Jeffrey.bramhall

The Point of Transformation: James Merry

Icelandic artist James Merry transforms sportswear logos with embroidery. It’s a followup to a book project which featured illustrations of human bodies fused with botanical elements. He says he thought of the idea while stuck in New York.

“I was really missing Iceland and being in the countryside, so I guess it was some kind of silent protest of mine—to take something that was super urban and machine-made and barren (my old Nike sweater), and fertilize it, forcing it to flower by embroidering a glacier flower and moss on it. I guess these embroideries are similar to the drawings in Anatomies, in that they both focus on a very particular point of transformation—the moment when one thing turns into something else. “

You can see more of Merry’s work and read an interview with him in i-D Magazine.

Photo: Manual For Speed

[Version en Español]

As the rest of the world comes down from it's Tour de France high, I sit here staring at my computer screen, shaking my head. Not so much in disbelief, but simple sadness. You see, as a result of an interview I did with Juan Pablo Villegas earlier this year, a series of events have come to pass that eventually led him to retire from the sport. A sport that has been his entire life for the last eleven years.

In this interview, Juan Pablo explains his decision, how it's affected his life, and in so doing reveals how little has changed in the sport in the last ten years in terms of intimidation, and the treatment of riders who speak openly about the forbidden topic by directors, fellow riders, the press and even cycling federations. As I've said before, omertà is alive and well, and not merely as an allusive term. And if you think Colombia is alone in this matter...well...I simply ask that you think again.

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Back in February, I published an interview I did with you here on the blog. Among other things, you spoke very clearly and openly about a subject that cyclists, who are currently riding, especially in Colombia, never address. Doping. What was the reaction to the interview?
As I did the interview, I knew it was the first time that the topic had being addressed openly, in terms of Colombian sport, and cycling specifically. My intention was not to speak badly of anyone personally. But I wanted to talk about a something that happens in the shadows, something that has always been kept quiet. So I told the truth, telling you about things I saw and lived through for eleven years as a cyclist.

As a result of that that interview, so much has happened. Some people who felt that I was referring to them specifically began to talk, and to actively try to end my career. Then I started to get threats through social media, and a group of people tried to cut my career short. They thought that I had spoken out because I was racing in the United States, which made them angry. But that was not the case. I would have, and had wanted to talk about this topic anyway for some time.

So the reaction to the interview was severe. Were you contacted by the cycling media in Colombia to discuss the interview or the topics you addressed [in the interview Juan Pablo said that a “very, very high number” of riders in the peloton at major Colombian races had doped in recent years, and that as a clean rider he’d never get results in those races.]
Sadly, no. Some of them know what’s going on, but they choose to keep quiet. They don’t dare touch the topic, because they are afraid.

What about the Colombian Cycling Federation? Did they have any interest or want to talk to you?
Yes, but because they seemed to have taken the interview the wrong way, or they simply didn’t know how to interpret it. What they said was that we [Juan Pablo and this blog] were trying to smear Colombian cycling. But I’ll reiterate, that what I talked about was simply what I saw during my entire cycling career, and that's all.

Today, I see some things are getting better. But there’s so much to be done, especially when you realize that this is a sport that so often comes to represent Colombia as a country in the eyes of the world. Because of this, special attention should be given to it, to ensure that those who compete do so in a correct and clean manner.

Did the Federation ask that you retract your statements?
Yes. They asked me to, but I won’t do it. They told me that I couldn’t say these type of things, because it wasn’t good for Colombian cycling.

Were you asked personally by someone from the Federation to do this?
Yes, but I have no interest in saying the name of this person. Because that’s not my intent. Everyone can do whatever they want, but I just want to tell people what I saw. If someone misinterprets my words, that’s not my fault. And in the end, all the attention the interview generated actually led some people to offer up facts about the subject that I didn’t even address.

[As a sidenote, and a point of contrast, it's worth noting that Colombia's cycling federation just last week said it that it was fully behind and happy to support Maria Luisa Calle, the 46 year old track cyclist, as she tested positive for human growth hormone at the Panamerican Games in Toronto. It's her second time testing positive, the first being at the games in Athens. In that case, she was able to show that her body naturally produced heptaminol.]

Let me get back to the threats that you received How did they come your way? Social media alone? What were they?
They were threats meant to intimidate, from people who are clearly not happy when this topic is brought up. They are used to cheating, and no one talking about it. So they would say to me, “Why did you open your mouth? You’re going to pay for what you said.”

The threats came through social media, and I didn’t pay much attention to them, because they come from people with no ethics, people who talk for the sake of talking. But it turned into an uncomfortable situation. My wife began to see these threats, and they made her uncomfortable.

The threats came through Facebook, from other cyclists?
Most came through Facebook. I also got some on my phone as texts.

Did they come from fake Facebook accounts or anonymous phone numbers?
Yes, anonymous numbers, and fake Facebook accounts that were created solely for the purpose of sending those threats. I paid them no mind, but at some point you start to worry and wonder if there could really be something behind them.

Specifically what did the threats say?  Did they threaten to harm you? Your family? Would it be in the context of a race, or your everyday life?
A lot of it was implied. For example, it would say, “From now on, you’ll always have to watch your back”, so that could mean anything. But they all consistently talked about my well being, while staying fairly general.

Another thing happened. One specific rider, one with a long career and lots of experience, along with some team directors went to my team (Manzana Postobon) personally about this. They told them that they should have never signed me to a contract, because I would never be allowed to win anything. In fact, that if necessary, they would throw me off of my bike, or push me off to keep me from winning, because so many team directors had been offended by what I said. So they would make my life impossible, to the point of throwing me off of my bike in a race.

[Update: I checked with the team, and they confirmed that threats that were made, as well as the request for retraction that was made]

That’s interesting, because in doing so; those people give themselves away as having skeletons in their closet. Don’t you think? I mean, they clearly have something to hide, because otherwise these statements wouldn’t matter all that much to them.
Exactly. And those who have the most to fear, are the primary ones who, under their own name, started all of this. They tried to block my career, and make me worthless to the team that signed me. So through their actions, they have given themselves away.

This all sound eerily similar to the kind of intimidation that Filippo Simeoni went through in 2004 at the Tour, or perhaps more like the way that Christophe Bassons was treated for addressing this very topic. It’s depressing to think that ten years later, if a rider who is still racing addresses doping, he’ll still be treated the same way.
Yes. And to me, unless those in power within Colombian cycling take a very firm stance on this subject, nothing will change. It will become more engrained.

And because of all this, you have chosen to retire from cycling?
Yes. As of July first.

What was that process like, making that decision.
It was a tough one. Breaking away from my dream, from something I had worked so hard toward for so many years, eleven of them. It was hard, but when you see how things are handled in cycling, you reach a point where the decision you have to make is obvious. You realize that people who are trying to do things correctly are seen as the enemy. You see that some within the press, many team directors and those in the federation don’t even want you to bring up this topic. Because here, the riders are supposed to stay quiet, and be submissive. That’s how things have always been.

All of this filled me with sadness, to the point where I realized it was a war I couldn’t fight, because I was up against people with power, people who are clearly willing to do anything to defend the status quo. Because change, to them, wouldn’t be good. Both for economic reasons, but also because they want to maintain the power they have. I didn’t feel motivated with all of this in mind, on top of the fact that I knew I’d be up against riders who cheat, and play dirty.

Photo: Alps & Andes

You sound very calm, but this must be incredibly hard for you. I mean, not just in terms of cycling, but also outside of it. Because what you describe is a reflection of some of the problems that Colombia, and world at large, is facing today.
Yes, and these are things I had seen years ago. And I then started to see how difficult it was to change it. Today, some teams want to have internal controls, they want to change things, and they want to talk openly. But a large majority of directors, journalists don’t even want to touch the topic of doping with a ten-foot pole. So they will go against anyone who challenges the way things are.

You raced twice this year with Manzana Postobon in Colombia, after the interview. How did those races go? Did you have any problems?
Things were generally good, because the week prior to the first race, El Tiempo [Colobmia’s biggest newspaper] ran a column about the threats I had received, and saying how they would be reporting on anything that possibly happened to me in or outside of races. So no one dared to say anything, but the atmosphere still felt a bit tense at the Vuelta al Caribe and the Vuelta a Cundinamarca.

Manzana Postobon, as a team, gave me full support, because they are in agreeance with everything I said in the interview. They backed me completely. But it was hard for me, because I still know how so many teams are run, and how they behave. Which, by the way, only made me appreciate the support I received from Manzana Postobon that much more.

Column in the newspaper El Tiempo, regarding the threats

Cycling has been your life for many years. How sad is it to leave it, especially under these circumstances?
It’s sad, but I’m also proud, because I never compromised my principles. With that, I want to tell other cyclists, and Colombian cycling at large that they can’t force you into anything. To the contrary, you are the one that is control of your own life. So I leave cycling behind with my head held high. I hope this is something that helps others cyclists in Colombia, who I know for a fact that unhappy with how things are run, but who are afraid of speaking out.

In cycling, some riders will often say that they had to dope because it was the only way to compete, that everyone was doing it, so they had to. What do you say to someone with that type of mentality?
That you can simply say, “no”. You have a choice. It’s a long and tough path to take. I know, because I lived it. Even as people openly told me that if I took this or that thing, I could win the Vuelta a Colombia.

So what is your plan now after cycling?
Cycling has taught me and given me tools to work with. Discipline, a work ethic, and a will to do things correctly. Before I was a cyclist, I grew up among coffee plantations. Those are my roots. So I want to keep working in my family trade. I want to work with coffee, to export it. That goal fills my heart with happiness and will to work. That’s my reason for getting up in the morning, and to fight through another day.

Photo: 4-72 Colombia

Our friend Dallas Penn is on crutches, but as you can see he was determined to make it to the sneaker convention.

In May of 2012, Bertine had just one job: to qualify for the London Olympics. (Daniella Moonen)

With the Tour de France finishing up this weekend, Only A Game was reminded of the story of a cyclist who received an unexpected push during a race. This piece originally aired on June 6, 2015. It’s part of our ongoing series titled, “In Their Own Words.”

Sometimes athletic drive comes not from a teammate or adoring fans, but from an opponent. That’s what happened to Kathryn Bertine, a writer, filmmaker and professional cyclist.

“I should say that that order jumbles itself from time to time,” Bertine told Only A Game’s Karen Given. “Daily, actually.”

In May of 2012, Bertine had just one job: to qualify for the London Olympics. That journey took her around the world to vie for Olympic qualifying points. Bertine was one of 82 women to compete in the Vuelta El Salvador, a grueling seven-day stage race. Only the top eight would get closer to their Olympic dreams.

We’ll let Kathryn pick up the story from there…in her own words:

I had been in that realm of “OK,  I made it to the professional level, maybe this is good enough.” Sometimes when you make it to that level that you’re trying to get to for so long, for a moment you pause and you say, “OK, breathe, I’m here.” What really needs to happen in order to thrive is to say say, “OK, now that I am here, how can I make myself as an athlete better, faster, stronger?” Embracing that “maybe,” like “Well, what happens if I try to push the envelope, what happens if I go beyond my comfort zone physically?” That was my “maybe.” “Maybe if you do this, you’ll get Olympic points and if you don’t then you’ll never know.

Bertine wrote a book about her quest to qualify for the London Olympics.

It really was this personal quest that I was on to get as close as I could to the Olympic Games. So it was imperative that I just kept trying and trying to get into the breakaway, which is what we call in cycling the lead group. For so many years I had been watching and learning and waiting to see what other cyclists were doing and maybe I’d try to react to their moves. And it dawned on me like, I can’t do that anymore. Now I have to be the one that’s making the moves and taking the chances. Am I going to, as we say, blow up and absolutely crack and have a terrible race, or am I going to fly?

I compare the peloton to being the lion and the breakaway to being the lamb. And the way that a peloton stalks its prey is deliberate and slow moving until the very last minute, until the pounce. It’s vicious, and that’s the beauty of it.

Maybe the lamb is the one with the guts. We always look at the lion as the king of the jungle, but sometimes the lambs do get away, as long as they are faster than other lambs, I suppose. I was at events in El Salvador at that time and later down into Venezuela. Very difficult race, seven-day stage race. The roads were not great, and the heat, we are talking 100-degree temperatures every day for upward of 60 to 100 miles, so really tough conditions and it was physically grueling. That was one of the hardest in my career.

I was in a sole break for a little while by myself. What happens as you can imagine is when you’ve got one person alone in the wind that’s just exhausting after awhile. So I started to fade and fade and fade. And I was coming back into the grasp of the peloton. And I had tried so many counterattacks and tried doing that again and again and was just at the end of my rope physically.

It is so physically and mentally hard to watch the peloton ride away from the efforts that you just put in. You have done your best, you have tried your hardest and you are just completely physiologically out of energy. It’s all been sapped from you, so you are just kind of on this trajectory backward, and everybody else is moving forward. And you just kind of want to scream out, “No, wait for me!”

And as I am kind of sailing back through the peloton, almost about to be spit out the back — and that would be the end of my day — I felt this hand on my back and in cycling that is regarded as a push. I couldn’t imaging who this could be. Who would be helping me in this manner? Who is it that’s trying to acknowledge that I have put down some good attacks and they don’t want to see me fail?

And the hand belonged to a rider named Evelyn García, who is on the El Salvador national team. She probably weighs about 50 pounds less than me. She’s this tiny, tiny rider. Sometimes a second or two is all you need in cycling. And it saved me. I think physically I was able to stay in the peloton but also emotionally, too. Kind of someone saying, “Hey, I recognize what you’ve done and I’ve got your back.”

