2/18/11

Actionsports.de

HOT wheels!  Great Choice/Great Price/Delivery from Actionsports.

(http://www.actionsports.de/gb/Wheels/Wheelset-Specials:::3_10.html)


So, I used the S-light Podium wheels last year! excellent sturdy wheels considering the paltry weight (1250gr) I did encounter many problems with the 'old type' hubs that they used. But within a week of sending the wheels back, Actionsports had them delivered back to me with the far better designed hub system free of charge. The new hub solves the common freehub problems and seal problems F+R.

The new Kenda  Karma tires popped on with no problems and sealed straight away tubeless style.
So far i'm extremely happy with this set up, and would recommend them to any keen racer out there!



More pics from Bordeaux!

French Cuisine lesson - anyone ever tired Raclette!? This has got to be the most unhealthy dinner in the world. Its nice in a seriously gross way! Its real mountain food for mountain men!



It involves a cheese melting machine the size of a coffee table and countless amounts of melted cheese dripped over whole potatoes with fried ham on top! Its lovely and fun to make!! but there's some serious eating with the Raclette's! I had loads of energy the next day for biking, that's for sure..




So the masks (Kind of weird, yes)- Amy left her primary school teaching kit on the table so we decided to use the facemasks for the hell of it while eating! made some pretty bizarre photo's!



I went for the creepy monkey mask!

2/2/11

New Sponsors - Limar, Lake, and Kenda!


I'm delighted and proud to say that Ill be recieving great support from these three brands for the 2011 racing year! I can't wait to try out the products when they arrive in Dublin at the end of the week!

A big thank you to Lauren Vanderplank at Todayscyclist (http://www.todayscyclist.co.uk/)

Here's a taster of what Ill be racing with,  Lake make their top end shoes out of Kangaroo leather!! How cool is that!

2/1/11

So i've been training a fair bit with a couple of excellent bike riders that I only met last week. These fellows go by the names of Julian and Jerome. Julian is a previous time triall national champion and his job is to give the younger one (Jerome) his words of wisdom in bike racing terms. Jerome is preparing heavily for the upcoming National races strarting February in the Pyranees with his team (http://www.avcaix.com/#attente). He is as fit as a fiddle right now and seems strong for these races, he seems like he'll be climbing well for the pyrenees race.

When I come back to Bordeaux in April, I have an offer to race with these guys in a road race down in the south of France. It would be great fun to try a euro road race bit I know in my heart that if there's a mountain bike race near by ill be there instead!

On Sunday, we followed Julian's training methods and did a hilly 80km route with ten short 2-3 minute climbs in 2hours 28 miuntes. the plan was that he would lead up the climb until the  halfway point towing Jerome and myself a d then would drift back/let us go hell for leather untill the top.
 These were spaced out every ten mintues or so. In french, (He had little english) Julian pin pointed exactly how Jerome should go about each climb in minute detail, Gearing etc. point of acceleration etc. Julian's a handy guy to have for training and racing!

Today, I did 125km  with them. We met a big group of around 50 riders and kept to the flat but very windy roads. We all took turns and averaged out at around 35kmph for 2 hours riding with the big group.Usually the ride has generally more local pro's  so the pace would have been higher. (40km+)
 The garmin is saying that I burnt 4848 Cals! gotta be wrong.. even with the high-ish pace at points. Some how we managed to climb 600meters too, i thought the whole ride was flat being in Bordeaux and all that!!?
But i'm feeling good now, with these longer rides.. Some weeks ago with exams and snow, 4 hours would really take it out of me, it feels like going to the shops now!

Maybe its time I started doing some hunger-ridesTM to burn off the masses of  Haribo i've consumed!!

Now its time to make dinner! I'm the dinner slave here but i get to live here free of charge that way and learn to cook! Thanks Amy (-:

Adios!