VeloMTL

New Bike Shop in the west island of Montreal.

A new bike shop will be opening in the west island of Montreal called Synergy cycle. After speaking to one of the owners, it sounds like this will be a store worth visiting. They plan on opening in February to be ready for the spring rush. The owners of this new bike shop are no strangers to the bike world, all three of them were previously employed by Martin Swiss in Westmount, I know Patrick Russell one of the partners quite well, as we spent most of last season riding and racing together. Pat says the stores will be built on the philosophy that if they offer good service their Bike shop will be a success.

For the moment Pat didn’t want to mention what brands they will be carrying as not to ruin the opening day surprise, but I can safely say that Specialized will be part of their offering. Specialized offers road bikes, mountain bikes not to mention hybrids, during my conversations with Pat I got the distinct impression that Synergy cycle would also be bringing in high end race bikes to fulfil the needs of their high performance customers.

The guys at Synergy also have a plan to give back to the cycling community in Montreal. Synergy cycle plans on holding shop rides as well as giving cycling clinics to beginners who would like to learn how to ride or even advanced rider who want to perfect their criterium riding abilities. This type of community involvement in cycling is missing in the west island. I want to wish Pat and his partners all the success in the world and that Synergy cycle raises the level of service to cyclists in the west island of Montreal.

Here we are at the end of September at least up here in lovely Montreal, I know some of you ride through the winter but I’m talking about the racing, recreational, touring kind of ride. In my case, racing is over and has been for the couple of weeks, I’ve been doing some of the bike workout like running, stair climbing not to mention the rock climbing I’m doing this weekend. This is one of my favourite times of the year, this is the time where I get to go out and play without any schedule, without my heart monitor or even thinking about how what I’m doing is going to help or impede my weekend race.

I once read an article written by an Olympic cycling coach, don’t ask me his name or where the article was written, but I do remember this coach saying that for a couple of months at the end of the season he encouraged his athletes to go out and have fun, cross train and most importantly leave the heart monitor at home and just have fun.  I think that for those of us who are competitive athletes, we need some down time. Let’s face it if we’re competing  in a sport being active is just part of who we are and part of our life style, it’s not like because the season is over we’re all going to stop moving and sit on the couch eating nachos and drinking beer. OK maybe some of us eat nachos and drink beer, but really what’s wrong with indulging in a couple Stella’s once in a while.

Most of us are going to go out and keep on moving, even keep cycling maybe do the end of season club rides. It’s always fun to go out with on club rides at this time of year, the club guys are all in great shape and for the most part they ride steadier the most racers, and they enjoy trying to out-race the racers. I enjoy the social nature of a club ride, I get to catch up with al my riding buddies who don’t race and trade road warrior stories from the summer.

Fall is here and it’s time to take off the heart monitor and leave the watt meter in the garage, go out and do some roller blading with your wife, have a seat on a terrace have a coffee in the sun and just let the stress from the season melt away. I don’t know about all of you but I need a break at this time of the year, if not I think I would find it hard to get back on trainer during the winter. This time away from the bike keeps me from overloading on cycling. Have a great off season and tune back in once every now and then to see what’s going on.

My friend Michelle Paiement got to ride with Lance Armstrong last Friday to raise money for the Cedars Cancer Institute located in Montreal. Michelle worked very hard to raise the $25,000 dollar minimum donation that would guaranty a spot next to the seven time Tour de France winner. In fact Michelle did such a good job that she surpassed her goal by almost $10 000. Michelle worked as hard as she did to honour her father Pierre Paiement who became one of the wonderful people who have been taken from our world by this devastating illness. Michelle wrote an Email summarising her awesome day spent Lace Armstrong in the lovely Mont Tremblant area, enjoy.

Hey VCOMers!

Well I thought I’d give you an update on my fantastic day with Lance! First of all, again, thank you for your support…I was able to raise just over $34,000!

