Happy New Year

One of the things I like about cycling is the time it affords one to think.

Ideas come to me on rides and I occasionally remember them all the way home and write them down, or better yet act on them. More often then not they are spur-of-the moment pearls of wisdom and insight that i promptly forget when the next hill or interval comes along. 

Such was the case on Saturday. I hadn't been on my bike much at all since the last BASP at Coyote Point December 9th, and District CX was coming up on Sunday so I thought a little blow out might help, and it did. During the ride I had one of those epiphanies...a thought that was SURE to revolutionize my training, my coaching, my life, the sport of cycling, or something equally impressive...but I forgot it and can't seem to pull it back. 

I hope it comes back...it was pretty good. I'm kinda the same about memories in general. I simply forget, so I wanted to take a quick look back at 2012 before it gets lost. Let's break it into simple categories: 

Mitch Going Fast!

Race Team - Smaller and leaner this year....Sterling Cross p/b Fusion IO was still in all a success by the numbers. We had ONE elite rider - Mitch Trux...but he pulled a bunch of podiums and was constantly in the top 10, usually the top 7! Our other standout cateogry? Single Speed A's! We pulled a podium at almost every race we did this year. Either myself of Patrick Kitto...weird that we couldn't seem to put it together at the same events...had solid rides at all the BASP's and a host of other events in and around NorCal including:

• WIN! BASP #1 Candlestick Park - Patrick Kitto
• 2nd BASP #4 Candlestick Trippel - Matt McNamara
• 2nd BASP #5 Coyote Point - Patrick Kitto
• 3rd BASP #3 Sierra Point Night Race - Matt McNamara
• 3rd Santa Rosa Cup #3 - Patrick Kitto
• 5th NCNCA District Championships - Patrick Kitto
• 5th Surf City #1 Aptos HS - Matt McNamara
• 6th NCNCA District Championships - Matt McNamara

I think that's about all the races we entered except for 2 mechanicals and a terrible mud race at Manzanita...not bad. Next year....we're going bigger badder and faster!

A Jeff Namba Photo

Athletes - This year I had the pleasure of working with an Elite Team in HONG KONG...Team Direct Asia! They were awesome to work with and the topped it off by taking the OVERALL GC and TEAM GC at Tour De Bintan..a big race in SE Asia. I also had the pleasure of working with some juniors - two talented sets:

• USAC Regional Development Camp - This is my third year working with Larry Nolan and the other coaching stalwarts at the camp, but this year we did it a little different..we divided into teams and got to work with our riders individually the whole week - AWESOME! 

USAC Campers

• Matadors HS MTB Team - I kinda lucked into this one, but it was time well spent as our small 3 rider team finished 16th in the team overall standings for Division 2 in NorCal...a pretty huge accomplishment that was only possible with a true team effort by each rider! 

Matador Racing 2012

My other athletes were also consistently strong and impressive. There are too many to go rider by rider, but suffice it to say that we won some races, reached some new personal bests and I don't think anyone took a major digger this year, which is huge in my world From KMH killing Du's all year to Adam Carr racing the Tour of Vietnam (UCI 2.2) and Joe Carpenter slogging off several top rides in 8+ hour MTB races! Can't wait to jump deep into 2013 and see what turns up...

Personal - This year started off slowly with almost no riding from January til May..then I dialed up a solid summer and hit some of my best power numbers EVER, including new PR's on 5, 20, and 60 minute efforts. That fitness carried me thru a gradual decline in the fall that culminated with almost NO riding the past 6 weeks...

SO - HERE'S TO A BIGGER AND BETTER 2013...so Happy New Year to all...(yea, done with 1:20 left in 2012, I'll post pics to this shortly

Euro-Cross 2012 (so far...)

GP Neerpelt: September 29th

GP Kalmthout September 30th

Superprestige Ruddervoorde: October 7th

GP Mario De Clerc: October 14th

Why The Magura Hydro Rim Brakes Don't Matter*

Typical of the bike industry. Something "new"comes out and everyone is a twitter figuratively and literally.



