Recently I spoke with New Belgium Brewery’s Bryan Simpson about the beer brewer’s bike infused libations, culture and bikes.

Go to the Source – twojohnspodcast.missingsaddle.com

“Dude, you’re stealing my bandwidth!”

This tech-savvy day in age, that’s the ambiguous and frequent expression when more than one person is on a wireless network. Turns out that 97.3% of cyclists have no idea what that means on a technological level. Superficially though, it turns out to be quite true – when you take a team of six riders at a South American race hotel with already poor internet, and then supplement the hotel’s capacity with another dozen cycling teams, plus cycling press, and their corresponding need for internet, the result is flickering hopes and shimmering seconds of working wifi followed by mind-numbingly futile hours of hitting Connect. Again and again and again all for not. That goes to explain why I became internet-quiet as soon as the race started.

Now that I’m back in the arctic tundra that is Europe, let’s quickly rehash some things and then move on to the present. Aaaand GO!

The team presentation for the Tour of San Luis was the most entertaining such event we’ve ever experienced. You see, a typical presentation in Europe lasts 30 seconds in the time leading up to a race, right on stage where we sign-on; line up as a team, shoulder to shoulder, they announce your name, you wave, smile (or frown and look badass) at the camera, step off, done. Meanwhile in America, it’s generally the night before a race in a ballroom with the race/town/state/city’s VIPs wearing their Sunday finest.

Definitely a different scene here: in stifling heat in the center of main street in downtown San Luis, we arrived at the tender hour of 8pm where it was still light out, and proceeded to wait protected by metal barricades from the ebullient and growing crowd.

Team after team are being called while we wait. We learn later that each team is standing under deafening speakers and in front of a roaring crowd, so we’re actually winning this situation since we can sit in relative quiet peace. After a good long while, we’re called up, and in this photo are waiting behind an enormous TV monitor:

And to the booming delight of the crowd, dodging a canon shooting glittery paper, a smoke and light show, cheerleaders, we walked on stage. Smile, wave, move right… and join the other 150 cyclists standing on another stage.

The point being, these San Luis’ians know how to have a good time. The entire town, and I do mean the entire town, came out to this rock star team presentation. It set the tone for what was going to be a unique week of bike racing.

And since I don’t write race reports more than once ever seven years, let’s say simply the following, in no particular order:

-We interrupted the Saxo-QuickStep show by taking an impressive victory with Elia Viviani. Yup, I called it that morning.
-The weather all week leading to the race and the entire race itself was roughly 38-45 degrees Celsius (100-113F). Except the first day which featured hail, sleet, wind, and three turn over the course of 170km. That day was bitter in every sense of the word.
-The TT featured a variety of set-ups. I had a skinsuit and shoe covers, which shaved 0.8 seconds off my time. I’d guess 1/2 the field had TT bikes. I just used it as a sweet fitness test and sat at a million watts for a bit shy of a half-hour.

-Courtesy: Bettini Photo

-And you can see the entire race on yonder Strava website. (Hark friends! Use the code tedking2012 and knock $10 your annual paid membership. And as always, you can still use the basic account for free.)

And then it was time to make a sufficiently long trip to Europe. I started to take photos of all the modes of transportation I used to get from our hotel in San Luis, Argentina to my apartment in Lucca, Italy but after the first three successful photos, I found myself sprinting between terminals and airports and vehicles so it became impractical to snap a photo in lieu of missing my connection. So for a quick summary: San Luis hotel, 20 minute bus to San Luis airport, 3 hour delay, 1 hour flight to Buenos Aires, 3 hours checking in/security/passport control, 13 hour flight to Rome, 2.33 minutes in Italian security and passport control,… ooooh, mind you it’s now day two of my travel which means it’s my birthday, everyone’s favorite day January 31. So with 32,000 of my best friends in the Rome airport, I bought a celebratory glass of Brunello and a mixed app’ plate. T’was excellent and since I like to photograph food, it looked like this.

And for the record, that short red cylinder on the left is beef tartar and the one on the right that looks like a red, disembodied finger is a stuffed red pepper.

Continuing on, I passed through Roman customs in a matter of seconds – opposed to America’s 2-3 hour wait to protect our borders – and then took another hour long flight to Lucca where I had our friendly soigneur Michelli pick me up and drive me the half hour to Lucca. I noticed upon landing that the ground was damp and the arrival staff was wearing lots of clothing. Clearly this was a far cry from the stifling heat of Argentina. Moreover, on the drive to Lucca it started misting, then sleeting, then a full fledged blizzard. (Sigh.)

