong and stable core, you will not be able to effectively transfer your power to the pedals. It is also important to strengthen your upper body - biceps, triceps, deltoids, and trapezoids. These help with bike handling, climbing, sprinting, and overall endurance. Split your weight training into two phases. Phase One is for strength (4 sets of 12-15 repetitions of the basic exercises relevant to cycling). Phase Two is for endurance (6 sets of 40-50 repetitions of the same exercises, but with a much lighter weight). Phase Two will build muscular endurance that will pay off during the season.
4. Equipment. If you are not purchasing a new ride this year, the one piece of equipment I can recommend that will improve your ride more than any other is a new wheel set. When I replaced my Mavic Open Pro wheel set with Ksyrium SL wheels, my 10 year old lugged steel Marinoni was transformed. Also, consider a compact crank to flatten out the hills. When I was racing in 2007, Daq put a compact crankset on my Scott and I was flying up the climbs, but was spinning out during the descents. This was because I did not change the cassette, and was running a 12-27 cassette with a compact crank. Checkout the gear charts with Daq to understand what cassette you want to use if you change over to compact crank. I put on a 13-23 and problem solved.
5. Log. Keep a training log. Don’t log miles -- log hours on the bike, the time you spend in various heart rate zones, the kind of ride you had -- was it a slow, easy spin, a tempo workout, climbing repeats, sprint intervals, and how you felt during the ride? Logging your training will invariably increase the amount of time you spend on the bike, and you begin to see patterns and will see greater results in a shorter length of time. Don’t neglect the easy, recovery rides after a hard training day -- they will help to remove the damaged cells and lactic acid from your legs.
6. Recover. You get stronger on the days you rest and recover. Do not overtrain. Feed and hydrate your body.
7. Goals. It helps tremendously to have a plan or a goal(s) for the season -- whether it is your first century ride, a race, or a National Championship. Having a goal will motivate you to train and will give you the satisfaction of charting your progress toward your goal.
8. Team. Some workouts have to be done alone -- but you will find that if you ride with people who are faster and stronger than you, you will improve your skills, strength, and endurance, and will enjoy the friendly competition.
9. Base, Base, Base. The importance of establishing a strong aerobic base cannot be over emphasized. If you fail to establish an adequate base early in the season, your training will be for ought -- like a building with a foundation rot to the core. An easy way to build your aerobic base is to take your average annual mileage, divide by 4, and commit to riding that first 25% in the small ring at a high cadence - 90-100. For example, I ride the first 1,000 to 1,500 miles in the small ring, before training for specific deficits, like hill climbing, or sprints. The high cadence spinning early in the season will elevate your heart rate but not unduly stress your muscles, while your muscle memory helps you to improve the smoothness of your pedal stroke. Later, when you climb and sprint or do your endurance rides, your solid aerobic base will pull you through, and you will have a more enjoyable and successful cycling season.
Wanted: Person to organize the Tuesday Night Ride Schedule and make modifications of the starting locations, routes, or ride leaders, as needed, throughout the Spring and Summer. Contact putney.bicycle@gmail.com if interested.
Wanted: Candidate for President of the PBC. You don’t have to do anything, or you can become as involved as you want. Contact putney.bicycle@gmail.com if interested.
$20 for Individual
$30 for Family
Pay your dues at the West Hill Shop, mail to the PBC @ P.O. Box 447, Brattleboro, Vermont 05302, or to the West Hill Shop, 49 Brickyard Lane, Putney, Vermont 05346, or register online at BikeReg.Com (the far right drop down menu for Club Memberships). Membership includes the same benefits as last year. Please include your mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address.
Daylight Savings Time
The 2009 Cycling Season Begins
Daylight Savings Time, for me, marks the beginning of the cycling season, despite the snow on the ground and the wet and grimy roads. For those of you who have been cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, riding on snow mobile trails, or training indoors on your wind trainer, rollers, or CompuTrainer, your Aerobic Capacity is probably fairly decent. If you are like me, and have spent the winter on your couch, eating, reading, and napping, you are out shape, overweight, and have lost your fitness.
