August 31, 2023
15 Tips for Riding Your Best Century
By Coach John Hughes
For many of us the big event of the season is a specific century or a gran fondo in which we want to do our best. You may want to finish your first century. Or have more fun and finish your local century without feeling trashed. Or set a PR in your club’s classic century. Or conquer a particularly hard 100. Or compete against others in a gran fondo. Or ride another endurance event ranging from 100 km to a double century. Whatever your goal(s), here are 15 tips to help you ride your best. Read more.
Three More Cable Finishing Tips & Two Questions
Jim’s Tech Talk
By Jim Langley
Several clever tips for finishing cables came in which I like so much I want to share them, and then I’ll pass along a couple of technical questions I hope you can help with. Read more.
Fizik Vento Antares R3 Saddle Review
By Brandon Bilyeu
This saddle falls into Fizik’s Vento series, which means it is designed for road racing. Fizik has several other series like Tempo for road riding and Terra for gravel. The Vento Antares also comes in one of four tiers from the 210-gram nylon-shell R5 to the 118-gram full carbon 00 (with the R3 and R1 in-between). Read more.
Bicyclists, Bodybuilders and a Study on Fructose Abetting Obesity
By Kevin Kolodziejski
Here’s some food for thought. A lot of food for thought.
Nearly 8 pounds worth, according to my calculations.
It comes from Ronnie Coleman, a former professional bodybuilder who told Joe Rogan during a 2020 podcast that his pre-contest diet for the Tour de France of bodybuilding, the Mr. Olympia, consisted of that much food every day. That every day for 10 to 12 weeks, he’d eat six meals consisting of one pound of grilled chicken breasts and one half a cup of rice. Read more.
Bryton GARDIA R300L Rearview Radar and Tail light and Bryton Rider 750 SE bike computer SLSR Review
By Rick Schultz, Sue Rowland
My view is that cycling computer manufacturers need to add functionality to stay competitive in the market. But how much is too much? Most of the features that have been added to top tier cycling computers over the past 3-4 years can and would best be addressed in a dedicated training application or by the cyclist’s coach. Training Peaks and Golden Cheetah are two good examples of applications that are specifically designed to analyze a cyclist’s performance metrics and determine the best training approach to help them reach their peak performance goals. Read more.
How common are cycling crashes?
QUESTION: How common are cycling crashes? I’m a runner and pretty fit. I am interested in triathlons and maybe even doing some group rides, but I’m worried about getting in a crash and breaking a collarbone or my wrist or something. Am I making too big of a deal out of it? —Al T.
RBR’S STAN PURDUM REPLIES: That’s a difficult question to answer in a definitive way. The most recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — from May 2022 — states that over 130,000 people are injured in bicycle crashes that occur on roads in the United States every year and nearly another 1,000 people die from bike crashes every year. But there are a couple more figures we need to put those numbers into perspective. Read more.
Endurance Training and Riding
Want to improve your cycling? Ride more easy miles. Coach Hughes has written three articles about endurance training and riding — Beyond the Century, Nutrition for 100K and Beyond, and Mastering the Long Ride. In this Endurance Training and Riding Bundle, Hughes emphasizes that low intensity endurance riding brings about specific physiological changes that don’t result from harder training. These include improving your:
- ability to utilize fat for energy;
- capacity to store glycogen in your muscles and liver;
- muscular endurance by increasing the number of mitochondria, the subcellular structures where aerobic energy is produced; and
- neuromuscular efficiency of pedaling.
Question of the Week
Do you ever have cycling related neck pain?
Cool Stuff to Read
Rene Herse: We love fenders
Electrek: Why more college campuses are starting to ban electric bikes
Canadian Cycling: Saddle sores: how to prevent and treat
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End Notes
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