Newsletter Issue No. 1093
November 2, 2023
12 Common Off-Season Mistakes
By Coach John Hughes
Winter is here in the mountains of Colorado. This is the view out of my living room window. Last week I was zipping around on my bike. Now it’s time to wax my cross-country skis, pump up the tires on the trainer, and get out the dumbbells.
What should you do during the off-season? Read more.
Product Review: Cycplus Cube Mini Bicycle Tire Inflator
Jim’s Tech Talk
By Jim Langley
If you use Facebook to follow cycling friends and to keep up on bicycling news and trends there’s a good chance you’re seeing ads for a new category of mini pumps that are electric (battery powered). They look like little black boxes, so small they could easily fit in the palm of the hand. Read more.
Chirp Wheel XR 3-Pack – Quick Review
By Sheri Rosenbaum
As an avid viewer of Shark Tank, I’m always looking for products that would pique the interest of RBR readers. One product that caught my attention was Chirp, which aired in 2017. Intrigued by its unique design, I reached out to the company multiple times to inquire about testing their recovery massage wheels. After some persistence, I finally got my hands on samples about a month ago. Read more.
Should you always use both brakes on a road bike?
QUESTION: Should you always use both brakes on a road bike? I’ve heard that I should mostly use the front brake, but won’t that cause me to flip over the handlebars? —John K.
RBR’S STAN PURDUM REPLIES: The answer I’m about to give presumes two things: First, that your brakes are working properly. Each brake should engage smoothly, and the lever should bottom out before coming into contact with the handlebar. And second, that you know which lever controls which brake. Usually, bikes sold in the United States are set up with the right lever controlling the rear brake and the left lever controlling the front one. But some people prefer them set up the opposite way. Be sure you know which is which on your bike. Read more.
Snacks Can Change a Healthful Diet to an Unhealthful One
A healthful diet can help to prevent diseases and prolong life, but snacking on unhealthful foods can negate your diet efforts even if your regular meals are healthful. Highly-processed, sugar-added snacks can make you hungrier so you eat more food and have higher blood levels of triglycerides that are associated with increased risk for obesity, heart attacks and strokes. Read more.
Off-Season Bundle
In these three articles, Off-Season Bundle, Coach Hughes explains in detail what you can do in the off-season to improve your summer riding.
- Productive Off-Season Training with: 1. A 12-week off-season exercise program to keep you healthy during the winter months. 2. A 12-week, more intensive off-season program for recreational riders to build your endurance, power and speed, preparing for base training.
- Gaining a Mental Edge: Using Sports Psychology to Improve Your Cycling Most cyclists can get greater improvement from investing some time each week in practicing mental skills than they could investing the same amount of time in training! Hughes shows you how.
- Year-Round Cycling: How to Extend Your Cycling Season Six factors to successfully ride year-round, with in-depth information on all: 1) Goal-Setting and Planning; 2) Training; 3) Clothing and Equipment; 4) Nutrition; 5) Technique; 6) Motivation.
Question of the Week
Do you wrap your own bar tape?
Cool Stuff to Read
CleanTechnica: Duh — New Study Shows Cyclists Are Better People
Lees McRae College: You can get a minor in Cycling Studies!
Road.cc: Thief steals e-bike from police HQ and rides away on it, gets caught
BikeRadar: How to recover mentally from a cycling crash | Four riders share their stories
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End Notes
