First Impressions - New Ultegra 6700

Head's up!Photo courtesy bikeradar.com

Here's a quick first-ride review on the new generation of Ultegra from bikeradar.com

Link: First Ride: Shimano Ultegra 6700 Review

With Dura Ace 7900 moving decidedly up-market to compete with Sram Red and Campagnolo Super Record, it looks as though Shimano is positioning Ultegra 6700 as the new high-end group for the "rest of us" with nearly Dura Ace weight and performance (shades of which we saw with the Ultegra SL remake a couple years ago), I think you'll be seeing a lot more 6700 groups on the local race circuit because of it's affordability with very little performance penalty.

I look to get my hands on 6700 at Interbike this September - 2 months away!

More to come after Interbike!

Climbing tips, tricks, and advice.

Again, bikeradar.com comes up with a gem of an article. If you're not making this website a part of your regular cycling-related web-surfing you are missing out on some seriously cool stuff.

Link to the article:

Technique: Hill climbing made easy

The title makes a big promise - one which is difficult if not impossible to deliver on. Especially when you consider that the conventional wisdom among experienced cyclists is that climbing never gets easier; it's just that some are able to suffer at a higher rate of speed. None-the-less, there is some value in the information within.

Online fraud in the bike industry. Again...

I don't recall the last time I heard of this happening to customers of a locally owned independent bike shop:

*********************
Story: bikeportland.org

Fraud hits local customers of online retailer Nashbar

Northeast Portland resident Gabriel Tiller is sort of a bicycle renaissance man. He has won a national tall-bike jousting competition, taken top prize at the Zoobomb Century, earned a spot on the gravity-biking podium at the Maryhill Festival of Speed, he likes to do bike touring, and he has recently taken to mountain biking.

The Truth About Tire Pressure

Part of a series I'm calling Tires 101 with lots of great info to consider when looking for new tires.

When it comes to the pavement; more pressure is better.

Right?

Nope. And for several reasons. First, a higher pressure tire is harder to control, is actually a little slower, and rides less comfortably, meaning your feel worse and weaker at the end of a ride. Second, its not as safe. I'll touch on each of these respectively.

Mountain bikers and the cyclo-cross world figured this out a long time ago. Why is it that the road world has taken so long to grasp this concept? Well, I would bet that consumer demand plays a part in this. Somewhere along the line we got it in our heads that more tire pressure capacity makes a better, faster tire and so the tire manufacturers keep pushing the envelope.

So, why is this wrong? Like I said, the off-roaders figured this out early.

Always be prepared!

No, this isn't the big update I was talking about. And, no, that's not a picture of me - but I imagine the frustration level of that rider and myself earlier today were somewhat similar as I stood on the side of River Road between St. Paul and Newberg, Oregon after 2 hours of fighting headwinds (Avg. heart rate: 168; time in upper zone: 1:32:38). Oh, and this was my second flat of the day! The first one happened about 7 minutes into the ride!

So, many of you who may be my regular customers have heard me talk about what I carry every time I ride. (Spare tube, patches, tire levers, combo CO2/mini-pump, 2 full CO2 cartridges, multi-tool, tire boot material.) Well, today, I needed everything; including something more!

Missing the Giro d'Italia?

No Giro on Versus this year. Bummer.

But, if you have highspeed internet and the opportunity - you can still watch live racing (without commercials in some cases!). Thanks to my buddy Brandon at the Beaverton Bike Gallery for the head's-up on this one.

Head over to steephill.tv. They've re-configured their homepage to accomodate all the Giro traffic they're getting - but if you click the front-and-center photo (the one that looks like Alberto Contador stage-diving off the podium...) it will take you to their Giro homepage. There's a link for "Live Coverage" at the bottom left of the Contador photo on that page. Clicking there will take you to a page that has a bunch of different streaming options for the live video feed.

I've bounced around between the RAI Italian feed and the Universal English-language feed. The feeds labeled "unrestricted" have no commercials.

I'll also usually open up VeloNews.com's live text updates as I enjoy some of the witty commentary by Andrew Hood.

By the way...come back early next week for a BIG NEWS UPDATE. Changes are on the horizon.

Thanks for dropping by.

Matt.

Wacky April Fool's Day Stories

April 1 always seems to be a day for big news in the cycling industry. VeloNews and Cyclingnews get the scoop on exclusive stories with preposterous accusations, controversial regulations, or just plain infuriating content. And if you believe them - this is your day. Here's this year's content:

VeloNews (velonews.com)
-Armstrong Sharpens Sprint
The give-away here is the photo of the German Track cyclists' legs and the claim that Armstrong has been consulting with German coaches for similar results before the Tour [de France].

-LanceNews.com
A spinoff of the above story; and mentioned in other stories on the website - not a serious endeavour.

-Lennard Zinn
All I have to say is: Really, Lennard? You expected us to buy that? Really?

-New UCI Eyewear Regs
Again, pretty transparent story (and certainly not distortion free) - along with the accompanying "question" on the Explainer's article.

Unfortunately the story about a Valverde ban is real - unfortunate that the riders don't ever seem to learn that they can't beat the new tests. And, to be entirely honest, I'm still trying to figure out whether the story about Theo Bos is real or not. If it's fake - it's well done!

Cyclingnews (cyclingnews.com)
Much like last year; the CN crew based their story around far-fetched carbon fiber componentry. However, with how far composite materials are being pushed in the bike industry - one of these days the story is going to be believeable. Definitely visit the website associated with the story: http://www.carboncopycomponents.com/

All in all, the stories are in good fun. I enjoy rooting them out every year. Nice work, guys!

Matt.

Shanna's Sweet ProjectOne 6.5 Pro

Photos: me! (Remember, I'm not a photographer...) Click for larger version.

Shanna has waited far too long for her bike and has been more than patient! (Thanks for understanding, Shanna.) We placed the order with Trek as soon as they opened up the ProjectOne program - because we wanted to get her on the bike as soon as possible. Well, we didn't expect that it would take Shimano this long to perfect the Dura Ace 7950 compact crankset. But, just look at that thing! Worth the wait, huh? Gorgeous!

What's new at PDXProRoad?

A quick update on the unique content at my other online presence; just in case you haven't made it over there in a while:

-Kelly's Dura Ace 7900 Parlee Z3

-Bontrager shoes and Parlee's Z4 & TT at Tour of Cali

Coming soon to both sites: Shanna's Dura Ace 7900 ProjectOne Madone 6.5!

Head on over to pdxproroad.blogspot.com to check out those posts and other unique things not found here at RoadRage.

Beware of knock-offs!

Photo: metroactive.com

I haven't done a consumer advocacy post in quite a while - but there hasn't been much to report on. This story even slipped my mind a few times. I first caught wind of it on the NBDA dealers e-mail list and haven't really seen it mentioned anywhere else. But a Google search turned up this article from a weekly publication in Specialized's Silicon Valley backyard:

http://www.metroactive.com/metro/02.04.09/news-0905.html

Sleazy Riders

Morgan Hill–based Specialized Bicycles fights off wave of dangerous Chinese counterfeits

By Jessica Fromm

SPECIALIZED Bicycle Components reports that it has seen a surge in counterfeit carbon bike frames mimicking the company's top-of-the-line models circulating on the Internet. Fake framesets being sold under their the Specialized brand have gotten so prevalent that the company believes a Chinese counterfeit factory must be producing the nearly identical replicas.