Tech

Thanks to Selle Italia

Selle Italia factory

It’s not often Pippo Pozzato and I have something in common but you might have noticed the advert on the right meaning we’re both sponsored by Selle Italia. The Italian manufacturer is here for May and this is a note to say thanks in public for their support.

Although founded outside Milan in 1897, today the company is based in the Treviso area of Italy in a modern factor pictured above. I wrote about the concentration of cycling shoe makers in the region before (“Italy’s backwards shoemakers“) and Selle Italia is only a short walk from the Sidi and Gaerne factories as well as others. It makes sense when you think about it as early saddles and cycling shoes shared the same manufacturing tradition, namely leather goods that needed skill to shape and stitch the final product together.

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The Photo Finish Explained

Ever wondered why the spokes appear to bend in a sprint finish when you see the photo finish image from a race? Are the riders going so fast that they flex the spokes? Or is something else at work?

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Saturday shorts

Track racing has a big debt to the USA and in particular New York. The sport was so popular a century ago with urban audiences that today’s Madison race, where pairs of riders take it in turn to compete in a sort of relay race got its name from the Madison Square Garden. The original venue has now gone but a wealthy benefactor has donated $40 million to help build a indoor velodrome again in New York. There’s talk of a Harlem velodrome but I think one reader via Twitter had a better suggestion:

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Why do riders puncture so often?

crevaison cyclist

A rider punctures in a race. They’re forced to stop and to stand by the side of the road, often holding up a wheel in the air with a forlorn look on their face. You’ve probably seen it on TV many times, maybe you’ve experienced it too.

Hopefully the rider will get a spare wheel and return to the action. But precious energy is wasted and when the pace is high the rider can lose time and placings. Look to Sylvain Chavanel in Paris-Roubaix last Sunday. One minute he’s at the front of the race, the next minute he’s out of contention. It happens so many times a year it seems normal. But is it? Would you work with a tool that let you down so often? If a rim or a crank failed this often nobody would use it.

An outsider to the sport would probably be amazed by the number of punctures that happen in a race. The energy wasted, the races lost, these incidents aren’t a mere inconvenience or hassle. Punctures cost results and points. At times even careers and reputations can be ruined. Why?

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New UCI rules on bikes, equipment and clothing

The sport’s governing body, the UCI, is moving towards greater regulation of equipment, both the bike and clothing. Whilst rules about the bio passport or race radios might seem abstract, there’s a high chance these ones will affect you.

Whether you’re racing locally, buying new parts or worse – if you define yourself as a road cyclist – that moment when a triathlete overtakes you out on the road, here are some rule changes that could change your riding.

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Who made your bike?

Did you know the three cyclists on the 2008 Tour de France podium all used bikes produced in the same factory? Yes, the design and decals might have varied but there was only one manufacturer behind all three riders.

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2012 team bikes

Happy New Year!

The season is now just two weeks away with the Tour Down Under. Today marks the day when riders officially start their new jobs and are able to wear the colours of their new teams. With this in mind, here is the list of 2012 Pro Tour team bikes.

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The stuck bidon

The UCI has rules on “sticky bidons”, the practice of riders holding to a water bottle passed up from the team car for too long, thus getting a short tow from the vehicle. But now it seems the bottle itself is coming under regulation. The UCI’s Technical Coordinator Julien Carron has written to teams informing them that it will standardise the measurement of saddle angles in 2012 and bottles for 2013.

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The dying art of wheelbuilding

Wheel building

A fine racing bicycle was once a blend of art and craft but most of today’s bikes are the product of assembly lines and supply chains. Look at a team issue bike and perhaps the only remaining parts requiring a human touch are the wheels. But even this is dying out. Here’s a look at why factory wheels are increasingly dominating the market.

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Book review: The Competition Bicycle

Competition Bicycle Book

“The Competition Bicycle, a photographic history” is the full title of Jan Heine’s book and this is what the book is all about. It features 34 bikes from the earliest race bikes to modern era machines and there are extensive studio photographs of each machine.

The bike is the star in this book. You might have seen black and white images of Fausto Coppi on his Bianchi or faded colour images of Eddy Merckx on his orange bike in the 1970s but now you can see these bikes in full colour. Each bike gets several pages of photographs with some text to explain history and context of the bike. For example Merckx’s orange frame is labelled “Eddy Merckx” but is actually a De Rosa. The author has taken care to find the authentic machine.

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