His chances in the 1 day races may be better, but he’s still young so he’ll probably need a few more years before he can make his projections for the next season really come true

This year, the Giro will probably be dominated by some more experienced guy’s, I give Soler more chance in winning the Giro then Ricco, but thats speculating as well, especially since he wants to do good in Giro and Tour…..

With a special and hard training scheme he should be able to compete in both competitions he thinks. There have been examples before of cyclists who could do this. One of the recent ones was dope related Ivan basso and of course Marco Pantani who won both races in 1998.

The Colombian Soler thinks that with the difficulties in the stages as it is now he has a big chance to compete in the top 10 of both tours. Maybe he can even compete in the Vuelta since this one implements a lot of mountains as well.

He is the winner of the mountain jersey in the Tour de France 2007, presumptions enough then.

Only problem is that he rides for a small pro tour team and is not eligible to get the entries to the tour like the big teams, they have to wait for the wild cards to be handed out.

The Colombian has been voted sportsman of the year in Colombia and thought that that was the right time to pronounce his wishes for the next season.

Lets keep him on our list for the next season.

there is a Team event just as last year, the prologue will feature a team time trial of 7km.

The famous but controversial mountain Angliru is featuring in the stages again, its maximum ascend is 23 percent…. so a lot of riders will feel the mountain coming from miles away.

Longest stage is 224 km, from Barbasto to Andorra, this stage feature right after the first day of rest.

Favourite with this layout is Dennis Mentsjov, he’s won the Vuelta twice in the last 3 years and will be aiming for a third one next year.

Below a downhill vid of the decent of the Angliru, watch the guy filming miss the turn…..

And the pro’s in bad weather, Vuelta 1999:

One of the main manufacturers is Polar, which is one of the leading Heart rate monitor producers world wide. It has some high end watches that will give you, functions like: speed, distance, heart rate, training zones, altitude, temperature, even a power sensor to measure which leg gives more power. they also have computers with some of those functions. They deliver a steer holder with the package. Only thing is, you have to buy the accessories like the power sensor or the pedal frequency next to it. The newest S725X features all this and more.

If you look for a cycling computer only, Polar has the CS600, which has all the above functions but is for cycling only.

A cheaper variant is the Vetta V110HR, but with its lower price comes also a little frustration in the way everthing works, batterie life is short, product is not always functioning like it is supposed to….. so try it if you want, but i’d invest a little bit more and go for the bigger producers like polar or maybe suunto in the future.

For alternatives, you have GPS systems which are able to measure almost everything except the pedal frequency. Polar supplies the RS800 G3, which uses GPS to measure speed, distance, altitude etc. but I wouldn’t recommend it for cycling.

Other manufacturers supply mainly GPS receivers in watches etc. and are not fully cycling minded. So no power/pedal output or cadence metering.

Since GPS is getting more and more integrated in everything thats has to move and locate it self. I would’nt be suprised if the big comapny’s integrated it in their new upcoming lines of outdoor watches/cycling computers.

Stay tuned and if you find anything worth while, post it in the comments.

There is a major change compared to last year, for the first time the tour starts outside Europe, the staring location is Down under and will start in South Australia. This will be the first event ever that features outside Europe for the UCI pro tour.

Also, the big 3 are still missing in the calendar, since the start of the pro tour the Tour de France, Giro and Vuelta are not implemented in the UCI pro Tour schedule, however, between June 22 and august 22 there is no race planned so that the major teams can compete in the tour de France.

There is also a Team Event, just like last year it features in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, this will be the last test event for the Tour de France, last year most teams started in the same setup as they would start in the tour de France.

The German Anke Willen is the brain behind this Third edition of the erotic bicycle calendar, the idea started when she noticed that her husband was getting more and more into his bicycles and even said that there was no more beautiful object than a bicycle…… With this in her mind she started to form the idea to make a calendar that showed the feminine beauty next to the beauty of a bicycle. To make it even more interesting, she asked former and ruling world champions to model for the pictures. With these ingredients her husband probably couldn’t deny that beauty is a relative phenomenon.

See this link of the official website and earlier calendars.

And a youtube with a preview

First of all, you need something on your bike to put the tools in. We know a few different places where you can put luggage on your bike, the main places are under your saddle and in your frame.

Most of the bike shops have an big assortment of saddlebags coming in various sizes.

Choose one that is easy to get to, with handy zippers and not too voluminous to stick-out and chafe your thighs. Let your own taste decide what kind of bag/tool holder you like, as long as its small, easy to get to and doesn’t hinder while cycling.

The tools are more important, here is a quick list of what i bring with me on an average ride:

Spare tire, Spoke-spanner, tire lifter, glue, small piece of sandpaper, a bike tool with imbus/chain tool.

When I’m off for a few days, and need to traverse some rougher country, I’ll take some extra spokes with me, just in case….. Today, you wont need to bring a device with which you can change your cassette since the triple almost everybody with a bike that’s older than 2000 will have enough gearing to ride everything that has asphalt on it. If you have a double gear at the front, you might bring some extra crones to change your gears accordingly to the landscape your riding through.

I’m using a Topeak mini tool which carries almost all the things listed above, its good if you have a cycle that is well kept, its of no use if you need it on rusted or corroded parts. Its not that strong and doesn’t give enough leverage to apply a lot of power.

Now, the only thing you need is knowledge of how to change everything on your bike when necessary for this you have lots and lots of books, websites and bicycle stores.

to make it easy, I’ll give a bunch of links to bicycle maintenance with some nice “you-tube” videos.

Repairing spokes

Fixing a broken chain

fixing derailleur problems

Okay, we’ll leave it at this for the moment, just remember that steady maintenance keeps you from getting to soon in too much trouble.

to be continued.

What if the gears don’t shift easily anymore? or what if your cable breaks during training or tour?

I’ll try to give a short explanation on how and why, just enough to get you back on the road in no time at all.

During your rides, the cable may get a little off tension, that way you notice this is because the gears shift a little less fluently and the noise your derailleur makes gets louder. At one moment your gears may shift out of itself when you hit a bump in the road or when you apply a lot of pressure on the pedals. This means you have to tune your derailleur back to its efficient place.

One of the things most bikes have is a tuning wheel on the cable that leads from the gear shifters to the derailleur, with this you can increase or decrease the tension on the cable for a little bit, an increase in tension leads to a shift towards a lighter gear, a decrease shifts towards a heavier gear. Big sprockets are lighter and smaller sprockets are heavier. The only thing is that you’ll get problems with shifting to the out-most gears, so when you change the tension on the cable most of the gears will run smoothly except for the lightest and the heaviest gear.

Below a picture of the derailleur to make the you-tube video a little more comprehensible.

Follow the you-tube below for adjustments made on the derailleur itself.

If you want to get in to it to become a bicycle mechanic, check this link .

see ya

So here is a compact description of how to repair a broken chain:

First of all you need a chain tool, this is a tool that by screwing a piece of metal through the chain you push the chain apart. see the picture on the left.

just pick a link in the chain, apply the tool and twist it until the pin from the chain link is almost pushed out of the chain.

The first few twists need some force, and you’ll probably hear a snap, once you heard the snap the rest is easy going.

Once the chain is opened, you can twist it a little and separate the links.

Remember, that when you do a quick repair because its broken you have to remove a pair of links of the chain, cause its hard to fit two outer links together see picture above for detail.

For a more visual detail:

Good luck!