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I will never own a vehicle with automatic brakes. Warning sensor?...sure, Brakes?...never. I have two vehicles in my garage, right now, with brake warning sensor. In any kind of spirited driving, they often give off false alarms. Are they going to put in sensors in the rear to make sure you don't get plowed into from the guy behind who was tailgating, because you're the one who's going to legally be at fault. And this just in...

http://www.cyclingnews.com/new...

Automatic braking sensor just caused a crash in a professional cycling race a couple of days ago

http://www.cyclingnews.com/new...

Seriously?

Here's a screenshot from a 2005 Blackberry:
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/photos/2005/tour05/news/?id=mobile_live/L1000454

I'll be the first to agree that the Blackberry was much ahead of the other phones. Like a bike is better than walking. But I don't think the point is even up for discussion - RIM has lost 20% of its market share in the past 2 years alone. That has many reasons, but the superior interface is consistently one of the reasons mentioned when you ask customers.

Remember Mr. Hincapie's spectacular http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2006/apr06/roubaix06/index.php?id=s002crash at paris-roubaix last year? That was his aluminum steerer tube that failed. I too am a cyclist and worked in the industry for a time. The carbon fiber the industry has been getting is not the same as the mil-spec/aircraft grade stuff. As others have pointed out, there are many, many factors that go into materials failure, such as fatigue life, tensile strength, etc. Layup, curing, process, etc. all factor into the "performance" of carbon fiber and its potential to fail. Aluminum fails. Carbon fiber fails. One is not inherently superior to the other. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. Comparing a cycling fork to an airframe in inappropriate. Comparing the standards between the two industries is inappropriate; a torque wrench is considered a "hi-tech" tool in a bike shop. As for "so many cyclists have died," I'm going to get out the broom and call shenanigans. Mr. Zinn has a little http://www.velonews.com/tech/report/articles/3270.0.htmlwrite-up on the issue and my guess is that he would've addressed the issue of "so many" deaths. Being fairly immersed in the community, I've never personally heard of cyclist dying from a carbon fork failure, although other failures (such as a flat tire) have led to some serious accidents. Considering that cf is used on the crowns of some mountain bike suspension forks, my guess is any issues with strength and durability would be found out pretty quickly.

From Sept 8th news at Cyclingnews.com:

"French newspaper L'Equipe reported on Wednesday that the French national lottery Française des Jeux has started legal action against the company Unibet.com. In France, betting and gambling is illegal except for the national lottery, horse races managed by PMU and casinos, and Française des Jeux argues that Unibet.com makes business on French territory even if it is based elsewhere. The Belgian national lottery, Lotto, reportedly also considers a lawsuit."

Unibet is "Licensed and regulated by laws in the UK and in Malta".

"Lance was coming through the home stretch and the crowd was parting as he approached, not more than a meter in front of him."

The crowds on the mountains have always done that, since long before Lance knew how to ride a bicycle. As with most things in cycling, enthusiastic spectators are not a Lance creation. If you think that is crazy, you should see crowds do the exact same thing at rally races - that's with cars, not bicycles.

When the tv video is shot from behind a rider from a motorcycle, the foreshortening effect of the video camera lens can make the spectators in front of the cyclist appear much closer than they really are. The same effect is very pronounced on sprint finishes, when head-on images can make the race seem like a matter of centimeters, when really the riders are meters apart.

While drunken fans can be an annoyance, the biggest danger from fans is people using cameras - the camera lens can screw up their depth perception, they don't concentrate on what's happening around them, and straps and cords dangle causing hazards that handlebars can snag; all of these have led to high-profile crashes in bike races.

Safety is one of the reasons given for the weight limit, but it's brought into disrepute when riders are allowed to add lead weights to their frames in order to make the limit. Where's the structural improvement there? A better reason is to try and keep the bike technology sufficiently affordable that smaller teams at levels below the Tour de France can still attract bike sponsors who can afford to supply competitive bikes.

The weight thing has gotten rather out of hand. It's now easy - though hardly cheap - to build a bike that weighs about a kilogram less than the limit (6.8kg), yet even the guys who make these bikes are admitting that you need your head read if you are prepared to spend an extra $1000 saving 200g on a frame.