Evelyn Garcia of El Salvador gave Bertine a timely push. (Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images)

This push was a validation that I belonged in this level of cycling. That my goals were valid. And a validation that I had paid my dues to the sport also. I mean I had been in the sport for five years at that point, so to have somebody from a different culture, a different country, a different language give me that push felt like this validation of, “OK, we understand.”

I did not qualify for the London Olympics, but that moment actually felt like my own personal London. A lot of athletes struggle with doubt at some point in their career. We doubt whether we’re on the right path, whether we should have given up years ago, whether it still means anything to us. We all go through these growing pains in sport. And when someone else reaches out and does something, an act of kindness, it’s pretty powerful.

For more on Bertine, check out her piece on ESPN.com, “So You Wanna Be An Olympian?“

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Last week for Technique Tuesday, Adam Myerson explained some of the bad scenarios that arise from over-training, and showed approaches riders can take once they’ve recovered from sickness. For this week, he looks at the other end of the spectrum: the high-intensity of sprinting and the often overlooked aspect that goes into training for sprints. Far more than just the max effort to get a holeshot, sprints are big component of cyclocross races, something that is often employed out of most tight corners, and training for those efforts should not be forgotten about.

You can find other training ideas and articles at cycle-smart.com, as well as information on internationally-recognized coaching and clinic programs for all skill levels.

by Adam Myerson

Sprint training is an aspect that can and should be part of your training year-round, and is an aspect that many riders neglect, or often do incorrectly if they do include them. Making a well-designed sprint workout part of your weekly routine is crucial for any cyclist who not only wants to improve not just their final sprint, but also their ability to make speed changes in almost any kind of mass-start bike race.

The Biomechanics of Sprinting

A sprint, like most efforts, consists of two aspects: cardiovascular and muscular. It’s important to consider each aspect separately, and then see how to combine them for maximum effectiveness. From the cardiovascular standpoint, any interval that begins with a maximal effort will require energy quickly. Your body gets that by using adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as a fuel source. To accomplish this, a phosphate bond is broken, releasing immediate energy. This ATP source is replenished by creatine phosphate (CP) stored in the muscle. With this process, no lactic acid is produced, and is said to be anaerobic and alactic. While this system provides energy quickly, the source is limited. Your body can only do this for 8-15 seconds before the creatine phosphate is depleted, and the effort becomes anaerobic and lactic. Once the CP stores are gone for that effort, your body turns to glucose stored in the muscle for energy (a process called glycolysis), and that’s when the lactate and other metabolites begin to accumulate. When the effort is over, your body can replenish its CP stores very quickly on its own, within minutes. As a result, you can see how important it is to make sure that a proper sprint effort stays in the 8-15 second range. Any longer than that and you’re training a different energy system.

From a purely muscular standpoint, sprint workouts are the place to build speed of movement, strength, and the power that results when you combine these two aspects. Many cyclists have made weight training part of their preparation regimen; sprints are where you can do your weight lifting on the bike, and in a sport specific way. Just as you would follow a lifting program that consisted of adaptive, strength, and power periods, so too can you take that approach with on the bike sprint training. A sprint workout not only helps you with your field sprinting skills, but can also aid your overall race fitness and ability to punch it out of corners, up hills, and when making attacks. [Over the course of a five lap, 25 corner cyclocross race, you might make 125 small sprints.] It’s not just about the sprint to the finish. Everyone needs to be a sprinter, just to get to the end of the race.

To begin with, your sprint workout should come as the first day in a string of two or three consecutive training days, and always after a recovery day. Because it’s your maximal intensity day, it should happen when you’re most rested, and before you attempt any workouts of a lower intensity. You need to be fresh enough to put 100% into each sprint, just as if you were doing a day of squats in the gym. Practically, that means your sprint days will fall on Tuesday and either Friday or Saturday, if you choose to do them twice per week. Tuesday will be your most important day, with the Friday and Saturday sprint day being equally important if there’s no race, or secondarily, as a way to open up the day before an event.

There are a number of different ways you can implement a sprint workout. What you do will depend on what phase you’re in, what aspect of your form you’re trying to focus on, and what discipline you’re training for. I’ll detail each type of sprint I employ, and when you would take that approach:

1. Speed:

Early in the season, when you’re in your first 4-12 weeks of training, you want to emphasize technique. You’re training for neuromuscular adaptation, strengthening of the tendons, and an increase in your body’s ability to store, use and replenish CP. To do this, begin your effort from a walking pace, in the saddle, and in a gear that will take you 8-15 seconds to do 20-30 pedal strokes. Typically this will be the small chain ring, perhaps a 39 x 21-15, depending on your ability level. Burst into the effort (staying seated the entire time), focusing on pulling up and exploding down onto the pedals, and staying very square and rigid in the saddle with no rocking. These should be done on a flat road. It should take you about 5 seconds to get the gear up to speed, and the remainder of the time to spin it out, staying on top of the gear. If you’re weight training as part of your program, these sprints should coincide with your adaptive or hypertrophy phase. Your ultimate goal with each of these efforts is to acheive peak cadence, as high as 160 rpms, but not peak power.

2. Strength:

Once you’ve got enough training to move into the more extensive part of your base period, you can begin to emphasize strength in your sprints. The technique is the same as the previous example: in the saddle, starting from a walking pace, for an 8-15 second sprint. The major difference is that now you only want to complete 8-10 pedal strokes over the course of that same time frame. You’ll likely find yourself in the big ring; anywhere from the 17-11, again depending on your level. This is very stressful to your knees and back, and should be undertaken with extreme caution. What’s crucial here is that your form is impeccably strict to get maximum benefit with minimal injury. The force you sprint with here must generate from your core since that’s what will hold you still in the saddle and provide the resistance. If you find that you can’t push a big enough gear to get 8 pedal strokes in without failure, the weak link might be your abs and back as much as your legs.

Another difference with these sprints is that you can do them on a slight incline to keep the cadence and resistance consistent throughout the sprint. It’s not crucial, and you’ll still get plenty of benefit from them if, like me, you can’t bear the boredom of doing sprint repeats in the same spot. Again, if you’re weight training, these sprints should coincide with your strength phase. Your ultimate goal with these sprints is for peak torque or pedal force. Because cadence is restricted, you will not acheive peak power.

3. Power:

Once you finish your base period and are moving into your real racing season, you want to be able to combine what you’ve built in speed and strength for a truly powerful sprint. In this period, you want to go back and emphasize the acceleration aspect of the speed sprints, while combining them with the high resistance of the strength sprints. These sprints can be done out of the saddle now as part of the process of putting things together for race day. Again, the time frame is 8-15 seconds, starting from a walking pace, with a goal of 12-15 pedal strokes. Your gearing will be similar to what you used in the strength phase, but now you should accelerate all the way through the effort. These sprints could coincide with the power phase of a lifting program, if that’s part of your training, though generally we would expect all weight training to have stopped if racing has begun.

There are many ways to vary these types of sprints. If it’s in-season, and you feel like you need to go back and reemphasize a bit of strength in your sprint, then you might find that shifting down as you do an out-of-the-saddle sprint is helpful, and simulates a race situation well. You might want to work on your ability to attack on a climb, so you could introduce some occasional sprints into a longer tempo effort done while climbing. Perhaps it’s your acceleration or speed that turns out to be a weakness; in that case you might do a variable power threshold interval, where you sprint and coast for 15 seconds at a time for a period of 8-20 minutes. And if you’re doing your sprint workout before a race day, simply to open up, you should almost always emphasize the speed, and peak a gear you can hit peak torque in the first 4-6 seconds, but then requires you to sit down to finish, maxing out cadence as well.

In all cases, the sprint itself lasts 8-15 seconds. Over the 45 seconds that follow the sprint, you’ll see your heart rate rise and fall as your body tries to pay back its energy debt and recover. You should consider that whole minute part of the interval, and be sure that there’s 1-5 minutes of rest between each interval. With that approach, the tightest your sprint workout would ever be is one sprint every second minute, with one every five minutes my preferred structure. You can also group your sprints into sets of three or five with a longer recovery period between sets.

How many sprints you do in a workout should be dependent on the quality of the sprints. When you sense that you’re no longer able to put out the same wattage as the workout goes on, then again, that might signal the end of the workout. I would expect most riders to finish at least 3 sprints at the beginning of their program. Building up to 15 or more in a workout is not as difficult as it sounds, and 60 is possible in a 2 x 20 minute 15 on/off variable power workout. Remember the 200 sprints in a 50-lap race is something you do almost without thinking, so reproducing that in training is also possible. In any case, if you can’t change your speed, you can’t be competitive in mass-start racing of any kind. It’s easy to spend all your energy improving functional threshold power, but being able sprint out of turns repeatedly matters, too. Don’t neglect it.

The post Want to Sprint for Success? Adam Myerson explains for Technique Tuesday appeared first on Cyclocross Magazine - Cyclocross News, Races, Bikes, Photos, Videos.

Today, I've got a somewhat personal story to share with you - and there are several great lessons at the end, so be patient as you read through!

As many of you know, the fall/winter of 2014-15 was a crazy time period for the Cressey family. First, in early September, my wife and I moved to Florida to prepare for the opening of our new Cressey Sports Performance facility in Jupiter, FL. After months of planning, the facility finally opened up in early November.

It wasn't very easy to just open up shop in another state without regular trips back to Massachusetts to check in on the facility and our house. This took place on top of my normal responsibilities both in the gym and in managing my online presence and consulting business. And, I continued to train hard in the gym myself.

To make things a bit more complex, this move took place while my wife was pregnant...with twins. Their original due date was December 17, but they decided to arrive about three weeks early on November 28. They're both doing great, but early on, there was some time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for supplemental oxygen and feeding tubes. 

Needless to say, there were a lot of long hours over the fall and winter. While I'm accustomed to long hours, I was not accustomed to doing these long hours with only 2-3 hours of sleep per night thanks to newborn twins.

I often tell our athletes that with programming and training, you can't just keep adding. If you put something new in, you usually have to take something else away. And, if you absolutely insist on adding without taking something away, then you better be ready to really dedicate yourself to recovery modalities, whether it's massage, naps, or a host of other options. There was no time for any of that stuff, though. What was there time for?

Caffeine - and a lot of it.

Each morning, I'd drink a pot of coffee. As I recall, the half-life of caffeine is about eight hours if you don't exercise - and it held pretty true, in my case. My morning caffeine would usually wear off in the early afternoon after I was done training our pro crowd. Stubbornly, I refused to pare back on my training volume, so 4-5 days a week, I'd also crush an energy drink around 3pm to get ready to lift. The pick-me-up would often work. I'd have a good training session here and there that would remind me that I "still had it."

Not surprisingly, I'd crash and burn and have a horrible 4-5 days of training after a session like this. The "ups" were still pretty "up," but the "downs" were a lot longer and harder to bounce back from. You can't display your work capacity if you can't leverage your recovery capacity, and I had none.

Early in the spring, things started catching up to me. I was down about 10 pounds since the girls had been born, and wasn't any leaner. My strength had started to fall off pretty quickly, and I wasn feeling pretty banged up in the gym. Most significantly, I was starting to get sick pretty regularly - and I almost NEVER get sick.

In early May, I gave a weekend seminar that also included a 5-6 hour Friday presentation, so I was on my feet talking for about 30 hours over the course of three days. On the way home, my flight was delayed, and I didn't get back to my house until about 3am. I woke up the next morning feeling horrible, and actually wound up going home sick from work the next day. It was right then that I knew I needed to fix things.

The next morning, I went to 50/50 regular/decaf coffee, and cut out all caffeine for the rest of the day. What happened next absolutely stunned me.

For about 3-4 weeks, I felt absolutely horrendous. I've heard of caffeine withdrawals coming in the form of a headache (and I certainly had one), but that was just the tip of the iceberg for me. Every joint in my body hurt. I was waking up with cold sweats - and going through 2-3 shirts - every single night. I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I was going to bed by 8pm on 2-3 days per week. It was literally like I had the flu for an entire month. As a final kicker, I was waking up every morning around 4am with a raging headache that would only go away 10-15 minutes after my first sip of coffee - so it wasn't possible to just "sleep it off."

Not surprisingly, my training was terrible during this month. I pared back to 3x/week lifting, and my only "off-day" activity was walking with my wife and daughters.

         Caffeine might not be heroin, cocaine, or even
          nicotine, but it is absolutely, positively a drug.

I can only imagine what serious, long-term drug abusers go through when they try to kick a habit - because I've got a high pain tolerance and a lot of patience, and those four weeks sucked!

Fortunately for you, though, there are some invaluable lessons to be learned from my story.

1. Short-term gain often equates to long-term pain.

I mustered up "fake energy" to have average training sessions for 2-3 months - and in the process, put myself in a position where I had terrible sessions for a month on the tail end. It's better to be "consistently good" throughout the year.

2. This is what a lot of young athletes do!

I see a lot of diet logs from teenage athletes, and they usually leave a lot to be desired. Most kids drink too many sports drinks and sodas, and consume too little water. Fruits and vegetables are sorely lacking, and there are enough processed carbs to sink a battleship - and certainly no healthy fats to keep things afloat.

In spite of all these shortcomings, a lot of young athletes are on a constant search to find a "better pre-workout." Maybe, just maybe, the pre-workout wouldn't be necessary if these athletes were eating right and sleeping sufficiently.

It's one thing for a stressed-out 34-year-old entrepreneur with newborn twins at home to go down this path. It's another thing altogether for a resilient, untrained 16-year-old to think that he needs stimulants to be able to perform in the weight room or on the field.

3. Coffee is a slippery slope.

Ever have that friend who set out with good dietary intentions, but found ways to justify bad food choices?

