Road Culture

Michael Barry looks back over a long season and ahead to a new year on a new team.

If you've never been to Ray's Indoor Mountain Bike Park in Cleveland, Singletrack.com columnist Judy Freeman says words and images are only going to give you half the picture. The rest of the story is sensational — or sensorial.

The Decider, a.k.a. Barry Wicks of Kona-FSA, tackles the USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships.

After working behind the scenes on the structure of a new professional calendar for domestic mountain bike racing, cross-country pro and Singletrack.com columnist Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski says he's frustrated yet hopeful that top-tier racing will continue in the U.S.

When I gave up racing mountain bikes I vowed to never ride a trainer again. I didn’t quite stick to that sacred oath, but I have tried my best.

It’s staring at me from across the room. We all know the feeling when we’re being watched, ... and it’s happening right now.

Reading Judy Freeman's new Singletrack.com column won't be anywhere near as painful than when she tweaked her hand in Australia as part of the USA Cycling team during the 2009 MTB World Championships. Read Freeman's "Life as a Bike Jockey" to learn how she is getting a grip on things.

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Despite the fact that the barbecue wine was Silver Oak and the bonfire was stoked with old art crates, a weekend at Lance Armstrong's ranch was still just a bunch of great folks enjoying the mountain bike lifestyle.

A jet lagged pro gives tips on how to kill time in Frankfurt at 2 a.m.

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Wednesday during ’cross season is one of the best days of my week, but this Wednesday was even better.

No, they aren't that AC/DC, Team Giant's Adam Craig and Carl Decker are Team AC/DC, and they know how to rally for the off-season.

Barry Wicks finds the bear in his backyard isn't reason to panic, but his presence may offer a bit of a lesson.

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Track cyclist Colby Pearce gives a mountain bike stage race a try.

The time trial is said to be the race of truth: a rider alone, without aid of drafting, sets off in a race against the clock.

I am Barry's cracked and bleeding sinuses, pouring sticky sweet goo down into his nasal cavity. I am draining my wrath out on to his upper lip as he gasps for breath in the dry desert night. I am vengeful and full of hate. The evil stench of a million vacant souls trickles in past mucus and hair and fills me up to the brim, reinforcing my quest to punish in every way I can.

Sitting in the middle of the peloton, riding along at a steady tempo as a team controls the pace on the front, I hear our director in the radio: “There is a dangerous descent coming up in four kilometers. Move to the front to stay out of trouble. There is gravel on the corners and many switchbacks. Get to the front.”

We could start this year’s first cross’ diary by talking about racing, but for the moment we’re gonna talk about flyin’.

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“Thirty seconds!” yells the UCI official and instantaneously you see the fidgeting of fingers on hoods and legs clipped into pedals. In cyclocross, the sprint is at the beginning of the race, rarely the end. So racers get their bodies ready for that first shock to their systems from the word go. Legs bouncing all around in fast-twitch anticipation of the gun, eyes focused forward or on the wheel or course in front of them, heart rates instinctively racing without even having pedaled a stroke.

Oh yeah! Santa Cruz and Fisher's carbon, dually 29ers are the current supermodels of the mountain bike world, but what are you overlooking when you lust over these sexy beasts?

Where else but in Europe can Europe's "Final Countdown" be blared at high decibels without a hint of corniness? Let Adam Craig explain.

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Everyone has his own way of killing time on the lengthy drive that we've just begun to the start of stage 6.

Laughter resounds through the camper as Mark’s joke carries from the back to the front where George, who is at the brunt of it, sits. On the puffy pleather couches and fabric chairs we lounge in our cycling shorts, waiting until the last minute, like school kids, before heading to the start. Our radios dangle from our ears, our jerseys are piled along with our helmets and race food ready to be pulled on at the very last minute.

Tire talk consumes an inordinate amount of conversational time when one engages with an off-road bicycle racer. What is Barry Wicks running right now? The best (even if it's all in his mind)!

3, 2, 1, Go! Third on stage one; second on stage two; first on stage three. Not one to settle for mediocrity, Thor Hushovd’s track record at this year’s Tour of Missouri is nothing short of impressive. Oh and to ice the cake, Thor’s going to look pretty spiffy in yellow in stage 4. With four tough stages still to go, we say “game on.”

Ten-lane highways. Venti. And of course, the mere fact that there exists something called a Triple Baconator. There’s no getting around the fact that seemingly everything is bigger in America. This is noticeable the moment I got back on home soil, since the list of “everything” includes the two-hour wait I slogged through immediately after landing while creeping through customs.

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As we drove to the course, the small team camper bounced and creaked as it followed the motorcade of team cars along the small sinuous roads through the rural Brittany countryside. We passed dozens of cyclists ranging in age from 12 to 70, dressed in a mosaic of pro team and club colors, who were also on their way to the circuit to watch us race in Plouay.

