Camelbak Water Jersey

Camelbak is now testing a compression-fit baselayer jersey with an integrated 72-ounce hydration sleeve called the RaceBak. The RaceBak is still in the research & testing phase but if all goes well in testing, it is expected that the RaceBak should reach stores for 2009.

More at Outside Magazine's Blog.

From Pro Cyclist to Spin Instructor?

It's nice to know that even though Riccò has made some serious mistakes, there are still people willing to give young Riccò a job.

Ricardo Riccò istruttore di spinning.

Katusha & Ridley

The new Russian cycling team, Katusha, will be riding Ridley bikes next year. I'd expect to see Katusha have a great 2009 season given that Katusha has been snapping up all kinds of talented riders & that they now have a top-end bike underneath them.

Read more at TuttoBiciWeb.

Yumeya

Shimano is introducing aftermarket titanium & carbon fiber bits to upgrade XTR groups. They'll be releasing more information about the Yumeya parts at EuroBike and at Shimano.com September 1st. I'd also expect to see the same information at InterBike. Originally found at Singletrack Magazine.

Vuelta by the Numbers

TuttoBiciWeb has the start lists & bib numbers for the Vuelta a España here.

Sastre's pinned #1. No Voigt, Cancellara, A. Schleck, or F. Schleck for the Vuelta. CSC-Saxo bank is the team with the most nations represented by their riders (Spain, Russia, Denmark, Ukraine, Belarus, the Netherlands, & Argentina). By my count, there will be riders from a total of 23 nations riding in this year's Vuelta. Leipheimer, riding for Astana, is the only rider from the United States in this year's Vuelta.

You can check out the official Vuelta sight at lavuelta.com.

Which bikes for Saxo Bank?

If it is indeed true that Cervelo will be sponsoring a new team next year (as discussed August, 21st), which bikes will Saxo Bank be riding?

USA Cycling Professional Championships

Athletes for the Greenville Hospital System USA Cycling Professional Championships have been announced:

GREENVILLE, S.C. (August 19, 2008) – Race organizers confirmed today that George Hincapie (Team Columbia), Christian Vande Velde (Team Garmin-Chipotle presented by H30), David Zabriskie (Team Garmin-Chipotle presented by H30), and Fred Rodriguez (Rock Racing) are among the professional cyclists who will compete this year at the Greenville Hospital System USA Cycling Professional Championships over Labor Day weekend (Aug 30-31, 2008). Three of these elite athletes (Hincapie, Zabriskie, Vande Velde) recently represented the U.S. at the Olympic Games in Beijing. Over 125 professional cyclists are expected in Greenville to compete for both the Individual Time Trial and Road Race Championships.

Other names mentioned in the article: Hamilton (Rock Racing), Wherry (Toyota-United), Danielson (Garmin-Chipotle), and Lewis (Team Columbia).

Read the article in it's entirety here.

New team for Sastre?

From Tuttobiciweb:

Christian Henn, attuale direttore sportivo della Gerolsteiner, sta lavorando attorno ad una nuova squadra, la Cervelo, noto marchio di biciclette canadese. Radiomercato dice che il capitano della squadra sarà Carlos Sastre, fresco vincitore del Tour de France, e che al suo fianco ci saranno il tedesco Stefan Schumacher e l'austriaco Bernhard Kohl, che proprio ieri ha informato la Quick Step ed il suo team manager Patrick Lefevere di non essere interessato ad un passaggio nel team belga.

So, if my limited Italian skills are correct, essentially the article states that Christian Henn, the DS for Gerolsteiner, is working on forming a new team, Cervelo (a well-known Canadian manufacturer). Radiomercato stated that the captain of the new team will be Carlos Sastre, who just won the Tour de France, and that by his side will be Stefan Schumacher (Germany) & Bernhard Kohl (Austria). Yesterday, Kohl had informed Quick Step's team manager, Patrick Lefevere, that his was not interested in a transfer to the Belgian Team.

Keep in mind that I don't actually speak Italian (yet). I do believe I got the main details of the article, but if I've missed something or made of muddle of it, please let me know.

If this is indeed true (that Sastre is going to be leaving CSC-Saxo Bank), it does solve what could have been problematic in the CSC-Saxo Bank future, namely the team leader dilemma.
C. Sastre? F. Schleck? A. Schleck?
What a problem to be had!

Sneak Peak of Bianchi 2009

Via Bike Hugger.

Steel celeste Domomiti with chrome lugs?
Ohlalalala!

