Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Vintage Cycling t-shirts



-- A little Christmas something for the rabid motorist in your life

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Tamaki Drive goes T2


-- Back in the vehicular firing line

It was a cycle commuter haven – a warm current running parallel to the impatient line of cold hard nose-to-tail steel. The 2km bus/commuter lane between the Tamaki Yacht Club and the perilous Ngapipi Road intersection was a fine place for the rush hour cyclist.

For sure, an ear was kept out for an infrequent Nifty-Fifty and a bus or two, which I must say always treated cyclists with great care.

And what a place, that lane, to safely observe the habits of queue humping drivers: texting so few young female drivers can resist; the middle-aged accountant’s deftly folded newspaper for hands-free steering wheel presentation; and the constant detainment by one’s own rear view mirror reflection. And of course Lipstick. Apply it at 25kmh, no problem.

Driving sins they are, but more threatening to front running drivers than to cyclists minding their own business in the neighbouring lane.

But the 2km burst of rush hour cycling freedom has been snatched away.

The big white T2 tells me the lane is now accepting rush hour cars (for two hours, 7-9 a.m., and only cars carrying at least one passenger) and rabid taxi drivers.

Now what for the work-commuting cyclist? Back in the vehicular firing line, that’s what.

For long stretches there is no shoulder for safe passing.

Cars freshly liberated from their jam will revel in the clear space of T2.

In this lane cars will travel much faster – the press release says “several minutes faster”. All 250 of them every hour.

Please be nice.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Truck driver Desmond Wilson sentenced for killing cyclist


-- You may have missed the two column centimetres

The final chapter of senior police officer Steve Fitzgerald’s life closed earlier this month in the Wellington District Court, where truck driver Desmond Wilson was found guilty of causing the death of Superintendent Fitzgerald through careless driving.

Judge Tom Broadmore said he was satisfied that Wilson had diverted his attention from the road and that Mr Fitzgerald was visible.

Wilson was ordered to pay Fitzgerald’s family $2000 "emotional" reparation and banned from driving for nine months.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

People’s champion McCauley tweets China triumph



-- Epic bowel movement eclipses Tour of Hainan fourth place

Subway Avanti rider, five times New Zealand road cycling champion and self proclaimed champion of the people (which people we’re not sure), Gordon McCauley recently finished fourth on General Classification in the UCI2.HC Tour of Hainan, China.

However, it turns out his penultimate summit push was in a toilet at the Hong Kong International Airport.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Cycling Sauce: Chopper Guard Bicycle Lovelies


-- November Sauce – The over achieving Australian glamour puss mountain biker chic

Australian mountain biker, graphic designer, model and artist Niki Gudex’s world championship mountain biking achievements are dwarfed by her expertly promoted sex appeal.

Nothing sells like sex, as they say. Just ask Oakley, Scott bikes, and Castelli cycling apparel, which were so taken by Niki's facets that they each appointed her as global brand ambassador.


Friday, November 13, 2009

White Mofo range extended


-- Chopper Guard wMOFO™ T-shirt range extended

Yesterday, in Parnell, Auckland, the suburb favoured by well-healed white mofos, Chopper Guard launched its wMOFO™ T-shirts.

The response has been tremendous and the first print run (10) has sold out.

Not to worry, the sweatshop is winding back into life as I write.

We’ve also taken the opportunity to expand our range.

‘Ngati white mofo’ (above) for those who really identify with their whiteness.

And (below), for the angry cyclist-hating motorist in the family (most families have one or two), ‘I love cycling mofos’



Wednesday, November 11, 2009

T-shirt giveaway


-- A positive spin on a cheeky darkie

Yesterday we pondered Cadel Evans’ now merchandised spin on his threats to cut journalist heads off.

What a great idea, we thought, quickly turning our attention to the commercial potential of promoting grave personality defects.

While there are a few local cyclists who should consider a T-shirt of their own, Chopper Guard cast the net wider to conjure its own MOFO series, celebrating local political outcast Hone Harawira and his fun with racism.

So, here they are. $30 a piece.






Cadel Evans humour









-- Buy the t-shirt, or I cut your head off

Despite a freshly minted road world champion gold medal hanging around his neck, Australian cyclist Cadel Evans is perhaps better known for his prickly outbursts and acts of violence.

In this regard, 2008 was a vintage year for Evans, when Tour de France performance expectations became too much to bear and offence became the best form of defence.

Head-butts and slapping aside, one of his more memorable outbursts was prompted by his dog Molly, whose safety was clearly threatened by marauding journalists, causing Cadel to hiss: “Don’t stand on my dog or I’ll cut your head off.”

However, it turns out that in making this statement Cadel intended no threat. The outburst was in fact a joke – Cadel humour. That’s right.

To promote his point Cadel has hired merchandisers to contextualise his outburst and exploit it, in the form of a 100% cotton limited edition t-shirt, designed and printed in Italy, to supplement his income.




