Eddy Merckx at Cycle Show

I know the 2009 Cycle Show has come and gone and that this posting is rather late. But as Tom Boonen is making some noise in the 2010 Tour of Qatar, I thought I would get this post up super quick. Who knows what the Google ranking could do for this blog

Another reason for this hasty post is that Tom and his fellow team mates from the Quickstep cycling team are all riding the new style Eddy Merckx EMX-5. A superb looking machine, which unfortunately you won’t get to see much of in the TV coverage of the TOQ. This is why I am posting the pictures on here so you can see for yourself what all the fuss us about.

Another team that is also riding on the new style Eddy Merckx is in the TOQ the Topsport Vlaanderen – Mercator pro cycling team. If you recall, this team rode in the 2009 Tour of Britain.

Enjoy:

Eddy Merckx EMX-5

Eddy Merckx EMX-5

Eddy Merckx EMX-5

Eddy Merckx EMX-5

The EMX-5 is the top of the range carbon in the Eddy Merckx stable. 2nd in the same line is the EMX

Eddy Merckx EMX-3

Eddy Merckx EMX-3

Eddy Merckx EMX-3

And last but not least is the EFX-1  designed for the ladies:

Eddy Merckx EFX-1

Endura Racing Team

The 2010 Endura Racing Team

Last week Friday I attended the launch of the Endura Racing cycling team, which took place at the Porsche Human Performance Centre located at the Silverstone race circuit.

My day started off quite early considering I had a two drive to get there. But I had good reason to get there early too  – thanks to both Endura and Cyclevox, I was given the opportunity to drive as passenger inside a Porsche 911 Turbo. The drifting around the low friction circuit as well as super fast straights (and the drifting around) on the handling circuit, it was an awesome experience.

The Porsche 911 Turbo

Anyway, back to the launch itself. It was a slick event which in my view, made a big impression on the gathered audience. The day started with MC Anthony McCrossan introducing the Endura brand and Endura Racing history, to a backdrop of SRAM equipped LOOK race and TT bikes. Endura director, Jim McFarlane, then addressed the audience expressing his ‘pride’ at what had been assembled in the impressive Porsche centre’s foyer.

Team captain Rob Hayles being interviewed by Anthony McCrossan (check out the red trainers!)

A suprise announcement on the day was that of Alexandre Blain.  A former ProTour rider with Cofidis, 28 year-old Blain is a continental rider whose pedigree extends to podium rides in races such as the Etoile de Besseges. His arrival on the squad is yet another statement of intent from this very ambitious team.

Former ProTour rider Alexandre Blain interviewed by Anthony McCrossan

Another announcement on the day saw the team reveal a key partnership with the Porsche Human Performance Centre (PHPC) at Silverstone. Acccording to press release, the PHPC will provide rider physiological testing and support over the season and will be the bedrock of performance measurement as the Endura riders progress through their season of domestic and continental racing.

Prior to the team riders being unveiled the Endura Racing promo film was shown to the crowd gathered, a video-diary of visits to the Endura offices, team sponsors Fisher Outdoor Leisure (LOOK, SRAM, MET and Tacx) and the house of Rob Hayles, for an insight into his thoughts and expectations for 2010.

Look Team Bike, kitted out in Zipp wheels and SRAM components

Look 596 Team Time Trial Bike

The launch finale saw the team riders being introduced and interviewed, followed by team photos with riders, guests and sponsors.

The Endura Racing team for 2010 are:

• Alexandre Blain
• Callum Wilkinson
• David Lines
• Evan Oliphant
• Gary Hand
• Ian Wilkinson
• Jack Bauer
• James McCallum
• James Moss
• Jason Christie
• Rob Hayles
• Rob Partridge
• Ross Creber
• Sandy King
• Scott Thwaites

All in all, a really good launch. So, watch this space. This team is on the cusp of something big!

The 2010 Prostate Cancer Charity Tour Rides – registration now open

The Tour of Britain and The Prostate Cancer Charity have today revealed three new amateur cycle rides for 2010 – The Prostate Cancer Charity Tour Rides.  According to the press release, cyclists of all levels will have the opportunity to measure themselves against the pro riders from The Tour of Britain, by taking on the same full stages from Britain’s national cycle tour event.

The events – scheduled to take place in September – are:

• Sunday 5 Sep – South West: A brand new addition to The Tour Ride roster  will see riders take on a tough route from Minehead to the South Devon Coast covering a total of 150km.
• Saturday 18 Sep – London: The second year this event is happening, will see cyclists ride a route that takes in some of the most iconic landmarks in the capital, just before the final stage of The Tour.
• Sunday 26 September – Stoke-on-Trent: The inaugural event in 2009 saw 1,300 plus cyclists take to the surrounding roads of Stoke. Included in that field was British Road Race Champion Kristian House (see pic below). This year sees the 145km event start and finish in Stoke (although exact route is still to be confirmed). For those who follow my blog will remember me going on a ride with 2004 Paris-Roubaix winner Magnus Backstedt on this very route last year. Read more about that here.

