Steve Hed refers to Andy Tetmeyer (http://wheelguru.blogspot.com/ ) (a Paris-Brest-Paris finisher) as Hed's corporate "repository of knowledge." His other titles are "wheelbuilder to the stars" and "lackey." Recently, Tetmeyer and I carried on an e-mail discussion about Hed's design process, the general use of carbon fiber, and some other stuff. While Tony Martin's and Judith Arndt's Worlds Time Trial winning clinchers will make a cameo appearance, the main focus is definitely techs-mechs. Hmm. I'm getting hungry.

(Thanks to Andy Tetmeyer for being super-helpful, and for all of the photos).

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Maybe you've seen Gav and Fred Marx's photos of many of the nifty townie and commuter bikes on display at Interbike.  My first response was to hate them all.  For me, commuter bikes should be re-purposed frames (or rescued from dumpsters).  So, I was slow to warm to the idea of spending real money on a commuter bike.

I came around, but still, I'm vain and want to show off the bikes I've probably spent most of my time on the last several years.

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Here are a few lousy photos of stuff that I thought was cool-ish in Vegas:  (and some gossip:  why no Pedro's at Interbike?)  For more words and alleged thoughts about the show, head over to The Racing Post after the first

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As a seasoned Interbike media veteran (cough, yeah right, cough), I've learned a few tricks of the trade.  Sadly none of them involve taking good photos, but Chris See's got that mastered, so no worries.  My skill-set involves figuring out how to sneak in early.  You get to see lots of neat things early:  Stan of Stan's No Tubes assembling a display rack with baling wire and pliers,  lots of bored Vegas security types not laughing when you mention certain luxe Italian objects rolling back to your hotel room with you.  (I tried Gav, really, I tried).  The really nifty electrical outlet boxes descending (and ascending)  from the ceiling to the floor for the maintenance crews.  (Who needs Cirque de Soleil tickets when you get a show like that?)

But a little more attention just might get you a scoop that lets you into the whole secret of this year's Interbike.

(Once again, I think I've screwed up that whole jump thing).  

Anyway, for some peculiar (and totally fictional) reason, my attention latched onto a garbage bag by the bathroom next to the concession stands.  The bathroom that's normally locked and usually only used by special types with, like, y'know the secret special upstairs bathroom key.  In the garbage can was a carefully folded AND crumpled piece of paper.  It appeared to have tear-stains, or they could have been sweat stains, or, considering the location, worse.  I figured a garbage can wasn't a gutter, so I could read it with my moral standards still elevated.  

The note read:

Dear Racer-type:

Wow, it sure has been a nice run, hasn't it?  Remember how we used to sashay down the aisles--you with your coif so discriminately disheveled, me trying not to care about your penchant for billing me for room service champagne from suites that weren't mine?  And I didn't care--as long as the orders for high-dollar frames and kit and stuff got booked.

And then your American friends hooked up with that Wisconsin gal--why doesn't she come here anymore? and it seemed as though we'd have the perfect little racing bike neighborhood.  I even bought an apartment in SoCal for them to crash at, even though, as much as all of them claim to hate Vegas, I had to unload that thing in a hurry when it became clear that no one was ever going to use it.

And then,  how can I write this Racer-type?  You guys turned out to be worse with needles than the bathroom at a Babyshambles gig, and just about as inept at keeping it quiet.  If you want to ruin your life with that crap, that's ok, go ahead.  My therapist from UPMC tells me that I should just forget you.  And so, I have.

I've met this really cool dude with shaved legs and really tight pants who actually eats on occasion, and can actually do front-wheel wheelies.  But if he offers me another Pabst and uses the phrase Colorway one more time . . .

Howdy y'all:

So.  I got this here Sports and Ltierature class a'comin' up what I'm s'posed to be teachin' and all (apologies, I'm in the middle of Semi-Tough . .. ), and I want to screen a documentary.  A documentary.  One.  That best introduces cycling to kids who either have no experience of racing, OR know the name of that no good skinny drop-out cross-country kid from Plano East.

English language or subtitles pleases.  (And muchas bitter scones in advance.