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Transition. In the hotel in San Sebastian the atmosphere was different than that which I left at the Dauphiné Libéré. There had been a switch in mentality in the six weeks between the two races. Like a student entering the final semester, there now seemed an eagerness as we neared the end the season. Although there are still dozens of races to ride, the end, somehow, now seemed in sight as we had passed the midway point.

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For pro mountain bike racer Barry Wicks, it's all about getting back to Santa Cruz and hitting the road after being on it.

After a spring layoff from the writing gig, Kona pro mountain bike and cyclocross racer Barry Wicks is back by popular demand. I have become addicted to club soda. I think I have consumed possibly the entire supply Canada Dry has produced since their inception in 1904. I am at BC Bike race, and I am thirsty. The singletrack is continuous, relentless and ridiculous fun. I stopped dreaming about trails three nights ago and now just hallucinate them during waking moments.

The pain of stopping a race – there are few things in our professional lives as painful, as frustrating, as depressing and as loaded with the sense of failure. That said, there are plenty of one-day races where you toe the line with a specific job, and that role doesn’t even put you remotely near the finish line. But those are different: You start with no thought of finishing. You’re there to get IT done, “it” being whatever your charge is on that given day.

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Editor's Note: Garmin-Slipstream's sprinter Tyler Farrar will be contributing daily journal entries to VeloNews.com throughout the Tour. Well, here we go! The Tour kicked off today with a spectacular time trial through Monaco. Cancellara won with an impressive ride, which I don't think

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After a spring layoff from the writing gig, Kona pro mountain bike and cyclocross racer Barry Wicks is back by popular demand.

What is the environmental impact of a ProTour race?

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Editor's Note: Will Frischkorn is a member of the Garmin-Slipstream ProTour team and writes regular journals for VeloNews.com. Click to read Frischkorn's previous journals. Half way already?

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Video: Lance Armstrong interviews Ted King at the 2009 Giro

With 18 stages now logged in the books at this year's Giro d'Italia I'm finding my creative juices running a bit dry. After the last rest day, this final week is slightly strange since it's only five race days and features yesterday's mere 83km stage and Sunday's concluding 15km time trial. So it's tough not to peek towards the light at the end of the tunnel, but like a good grand tour rookie, I'm still taking it just one day at a time.

Lance Armstrong interviews Michael Barry at the Giro d'Italia.

Simon Gerrans won yesterday's stage 14 of the Giro! At our hotel last night, there were fireworks, there was dancing, the champagne was flowing, and music was blaring! Of course I think this has less to do with Simon's win and more to do with the wedding reception at our hotel last night. In fact, it's worth pointing out that the music made sleeping difficult between the hours of 11pm through 2am, and the cannon like fireworks seemed a bit excessive. But I'm sure that everyone at the wedding party had a great time and the Giro d'Italia was the last thing on their minds.

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I'm going to start by tooting my horn a bit here and saying that I'm a fairly handy time trialist. Furthermore, I'm lucky enough to be riding the finest, fastest, and one of the most heavily sought after time trial machines on the market, the Cervélo P3. That might stir up a lot of questions to the tune of, "Hey when are you going to get the P4?!" Well that's for me to know and you to find out.

After being in Italy for a week and a half and with eight days of racing completed here at the Giro, I've noticed a thing or two. In fact, based on this list I've compiled, I've noticed at least ten things.

To start, it might be worth pointing out that these entries are being written via BlackBerry, so I apologize for their sometimes-rambling nature.

This year, Ted King is making his professional European racing debut with the upstart Cervélo TestTeam.

In a crowded boat full of tourists, nine of us, dressed in our bright yellow team kits sat together as a calm wind blew our hair. The sun was low in the sky and the Adriatic a murky turquoise. School kids touring Venice with their class pushed, laughed and sang songs to beats tapped out on the boat rails while we spoke about the race course, our effort in training, the fluidity needed to win the team time trial, and the coming three weeks of racing.

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After a busy spring I’m back in Boulder enjoying a break from racing and logging some great training in the hills above town that are just barely free from snow. While collecting my mail upon coming back from one such ride, I notice a little slip along with the random assortment of junk. I toss the mail aside. I stretch, shower, eat, screw around for a bit, and then all of a sudden I remember that slip.

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Check out CyclingTips's author page.

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Editor's Note: Will Frischkorn is a pro with the Garmin-Slipstream team. He is participating in Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. You can read his previous VeloNews.com columns here.

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Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Editor's Note: Rebecca Rusch competed in South Africa's Absa Cape Epic stage race on on a Mixed team with fellow American Matthew Weatherley-White. Rusch, a two-time 24-hour mountain biking world champion, is sharing her daily diaries with VeloNews readers. Her stage 5 and 6 diaries were not published until today because VeloNews used up its March quota on the word "epic".