On the other hand, all this superlight stuff does mean that riders can add heavy but useful equipment to the bikes and remain competitive because everyone has to be over 6.8kg. When Floyd landis had a bad day at the Tour, and followed it up with the most amazing comeback since Charly gaul in 1948, his coaches were then able to get detailed physiological data on his ride from the power-measuring hub on his bike. That's valuable data. Lighter bikes means that riders now use these instruments in racing where they were previously considered too heavy and kept for training.

Safety is one of the reasons given for the weight limit, but it's brought into disrepute when riders are allowed to add lead weights to their frames in order to make the limit. Where's the structural improvement there? A better reason is to try and keep the bike technology sufficiently affordable that smaller teams at levels below the Tour de France can still attract bike sponsors who can afford to supply competitive bikes.

The weight thing has gotten rather out of hand. It's now easy - though hardly cheap - to build a bike that weighs about a kilogram less than the limit (6.8kg), yet even the guys who make these bikes are admitting that you need your head read if you are prepared to spend an extra $1000 saving 200g on a frame.

On the other hand, all this superlight stuff does mean that riders can add heavy but useful equipment to the bikes and remain competitive because everyone has to be over 6.8kg. When Floyd landis had a bad day at the Tour, and followed it up with the most amazing comeback since Charly gaul in 1948, his coaches were then able to get detailed physiological data on his ride from the power-measuring hub on his bike. That's valuable data. Lighter bikes means that riders now use these instruments in racing where they were previously considered too heavy and kept for training.

2 weeks ago at Hellyer velodrome Freddy was "getting too old for this" and now he sets a new record. This is a 1 hour record. Hitting mid 50's on a diamond frame bike takes a good hill. The drafting bicycle speed record is somewhere around 150mph. The non-drafting, pedal up to speed record no tailwind, no hills is at 82mph in a similar bike that Freddy used. Recumbents.com , Battel Mountain have info on the top speed runs. Freddy did something like 76mph last year. These bikes are more HPV's as they are fully faired. Aerodynamics and power are a cool combination.

  For the street, one of the best performing recumbents are the Bacchetta's. Bacchetta has been giving a good showing around the country for the past few years. They did the Hotter-N-Hell century as a team (drafting) in 3:56 passing the bicycle race that was part of the event. John Schlitter won the Race Across Florida on a Bacchetta this year, and Bacchetta took 1,3-5 overall. They were used for a 3rd place finish last year in the Race Across America 4 man team. They also had a rider up to third this year before he dnf'd. Cycling News Results with Jim Kern in 3rd on a Bacchetta . Later this month, there will be quite a few recumbent and HPV teams competing in the Race Across Oregon including a 4 man team, and 2 man team from Bacchetta.

Of course, to give credit where credit is due. One of the slickest bikes out there is the Velokraft NoCom low racer bike. This bike is more track/pure race oriented, and is quite fast.

If you want to increase your cycling speed by a few mph. Check out a recumbent. For more info, there's the wildly popular recumbent site Bentrider Online which has a very informative forum section.

Something missing? Well he sure seems glad to meet the president of the UCI.

To add some freakish numbers (source, oh, and lets not discuss Mr. ferrari)

VAM (Vm/h) Vertical Metres Per Hour (Vm/h)

1800+ Vm/h: Lance Armstrong - and Pantani of olden days
1650-1800 Vm/h: Top 10 / TdF GC or mountain stage winner.
1450-1650 Vm/H: Top 20 / TdF GC; top 20 on tough mountain stage.
1300-1450 Vm/h: Finishing TdF mountain stages in peloton
1100-1300 Vm/h: The Autobus Crew

This means that Armstrong has the ability to climb 1800 meters altitude in one hour. Btw. this translates to more or less 500 Watts power output for one our.

Elliptical chain rings have come and gone time and time again over the last few decades. Most recently, US rider Bobby Julich used them in the time trial at the world championships last months. You can just see them in this picture.

The bottom line is that they don't seem to make a significant difference. Bike racing - and especially time trialling - is pretty brutally selective. If something makes you go faster, it shows up in your times, and, like the aerodynamic handlebars everyone started using in the late 80s, it gets adopted very quickly, or the UCI bans it.

If elliptical chainrings made you go faster, everyone would race on them.

