Friday, December 26, 2008

Caloric expenditures & Nutrient Timing 12 26 2008

Based on 172 lbs body weight:

Resting Caloric Expenditure (RCE) = 1, 892 calories

Daily Activities Caloric Expenditure (DA) = 284 calories

Workout Caloric Expenditure (WCE) = 598 calories

Daily Caloric Expenditure (DCE) = 2,774 calories

The Energy Phase - coincides with your workout. The primary metabolic objective of the muscle during this phase is to release sufficient energy to drive muscle contraction.

The Anabolic Phase - is the forty five minutes window following a workout in which your muscle machinery, in the right combination of nutrients, initiates the repair of damaged muscle protein and replinishes muscle glycogen stores.

The Growth Phase - extends from the end of the Anabolic Phase to the begining of the next workout. It is the time when the muscle enzymes are involved in increasing the number of contractile proteins and the size of muscle fibers, as well as in helping the muscle fully replenish muscle glycogen depleted during the Energy Phase.

Extracted from the book: Nutrient Timing (The Future of Sports Nutrition) by John Ivy & Robert Portman.

Lines on a track


Images obtained from the net.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Fixed Gear Fever Tiemeyer Interview

What material are you using for my frame?

The Signature model track frame is built from 6061 aluminum, a weldable alloy developed by the aircraft industry. It does require a full solution heat treatment to grow the crystalline structure back, but I feel it is well worth the expense. The 7005 aluminum alloy used by most manufactures is typically just artifically aged and has given aluminum a bad reputation for fatique quality.

Do you change up the material based on size? power?

Oh sure, I will use different sized material for different applications.

With all the exotic materials out there, why do stick with aluminum?

Special shapes, like airfoils, can be fabricated more easily from aluminum than from other materials. Aluminum lends itself better to custom construction and is fairly inexpensive.

Is the seat tube the same size/shape as the downtube?

The Signature seat and down tubes have the same NACA airfoil section even though the cross sections are distinct to handle the different loadings.

Much has been made about the "feel" of various frame materials. Steel is "real", Carbon is "smooth", Aluminum is "harsh". Others contend you can''t possibly feel the difference. Care to comment?

The intrinsic stiffness of all the metals used in bicycle frame construction are within 4% of each other, so it is the cross section and profile geometry of a model that give it''s particular ride quality.

Many people are quite concerned about aerodynamics. How do your frames stack up against the latest generation of frames?

I have had the opportunity to work with the folks at the Ambient Air wind tunnel in Fort Collins, Colorado. We gathered drag data from as many bikes as possible, including Cervelo, Planet X and Teschner. Results showed the Tiemeyer Signature track and time trial bikes are as aerodynamic as the fastest bikes available up to the 20 degree yaw angle we tested. I hope to post those results on my website in the near future.

On your website, it indicates you used to be involved in building helicopter wings? How do you go from helicopters to bicycles?

Interests often overlap. I have naturally gravitated to building aero frames because of my aeronautical engineering background. But I have found that riding a bicycle comes as close to the freedom of flight as anything. .........more

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Rashan Bahati & Alexi Singh Grewal

Alexi Grewal 7 eleven

Bahati

Grewal


Rashan Bahati.........Even so, his first forays on European soil were eye opening, cringe-worthy even. "When I first raced there as a junior it was very shocking to me. I had people after the race wanting to touch my hair, touch my skin. There are black people in Belgium and Germany but none really in bike racing." He's glad he took those slightly surreal experiences on the chin because he acknowledged that getting angry might have backfired on him. A sense of humour was his friend – "it's kind of hard to miss me when I'm here. I was always telling people I look like a raisin in milk."

Bahati gave it some thought on why there aren't more black cyclists. Expense is certainly a factor that comes up but not, he said, an insurmountable barrier. Whatever one might think about Ball and Rock Racing, Bahati is quick to point out that just as certain riders on the team have been given what he calls a second chance, others have been given a big hand up the ladder by the sponsor, filling a void left by cycling's own authorities.

Asked if he thinks the powers-that-be do enough to help ethnic minorities and under-privileged kids in his own country he stated a firm "No." The Rock Racing rider was certain of a vast pool of potentially undiscovered talent. "Somehow we need to learn to tap into this system, whether it's bringing after-school programs back, or getting Fortune 500 companies donating a little bit of money. I would go into the hard hit places that need help, places like New Orleans that got hit by Hurricane Katrina - those are the people that need an outlet."

Breaking down racial stereotypes is vital, and he pointed out that it's been done in other sports – in reverse. "Take the movie 'White Men Can't Jump'. For a long time we had this perception that white guys couldn't jump but some of the best basketball players in the NBA are from different places in the world and they're not black."

