Cross love from the soggy northwest
Even when using a good four bolt stem and oversize handlebars, a punishing course can cause your handlebars to twist away from the sweet spot and throw you off your game. Usually careful and even tightening of the faceplate with a torque wrench is enough to keep everything in place but a little insurance never hurts. A couple drops of threadlocker between the bar and stem can be just what you need. It’s like Velcro for metal.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
World Cup racing takes a lot of talent, endless hours of training, and sacrifice like most of us will never understand. Being a world cup mechanic sometimes just takes being in the right place with the right people right before the big day. That was the case for me this weekend before the “Coup du Monde” in Nommay France. I signed on to help Molly for the day and Parbo as much as I could. I was in for a treat when Parbo pulled out this big daddy wheel bag:
It holds four spares and will make your mechanic’s day. At one point I had this on my back while carrying a wash bucket, spare bike, and helping a neutral support haul his pressure washer down a rain soaked hill. Magical. My quads hurt more today than after any on-bike event this year. Racers, give your mechanic a hug.
Highlight of the day: Pitting for Georgia Gould during the women’s race. She hadn’t expected any help and was probably a little nervous when she realized everyone else would be pitting every half lap. Well, we more or less gave her clean exchanges every half lap and she ended up on the podium!
It may not be obvious at first, but Bruce is talking about cyclocross racing.
Plus One Lap is hosting a weight tip contest!
Sometimes you have the best shoes, with the best fit, but they could use a little more traction. For instance, these Shimano shoes are great for MTN biking, but could use a little more tread when used in the cyclocross arena.
Try cutting up an old cross tire and use some left over tubular glue to bond it to the sole of your shoe. You’ll get improved off the bike traction, and have a less slippery cradle for those not-clipped-in race moments.
Selle Italia’s SLR saddle has been an important part of my racing arsenal for the past couple of years. I have one for each of my bikes, choosing the gel-flow model for both my mountain and road bikes and the standard model for my cross rigs. I like the added comfort of the gel flow for long distance riding but prefer the lighter weight version for anything under one hour. Being the lucky devil that I am, I have two complete cyclocross bikes this year and can primarily train on one while saving the other for race day. A couple of weeks ago while on a longer training ride I found myself craving a little more luxury for my nethers and wondered if I could have my cake and eat it too. Now, I’m aware that Selle Italia makes an über-lightweight version of their SLR with carbon rails and a cutout but I already had this saddle and didn’t have the $250 clanking around in my pockets for the fancy model. The logical answer was to cut the middle out of mine.
With the saddle on the bench I was pleased to find an outline on the underside that mimicked just what I had in mind. I’m assuming that Selle Italia uses the same mold for all of its SLR range. So, out came the dremel and razor knife and after a few careful minutes I arrived at my goal. Without touching the leather, I rode the saddle as is for a few days fearing that the shell would be weakened or that it wouldn’t be comfortable. This wasn’t the case so…snip, snip, a little glue, and voila! Pure loin nirvana!
Note: For all you salivating gram counters, the whole operation only dropped 10g from the saddle bringing it down to the 135g weight that Selle Italia so proudly advertises.
As soon as you stretch your freshly glued tubular onto the rim and after you check that it’s centered properly, let the air out and roll it on a broom handle. This will ensure a solid connection between tire and rim by pushing out any bubbles in the glue.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR
Check it out. Velog is a really simple social network and training log for cyclists. It’s a like having a mini blog just for logging your rides. As cyclocross season approaches you can use it to keep track of your training rides, monitor your progress, and compare your activity with that of your friends.
Race.cx now has a group on velog which you can join. It’s neat because you can see who the other race.cx readers are, where they are from, and what they are riding. Also, if you join the group, your rides will show up right here on the race.cx sidebar. You can see it to the right, just underneath the “asides” section. If you have your own blog or website, you can add your own personal velog to it just like I’m doing with the race.cx group here.
Also, to stimulate your competitive side, velog let’s you graph your ride data against friends and other riders. The picture to the left shows my hours over the last week compared with some of my friends.
I leave town for a few days and return to find Steve dropping a four gram mind bomb on me. Forget spending money on those new boutique parts… spend it on a new drill and Dremel.
Before Note this is not actually the lever that was drilled out.
After
Ladies and gentlemen, mountain bike racing is upon us.
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