The IOC no longer sets anti-doping policy; that's the job of WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency. WADA sets policy that governments and sports governing bodies are effectively obliged to implement, because if they don't the IOC can yank their right to appear at the Olympics.

WADA has just decided to remove caffeine and pseudoephedrine from the 2004 Prohibited List, and while this hasn't beem explained by WADA, the presumed rationale is that while they definitely have performance-enhancing (ergogenic) effects, these two substances do not pose a substantial threat to health. It's a controversial move.

Similarly, there have been calls for the control of use of creatine, which is also generally accepted to have some fairly minor ergogenic effects; but any health negatives are unproven, so it hasn't been controlled.

Just about everything that is on the controlled list does have negative health effects. Control of drugs in sport is supposed to be about protecting the health of athletes, though this point usually gets lost in drug-warrior ranting about catching 'cheats'.

Health is the only remotely rational basis for restricting what substances and methods athletes may or may not use to enhance performance, in my opinion. The alternative is hand-waving about fairness and the purity of sport, and arbitrary decisions about what is therefore permitted and what isn't.

However, I think a precautionary principle should also apply: if an ergogenic substance or method is not demonstrated to pose a nil or very low risk to athlete's health it should be banned. The idea there is to discourage athletes from messing about with experimental drugs and techniques that may turn out to have negative effects in the long term.

Ergogenic gene therapy gets caught by the precautionary principal. It's way to early to tell if it's even safe for people whose lives it might save (and I hope for the sake of people like the poster with Cystic Fibrosis and Celiac Disease that it does turn out to be safe and effective). There's no way we should be letting athletes mess about with gene therapy just so they can kick a ball harder or run faster.

The IOC no longer sets anti-doping policy; that's the job of WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency. WADA sets policy that governments and sports governing bodies are effectively obliged to implement, because if they don't the IOC can yank their right to appear at the Olympics.

WADA has just decided to remove caffeine and pseudoephedrine from the 2004 Prohibited List, and while this hasn't beem explained by WADA, the presumed rationale is that while they definitely have performance-enhancing (ergogenic) effects, these two substances do not pose a substantial threat to health. It's a controversial move.

Similarly, there have been calls for the control of use of creatine, which is also generally accepted to have some fairly minor ergogenic effects; but any health negatives are unproven, so it hasn't been controlled.

Just about everything that is on the controlled list does have negative health effects. Control of drugs in sport is supposed to be about protecting the health of athletes, though this point usually gets lost in drug-warrior ranting about catching 'cheats'.

Health is the only remotely rational basis for restricting what substances and methods athletes may or may not use to enhance performance, in my opinion. The alternative is hand-waving about fairness and the purity of sport, and arbitrary decisions about what is therefore permitted and what isn't.

However, I think a precautionary principle should also apply: if an ergogenic substance or method is not demonstrated to pose a nil or very low risk to athlete's health it should be banned. The idea there is to discourage athletes from messing about with experimental drugs and techniques that may turn out to have negative effects in the long term.

Ergogenic gene therapy gets caught by the precautionary principal. It's way to early to tell if it's even safe for people whose lives it might save (and I hope for the sake of people like the poster with Cystic Fibrosis and Celiac Disease that it does turn out to be safe and effective). There's no way we should be letting athletes mess about with gene therapy just so they can kick a ball harder or run faster.

To put this dumb stunt into some sort of perspective, there's an annual bike race up Mt Washington. This year's winner, Tom Danielson, rode up in 51 minutes and 5 seconds.

Danielson is an elite athlete, but most of the far-more-ordinary 500+ riders completed the trip to the top in under 2.5 hours, including all those in the '60-65 Male' category.

The Segway isn't faster than a 60-year-old on a bicycle. I think that says it all.

The real world must be a lot simpler than I have always believed, or perhaps they should be studying a sport like european bicycle road racing, which shares the cooperation/competition thing, but has nine or ten guys per team in scenarios where, because of terrain or the type of race, certain teams/riders can excel and have a real chance to win one day, but not the next, and everyone knows what everyone else's strengths and weaknesses are. Also, things like national loyalty, even between riders on different teams, often plays into things, as well as riders "thanking" other teams for giving them a nice contract for the upcoming season, and blowing off their current team.

It's a heartless sport really, much like life.