"Well, you said sweet potatoes were a good carb source for me. So, I figured regular potatoes were just as good. And, if potatoes are okay, then I can make homemade french fries. And, if homemade french fries are okay, then the ones I have at my favorite fast food restaurant have to be okay, too, right?"

You can justify absolutely anything you want. With coffee, we know there are potential health benefits with respect to type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular health, certain types of cancer, and many other facets of health. Of course, this assumes moderation. Drinking a gallon of caffeinated coffee per day isn't going to give you extra protection against problems in these areas. Furthermore, don't expect the same health benefits of coffee to extend to crushing an energy drink or Mountain Dew to get a quick pick-me-up.

4. We need to be very careful about glorifying caffeine, regardless of form.

For some reason, in the fitness industry, caffeine gets a lot of love because it's been proven to improve performance in a number of physical challenges, from strength and power events to endurance sports. Some of those benefits can be reduced when an athlete has become desensitized to caffeine from habitual use, though.

Not surprisingly, though, we're seeing more and more athletes - and fitness professionals, too - who are crushing energy drinks throughout the day. They're always firing up their sympathetic nervous systems and staying in perpetual "perform" mode when they should be able to tone it down and switch to recovery mode. 

I find it interesting that a simple cup of coffee can be viewed as a morning routine, ergogenic aid, and social beverage - and that probably explains why so many people consume caffeine to excess. They want it for all three of these things every single day.

Keep in mind that I'm preaching moderation in caffeine consumption, not complete abstinence. I'm still drinking coffee every morning and have no plans to eliminate it.

5. Stress is stress, whether you "feel" it or not.

If you'd asked me how I felt in December and January, I would have said "surprisingly good." I'm a guy who never gets too up or down, so in spite of my Type A personality, I rarely actually feel "stressed." Interestingly, in what was one of the most physiologically stressful times of my life, I pretty much powered through it (with the help of way too much caffeine) without feeling too awful. Obviously, eventually it caught up to me. With our athletes, we need to recognize high levels of stress sooner so that we can tone down training and add in more recovery modalities.

6. It's very easy to forget what it's like to actually feel good.

I've been taking my training very seriously for about 15 years now, so I like to think that I'm pretty in tune with how my body is feeling.

Additionally, I work with a lot of high-level athletes, particularly baseball players. Most elite athletes have incredible kinesthetic awareness and can sense when little things are "off."

Interestingly, though, it's not uncommon for athletes to get into "funks." We see MLB pitchers struggle with repeating their mechanics in spite of the fact that they're in the top 0.001% of people who play the game of baseball worldwide. We also see athletes who have annoying injuries that linger for extended periods of time and really change the way that they move. Small hinges can swing big doors - and sometimes you don't even recognize when the door is wide open.

I felt pretty darn bad for 4-5 months, but was able to tune it out because there were parenting and work responsibilities that had to get done. And, there was no way I was missing training. So, I effectively convinced myself that I felt fine. What can I say? Otherwise intelligent people often make really bad decisions when it comes to managing their own health, as it's hard to emotionally separate yourself from the situation like you would with a client or friend.

It took a few days of feeling really awful to snap me out of it. Two months later, I'm feeling a heck of a lot better and am back to have great training sessions. It was a great learning experience - and something that will definitely impact the way I interact with our athletes - but certainly not an ordeal I'd wish on anyone! 

Hopefully, next time you reach for that third cup of coffee or mid-afternoon energy drink, you'll think twice - and recognize that you're probably only doing so to mask a short-sighted decision in another aspect of your life.

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One of the toughest things to deal with as a bike racer or triathlete are the highs and lows of the sport and competition.  Unlike traditional team sports where every player has an assigned position (lineman, forward, center, quarterback, short stop, etc) and every game means either win or lose, first or second; the results of endurance sports can be a real pain in the butt.


Anything can happen.  On the bike portion, you can get a flat tire or have a mechanical problem or worse have a crash into a barbed wire fence.  During running, you can twist an ankle or pull a hammy and that can end your race in a hurry.  The stories of athletes getting sick the week before Ironman or crash warming up for the opening Tour de France TT seem to be never-ending.  And don't even get me started about team sports "time-outs" or the sideline; there is no time to rest or catch up or fix yourself during an endurance sports event.

So, what do we do?  Well, we deal with it.  Plain and simple.  The odds are constantly against us but that is what drives us to press on:

Shake it off.  (pls don't sue me)

Listen to this episode of the Moment with guest Starlee Kine:

Folks email me fairly often asking what I did to turn my life around and how they can achieve some similar level of worldly success they see here. But I can honestly say it’s nothing I’ve ever done its what’s been done for me.

Jesus changed my heart and my life. I imagine that’s rarely what we want to hear but it’s my story. Maybe it’s yours too. I’m writing all this because today I was tested to my core but what love teaches us is to forgive not get even. So if you’re in a similar place I pray that you also choose forgiveness, it frees your soul.

Whatever journey you’re on maybe we can cross paths. I’ll be in Seattle for a few ⚡️

Start each day as if it is a clean slate.

Shed the baggage you brought along as the earth spins you away from the Sun.

Start the next day open to possibilities and hope you don't have something still stuck in your shoe from stepping deep into shit the day before.

FMVdB is right though, process, a documentation, and sort of a autocompleteing autobiography. And it helps. I read back through a bunch of the first entries here, confused by one, I must have changed the date to put it out of sight at the time? I dunno, but I sure as hell didn't write about being in New England and racing cross in 2004.

I've changed. Am changing I hope.

This morning I kind of want to label the mood and the pits of dispair almost a PTSD. Emotional PTSD. I'm not a clinical head shrink but i had a bit of clarity in the shower when the realization hit.

Reading the Surly blog post about Seth, didn't help much, and I agree that happiness is a state of mind, it isn't one that can be controlled by a flip of a switch. You can't just turn it on. Or off. "Snap out of it." Some people have success at it. Some fail completely. Obviosuly there's something missing, something that I can't either fix, get, figure out that is at the root cause of this spell. Enervated describes it pretty well.

Todd's been sharing this all day...  I finally took a minute to watch it:

"breath in strength, breath out bullshit"

Effecitve? kind of.
I like that guy's At The Bar series. Funny and well done: http://www.jasonheadley.com/ATB.html

When you look around and see lots of people doing absolutely wrong things, and you're aware of it and aware they have no good reason for doing it or no idea that it is wrong...  and you just have to keep quiet about it....  Is that worse than trying to explain to people you are close to what they are doing wrong and how to make changes and explain all the science and physiology and psycology behind it and have it all ignored to the detriment of their health? Probably a contributor to going crazy. Combine that with my being a good case study of why vacations are vitally important and needed.

But then sometimes something makes you laugh, and you feel a little lighter a bit better.

Like that.

Of course it faded over the 2 hrs since i watched it and haven't been able to close this out.

but maybe i'll find the motivation to push forward and get a good ride in tonight. Something more than the 1.5 mile ride from the car to office.

I keep reminding myself, this forced decrease is a good think. Let the legs recover a bit, freshen up after June, be ready for training load in August. maybe be more prepared for the CXy season. I'd contemplated pulling the plug, avoiding the costs, the time, the travel, but I know it would make me even more miserable, and it gives me a goal. But adds the pressure of finding more fitness than I started last year with. Mojo. where'd that mojo go.

Mojo or no... head up, driving forward... watching the matrix unfold, knowing i can only control the smallest of events... breath in some strength, breath out the bullshit

heddwch
G

What’s the Deal with Jesse?

The folks over at Articles of Style were nice enough to come by my office the other day to shoot some photos and write up a little profile of me. Head over there if you’ve ever wondered where PTO comes from - or if you’ve ever wanted to see proof that I wear shorts sometimes.

Kendrick Lamar’s Gang-Neutral Reeboks

In my neighborhood growing up, the footwear of choice was the Nike Cortez. Blue and white for Sureños, red and white for Norteños. It would have been tough to mistake me for a cholo, but it wasn’t until I was a young man that I felt comfortable wearing shoes in those colorways.

Kendrick Lamar grew up in South LA, where Bloods and Crips claim the same colors as the kids in my Northern California neighborhood did. His new collaboration with Reebok is a small revolution. The white sneakers feature a combination of red, blue and blue-and-red details, and the tongues read “NEUTRAL.” In effect, he uses his celebrity to subvert the sets who claim the neighborhoods in which he grew up.

Anyone with ears can tell you that Lamar is an incredible MC - now you can add provocative designer to his CV.

Marriage Equality is here!

As humans evolve, so does our manner of communication. I took a French linguistics course my senior year of college, and I soon came to realize that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to languages. Language is arguably one of the most complex systems of communication that humans have created for themselves. Migration, […]

As cyclists, we all know how important nutrition and diet are in ensuring we’re appropriately fuelled for our rides. And it’s no surprise that nutrition trends, like low-carb/high-fat diets (LCHF), catch the eye of cyclists — claims of easy weight-loss and limitless energy are hard to ignore. But as Dr José Areta writes, there’s scant little evidence to suggest LCHF diets are of any real benefit to cyclists, particularly for cyclists that want to ride at high intensity and improve their fitness (and that’s just about all of us).

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Ponferrada, Spain. September 24, 2014. The world time-trial championships. Bradley Wiggins is the fastest man to complete the 47.1km, stopping the clock at 56:25.52. During his performance Wiggins had an average power output of 450 watts and roughly 94% of his energy was derived from the oxidation of carbohydrates (CHO).

Wiggins fuelled that single effort with 370g of CHO, derived mainly from muscle glycogen. As pictured in figures 1 and 2 below, this amount of CHO is substantial and accounts for roughly half the total amount that can be stored in the body of a well-trained and -fed athlete.

Time trials, climbs, establishing breakaways, lead-outs and sprints are all situations that determine race winners in single-day, multi-stage and Grand Tour bike races. All race-winning moves occur at high intensity, and they are all dependent on CHO availability and utilisation. Nevertheless some enthusiasts of low-CHO/high-fat (LCHF) diets suggest incorporating the principles of these dietary practices into the habits of competitive athletes, claiming benefits like ‘losing weight’ and ‘avoiding bonking’.

However, these claims are poorly supported and the biochemical and physiological demands of competitive cycling dictate that high CHO availability and usage are essential both for optimal performance in races and for training at high-intensity.

As shown in the theoretical estimations given above for Wiggins (based on laboratory measures of other individuals) and illustrated with photos of high-CHO nutrients, the rate of CHO oxidation in a top athlete at maximum speed can be very large. However, high rates of CHO oxidation are not limited to elite athletes. An average competitive male, cycling at about 300W for 1 hour would use around 290g of CHO to fuel an all-out TT effort.

In this article I will discuss why the main claims of LCHF — particularly those of ketogenic diets — are unjustified and why adhering to a low-CHO diet is most likely to be counterproductive for any cyclists that are aspiring to improve and reach their peak performance.

The unsupported claims of LCHF (ketogenic and non-ketogenic) diets

The main claims that supporters of ketogenic diets make are that they help avoiding ‘hitting the wall’ during exercise and that they induce fast and consistent weight loss. However, these claims are not supported by well-controlled studies.

In theory, ketogenic diets avoid the phenomenon of ‘hitting the wall’ or ‘bonking’. These ambiguous terms refer to the incapacity to continue exercising when blood glucose and/or muscle glycogen levels drop below a critical value. Supposedly, the enhanced fat metabolism and lack of CHO dependence for brain and muscle metabolism induced by these diets allow the body to work independently from CHO availability.

Provided that the fat stores are unlimited (when compared to the body’s CHO stores) this would allow exercise to continue without the risk of running out of a ‘critical’ fuel. However, the main study used to support this idea has shown that time to exhaustion when exercising at 62-64% of VO₂max (a moderate-low exercise intensity), was on average 151 minutes for keto-adapted individuals, vs. 147 minutes for the non-keto adapted.

Interestingly, despite a lack of significant difference between the two groups, two out of five subjects performed considerably worse in the keto-adapted state (Figure 3).

The claims that LCHF diets are a good way of losing weight are also poorly supported. Lately, an overwhelming number of anecdotal reports have flooded social media highlighting the benefits of these diets on weight loss in all types of populations. There was even a scientific article (posteriorly pointed out as a lesson of bad science) published using these anecdotal reports.

Sadly, these reports or ‘case studies’ are not good enough to be reliable, as they are merely biased, uncontrolled experiments. Indeed studies comparing LCHF with ‘normal’ low-calorie diets indicate that the weight loss associated with these diets is a consequence of the reduced energy intake and not the reduced CHO intake per se.

Additionally, the fast weight loss observed during the early stages of LCHF diets is most likely to be related to water loss rather than loss of fat or any other tissue. LCHF diets reduce the amount of endogenous (‘in-the-body’) CHO stores. Each gram of muscle glycogen (the body’s main CHO pool) is accompanied by 3-5 grams of water. Therefore, avoiding replenishing the body’s CHO stores can be reflected in a fast 1-2kg weight loss derived from CHO stores plus water.

The need for speed and carbohydrates as fuel

One of the problems of LCHF diets for competitive (or simply ‘serious’) cyclists, is that they can induce a chronic depletion of the endogenous CHO stores while adhering to them. These CHO stores are not only important for ‘race-winning moves’ but also for intense training sessions which, more often than not, are key to improving fitness levels.

High speeds require high power outputs and, in turn, high power outputs require high rates of metabolic energy production. Because of the chemical structure of fat and CHO, and the biochemical processes that generate energy from them, the capacity to generate energy from fat is slow compared to CHO. Therefore, fat alone cannot cover the energy needs of high-intensity exercise.