His online shop assistant at cadelevans.com.au explains:

"Stage 15 in the 2008 Tour de France; Cadel had just lost the yellow jersey and was being interviewed by a journalist, Cadel jokingly quipped at someone who was getting too close to Molly..."Don`t stand on my dog or I`ll cut your head off". Thanks to some media editing the true comic nature of the comment was rarely shown."

Anyone who’s seen the clip will wonder just what sort of sneaky “media editing” might have caused them to misinterpret Cadel’s humour and miss its “true comic nature”. Just what editing trickery can contort, “Don`t stand on my dog or I’ll cut your head off".

Perhaps we’d give Cadel the benefit of the doubt if we better understood his cultural reference points. Australians are a quirky bunch.

The closest pointer to Cadel’s comedic reference points is compatriot and comedian
Rodney Rude, who joked about a fella who walked into a bar and went up to another bloke and then put his hands around his own neck and made choking noises. After he did this a few times an onlooker asked him why he was doing it. He replied that the bloke’s sister had just hung herself and he was just “teasing him a bit.”

Journalists should remember this when Cadel starts waving a knife at their throats.

He’s just teasing them a bit.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Boning up on bicycle breaks












-- Building strong ‘landing’ bones

Lycra and a plastic lid offer little protective comfort to riders unlucky enough to experience an involuntary road dive.

When you hit the road at 40km, something – usually a collarbone – gets broken.

Turns out that cyclists could do themselves, and their bones, a favour by cross training.

Apparently the act of cycling fails to offer riders sufficient repetitive impact to stimulate maximal bone density.

One recent study found cyclists to have lower bone density than the study control sample.

So, while cyclists are quite good at self-inflicting physical pain and suffering, the duress isn’t the variety that keeps bones in top-notch condition.

As a sporting group, we are in fact more predisposed to bone breaks than other codes, like, for example, rugby, where the hot embrace of manhandling offers a fantastic volume of repetitive impact; or league, which offers repetitive headline grabbing impact by attracting players prone to manhandling both sexes.

Direct weight bearing exercise is what’s needed. And the pure cyclist doesn’t get it perched on the saddle.

Cross training is the answer, weight training and running specifically. Mineral supplementation doesn’t work.

I put these thoughts to Lunn Ave rider and Doctor of Bicycle Engineering and Performance, Mike P. While he agrees with the sentiment, he says the study shows that not all cyclists suffer lowering bone density and the cure might be simpler than we think.

He writes -

The study suggests those affected:

- Don't do much else other than cycle

- Maybe are also cosseted by their mums and all the other modern inconveniences that minimise non-cycling effort of any type

- Are more likely to be spinners than shovers

- Maybe the big milers, but do not necessarily work really hard

- May alternatively be young, still developing skeletally, and suffering the consequences of loading brilliant natural cycling capability on top of an already demanding growing process

- Maybe professionals, sleeping twice a day, with no other interests or hard activity

Mineral loss through sweating is a factor, supplements don't solve it, and calcium uptake is reduced by a lack of vitamin D.

I suspect the answer is to eat foods high in calcium, as opposed to swallowing calcium pills. In line with my last outburst, pills appear high by chemical analysis in terms of what is required, but appear to be correspondingly low in absorbability e.g. munching down a shell off the beach might put the grams of calcium ingested right up there, but it doesn't mean the system can metabolise it as it does milk.

Ditto vitamin D. Take the pill by all means, but it might be better to expose some skin to direct sunlight for a few minutes each day. And given a cyclist's extreme requirements, make that more than one time during the day.

Bone loading is what is really required (as opposed to bone shocking, via running, as the article mainly points to). Jarring provides high peak loads of short duration, so is the most obvious fast track to getting the system to recognise the need for more bone strength, and act on it.

However, running jar-loads only some bones - but what about the rest? I doubt running will ever strengthen collarbones, and they are the first to go in a cycling pile up. The only way to strengthen "the landing bones" is to work the muscles that lever across their ends. Gym shit. And if that works, so will cycle sprints.

All that is required to increase bone strength (density) is to load the corresponding muscles. While physical shock treatment may accelerate the process, and perhaps even take it beyond what controlled loading could do, shock is not necessary. It has been shown that sedentary geriatrics exercising at snail pace with tiny weights can reduce their osteoporosis with even that bone loading, so why can't a hard-arse cyclist stay on top of bone density?

My conclusion is, the modern global encouragement that gets couch potatoes out there in flash lycra and on techno carbon has exposed the wine-set. As always, there are some short-cuts, but the reality is no real pain, no real gain. Put another way - those that mow their own grass will be just fine.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Race tapering












- The case for pedaling cold turkey

The miles have been bagged and sacrifices made. Now, how to get in the best possible race day condition.

Taper, you say.

The popular practice is to reduce training volume, but maintain intensity. This way, you’ll keep your body primed with all the right enzymes to cope with race intensity.

If it’s good enough for Jonathan Vaughters it’s good enough for me.

But is this advice the product of a rampant cycling obsessive disorder that renders cyclists powerless to resist continued pedaling motion for fear of somehow losing power?

Possibly.

Doctor of Bicycle Engineering and Lunn Ave rider Mike P offers an alternative view.