For the exception of London, both South West and Stoke events will also offer  challenge routes of 70km and family routes of 20km. This is great as now people of all ages and abilities can take part, allowing more people to spend their day out on the bicycle.

According to the Tour Ride website, the rides will cost £40 for the full stage distances, £30 for the 70km distances and £20 for a family of four to do the 20km Family Rides, in both Stoke-on-Trent and the South West.

Entries close on 1 September 2010 but as places are limited and expected to fill up fast, riders are being encouraged to sign up as soon as possible.

So, if this tickles your fancy and you’d like to spend a day out on the bike experiencing what life as a pro taking part in The Tour of Britain is like, then make sure to sign up for the event as soon as possible.

Last but not least, here are some pictures from the 2009 Tour Ride event in Stoke-on-Trent:

The Tour of Britain lead vehicle getting ready to lead out the riders for the Tour Ride

British Road Race Champion Kristian House and the team from Sharp4Prostate

Neutral service on The Tour Ride provided by Saddleback, distributors of SRAM, Felt and ZIPP

Free food and drinks at all the food stops on The Tour Ride

Girls of Toyota United Pro Cycling Team

The Girls from the Toyota United Pro Cycling Team (Thanks to Pez Cycling and their Daily Distractions for this pic)

Over the course of December, as my workload quietened down at The Tour and I had some time to read through the various cycling news sites from around the world, I came across the Toyota United Pro Cycling Team and the team girls.  Just as with my post of the Rock Racing Girls, I thought it only fair that I post pictures of the Toyota Girls.

Who knows, now that Nissan is sponsoring Team Radioshack and Jaguar is sponsoring Team Sky, maybe in time we will see each team bring out their own ‘eye candy’ supporters at the major events of 2010?

(Again - Thanks to Pez Cycling News for this one)

Apparently this model's name is Elizabeth (from the Tour of Georgia 2006)

And apparently this model's name is Nicola (from the Tour of Georgia 2006)

Another one of Nicola

Nice!

Even famous American woman’s cyclist, Liz Hatch, has been seen wearing the Team United team kit. Apparently she was dating a guy from the team and decided to wear his top…

Liz Hatch

Have you come across any cycling teams that have their own female groupies? If so, please feel free to send me the links to them. I’ll be happy to post them up here.

Saddleback Man catches people unaware at Cycle Show 2009

I’ve taken some time out of clearing my study to go through my computer and clear out any old files that I have. While doing so, I came across this video that I took while at Cycle Show in London this year.

It’s of the man that Saddleback Ltd – importers of Felt, SRAM, ZIPP, Castelli, etc – use to ‘gain’ people’s attention at the show and bring them onto their stand. Not sure if he get’s them onto the stand, but he does manage to get their attention.

Anyway, it tickled me to watch people get caught unaware by this guy so thought I’d film it and get it up here.  As they say, better late than never. Enjoy!

Oh, more importantly, Merry Xmas everyone!!

Cycle Passion – cycling’s own Pirelli Calendar

Nikki Harris

Last year I came across the Cycle Passion calendar and posted a blog on it as part of my xmas wish list. Now it seems this year that the calendar range has picked up in profile and in its fifth year of production is getting more media attention than before. I suppose a good thing, especially for the models who are helping to make the calendar what it is. And with all the publicity it is receiving, it makes me wonder if this calendar series is becoming the Pirelli calendar of the cycling world?

According to RoadCyclingUK:

Let’s not forget the origins of the calendar in the first place. Anke Wilken was the wife of a frenetic, obsessed cyclist who spent any and all of his free time on a bike. Anke felt she would sooner or later become a bike widow – fast losing ground to her husband’s love affair with the sport. The calendar was a response to this, initiating the first exclusive female cycle calendar and hoping to challenge her husband’s view and at the same time spicing up the cycling world with a female touch of beauty and passion. Sadly they’ve since split up. I wonder if the calendar was the cause…

Anyway, back to the current day and the latest 2010 calendar is another impressive collection of artfully and tastefully shot women cyclists not really wearing all that much clothing. There’s the odd bicycle or component in there as well but you won’t notice that for all the smouldering pouting and suggestive looks going on.

The 2010 calendar features Sabine Spitz (Germany), Lene Byberg (Norway), Julie Krasniak (France), Monia Baccaille (Italy), Anna Sanchis (Spain), Steffi Marth (Germany), Solveig Lindgren (Sweden) and our very own Nikki Harris (UK).

And here’s a taster of what you will get when you buy the calendar:

Sabine Spitz

Monia Baccaille

And for those of you that want to see some behind the scenes footage from the 2010 calendar, here are some YouTube clips of the girls:

Anna Sanchis

Sabine Spitz

Will Fat Cyclist take up the challenge from Johan Bruyneel?

This past week saw an interesting new challenge come about in the world of cycling. The Fat Cyclist has always been one to set them up for his readers and always manages to raise heaps of cash for a charitable cause.