Humble Training Tips
1. Tune-Up. Get your bike into the shop for a tune-up. New tires, new chain and cassette, new brake pads, maybe that stem or saddle you promised yourself at the end of last year. Support your local bike shop.
2. Weight. Instead of spending money on that Titanium Stem to shave a few grams from the weight of your bike, think about shaving off a few pounds of body fat instead -- it make the hills a lot easier to climb.
3. Weights. Do not neglect weight training. It is important to strengthen your core -- your abs, lower back, and obliques. Without a strong and stable core, you will not be able to effectively transfer your power to the pedals. It is also important to strengthen your upper body - biceps, triceps, deltoids, and trapezoids. These help with bike handling, climbing, sprinting, and overall endurance. Split your weight training into two phases. Phase One is for strength (4 sets of 12-15 repetitions of the basic exercises relevant to cycling). Phase Two is for endurance (6 sets of 40-50 repetitions of the same exercises, but with a much lighter weight). Phase Two will build muscular endurance that will pay off during the season.
4. Equipment. If you are not purchasing a new ride this year, the one piece of equipment I can recommend that will improve your ride more than any other is a new wheel set. When I replaced my Mavic Open Pro wheel set with Ksyrium SL wheels, my 10 year old lugged steel Marinoni was transformed. Also, consider a compact crank to flatten out the hills. When I was racing in 2007, Daq put a compact crankset on my Scott and I was flying up the climbs, but was spinning out during the descents. This was because I did not change the cassette, and was running a 12-27 cassette with a compact crank. Checkout the gear charts with Daq to understand what cassette you want to use if you change over to compact crank. I put on a 13-23 and problem solved.
5. Log. Keep a training log. Don’t log miles -- log hours on the bike, the time you spend in various heart rate zones, the kind of ride you had -- was it a slow, easy spin, a tempo workout, climbing repeats, sprint intervals, and how you felt during the ride? Logging your training will invariably increase the amount of time you spend on the bike, and you begin to see patterns and will see greater results in a shorter length of time. Don’t neglect the easy, recovery rides after a hard training day -- they will help to remove the damaged cells and lactic acid from your legs.
6. Recover. You get stronger on the days you rest and recover. Do not overtrain. Feed and hydrate your body.
7. Goals. It helps tremendously to have a plan or a goal(s) for the season -- whether it is your first century ride, a race, or a National Championship. Having a goal will motivate you to train and will give you the satisfaction of charting your progress toward your goal.
8. Team. Some workouts have to be done alone -- but you will find that if you ride with people who are faster and stronger than you, you will improve your skills, strength, and endurance, and will enjoy the friendly competition.
9. Base, Base, Base. The importance of establishing a strong aerobic base cannot be over emphasized. If you fail to establish an adequate base early in the season, your training will be for ought -- like a building with a foundation rot to the core. An easy way to build your aerobic base is to take your average annual mileage, divide by 4, and commit to riding that first 25% in the small ring at a high cadence - 90-100. For example, I ride the first 1,000 to 1,500 miles in the small ring, before training for specific deficits, like hill climbing, or sprints. The high cadence spinning early in the season will elevate your heart rate but not unduly stress your muscles, while your muscle memory helps you to improve the smoothness of your pedal stroke. Later, when you climb and sprint or do your endurance rides, your solid aerobic base will pull you through, and you will have a more enjoyable and successful cycling season.
Wanted: Person to organize the Tuesday Night Ride Schedule and make modifications of the starting locations, routes, or ride leaders, as needed, throughout the Spring and Summer. Contact putney.bicycle@gmail.com if interested.
Wanted: Candidate for President of the PBC. You don’t have to do anything, or you can become as involved as you want. Contact putney.bicycle@gmail.com if interested.
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