Although fat contains 9 kilocalories (kcal) of energy per gram compared to 4 kcal per gram in CHO, the amount of energy that can be generated per unit of time is much higher for CHO. This is particular true when considering the capacity to generate power anaerobically (figure 4). Additionally, fat requires about 8% more oxygen to generate the same amount of energy as CHO, making it less efficient. In other words, and making an analogy to car fuel it is valid to say that: “If fat was diesel, then CHO would be high-octane fuel.”

Supporters of ketogenic diets suggest that a fully keto-adapted person could ‘burn’ up to 1.5 grams of fat per minute (about 12.5 kcal per minute). This would be enough energy to generate about 190W of mechanical power output, which would allow a cyclist to stay within the main peloton (out of the wind) on a flat stage.

However, this power output is not enough to match the needs of the tough sections of any race or hard intervals in training. When high power outputs are required, muscles switch from using ‘diesel’ to use ‘high octane fuel’, to keep up with the energy demands of exercise.

This ‘fuel utilisation shift’ is pictured in figure 5 below, which shows that at high intensities the use of CHO as fuel is dominant, if not total. While the shape of this curve is not fixed and the crossover point depends on many variables (mainly time from last CHO meal, CHO loading status, hormonal levels, gender, training level), there is always a dependence on CHO to generate energy at higher intensities; the intensities that determine the ‘winning moves’ in races.

In the body, CHO is stored in the liver and in the skeletal muscles in the form of glycogen (a polymer of glucose). Muscle glycogen is the main CHO store, containing about 500-700g depending on the size of the person and their training and nutritional status.

The problem with muscle glycogen stores is that they are small and run out relatively quickly during intense exercise. Furthermore, CHO ingestion does not diminish the rate at which muscle glycogen is used. Provided that glycogen stores are used quickly during high-intensity exercise, refuelling is necessary between hard exercise sessions. But refuelling takes time.

A CHO-rich diet will normalise stores within 24 hours but this requires high amounts of CHO intake right after stopping exercise. If the appropriate guidelines are not followed, glycogen stores remain low. As shown in Figure 6 below, if a LCHF diet is followed after a glycogen-depleting session, the athlete’s glycogen content remains very low.

This means that the fuel tank for ‘high octane fuel’ is chronically low in a cyclist following a LCHF diet. This scenario will result in a reduced capacity to respond to repeated intense efforts, which can directly affect racing and training at high intensity.

In conclusion, the evidence to support the use of LCHF diets to enhance sports performance is very limited. Hundreds of studies on sports physiology and nutrition indicate that the principles of LCHF diets are most likely to negatively affect performance of a cyclist rather than improve it.

Cyclists looking into the claimed benefits of LCHF for losing weight will probably be better off first assessing if they actually need to drop weight and, if so, having a sensitive approach to energy intake and expenditure for weight loss.

From my point of view, LCHF diets are very interesting from a nutritional and physiological perspective and I think that further research in the area will enrich our knowledge about how the human body responds to them. But as things stand, current knowledge about LCHF diets is very limited and making claims about their positive effects is speculative.

Most cyclists belong to a population in which generating energy rapidly and repeatedly is necessary. Impairing CHO stores will affect this capacity. Therefore, if you want to keep training hard and racing fast, a LCHF diet is probably not the right option.

Two groups have submitted plans that would turn a defunct school building in Somerville into a new makerspace, or shared workshop for artists, entrepreneurs, and inventors. One of the groups already operates the area’s best-known makerspace, Artisan’s Asylum, and says that the new project could either become its future home, or a second site it would operate in addition to its current digs near Union Square.

A little background on the redevelopment of what had been the Powderhouse Community School, which closed in 2004: Tufts University was originally chosen to redevelop the site, but its 10-year timeframe was too protracted for the City of Somerville’s taste. In 2014, the city reopened the process, and last month announced that it had received eight new redevelopment bids that included condos, apartments, hotels, cafés, parks, and plazas.

Two of the bids include a makerspace as a key component: one from a new nonprofit called Somerville Makers and Artists (Smart Space), and one from a partnership between Artistan’s Asylum and Trinity Financial, a Boston real estate development firm.

Artisan’s Asylum currently manages a 39,000-square foot makerspace in the former Ames Safety Envelope Co. complex, but its lease ends in September 2016, and Derek Seabury, the nonprofit’s president, says that it wants to invest in its own facility. “We came into an empty envelope factory, and now it’s an innovation district,” Seabury says. “Rent that was $6 per square foot when we came here will probably be $14 when we renew, and our mission is to provide affordable workspace for people.” Asylum members pay monthly fees to use shared equipment, storage space, or take classes. Some also rent their own workspaces.

Seabury says that the current location “is kind of a fallout shelter — it’s not terribly welcoming or engaging to the community,” while a new home could be more open to neighbors and passersby, with public events and interactive sculptures. The Asylum is home to bike-building collectives like SCUL and a team of roboticists and designers who are building a giant six-legged walking robot called Stompy.

Seabury says it’s possible that the Asylum would keep some of its space in the Ames complex even if it won the bidding for the Powderhouse School. The second location would allow it to add “more quiet areas and spots where you can have a meeting,” and possibly also create “branch offices” for some in-house service providers, like lumber suppliers or circuit board fabricators.

Seabury says the earliest that the new facility would be ready would be mid-2018. While some of the eight bids propose adapting and upgrading the existing school building, the Trinity/Artists Asylum bid would demolish it.

The other proposal, from Somerville Makers and Artists, says that if its bid is chosen, “office and maker spaces will bring daytime workers to support local businesses and, over time, will continue to be sustainable economic drivers for the neighborhood and the city. In addition, these spaces will be an attractive alternative to Boston and Cambridge workers who live in or near Somerville and want shorter commute times and more affordable spaces, especially new creative businesses and sole proprietorships looking to colocate with complementary organizations.”

Among the companies that submitted letters in support of Somerville Makers and Artists’ bid is Aeronaut Brewing Co., currently a next-door neighbor of Artisan’s Asylum in the Ames complex on Somerville Avenue. Aeronaut CEO Ben Holmes writes that the microbrewery would consider setting up a second facility to “carry out our existing program of research and development — including cultivation of wild organisms and strains [for] possible use in the brewing process. It would integrate an enhanced educational component, with great openness and a broader potential for community outreach and classes…”

The next step in the process, according to George Proakis, director of planning for Somerville, is to evaluate the bids over the next month or two, and then make a recommendation to Somerville’s mayor and Board of Aldermen. Community meetings would follow. “My hope is that sometime by end of 2015, we have a preferred partner we’re working with, and the community support, and then we begin permitting,” Proakis says.

How Salad Lunches are Killing American Leather

Bloomberg has an interesting story on the economics behind the leather trade, and how the decline of meat consumption is adversely affecting one American maker of leather shoelaces. An excerpt:

A typical steer weighs from 1,300 to 1,400 pounds. Its carcass yields about 850 pounds of meat, which sells wholesale for an average of $2,300, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture. The hide sells for about $100, making it a mere 4.3 percent of the value of the animal. (Dairy cattle hides cost a little less, but the meat-to-hide ratio is the same.) Leather in all its forms—the aspirational $10,000 Hermès bag, the $6,000 upgrade package in a Mercedes, the $120 New Balance sneaker—is the wrapper around what will become someone else’s Big Mac.

For thousands of years, this byproduct was vegetable-tanned: The skins would soak in natural tannins for several weeks until they pickled to the texture of what we think of as leather. There’s an equally long history of people using tanned leather for apparel, but until the Industrial Revolution, the material was used sparingly. As a rule, the only people clothed in hide were people surrounded by cattle. American Indians had a surfeit of bison and wore leather apparel for centuries. In Western society, leather didn’t go mainstream until after World War I, and it was only in the 1950s that “leather became much more available,” says Michelle Finamore, a curator of fashion arts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

This was the result of America’s embrace of factory farming. By the mid-1970s, there were 140 million head of cattle in the U.S.—more than one cow for every woman in the country. Cattle totals began to decrease in the 1980s, as ranchers got better at making their cows fatter faster, and Americans started reevaluating red meat. In 1985 there were almost 110 million head of cattle, according to the USDA, and the average American ate 79 pounds of beef a year. By 2009 the cattle population had dropped 32 percent, and Americans consumed just 61 pounds of beef each. Every time you opt for a salad over a burger, the law of supply and demand works against Lisa Howlett.

You can read the rest here. 

Before anything else, I was saddened yesterday to learn of the passing of Jobst Brandt:


Back in the late 20th century, while still deeply in thrall to Fred-dom, I used to read the "rec.bicycles.tech" group, where Brandt used to tell everybody what was what.  Like any Fred I was highly susceptible to the newest and latest gew-gaws, to the extent that I emptied my savings account to purchase the very first iteration of the Ksyrium.  (It was an illness, I realize that now.)  Even so, Brandt's authoritative and at times irascible posts resonated with me, and I began to realize and embrace the fact that I had retrogrouch tendencies.

The Kysriums didn't last long.  One day I was Just Riding Along in Manhattan when a hormone-addled teen ran out into the street and kicked my rear wheel for no apparent reason.  I didn't break stride, but the wheel went wildly out of true, and it was never the same after that--nor was my faith in bicycle marketing.

Whereas Sheldon Brown's Internet presence was that of the benevolent sage, Brandt was the admonishing parent, and his passing is a loss to cycling, because all of us who ride bikes need people to tell us when we're being fucking idiots.  I won't pretend to be anything close to a proficient wheel builder, but thanks to what I learned over the years from reading his posts I've cobbled together some cheap wheels that have far outperformed those stupid Ksyriums, and I've also kept other wheels going by swapping the rim and saving the spokes.  I've even got a Mavic MA2 still in service, which I consider a nod to him.

Sure I've still got a gimmicky wheelset or two, because when you're a bike blogger in the 21st century it's unavoidable that these things will come into your possession.  I'm also still pretty Fredly, which means I remain liable to be seduced by new bike stuff.  Still, Brandt's attitude informs my underlying attitude about bike stuff, which is that above all it should be serviceable, sensible, and sound.  There's a lot of junk food out there in the cycling marketplace, and while most of us partake in it from time to time, it's important to see it for what it is.

Moving on, evidently baseball player and doper (doesn't one imply the other?) Barry Bonds is sponsoring a cycling team:


I know very little about Barry Bonds because I don't care about baseball.  I wouldn't say I hate baseball exactly, but it is one of those things I don't think about it until something reminds me of it, and then I think to myself, "Yeah, that should just go away."   When people ask me "Yankees or Mets?" I struggle to figure out which team I give fewer fucks about, but I suppose if I had to choose a team to root for I'd go with the Mets, only because there's a strong correlation between driving like a fucking dickbag and having a Yankees logo on your car or person.

Anyway, apparently Bonds has become a born-again Fred (which is the worst kind of Fred really), right down to the Rapha jersey:


And funding a cycling team is laughably cheap when you've got professional baseball money:

According to public documents and records provided by Twenty16, Bonds has donated $104,800 to the team -- roughly half of that through the Bonds Family Foundation -- and raised $96,500 from friends and associates, including Will Chang and Trina Dean, members of the San Francisco Giants' ownership group. Cranmer's management company, Tam Cycling Inc., has 501(c)(3) status, and the team's entire 2015 budget is projected to be under half a million dollars.

However, naturally Bonds's association with doping makes some people uncomfortable:

"There's part of me that feels he can contribute," says veteran pro rider Robin Farina, CEO and co-founder of the Women's Cycling Association advocacy group. "On the other hand, it paints the wrong picture. We're trying to keep an image of clean sport. The sport does need people of his stature and stardom, but we don't need a mixed message for young athletes." Farina says her view is personal and not a WCA position.

Many people bemoan the fact that women's cycling receives so little support, and of course I agree.  (Perhaps this is a calculated move on Bonds's behalf, since it's easier to deflect criticism by pointing out just how badly these particular athletes need money.)  At the same time, it's hard for me to get too worked up over gender inequality in professional cycling, only because pro cycling as it exists is inherently unethical, and therefore it's unreasonable to expect anything good from it.  It's sort of like fundamentalist religious groups: if these people are batshit crazy enough to encase themselves in plastic bags on airplanes, then how can you possibly expect these nutjobs to have anything approaching the common sense it requires to treat women as equals?

So anyway, here comes Barry Bonds with his money and his Rapha jersey and his crabon Specialized or Pinarello or whatever it is to save the "little girls:"

Those benefactors now include Bonds, who said he has no desire to throw millions at the problem but felt compelled to help. "I saw these little girls... and forgive me if I say 'little girls,' they're all so tiny to me -- how much passion they had for something they love to do, for nothing," he says.

Eeew, creepy.  Sure, not as creepy as Mario Cipollini sponsoring a women's cycling team, but creepy nonetheless.

In other news, a guy in Portland pitched a u-lock at a car from his lofty perch above a tall bike:


My first thought upon seeing the photo was that in Portland hood ornament horseshoes has become the new bike polo, but apparently the driver (or the driver's mother) and the tall biker got into some sort of altercation, and then the u-locks started to fly.

As for the second cyclist with the mismatched socks, as it turns out he merely happened upon the situation as it was unfolding, and he was kind enough to email me an account of what he witnessed.  Here it is, from the point of his arrival:

At this point, the gold BMW was exceedingly close behind us, blaring its horn. As I looked behind me, the lock was thrown (if I had to guess where it connected, I'd say license plate). As the tallbiker pulled a u-turn to retrieve his lock, he effectively cut me off, and I stopped. At this point, the car swerved onto the sidewalk and both passengers exited. I asked the driver (daughter) what was going on as the passenger (mom) charged the tallbike (it appeared to me as though she was ready to knock him off of the bike). The tall biker defensively extended his foot as he passed, neither party seemed to suffer any damage (though mom's phone dropped), and the tallbiker continued on his way. At this point, mom's attention turns to me, and the first thing she asks is if "this is what [I] represent". I tried to explain that I was just riding around my neighborhood, but it became clear that I was being yelled at by an extremely angry person, who was predictably less-than-reasonable. I left after mom started accusing me of being complicit, taking my photo, and denying all culpability- though she made sure to mention that she occasionally rides to work, lives between two greenways, and has friends in the "cycling community." As mother is yelling at me, daughter has retreated to the car, visibly and extremely upset.