He writes:

My approach is miles away.

Habitual athletes (with cyclists the most so, due to the length of both their training sessions and events) have developed a self-supporting and self-sustaining cultural excuse to avoid going pedal-cold-turkey at any stage.

Perhaps it stems from an unquestioned belief set up in our formative years, when a bit of hard training rapidly improved things for the up-coming school event.

It makes fast and even winning improvements, and therefore the corollary must be true. But not so.

So my thoughts are, as a long-term hard-training cyclist, you should have much more faith in yourself. That hard-won condition is lost at the same speed: slowly. So slowly that a week and a half of total-rest taper will have a minimal degradation factor.

But still degradation you think?

No, because there is another factor or two to consider. At the end of a totally guts-out training build-up, the immune system is at its lowest.

Muscles, tendons and ligaments have been ripped and stretched and hammered to the max. Time is required for healing (and at a point the body is least able to provide it) for scar tissue to form and then be shed.

Time to sleep, where the repair and rehabilitation is mainly done. Time to re-fuel and de-lactate to the max. Time to feel free in every joint and muscle like you can't remember. "Taper", and you interrupt the healing process.

Of course, during this time you are likely to continue eating like a cyclist (why else do we ride)? That makes the feeling of fat, the bloat, and the notching back out of the belt, feel like the pits.

Psychologically the mind goes down proportionally. And the daily fix is not there, so shit on top of shit. So the average cyclist goes and spends some of the lollies saved for Lent, and then makes great claims when a bit of the lost high returns in flashes of euphoria. And the others believe, and all go do the same - or more. So tapering continues.

So - what to do? Be tough. Really tough. Hold out on cycling. Eat to (reduced total calorie) plan, And if you over do (the eating that is), swim in sea water. Freeze it off, and at the same time (in the early stages of the shut-down), work the other muscles: the ones that cycling uses only indirectly, for cycling glycogen stores (in other words, don't be a scab-scratcher - leave the hammered part of the system alone).

Then roll to the line. If you feel like shit, feel really despondent, wonder why in such bad condition you are fronting up at all, you are in for the best performance you are likely to do.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Getting fat on food insecurity












-- Pedaling insecurity for fatter research budgets

Cyclists know a thing or two about hunger.

At some stage we’ve all suffered the dreaded hunger knock and had to improvise sports training survival tactics.

But it turns out we’re not the only ones worried about sustenance.

A Canterbury Community and Public Health report says 10 per cent of New Zealand households have "low food security" and that one in 10 of us are hungry, malnourished or nervous about where our next meal is coming from.

Terrible stuff, and not just for the desperately hungry faces in our midst, but also the cruel irony of their expanding girths. The report says limited access to culturally acceptable foods encourages the consumption of high-sugar, cheap and filling foods.

Turns out the fear of not being able to eat makes us eat more of the wrong stuff.

Otago University Health Economist Des O'Dea is on to this and has already floated his cure - the Food Insecurity Card, making the right foods cheaper and, so the theory goes, reducing our anxiety and propensity for fattening foods.

But, like the hungry cyclist, the one in 10 New Zealanders gripped by food insecurity won’t be reassured knowing that carrots and cauliflower are now on permanent special.

Anyone steering down the barrel of sugar low is seduced by the closest convenience food wrapper.

Forget about health foods.

No one, least of all the anxiously hungry, is interested.

They’d rather eat burgers and get scurvy than entertain archaic practices of vegetable-based food preparation.

"Low food security" is the concoction of a cardigan wearing researcher punting for new funding.

Food has never been as abundantly available, which is why New Zealanders are so fat.

Try researching ways to get people off their arses.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Cycling Sauce: Chopper Guard Bicycle Lovelies












-- October Sauce – The Cykelkongen girl

Big ups to Danish online cyclery Cykelkongen, whose nautically themed latex mash-up is this month's clear winner.

The Google Monkeys in the department of translation services tell me the picture title is in fact the Danish translation of Beverly Hills Cop. Only, the English translation of their translation apparently reads Illegally cocky.

I’m unsure what to make of all this. And its relevance to online bicycle retailing remains a mystery. Nevertheless, this sort of detail shouldn't complicate our celebration of bicycle marketing excellence.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Striking for cyclist safety












-- Unions to the rescue

Ordinarily, I don’t pay much attention to unions. Too many of these types, aw-right.

However, the squalid small mindedness of union organisers and their close cousins, rabid taxi drivers, can sometimes be revealing.

The protracted dispute between NZ Bus (including Metrolink, North Star, Go West, Waka Pacific, LINK and City Circuit services, used by 80,000 Aucklanders everyday) and the Combined Union (representing Auckland bus drivers) has moved a stage closer to custard, with a union issued directive for a work-to-rule day, this Thursday.

This, I gather, is designed to put more pressure on NZ Bus to “come to the table” by delaying normal services, as bus drivers take their time to “follow the company's handbook to the letter.”

I figure we’re safe assuming that under normal circumstances drivers don’t follow the company’s handbook. After all, if sticking to the rules is being used by unions as an instrument of coercion, not following the rules must be business as usual.