With internet coverage deader than a doornail in hotel-Argentina, I didn’t know what sort of weather to which I’d be arriving on The Continent. Wet precipitation isn’t fun, cold isn’t so bad, but the combination is heinous. As Michelli said as he graciously chauffeured me from the airport, “Merry Christmas! Welcome to white Italy.” How thoughtful.

The biggest shock to the system hasn’t been the culture shock nor time zone shock. It’s the 47 degrees Celsius at the start of day seven San Luis (116F) as compared to -1C here (30F)

BrrrrRRRrrrRRrrrrr

Thankfully I’m here to help out those of you trying to stay warm this winter and have created this gem. (Yes, sold out, but check back in daily as inventory is about to be back up to stock.)

An Italian winter wonderland, complete with blanketed vineyards, craggy snowed-in mountain roads, and all of town/school/banks shut down.

And if you’re still after more Argentinian stories, give this a minute of your time. Time to bundle up and go for a bike ride.

Go to the Source – http://iamtedking.com

There’s the ambiguous and frequent expression this tech-savvy day in age when more than one person is on a wireless network, “Dude, you’re stealing my bandwidth.” 97.3% of cyclists have no idea what that means on a technological. However, superficially it turns out to be quite true – when you take a team of six riders at a South American race hotel with already poor internet, and then supplement the hotel’s capacity with another dozen cycling teams, plus cycling press, and their corresponding need for internet, the result is flickering hopes and shimmering seconds of working wifi followed by mind-numbingly futile hours of hitting Connect. Again and again and again all for not. That goes to explain why I became internet-quiet as soon as the race started.

Now back in the arctic tundra that is Europe, let’s rehash some things startlingly quickly and then move on to the present.

The team presentation for the Tour of San Luis was the most entertaining such event we’ve ever experienced. You see, a typical presentation in Europe lasts 30 seconds in the time leading up to a race, right on stage where we sign-on; line up as a team, shoulder to shoulder, they announce your name, you wave, smile (or frown and look badass) at the camera, step off, done. Meanwhile in America, it’s generally the night before a race in a ballroom with the race/town/state/city’s VIPs wearing their Sunday finest.

Definitely a different scene here: in stifling heat in the center of main street in downtown San Luis, we arrived at the tender hour of 8pm where it was still light out, and proceeded to wait protected by metal barricades from the ebullient and growing crowd.

Team after team are being called while we wait. We learn later that each team is standing under deafening speakers and in front of a roaring crowd. After a good long while, we’re called up, and in this photo are waiting behind an enormous TV monitor:

And to the roaring delight of the crowd, dodging a canon shooting glittery paper, a smoke and light show, cheerleaders, we walked on stage. Smile, wave, move right… and join the other 150 cyclists standing on another stage.

The point being, these San Luis’ians know how to have a good time. The entire town, and I certainly do mean the entire town, came out to this rock star team presentation. It set the tone for what was going to be a unique week of bike racing.

And since I don’t write race reports more than once ever seven years, let’s say simply the following, in no particular order:

-We interrupted the Saxo-QuickStep show by taking an impressive victory with Elia Viviani. Yup, I called it that morning.
-The weather all week leading to the race and the entire race itself was roughly 38-45 degrees Celsius (100-113F). Except the first day which featured hail, sleet, wind, and three turn over the course of 170km. That day was bitter in every sense of the word.
-The TT featured a variety of set-ups. I had a skinsuit and shoe covers, which shaved 0.8 seconds off my time. I’d guess 1/2 the field had TT bikes. I just used it as a sweet fitness test and sat at a million watts for a bit shy of a half-hour.

-Courtesy: Bettini Photo

-And you can see the entire race on yonder Strava website. (Hark friends! Use the code tedking2012 and knock $10 your annual paid membership. And as always, you can still use the basic account for free.)

And then it was time to make a truly epic trip to Europe. I started to take photos of all the modes of transportation I used to get from our hotel in San Luis, Argentina to my apartment in Lucca, Italy but after three photos when I found myself sprinting between terminals and airports and vehicles, it became impractical to snap a photo in lieu of missing my connection. So for a quick summary: San Luis hotel, 20 minute bus to San Luis airport, 3 hour delay, 1 hour flight to Buenos Aires, 3 hours checking in/security/passport control, 13 hour flight to Rome, 2.33 minutes in Italian security and passport control,… ooooh, mind you it’s now day two of my travel which means it’s my birthday, everyone’s favorite day January 31. So with 32,000 of my best friends in the Rome airport, I bought a celebratory glass of Brunello and a mixed appetizer plate. T’was excellent and since I like to photograph food, it looked like this.