Only in Portland does a motorist in the throes of road rage point out that she rides to work, lives near two greenways, and has friends in the "cycling community."

Here they just glower at you from beneath the flat brims of their Yankees caps, point their Jeep Grand Cherokee Limiteds at you, and gun it.

Finally, here's a Kickstarter for a light that looks like balls:


The inventor was very persistent about sending me a pair, but I refused for a number of reasons, not least of which is that when you have kids your bike lights become their toys and I don't need mine showing up at at school with an illuminated scrotum.

Also, I'd never use it in a billion years.

I'll give them one thing though, which is that it takes a rather large pair to ask over $11,000 for what is essentially a novelty item.

Maybe Barry Bonds will fund it.  They could even offer a miniature set as an homage to his steroid use.

Since the popularity of power meters has swept the cycling world, a lot of riders are mostly concerned about the amount of power they are generating during training and racing.  As we know, Power is defined as the ratio of Work and Time, and is known as Watts.  Science.

However, almost as important as power is the amount of work being performed to generate those Watts.  That work is measured in joules and we also know that the Work required to generate 1 Watt of power for 1 second is equal to 1 joule.  Wow.

Now, that means that the size of rider also is a factor in determining energy burn.  A bigger rider will need more energy to get those watts started.  It doesn't mean that one rider is better than another just because he or she is bigger or stronger, but it does mean if less energy is being used, then the smaller rider can maintain the same watts for a longer period of time without worrying about re-fueling.  It is after all, a sport of ratios.

A "Julie" and a "whaaaat?".  Very similar to a joule and a watt.

So this also means that we can use our power meters as a fantastic device to make sure we are fueling enough during long training rides, races or long difficult events.  For instance, we know that there are ~4.2 kilojoules (kj)  per Calorie (capital "C", which is the same as lower case "kc" or kilocalories).  This means nothing until we also know that the efficiency ratio of energy transmitted to the bicycle is between 20-25%.  So, for argument sake, we can usually say that the amount of kilojoules burned during a bike ride is the same as the amount of Calories burned as well.  A 1000kj ride is about equal to 1000 Calories burned.

So, if you look down at hour 3 of your Gran Fondo and see that you have done 2500kj of work, but only consumed one energy bar for 200 Calories, then you are in a huge fuel hole and you better catch up quick before it is too late.

A pretty hard little race in France

And of course, the higher the intensity (the more watts per second generated, right?) then the higher the energy burn and the more you will need to get refueled in order to stay strong at the end of the event.  So, if there is a hard climb in the middle of the day, then you will need to top off on Calories before that long stretch to the finish.  At the same time, when you are crushing the dreams of your friends and ride-mates and setting new power records, you are gonna burn A LOT of energy and will be tired at the end if you don't stay on top of your ride fueling.  You know who you are.

Hmm, pie.

 Working with Finish Fast Cycling allows you to properly match your on-the-bike efforts with the energy requirements to make sure you finish up the day strong.  See you out there!

Metro Manila never stops moving. I guess, objectively, that can’t be true: The roughly 20 million souls who inhabit the Philippine capital have seen their lives halted by typhoons and floods; they have checked out for the Easter holiday; and they have become so enraptured by certain rare, monumental occurrences that they’ve ceased their endless hustle to just bear witness. Basically, it takes an act of God, a day of God, or something like a military coup to stop this metropolis in its tracks.

But on most any other day, the streets will be humming. You’ll find sinewy old-timers filling kariton wheelbarrows with discarded newspapers and empty plastic bottles; squatting 6-year-olds slamming pogs into the sidewalk; and uniformed students and security guards rushing to work or, if they’re headed home, stopping in front of a charcoal grill to snack on skewered sine curves of chicken intestine. There’ll be a woman selling single-wrapped mints and loosie cigarettes from a wooden tray; tricycle drivers buzzing by, shouting over the chain-saw din of their two-stroke engines for pedestrians to hop into their sidecars for a 25-cent ride; and a lone balloon vendor, looking as if he might float away with his moon-size bundle of helium Despicable Me minions. And that’s really only a fraction of Manila’s milieu.

More Mayweather-Pacquiao

• The Illusionists: Mayweather-Pacquiao and Boxing’s Desperate, Doomed Playbook From the Past
• The Boxer and the Batterer: Can We Separate Mayweather the Athlete From Mayweather the Abuser?
• Career Arc: Manny Pacquiao
• Mayweather-Pacquiao: The Butterfly Effect
• ‘The Ropes’ Podcast: Mayweather-Pacquiao Predictions With Paulie Malignaggi
• Mouth Full of Gold: The Manhattan Dentist Behind Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s Extravagant Mouthguards

Then, of course, there’s that one other event for which time stops in Manila and the entire Philippines: a Manny Pacquiao fight. By now, sports fans have heard this so many times — zero crime, empty roads, a captive nation — that it can feel tiresome. On the ground, however, the quiet that engulfs Manila before Pacquiao performs can feel surreal. Early Sunday morning, on my way to a free public viewing of Mayweather-Pacquiao, I saw people leisurely walking up EDSA, Manila’s famously congested central traffic artery, an uncanny sight on par with New Yorkers doing rush-hour cartwheels through Times Square. Later, after I arrived at Neptali Gonzales High School in Mandaluyong City to watch the fight, I noticed the local tricycles had been parked and deserted, the hawkers and commuters and scavengers had vanished, and no one was playing basketball or pogs or anything whatsoever in the street.

Nearly the entire neighborhood, from infants cradled in their mothers’ arms to weary-eyed, white-haired elders, was inside the high school gym, waiting for Pacquiao to enter the ring at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, more than 7,000 miles away. The gym was the kind of open-air “covered court” that’s common all over the Philippines — concrete bleachers surrounding a cement floor, with cage-fence walls and a pointed, gable-style roof to ward off the elements. A 10-by-14-foot screen faced the crowd from a stage at one end of the court, with seven rows of white monoblock chairs set up for elderly, pregnant, and disabled viewers to watch in front. Both basketball stanchions had been pushed all the way back to the opposite wall, while just about every remaining inch of space had been claimed by the 1,000 or so locals who came to watch.

Besides a few children tiptoeing through slivers of space to collect empty plastic bottles, hardly anyone would budge in the minutes before the opening bell. The crowd stood but kept its cool during the Philippine national anthem. There was mild applause for a highlight package of Pacquiao’s knockouts, but none of the MAN-NY chants that were common in Vegas. Even when Queenie Gonzales, wife of local congressman Neptali Gonzales II (whose father is the school’s namesake), dropped by to lead a prayer on Pacquiao’s behalf and to announce that her husband’s staff would be distributing free Emperador Light brandy after the fight, no one stirred. It wasn’t until Pacquiao appeared onscreen, moments before the opening bell, that the Mandaluyong masses leapt to their feet and roared.

Roland Nagy

There were larger venues where I could have watched the fight. A handful of municipalities in Metro Manila were showing Mayweather-Pacquiao in basketball arenas big enough to handle thousands of spectators. There were certainly fancier options, like the four-star hotels that offered fight-plus-buffet deals, an IMAX movie theater, or the still new 55,000-seat Philippine Arena just outside Greater Manila, which was screening the pay-per-view on its massive LED panels. But I came to Mandaluyong because this was where Pacquiao’s career got its first push.

Pacquiao fought three of his first six pro bouts at the Mandaluyong City municipal gym. The earliest available footage of him in a boxing ring, competing on the TV program Blow by Blow, was filmed there. In that brief first appearance, a 16-year-old Pacquiao and Dele Decierto traded winging shots until the latter turned away from the action and quit. Those raw, 1995 slugfests — basketball hoops visible in the background, faded San Miguel Beer decals on the corner posts, and local government slogans painted on a wall behind the fighters — show nothing that suggests Pacquiao would end up in Las Vegas, about to shatter boxing’s all-time pay-per-view record with Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Mandaluyong is also where the 11-0 Pacquiao faced a squat, 111-pound puncher named Rustico Torrecampo in early 1996. Pacquiao missed weight for the fight and was penalized by having to wear heavier gloves than his opponent, a factor that may have helped Torrecampo survive Pacquiao’s fusillade of looping left hands. In the third round, Pacquiao, eager to finish his fading opponent, feinted and then stepped forward with a left that sailed over the head of a ducking Torrecampo, who launched his own haymaker. What came next feels like retroactive déjà vu, knowing how Pacquiao would eventually lose to Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012: He ran straight into Torrecampo’s counter and crumpled to the mat. It’s hard to see where Torrecampo’s punch landed, but based on Pacquiao’s dazed reaction and announcer Quinito Henson’s repeated call of “His eyes are crossed!” it appears that Torrecampo’s fist clipped Pacquiao on the point of the chin before following through to his midsection.

What became of the first man to knock out Pacquiao is yet another testament to the mind-blowing odds Pacquiao beat by rising to the top of the sport. Torrecampo fought seven more professional bouts before being swallowed back into the kind of life Pacquiao managed to leave behind. He became a sidewalk noodle vendor, was wanted in the stabbing death of a garbage truck driver who knocked over his noodle cart, and in recent years has resurfaced in harrowing YouTube street fighting clips with titles like “Rustico Torrecampo VS Gym Instructor.”

I had hoped to watch Mayweather-Pacquiao in the same Mandaluyong gym where Torrecampo had blanked Pacquiao. Win or lose on May 3 (Manila time), watching from those history-rich bleachers would feel like a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Pacquiao’s legend. And according to some prefight listings, it would be possible. But when I visited the site last Thursday, a pair of guards stationed in a room where Pacquiao used to sleep after training explained that there had been a change of plans: The mayor decided against screening Mayweather-Pacquiao in the municipal gym and instead opted to host viewings in more spacious, less sweltering venues elsewhere in the city. They suggested I watch at the high school.

At first, it was a letdown. There was something irresistibly romantic about watching the fight while breathing tropical air thick with the memories of Decierto and Torrecampo. But it was also fitting, given how far Pacquiao had come, that the moldering gymnasium where he earned his first stoppage and suffered his first KO was considered unworthy of hosting even a screening of the Pambansang Kamao’s biggest bout.

Roland Nagy

Even if Pacquiao’s ring walk hadn’t been the best in his career, the throng at Neptali Gonzales High School would have gone berserk. But holy shit did he pull out all the stops for this one, with Jimmy Kimmel strutting behind him in Justin Bieber garb, a ridiculous selfie pit stop that felt like an homage to the Philippines’ fondness for smartphone vamping, and the booming chirr of his own singing voice, scraping its way through a patriotic monster ballad he recorded for this fight. It was easy to get swept up in the grand time Pacquiao was having and think it might lead to him staying loose and then going for broke against Mayweather. Instead, that walk ended up being one of the few moments that went well for Pacquiao.

I watched with dread as the first two rounds unfolded. It looked like Pacquiao couldn’t find a single meaningful opening to attack Mayweather, whose long left jab might as well have been a force field. Pacquiao spent most of these rounds stuck on the end of that jab, trying to feint and fake his way in, but getting nowhere. When Pacquiao did jump through Mayweather’s first line of defense, he was stymied again. Mayweather would spin or pivot out of range before Pacquiao could release his combinations. When Mayweather was backed into a corner with no escape route, he’d smother Pacquiao’s punches and force a clinch (that would sometimes morph into a headlock).³⁹

The Mandaluyong crowd, however, seemed unperturbed by Mayweather’s defensive clinic. Perhaps this was because many average Filipinos, with help from the partisan local media, haven’t been privy to the thorny, complicated history of why this fight took five years to be made. For them, the story is simple: It didn’t happen because Mayweather was afraid of Pacquiao. In Manila, the dominant fight-week narrative wasn’t Mayweather’s history of violence against women, but how Pacquiao would finally get a chance to shut up loudmouth “Money” Mayweather. So even though Mayweather was flummoxing Pacquiao early, the fans around me remained mostly untroubled because Mayweather wasn’t landing many telling blows of his own. Every time Mayweather jumped away from a Pacquiao blow or hugged him to squelch his combinations, the crowd hooted and laughed. They saw what they already believed: an opponent who feared the power behind their countryman’s fists.

Pacquiao, on the other hand, appeared to understand that Mayweather was getting the better of him, and he fought harder to make up for it. Starting in the third round, he cornered Mayweather and attacked with quick combinations. Even when he didn’t land cleanly, Pacquiao’s activity prevented Mayweather from scoring many points and gave the Filipino a chance to win rounds. Then, in the fourth, Pacquiao finally landed a solid counter left over Mayweather’s jab. The punch brought the Mandaluyong crowd to its feet and sent Mayweather backpedaling into the ropes, where he covered up and let Pacquiao pound away on his sides and arms.

The middle rounds continued similarly, with Pacquiao forcing the action and searching for ways to penetrate Mayweather’s defense. Pacquiao didn’t land another blow like the one in Round 4, but he snuck in a few more meaningful punches and managed to batter Mayweather along the ropes a few times. Just as often, Mayweather would freeze Pacquiao with feints, plant a couple of jabs on his nose, and retreat to a safe distance. They were close rounds, and Pacquiao, although struggling, seemed to still be in the fight. He was pursuing Mayweather, probing for openings, and generating enough offense to keep the scores close.