So it’s worth looking at the rules and mulling the implications of NZ Bus’s business as usual endorsement of their breaking.

In accordance with the work-to-rule notice drivers will not:

- Sign on to commence a shift of work earlier than required. (No problems. Who likes starting work early?)

- Adhere to the media communication policy as it is prescribed in the NZ Bus Operator reference handbook dated March 2008 and will speak to the media without specific authority of the board of directors. (Fine, knock yourselves out).

- Drive any bus, which is without a working radio telephone. (Business as usual: Some buses are without working RTs).

- Drive any bus, which is without a current certificate of fitness or a current road user certificate. (Business as usual: If it goes, drive it. Certificates are so overrated)

- Drive any bus, which has a safety defect the driver is aware of. (Business as usual: Safety smafety. If it goes, drive it.)

Drivers will:

- At the commencement of their shift, carry out full pre-shift bus checks as described on the defect card supplied with each bus. (Business as usual: Checks smecks. If it goes, drive it)

- Spend 5 minutes at the end of every time-tabled trip carrying out full terminal duties, including lost property checks, using toilet facilities if required by the driver or service person operator, performing stretching exercises and preparing the bus for the return journey (Bummer. ‘Lost’ property is one of the perks of the job. I’m sure absentminded commuters will be much more at ease this Thursday. Oh, and don’t forget to take a toilet stop and a stretch. There’s nothing more dangerous than a tense bus driver holding on till the end of the line.)

- If there are no toilet facilities available at any terminal at the time a driver or service person operator requires them, then he or she will comply with the policy as it is prescribed in the NZ Bus Operator Reference Handbook March 2008 at clause 9.12 (Wonder what this is? Activate the special emergency trapdoor?)

- Keep to all lawful speed limits (Business as usual: Speed limits are for eejits)

On reflection, I’m a big fan of the Combined Union. Because, as a bicycle riding work commuter, nothing scares me more than sharing the road with poorly checked and maintained buses driven at illegal speeds by overworked and tense bus drivers busting for the toilet.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Postponed: GBC's Spring Tweed Run














-- Inclement weather sees organisers pull the pin on Saturday's event

New date to be advised, say organisers.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Guy King: Tallying up Tamaki Drive cycling sins











-- Not happy: St Heliers/Glendowie Residents' Association member Guy King (pictured).

When a young female driver inexplicably accelerated through a stop sign into the midst of 20 or so Tamaki Drive cyclists, hospitalising four of them, one of whom remains in an induced coma fighting for life, Mr King said he didn’t know who was to blame for the crash.

Presumably, in the rush for a clipboard and one of those scout masterly idiotic clicking counters I suspect he used to capture, document, and then broadcast (albeit in print media) his evidence of Tamaki Drive Cyclist Sins (TDCS), sympathy for injured cyclists was the last thing on his mind.

“I have started counting and the biggest group has been 52 cyclists in one hit, riding three abreast," he said.

I was genuinely impressed by his powers of observation, knowing just how hard it is to accurately tally a marauding three-abreast bunch of cyclists.

Consider that many motorists struggle to see, let alone count, just one cyclist.

But Guy King is no ordinary contender. In the 10 years he’s spent escorting VIP visitors to New Zealand shores, he’s received a number of professional accolades for his professionalism and CARE.

However, as a self-professed former cyclist, it seems his care and professionalism is no longer extended to cyclists, who doubtless impede the progress of his preferred commuting style.

Perhaps during one of his Bentley parades, when cyclists overtook his cavalcade of waving dignitaries and VIPs, he was able to point a radar gun to measure the dangerously high speeds Tamaki Drive cyclists sometimes attain.

I have seen cyclists speeding, he said, frantically thumbing his Dignitary Personal Protection handbook for the right procedure.

Safety and discretion at all times please, Mr King.

Monday, September 28, 2009

The boil has burst












-- Septic origins trace a distinctly New Zealand streak of vicious intolerance.

The recent collision between Tamaki Drive cyclists and a car doesn’t need further examination here.

But its fetid aftermath shows us for what we are – mean spirited knuckle-heads. The trait squirms under the skin like an angry caterpillar struggling to burst free and eat away decency.

It’s quite strange. We’re good at hiding it from international visitors, who consistently tell us that we’re the friendliest bunch of people they’ve ever met.

Maybe we are, until we hit the road and the caterpillar squirms and intolerance takes hold.

NZ travel guides should come with a warning – the whole friendly thing is a ruse. PR behind which innate spitefulness simmers.

If the silent conversations of road users took voice an awful din of threats and abuse would drown out almost everything: “I’ll show you. I’ll teach you a lesson. Shouldn’t be on the road.” And a thousand other variations.

Why does New Zealand road travel gas common decency and respect?

Do we have large bags of crisps on our shoulders, like the Aussies say? An inferiority complex of small angry man proportions looking for a vent. And what better place than the road, where might is right and little lessons and shows of indignation are so easily dished out.

It’s time we grew up.

We don’t need more laws or special provisions.

Just maturity.

