Category: cycling (Page 32 of 37)

For the Love of Bikes is happy to offer this guest post by Frederick Su~

Fred and Taz, a 50 lb Chow Chow, who loves to ride!

To see the sense of joy on a child’s face as he or she bicycles along with a newfound sense of freedom is to recognize the emotion of motion. Free, not from gravity, but from the constraints of the striding mechanics of walking or running, the child now recognizes the ease of bicycling and how this rolling method of locomotion is so efficient that he or she can easily pass a walking adult.

Somehow on the long road to middle age, many children and even young adults who once rode bicycles, suddenly eschew this mode of travel for the motor vehicle. Their thinking probably goes something like these thoughts: “I’m too old to bicycle.” “I’m in a hurry and a bicycle takes too long.” “I don’t want to get hit by a truck.” “It’s raining.” “It’s too hilly.” “The roads don’t have good shoulders.” “I’m worth more now as an individual and I need to show my net worth when I drive.” “It’s faster in a car.” "I don’t want to break a sweat and have to change at work."

I can only argue that those who eschew the bicycle eschew joy. Pure and simple, the modern multispeed bicycle is one of the greatest inventions of all time. In my mind, it is greater than the internal combustion engine and the airplane. It is a fitness machine on steroids that allows the world to pass beneath your feet. On a bicycle, you are a like a pioneer, subject to all that Mother Nature can throw at you. You are subject to her tantrums and her beneficence. Moreover, recent research has shown that exercising outdoors has much greater benefits for you than exercising indoors. Apparently, expanding the horizons of your experiences also expands the joy.

You are the engine of your travels. The bicycle is powered primarily by your legs, lungs, and heart. As one 90-year-old gentleman remarked to my wife and me, “Keep your legs moving.” In middle age, we all slow down and tend to put on more pounds. Without exercise and a healthful diet, we can easily slide into obesity and incur such health problems as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. My philosophy is to suffer the exercise or suffer the disease. Which would you prefer?

© 2011 by Frederick Su / www.bytewrite.com

Just ordered the book, Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom by Sue Macy.  Can’t miss with a title like that. 

The first part of the month was brutal. We had a record setting low of minus 15 February 11th and a record setting high of 80 degrees on February 16th. 

Less than a week and a 95 degree temperature swing.

There is a well deserved saying here:  If you don’t like the weather just stick around because it’ll change.

Today wasn’t 80, but nice for a bike ride, especially considering it’s February.  Light winds too, which when spring arrives officially, with the warmer temperatures it is also sure to bring wind. 

Nice to get outside and ride for a change instead of pedaling circles on the spinner.

Congratulations to Garmin – Cervelo’s Cameron Meyer on his win at the 2011 Tour Down Under.  It was nice to see a Garmin rider win, especially since 2010 was such a difficult year for them.  With the merging of Garmin – Transitions with the Cervelo team, the new team should be very strong and competitive in 2011.

Meyer took the ochre jersey as it were, the leader’s jersey, when he won the 4th Stage.  He held on to win the Tour Down Under by 2 seconds over Matt Goss with HTC-Highroad.

Meyer is Australian and appears to be quite the good find for Garmin – Cervelo.   He was last year’s Australian cyclist of the year after winning three world titles on the track and has been the national time-trial champion the past two years.

In other news, Matt White, Director Sportif for Garmin – Transitions and this year, Garmin – Cervelo, was fired after the team took the TDU championship.  The reason given for White being fired was that he broke team rules when he referred Garmin rider Trent Lowe to Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral in Spain.  Interestingly, he was the U.S. Postal team physician from 1999 – 2003.  White sent Lowe to Moral without the approval or knowledge of the Garmin medical staff.  Garmin has the strictest anti-doping rules of probably any professional cycling team and the physician referral rule is part of that. 

There may be more to the story, but for now that’s the story that’s being reported.  Kudos to Garmin – Cervelo for adhering to team rules and making what had to be a difficult decision in an apparent effort to ensure their riders race clean.