Then, maybe 30 seconds into Round 8, the crowd’s pattern of eruptions — shriek when Pacquiao throws combinations, ooooohhhh when he lands, guffaw when Mayweather escapes — was interrupted by a gasp. The screen had frozen. We stared at a pixelated tableau of the fight for about a minute, and then the screen went black. A “No Signal” message appeared as local officials rushed to check on the satellite feed. Had one of the kids stomping around backstage kicked out a wire? Bursts of nervous laughter fluttered through the crowd. People whipped out cell phones to call relatives in other towns and ask if the signal had been lost nationwide (it hadn’t). The 15 uniformed soldiers who’d been enjoying the fight surveyed the crowd with a new alertness. Everyone seemed to be wondering the same two things: What the hell went wrong? and What’s happening to Manny?

Click to view slideshow.

Seven minutes and 52 seconds of ring time later — a short, frenzied eternity in Mandaluyong — the picture reappeared, with 38 seconds remaining in the 10th round and Pacquiao locked in another clinch. There was no way to know what we’d missed during the two-and-a-half-round plunge into darkness, but whatever happened seemed to have changed Pacquiao. A highlight during the break before Round 11 hinted at how the fight’s momentum had shifted: a signature Mayweather pull counter, where he drew his chin back to dodge a Pacquiao shot, then whipped a straight right into the side of Pacquiao’s head like a rubber band snapping back. If the rounds we’d missed had gone like that, then it made sense why Pacquiao was cautiously bouncing just outside of Mayweather’s punching range, juking left and right in search of an angle to attack, and coming up short of the success he’d need to turn the fight around.

In the final two rounds, Pacquiao often had Mayweather in front of him, but he seemed more tentative than ever about plunging into the pocket and trading shots. Maybe a right shoulder injury that Pacquiao revealed after the fight influenced this uncharacteristic hesitancy, but in the moment (and in retrospect), Mayweather’s performance seemed to deserve the credit. It took longer than it did with most of Mayweather’s foes, but by the end of Sunday’s bout, even Pacquiao’s indomitable fighting spirit had been dulled by Mayweather’s elusive movement and punishing counters. Pacquiao had landed some of the cleanest shots on Mayweather since Shane Mosley wobbled Floyd five years ago, but the outcome of the competitive fight seemed obvious — at least to me. But after the final bell rang, the guy next to me nodded and smiled. “Panalo Pacman!” he announced. Win for Pacman!

The moment the first score was read, 118-110, it forecast a Mayweather win. A judge who rewarded Pacquiao’s aggression might have found enough rounds to score a narrow Pacquiao decision, but a card that wide could only favor Mayweather. The Mandaluyong crowd held on to hope, however, listening closely until the words “Floyd Mayweather Jr.” rolled off the ring announcer’s tongue. With Pacquiao’s loss official, the people’s emotional tether to the bout snapped. There was no mass outpouring of grief, just a procession of thousand-yard stares filing out of the gym. By the time Pacquiao appeared on the screen and told Max Kellerman “I thought I won the fight,” nearly everyone had left. For about an hour Sunday morning, Pacquiao and Mayweather had cast a spell over Mandaluyong City and the rest of the Philippines. When it ended, life picked up wherever it had left off, only a little more bitter.

Wait. There was still the matter of that free post-fight brandy the congressman’s wife had promised. Maybe if Pacquiao had won, someone would have bothered to pour shots into a few hundred Dixie cups and pass them around for all to enjoy. As it happened, two men hopped out of the back of a truck, dropped four cases of booze on the ground, and let a few dozen guys wrestle for the bottles. Whatever you could get your hands on was yours to keep.

I didn’t get a bottle, or even a little taste, but it was probably for the better. I’ve had Emperador Light before; it burns. 

It was freezing cold and drizzling in Canberra as I waited outside the Australian Institute of Sport residence hall. It’s something like a university college but more empty and austere. I’m waiting for Rochelle Gilmore, the woman behind Wiggle Honda and the High5 Dream Team. She’s in Canberra for her latest project, the Australian women’s European development program.

Gilmore emerges into the mist to greet me, ambassadorial in a suit and heels. I was meeting her to ask about what had revived this development pathway, which had been controversially cut earlier in the year. Partnering with Gilmore has allowed Cycling Australia to resuscitate the program.

Alongside her technical and logistical experience, Gilmore offers know-how in the business of commercialising women’s cycling, attracting financial partners and providing return on that investment. But what was going on at that AIS laboratory was a whole lot more interesting than just that.

I followed Gilmore through the facilities into an enormous laboratory where what seemed like the spin class from hell was in progress. Nine women were in full flight on stationary bikes arranged in a semi circle. Each bike was manned by what looked like a research assistant or an intern and various machines. The women were wearing race numbers. They were red-faced, breathing heavily and dripping with sweat. It looked like training, but they were racing. Their eyes told me that.

“

They put together a program of how they are going to see the physical strengths and weaknesses and together with some psychologists and the special forces agents they’ve got together to work out how they are going to mentally and physically break these girls down and get them to their breaking point, and that’s pretty much what the camp wants to do. It wants to see these athletes – see how they respond to things under pressure, under really, really severe fatigue.

The CA women’s road panel will ultimately select the athletes based on reports, and there are very extensive reports being done every day by the expert staff. It wasn’t until about day three where I thought: ‘This actually works.’ It’s brutal and they’re going to feel like they’re in a living hell, but they’re going to get a lot out of the experience.

— Rochelle Gilmore

I counted maybe five scientist types observing. In front of the athletes was a whiteboard displaying the intervals. A man in an AIS polo shirt bellowed out instructions from a clipboard. The women’s power data was being recorded. I was told the other nine were doing time trials on the road. Beyond the brightly-lit lab, I looked out to dark grey clouds through streaks of rain on the glass windows.

Gilmore led me upstairs and down a corridor to a small boardroom. Along the main wall of the room were pinned about twenty portraits, mugshots of the young women I had seen downstairs. They held up race numbers below their faces like a line-up of suspects, except grinning exuberantly. In the boardroom I also encountered the program’s head coach Martin Barras and its head physiologist David Martin. Both men were enthusiastic about explaining everything that was going on.

“

The traditional way we used to select was to just bring people here, and we’re very well equipped to measure engines. So then, we’d just take the biggest engines we could find and then send them to Europe. What we found with that is that the success rate is roughly about 50 percent. We spend money to prepare an athlete for Europe, to get them to Europe, and then we’ll find out usually within the first month whether they can cut it.

The change of culture, the fact that you suddenly have to look after yourself, the fact that your support network has been blown out of the water and the fact that you’re not in five star hotels, you’re travelling by cars for hours and hours on end and you get to a race and you’re tired and you have to go out and perform. It’s not glamorous. It’s not Hollywood. And there’s nothing in Australia that really prepares you for that. We’re aiming to test physical resilience and most importantly mental resilience. To find people who are adaptable, so even if they don’t have the skills, then, do they have the ability to learn the skills and learn them quick?

— Martin Barras

This is a selection camp where 20 of Australia’s most talented young female cyclists were invited to vie for four spots on the Australian team to race in Europe. The fifth spot will go to the rider awarded the Amy Gillet scholarship for developing female cyclists. The final spot will go to an experienced rider already racing in Europe.

---

“Wake up Number Seven,” a voice booms. “You have to get to the lab for your body composition scan at 6:00 am. Bring your urine sample with you.’

Imagine yourself one of the aspiring cyclists. This is your morning wake-up call. A machine is strapped to your left arm that monitors your activity and metabolic rate. Strapped to your right arm is another machine recording your sleep patterns. You are filmed and photographed. You are fitted with surveillance equipment – voice recorders and wearable video cameras.

You respond to ‘Number Seven’ because that’s the ID you were assigned for the duration of the camp. It corresponds to the paper number you display on yourself at all times. You were told in your induction lecture that you are being assessed 24 hours-a-day.

Early start at selection camp – the @AusDevTeam athletes had blood tests, DEXA scans, skinfolds etc before breakfast. pic.twitter.com/M779X07xJW

— AusDevelopmentTeam (@AusDevTeam) April 18, 2015

Sometimes you receive a schedule for the day. Sometimes the schedule you receive is intentionally false. The activities you participate in are unashamedly extreme, designed to push you to your physical, psychological and emotional limits.

At the camp’s halfway point, you are told to pack your bags ready to go home.

Eight participants have been asked to leave the room. You are amongst them. The remainder will be debriefed, told they have not made it to the next stage of selections. Photographs of this debrief are taken and posted publicly on twitter.

The top row of 8 athletes continue #SelectionCamp – the bottom row of 10 didn't make it through the #MidWayCut today. pic.twitter.com/3YUUhxf8y4

— AusDevelopmentTeam (@AusDevTeam) April 22, 2015

You are one of the successful eight participants who have made the first cut.

Tough day selecting 8 of 18 talented & inspiring women. They'll all achieve their dreams. #MoreThanOnePathway #Go4It pic.twitter.com/Kth4FR78K9

— Rochelle Gilmore (@RochelleGilmore) April 23, 2015

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The activities don’t stop at morning skinfolds. One day you are given a map to the Brazilian embassy, along with a phrasebook and told you need to get there to fill out some paperwork and talk with important Brazilian dignitaries. You are in Italy, so you must direct your driver in Italian, whether you can speak it or not.

Our visit to the Brazilian Embassy was so much fun! @Ausport women cycling challenge camp pic.twitter.com/PZNvRlTAi5

— davidtmartin (@davidtmartin) April 23, 2015

The next day you are dropped at a shopping centre with a set amount of cash and a time limit, instructed to source the most nutritious meal possible.

You sit written exams and complete assigned homework tasks, responding to complex hypothetical scenarios.

In another scenario, you are sent training on unfamiliar roads, with no idea of where or how long you must ride. As hail storms roll in and out, impromptu races are organised for you. Many of these are on dirt roads. You are riding your road bike.

Eventually you are stopped. You are told you are beginning an individual time trial. You ask for directions and you are told you’ll know when you cross the finish line and not before.

The time trial is a hilly 30km. The total ride is over six hours.

You and your fellow campers are split into groups. You have to race each other or play ‘games’ against each other. The winning team gets access to recovery facilities: plunge pools, compression equipment and massage. If you are in the losing group, you will wash everyone’s bikes and Rochelle’s car.

The first treat offered at #SelectionCamp however only for the winning TTT athletes today! Losers washed bikes :-( pic.twitter.com/syjQjCLoPR

— AusDevelopmentTeam (@AusDevTeam) April 23, 2015

You are kept awake late into the night, every night, with meetings and emotionally draining debriefs and reflections. You are woken as early as 4:00 AM. At the most taxing stages of the camp, you are required to surrender your phone.

---

According to the staff and participants I spoke to, every scenario outlined above happened on the camp.

I’ve been told that a task for special forces military selection camps is to drop a team of soldiers into the middle of the ocean from a helicopter with nothing but the instructions ‘swim to that boat’. The boat slowly sails away from the swimmers. The participants are not told how long they will be left swimming in the ocean, but they would be allowed to reach the boat after six hours or so. They would not be given any encouragement nor any feedback on their performance.

If this sounds like the women’s selection camp, that’s because the methods I saw in Canberra borrow heavily from this model.

I got into contact with Paul Cale, a former commando who trains Australian special forces troops for combat and has worked with special forces in the USA. He collaborated with Barras and Martin to design the women’s cycling selection camp. He explained that the theory behind “silent running” – the process of not providing any positive or negative feedback to the athletes – is to teach and assess true determination and resilience. The women on the camp never got much as a thumbs up.

“

This is not recruit training. What we’re looking for [in special forces] is tactical athletes. This is taking that methodology and making it relevant to the specific task of cycling in Europe. Other sports are starting to apply these methodologies to their specific needs, basketball and the combat sports in Australia. I would say cycling was the first.

— Paul Cale

If you think it sounds like a reality TV show, you’re not alone. That’s one avenue of commercialisation Rochelle Gilmore is pursuing. At the camp she had in a camera crew in tow, compiling a preview and pilot to potentially sell to TV networks. Television time is hard to come by in women’s cycling. This novel approach could conceivably break through that barrier.

The current funding model for the camp involves scientific research, being run in conjunction with the camp. The studies using the camp’s participants as subjects contribute to the running costs and make the enterprise viable.

If you think it sounds like a paternalistic torture camp, you’re not alone there either. There has been a swathe of criticism of the approach, generally focussing on the extreme nature of the methods used and differences between how men’s and women’s teams are selected.

---

I have found the loudest supporters of the camp to be the participants themselves, and not just the successful athletes but those who didn’t make it through. I decided to contact a number of the athletes, to find out about the challenges from the inside. However, with the nature of the selections that are still in process I decided to keep them anonymous. The anonymity was my decision. The riders were generally happy to be named.

“

Some people [participating] think it’s a bit silly. I think if you go in with that mindset its harder. No other training or race is going to knock you down the way the camp does. It definitely makes you a lot stronger and you learn a lot about yourself and how you deal with different situations when you are tired. I think that they are improving it and making it more specific. I feel like if you make it through a camp like this you are ready to go over and try give Europe a crack.

— Participant, identity withheld.

“

I was one of the only riders who the coaches didn’t know at all. It was my chance to prove myself without politics, preconceptions or luck, and I earned my scholarship fairly.

— Gracie Elvin, former camp selectee, now current Orcia-AIS rider, and two time Australian Road Race Champion.