Bahati acknowledged that it's not necessarily easy to promote cycling in a car-centric country like the United States, but the soaring cost of fuel is slowly helping push folks back to pedal power. As far as getting them into the sport he reckons the short city-centre criterium races at which he excels are ideal for holding spectators' attention. There's no doubt he has a few good years left in his legs, and he's the first to admit he's still learning even at the age of 26, but he sees himself as a promoter when he eventually stops turning his cranks in anger, "Hopefully I can help this movement to get more African American kids, more inner city kids involved because it's a fun sport."

It's a sport that's taken him further than he or his contemporaries in Compton would have imagined maybe a decade ago – being on the same team (albeit briefly) as his sporting idol Cipollini, travelling abroad, and getting paid for pursuing his passion. And just like his other idol, Major Taylor, Rahsaan Bahati is proud to be a little different from the majority of his peers, even if that difference is only skin deep. At the end of the day a good rider is a good rider, no matter what his or her background is.....link


Alexi Singh Grewal (born September 8, 1960 in Aspen, Colorado) is an Indian American Olympic gold medalist and former professional road racing cyclist. At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Grewal became the first American man to win an Olympic gold medal in cycling. His winning bicycle is now at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.[1]

After winning Olympic gold, Grewal turned professional and signed with the Panasonic team and later with the 7-Eleven Cycling Team. In 1986, he was dropped by the 7-Eleven team after spitting on a CBS camera man who got too close.[2]

After retiring from professional cycling Grewal moved to Colorado with his family. Grewal began making hand-hewn and crafted furniture and architectural features out of native hardwoods after his cycling days were over. He lost part of his fingers in an accident involving a saw.[3]

In 2004, Grewal was elected to the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame.

On April 3, 2008, VeloNews published an essay by Grewal on his personal use (and the overall prevalence) of doping in cycling[4] during his career, both in his amateur and professional days....link

Leader Track frames


Thursday, December 4, 2008

British Cycling track bicycle





Made exclusively for the British Cycling team, these bikes have carried the squad to numerous gold medals in Commonwealth, World and Olympic competition.

Mavic disc and IO five-spoke are standard issue for GB sprinters, with a front disc used by the pursuit riders.

The custom-made carbon-fibre bar/stem combines strength with aerodynamics, both essential for a rider of his power.

Gabriella Allong in the news




Francis Lewis senior Gabriella Allong is breaking the cycle
BY MITCH ABRAMSON
Wednesday, December 3rd 2008, 1:14 PM

Gabriella Allong is used to putting up with a lot.

The Francis Lewis HS senior, who is the top 16-year-old junior cyclist in New York State, was competing in the junior track cycling nationals last year when her bike collided with another racer. Allong crashed to the ground, fracturing her right elbow.

With her dad yelling from the stands, urging her to continue and unaware of how badly she was hurt, Allong climbed back onto her bike and winced in pain through the final 10 revolutions to complete the race.

Of the tolerance for pain she showed in July 2007 in Colorado, Allong, merely shrugged.

"I was in pain but I just got back on the bike and finished," Allong said as she shivered in the parking lot of the Kissena Velodrome in Flushing. "I've seen girls who crash and they just sit down and cry and leave the race. I don't know why, but I never cry when I fall."

She is an anomaly in the sport of cycling: an African-American girl, competing in a sport that's marked by a prevalence of white participants.

Allong still has scars on both elbows from a spill she took in 2006 during a race in Trinidad. She has fractured both elbows twice and suffered through seven crashes, and she treats those mishaps with the same apparent ambivalence with which she regards the sport's lack of racial diversity.

She is keenly aware of the situation but doesn't appear to let it bother her, though she is accustomed to being the only African-American female to compete in most junior national events.

"It's not an issue for me and I don't really think about it, but I do take pride in it," she said. "I try to inspire other African-American girls who might not know a lot about what I do but might be interested in cycling. I try to be a role model for others."

Allong also aspires to distinguish herself in a sport that has been disgraced in recent years by the revelation of illicit use of performance-enhancing drugs by some of its top participants. She hopes to race for the U.S. Military Cycling team at West Point, and says she is addicted to the speed and the promise of risk.

"I love it," she said. "I love the speed, the strategy, the tactics, the danger."

Allong, whose parents are from Jamaica and Trinidad and reside in Laurelton, was a four-year member of her school's varsity swim
team - making her a participant in two sports known for a dearth of African-American participants.

"It's a touchy subject," said John Campo, who has raced competitively for 40 years and is the director of racing at the Kissena Velodrome. "In the past, there was always a lot of discrimination in the inner circle of U.S. cycling. I've been banging my head against the wall why the sport isn't more diverse. . . . You never see any black racers in the Tour de France."

They call themselves an upstart, a program with something to prove. Never mind the 17 consecutive borough championships, or the back-to-back PSAL titles.

"Maybe as Queens champs, we're a dynasty there," said Magalie Lilavois, a senior captain on Townsend Harris' swim team. "But in the city, we're still a new thing."

Last November, in what coach James Jordan called "the most intense meet ever" during his 24 years at Townsend, the Turtles captured their second straight city championship with a 52-50 victory over rival Bronx Science.
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