7 Tips For Staying Safe While Cycling

This is a guest post from Jamie Huckstep, a professional acquaintance from Australia. Jamie offers some quick tips here with good perspective.. Learn more about Jamie at the end of the article. Enjoy.


While cycling is generally regarded to be a relatively safe sport, accidents still happen and they can be nasty if you aren’t prepared for the worst.  Here are 7 top tips to help you stay safe while out on your ride.

Always Wear An Approved Helmet

Helmets are subjected to stringent testing in order to meet the Australian Standards guidelines for safety.  Don’t be fooled by cheap imitations that you can buy from overseas, unless it carries the Australian Standards sticker then chances are it will not be safe for road use.  Fit is also crucial in ensuring the safety of your head during a potential impact.  It should be snug but not too tight, and mustn’t move around when you try it on.

A Quick Guide: Dura Ace 9000 11-Speed Mechanical Group

There is a lot that is new on Shimano's new Dura Ace 9000-series groups. Both the Di2 electronic group and the Mechanical group got overhauls for this model year.

There are plenty of places to read about the nuts-and-bolts: new lever shape, revised brake lever pivot, new brake calipers, new chainrings; crank arms; and bottom bracket bearings; oh - and it now goes to 11...

But here's what many of us are wondering: what's the bottom line? How much weight do I save and what's it going to cost me?

Shimano RS-80 C24: First Impressions

The natural progression continues...

As it stands at the time of publishing this post; two of my most popular pages are my reviews on the Shimano WH-7850-c24-cl wheelset and the Shimano WH-6700 Tubeless wheelset. I am anticipating that this one will join their ranks rather quickly.

The RS-80 c24, much like the WH-6700 Ultegra Tubeless is a allegorical "shot-across-the-bow" at other major players in the road wheel market. With both of these wheels Shimano is basically saying: "We're doing this be cause we're Shimano and we can." Not that other providers cannot; just that they either don't have the guts or capital (or both) to pull it off without serious stress or anxiety. These wheels possess features of higher priced wheels at prices that you just don't find from the competition. In the case of the RS-80 c24, those features would be light-weight carbon-laminate rims at a price usually below $900. The rims are so light in fact that you cannot get much lighter without going to a full-carbon rim and sacrificing the superior braking of the aluminum brake track.

The RS-80 c24 can be thought of as the "Ultegra" version of the Dura Ace c24-cl. It uses the same rim but merely swaps in a lower grade hub to result in a significantly lower cost and slightly higher weight. Here's the cost/benefit analysis:

The Creation of a Custom 'Cross Bike - in 7 Days

The theory of Creationism states that the universe was created by God in seven days. (Well technically six, because as it's said: "On the seventh day, He rested.") I'd be pooped too, I guess - so a nap is well warranted.

So the creation of a custom titanium cyclocross bike should be no sweat then, right? Not exactly.

In spite of the arguable divinity of Rob Vandermark and the crew at Seven Cycles, they do appear to be limited to some of the finite abilities of mere humanity. Having worked on many custom projects with Seven during my time in Tennessee; I can say that they performed some minor miracles for me and my clients - but in general the custom process usually takes 4-6 weeks.

So even with the VIP status of Mo Bruno Roy's bike; the 1-week turnaround on this is rapid at least and borders on qualification for sainthood at best.

Top Tips for Cycling on a Budget

This is a guest post from Mark Blair. I thought the topic was pertinent and gives a new perspective on some of the tips I have given in the past. Learn more about Mark at the end of the article. Enjoy.

Cycling as a rule is a great activity that can entertain whole families on the weekend for no cost at all. However, they costs that are involved with getting set up with a bike can come at a price that can daunt even the biggest cycling enthusiasts. However, where there is a will there is a way and you can get yourself cycling for a much better price than you may have originally thought.

Cheap and Easy Speed?

If you have arrived here looking for stimulants - sorry to disappoint. We don't do that here: this is a doping free zone.

However; if your search is one of looking for "marginal gains" (as the British Cycling Federation has so famously been quoted lately) I may be of assistance.

I've highlighted some articles here before that speak of new testing facilities that have aimed to put some quantitative and objective data behind some of the qualitative speculation many of us cyclists have followed for decades. Most recently; Friction Facts' founder, Jason Smith in Boulder, Colorado has set about doing just that.

Posting resuming tomorrow...

I've chased down the "gap" and the "peloton" is re-forming...

Sorry for the gap - it's been a crazy couple of weeks for us. I'm getting back on track and will have new material coming with a great new post for tomorrow.

Series posts will resume as well...I know there's a few that folks are waiting on.

Check back soon! Thanks for the break :-)

Matt.

Friday Five: Thanksgiving 2012 Edition

I figured that since the "30 Days of Thanks" thing seems to be the cool thing to do on Facebook (but understanding that I have a hard time doing anything for 30 consecutive days...) I'd do a RoadRageCycling version here on the blog. So without further adieu:

5 Bike-related Things I'm Thankful For:

1. Derailleurs: They open up new roads and trails without making our knees scream out in pain.
2. Clincher Tires: Modern clinchers are good enough that we can almost forget the old tubulars. Flat changes are so much easier

Matching Bike Fit to a Second Bike

MULTIPLE BIKE BLUES
If you're fortunate enough to have multiple bicycles; tell me if this sounds familiar: You have spent endless time and possibly funds perfecting the position on your main bicycle. It's flawless. You feel like you could ride on it all day, in all conditions without pain - and then get on it again tomorrow and do it all over.

Then you get on the other bike. And, while you've taken some measurements and tried to match it up to the first one - stuff still isn't right. It could be any number of things that you don't experience on the first bike: Maybe your knees hurt, you have hand numbness, get saddle sores, have after-ride headaches, or just plain don't feel as strong or fast. Maybe it is something else entirely. Whatever it is, you know something isn't right in spite of your effort to fix it. What now?

In a similar post; I gave you an outline of some different bike fit symptoms, what may be causing them, and potentially how to fix it. Ultimately; the underlying theme though was to seek the help of a qualified and professional fitter. I'm going to do a similar thing here: walk through the bike's contact-points and offer some suggestions; but the help of a professional is still priceless here and many shops offer services to help match the riding position between multiple bikes for less cost than having each one fitted individually.

That said: let's move on.  Bikes can seemingly be set up to fit identically when you measure them; but there are a variety of small details that govern why your body may not be sliding into the same position when you ride the others. Let's take a look, starting with some standards:

What’s More Important Diet or Exercise?

This is a guest post from Jamie Knop of Electric Bloom. I thought the topic was pertinent given that we're entering the off season where we think a lot about our diet! Enjoy.

In order to be healthy and look good, we need a mixture of both a good diet and exercise. Some of us prefer to diet whereas others prefer to just exercise and eat what they want. A big question that many have is what’s more important?

What’s your goal?

In order to answer this question, it really depends on what your overall goal is. Whether it’s to lose weight or just tone up. It should be apparent based on your end goal as to which is more important to you.

In a perfect World

Ideally you should do a combination of both, as they are both equally as important. It’s also important to have a mixture of the two for your overall health.