As I sit here trying not to spit watermelon seeds into my laptop after a lovely 3.5 hour ride in another gloriously temperate West Texas August day, I begin to wonder what do those of y'all who ride regularly take with you to eat?

(I'm jump clueless and my legs are fried, so no jumping in this post today).

See, after watching the lovely little documentary vive le tour and reading and re-reading Tim Krabbe's The RIder, I've started to get a little old-school about my ride nutrition.  Well, ok, I haven't performed any "chausse cabinets" or whatever, but thanks to Krabbe I have started taking figs--not fig newtons, but figs--and almond butter and jelly sandwiches with me on rides.

That towards the end of the ride stop at the Convenience store?  Fritos and Beef Jerky has become way more appealing than the moon pies and Backroad's Bakery fried pies.  (Although a ridiculous corporate legal action might prevent the perfect last hour drink.

I've hit that part of the riding year where another clif bar or gel just might push me over  . . . 

So . . . anyone else sick of sports nutrition products?  (And somehow, I think I did a version of this same post a couple of years ago . . .)

And there's this one convenience store in Tuscola that has Apple soda in the soda dispenser . . .

The phone rang this morning.  The voice splurted out invectives in some sort of strange melange of accents that made it hard to place, much less understand.  I've become used to this recently.  

"Hey sideburns.  What's up?"

translation follows:

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At every level of sports--from the local school district getting exposed trying to quietly shoo out a coach who'd had a couple of "inappropriate relationships" with students, to the farce of Jim Tressel at Ohio State, to FIFA--we've had a strikingly uniform set of illustrations of the lesson that the link between moral behavior and sports--especially sports administration--is not automatic.

so, what's this got to do with Fort Worth, TX?

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I was bothered after the dust-up discussion of the relative performances of the main players in the 2008 Alp D'Huez stage to re-watch it.  But this time I took notes.

follow if you want

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After waffling for months--Ridley Damocles? Trek Madone?  Specialized Tarmac? Canyon perhaps?--I decided that at less than $500 (the price has increased, but msrp is still less than $600US), the Specialized Allez E5 comp (which I'd also ridden--but in a size larger than what really fit me) would have to really suck to justify spending nearly 3 times as much for any of the other frames.

The E5 is a hydro-formed aluminum frame.  It's based on current Tarmac geometry and features a tapered head-tube and the 1.5" lower bearing. (In my frequent test rides since August, I've decided that the tapered head-tube offers a significant improvement in front-end stiffness and handling).  

Specialized doesn't provide weights and I haven't weighed the frame.  Honestly, I don't really care that much.  It seems the same weight or lighter than the 2006 Isaac Pascal I've ridden (listed at 1370 grams for the frame:  a war-pig).  It retails for somewhere around $500 for frame, fork, cane creek headset, and a 27.2 seatpost.

The frame also takes a braze-on front derailleur, so I simply swapped my current parts over.  Nothing remarkable to report about building the frame up.

I've spent a few hundred miles riding my wife's 1985 Klein Quantum (s/n less than 100).  If any aluminum frame should be a boneshaker it should be that one.  I always liked it--even on chipseal.  It sure ain't plush, but it's not unrideable.  I've ridden steel, I've ridden carbon.  I think that geometry, bike fit, and tire pressure are more important components of ride "feel" to me than frame material.

The isaac features a 54cm top tube, a 43 degree fork rake and a 73 degree head tube angle (and a 16 cm head tube), and a 73.8 degree seat tube angle.  Don't know the bottom bracket heights off-hand.  The Allez E5 shares the 73 degree head tube angle (with a 14.5 cm length), but differs from there:  45 degree fork rake, 54.8cm tob tube, and a 73.5 seat angle.  So, we're talking minimal geometry differences.  I measured the Isaac's stack and reach to set up the front-end of the Allez (and was able to use the same 120 stem; btw, I use a dry-wall square to measure the stack-and-reach).  I set the saddle position on my rollers using the old-school "heel-on-the-pedal method," then spun a bit to see if anything hurt.  It didn't so I put it away to do a longer test ride on Saturday.

