Standing Start

Our teammates in recent races.

Well, it seems we had a string of triathlons dominate our recent race coverage. So, as a brief interlude to pure bike racing, here are a few shots of our teammates adding some odd events to bookend cycling.

Broadcasting and recording spin classes.

Does anyone have any experience with a good freeware program and web cam to record and host our spin classes online? As an experiment, I would like to set up a web cam and stream it to Tom Kenny's garage gang (so team members in the south can make it easier to spin) but would like some recommendations on a good web cam (hardware) and a good program to do this (software). Also, any help for implementation would be great.

Study at the UofC HPL

Basically we're interested in looking at the effect of lower body
compression clothing on short duration power performance and sustainability.
Since the testing requires completion of 6 Wingate session over the course
of 2 weeks, we're looking for males fit enough / experienced with high
intensity sprints to complete the whole 2 weeks; sprint/power type athletes
would be preferred but this certainly isn't a requirement. Also, due to
limited sizes of clothing they need to be 5'7-6'1 and weigh >80-85kg.

Contact Graeme Challis if you want to participate in this study.

In response to who? (UPDATED)

[Edit Update] I was sent a 'clarification' email last night that was really insightful and pointed out that my team propaganda post was vacant of some of the facts that prompted this news story as well as some of the history of Alberta Cycling. While my post was meant basically to pump up our team members and get us all excited for another successful race season, I in no way wanted that to be at the expense of other teams. I believe the formation and support of more teams regardless of level and ability only leads to better racing in Alberta and should be encouraged. It also leads to more cyclists on the roads which will also hopefully lead to increased cyclist awareness from traffic. What I failed to include in my original post was the development of young cyclists, of which clubs with funding have had a very active role in for significant periods of time, and of which ST Cycling has been almost non-existent. We have done a good job in getting people racing that may not have had they not had a team like ST Cycling to join, and we have done a great job in teaching them to train and race and act like a race team, regardless of ability. Because we are a team that relies on its own funding, we tend to be predominately a team of racers that have their own means to afford racing, so our grassroots approach starts with riders that are usually not U23. I think having both types of clubs in the province is very important since it targets to distinctly different demographics and gets their butts in the saddle. My original post mainly was meant to state that once we HAVE these riders in the saddle, and because we are primarily a road racing club and can focus on road racing, I think we do the best job of getting our racers training and racing like a team. It has been apparent other clubs have had to start thinking more this way and that can only be good for Alberta Cycling. [Finish Update]

Here is the latest news feed from the ABA. This is great for Alberta cycling. The more teams training and racing AS A TEAM the better.

Personally I hope that Cyclemeisters who are looking to take Cat1/2 riders from existing clubs would spend the same amount of time getting their grassroots program training and racing as a team as well and develop a feeder network for themselves and other high level outfits. Recently Amy Woodward (Bow Cycle Pres) attended one of our team spins to see first hand the value in gathering the team together through the long winter. They are looking to start their own sessions. So it indicates to me that the grassroots development of team and race skills is catching on.

I wonder which team (in recent history) got the ball rolling and the momentum going from the ground up? :) This was the plan from the outset. Our cohesive approach to grassroots cycling and producing great racers within a tight team environment has forced other Albertan teams to respond. Great. The more competition, the better the competition. Let's race!

http://www.albertabicycle.ab.ca/cyclemeisters-looking-for-riders/?id=921

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Rick, the LCD, and a race series.

Guys, have a look at the great work Rick M. did for the club and the store!! In very short order, we will have 2 full-time Computrainers and sometimes 4 set up at the store and will be hosting racing events to keep up our motivation over the long winter. The software allows drafting, pack racing, and head/tail winds, so we can simulate any conditions.

Thanks Rick for doing such a pro job.

The LCD and computer are owned by the club, so if we can get some people interested in learning the software (not just me) and helping me put on a race series or something fun over the winter, that would be super cool. Leave a comment if you are interested in helping out and we will discuss over beers one night how to set up something fun the club can take advantage of.

Dan in Tempe

Dan did the swim in 1 hour 16:45, and the bike in 5 hours 5 mins 8 seconds (roughly 35.5kph for roughly 180 km). And the run in 4:32:57, finishing up at 11:04:48, knocking just shy of an hour off his previous PB!

Great work Slayer!

God Bless Everyone

Team,

Funny experience yesterday.

Debby and I have been doing the regular Ironman village stuff and hanging out, driving around and checking out the local scenes. We went to the Arizona Mills yesterday. I must be the Arizona version of the new mall in Balzac. Anyways, stimulation overload. It is like Disneyland inside a mall. Music blaring from every store and different music in the corridors. Nothing that I can recognize at all though. I am sure the Dave Mustaine lyrics and Kerry King guitar riffs are counter productive for producing commercial spending behaviours.

