Eggs and Potatoes - Pro Team Nutrition

It's raining hard so a good chance to catch up on the enjoyable videos on Bartape.net

These follow the progression of Cervélo Test Teams 2009 season. Of particular interest was Carlos Sastre's pre race smoothie.

Ingredients: 2 raw eggs, 2 table spoons Vin Santo, a squeeze of honey.

Instructions: Blitz all ingredients with a blender and serve in a glass.

I've also read Sastre's favourite food is fried eggs and chips. He obviously likes his eggs.

Less polished but still of some interest are the Liquigas Cannondale videos. Breakfast at their training camp at Benicassim is lower on the egg content featuring bread, proscuitto, cheese and small pieces of tomato. Daniele Bennati seems to be genuinely excited about describing his breakfast intake.

Meanwhile, over at Team Garmin, the squad pushes Cliff Bar. David Millar guzzles 1 Cliff bar every hour and a packet of Shot Bloks every 45 minutes when he's in an inevitably doomed breakaway in a stage race. Dr Lim (Team Garmin's nutrition expert) also reveals some of the squad's non-sponsored mid race snacks. This includes his boiled potato with parmesan recipe as well as the now famous Dr Lim rice cakes. Apparently the boiled potato (skinned to remove the fibre) is best eaten near the end of a race as the potato rapidly increases blood sugar. Some nice tin foil origami is also displayed.

Hydration-wise, Dr Lim informs us the riders get through 1.5 to 2.5 bottles of fluids every hour during a stage race - that's between 10 and 25 bottles. In one hot stage of the Vuelta the team went through over 400 bottles!

Things get bizarre when we head over to Team Milram.

Niki Terpstra gives tips on how to make your picnic a success and a number of recipes are featured which naturally all include Milram products. I would suspect Fillet of beef with cheese crust (including Agrafrost oven croquettes and Milram rahmkase) and Cheese Swirls with Paprikaquark (including 2 packets of Milram PaprikaQuark and 125g of Milram Benjamin cheese) may be behind the team's lack of success in 2009.

Mudguards - this season's must have

Mudguards suddenly seem to be acceptable this winter. For many attaching mudguards to your prize race machine was tantamount to labelling yourself as an Audaxer but with the arrival of Crud 'Roadracers' I've even heard of Weight Weenies fixing up. I've just fitted mine and will road test them on tonight's chaingang. These fit closely to the wheel and are consequently fairly inobtrussive.I think Audaxers advocacy of the mudguard stems from an altruistic concern for not spraying fellow riders with road muck. For the Roadie it's more a concern for avoiding the mud stripe on the back of the Assos shorts.

VERDICT: Easy to fit (although which is front and which is back??). Does require a bit of fiddling to get the right fit but did the job - road spray on to me and to fellow club members cut right back. Sarcy comments from club members about mudguards were at a minimum.

I've also just bought a Topeak saddle bag to replace the Specialized wedgie. The Wedgies look better but the 'waterproofing' zips have failed on the two wedgies I've owned. That's no good.VERDICT: Good. Plenty of room and seems sturdy enough. The strap to attach round the saddle is not ideally positioned for my Specialized saddle however.Also new, some IXS arm and leg warmers to replace my road savaged Endura ones. These are a Large but out the packet they look tiny!

VERDICT: Not bad. Cosy and very snug. They're more functional than a fashion accessory having no stitching detail or bold logos. The leg warmers have dangly zips rather than a recessed ones which I'd prefer. They also don't have left and right arm/leg designs unlike Endura. Is this good or bad, I'm not sure! There's always that nagging doubt though - should I have just bought the Assos ones...

The Saga Continues...

Less than 2 weeks have passed and I'm now almost certain carbon is the way forward *roll eyes to back of skull*
So, I've narrowed it down to three - the first two available from Epic Bikes, who have a good rep, so they'll be getting a call from me shortly.

Viner Mitus Plus

£2256 (frame and forks)
Positives:

• The top of the range Maxima is one of the best riding bikes I've tried
• Italian made
• Custom fit
• Light weight (about 1kg)
• Good reviews
• Uncommon

Negatives

• Expensive
• Paint job is a bit garish (custom paint job available)

The Argon 18 Gallium Pro£1599 (frame, forks and seat post)
Positives:

• Weighs under 1kg.
• Technically, the geometry is ideal for me with a 57.5cm top tube and down tube.
• Very rigid BB and head tube
• Looks great
• Not common

Negatives:

• Some top tube flex according to Frankie Andreau (but otherwise positive review)
• I've not ridden it

Kuota Kebel£1149 (frame, fork, seat post and headset)
Positives

• Light enough (1.1kg)
• Cheapest of the three - the Kharma and KOM sit above this. Don't like the look of the Kharma though.
• Reputably stiff
• looks pretty good

Negatives

• More of them on the road
• Lots of decals
• Not ridden it
• Good reputation amongst time trialists :O

The Argon is edging it so next stop is a test ride.

The New Bike - The Saga

The quest for the new road bike continues. So far I've narrowed it down to the frame material - Titanium - beautiful looks, bomb-proof, soft but responsive ride.

If money was no object (which it is) then I would be thinking about one of these bad boys:

Baum Corretto £3975 (frame and forks)

Independent Fabrication XS £4455 (frame and forks)

Slightly more realistic options are:

Van Nicholas Astraeus £2100 (frame, forks and headset)Moots Compact £2500 (frame only I keep returning to the Astraeus. A great looking machine with reputably lminimal flex. The Lightweights really set it off but, again, a bit out of range. On the downside, it's not the lightest - tipping the scales at 7.44kg (16.3lb) and thus sadly conforming to the UCI minimum of 6.8kg. Halfords also used to sell them. Hmmm. I need a test ride otherwise my head starts introducing further complications. A nice Viner Mitus carbon frame maybe...Aaargghhh.