Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2014 i Bicycling

THIS MONTH’S TOP TIPS, BEST ADVICE, AND PERSONAL PICKS FROM OUR EDITOR 1 ON PAGE 97, we review five Tour de France bikes. Get to a shop and take one for a test ride, even if you never leave the parking lot and the closest you want to get to “pro” is being proactive about cycling just enough so your butt stops hurting every time you saddle up. It’s like getting a chance to pluck a Stradivarius— or Springsteen’s Fender Esquire. Who wouldn’t do it? I rode the Trek Domane, and the Pinarello Dogma. Here are some of the ride notes I sent test director Matt Phillips: It’s more ride than bike, more motion than machine...We used to overuse the phrase “disappears beneath you” so much that it became a…

Q: What’s the difference between wet and dry chain lube? DRY LUBE IS THINNER AND leaves a waxy deposit that prevents dirt from sticking to your chain. It’s great in arid environments, but can wear off on long or rainy rides. Wet lube is thicker and stickier, so it’s better for messy conditions. It stays on longer, but attracts dirt and can gunk up a drivetrain. Regardless of the type of lube you use, your drivetrain will last longer and perform better if you clean the chain before applying it. Coat the links with degreaser or mild dish soap while rotating the crank backward, then scrub with a toothbrush. Next, “wipe it with a dry rag, apply lube, wipe again with the rag, then reapply,” says Clint Culpepper, a mechanic…

I GREW UP IN the scorching west Texas city of El Paso, where people would often comment, “At least it’s a dry heat.” The truth is, any variety of excess warmth can sabotage your cycling performance if you’re not ready for it. Here are six things to keep in mind as the mercury climbs. ACCLIMATE YOURSELF “The biggest hot-weather mistake cyclists make is riding in the heat without preparation,” says Stacy Sims, PhD, founder of Osmo Nutrition. If you don’t acclimate to hot-weather riding, you won’t reap as many benefits from your workout and you’ll increase both perceived effort and potential for injury. Instead, ride early or late in the day, when it’s coolest, and use your down time to get used to the heat—try Bikram “hot” yoga or a…

THE PRO WAY Stick to the training plan no matter what DO THIS INSTEAD If you’re riding with friends and feel awesome, it’s okay to go longer and harder than you intended. On the flip side, you don’t have to keep pushing when you feel lousy. Go hard on the days you feel strong, keep it mellow when you’re tired, and stay off the bike as much as you need to without guilt—until you’re ready to get back on. THE PRO WAY Use only the gear supplied by sponsors DO THIS INSTEAD Don’t get me wrong, I love all my sponsors and equipment. But when it comes to outfitting yourself, the fact that you pay for gear means you are not limited to any brand. Take advantage of the range…

I’LL SAY THIS FOR THE GOAT: IT SEEMED MORE comfortable with me than I was with it. It turned its shaggy profile to me briefly, snorted, then went back to chewing the stringy mass of vegetation that hung from its jaws, leaving little doubt who owned this narrow, choppy stretch of dirt road I had strayed onto, or who would have to yield to whom. For the past three weeks, I had been in New Hampshire, in retreat from ordinary life. Through the beneficence of strangers, I had been provided with a stone cottage in the deep woods of an artist’s colony. (A plaque next to the door told me that the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson had worked in the cottage from 1915 to 1934; its walls still seemed to…

My shiny blue experiment in civic-mindedness and I are nobly pedaling onto a major thoroughfare in midtown Manhattan when a taxi driver in front of us slams on his brakes. A few years earlier I might have yelled, gestured, maybe even smacked the taxi. But that was Old Me. That guy has over the past decade or so owned and rode various bicycles, and has spoken semi-regularly with a mental health professional, discussing concepts such as setting appropriate boundaries and “speaking my truth” and selfsoothing, and has logged thousands of internal miles trudging to “the happy place inside” that she suggests I visit in times of stress. So I have made my peace with the city’s taxi drivers. The shiny blue experiment’s squishy brakes don’t unduly alarm me, either. Old…

Garmin-Sharp Pro Cycling Team’s custom app makes a science out of the art of racing When Dan Martin jumped clear of the yellow jersey group on the final climb of Stage 9 at the 2013 Tour de France, the move looked like a classic seat-of-thepants attack, the kind of do-or-die effort that far more often ends in ignominy than victory. But the Garmin-Sharp rider’s attack was actually the result of a carefully planned and perfectly executed set of tactics, organized weeks in advance and diagrammed down to almost the exact gap, in seconds, he would need at the top of the Hourquette d’Ancizan climb before the descent to Bagnères-de-Bigorre. When Martin outkicked Astana’s Jakob Fuglsang for the win, it was almost as much a victory for big data as it…

