They are one of my key partners and we are currently building a little library with tips, tricks and rides to share, soon. In the meantime, enjoy these crazy clips…

Have a mad Friday and a great weekend…

Why do we have rules?

Why should we adhere to them?

Questions around this are being debated all around the world this week as a few reprobates take to the streets and loot and pillage as they please. I am not one to discuss politics here but hey, if you feel the need to burn down 200 year old pieces of history, I hope for your sake that your karmic balance doesn’t come back to high five you in the face.

Are rules there to give confidence to those who don’t have it? Does it give them the structure they need to achieve?

Are the rules there to herd the reprobates as kindly as possible? I believe if that’s your mentality and breaking the rules was eating organic and 2 hours of steady exercise a day, reprobates would be winning all the races.

The rules of cycling and of any sport are there to govern the sport and the behavior of those who partake in it. At some point, the rules will be debated and as always, they will be pushed to the limit and broken where possible, as long as you can get away with it, right?

Is it worth getting away with it 10 times to be caught once?

For me, the point of having rules is to have a guideline.

Much like my frustration with the training wear choice of many triathletes, the rules are there to make sure we aren’t all riding in speedo’s through Camps Bay or running on the promenade in Trisuits on a Thursday afternoon, just because. If you do either of those, please stop it. It’s emboerrssssssssing for the rest of us. You give other triathletes a bad name. Speedo’s are for the pool and trisuits are for race day.

Then there are the unspoken rules. That’s quite an important post to read if you are a cyclist. Don’t be that guy in the Ed Hardy cycling shirt and 80`s Banesto cycling bibs with green mid calf socks.

Some rules are made to be bent, some obey’d and others broken, depending on your point of view and your willingness to be caught and possibly fail at the task. What are you willing to risk?

Rules and risk are part and parcel . Remember to balance them carefully. Add that to Risk and Reward which are also part and parcel and you will hopefully see that Risk is a big part of success. So are the Rules. It’s time to learnt how to risk smartly, don’t you think? Risk within the Rules and Reward will be yours.

I have had the personal luck to have ridden with Frank and Andy Schleck. I believe them to be two of the most talented cyclists the world will ever see. I also believe them to be two of the most molly-coddled cyclists in the world. This Tour de France has proven that. Their will to win at all costs, a fundamental driver of professional and amateur sport, is gone. Half heated attacks so as to not drop your brother in the process doesn’t cut it, sorry Frank. You are the stronger rider, so I urge you to bury your brother with endless attacks and in the process, possibly win the greatest race in the world.

Sounds right to me?

If they turn to see where the other one is one more time, I may actually throw something at the TV. It’s disgusting. At this rate, they`ll both end up off the podium and what is the point of that? Their “where for art thou brother” attitude (coined from Matt Eager and Marc Perel) saddens a million people at once instead of rising to their greatest chance of winning the greatest race in the world. I am sure if we were able to keep up, we`d hear non-stop calls, like a childhood swimming pool game of Marco…Polo…Andy…Frank…

When you get a chance in the Tour, you take it. Damnit! It’s the same in life. Take your chance, it may not come again. Life is not always fair. Survival of the fittest/smartest/luckiest is a real thing. When you are all equally fit, smart then really, your luck is your greatest asset. Having a 3 time Tour winner on the ropes means you attack and attack again until he wants to fall off his bike and die. Then you crawl your way to the line and take the Tour like a hero.

They seem like they have done too many trust falls and are too scared to hurt each other, never mind the competition.

So what are we going to do about these two boys, who have all the talent in the world, but don’t have the balls to attack each other?

1. We should input a Sensitivity Coach of this stature into Leopard-Trek:

2. We make them practice the greatest Monologues of all time to up their aggro just a little.

3. We put them in a boxing ring with the only way out being to knock the other guy out, the alternative being to be the only guy without a helmet in a helmet-important situation.

My work here is done. I would like to see TODAY being one of the greatest days the Tour has ever seen. I can’t see how else we are going to get it done, do you? Leave a comment here, but only after reading why I need to get to get my rear end to Europe and ride my bike there with a few mates.

Thanks to Rush Sports for this.

With the 29er bikes the hot topic of discussion at the moment after cleaning up at the Cape Epic, #epicwheelsize trending on twitter and the Downhill and Cross Country Mountain bike World Cup hitting Pietermaritzburg in a couple of days, I thought I would look into a discussion regarding the use of 29″ wheeled bikes for downhill…

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I have ridden both 26″ and 29″ wheels. Not of the same model unfortunately. But there is a difference in how the bikes feel in the way they roll. Which is best for which discipline is a big statement as THE LAW, but here is my limited opinion on which I enjoyed most for which discipline:

Cross Country Style Racing i.e. Xterra – I preferred my Zula, to be dead honest.

Marathon racing on smooth courses – Loved the Kwela 29.

Cape Epic style riding i.e. rough, rutted and long – I would choose the Zula. The comfort for multiple day riding is essential.

Will the debate ever end which is best? I doubt it….

So let’s get onto the other video on 29ers. this for a bit of humor.

Apologies for the language, but it was just too funny to ignore.

After two years of steady state work and no high heart rate stuff I can tell you that it hurts more than I like to explain. I doubt myself at the start of each workout and wonder how I am going to get through this without giving up. Case in point this week were the following workouts:

12 x 1min K*KOFF Cycling Intervals. Basically, 12 x 1min as hard as I can go, try to hold a good average wattage on the power meter and try to finish strong, not coughing up a lung. Easier said than done…

I did not manage to get stronger as I went, in terms of max power, but a better average power was achieved once I settled and learned how release it more like a slow puncture than a total blowout. This session had my legs sore for a good few hours afterward. It felt like they were throbbing.

Next up was this morning, running 10 x 30seconds at a virtual sprint, but coach assures me its not a sprint, just almost. Ja dude, whatever. Don’t take a fat kid to a cake party and tell him he can’t dig in. I thought to myself that 3min per km would be ideal, considering that I am tired at the moment, ALL THE TIME. Did I mention these intervals are hard? Who took away my steady state riding and running, where I could admire the scenery?

Oh wait…

I did.

Anyway, here is the chart.

There is a missed interval in there – must have been running too fast for the satellite to keep up. pffffffft. 10 x 30sec around 2:45 per km it ended up at with 60sec recoveries. For the more technical minded guys, the efforts were always on 200m per 30seconds. Quite stoked with that. It’s been a while since I saw anything under 3min per km.

Maybe there is something to finding speed in the molasses. It’s in there somewhere, but man, it`s taking it out of me to find it. I have huge applause for the guys who do this on a regular basis, and make my numbers look trivial. They may look big to you, but this is pretty standard stuff and cruising pace for my pro athletes out there.

Back in the very really REAL world, this is merely pretty good for an amateur guy. We train in hope to see improvements, and as Conrad says… “Gooi nog hout!”