Olympic MTB course tougher than predicted
TIme will tell, and the riders faces will show it.
I missed the road race, and I watched the time trail – I missed all the track events. And this is shaping up to be something not to miss.
How epic will this be?
I have come along way in a short time riding. Thats the feeling I get anyway – and I suppose that is peppered by the fact there is a whole world of information I need to know from here too. I find that is comforting – to know there is more to learn – because it means the journey has just started.
When I first started riding, my goal was to focus on speed and keep my adverage speed high. This was the only measure I had to imporve myself. This meant that I started with a low cadence, and pushed myself on every single ride I did, until my adverage speed increased. Now I look back and find that its not the optimum way to ride.
Now I subscribe to a few RSS feeds that give pointers on improving how to ride. One I came across recently was at bike radar (a grand place to find cycling information). The article made mention of the fact that riding hard did improve speed, but riding smarter made the speed improvement a bit better.
The article (Get Faster by Riding Slowly) states that to make speed improvements one does not just ride faster. The big thing is to monitor the heart rate and improve slowly. For me, I keep the cadence high, and keep my heart rate between 70% and 80% of max. Two pluses is that I find I can ride further, and that is the optimum place to burn off body fat.
So I have tried to add this into my rides. So far so good.
Another thing I found out early on was to increase cadence. This was instructed on my first group ride (it seems like a while ago I rode with someone else) – I was told that I wasn’t turning my pedals fast enough, and I should increase, and given the example of Lance Armstrong and how he rode.
I started turning faster, but I didn’t understand what was going on. Some research, and I found that it has been found that a higher cadence helps lactic acid from settling in your muscles, and is a good way to go uphill.
Of course I am unfit – or, getting fitter – and so increasing cadence was nessecary but difficult. Then I found this article: Cycling Cadence and Pedalling Economy. Basically this shows that I can raise my cadence but I still have to find where I can best ride.
I think this proves I still have more to learn. And possibly more to write about. Because this article struggles to mean anything.
So I was riding into town today to meet a friend for lunch. But, because I didn’t want to arrive in my cycling gear walking thought the new Geelong mall – so I took my wife’s mountain bike. The skies threatened rain, the course was long and I learned two things very quickly:
But as I was riding, my mind pushing my legs to turn on the slight hills, I started to think if it was a good idea to ride this way into a meeting. A thought occurred to me: “If you don’t ride Epic, then your just commuting”. Man that was cool – and I was preparing myself to say that to Marcus when I met him for lunch.
It was encouraging to think. It was inspirational when I left the rail trail to ride at 13km/h along the road. And it has become the motto of this little site, which is better than the WordPress ripoff of “Another cycling blog…”
I noticed while riding the mountain bike, that there were tufts of grass growing from the road – I never noticed that before – but at low speeds, and riding close to the grass edge they became a great slalom obstacle.
I think I can say that was I was only commuting into to Geelong. Yep, I was not riding Epic – just turning the pedals to get somewhere. But I’m okay with that, I need to get more ride-ready anyway.
Just in case you’d like to see the quote in php, I have coded it up for you:
if( !$Epic ) { echo “Your only commuting!”; } else { echo “This is Epic Riding!”; };
Team CSC Saxo Bank – Preview in Heinsight.
Team CSC Saxo Bank will dominate the 2008 tour. It is as if ‘Le Tour’ is the only thing on their mind. Tactically they will be awesome, every move pre-planned and excecuted to perfection. From the three potential winners, to the amount of work they will do, everything will be CSC Saxo Bank in 2008.
[I think I'll stop writing ahead in heinsight, its confusing me - ed.]
Team CSC had three favourites going into the tour – all media said that. Realistically I got the feeling that by the second week, they we’re already eyeing Carlos and Frank to take the yellow. The third potential, Andy Schlek, did so much work annhilating the challengers up the Col de la Bonette-Restefond that he showed he will be a future contender. A young guy with the legs to do a punishing move like that – and still have enough up L’Alpe-D’Huez to attack to slow everyone down – A champion right there.
Frank and Carlos were – I would say, with the team, the real deal. But I think realistically Carlos was the main hope, spending much time alone with Bajarne Riis fine tuning everything. BUt it did all come down to the final night meeting prior to stage 17.
Sastre did sit behind a lot, doing less work than Evans. He sat up behind everyone on the climb to Hautacam, didn’t attack or get on the front. He sat behind the locomotives of Jens and Fabian. He bided his time until L’Alpe-D’Huez and put in the final defining move.
And it was a monster.
By far the most dominate team in the race – with 15mins to the second team and over 1hour to the third place – CSC basically burried any hopes of any other rider taking the Maillot jaune in the race.
I cannot state how much I am impressed with how this team performed. It showed that the best rider won, that the best team won – and that everyone else, no matter how well prepared the individual was, were going up against a juggernaught. One person against a whole team, well, the odds aren’t great (no matter what the odds are…)
Le Tour
So we are knee deep in Le Tour, and what a race it has been. Who would have thought that removing the time bonus’ would have been so exciting – every man for himself (except for the CSC-Saxo Bank riders).
The road to L’Alpe d’Huez was probably the most decisive of the race, and opened the door for a possible Sastre win – I think it would be safe to say that no-one would deserve it more. A great career – plus I did kinda watch ‘Overcoming: Team CSC’ before Le Tour, its the first movie in a long time to actually stop my working, and make me watch the video.
Then there is Cadel. Is he destined to remain second in all the tours he races from now on? He need a rather special perfomance on Saturday to push him into the lead. I am unsure with Saste in yellow, and running behind him that he can pull ahead – but, with Sastre’s time trialing in the past there is definatly an open door for Cadel to take the yellow.
So, 12 months since last year, and we’re almost in the same place. Cadel has to pull out the time trail of his life, and so does Sastre. We shall see after Saturday who gets the honours in Paris, and I would be happy for either of these two to win. Cadel because he’s an Aussie and Sastre because of all the work his team has put in.
CSC Saxo Bank have been a juggernaught through this Tour, but Sastre can’t depend on his team for the win. And either can Cadel – but he hasn’t for his whole tour…