And for the record, that short red cylinder on the left is beef tartar and the one on the right that looks like a red, disembodied finger is a stuffed red pepper.

Continuing on, I passed through Roman customs in a matter of seconds – opposed to America’s 2-3 hour wait to protect our borders – and then took another hour long flight to Lucca where I had our friendly soigneur Michelli pick me up and drive me the half hour to Lucca. I noticed upon landing that the ground was damp and the arrival staff was wearing lots of clothing. Clearly this was a far cry from the stifling heat of Argentina. Moreover, on the drive to Lucca it started misting, then sleeting, then a full fledged blizzard!

With internet coverage deader than a doornail in hotel-Argentina, I didn’t know what sort of weather to which I’d be arriving. Wet precipitation isn’t fun, cold isn’t so bad, but the combination is heinous. As my team soigneur said when he graciously chauffeured me from the airport, “Merry Christmas! Welcome to white Italy.” How thoughtful.

The biggest shock to the system hasn’t been the culture shock nor time zone shock. It’s the 47 degrees Celsius at the start of day seven San Luis (116F) as compared to -1C here (30F)

BrrrrRRRrrrRRrrrrr

Thankfully I’m here to help out those of you trying to stay warm this winter and have created this gem. (Yes, sold out, but check back in daily as inventory is about to be back up to stock.)

An Italian winter wonderland, complete with blanketed vineyards, craggy snowed-in mountain roads, and all of town/school/banks shut down.

And if you’re still after more Argentinian stories, give this a minute of your time.

Go to the Source – http://iamtedking.com

Go to the Source – jellybellycycling.com

Listen in as Jason Scheirs talks about carbon technologies, processes and some of the future.  You can check out his company, Enve Composites on the web.

Above: section of a carbon rim, Below: the people of Enve

Go to the Source – twojohnspodcast.missingsaddle.com

Stage 6 of the Tour de San Luis was the biggest, longest, hottest stage of the race so far.  The undulating and twisting nature of the route provided us no respite from the relentless blow dryer-like wind for over 5 hours.  I told my teammate in the middle of the stage, “this is definitely one for Viviani’” He always seems to pop a big W on the long nagging difficult days that arent just a staightforward cruise to a big field sprint.  When everyone is tired, we can always count on vivianis sprint!  As we entered the final 50km, I went to the front along with Nibali to reel in the break once and for all.  With the primarly cross tailwind all day, the break wasn’t just coming back dead like they normally would on a long hot day like this. Nibali was showing his form with some truly impressive pulls on the hills. Ouch. After we rounded the last corner into the final kilometers, I was pretty much toast as the field was splintering in the crosswinds.  Once again Vivian paid us back for our hard work on a hot day for his first win of the season, hopefully just one of many!

It was a bittersweet day though, as we lost our teammate Jose Sarmiento to a nasty crash breaking his collarbone.  Hopefully our win took some of his pain away.  Send your thoughts Jose’s way for a speedy recovery.

One more hot windy sprint stage today here in San Luis.  We’ll try to make it two in a row. See you at the finish.

Go to the Source – http://justgoharder.com

The queen stage of the race was a solid day for us at Liquigas-Cannondale. Nibali and Samiento showed their climbing form finishing just a few seconds behind a flying Contador and Leipheimer on the summit finish.  For me, my first big race in the hills of 2012 was allright.  Its was certailnly painful at times but that was to be expected.  other than that, just the typical getting water bottles and keeping Nibali out of the wind.  We made a big effort into the bottom of the final climb keep our climbers in perfect position as the crosswind shredded the peloton down to only 30 or so of us before we even got to the climb.  My work and my legs, pretty much done I swung off and rode up the climb at a mellow pace.  Glad to see my teammates bopping around near the front of the GC.  Vincenzo is a former winner of tomorrows time trial so we will see if he can make up some time.

The decent off of the 2000+ meter Alto de Nogoli was a ripper.  It was defenitely the funnest part of the day.  It was more or less immaculate as well, in stark contrast to the debris strewn road with sand and water crossings we had done a few days earlier.