Michelle and Lance Armstrong ride for Cancer

It was a great day filled with excitement. There was a great energy in the air as we had all gathered under a common cause of raising moneys and awareness for the fight against cancer…..oh and to ride with Lance. Many of the other riders had inspiring stories and it was a pleasure to spend the day in their company……

As you may already know, it rained for almost the entire ride…But that did not dampen (no pun) the mood…All rode with large smiles on their faces, including me!

The ride started off at a slow and steady pace of about 22-25km/hr and then once everyone had had a chance to have their picture taken at the front with Lance it was open season! So of course I took the opportunity to ride beside Lance for as long as I could! I began to chat with him about my dad, training, racing….etc! It was very exciting!  I guess with all this excitement I picked up the pace. Lance later blamed it on the girls when some of the riders commented on the pace picking up. (There were some other strong female riders….not all my fault!)

The most exciting part (for me) was the last 10km, when I asked if we could do a small “acceleration” Well there were some hills coming and we would wait for those! Once at the hills, I started to pick up the pace….As I was nearing threshold, on my small chain ring, I glanced over and noticed he was riding effortlessly in his big chain ring!!! WOW! So cool! I looked back and we had dropped most of the pack! Ooops!

At dinner, Lance made the comment that this was the first time, at this type of event, where the women were stronger than the men!!!!

(By the way, I did make the head table, meaning I was among the top 5 fundraisers!)  He took the floor twice, the first time he spoke about the fight against cancer and his efforts in raising awareness. Both are the reason he has decided to return to the Tour. He hopes to spread global

Lance Armstrong TT

Lance Armstrong announced this week that he would be returning to pro cycling in 2009 with the hopes of claiming his 8^th Tour de France title. Rumour has it he would be signing on to race in the Tour of California, Tour of Georgia, Paris-Nice and The Dauphine-Libere and possibly joining team Astana.

As an avid cyclist I’m happy to see Lance return to racing but not for the reason one might think. I believe that Armstrong is one of our sports greatest champions; I believe that Lance’s return to the peloton will hopefully breathe new life into our troubled sport.

Maybe his return will bring the North American fans back that seem to have left the sport to go back to baseball and football in the absence of an American champion. Maybe his return will rekindle the enthusiasm that has been missing for the Tour in the last couple of years. The lack of leadership in the last few years and the scandals that have seen Floyd Landis, Michael Rasmussen and Tom Boonen suspended from cycling for drug offences both performance enhancing and recreational. Let’s face it cycling has gone through some hard times in the past couple of years, hopefully Lace Armstrong’s return for better or for worse will bring positive attention back to the sport we love.

The one problem with Lance Armstrong returning to cycling is the influx of fair weather racers at our weekly races. Once Lance get back into the peloton, a bus load of want to be racers will be pulling up to bike stores everywhere to buy the newest, greatest bike that Armstrong happens to be riding this year. Once they have this high octane machine with all the bells and whistles like the Zipp wheels and power tap, the new eleven speed Campagnolo super record groupo, you know they’re going to want to test their new bike in race conditions.

So picture this, our brand spanking new racer let’s call him Jimmy, pulls up to the line with his new machine, twenty pound overweight with the latest euro kit on, all stretched out, in all the wrong directions. He hasn’t ridden a bike in years but when he rode home from the bike shop he managed to ride at 32 km/h for over 5 minutes and now without even trying to ride with a club to see what group riding is all about, he going to race tonight, but hey how hard can a crit be? It’s only a 1.5 km course with four corners, how hard could it be. Jimmy is on the line next to you and he might just make it to the corner in time to go around it with the pack, I know Jimmy’s going to be dropped in minutes but he might make one corner and then stand up to try and sprint with the pack causing a crash, when he figures out he’s in too big a gear and can’t push it, so he fights to keep himself in the pack and starts to wobble all over the place and takes someone out.