We’re all the same people, just traveling by different means.

Look out for one another and accept that the vast majority of road users are decent people just trying to get some place, without inconveniencing or injuring anyone on the way.

Breathe in breathe out, enjoy the trip and if, along the way, you are inconvenienced, try smiling and waving instead of improvising a demonstration of anger.

Everyone be cool. Be nice. Show respect.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Chopper Guard photo caption competition


-- World Naked Bike Ride – San Fran: Mum, kids and the chariot of naked doom

One day poor little Johnny will look back on this day and smile.

But only after he’s been rehabilitated from his homeless years of self-harm and crack addiction induced by the shame and degradation of his mother’s naked whimsy.   

Post your picture caption ideas in the comments section.

Best caption receives a free copy of Chopper Guard’s Cycling Sauce 2010 calendar. 

Friday, September 18, 2009

Cycling clubs riding to oblivion


-- The world’s moved on, but why haven’t cycling clubs?   

I’m told clubs in many sporting codes struggle to attract and retain members. 

One theorist attributed the problem to the casualisation of sport. People would rather participate on their own terms, avoiding seemingly pointless club codes, diktats and invisible benefits. 

Why complicate access to something as simple as weekend bicycle racing? 

Perhaps this is why rides like ‘Round Taupo’, K1/2 and so on are so popular. Pay the entry fee and participate. Simple.

But not so for club racing. First, you must join the club before enjoying the privilege of paying individual race fees (though I understand Counties Manukau, for example, allows cyclists to participate in three races before membership is required).

What’s wrong with keeping things simple and paying an unfettered race entry fee? Like triathlon, a runaway success, which, as far as I know, bar NZ rep level races, lets anyone with an entry fee race. Lord knows, given the logistics and health and safety issues that come with policing three sporting disciplines in a single race, they could do with the extra money ‘club’ membership brings in.

But simple cycling is not. 

One recent race enquiry served to illustrate the self-defeating anachronism club cycling administration has become. A flyer for Cycling Auckland 2009 Open Road Champs (and good luck trying to find online information about it) appeared in my email inbox. 

Great, I thought. I’d like to race that weekend. $20 entry. Fine. But I have to stipulate my club. Don’t have one, nor do I have a CNZ license. So I ring the organiser, who impatiently tells me that I need to cough up $160 for a CNZ license, which will, in any case, expire in November. “Makes it an expensive race,” he said. I agreed and asked if there was a workaround. There wasn’t.    

Cycling has never been so popular. ‘Clubs’ could do themselves a favour if they for a minute stopped obsessing about administration and took the time to understand the needs and habits of the many thousand enthusiastic cyclists who would happily pay an entry fee to a weekend race, if only it were that easy. 

Or have I missed something? A marvelous additional benefit of club membership? 

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Glendowie Bicycle Club (GBC) Spring Tweed Run


-- Gentlemen, lady-members. Bring your bicycles and your panache - organiser

The Spring Tweed Run: 2:30 p.m., Saturday 3 October, Reef Bar, Mission Bay.

The inaugural GBC ride, undertaken last March and promoted as the ‘Gentlemen's Ride’ (though with a cheery “Hello Ladies”), was a stirring success and turned discerning heads all the way along Auckland’s waterfront.

GBC’s Chairman Mike says re-branding the event Tweed Run avoids gender issues and spotlights the importance of rider panache and fashion sense.

“The bicycling movement has been enslaved to garish fashion, accessorising and fleshy contours. We want to reclaim the glory of the bicycle and celebrate its raw understated beauty – everything that is good and right,” Chairman Mike says.

The March ride’s celebrity drawcard, Gemma Atkinson, who failed to show, has this time not been invited.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Astarloza EPO


-- I’ve picked on Tom and antagonized Cadel

Only because they deserved it: Cadel, for his grave personality defects, and, Tom, for being a boone-head. There I go again.

But just as Cadel was due for another dummy spit, along comes Euskaltel-Euskadi's Mikel Astarloza, arresting our attention like man boobs on a motorbike.

"I know that I have not taken anything prohibited," Astarloza said, when his positive test for EPO was announced shortly after this year’s Tour de France.

One day after the counter-analysis confirmation, he said: "I'm completely innocent," adding: "Unfortunately, I can't prove it.” (Probably because you’re guilty, Mikel).

His team said in a statement that it “is not surprised at this result…. and trusts in the rider's innocence.”

But not enough to stop them suspending Astarloza from the team.

Now, of course, Astraloza is very unhappy. “I'm very unhappy.”

As is his sponsor Euskaltel-Euskadi, who faces a second positive for EPO in barely a month, after former Dauphine Libere winner Inigo Landaluze failed an anti-doping test for the same banned substance.

Now ex-pro and lawyer José Rodriguez has stepped in, saying Astarloza's problems stem from training in a hyperbaric tent, which replicates the effects of altitude training and stimulates the natural production of red blood cells (the same thing EPO does much better).

Maybe Rodriguez practices from a tent.