Time trial tomorrow, “rest day” for me.

thanks for checking in

Go to the Source – http://justgoharder.com

Well, that was a fun day.  The peloton kicked off the 2012 season here at the Tour de San Luis with a memorable first stage, although its one Id like to quickly forget!  Lets just say I found out why one of our team cars has the snorkel on it.  San Luis threw the most atrocious weather it could at us to welcome us to the region.  In fact, I would rate it as one of the top 3 coldest times Ive ever had on a bike.  I was really on the edge for a little while, If I hadnt been able to get a new rain jacket and rain gloves I would have been toast.  Needless to say, we had every factor except for snow.  Pouring rain most of the time, with a section of hail in there for a bit.  It was so miserable that the peloton could hardly race, we just rode slowly curb to curb in survival mode until the feedzone when we thankfully started to pick up the pace a bit.  But until then, riding easy while soaking wet doesn’t keep you very warm.  sometimes I would just ride in the wind to the side just to get warm again! Of course there were a lot of crashes today as well, despite the nearly the entire route being out and back on a straight highway.  At one point, I was taken out in a big pile up, then was chasing back on guttered out in a crosswind just getting completely drenched by the team cars just to our side.  That was incredible fun.  Amaazingly it dried up for the last 50km, at which point the crosswinds really heated up and it was a full gas in the gutter for the next hour, to which my hypothermic waterlogged legs had not much of a response.  Our GC contenders were safe in the winning bunch, but the rest of us were behind, missing out on an opportunity for our sprinter Viviani.  The only thing that could have made the day more miserable is if it was actually raining as we started.  It was pouring rain 20 min before, dry at the start, and then commenced again about 4km into the race.  so, you know, that was nice at least.  Its always the worst to START in the rain. you can put up with 5 hours of rain easier if you at least start out dry.  I do want to find out how the moto camera guy was feeling…he was sitting on the back of a moto all day wearing…a tank top.  He was either totally screwed or just a true badass.

To continue the less than pleasant day, we drove an hour back to the hotel crammed 5 people in a car.  I was glad to see even Nibali was tired after the stage, cuz I was hammered.  He was fast asleep even as the stereo was blasting the Village People song Y-M-C-A! 

Go to the Source – http://justgoharder.com

Id seen some photos from the Tour de San Luis last year that included the peloton crossing a fairly sizeable river, up to the wheel hubs in water.  So I guess I wasn’t too surprised to see the rig below waiting for us to pick up our gear at the airport.  Yes, that’s a proper Land Rover type 4WD vehicle, complete with a snorkel.  I havnt seen any other teams with such a set up, so surely if it comes to river crossings and barren rocky deserts, team Liquigas Cannondale will have the most able follow car out there…

In reality, I havnt seen this thing do anything but pick our bikes up from the airport and then sit in front of the hotel all week.  But mayble ill be in for a surprise in a few days.

Anyways team Liquigas-Cannondale is pretty popular down here.  My teammate Vincenzo Nibali won the race in 2010 en route to the Vuelta Espana victory latter in the year, and we are looking to repeat his successes as well as pop in there for the sprint stages with our star speedster Elia Viviani.  We arrived a week prior to the race to adjust to the heat and the time change and to check out some of the stages.  We havnt really done a whole lot of reconn at all actually but fortunately (or not) a few of the stages are literally out and back on a long straight road.  good fun.  Stage 3 will definitely be a doozy…we rode it the other day.  A massive 25 km stair stepping climb in the middle followed by a ripping euro style descent on American sized road,  littered with South American style debris (rock fall, sand traps, water crossing, and a herd of goats). Im sure the organizers will do their best to clear it out come race day though. 

Other than training, you eat and sleep and training camp.  So ive been sleeping a lot.  Eating wise, the culinary aspect has been less than exciting.  We did have a nice dinner at a proper Argentinian steak house one night with some of our VIPs in town for the race.  While the steaks were quite large and tasty, the weiters didn’t serve them on swords or offer a few more kilos of various meat products to our plates, like they do at an American “Argentinian Steak House”.  which was fine…a nice steak and a glass of malbec made me happy after a week of eating this….

Oh, its nice to be back in race mode.  flavorless grilled chicken and steamed vegetables.

After the race ends, I will be first in line for one of the “King of Panchos”  famous…pancho…or whatever it its he makes in this little shed on the side of the road.  Im sure its delicious.

And in other news, I like San Luis.  The people are nice, roads are good, the city is safe.   My daily evening jaunt has provided a few entertaining moments.

Theres a lot of awesome old cars still kicking around, including this horse towing the back of an old pickup truck as a trailer, with two people inside.