Seems Magura has gone back to the future by introducing their RT8-TT hydraulically actuated rim brake.

Um, wait a minute....didn't they already do that in 1997?



Yep, Bart Brentjens rode 'em to some glory back in the day, then real hydraulic discs came out and rim based systems became antiquated.








So, why all the hubub about the "new" magura's? Honestly, I don't know!

A couple of counter weights to the media frenzy...

1. They are ugly!



Yes, they've been compared to the Campy Delta V's...


Maybe the Industrial-German-Techno version of a Delta V. And lest we forget Delta V's SUCKED at braking! Presumably the Magura's won't follow suit.


2. They are heavy!
From cyclingnews - "Not surprisingly, the RT8 TT is impressively light with a claimed total system weight of just 495g —comparable to a Shimano Dura-Ace mechanical setup when factoring in cables and housing." 495g, 250g per wheel...that's over a pound for levers, housing, fluid, and calipers. For comparison - you knew this was coming right? - TRP's new TTV weighs in at about 110g, and when paired with the RL879 lever at 77g each, puts your total weight at a paltry 187g per wheel, then add another 15g for cable and housing you're still around 200g per wheel, or about a 1/4 pound lighter.

3. They are expensive!
From cyclingnews: "Pricing for the complete Magura RT8 TT brake system is set at €599." at todays exchange rate that makes these a $773 investment in old technology...which brings me to the final reason these are irrelevant on arrival. Again using the TRP TTV's as comparison...they will likely have a retail price of around $150 per set (if we use the similarly v-brake based CX9 as a relative price point). Throw in the levers for $60 and you've still spent less than a third of the price..plenty of coin left for a new TT helmet!

4. Rim Brakes?
Why would you invest, presumably, tens-to-hundreds of thousands of dollars on a rim based system? Brake perfomance will not be impressively improved over existing options because it still comes down to the pad and the rim. The rim surface is uneven, prone to flexing, and inherently mediocre at adhesion, especially in wet conditions. Disc brakes on road bikes are coming. Now the UCI may waffle and waiver on allowing them, but they will be the standard within a few years, guaranteed!

Not to be a complete Nega-Nerd I'll give the Magura's props in two or three areas...

1. They mount on existing brake configurations according to cyclingnews. This is important b/c other systems like the TTV require post mounts and manufacturers willing to produce compatible forks and frames (which they are doing in droves since under the BB mounting is fairly standard in TT/Tri bikes, and most major manufacturers have embraced the fork mount version, but I digress).
2. They look killer under the fairing!
3. For their launch bike they chose TRP pads and pad holders, look closely....nice!




*The big qualifier - I work for TRP Brakes about 10 hours a week doing marketing so I AM BIASED

Spring Fling!

A quick update before I put my head back in the computer...

The past 6 weeks has been a foggy haze of coughing and allergies that hit a crescendo last week when my doctor prescribed Advair and Singulair to try and stem the tide of sickness that saw approximately 7 HOURS of training in March! I'm not wild about taking prescription drugs - espeically those with a 30-day run time mandatory - but I do want to get healthy and able to ride sometime this season, so I did it.

On the plus side I feel much better and just got back from a SOLID trip to Sea Otter working for TRP Brakes. It was a very enjoyable trip because we got to meet and greet hundred of cyclists and dozens of industry folks who all had nice things to say about TRP Brakes. We even made a few connections for the upcoming Cyclocross season. I'll have our 2010 program information our shortly - it's gonna be a good one.

On another topic: CyclingNewsAsia - is a fledgling site that serves the growing asian market including China, Taiwan, Malaysia and all points on that side of the ring of fire. I like the arc of their approach - user friendly and slightly entry level. The goal is to ably educate newer riders on all that cycling is. They are also smart (or not) enough to let me write some content too! My first article just went up last week and another will follow shortly. If you want to learn what's happening in the production hot-bed of Asia, check them out.

More soon...

Matt