However, earlier this week he wrote a letter to Johan Bruyneel, team manager for the newly created Team Radioshack. In this letter he explains that after some careful consideration that he as decided to have a career change and become a professional cyclist. As such, part of this change would include him joining Team Radioshack and therefore would like Johan Bruyneel to carefully consider his CV (resume) and cover letter so that he can join the squad that includes Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloeden, to name but a few.

So, on Friday just gone by, Johan Bruyneel wrote a blog entry on his website in response to the open letter from Fatt. In is posting he said he would be willing to entertain Fatty’s request and let him join Team Radioshack at their first team training camp.

However, Johan wanting to make the most of this request has imposed two conditions/challenges that Fatty has to meet in order to join the team at the training camp. These two conditions include:

By Friday December 11, 12:00 PM US Mountain Standard/Tucson, AZ Time Fatty must have met the following criteria:-

- Raised a minimum of $10,000 for World Bicycle Relief

AND

- Raised a minimum of $10,000 for LIVESTRONG

If these two criteria are met by the stated deadline, Johan will fly Fatty out to Arizona and he will have the one opportunity to ride with Team RadioShack on Sunday, December 13. In addition to this, Johan has added an extra bonus for him:

- If you raise a minimum of $25,000 for World Bicycle Relief AND $25,000 for LIVESTRONG, you”ll get a brand new Trek Madone 6 Series bike powered by SRAM Red.

Now Johan’s a pretty good guy and got his friends at World Bicycle Relief and LIVESTRONG to create some easy fundraising pages for Fatty in order to help him achieve his objective. Here are the links to each:

World Bicycle Relief – http://grassroots.kintera.org/Creative/fatcyclist or http://bit.ly/8lbpeD

LIVESTRONG – http://www.livestrong.org/grassroots2009/sendfattytocamp or http://bit.ly/8CHHgi

Now the question that needs to be asked: “Will Fatty take up the Johan challenge?“

I really hope so because already on these two sites that Johan has created for Fatty, people have been donating their hard earned cash and it looks like Fatty could be on his way to joining Team Radioshack next weekend. Without any acknowledgement on his website, he has managed to raise:

World Bicycle Relief -$2,513

LIVESTRONG – $4,331

So Fatty, let us know if you’re going to take on the challenge! Your supporters are already supporting you (as you can see from the money that’s already been raised).

Sign the petition to keep the Pursuit in the Olympics

The Pursuit

Early yesterday afternoon, Lance Armstrong posted twitter link to a story on Velo News that put forward a case for keeping the individual pursuit in the Olympic Games. As a side link to the story I found a link that allows people to sign a petition to keep the pursuit in the Olympics. The site states:

The purpose of this petition is to show the IOC, the UCI, and the London Organizing Committee that there is continued public support for retaining the Individual Pursuit as part of the Olympic track cycling program.

So if you’d like to see the pursuit event stay in the Olympics, then please sign the petition – click here.

Geraint Thomas doesn’t know his team mate

Am sorting through all the video clips I have taken these past few months. This clip is of Olympic medallist, Geraint Thomas being questioned on his team mate Michele Merlo. As you will see from the clip, Thomas doesn’t know much about the guy. Which is quite sad really. Anthony McCrossan, who is interviewing Thomas, has to prompt him along to get the answers out of him.

Let’s hope that while he is at Team Sky, he will take the time to get to know the guys he is riding with.

Most compact folding bicycle in the world

Concept folding bike

Seriously, how cool does this concept bike look? My only question whenever I see something like this, is how expensive is it going to be if it ever does make it to market. But hey, right now who cares. Just check those wheels out – they fold too!

According to website Tuvie:

The compactable bicycle concept was driven from the need of boosting urban space efficiency when it is not in use or being transported. The wheel is made of six modules, each with double pivot in their joints, allowing the wheel to be folded and become smaller. The spokes of the wheel are contained in the internal structure when you fold the bicycle and the spokes rotate to the system’s center where they attach with the center wheel.

So this is what they mean:

Concept folding wheel

Concept folding wheel

Concept folding wheel

Concept folding wheel

Concept folding wheel

Concept folding wheel

According to designer, Victor Aleman:

The wheel is composed by six modules, each one has a double pivot in the joints. This allows the wheel to fold and become smaller. The spokes are contained in the inner structure of the wheel. When you unfold the system, the spokes rotate to the centre of the mechanism where it attaches to the centre of the wheel.

Hopefully that explains all the pictures above.

Concept folding bicycle

The double triangle structure is composed by expandable modules. Each one collapses into a smaller dimension and  then this module aligns by the rotation of the axis in the joint of the structure. To keep in position all the structure is used a special part in form of an X that aligns all the modules to their position. (CB: He might be great at designing, but he is crap at explaining it properly)

The end result is this:

Concept folding bike now in its separate pieces

Which when all added together with the wheels, looks like this:

Super compact folding bike

Can you just imagine how little storage space you would need for this? However, the downside is that it looks like it will take a huge chunk of time just to fold it smaller. If so, you can’t afford to be getting to a train station late in rush hour traffic  in London. You’ll just never make the train.

Concept Folding Bike