The central booths are loaded with high pressure sales people. I have not done any world travelling but it must be like markets in Egypt or Turkey. You can't walk anywhere without someone wanting in your pockets. So I was walking down the walkway and I was approached by a guy that was selling protectors for iphones. Very cool scratch resistant stuff. I got suckered in and gave over the phone and was told to come back in 30 minutes. The following is the dialogue of the conversation when I came back to retrieve my phone.

"Here is your phone, all ready to go." (salesperson)

"Cool, I like how you did that, it looks like a good product." (Slayer Dan)

"Your not from around here are you?" (sales dude)

"No, why." (Slayer)

"Your actually nice, your not trying to steal my cash drawer." (sales dude)

"The guys on my cycling team are nice to you. This one time at band camp, I got into an argument with a hockey player and, ....... nevermind" (slayer dan)

"Hey whats with the tattoos, are you like an athlete. Are you an ironman?" (sales dude)

"check this out, this guy is here for ironman" he says to other sales associates.

"What the f#$k is that." says the now approaching sales not dude.

Picture the look of shock on my face now.

"It is a race, with a swim bike and run." says the sales dude who worked on my phone.

I'm standing there in the mall looking at this guy as if he just climbed out from under a rock.

"Are you shape, do you exercise lots?" says the barely functioning adult sales dude.

"Dude, look at my calves. These are so solid they can repel bullets. Look at my quads, this is Hans and this is Franz, they can tear the roof off of your car if your in an accident while you smoking, texting, injecting and whatever else you do when you drive your car! Dude, my body fat is lower then your parents mortgage rate, oh wait, they don't have one and you live on the streets!" (slayer dan)

The mall cops were really nice as they escorted Debby and I to our rental car.

have a great day.

Dan

Racing in the heat question

Team,

Does anyone on the team have experience using salt tabs? I have only used them once in Ironman Canada and have real no experience to draw from.

Yesterday in my training ride my face was covered in salt from the sweat and I am just wondering if it is worth picking up some electrolyte tablets for the race.

If anyone could provide some comments or direction that would be awesome.

Not sure if there is a better way from the prostate cancer foundation to raise money, but I think I have seen the absolute worst collection of mustaches on guys ever. Who thought it was a good idea to raise money by sticking an ugly caterpillar under your nose anyways!

Take care,

Slayer Dan

A little more humor

I found this via a friend on facebook and had to share it with you guys. Hope you laugh as hard as I did.



triplec.ca

Hipsters Discuss Cyclocross

There's been all kinds of bad crash stories on the blog lately, so here's some humour to cheer everyone up. Snagged from the Bike Snob NYC blog.

Slayer in Tempe

While most of us are starting to train again, doing spin classes, cross training, thinking about training again, dogging cars, or if you are Dallas doing epic rides. Our team mate Slayer Dan is still hard at it. He will be doing the Tempe Ironman this Sunday. The weather forecast is 73 and sunny so perfect conditions.

Dan has been training hard right through the end of the race season and is in great shape and ready to go. I am sure there will be an amazing post some time next week.

In the meantime you can follow the race at IronManArizona.com. Slayer is number 720, go time is 7am.

Photo Credit Bing from Saskatoon, great guy who takes pictures every year at Bikes on Broadway

Dude, you should see the other guy...

I am going to consider myself very lucky. You know the classic "car turns left in front of cyclist as cyclist is going straight through the intersection"? Well that happened to me on the way home from work today, but instead of just a close call, I ended up on the windshield, pretty well shattering it and rolling over the car. Now somehow I landed on my feet off to the left side of the car. I was so amazed that I was okay I couldn't believe it. My bike is another story, the wheel no longer being true is just where that begins.

It reminded me of the story last week about the guy from Ridleys and how it's just dumb luck that mine ended up this way.

And all I have to show for it is a little red mark on my knee! Oh and a broken bike.


Edit: Thanks everyone for the comments. I was kind of still reeling from the whole experience last night and I think it still hasn't really hit home yet. I've had a pretty killer headache all day and my neck and upper back are starting to hurt, so I will definitely take your advice about waiting a few weeks for symptoms to show up Trev.

I guess that even though we have the right of way in some situations, it's still important to watch out for drivers for them since they're not expecting to see cyclists. Hopefully we can come to a time where cyclists are common enough in colder and darker weather and we don't have to worry so much about that.

Great Article In The National Post

Speed Theory team member Peter Verburg rode in Levi Leipheimer's Gran Fondo this fall in California. Here is the article in the National Post that he wrote. Sounds like an amazing ride and a great story by Peter. http://www.nationalpost.com/life/travel/story.html?id=2221950