Its all about meat here in Argentina.

well that’s all the entertainment for now.  An easy day tomorrow and the team presentation, then the 2012 season will be underway on monday! 

Go to the Source – http://justgoharder.com

It was merely a matter of time before the ferocious Argentine temperatures got the better of my overall well-being and something had to be done. That is to say, despite being on a style-centric Italian cycling team, I don’t feel like sweating profusely exclusively for the sake of high fashion. Thankfully my teammates have traveling hair clippers in the event that in our travels to the nether reaches of the globe a barber shop does not exist.

In a surprising turn of events, Argentina does in fact have both hair salons and barbershops. However, free was a better price than any number of pesos I would have had to spend and I’m quite pleased with my end result handiwork.

With temperatures again in the 40+ Celsius range, we’ve put together a few consecutive days of excellent San Luis’ian training (this is the Tour of San Luis, after all – basically a tour of the central, western province of San Luis that looks like a mirrored image of the state of Vermont). The first day was curious because it started out with a horrifically boring 30km out and 30km back along a dead straight road with nary a turn nor geographic aberration in sight, but eventually it turned into one of the best days of training I’ve ever had with the team. With a fairly dramatic sky overhead, those boring as heck first 60km looked something like this:

Absent turns nor virtually anything even mildly interesting for miles on end I nearly passed out from boredom. Just before that fateful, sleepy moment thankfully there was one, umm… I don’t even know what to call it. Let’s dub it, Yee Highway 7 Shrine to Plastic Bottles. In this photo, Timmy considers adding one of our team bottles for posterity’s sake, but thought better of it since our bottles claim to be biodegradable as opposed to the mountain of plastic that will perhaps someday cease to exists nine billion years from now.

We also returned home that day to witness a massive tour bus being removed from the roof of a nearby building. It was precariously parked 1/2 on and 1/2 danging precariously over the edge. The rear portion was painted black (no, it was not burned) and the front, which by this time has been sawed off and removed already, was painted white. In a stunning show of coincidence, we noticed the bus fully intact and perched happily up there the previous day, and then the next morning I read on the front news of the local newspaper that after nine years being parked up there in this position, city officials decided that it was simply too dangerous to remain up there. So one crane and a dozen workers later, KAPOOF, gonezo.

The following day we set out to scope a good portion of stage 3 of the Tour of San Luis. After a short stint along the same road we have ridden each of the past six days, we discovered the first climb of this particular stage. Someone mentioned that it was 12km give or take a few. Additionally, given that the area in which we’re staying is relatively flat with a few rolling mountains in the distance, surely nothing could be terribly long nor difficult. Some went as far as to say that this climb was facile… easy.

More than 25 arduous kilometers later, we reached the top. This shot below is Vinny Nibali, our new Columbian ace climber Jose Sarmiento, and American all-star Timmy Duggan. I was pleased to summit with these whippersnappers considering I’m 6’2″ and as they admitted during a sweaty respite at the top, they were not going easy at all. Punks.

Roughly the shape of a giant D, the ride looked like this:

In related news, if you are not yet on Strava, I’ll take this opportunity to say that you should be. One, because it’s awesome and I’m truly passionate about their product. Two, because when you sign up now and use this coupon code, tedking2012 you’ll save yourself $10 on an already completely inexpensive account. Two words: Do. It.

Aaaalora.

After a tough day of training, it was high time to soak up some Argentinian urban culture. Not far from our fancy hotel we came upon this buggy of travel patiently waiting for a green light which left me amused. No, not the scooter, it’s the horse attached to the rear end of a pickup truck that left me needing a photo. H’yaaa horsey!

On this cultural excursion walk-a-bout – and similar trips trying to figure out a particular new society in which I’m traveling – I frequently find myself at grocery stores and local fresh markets. I have been surprised not to find any exotic fruits and vegetables here in San Luis since the produce section is often the most culturally enlightening section of the grocer. I was told seemingly correctly that Argentina is known for two things: beef and Malbec. After an amazing feast last night with some Liquigas VIPs, I can attest that both are excellent.

When it came time to shoveling through the frozen meat section on my grocery run, however, I was confounded with so many options. Do I want the simple Paty Express or should I be watching my waisteline and go for the Paty Light? And how do either of those stack up to the delicious sounding Barfy? Ooh, so many decisions…

Go to the Source – http://iamtedking.com

Go to the Source – http://justgoharder.com

Go to the Source – http://justgoharder.com