It’s raining out and the wind is blowing, the options are sitting on the couch or heading down to the wind trainer to spend 30 – 60 minutes sitting in one spot spinning your legs. So you put on the Bib nicks and head to the garage/bike room, where next to the car is the training bike set up on the trainer. Before mounting the beast you get the shoes on and clonk around setting up towels to prevent sweat from touching the pride on joy (the bike that is). Setting the water bottle onto the boot of the car, this will serve as a team car while you attempt to picture yourself tearing along with the boys on the TDF or TDU.

Your all set and finally get onto the beast, you mind starts to wonder “Why are we doing this again?” the reality is so that you wish to smash the bunch on the next club ride or attempt to maintain a good average speed on your mid week 40k TT you attempt. Attempt is the optimum word here. The legs start to turn over and the whining of the trainer slowly picks up to then settles in as it warmed up into its usual hum. As the cadence reaches the ideal 95-100rpm you let those quads start to warm up for the allotted time allowed for your session.

Eventually the whining of the trainer starts to get the better of you and the iPod comes into play, something slow as “The System of the Down or Rammstein” have been known to sent the Heart Rate into the red zone and beyond on blowing the training session from a 1 hour spin session into a 35 minute smash fest that destroys the mind body and soul. Once Cat Stevens settles into him routine on the iPod the legs are warmed and the mind is settle it’s time to flick up a gear or two building the HR and maintaining the cadence. It’s normally at this stage where you start to dream of race days or club rides and the planned training session goes out the window. The planned 15 minuet warm up is behind you and the team car is slowly coming into play so stop the boredom of riding nowhere due to the weather starts to take over. The mind can do wonderful things on the trainer, suddenly you flipping through the gears and the speed is up around the 45km/h mark., yes the quads are asking “what the hell are you doing” but the mind is doing a TT against Cadel, Levi, Cantador and the man himself Fabian Cancellara is breathing down your neck. The time splits have nothing in them, Cancellara and Cadel have the better of you by 12 and 15 seconds respectively at the 24km mark of a 54K TT, Levi is just 1 second behind your time, the team manager is calling the road and conditions ahead… suddenly you snap back to reality… The Quads have taken back control and enticed the brain to bring the gear ratio back to a sustainable tempo. As you sit there spinning the legs in a daze of dehydration watching the heart rate slowly drop below the 95% mark your fitness is suddenly questioned as the HR does not drop like it did 9 months ago before your extended off season post race break.

45 minutes in the boredom and fatigue gets the better of you and you stumble off the beast sucking on the water bottle, the team car is once again the suburban run around you remember. Tomorrow is another session and Cancellara and the boys will be waiting for you and another epic challange of the wind trainer blues.

UCI rider transfer list 2008. Looks like Barloworld are rumoured to be picking up Basso when he comes off his 2 year drugs ban in late October 2008. Interesting times are ahead, lets see what 2008 will bring… drug free we hope.

cyclingnews.com has all the details

After riding Campagnolo Chorus and Record hubs for the past few years and with the install of the Campag 2008 Record Group Set I decided to go for a new set of wheels. Mavic CPX33 rims, DT spokes and went with the Velocity Road Hubs. Getting me away from my traditional Campagnolo was no easy task for my bike shop. As they are to be training wheel I figured that is was worth a shot.

I am impressed with all but one aspect of the hubs. The roll and weight of these hubs are great along with their Cartridge Sealed 6900RS bearings they are well priced and are performing better than I expected, even to the point that I’m leaning more towards them than my Campag Hub… yes I said it. The only negative to date has been the rear skew requires and obscene amount of tension to keep is locked onto the frame.

Manufacturing:   8/10
Ride Quality:       9/10
Overall:                8.5/10

Well the cycling silly season is up and running. People moving teams, manufacturers aliening themselves with different teams.

Riders on the Move (The ones that I know of) 
Levi and Contador are off too Astana along with Chris Horner from Predictor – Lotto (now to be names  “Silence – Lotto” in 2008). Omega Pharma wants to publicize a different product in 2008, Silence is an anti-snoring medicine.

Sneak a peak at the Silence - Lotto kit 2008

Yaroslav Popovych is heading from the former Discovery over to take Chris Horner’s spot  as Lotto. Nice move but still leaves Cadel with not much help in the mountains.

Manufactures
Trek are now the manufacturer for Astana. Looks like Astana will be the team to watch with the former Discovery manager Johan Bruyneel’s taking everything he can across to Astana for 2008.

This is it! I’ve long been a user of Campagnolo and those that ride with me you will when ever (which there often is) a problem with shimano, know the catch cry of “Sh1t Oh No it’s broken again”. Now I’ve heard many a bike shops tell me that Sh1tohno is the way to go. It’s just a set and go type of running gear.

If you could picture me with a bubble for my thoughts saying [blah blah blah…. Shitohno, blah blah, it just works!] result for the bike shop is… “No sale!”

I have recently installed the 2008 Record Groupset, I’ve always been dubious about carbon cranks and frames. This has changed after putting on the 180mm carbon crank. This groupset is a dream to ride on, there is no flex and in everyway it has a better feel while riding. The weight difference with not having a bottom bracket is noticeable in the overall weight of the bike once installed. No matter how much pressure you put on the pedals nothing goes to waste on the road. With weight saving on most other components with titanium incorporated into them the old saying “like a hot knife through butter” when changing gears still stands. Overall this group set in my opinion is a leap forward in cycling technology. With the new name on the block “SRAM” designing a similar product I’d be keen to have a look at they have to offer the usability of it.

Who knows, next thing I’ll be on a Carbon frame. After my Cannondale Warranty post you can bet it won’t be a Dale I’ll be riding.