by Manuel Prado Team Sho-Air / Rock N’ Road Cyclery.

Pacing yourself is a phrase many of us have heard many times before a race; it is hard, however, in a mountain bike race to pace yourself well. The start of a cross country race is probably the hardest part of it; once everybody settles into rhythm, then that is when pacing well comes into play. With my new PowerTap Disc Brake Hub, I was able to pace myself perfectly.

The Idyllwild Spring Challenge took place the first weekend of May in the San Jacinto Mountains in Southern California. At 5500 feet all racers had to be a little careful on how they spent their energy. I decided to start a little slower and let the other riders set the pace. Up until mile 17 Chuck Jenkins from Cytomax-KHS had the lead by about 30 seconds. I was making sure that the gap did not grow until the point we hit the major climb of the day (15 minutes long with a steady 18% degree grade). That is where I knew that I could get the most out of my effort.

by Wendy Simms

The first time I went riding with my husband Norm, he asked me about my training program. My answer: “when the time changes in the spring, I put it in the big ring.” He just about crashed he was laughing so hard. I used to be one of those racers that just rode my bike. I never had a coach. I never really trained. And as a result, I could never seem to crack the podium. I thought I just wasn’t talented enough. But…then I discovered cyclocross (CX) and after just a few races qualified to represent Canada at the World Championships in France. I was pretty scared that I would make an ass of myself and my country so I hired a coach and did my first interval.

It was a beautiful spring day, and I was itching to get some data from my new PowerTap Disc Brake hub. I was raring to go and had all of the mental prowess I could muster. After all, I had had my fancy new PowerTap for several weeks and had barely been able to use it before sustaining a very ill-timed and unfortunate fall down my stairs. The fall had left me unable to sit, stand, or walk for anything longer than 5 to10 minutes at a time - and only with a combination of Ibuprophin and muscle relaxers. To say the least, I was incapacitated for a solid 2 weeks. and it was 3 weeks before I dared get back on the bike.

I had fallen on a hard wooden stair which wedged itself between my lowest thoracic vertebrae, rendering me unable to either breathe or feel my legs for several seconds. After having my spine stabilized and being carted to the hospital, I was told that thankfully I did not break my back, but I would be in pain for a while, and I should take it easy. So after taking the proper precautions and staying off my bike for the full doctor-recommended 3 weeks, I felt I had paid my penance, and after that I should be in the clear and back to normal.

Conrad and I had a chance to visit the LA Tri Club on Tuesday and during that appearance someone asked the question “why XTERRA?”. My answer was that despite the fact we train professionally to be the fittest we could possibly be and take the competitive aspect of this race very seriously, the challenge of XTERRA is often the course itself. Your primary objective is finishing the race and your secondary objective is trying to win it. Sunday was a classic example of the most ridiculously hard race course and stacked fields of triathletes from a variety of backgrounds doing battle against the course first and then with one another.

With CycleOps Power product manager, Jesse Bartholomew on the scene at this year's 2008 Giro d’ Italia Team Time Trial, CycleOps was able to download data from almost every rider on the Slipstream team. That's a lot of data, and it begs the question: where to begin?

Our first thought was to take all the riders' power data and graph it over time. Doing this, we get a graph like this:

Aside from showing that Magnus Backstedt had the highest maximum power, the graph is just a bunch of nonsensical jagged lines. The more compelling story comes from looking at each rider's data individually.