The problem is not Astarloza's red blood cells - it's the properties of synthetic EPO in his blood.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Merckx drugs could kill small horse - Specialized


-- Double glazed reception doors provide transparency of sorts, but in these times of interconnectivity and openness, people want to see deep into the belly of brands they deal with.

While some corporate brands tiptoe into tweets and employ more PhD-qualified call centre operators unafraid to deviate from scripts, most still pine for the safety of weasel words and sanitised pompousness.

However, occasionally, examples of refreshing candour and long leashes extended to company spokespeople offer new hope to nosy consumers.

Responding to my “sarcastic” email, the honesty of this Specialized representative should be revered.

Honestly, I am impressed.

Respect.

From: store_customerservic@specialized.com

I think you meant to send that sarcastic email to Quickstep. We sponsor Quickstep. Quickstep is the team that Tom Boonen rides for. They pay his salary. They are the ones who stepped up with legal help. It was the CAS who let him ride, so maybe you should email them too.

If you think Boonen ruined cycling integrity you must be new to the sport. Drug use and cycling go hand in hand! Even Eddy Merckx was on enough steroids and amphetamines to kill a small horse. What's worse is he was doing it during competition to gain an advantage!! Come to think of it.......several of the last Tour De France winners have had their titles stripped from them for testing positive. Oh hey, where are Kohl and Valverde this year? Oh, that's right....they got busted for performance enhancing drugs and weren't allowed to race.

Don't get me wrong, I totally object to Boonen testing positive for cocaine. I am opposed to drug use in any way. I do think that getting your party on after winning the Queen of the Classics is a little different than flat out cheating. If you want to credit riders with ruining the integrity of the sport there are plenty of people in line ahead of Boonen. I would start pointing fingers at them first.

I do agree with you. I feel like the sport of cycling has had its integrity compromised, but I don't think it was Boonen who did it. While what he is going through really bums me out, I get a lot more bummed out by people I looked at as heroes getting busted for cheating. Pro cycling is very bittersweet. I still have a couple heroes left and I am keeping my fingers crossed that they won't end up dopers. Hopefully the testing will get stronger than new doping technologies. Sadly, there is no money to made in testing and tons of money to be made in cheating.

I hope Tom being in the Tour this year doesn't sour you on it. It promises to be an exciting/drama filled event.

Friday, September 4, 2009

The beatings shall continue



-- Will MOT step in?

Fear is a gift. It stops us from doing things that jeopardize our safety.

Fear also stops the vast majority of New Zealand’s 1.5 million bike owners from riding to work.

We don’t want to get hit. 

And while the risk of an incident isn’t particularly high, the likely consequences of a collision are so brutal (at least for the cyclist) we don’t even want to go there. 

So we don’t and the bike stays in the garage.

What to do? 

The practical folks at Bike New Zealand are on the case and looking to work with Ministry of Transport on the 10-year road safety strategy, which will, we hope, establish a law requiring the preservation of a 1.5m safe passing distance between cars and cyclists.

The threat of a fine for passing too closely might make a difference, though I reckon the associated publicity and awareness of the legislative process, should it go ahead, might make the biggest difference. 

I guess we’ll see. 

At the least it will reduce the cyclist fear factor and hopefully encourage more people to dust off their bikes. This, on its own, has proven to make cycling safer – the more cyclists on the road the safer it gets.

On this matter you should sign the online petition to add weight to Bike New Zealand’s submission.

Road safety’s a funny thing. They say you never see the one that gets you. Just ask Beijing Olympic gold medallist and Argentinean sporting hero Walter Perez, who while cycle training with a group on the Autopiste del Oeste, one of the few roads in Buenos Aires that riders consider safe enough to train on, was run off the road, beaten and arrested by Police.



Turns out the road is a six-lane highway which, by law, is not open to pedestrians or cyclists. But because Buenos Aires roads are so dangerous to ride on, the area's cyclists frequently risk being run off by the gendarmes in order to train on the highway.

And we reckon we’ve got it bad.

In other cases beatings are well and truly deserved.

And I put it to you that these two (below), who I’m embarrassed to say are Kiwis, should be beaten. The inventors of the foldable electric Yike Bike have, in their infinite wisdom, mounted the handlebars BEHIND the seat. And then there’s the small matter of looking like a complete tosser riding it.



The beatings shall continue 

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Food for thought


-- Lining up for NZ's Food Insecurity Card

Des O'Dea
Health Economist
Otago University

Dear Des

I must say your food insecurity card is a tasty idea.

Especially for a fat guy like me, who struggles to resist calorie dense options, like mince and cheese pies and butter chicken.

Mmmmm. You see, I’m salivating already.

Anyway, I see that it’s only available to “low and middle-income families” which puts it out of my reach (by global health and government standards I’m fat and rich).

You say the starved of cash tend to high-energy foods.

Frankly, though, in my high-income experience I’ve never consumed so many calories. When you’ve got money to spend you go for the good (bad) stuff.

I figure the assumption is that my high-income status makes me smarter and less prone to fast-food temptation than low-income types. Yes?

So, putting the food insecurity card into my soft sweaty hand would be a waste. I should know better.

