Road Culture

Going for a Ride in 2012

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Talansky's New Year's resolution: Give it all every race

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Ahhh, the off-season

Judy Freeman's TSA nightmare shows that even the most seasoned travelers have travel disasters during the holidays

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Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

November has been contrary to my summer race-focused routine of ride, eat, nap, eat, manicure, massage and fanned grape-eating

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Check out CyclingTips's author page.

I’m on the way back from the last race of the year, for me, and for Kenda–5 Hr-Geargrinder (as always, sorry for the mouthful, but the sponsors paid for it, so it’s the least I can do).

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" ... Like mystical mirages in a city congested with towers, the mountains appeared through the thick smog as we reached the outer limits of Beijing. The landscape was completely foreign to most of us. But we swiftly settled into a routine we know: the race."

" ... Someone should invent an “emergency brake.” I’m not sure how it should work (I’m just the idea man), but when there is a crash in the field, there’d be nothing worse than watching it come and having no way to avoid it. Maybe if you could just pull a parachute ..."

"Even with our RadioShack sponsors on course in Beijing, I focused on the things I could control, like swallowing fear and riding in good position on the last lap."

Ben King is a first-year professional with Team RadioShack, racing this week at the Tour of Beijing

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Since my last blog entry in July, the theme of my life has been “all kitted up and nowhere to go.”

"More than once I gave what I thought might be my last ditch effort. The Brits shoved me back into the rotation offering a 'good job' or 'nice pull.' Their sportsmanship impressed me and they were pulling like oxen. ... "

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Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

If you ask me who won the stage two days ago I cannot tell you. I remember who won yesterday, and I know what stage we are on, but that is about as far as my memory will serve me.

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"... Today is not about fighting pain, or conquering it, rather it is about accepting it and, for those who wish to win, embracing it ..."

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Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

" I suffered in fifth position on Gesink's wheel. Then Levi said, "go, Ben." Way above my limit, brain oxygen-deprived, my vision narrowed. I emptied myself pulling back the attack in three minutes. The world spun, as I regained my breath and settled into a comfortable pace, leaving Rovny and Deignan to fend for Levi. "

I always demand a lot of myself and I’m sure I expect more out of myself during this Vuelta than my team does. While the main goal is the same as when I started, to help our team leaders and make it to the finish line in Madrid, I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to try to do something special one of these days.

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" ... I always find solace in telling myself that I will only feel better as the stage goes on. Luckily, today I was telling myself the truth ... "

"Terrified, I arrived with my training partner Andy Guptill two weeks early to acclimate and preview stages. “You’re a different rider than you were two years ago,” my coach said."

"I don’t know how I will react to three weeks of racing, it is unknown and that is exactly what it is so exciting about it."

Since I was out of GC after yesterday's adventure into mid-stage bike repair, I took the opportunity to shoot some video footage of the race in action while we were on the pass. You will have to excuse a few mis-spoken words

Today was the third stage of the Breck Epic, and it was Epic.

Today was the second stage of the Breck Epic stage race. It was about 40 miles long and included a giant section of the Colorado Trail, which is for mountain bikers what a four-scoop chocolate ice cream Sunday is to my daughter.

I was invited to former President George W. Bush's inaugural Warrior 100K Mountain Bike Ride, called the W100K, in April, along with 14 servicemen and women who were injured or lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So....I got a call from my fella, Tom, on Friday while I was driving to a race in Snowmass, Colorado.

I first met Jeremy Powers in 2008, when he was living in a huge barn-looking house in Hadley, Massachusetts, with a wide assortment of cyclocross racers, amateur teammates of mine, and their significant others.

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I write from Salt Lake City, Utah, a place I once tried to forget.

Editor's Note: Phil Gaimon, 25, is a Velo magazine columnist and third-year pro racer for Kenda-5 Hr Energy Presented by Gear Grinder. He has an English degree from the University of Florida, and owns online stores at podiumcycling.com and sharethedamnroad.com.

Instead of a traditional rider diary, this month Team RadioShack's Ben King is sharing his race report from the Tour of Austria, which wrapped up Sunday.

"Christian Vande Velde came in and said to me, 'You can bet that worse things will happen during your career, but you have to let this go. If you don’t, I promise you more bad things will happen, it will eat you up inside.' ”

I’d say the main difference between Quebec and France is that when you’re driving along the Riviera, you don’t have to watch out for moose. That said, I didn’t get to see any moose this week. I was pretty sure I saw a bear win stage 6, but it turned out to be Svein Tuft.

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Cycling doesn’t need to become an extreme sport to be intriguing, exciting and dramatic enough to captivate a television audience. A few simple changes could make them even more intriguing while minimizing the risk to the riders’ health and, indeed, their lives.

Singletrack.com's resident racer Judy Freeman says that what you commit to will make you dig deep to get it.

The latest diary by Colby Pearce. Pearce discusses what he thinks is the origin of optimal performance and what is the best balance for a rider.

The latest diary by RadioShack's Ben King, the 2010 U.S. pro road race champion. King's teammate, Matthew Busche, won the 2011 title on Monday.

What does two-time Olympian Wells think of the London venue?

Random memories…

I felt like a rock star racing in the USA’s most prestigious race in the stars and stripes for the winning team.

Kenda-5 Hour Energy's Phil Gaimon knew he was in for a long day when the rumors began circulating: Portions of stage one would be neutralized, it would be shortened to a prologue, or he'd have to do the full race, and the lead moto would be replaced with a snowplow.

For Lennard Zinn - who might be 'too tall to race' - bad rules, excessive taxes and a silly sticker mean the UCI is out of control.

" Remember watching news stories of Katrina victims, staying on rows of air mattresses and cots in big, open rooms? That’s us right now: disaster relief housing. It’s no Katrina, but nine dudes in one room does qualify as a disaster."

What you tell yourself can make or break a race: Choose wisely, Grasshopper

"I am more in love with the sport than ever, and yet I still watch a pack of cyclists negotiating traffic or click-clacking through a coffee shop in their cleats, and I cringe. We are truly our own worst enemies ... "

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"For each of us an hourglass upends at the finish line beginning a new countdown. It’s already late in the afternoon. As the sand drains, we race to recover for the next stage. "

Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry. Last week during the behind-the-scenes moments of the Redlands Bicycle Classic, my teammates did a good job of helping me with my core training through laughter.

VeloNews' newest online rider diarist is domestic pro Phil Gaimon of Kenda-Geargrinder. Gaimon already is well known to readers of VeloNews magazine as the author of one of our most popular (and funniest) features: Ask a Pro.

"Twice, I took more than a month off from ALL forms of training during the season. Each time, I struggled to remain positive when my first rides back had a heartrate ceiling of 130 bpm and power that never got above 120 watts. "