Sherrie joins the clan!

Sherrie has finally given in to our persistent invitations to come out and pedal! First ride out she did 10 miles in rainy and muddy conditions.

You can’t see it very well in the picture, but she had mud splattered all the way up her back – coolio!

She’s definitely on her way to the MS150!

Welcome the the clan, Sherrie!!

BP MS150 – 2010

We are ecstatic to announce that Sanford Barlow LLP is sponsoring a team this year for the 180 mile ride from Houston to Austin on April 17-18, 2010! 

Other sponsors include: 

Bean Ride, Inc.
Media A-Team

We will be posting training schedules, recommended rides, and donation areas on this site to help everyone get geared up for the event!!

Thanks to everyone in advance for all of your help and participation!

Saturday Ride

We will be riding the Terry Hershey / Bush Park trail starting at 7:30 a.m. 

If you’d like to join us, please email us via the contact page, & I will give you the meetup location.

How Can a Small Pedaller Ride So Strongly?

Here is an interesting comment pertaining to the ideal physique of a competitive climber from a contributor in www.roadbikerider.com.

Question: I began riding last year and recently met my first professional cyclist in person. He’s a good climber on a U.S. pro team. I’m astonished at how small he is! He looks skinny, emaciated and weak. But I know he can ride circles around me even though I’m an athletic 6-footer and 190 pounds. How can such an unimposing person put out so much power? I want to climb like him! — Bradley N.

Comment: When you’re familiar with athletes in most conventional sports, it’s a shock to see how small and thin top cyclists are. The rule for climbing prowess: You should weigh (in pounds) no more than twice your height in inches. So at 6 feet (72 inches) you’d need to weigh 144 pounds rather than 190. Pro cycling tends to select lean, light-bodied athletes in the same way that the profile of a mastodon is required for football linemen. Climbing ability is crucial in racing, and it depends on the power-to-weight ratio. A light rider doesn’t need to generate as much power as his heavier competitor because he has less weight to propel up hills. In the 2005 Tour de France with 189 starters, here’s the profile of the average rider:

 

• Height — 1.79 meters (5 feet, 10.4 inches)
• Weight — 71 kilograms (156.2 pounds)
• Resting heart rate — 50 bpm
• Lung capacity — 5.69 liters (1.48 gallons)

Of course, there are exceptions. Five-time Tour winner Miguel Indurain is 6-foot-2 and weighed 190 pounds when he began racing. Lots of miles reduced him to 175. At that weight, his huge power output enabled him to ride with the specialist climbers in the mountains even though he outweighed most of them by 30-40 pounds. And of course he was nearly unbeatable in flat time trials where weight doesn’t matter much but power output does. Think of Big Mig and don’t give up hope for climbing well. Continue riding, train on hills and you’ll improve to the limits of your physique.

Respiratory Muscle Training

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

First, practice taking a deep breath. Typically during a normal breath we use only 10 to 15% of our lungs. And during exercise, we increase the rate, not the depth of our breathing. Although deep breathing is more work and uses a bit more energy, the pay off can be that 1 – 2% edge in a competitive situation. Here’s 4 ways to make it happen:

• Exhale more completely. If you exhale more completely, it is easier to take a deep breath. The usual rhythm is exhale to a count of 3 followed by inhaling to a count of 2.
• Belly breathe. As you concentrate on deep breathing, you will push your diaphragm down and thus the abdominal contents out. If you are doing it correctly, your abs will expand more than your chest.
• Widen your hand postion. A 2 cm wider hand postion will open up your chest and decrease the difficulty of drawing in a deep breath.
• Synchronize your breathing. Try to synchronize your respiratory rhythm to that of your pedal cadence. Remember the 3:2 ratio of exhale to inhale.  

However a variation of pursed lip breathing focuses on the rhythm of respiration. Ian Jackson has developed a program, BreathPlay, which teaches skills in controlling ones expiration (and as a result inspiration) of air. He notes that “, athletes discover that pushing air out is a much more efficient way of meeting oxygen demands than sucking air in. They also discover how the active outbreath can bring powerful precision to any movement. The BreathPlay paradigm advocates using the active outbreath to setup a spinal stretch which is then released with the passive inbreath.” It taps into the power of both “focus” and “hypnotherapy” to achieve performance gains.

Information provided by www.CPTips.com.

Mesquite Rodeo Rotary Club Ride (6/6/09)

 

Robbie, Mikall and Shel -- The Pre-Ride Ensemble

No PC Rides this Weekend

Just a note to say that our Sat & Sun rides are cancelled, because the Clan is riding in the Mesquite Rotary Rodeo Ride — say that 3 times really fast.  See you next weekend!

First Pedal Clan Event!

On May 30, 2009, Pedal Clan held their first group ride.  We had 7 pedallers & 3 awesome support peeps driving SAG trucks!  Thanks to Shel for arranging such an exciting 30 mile ride over rolling hills and curves!  LOL  We all had a great time, and were thoroughly wiped out when it was over.  The clan looks forward to many more group rides.

Click Here to view Photo Album