But then I think back to my University days (not so long ago) when I really was starved of cash (and, strangely, much skinnier than I am today), and reflect on the satisfaction that came from making rice, chuck steak and peas so darn tasty.

Which I guess poses the question:

Is effectively lowering the price of “healthy foods”, by using things like your insecurity card, going to change anything for low-income earners, who it seems are much like high-income earners and don’t really care about healthy eating options or obesity?

Food for thought.

On a different track, have you thought about subsidizing bicycle ownership?

Get more of us on to bikes, which is known to melt lard from saggy behinds.

Might also help with easing congestion and reducing CO2 emissions.

A much healthier carrot in my mind.

Yours in insecurity

Lester

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Cycling Sauce: Chopper Guard Bicycle Lovelies


-- September Sauce – The Klein Bicycles Girl

Klein Bikes founder Gary Klein pioneered the oversized tube aluminium bicycle . In 1995 his company was purchased by Trek, who, according to industry gossip, plans to discontinue supporting Klein.

In the meantime, Gary’s shifted his focus to manufacturing an altogether different kind of oversized tube – the telescope.

This Klein enthusiast (above), enjoying a nice day at the beach, subtly evinces the joy of oversized tubing.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Boonen cocaine positive demystified


-- Just who can you trust?

Boonen’s third cocaine positive tested his lawyers’ powers of spin.

There was talk of suspect handshaking and spiked drinks.

But no mention of Tom’s spiked ball.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Sky TV tunes in to cycling



-- Tour of Britain coverage on the schedule

News just in - Sky TV has published its September schedule, showing rather chunky coverage of The Tour of Britain.

This is rather good news for New Zealand's 1.3 million cyclists, who aren't satisfied with a TV diet restricted to July's Tour de France and a 1-hour Paris-Roubaix highlights package.

I'd point you to the schedule, but Sky's website is so poxy I'm unable to find it. Their two monkeys on the lose at Sky's Mt Wellington call centre couldn't much help, either.

Thankfully there are other ways.

Fingers crossed tour coverage will bump off air at least a few episodes of rugby league's past golden moments. Arrghh!

Stage 1 Highlights 9/13/09 Noon Sport 3 1
Stage 2 Highlights 9/14/09 13:00 Sport 3 2
Stage 2 Highlights 9/15/09 03:00 Sport 1 2
Stage 3 Highlights 9/15/09 12:30 Sport 3 3
Stage 3 Highlights 9/15/09 18:30 Sport 2 3
Stage 3 Highlights 9/15/09 22:30 Sport 3 3
Stage 4 Highlights 9/16/09 13:00 Sport 3 4
Stage 4 Highlights 9/16/09 20:30 Sport 3 4
Stage 5 Highlights 9/17/09 13:00 Sport 3 5
Stage 5 Highlights 9/17/09 17:30 Sport 1 5
Stage 5 Highlights 9/17/09 23:30 Sport 3 5
Stage 6 Highlights 9/18/09 13:00 Sport 1 6
Stage 6 Highlights 9/18/09 23:30 Sport 3 6
Stage 7 Highlights 9/19/09 10:30 Sport 1 7
Stage 7 Highlights 9/19/09 14:30 Sport 3 7
Stage 7 Highlights 9/19/09 21:30 Sport 3 7
Stage 8 Highlights 9/20/09 14:00 Sport 3 8
Stage 8 Highlights 9/20/09 22:00 Sport 3 8

Another good reason to cycle

-- Running out of petrol won’t cost you a thing

Cycling will seem even better with the rubber stamping of a Transport Agency bylaw fining motorists for running out of steam anywhere on Auckland’s 72.7km motorway network.

Not that cyclists are big users of Auckland motorways. Or are they?

Anyway, that’s not to say cyclists don’t run out of fuel. And when they do, the results can be hideous and, frankly, deserving of financial penalty. The guy below, a professional road cyclist, forgot to eat and within minutes found himself pulling this stunt.




Riders with more panache are able to adapt and rise above fuel depravation. With the right kind of eye, roadsides offer a veritable treasure trove of sustenance.


Heineken – abundantly available on New Zealand roadsides and ocean bottoms

For the better prepared, there are a range of stronger chemical enhancers – like testosterone – popular with South African trans-gender athletes. Some advice – female cyclists: be sure to practice speaking like Cadel Evans and you won't give yourselves away.



Cadel speaks like a girl. Could it be drugs?

Quite possibly, if this photo of Cadel, taken at Silence Lotto's 2008 end-of-season karaoke competition, is anything to go by.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Another magic moment in sport
















-- Somewhere near Auckland’s waterfront

Earlier today, Chopper Guard attended a top-secret waterfront photo shoot for the launch of a new fixie range.

Here I was expecting a despairing encounter with anxious creatives herding tattooed rabble more interested in bike bingo.

But, no. Hell no.

Finally, a manufacturer who gets it.

The secret to increasing bicycle sales is getting more chicks on bikes.

Chicks want to look hot (like this one) when they ride.

They won’t if they don’t.

