Most fresh cut trails need a good year or so of use to get broken in to the point where the ride feels natural. Well, with the upcoming Canada Games in a month, the new trail needed a little bit of speed cleaning and fast breaking in.
I headed out with the crew to put my efforts into raking and stomping down the fresh cut trail to try to get some flow out of the dirt. To my surprise everyone else on PEI who rides a bike seemed to think the same, and headed out to Brookvale to do their part. In total there was probably about 50 people out to either rake, chop, or stomp the new trail. Some crew simply rode, which in this case is what was needed.
Being out the woods working on trail brought back a lot of memories. When your riding you seldom take the time to simply smell the fresh pine, or the fresh dirt. Despite the horrible bugs, it created an inch in me to build some trail. I have been guilty of not making any new trail in many years, but maybe it something that I will have to take up again. It is something that only takes a few afternoons, but proves to pay off over years and years. Like a good tattoo.
I just finished "We Might As well Win" by Lance's DS Johan Bruyneel. It just came out on paperback, which brings the price down quite a bit. Picking up the book, I could tell the gist of it would be about Lance's tours. I dont mind reading that stuff, but any cyclist in North America gets pummelled with literature and movies about those seven years, so I didn't rush into reading it.
As expected most of the book is about Johans relationship with Lance, and his seven year run. Anyone who has an interest in cycling pretty much knows those years in detail as its hard to find anything else related to cycling unless you get an obscure book from amazon.com.
The book also speaks about Johan's own professional career throughout the 90's. Its funny how he continually says he was nothing special despite wearing the yellow jersey and winning two stages of the Tour.
Toward the end he talks about his time with Alberto Contrador, which was what I was really interested in. It offers a glimpse into the stressful life of a director sportif, but was written for the layman of the sport. Don't get me wrong it was very interesting, especially providing the mirror view of the sport which most people and racing cyclists never see, but it didn't get into the nitty gritty which what really interested me.
The book only lightly touched on the training habits of himself, Lance, and the other many great cyclists he's worked with. He would mention the training plans, but wouldn't talk numbers or anything in specific detail which was what I was hoping the book would go through.
Overall "We Might As well Win" is definitely worth reading. Cycling books to me are like candy, they usually read really easy, and fly by as my mind is usually in that head space for most of the day anyway.
One thing Johan did touch on that was interesting are racing tactics that get overlooked in our North American society. It seems that as I was growing up most riders in NA are concerned with the numbers, the training, and how 'strong' a rider is. Johan talked a lot about the strategy of the race. Predicting how it would play out and who was riding well simply by noticing small things about the way they ride. Anyone who has been in a bike race knows that when race day comes usually the guy who can read the pack the best, and play the one correct card when needed is the guy who wins.
Its during the race that the numbers usually go out the window. I think the difference between Europe and NA, is that in Europe there has always been the old guy who tells you how the race will play out. The guy who has been there 40 years before and knows who is riding well, and who isn't simply based on seeing how they sit on the saddle. Its the guy like that who teaches the younger generations, and it seems those guys are few and far between in our society. I guess that makes it more valuable when you finally do encounter a 'Johan Bruyneel'
I headed out with the crew to put my efforts into raking and stomping down the fresh cut trail to try to get some flow out of the dirt. To my surprise everyone else on PEI who rides a bike seemed to think the same, and headed out to Brookvale to do their part. In total there was probably about 50 people out to either rake, chop, or stomp the new trail. Some crew simply rode, which in this case is what was needed.
Being out the woods working on trail brought back a lot of memories. When your riding you seldom take the time to simply smell the fresh pine, or the fresh dirt. Despite the horrible bugs, it created an inch in me to build some trail. I have been guilty of not making any new trail in many years, but maybe it something that I will have to take up again. It is something that only takes a few afternoons, but proves to pay off over years and years. Like a good tattoo.
I just finished "We Might As well Win" by Lance's DS Johan Bruyneel. It just came out on paperback, which brings the price down quite a bit. Picking up the book, I could tell the gist of it would be about Lance's tours. I dont mind reading that stuff, but any cyclist in North America gets pummelled with literature and movies about those seven years, so I didn't rush into reading it.
As expected most of the book is about Johans relationship with Lance, and his seven year run. Anyone who has an interest in cycling pretty much knows those years in detail as its hard to find anything else related to cycling unless you get an obscure book from amazon.com.
The book also speaks about Johan's own professional career throughout the 90's. Its funny how he continually says he was nothing special despite wearing the yellow jersey and winning two stages of the Tour.
Toward the end he talks about his time with Alberto Contrador, which was what I was really interested in. It offers a glimpse into the stressful life of a director sportif, but was written for the layman of the sport. Don't get me wrong it was very interesting, especially providing the mirror view of the sport which most people and racing cyclists never see, but it didn't get into the nitty gritty which what really interested me.
The book only lightly touched on the training habits of himself, Lance, and the other many great cyclists he's worked with. He would mention the training plans, but wouldn't talk numbers or anything in specific detail which was what I was hoping the book would go through.
Overall "We Might As well Win" is definitely worth reading. Cycling books to me are like candy, they usually read really easy, and fly by as my mind is usually in that head space for most of the day anyway.
One thing Johan did touch on that was interesting are racing tactics that get overlooked in our North American society. It seems that as I was growing up most riders in NA are concerned with the numbers, the training, and how 'strong' a rider is. Johan talked a lot about the strategy of the race. Predicting how it would play out and who was riding well simply by noticing small things about the way they ride. Anyone who has been in a bike race knows that when race day comes usually the guy who can read the pack the best, and play the one correct card when needed is the guy who wins.
Its during the race that the numbers usually go out the window. I think the difference between Europe and NA, is that in Europe there has always been the old guy who tells you how the race will play out. The guy who has been there 40 years before and knows who is riding well, and who isn't simply based on seeing how they sit on the saddle. Its the guy like that who teaches the younger generations, and it seems those guys are few and far between in our society. I guess that makes it more valuable when you finally do encounter a 'Johan Bruyneel'
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