“

Change is always confronting. We have less inhibition in the women’s program because we have a less established culture. The sport is newer, it’s smaller, it’s still developing, so it’s like a big company and a small company. A small company can take the risks that a big company can’t. The same process would work equally well for men, absolutely. We didn’t invent it. We reshaped the methodology specifically for cycling, but we did not invent the concept of selection camp as it is. We borrowed it from special forces.
— Martin Barras

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The details of the camp initially seem mysterious, but interviewing Gilmore, Barras, Martin and Cale, I learned there was no secrecy, only pride. On the issue of gender, Gilmore pointed out that for women their first time cycling in Europe means a lot of challenges that are not the same for men given the more established nature of the men’s professional cycling. Gilmore said the camp had to select the best team for the specific emotional and psychological challenges of the environment women face upon entering elite women’s racing in Europe.

These talented @AusDevTeam athletes endured #SelectionCamp & will follow a structured path to Pro Cycling in Europe! pic.twitter.com/TKyJnptcPD

— AusDevelopmentTeam (@AusDevTeam) April 26, 2015

Martin, who works with Australia’s best male cyclists too, suggested that the concept is unlikely to be adopted by men’s programs only because talented male athletes would simply walk out. He didn’t imagine they were likely to submit to a challenging program when there are plenty of other places they will be praised and pampered no matter what behaviour and attitude they display.

“

You discover your own strengths and weaknesses. The coach gets incredible insight into the athletes and team. It is also a shared experience and that establishes a culture for the team to be effective when they go to Europe

— Paul Cale

With Martin I had the opportunity to go over the finer points of how the riders physiology and performance aspects are analyzed. Martin seems to be one of the real grandfathers of sports physiology worldwide. He stepped me through the approach to combining extensive lab testing with varied on-road performance parameters.

Martin and Barras are conducting controlled testing to score the riders power-to-weight outputs and then cross referencing those results with a number of on-road time trials, both flat and up-hill. The result is a sophisticated, multidimensional scoring that offers more detailed and reliable insight into each athlete’s abilities than any single physiological metric such as a Vo2 max test. All of that is before they even start looking at the mental attitude aspects, which they approach with a similar precision.

“

Whenever you make a character assessment of a rider there’s an element of science to it. We do have grids and the grids are based on psychological studies that have been done so you say okay, this is how you frame the challenge and this is how you interpret the response to it. You try to remove the subjectivity as much possible, but it is never 100 percent. It’s taking that gut feeling out of it and trying to replace it as much as possible with certainty, that’s essentially what we’re doing here.
— Martin Barras

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Despite my expectations, the camp was not a bunch of cigar-smoking, fedora-wearing gents putting the ladies through their paces. It’s a concept that has alarmed me for years now. From the outside, selection camp seemed founded on a philosophy informed by stereotypes of female athletes. It seemed too much like careless surveillance and oblivious torment of women for the purpose of weeding out potentially hysterical and insubordinate ones, like measuring “drama-per-hour” or “whingeing-per-kilometre” on top of watts-per-kilo.

That male cyclists only seem required to demonstrate racing performances whilst assessing women requires a contrived environment to assess their behaviour and decorum didn’t sit well with me. It unsettled me too that the domestic women’s teams and races were being considered such a basket case that the results of the National Road Series were being overlooked but a skills session around witches hats on a synthetic hockey field in Canberra was vital. I was disillusioned that a program of anointing a lucky few individuals with an artificial fast-track to the top of the sport was deemed more appropriate than resourcing grassroots teams to bridge the competitive divide themselves.

If I have gained anything from my all access tour of the facilities during selection camp, it is the knowledge that my suspicion and discomfort was valid but misdirected. The selection process for the Australian women’s development team is strange and extreme for sure, but I can see perfectly why it needs to be. Any Australian woman wanting to represent her country at the top level of international road cycling is faced with a cruel and brutal challenge. Camp aims to replicate the challenges these women will face.

I would still hope that as the camp process evolves the methodology will develop a greater sensitivity to the dehumanisation aspects and more effectively display the respect I could see its staff has for its athletes. The culture of the place was not one of cherry-picking the most docile bodies to mould into robots as I feared it could be. It was clear to me that what drove the whole thing was a mindset of scientific best-practice and a reverence for the exceptional toughness and determination to achieve in spite of adversity. After encountering the women tackling the camp themselves, it is also obvious to me that the selectors will find what they are looking for. I look forward to seeing the results.

Closet an Ocean of Old Clothing? Uber and Goodwill Can Help

Last fall I listed some of the options available when you have a lot of clothing to get rid of. For this Saturday May 2, add one more. In over 50 U.S. cities, car service Uber and Goodwill are teaming up to take on your cast offs. Gather and bag up all that stuff you’re unlikely to wear again, then on Saturday May 2 open up your Uber app, request “GIVE” and an SUV will be there to pick up your stuff and take it to Goodwill, where it will be sorted and sold to normcore enthusiasts. The proceeds from sales go to job training programs and employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

A good way to move that stuff if you live a car-free lifestyle, or, like me, are just pretty lazy.

-Pete

via brrybnds

In June, Derek Bouchard-Hall will be appointed as the next CEO and President of USA Cycling, taking the place of Steve Johnson. We certainly hope this was not partly a result of our April Fool’s Day joke last month, which got more than a few members of the cycling community fired up.

The details of Bouchard-Hall’s appointment are below, provided in a Press Release by USAC:

“After an extensive search process, we are thrilled to have chosen Derek for the remarkably unique and relevant experience he brings to USA Cycling,” said USA Cycling Board of Directors Chairman Bob Stapleton. “He has deep insight into cycling enthusiasts and a track record of successful customer engagement as an executive at Wiggle. He has also proven to be a highly effective leader of change, both as a consultant at the world’s leading management consulting firm, McKinsey, and as the Director of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s HUBZone Program. His outstanding personal cycling experience and ability to relate to elite athletes is a bonus.”

Bouchard-Hall joins USA Cycling from Wiggle, the world’s largest online cycling and triathlon retailer, where he runs its $100m turnover international business. He is also a former management consultant, Olympic Cyclist and U.S. National Champion.

“I could not be more excited to be returning to the sport I love at this time in its history,” Bouchard-Hall said. “We hope to capitalize on the very positive aspects of cycling, including the growth of women’s cycling and the broadening of participation in cycling by those seeking to improve their fitness and well-being. I can’t wait to get started.”

“Derek’s business experience is a tremendous asset, but it is his track record of engaging with customers that convinced us he is right for the role,” said Board Vice-Chair and Selection Committee member Alex Nieroth. “His experience and instincts unquestionably align with the direction we seek for USA Cycling moving forward.”

Originally from Massachusetts, Bouchard-Hall began a cycling career while attending Princeton University that included world championship appearances in track cycling, winning the U.S. Pro Criterium Championship, participating in major events, including Paris-Roubaix and Ghent-Wevelgem, and earning a spot on the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team.

After retiring from cycling in 2002, he attained an MBA from Harvard Business School and began a career in consulting with Ernst & Young in Boston and then with McKinsey in London. At McKinsey, Bouchard-Hall focused on designing and implementing change programs across a range of commercial and governmental organizations. He joined Wiggle in 2011 where he rose to assume leadership of the international business of the rapidly growing global online retailer. He and his family will be relocating to Colorado Springs, Colorado later this year.

The post Bouchard-Hall named USA Cycling Chief Executive Officer appeared first on Cyclocross Magazine - Cyclocross News, Races, Bikes, Photos, Videos.

We're really excited to announce that we'll be hosting Alex Viada for a one-day seminar - An Introduction to Applied Hybrid Training Methodology - at Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, MA on June 28, 2015.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Alex, let's just say that he's a powerlifter, bodybuilder, AND endurance athlete - and these experiences have shaped his work as a coach. His detailed bio is below, but before we get to it, here's a look at the agenda for the day:

An Introduction to Applied Hybrid Training Methodology: Understanding and Programming Concurrent Strength and Endurance Training

9:00-9:30AM: Introduction to hybrid training
9:30-10:30AM: Cardiopulmonary and musculoskeletal adaptations: resistance training versus endurance/conditioning
10:30-10:45AM: Break
10:45AM-12:00PM: Defining specific versus general work capacity
12:00-1:00PM: Lunch (on your own)
1:00-2:15PM: Energy systems management and recovery
2:15-2:30PM: Break
2:30-3:30PM: Biomechanical and nutritional considerations for "crossover" athletes: endurance sport considerations for larger athletes and strength training considerations for lifelong endurance athletes.
3:30-4:45PM: Sample programming and programming for your athletes.
4:45-5:00PM: Q&A

Location:

Cressey Sports Performance
577 Main St.
Suite 310
Hudson, MA 01749

Continuing Education Units/Credits

This event is approved for 0.7 National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) CEUs (seven contact hours).

Cost

Regular Early Bird Rate: $129.99
Student Early Bird Rate: $99.99 (must have student ID at the door)

The early-bird discount rate ends May 28, 2015.

Date/Time

Sunday, June 28, 2015
9AM-5PM

About the Presenter

Alex Viada is an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and USA Triathlon Coach, and is the founder and co-owner of Complete Human Performance. He has over thirteen years of coaching and personal training experience with athletes of all ages and levels; he specializes in training powerlifters, triathletes, strongman competitors, and military athletes.

A graduate of Duke University (biochemistry) and a MS(c) in physiology, Alex spent eight years in the clinical research and health care consulting field before moving to coaching full-time. His company, Complete Human Performance, currently consists of twelve extremely talented coaches and a roster of 200 current athletes. These athletes including nationally ranked powerlifters, nationally ranked strongman competitors, Kona qualifying triathletes, top ten OCR competitors, Boston qualifiers, bodybuilders, and numerous successful SOF candidates, among many others. His "hybrid" approach to programming was originally based largely on his own experiences combining strength and endurance sports, namely powerlifting and Ironman triathlons/ultramarathons, and has been fine-tuned over the years with input and feedback from hundreds of coaches and athletes.

Click Here to Sign-up (Regular)

or

Click Here to Sign-up (Students)

We’re really excited about this event, and would love to have you join us! However, space is limited and most seminars we’ve hosted in the past have sold out quickly, so don’t delay on signing up!

If you have additional questions, please direct them to cspmass@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you there!

You know that tips section on the homepage just below the featured stories and newsletter sign up? Well, that section is populated by responses to the question: “What do you know now that you wish you knew then?” We ask that question nearly every time we do an interview with someone for the first time. We ask the professionals. We ask the industry leaders. We ask the women on our group rides and the women leading those group ride. We ask the beginner rider and the experienced racer. We’ve discovered everyone has something to offer.

We tell them we’re collecting advice for women that are new – to the sport, to riding in a group, to racing. What do you know that you can share with the women that are just starting out or trying something new?

We’ve gotten some great responses, and we typically add one of those responses into the tip section each week. Unassumingly. Without calling much attention to these tips – but these tips are hilarious and serious and thoughtful and helpful, and we thought you might be missing them if you’re not a regular visitor to our homepage.

So in the coming months, we’ll be featuring them in places beyond the little unassuming tips section. These tips come from Boels-Dolmans. Last month, we spent a morning with the six riders that would line up for Trofeo Binda the following day. We asked Megan Guarnier, Ellen van Dijk, Evie Stevens, Christine Majerus, Chantal Blaak and Lizzie Armitstead to share some words of wisdom. They do so. Here.

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Megan Guarnier

You do not need to wear underwear with your chamois. It’s ok to wear just a chamois. Oh – and chamois cream is a good thing

Lizzie: Oh, really? I think that’s terrible advice.

To each her own I guess.

Lizzie: Maybe that’s the real advice. Do what works for you.

Evelyn Stevens

There are saddles that are comfortable, and you have to be picky about your saddle. If the first saddle you get doesn’t make your taco happy, it’s ok. You want your taco to be happy not angry.

Personally, I have gone through a bunch of saddles. I’m currently riding the Specialized Power saddle, and I don’t even need to ride with chamois cream because it’s that good.

Evie’s teammates had a fantastic reaction to her “taco talk” – if you haven’t watched the Voxwomen video we shared a few weeks back, you can check it out here:

Chantal Blaak

It’s easier to ride in the wheels than in the front of the peloton all the time. When I was a kid, I was riding all the time in the front. A couple people would pass me always on the finish line. I think that’s how I got the nickname tractor. I pulled all the others. You do not need to pull all the others. They can pull you sometimes, too.

Lizzie Armitstead

My advice? Cycling isn’t that important. I have a few regrets. I missed really important family occasions for races. I don’t remember the races but I remember missing the family events. I think when you’re starting – well, all the time – you shouldn’t take it so seriously. It’s not worth missing a wedding for a race unless it’s the Olympics or Worlds.

Ellen van Dijk

I think I always thought you should train as hard as possible and go as hard as you can but now I think –

(the whole table jumps in to interrupt her)

Lizzie: You USED to think that but you don’t think that anymore?!

Evie: Hmmm, I have a memory of about two hours ago where I’m pretty sure you were showing us you still think that.

Well, my lesson is gone.

Lizzie: Your recovery rides are as fast as most people’s standard training rides.

I just want to say that sometimes it’s good to take some rest but I don’t know if really anybody believes me. It’s good advice.

Evie: It is good advice. Maybe you should take it.

Christine Majerus

I think for someone who started late in cycling, the best thing I can tell you is that you can still become a really good cyclist. It doesn’t matter when you start. You don’t have to be impressed by the boys and girls that started at eight or nine or ten. Just keep going. Everyone can start at the beginning and go somewhere. Unless you’re at the very highest level, cycling only needs to be about having fun and feeling good and working on your own goals.

Complete as many rounds as possible in 15 minutes of:
135-lb. push presses, 7 reps
135-lb. overhead squats, 10 reps
15 GHD sit-ups

Post rounds completed to comments.