And when hot chicks ride past pavement lubbers they'll want to ride bikes, too.

Simple.

Tell me the name of the manufacturer and be in to win Chopper Guard’s Cycle Sauce 2010 calendar.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

You can beat an egg












-- But you can't beet-a-root

Chopper Guard readers were first to learn about the performance enhancing effects of Heineken. Now here’s something else for your nutrition regime. Beetroot. That’s right. Nitrates contained in beetroot juice boost stamina by reducing the oxygen cost of exercise. Get into it.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

'Careless' truckie: Update 2














-- Desmond Wilson, 45, on trial for running down and killing senior police officer Steve Fitzgerald (pictured above), said there was no cyclist in front of him

I figure that means Wilson just didn't see Fitzgerald as he swung his trailer unit into the 1.5 metre shoulder in which Fitzgerald was cycling.

The bump later noted by Wilson, who thought it was a traffic island, was Fitzgerald being crushed under the wheels of the articulated truck.

Now the courts will decide if Wilson is guilty (he pleaded not guilty) to the charge of careless driving causing death.

Presumably it's not criminal to drive on a shoulder, if you don't hit anyone doing it. So I figure the outcome is down to arguing about whether failing to 'see' is 'careless'.

The area was lit and Fitzgerald's bike had front and rear lights. Hardly facts supporting Fitzgerald's invisibility.

Let's assume Wilson isn't blind and possesses the vision satisfying standards for licensed drivers.

In which case he is careless.

Perhaps his driving directly reflects the attitude of the CEO of NZ Trucking Association, Rodney Auton, who believes cyclist shouldn't be on the road. "Our view is move the cyclists off the road where all will be safer and we are lobbying that with Government constantly"

It's this attitude - cyclists shouldn't be on the road - that is probably most responsible for vehicle/cyclist accidents. Because when that's how drivers think, that's how they drive, and the thin grey line between safety and 'accident' is crossed. And there's never any argument when it's cyclist versus vehicle.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Cycling Sauce: Chopper Guard Bicycle Lovelies


















-- August Sauce – The Felt Bicycles Cruiser Girl

We should be thankful that Felt cycles founder Jim Felt, who made a name for himself in motocross as an ace mechanic, is now dedicated to the purer form of two wheels. Cruising, once the sordid domain of public toilets and fat necked scoutmasters, is now ripe for the hot embrace of mainstream cycling enthusiasts. Thanks Jim!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

A revolutionary breakthrough in cycling endurance nutrition!













-- Get your next generation adaptogens now!!

Why are we suckers for nutritional witchcraft? Science be damned. Give me any day the pill form of herbs and spices Amazonian pygmies have for 250 years rubbed on their loins before the full moon rave and chicken slaughter.

Marketers have successfully commercialised this kink of human nature – a helpless attraction to unproven claims and hyperbole. Millions are being made from the promise of improbable gains.

Lord knows, I’ve been there myself, believing that somehow I can short circuit hard work and experience the miracle edge delivered by two pills, containing the grinds of a mythical sounding root extract, taken three times daily with meals.

Maybe if we better understood the psychology of this voodoo attraction we’d force manufacturers to better substantiate their claims.

Who better to get to the bottom of this ruse than Lunn Ave rider and Doctor of Bicycle Engineering Mike P.

He writes…….I just had to reef off. Can't help it. Because deficient and spasmodically variable diets still work for sedentary life, we probably never know until we cycle hard, that they were. One thing is for sure though, a properly balanced diet is a must if top level extended performance is required.

But how to assemble it, is the question. The answer for most is to grab "the products". They promise it all, and list so much bio-blurb we tire reading it, and just say Yes! YeS! YES! I must have it! And then the pill and powder popping becomes encouragingly placebic, and maybe even beneficial, especially if we had just depleted one or more of the harder to replace but fairly necessary micro-unknowns.

(We then become equally unwitting and enthusiastic peddlers for the product, even though the chance of our personal deficiency aligning with those of our associates is low.) So, why am I going on again? Because I read some stuff on vitamin C absorption that identifies that although a vitamin C pill carries mega vitamin C compared to an orange or a kiwifruit, the real food delivers in inverse proportion.

Extrapolating on that hugely (as my view is "Why not?") a balanced diet of minimally processed food is the real means to get the intake levels right. And better to fiddle with that, in the first place, than just estimate, then top-off with supplements.

But how to fiddle with any accuracy? My view, again, and it's just a hunch based on The Naked Ape etc, is that stuff just tastes great, when you really need it, and ever blander, when you don't.

This is my view on the food part of heavy training. Of course if I can get it there or thereabouts, toping off with supplements near race day, and when I next ride the Tour then it just becomes a be-sure to be-sure as opposed to an obsessive compulsive superstitious ritual. Do it the other way round - supplement up, and eat haphazardly - is not only not so good in terms of absorbability, it is likely to mask the taste-hunt.

So, yeah I will buy the stuff, but only for use after I work out on my primary (which I will spend the $128's on first). Hey - don't take this as a rejection of first-endurance etc. Far from it. When we earn, best we use the good shit.