Friends, on this inauspicious June morning in rural Oregon, at 6:35 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, allow me to quote the great American poet Robert Lowell: “My mind’s not right.” Because trust me: It’s not. I’m happy, I’m pretty sure, which is cause for alarm right there. I’m with a group of eight cyclists not far west of the town of Forest Grove, puttering through fertile agricultural country at a pace similar to the pace the livestock moves along the hillsides in the near distance. Our group, in my honest assessment, stands in relation to the word cycling the way the word hopeless stands in relation to the word cause. We’re riding borrowed bikes or beater bikes, and our cycling abilities are as diverse as the arts-and-crafts exhibits that will be…

These two child trailers make it easy to ride with your kids. But which is best? Burley Honey Bee // $400 Burley’s 35 years of child-trailer experience shows in the Solo’s convenient features. The parking brake is easy to apply, you can quickly adjust the height of the stroller handle, and the rain cover stows neatly. Like the Thule Coaster (below), the Honey Bee holds two kids and has ample cargo space—I fit groceries and a 15-pound bag of dog food into the trunk. Both models convert into strollers, but the Burley does it better; the front wheel drops into place with just a few turns of a large knob. When you are towing one child, Burley recommends using the middle seat, but that position lacks a dedicated shoulder harness.…

Keep your wheels spinning smoothly and quickly with simple routine maintenance LOOK FOR TRUENESS With your bike in a workstand, spin each wheel. Watch the gaps between the brake pads and rim. If the space on either side grows or shrinks by more than 2mm, your wheel is out of true, says Anthony LaPorta, Mavic USA’s warranty and service center manager. Take it to your shop or fix it yourself (learn how at BICYCLING.com/true-wheel). If you continue to ride it, the rim could go further out of adjustment, causing brake rub and a wobbly ride. SQUEEZE YOUR SPOKES One of the most common reasons wheels go out of true: loose spokes. Check tension by squeezing two spokes at a time between your thumb and fingers, says LaPorta. A really loose…

“I can still picture the scrappy dogs chasing alongside, and those false flats you encounter after a tough out-of-the-saddle climb.” Our Favorite Things Your June Editors’ Choice feature was all the better for the location you chose—my hometown of Travelers Rest, South Carolina. The article brought back great memories of rides past Camp Old Indian, up the watershed, and on to Saluda, where the bakery was a muststop even 20 years ago. I can still picture the scrappy dogs chasing alongside, and those false flats you encounter after a tough outof- the-saddle climb. In those days, it was on an early carbon Allez Epic with aluminum lugs, or a Columbus SL Tommassini, but the routes were as great then as they are now. DAVID BUCHANAN ALEXANDRIA, VA Thanks for the…

1 BREW All proceeds from Grimpeur Bros. Lil’ Diesel coffee beans go to the Amy D. Foundation, a nonprofit organization created in memory of pro cyclocross racer Amy Dombroski, who was killed on a training ride last October. The group seeks to empower young women through cycling. $20/12 oz. 2 CHILL Drink in the views, then soak in the steam: Western Spirit’s five-day Backcountry Hot Springs mountain biking tour features majestic climbs, wildflowercovered descents, and nights under the stars near Idaho’s hot springs. Recommended for intermediate riders. July and August; $1,265 3 FLAUNT You oughtta be in pictures: Gumo Gallery’s King of the Mountains print can be personalized with the hair, eye, and bike colors, race number, and text of your choice. Other works from the British designers depict an…

NO NEED TO WAIT FOR your beefsteaks to ripen. A recent study published in the The Journal of Biological Chemistry reports that a compound in tomatoes may help build and maintain muscle, says senior study author Christopher Adams, MD, PhD, of the University of Iowa. When researchers gave high doses of the chemical tomatidine to healthy mice, the critters developed bigger muscles and were able to run longer. Green tomatoes are a good source. For a healthy summer side, drizzle slices with vinegar and olive oil, then grill. One large green tomato also delivers 70 percent of your Daily Value of vitamin C and 23 percent of vitamin A, as well as iron and fiber. TRAINING 16% DECREASE IN FAT INTAKE AMONG OVERWEIGHT MEN AFTER THEY PERFORMED HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING.…

MY CHAIN ISN’T SHIFTING CORRECTLY, AND IT SKIPS A LOT. WHAT HAPPENED You may be an über luber, and the excess sticky stuff is attracting grime to the chain and cassette. First clean, rinse, and dry your chain and cassette (the gears in the back). You can buy bike-specific degreasers and chaincleaning gizmos, but dish soap and a toothbrush work, too. Next, carefully apply one drop (more is not better) of lube onto each roller as you turn the cranks backward for two or three rotations. Finally, take a clean rag and gently grip the chain’s outer plates as you spin the cranks for one more rotation. Keep going until you’ve wiped off all the excess lube—it should be mostly inside the chain on the rollers, not on the outside…