I know Jimmy should know better than to line up at a race without knowing exactly what he’s getting himself into, but I don’t lay the blame entirely with him. In my case the FQSC who is in charge of regulating bike races, sees nothing wrong with selling a novice rider like Jimmy a day license so he might try racing. They don’t put him in a novice category like they do other states and provinces, so he might learn how to race at a pace that he can handle, or have a minimum requirement that he has ridden with a club, so that he might learn how to ride within a group. This would teach him how to react when something happens in a pack like someone swerving to miss a pot hole or slowing down abruptly to pick up a quarter of the train tracks. Don’t get me wrong I’m happy that Lance Armstrong is coming back to racing, and that he will be influencing people to take up riding and start living the healthy lifestyle that cycling offers, but I wish that our racing federation would act responsibly and either force beginner racers into a novice category or require a club membership, instead of throwing them into our pack and causing havoc with our race. Enjoy the ride and be safe.

If you own a pair of Look Keo’s with cromoly axels you may need to take them to your nearest look pedal dealer. Look has recalled all first generation Keo pedals; your dealer will order a set of replacement axels. You can also contact Look’s Canadian distributor, just ask for Ray and he will help you find the closest service centre and help you determine if you Look Keo’s are part of this voluntary recall. You can also go to this page to help you determine which pedals you have and if they are part of this voluntary recall http://www.kmi.ca/keo-upgrade/.

Fork recall: Cervelo is recalling about 5,800 Wolf SL carbon forks manufactured by True Temper in China. The steerer tube can break during normal use, causing the rider to lose control and crash. Cervelo has received 12 reports of these forks failing, resulting in one rider suffering a broken wrist and another receiving abrasions. The recalled forks have the words “Wolf Superlite” and a related logo just below the crown on each leg, and the letters “SL” above each dropout. The recalled forks may be on Cervelo bicycle models R3, R3 SL, Soloist Carbon, Soloist Carbon SL and some P3 Carbon framesets and bikes. Also, some shops sold these forks for about $475 from November 2005 through July 2007. If your bike has a Wolf SL fork, stop riding it and contact a Cervelo dealer to have a replacement fork installed without charge. More info and ID photos are on the Cervelo website at http://tinyurl.com/63h5j4

A friend of mine who has many years of racing experience wrote this for me when I started racing and was having trouble staying in whit the pack at the local masters weekday crit. This document and Ray Deslauriers help have played a big part in my progress. I also need to mention my coach Scott McFarlane who’s training programs did the physical part of the work to get me in shape to run with the leaders at the Laval Crit.

Coupe Marco Pantani

Preparation

Show up at least 30 minutes before start.

Sign in/register/put on number

Begin warm up laps slowly

Build up speed after a few laps and perhaps join small groups going at moderate tempo.

After about 20 minutes begin one or two small accelerations/jumps per lap.

Recover completely between jumps and build up to an all out sprint of 10 seconds.

Cool down and return to car to install race wheels with 10 minutes to go.

Do a few laps and jumps to test race wheels.

Food and drink: For the first races the goal will be to hang on as long as possible. It is unlikely that hunger or dehydration will be a factor and there will be little time to reach for food and drink. Use one bottle of concentrated sports drink and grab when possible.

Start

Move up as far forward as possible, towards the outside.

Before the start work on relaxing as much as possible.

Listen to the starter, but begin to move early if those in front do so.

Clip in smoothly and grab a wheel, going around the pedal kickers as needed. Do not stay behind stalled riders.

Aim for a line that will allow you to orbit the outside of the pack. Choose someone riding smoothly on the outside and ride ever so slightly outside their line and a little back. This will allow you to head out if there is an incident or an attack that the person in front does not respond to. You will also be able to go inside and move up if the rider blows a corner.

The outside line will allow you to keep a more steady speed and avoid breaking/sprinting too much.

Race

Try riding in the drops if comfortable. Besides being more aero to cope with the high speeds, it will allow your back to provide much more power for sprints. This must be trained ahead of time.

Follow the line of the rider ahead. If he takes poor lines, change wheels right away.

In a crit the inside and outside front of the pack are constantly moving up and moving over to the front. If you do not constantly try to pass people, you will start to go backwards and end up behind where the work is harder.

If you move to the front, take a pull to show people you deserve respect, but do not get sucked in to killing yourself. Allow yourself to be passed and then start moving slowly back and towards the outside again.

If you stay in the middle, the draft will be better. One third back in the middle is ideal, but as the sides move up it may be hard to stay there. In case of attack, it is harder to respond in the middle.