Compare to 131025.

Gregg Wilson at CrossFit Dux.

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"Becca Voigt, Emily Bridgers and Stacie Tovar on Workout 150409" - [video]

“Set It Off”
3 Rounds for Time
30 Calorie Row
30 Kettlebell Swings (53/35)
30 Wallballs (20/14)

Post Times to Comments

Box Brief
Register to attend for free: generationucan.com/ucanmeb

Harry

 

Stan Smiths Blazers

Apparently, you can design some Stan Smith inspired Blazers through Nike’s ID program. And you know what? They’re pretty cool. 

(via Basil Rathbone)

In my last article I discussed a new paper looking at Massage and Exercise Induced Muscle Damage. At the end of the article I discussed some of the ways massage can be thought of as a modality to use within the recovery process from competition or during intense training phases. I thought it would be good to put together some more formal thoughts on the topic as recovery is different for everyone and athletes often have individual complaints or needs that have to be met. By altering your treatment approach you may have a better chance of meeting these needs and helping to play a more significant role in the recovery process.

In the left hand column we see a variety of different complaints that an athlete may have and reasons that they may be seeking out massage. In the right hand column there are a few different options for treatment. This is by no means and absolute list. It is just a few ideas to get the therapist thinking of potential treatment effects. Unfortunately, most therapists have a one-size-fits-all approach to therapy and, no matter what your complaint or need is, you are going to come in, lie on the table and get a deep tissue massage (oftentimes leaving the individual more sore the next day). By trying to vary our treatment approach and be aware of the athlete’s complaint, we can (a) meet the athlete’s needs and (b) alter our soft tissue inputs from treatment to treatment, preventing the body from adapting to the exact same thing every time.

Briefly looking at the different types of complaints:

• In the first group, we are dealing with athletes who have a high level of fatigue and exhaustion. This may come from a period of overreaching or overtraining. Additionally, within this bucket are athletes that have a high level of anxiety (and perhaps may show a higher amount of sympathetic dominance). For the athletes with these complaints our treatment options are to help them attain a more relaxed state. For this, I favor longer massage sessions (60-90min) with a lot of slow compression and long holds of skin stretching. These techniques tend to be very relaxing and provide a therapeutic effect. The suggestion of placing the athlete prone is to decrease the amount of visual input (as well as the urge to talk or speak) and to attempt to get them to shut down for a moment and maybe even fall asleep on the table. Additionally, working on the neck and paraspinals in this prone position seems to evoke a sense of relaxation and have a calming effect on the system. The therapist should resist the urge of trying to go too deep with their compressions, to a point where the athlete becomes very engaged in the session and is trying to fight against your pressure. Work to the athlete’s tolerance level. Much of the ideas in this section came from some of the research I have discussed a few years ago on Massage and HRV and Massage and Stress as well as some of the concepts I took from Robert Schleip’s text, Fascia: The Tensional Network of the Human Body, which I discussed in THIS article.
• In the second group we see one of the most common reasons why athletes seek out massage – soreness. The massage technique suggestions for this complaint come from some of the research discussed on my last article as well as the research I discussed in an article two years ago from Crane et al. Both articles explained a massage approach for muscle damage dealing with 5-10min of gliding strokes to the affected muscle region. I also put into this section things like contract relax stretching or pin and stretch modalities as method to engage the athlete, get them to move around a little bit, and, in the process of creating movement with human touch, allow them to perceive themselves as “less sore”.
• The final group is one of mobility or “tightness” as well as treatments geared towards maintenance of mobility and tissue quality. The aim of dealing with the athletes in this group is to have a good understanding of where their movement system is currently (what is their baseline) and then determining when they are below their norm (oftentimes, following intense competition or training, the individual may tighten up or stiffen up and lose some of their normal movement). Also, knowing what is normal for the athlete in the sense of tissue quality (tone) and what is abnormal, for that individual, can be extremely important and helpful in guiding your treatment approach. Within this group the modalities selected are more active, engaging the athlete to move and be a participant in the treatment. Thus, things like pin and stretch techniques or active stretching/mobility techniques can be very valuable. Additionally, Dr. Andreo Spina’s work, Functional Range Release, can be extremely helpful for engaging the resistance barrier, applying tension to the tissue, and using things such as PAILs and RAILs to actively engage the athlete with movements into and out of their limited range (Dr. Spina also has an approach called Functional Range Conditioning, which is a nice follow up to the hands on treatment as it is a movement based approach to re-teach the system how to move into certain ranges of motion). Other ideas for the treatment approaches in this group came from articles and sources on Foam Rolling and increases in joint ROM, muscle stripping with eccentric contraction (gliding techniques with active movement), ischemic compression (trigger point compression) and increases in joint ROM, the work for Travell and Simons, as well as others discussing trigger point theories, and the fascial manipulation work of Stecco.

Wrapping Up

As I stated earlier, the treatment approach/modalities in the right column are by no means an exhaustive list. The goal of this article was to provide a framework for therapists to begin to think about and consider how their treatment techniques impact the athlete/client and perhaps can (and should) be modulated based on what the athlete’s symptoms/complaints are. In this way, the therapist can approach treatment with the athlete and hopefully better meet their needs and facilitate a positive recovery outcome.

The greatest one day race in the world takes place on Sunday. Giant crowds, fierce climbs and more await. This year’s edition promises an open edition with no particular rivalries there’s a long list of contenders and pretenders.

The Route: similar to last year the route heads south across Flanders to Kortrijk. The Tiegemberg is the first of the hellingen, the climbs, from here the route resembles a bowl of spaghetti as it loops back and forth across the area in order to pack in as many climbs as possible. This matters twice over, the obvious point is the concentration of climbs but the secondary factor is the twisting route where being well-place for the right corner matters.

The Cobbles and the Climbs: it’s all about positioning and everyone wants to be at the front because if a rider ahead has a mechanical, crash or merely slows it takes a lot of effort to overtake as accelerating on cobbles or uphill uses so much more energy. Watch for the density of riders at key points in race, the racing is fierce just to reach the start of these strategic sections with riders fighting for place, almost a combat sport.

The Koppenberg (45km to go): “discovered” in 1976 when a local informed race organisers about a narrow cobbled climb with a 22% gradient. It was used every year until Jesper Skibby crashed in the 1987 race and the race car had to drive over his bike with the Dane’s feet still into the pedals. It’s made a recent comeback and comes late in the race. It was decisive last year, the race’s configuration changed totally on this one climb last year with the early breakaway going in and over the top they’d been chewed up and a lead group of top contenders went clear.

Oude Kwaremont (153km, 53km and 17km to go): the odd berg out as it’s not short, it’s not steep and it’s not all cobbled. Instead it’s 2.2km long and a meagre 4.2% average; it touches 11% midway. If 2.2km doesn’t sound like much, it’s an effort of more than five minutes of which four are spend on the pavé.

Paterberg (52km to go, 14km to go): the Kwaremont is chased by the Paterberg, it’s only 400m long but is short, steep and very cobbled. Built by a farmer for the fun of it’s the final climb of the race it has broken many a rider with 250km in their legs.

The Dead Road: three infamous climbs detailed above but the Kwaremont-Paterberg combo is preceded by a long, wide section of rolling road that dampens any moves and encourages riders to huddle ahead of the upcoming difficulties.

The Finish: the last section from Kerkhove to the Minderbroedersstraat in Oudenaarde is eight kilometres long and a wide straight line all the way. It is the most unremarkable of roads, there are no sharp corners, roundabouts or hills. The featureless nature matters, riders can spot anyone with a narrow lead ahead and long enough to allow groups to reform. The final kilometre is flat and straight with the tiniest of rises to the finish line.

The Contenders: without Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen this is an open race with no stand-out pick, instead there’s a circle of prime contenders.

Alexander Kristoff is the default pick because of his tough aspect. It’s been a great start to the season and all that’s missing is a win in a Monument. He’s been on fire for months, winning from Qatar to Coxyde. De Panne is a rare predictor of success in De Ronde and three stage wins in three days could mean Kristoff is drained for the big day but he’s a Stakhanovite. He’s much more than a sprinter although its his finishing strength that makes him the top pick because if he can get to the finish with others he’s got a great chance of beating them in the sprint. He’s got a strong team to help and Luca Paolini will probably play a supporting role despite his success last weekend.

What a difference a year makes for Geraint Thomas. Then mocked for crashing, now a topfavoriet and the form pick. He was climbing with the best in Paris-Nice and went solo on the flat to win the E3 Harelbeke. Now here’s a hilly course to give him plenty of options. His winning move to Harelbeke went on the Oude Kwaremont and he could well use the longest climb in the race again as a launch pad and try to go solo to the finish. He’s no slouch in the sprint either. He’s surely the best bet for Team Sky, Ian Stannard’s bulk is better suited to next weekend’s Paris-Roubaix but it’s a matter of degree and he’s still a strong card to play.

Bradley Wiggins is in great shape, winning the final stage of De Panne by a big margin although he didn’t have any prominent TT specialists to contend with. Still it’s encouragement after a illness and antibiotics. A 264km race is something else but he should be ready and if he’s bulked up he’s still stick thin and could well on the climbs, however his inexperience in this race will count against him, he’s only finished three times during his long career but this isn’t his regular terrain. We’ll know more about his Roubaix dreams by Sunday evening.

Who’s the leader at Etixx-Quickstep? Ideally the team will want to keep everyone guessing all day but surely Zdeněk Štybar and Niki Terpstra are the best bets with Stijn Vandenbergh playing luxury lieutenant. But how do they win? Presumably in numbers with ideally Terpstra and Štybar in a small group on the Paterberg, the Czech attacks and if he’s hauled back then Terpstra responds on the flat run to the line. Too obvious perhaps and Terpstra might have to try a longer range move. Guillaume Van Keirsbulck brings more attacking power and Matteo Trentin is a stealth pick to win a sprint, he’s got that knack of quality wins.

Anything Kristoff can do, John Degenkolb can do too. He headbanging sprint on the Via Roma proves he can go the distance with the best and the cobbles and climbs are nothing to fear. He was 15th last year, 9th in 2013 and has finished four times, he’s starting to learn the trade. However he’s a threatening rider and the sight of him in the final 25km will encourage others to hit the climbs as hard as possible and he risks being isolated.

Sep Vanmarcke could be forgiven for spending the winter dreaming of ways to beat Fabian Cancellara after the Swiss beat him in Roubaix in 2013 and here in 2014. Now the Swiss is gone but Vanmarcke’s path to victory isn’t so clear. He’s been looking great this spring but almost too good, too visible too soon some times in a races and it’s not just the bright yellow Lotto-Jumbo jersey, he’s been pushing the pace prematurely and warning his rivals. He’s capable of rising to the occaision but how will he win the race? A solo flyer isn’t his thing and a sprint from a short group could mean clashing with Kristoff and others.

Everyone’s slowly forgetting about Peter Sagan as if his career trajectory has started to resemble the flightpath of Icarus. He’s still one of the best and has come close to winning this race before so with added experience he’s a top contender. Team management chaos is settling back down too. It’s said his bulk is such that so much weight is over the back wheel that he can’t climb the bergs so well, he risks lifting the front wheel with the torque so has to get out of the saddle to put weight over the front wheel but that’s risky on the steep parts. Cancellara exploited this in 2013 to ditch him on the Paterberg.

The wheels have come off Greg Van Avermaet’s spring campaign. A win in Tirreno-Adriatico hinted at triumph to come but since then the top-10 specialist’s finished 19th in Sanremo, 88th in Harelbeke and 36th in Wevelgem. However don’t write him off because each of these races has had special circumstances, he was active on the Poggio with the best in the E3 and Gent-Wevelgem was an exceptional race and in finishing it he still logged the distance his legs need. Daniel Oss is proving an excellent Lieutenant; I think he’s got more cards to play in Paris-Roubaix.

That’s it for the top names, now for the second tier of contenders. Jurgen Roelandts launched a big raid in Gent-Wevelgem but if he was confident of the win he probably would have sat tight for longer while Jens Debusschere is more than a big sprinter. He’s stood on the podium in this race before but a win is a different matter. Stijn Devolder has won the race twice and seems to be back in form all of a sudden with a strong ride in De Panne. Infamous for lurking at the back of the race for hours even when it’s too risky he can suddenly switch on the power when it matters. Filippo Pozzato has come close in this race and is having a decent spring campaign although far from the force he used to be. Finally IAM Cycling’s tandem of Sylvain Chavanel and Heinrich Haussler could feature, Chavanel is in danger of having his career defined by the loss of the race in 2011 to Nick Nuyens.

	Geraint Thomas, Alexander Kristoff
	Zdeněk Štybar, Sep Vanmarcke
	John Degenkolb, Peter Sagan, Greg Van Avermaet
	Niki Terpstra, Stijn Vandenbergh, Ian Stannard, Luca Paolini
	Devolder, Roelandts, Leukemans, Pozzato, Ciolek, Lobato, Oss, Trentin, Gatto

Weather: a springlike 12°C with sunshine and clouds. Forecasts for the wind keep changing, the latest say a 20km/h breeze from the north-east. This means a headwind on the run to the finish but shouldn’t be enough to ravage the race earlier on.

TV: It’s on Sporza, Eurosport and other channels around the world. As ever cyclingfans.com and steephill.tv have schedules and streams and cyclinghub is a new name that also supplies a live stream.

The race starts at 10.15 with a neutralised roll-out until 10.30 and then the race will be shown live, at least locally. There has been talk of non-stop live coverage but this seems to be revised with coverage resuming at 2.40pm Euro time until the finish which at around 4.45pm.

Women’s Race: see Velofocus for a preview