When the gap opened, I wanted with every part of me to close the distance between my bicycle and the one ahead. I pressed my feet harder into the pedals and bent my elbows. I barked internal orders to the failing muscles in my quads. But nothing worked: The wheel I’d been following was leaving me. The moment of separation seemed to stretch on forever, then suddenly, I was left alone in the headwind. The pack rode away, taking with it the familiar and comforting sounds of a group of cyclists—a sniffle, a cough, a bit of laughter, the clatter of a bad shift, that mesmerizing whooshing sound. All I had with me was the wind in my ears and the unfortunate company of my own breathing, rough and desperate,…

Even before its May 2013 debut, New York City’s bike-share program was beset by challenges, not the least of which was a host city that seemed constitutionally opposed to bicycling infrastructure. As late as 2011, New York Magazine was asking “Is New York too New York for Bike Lanes?” and residents in the ostensibly progressive neighborhood of Park Slope were waging a legal battle against a bike lane on Prospect Park West. Yet former mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Department of Transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, pushed the Citi Bike program through the metropolis’s bureaucracy, in part thanks to a pledge that it would be the first such program funded entirely by corporate sponsorships and user fees. They signed a five-year deal with Alta Bicycle Share, a company based in Portland,…

MARK CAVENDISH, 29 OMEGA PHARMA–QUICK-STEP The Manx missile is determined to dominate the race for the sprinter’s jersey Cavendish won only two stages last year, his lowest total since going winless in his 2007 Tour debut. But in the offseason his team signed Mark Renshaw, Cav’s leadout man from his days at HTC-Highroad. With powerhouses like world time-trial champion Tony Martin and former Tour green-jersey winner Alessandro Petacchi, Cavendish should have the horsepower to score three stage wins, enough to tie Bernard Hinault for the second-most stage victories in Tour history. NACER BOUHANNI, 23 FDJ.FR An amateur boxer who was this year’s biggest surprise at the Giro d’Italia—what’s not to love? Thanks to a crash and a stomach bug, Bouhanni’s Tour debut lasted only through Stage 5 last year. But…

PINARELLO DOGMA F8 A LEGENDARY RIDE BECOMES EVEN SWEETER This is not the Dogma we expected. In the past, Pinarello made only iterative updates to its flagship race bike—mostly reducing weight and increasing stiffness. This new model, the F8, represents a significant departure from that tradition. The move is welcome, but also surprising. Riders on the Pinarello-backed Sky and Movistar teams achieved 64 victories in 2013 and finished first and second in the Tour de France (Movistar has a new bike sponsor for 2014). In our judgement, however, the Dogma did not feel as lively, light, or comfortable as the best new bikes. Pinarello has addressed that with the F8. Teasing more comfort and performance from the frame was not easy. In fact, it required an entirely new design, says…

Inside RockShox’s RS-1, which turns fork technology upside down Carbon Upper Legs On a traditional fork, the lower legs slide up and over narrower tubes, called stanchions. An inverted design reverses that—thinner bottom tubes slide into the wider upper legs, which reduces fore-aft flex. RS-1 engineers also fashioned the upper tubes and fork crown from carbon, creating a single ultrastiff structure. Solo Air Spring The Solo Air mechanism contains two air-filled chambers that work like springs. The larger one, called the positive spring, supports the weight of the rider and returns the fork to its neutral position after a bump; the negative spring helps ease the fork into its travel. The RS-1 comes in 80, 100, or 120mm of travel, and you can fine-tune the spring’s performance by placing plastic…

The 101st edition of the Tour de France kicks off on July 5 in Leeds, a city in Yorkshire, the United Kingdom’s biggest county—only the fourth time the race has visited England in its history. Over three stages, riders will speed through Yorkshire Dales National Park (shown), traverse the culturally diverse village of Hebden Bridge, and finish on the Mall, the red, treelined avenue that runs from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square in London, then head to French soil for the start of Stage 4. If you’re not ready to leave the British invasion behind, turn to page 32 for five stylish and creative ways to fly the Union Jack.—JENNIFER SHERRY…

1 / Look closely, because the Royal Union Flag on the Terry Breakaway jersey is as subtle as it gets—classy without being brassy. The sleeveless, loose-fit top has two deep rear pockets and a 10-inch zipper down the front. $65 2 / 2 An adjustable shoulder strap lets you wear the cotton canvas Barbour Bamford printed Tarras bag comfortably across your body for rides around town. A roomy main compartment and two front pockets will hold all of your farmers’ market finds—whether you’re in Birmingham, Vermont, or Birmingham, England. $170 3 / UK-based artist Andy Scullion’s Redbubble & Uncommon “Love Bike, Love Britain” iPhone case is a durable, snap-on design made specifically for Apple products. If you happen to get a memorable shot somewhere along the route, upload it to…

