le grimpeur

Défaillance, part 2: the slow descent2
Guy WR posted in Classic Climbs, Doping on September 29th, 2009

From a quick glance at the results sheet, 1990 was a pinnacle season for Greg LeMond. He won the Tour de France for the third time, whilst in the jersey of the World Champion. In professional cycling, there can be no greater display of dominance.

Yet, as we saw in part 1 of this series, LeMond had expressed doubts about his condition going into the Tour. And commentators were also quick to note that his win in the Tour had hardly been a dominant performance. Those doubts were also there in the lead-up to the 1991 Tour, where LeMond would start in the number 1 jersey of the previous year’s winner.

“I don’t feel I’m at my very best right now,” he told Samuel Abt just before the Tour’s start. “I’ve done a lot of work this year and things haven’t come together as I’d hoped.” (more…)

Urban climbing revisited0
Guy WR posted in Local Climbs on September 29th, 2009

The first installment of urban climbing appeared here back in February. (more…)

Défaillance: an interlude, a parody2
Guy WR posted in Climbing Skills, Local Climbs on September 22nd, 2009

They’re good wheels, he thought to himself. They’re good wheels and they’re strong and true and light. Not the best wheels ever made; not the most expensive. Not as good as a hand-built set of Italian wheels, the sort of wheels that Pantani rode in his prime. But good wheels nonetheless. American wheels.

“Muck straight gauge,” he said to no-one in particular as he spun the wheels holding onto either side of the axle with both hands, feeling the smoothness of the bearings, feeling for any pitting in the races: that slight tension, or catching of the motion that would be his signal for further maintenance.

Cyclists spend a lot of time obsessing over wheels, he thought. Only a damn fool would think that they weren’t the most important part of a bike, with the possible exception of the tyres. There was a reason that Merckx fussed over his wheels – like everything else – and had his hand-stitched tubulars curing in his basement for months or years to harden them against punctures. (more…)

The art of snacking0
Guy WR posted in Climbing Skills on September 4th, 2009

There’s a scene in the Eddy Merckx documentary movie, La Course en Tete, where Eddy’s soigneur Guillaume Michiels and another Molteni helper are in a kitchen preparing the team’s ride snacks. They move with practiced ease, a steady succession of tiny bread rolls carefully cut in half, spread with jam and butter, or ham, then reassembled and individually wrapped. Repetitive work, but the end result appears to be literally hundreds of the rolls all ready for a race or training ride.

The rolls looked pretty tasty, but the job of preparing the ride snacks these days can be much less laborious – just grab a handful of gels and energy bars and one is good to go. But a steady diet of modern ride food gets boring rather quick, which is why we often prefer to reach for the Fig Newtons, some dried fruit, or pastries for those with a more continental bent.

But what is it we’re actually trying to achieve with ride snacks and what are the nutritional principles to be kept in mind? What can be on, and what should be off, the menu. To get some professional answers, your author earlier this year asked Team Garmin-Slipstream’s ace physiologist Allen Lim to offer some suggestions. (more…)