Vans Fixed

Some of you may have already seen this, but Vans is going to be making Era Fixed shoes. As you can see from the pictures below (from sneakerfreaker.com), they are based on the Era model but made with a ballistic nylon body and a leather toe (to prevent premature wear that usually arises from Toshi doubles). The shoelaces have been enhanced with reflective twining.

Last but not least, the shoes come with a matching seat bag. This will surely reduce the number of "shoes, belt, & bag must match" fashion rule violations.

How to use a bus bike rack

An instructional video set to music.

Bike Lane Fail

From failblog.org.

Cyclocross at Interbike's OutDoor Demo

Attention all Interbike OutDoor Demo attendees: There's going to be a special cyclocross course set up in Bootleg Canyon during OutDoor Demo.

Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup!

Portland Bike Boxes

Yet another entry about bicycle commuting & city streets that are safe & usable for cyclists. We like to ride our bikes to work, can you tell?

Recently, we've noticed that bike boxes have been popping up on both coasts. What is a bike box?
The City of Portland Office of Transportation says that:
A bike box is an intersection safety design to prevent bicycle/car collisions, especially those between drivers turning right and bicyclists going straight. It is a green box on the road with a white bicycle symbol inside. It includes green bicycle lanes approaching and leading from the box.

How do you use a bike box?

I know that New York, Portland, San Francisco, & Copenhagen have installed several bike boxes, but are there any other cities that have them as well? (As a side note: Portland is stalling on the installation of several bike boxes that it had previously promised to install. The reasons given for the hold up on the installations vary & you can read the whole story at OregonLive).

But, even though they may be dragging their feet on installing more bike boxes, Portland seems to be on the right track with respect to making the streets & city more accessible & safe for city cyclists.
This diagonal intersection looks lovely!

Fixed Gear Tricks

As it turns out, fixed gear tricks are nothing new.

Did you catch the wicked bar spins in there?

Another reason to wear a helmet.

Bike Commuting By the Numbers

From U.S. News: Bike Commuting By the Numbers, Compared to Americans, Europeans are way out in front.

From the article:

In Portland, Ore., 3.5 percent of trips to work are made by bike, the highest share among the 50 largest American cities. The lowest: Kansas City, Mo., at a paltry 0.02 percent.
37 percent of short trips (under 2.5 kilometers, or 1.5 miles) are made on a bicycle in the Netherlands, compared with 2 percent in the United States. 1.1 cyclists are killed per 100 million km cycled there; in the United States, 5.8 cyclists are killed per 100 million km.

Everybody ride & drive safely & hooray for Portland!

Thomas Dekker to Garmin-Chipotle

Via SportWereld: Thomas Dekker onderweg naar Garmin-Chipotle.

I'm not going to try to pretend that I understood the whole article, but I was able to gather that Thomas Dekker will most likely be heading out Garmin-Chipotle way next year. Thomas Dekker, who was uninvited to his country's Olympic squad and subsequently broke with his team Rabobank, is an interesting choice for Garmin-Chipotle.

Garmin-Chipolte has a strict anti-doping policy & a stringent in-house testing program while Thomas Dekker, according to the UCI, returned an anomalous blood-test result. Please note that an anomalous blood-test result is not a positive/non-negative test result and that thus far, Thomas Dekker has never been suspended for a non-negative test result.

Specialized Concept Stores in Europe

Specialized opened up their first concept store on the continent. Their first continental concept store is in Goirle, the Netherlands.

Women's World Champion & Non-Negative Drug Tests

From CyclingWeekly:

Current women's world champion Marta Bastianelli has tested positive for the banned substance flenfluramine, the Italian Cycling Federation confirmed on Monday. Traces of fenfluramine were found in a urine sample taken after Bastianelli finished third in the Europeean Under 23 road race championships on July 5 in Verbania, Italy.

As a side-note, I do believe it's fenfluramine. I wasn't able to find much information on flenfluramine but there was quite a bit of information about fenfluramine (aka Fen-Phen) on the web, including this Wikipedia article about it.


As another side-note, there are some differences in the translations of the statements released by the Italian Cycling federation. In the CyclingWeekly article, Renato di Rocco, the president of the Italian Cycling Federation, is quoted as saying:

She's been incredibly ingenious, she was positive for fenfluramine, that is in dieting products. She's obsessed with her weight. She only eats salad.

Whereas CyclingNews quotes Renato di Rocco as saying:

She's been incredibly naïve. Marta is really obsessed with her weight. She eats only salads.

There's quite a difference between being ingenious and being naïve, but without seeing the original quote, I am inclined to assume that the more accurate translation is "She's been incredibly naïve".