I CALL IT THE SWSS, or Single-Witness Suicide Swerve: A careless driver injures a cyclist, then claims that the rider careened into his or her car. With no witnesses, it’s difficult for the cyclist to prove what happened. Sometimes the rider is knocked unconscious and has no recollection of the collision, and the driver’s version of the story is the only one that ends up in the police report. Then there’s that minority of drivers who use their automobiles to bully and assault cyclists. Unless there are independent observers, calling the police on these motorized criminals likely won’t accomplish anything; officers usually will not file charges against a driver if it’s a case of the cyclist’s word against the motorist’s. But if you bring a video camera along for the…

Salt does more than make your soup taste great or add tang to your margarita. “It’s involved in nearly every chemical reaction that occurs in your body,” says Pamela Hinton, PhD, associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri. Without it, you wouldn’t survive. Sodium’s primary job is to maintain the balance of fluid inside and outside your cells, but it also plays a role in muscle and nerve function, especially during strenuous exercise. The catch is that your body can’t manufacture sodium on its own, so you have to get it from the stuff you eat and drink. And while it’s easy to get plenty of the mineral from food, it can be tricky to dial in that delicate balance between how much you eat…

I was never so happy to be bored. Usually, I consider one of the most tedious parts of my job to be filling out my whereabouts form— the communication that tells the cycling authorities and anti-doping officials exactly where I will be the next few weeks in case, as with all pro racers, they want to find me for out-of-competition drug testing. It’s more like being a bookkeeper than a professional cyclist. But after the Tour of Romandy, when I started logging the information, I got excited: It reminded me I was scheduled to go to the Tour of California. That, my friends, is big music to my ears! California is always one of the highlights in my racing calendar. There is beautiful countryside and landscape all around, with nice…

TWO-TIME CHAMPION WHO HASN’T WON A TOUR SINCE HE WAS STRIPPED OF HIS THIRD VICTORY FOR DOPING * A TEAM THAT COULDN’T DECIDE IF ITS TWO FORMER WINNERS CAN WORK TOGETHER * A PACK OF WOMEN FLYING THROUGH PARIS ON THE SAME DAY AS THE MEN * WATTAGE READOUTS SEEM READY TO SUPPLANT HEART AND EMOTION * COBBLES! * NOTHING IS CERTAIN * EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE * THIS IS WHY WE LOVE JULY. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES? Our ranking of the overall Tour de France contenders—using an (almost) entirely scientific formula by whit yost and joe lindsey Punditry is easy, especially when you’re not being scored after the fact. This year, rather than rely on opinion alone to determine which riders will excel at this year’s Tour de France, BICYCLING…

On the final day of the Tour de France, the fastest women in the world will go head to head on the same course as the men Last July, Olympic and world champion Marianne Vos, professional cyclist and documentary filmmaker Kathryn Bertine, and British rider Emma Pooley drafted a petition calling for a women’s race at the Tour de France. The impassioned request garnered nearly 100,000 signatures. And this year, for the first time since 1989, women will compete at the world’s largest annual sporting event. The Tour’s governing body announced the creation of La Course by Le Tour de France, a 90-kilometer circuit race that will be contested on July 27. The women will race 13 laps of the Champs-Elysées, one of cycling’s most iconic venues. In a rare…

In Europe, wearing a teamreplica jersey is common. But for some reason cycling elitists in the States have decided it isn’t cool. We say: Who cares? Get one of these to show your love of the sport. 1 Bontrager Trek Factory Racing Before each race, team manager Luca Guercilena calls on his riders to “go and take it!” Bontrager inscribes that rallying cry on the collar of this slimming pinstriped jersey, which also has cooling mesh side panels and reflective tabs. $110, bontrager.com 2 Castelli Garmin Pro Team Designed with input from sport scientist Robby Ketchell, the Pro Team features comfortable articulated sleeves, three pockets, and subtle argyle graphics. $100, shopslipstreamsports.com 3 Specialized-lululemon Pull on this silky, Italian-made top and unleash your inner Evie Stevens. The fast-drying jersey has a…

See the road or trail more clearly with prescription eyewear made for cycling EXPLORE YOUR OPTIONS Here’s good news if you wear glasses: Advances in lens design have led to an abundance of corrective-eyewear choices. Now, only the strongest prescriptions require lens inserts, which can limit frame options. Look for lightweight, fog-resistant, full-wrap models. Check to see if your optometrist carries sport-specific eyewear, or shop online—Rudy Project has a robust web store, and third-party vendors like SportRx offer more choices from Oakley, Smith, and other brands. FIND THE RIGHT FIT If you ride mostly on the road, select a frame that sits higher on your face so you look through the lens—not over it—while in the drops. A poor fit can cause you to crane your neck, compromising comfort. Mountain…