On the outside near the front you will have a good view of what is happening up front. When there is an acceleration or attack, anticipate, do not wait. Stand and be ready to move with the people ahead. Do not wait for them to pull away to chase. This is critical.

When there is a huge attack, pick a smooth line and go hard without panic. If you are near the front you can let people slip by for quite a while before you get dropped. Once you start to see gaps or struggling riders, turn on the power and get in the middle of the draft.

Do not be afraid to try a strong but measured acceleration off the front if you react first. Riders who are motivated to catch the attack will come around and you can catch on after a good draft has built up, keeping you near the front.

As soon as things slow down, do not ease to hold your position. Move out and up as far as you can. If it is a real slow down, go right to the front. You are basically saving energy by going contrary to what is happening. Drop back when it is hard, move up when it slows. The opposite is tempting but much harder.

When a breakaway goes, there will be a violent reaction. Once things have settled down teams may begin to block. That is the best thing that can happen. The ideal position is behind the last blocker. You will not be expected, or even allowed to move up, and the riders ahead will set a steady pace that is slower than the break. Slotted behind the block you will get an armchair ride and will see an counterattacks early, giving you time to anticipate and save energy.

In Laval, when riding outside, one turn will put you inside. Follow a wheel smoothly and give the curb a foot clearance. Pedal hard to keep riders from moving up and diving in on you, forcing you into the curb.

Riders with a lot of power are tempted to over use it and blow their legs. Do not be afraid to shift and save your legs.

Keep your upper body relaxed so the bike will not fight you around the turns, wasting energy.

If you get dropped, do not give up as sometimes an acceleration is followed by a slowdown.

Once you are really out, relax, stretch, drink and get ready to get back on the back at a safe place such as a long straight once the pack comes around.

Finish

The last few laps as the sprint is prepared can be fast. Find a steady wheel and hang on. Stay out of the way of the guys moving up and keep things safe. Once the animals have cleared the front, practice your sprint and see what speed you can achieve and how long you can hold it. You will need to know this when it counts in later races.

Visualization

In any fast moving sport, the most successful athletes have a dynamic rather than static view of the play. Instead of seeing objects in place they see the field in terms of lines of force moving through time. A crit is no different. The pack should be seen not as a forest of riders, but as a river. It is crucial to develop the ability to relax and see where the relative movements of key riders will bring them in a few second’s time. This is much easier than trying to follow each discreet object as in moves in real time. Even an unexpected move simply modifies the picture. You are basically functioning like a television with a picture-in-picture feature. One picture is the present and the other is where things will be. Once you start seeing this, the goal of your actions changes. You are not pushing harder or using the brakes to speed up or slow down, but rather to make sure you arrive at a target place at the right time. This way of seeing things requires a heads up riding style and extensive use of peripheral vision. This technique can be practiced by hanging at the back of the pack and watching the way the pack flows.

Economy

The ability to ride with economy is crucial to obtaining race end objectives in a crit. It is normal when beginning to not worry about this and use whatever resources are necessary to make the next move that needs to be made and learn from them. Soon however, using up more resources than needed will limit progress.

The first part of economy is relaxation. Not always easy in a close racing situation, it is essential to not waste energy by tensing muscles that are not needed to move forward. This will become much easier with experience.

The next part involves riding in the most efficient position. Generally for beginners this means moving up in the pack. The energy cost to do so is more than paid back in two ways. Firstly, the speed is more constant up front which saves energy. Secondly, when up front one can see situations develop earlier so that when there are accelerations, reaction is quicker and the top speed needed to stay in is much lower. Ideally, jumps can be anticipated. By doing so and speeding up gradually before the big burst in the pack, peak muscle tension is greatly reduced.

The effects of all of these factors are cumulative and make a big difference in how long one can stay in the lead pack and later how well one can place at the finish.