Park multi-tool stowed in a jersey pocket, I rolled out the door with my son Saturday a.m. fully expecting to use the Park frequently.  Ten pedal strokes in, in fact, I knew that the saddle was too low, not really level, and, holy counter-intuitive, needed to move slightly back-ward (which puts my saddle-rails squarely in the center of my 0-set-back Bontrager seat-post.  Those adjustments made, off we rode.

Two hours or so later we rolled into the bike shop.  The guys asked me how i liked the frame.  "Love it," I said.

Loved it enough, in fact to go out and do another hour to try to figure out what was going on.  Perhaps you wouldn't think that little differences add up--but they do.  After nearly four hours on Sunday on a variety of road surfaces ranging from super-smooth asphalt to washboard gravel, I won't say that the aluminum is as smooth as a carbon frame, but I'll repeat:  it's not torture, and I think the frame-fit is more important than the material.

So, to wrap-up:  while I'm sure that a carbon Tarmac would be a smoother ride than the Allez (and while some folks will want to include the Cannondale CAAD frames in this discussion), for my purposes--which are getting an affordable and raceable frame that fits, the Allez E5 works well, at least based on 7 hours.  If anything changes, I'll let you know.

Many here will be familiar with the horrific Derny-racing crash (which killed the Derny-driver instantaneously) that seriously injured Eddy Merckx towards the end of the 1969 racing season.  Aside from making all of Mr. Merckx's results thenceforward amazing (because he has often repeated just how much pain riding his bike caused him almost constantly).  I mean, think about it:  in addition to being the winningest cyclist ever, Merckx is the exemplar of HTFU.

But . . . as I was thinking of something completely different to slam out a column about for The Racing Post, I wondered:  what might Merckx's post-1969 career have been like had he access to modern diagnostic and rehabilitation techniques, not to mention current fit techniques?

Does anyone know what sort of treatment and therapy he received?

and toss it off a cliff, pour whiskey on it and dance on its grave, or throw it in a dumpster off an Auto-route exit somewhere near Nantes . . .

Whilst reading Pickering's mostly lucid commentary on the Team Leopard launch, I came up short at his use of the phrase "pedals turned in anger."  I'm not sure why I dislike that phrase--perhaps because it relies on the hackneyed old "sports as combat" linkage.  Anyway, every time I see it or hear it, I imagine Christophe Moreau flailing away at Carlos Sastre a few years ago, or Barredo going all roue-ish.  

To be fair, cycling announcers have a rough gig:  identifying riders is damned hard and the announcers rarely get replays or spotters, etc, etc.

So, I understand why announcers fall into repetitive phrases, BUT it still bothers me to the point where I turn the sound off so I'm not distracted.

What cliches would you pack the suitcase with?

Uh . . . no . . . not Polenta, Ms. Litella, nor Nutella, wonderful Italian products though they both are.

Instead, let's chew over, shall we, a topic that is probably closer to M.Cipollini's brain than his hair-gel, and that discussion will require some po-Lemi-ca.

I.e. And the Italians did all that so Pozzato could stand looking at the podium with the photographers?  I hope he at least got a flower-girl's digits.

A certain Jens! is quoted in a recent CN story as remaining mum about which team he had signed his contract with. I was able--completely inadvertently--to ferret out a more nuanced declaration of his team for next year.  Or, did I?

See, the SRM booth at Interbike was across an aisle from the Hed booth.  I'd been ranting about my plot to return all road riders to tubulars--and forcing Steve Hed to agree to make the Ardennes rim in a tubular version as part of this plot.  (deluded much, R Mc?), when I noticed that the line leading up to Mr. ! had diminished.  At first I wasn't going to ask him to sign anything.

Ever the keen journalist, I asked Voigt a question ("What's been the biggest change in pro cycling during your career?"  Great answer, but that's not the scoop.  Somewhere in the ensuing mini-conversation, I mentioned how cool his Madeleine performance was--and since I watched online, I could hear the jaws of announcers in 4 languages hit their desks.  He seemed impressed.  His response?  "We're hoping to do the same thing next year."

Now, it could be that there was en enormous photo of Andy Schleck behind him in the SRM booth that made me think he meant the "we" was Team Lux . . . but subsequently . . . Contador could have been part of that "we" too.

what thinks ye?