Cycling pros and Twitter

One of the great things about following professional cycling is that so many of them have Twitter. It means they can engage with their fans. Watching the Dwars door Vlaanderen very early in the morning this morning, I was a little bemused at Christian Chavanel’s reaction when he crossed the line for second. Seemed a lot like a victory salute. The man he beat, Koen de Kort is on Twitter, so I thought I would ask.

How good is that? Kudos to Koen for taking the time to answer the question. I will try and get a list together of pro cyclists on Twitter. Stay tuned.

Cyclingnews.com has a good write up here and it even has a short video with Koen. For a Dutchman, he certainly has an Aussie accent. (He spends his off season here and has an Aussie partner)

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THE BEST Cycling Photo Ever!

This just landed in my inbox, thanks Deano.

Win!

Winning like a boss.

There is more win in than photo than when Eddy Merckx and Lance Livestrong are in the same room.

If anyone knows the source, I would love to ask them about the photo. Kids of today, take note.

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The New Giant Commuter Bike….

….handles like a….

COW!

COW!

Sorry folks, I had to use it on the blog somehow. 🙂

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Omega Pharma Lotto do a video.

An interesting look at Omega Pharma Lotto and the goings on behind the scenes.

Thanks to cycleboredom for the heads up.

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Milan San Remo. GreenEDGE Backstage Pass.

Another terrific look at the behind the scenes at Milan San Remo. Watch Matt White squeal like a school girl at a Bieber concert. Neil Stevens goes off like a frog in a sock and there is even a French F bomb towards the end. They sound like they all suffer from Tourettes, but they are producing some great results. Great stuff from GreenEDGE.

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3 Months Strava Premium for Free.

Just go to your account and use this code.

SubaruMJC2012

Thanks Strava for an excellent site.

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Milan San Remo NPCCI

Taylor Phinney has uploaded his ride in the 2012 Milan San Remo to Strava. So I thought I would check out the NPCCI.

MSR NPCCI

Milan San Remo N.P.C.C.I. of 110.

Sweet bottom brackets, a NPCCI of 110 and and average speed of 40kph! And how about 110 Kudos as well. 🙂

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Simon Gerrans of GreenEDGE wins Milan San Remo!

What an excellent result.

Rank Name Nationality Team Result
1 Simon GERRANS AUS GEC 6:59:24
2 Fabian CANCELLARA SUI RNT +0
3 Vincenzo NIBALI ITA LIQ +0
4 Peter SAGAN SVK LIQ +0
5 John DEGENKOLB GER PRO +0
6 Filippo POZZATO ITA FAR +0
7 Oscar FREIRE GOMEZ ESP KAT +0
8 Alessandro BALLAN ITA BMC +0
9 Daniel OSS ITA LIQ +0
10 Daniele BENNATI ITA RNT +0

Gerro!

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Maintaining Speedplay Pedals.

There is quite a lot of copy on the interwebs about the amount of effort it takes to maintain Speedplay pedals. Well given the fact that every trip to and from work this week has been over some pretty horrible roads, and each night I am washing the bike and lubing the chain, I thought I would look at giving the pedals a grease. Armed with my 40 cent grease gun, off I went. Here is a video of how the pedal spun before and after a new greasing.

The first pedal hadn’t been greased. It doesn’t spin very much at all, but compared to the second pedal, it was quite free.

So, how hard is it? Consider this, it took me longer to get the grease into the syringe than it did to put it into the pedals. It is certainly a bit harder to do with a syringe than a proper grease gun. Remove the small phillips head screw to open the injection port. You have to make sure you keep plenty of pressure on the syringe so as you force the grease into the pedal, not spewing out the side of the end of the syringe.

Non Pro Cycling Greasegun

Non Pro Cycling Greasegun

Once the grease is flowing, you keep an eye on the spindle on the opposite side of the pedal to where you are injecting the grease.

Before you start, it will look like this.

Before Greasing

Before Greasing

After a little while, you will see black dirty grease coming out of the pedal and onto the spindle. Keep injecting until you see clean grease coming out.

Dirty grease.

Dirty grease.

Once you have some clean grease coming out, ease the pressure off on the syringe or gun and remove it from the pedal injection port. Wipe the excess grease off there, if there is any, and replace the phillips head screw. Then just tidy up the dirty grease from the spindle and you are done. It really is quite simple, and it took me all of 5 minutes once I had the syringe loaded up with grease.

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Milan San Remo – Not Long Now!

Whoohooo. Who else is going to be streaming it?

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