Ray Deslauriers

Cycling Coach, Level II Road

I was out teaching a friend how to ride more efficiently to help her with her next triathlon. When all of a sudden a weird clicking sound (loose spokes), once we were finished our little training session I rode over to the bike shop to have Luke take a look at my rear wheel. When O arrived at the store Luke assured me if I left him the bike he could get it fixed up by Friday night and as I have a full weekend of riding planed I had to leave him the bike and walk home. Now I live downtown Montreal for those of you who know the city you will know the Atwater area, picture walking one kilometer in full race kit bare foot, holding cycling shoes in one hand and a helmet in the other, through a grocery store parking lot. I wish I would have had a camera with me to be able to post pictures of the looks I got on the walk home from the shop. I always found it interesting to see how people react to things that are considered out of the ordinary. All the people that looked at me on my walk home have seen cyclist before but always on or near a bike, put someone in cycling clothes in the middle of a parking lot with no bike and the looks come out, they seem to be looking for the bike or something, it just goes to show that when you take something or someone and move them away from their usual circumstance people just don’t exactly know how to handle it, maybe tomorrow I’ll go pick up my bike in a suite of armor and see what kind of looks I get. Enjoy the sun now that it’s come back and enjoy the ride.

By Fred Matheny for www.RoadBikeRider.com

The key to riding long distances is food and drink.

Sure, training is important—but nutrition and hydration are even more vital. According to ultramarathon rider and coach John Hughes of Boulder, Colorado, “Nutrition, not necessarily training, is the limiting factor in endurance cycling.”

The reason? Even the best-trained riders pack only enough muscle fuel (glycogen) for a couple of hours of hard cycling. Fluid stores vanish even faster.

For everything from century rides to multi-day tours, remember these time-tested tips: 

• Enjoy the Last Supper. Eat aggressively the night before a long ride so your muscles are crammed with glycogen the next morning. Emphasize carbohydrates such as pasta, vegetables, bread, whole grains, and fruit. Don’t forget dessert!

• Don’t Skip Breakfast. Cycling’s smooth pedaling motion means you can eat just before a long ride without risking stomach upset. You’ll need a full tank. Cycling consumes about 40 calories per mile, or 4,000 calories in a century ride.

Three hours before the start, eat about 60 grams of carbohydrate if you’re an average-sized woman, 80 to 100 if you’re a man. (Cereal, skim milk, a banana, and a bagel with jam equals about 90 grams of carb.) Many riders find that adding some protein and fat, like scrambled eggs or an omelet, keeps their stomach satisfied longer.

• Prehydrate. Fluids are as important as food. Drink at least eight big glasses of water the day before the ride. If you don’t, your performance and comfort may plummet by mile 50. During the hour before the ride, sip 16 ounces of a sports drink.

• Eat and Drink During the Ride. Drink before you feel thirsty. Your sensation of thirst lags behind your need for liquid, so grab your bottle every 15 minutes and take a couple of big swallow (about four ounces). About every 30 minutes, eat 20 grams of carbohydrate—the equivalent of half an energy bar, several fig bars or half a banana. Some riders prefer smaller portions more frequently.

On unsupported rides, use a backpack-style hydration system and carry food in your pockets. Stop at convenience stores along the way, if necessary. Most organized rides have aid stations every 20 miles or so, but always carry food and fluid just in case.

• Hydrate After the Ride. No matter how much you drink on a long ride you’ll finish dehydrated. Weigh yourself before and after, then compare the figures. Lost weight means you’ve failed to replace the fluid you’ve sweated out. Drink 20 ounces of water or sports drink for each lost pound of bodyweight.

How do you know you’ve caught up? Your urine will be pale and plentiful, and your weight will be back to normal. Rehydrating is especially vital during multiday rides. If you get a little behind each day, by the end of the week you’ll be severely dehydrated, feeling lousy, and riding poorly.

• Eat for Tomorrow. Muscles replace glycogen better if you consume carbohydrate immediately after riding. So within 15 minutes of getting off the bike, eat or drink 60 grams of carbohydrate (if you’re an average-sized woman) or 80 to 100 grams if you’re an average male.

The re-fueling process becomes progressively less efficient as time passes. Eat or drink a high-carb snack while chewing the fat with your riding buddies.