On Sunday, Shawn Rosenthal, Tyler Brandt and myself met up at Cole Coffee in Oakland in the late morning to ride down to the highly prestigious Notso Early Bird Criterium. Roman Kilun (Kenda/5 hour Energy) and Doran Mori (Team Clif) also joined us for the ride down. We took a long route through the hills to get to the race in Fremont. You can check out the route for the ride on Strava here:
The sections on Redwood Rd. and Palomares Rd. make for some of the best road riding in the area.
With John Becker driving down from the city, Mike’s Bikes had four riders in a field of almost sixty category 1/2/3 riders. We agreed on a strategy of simply racing hard and having some fun. There were copious attacks during the first quarter of the race and all of us took turns going with the moves. Nothing stuck until I found myself off the front in a five-man group with two Webcor riders. After working to get a decent gap on the field, we rotated pulls effectively enough to stay out front until the halfway point of the race. At that point, several others (including Roman Kilun) rode across the gap from the field, and the breakaway swelled to a dozen riders. With four Webcor riders now in the group, many riders felt entitled to sit on. This led to an atmosphere of negativity in the break, and some attacking and voicing of opinions transpired. I did my best to just hit the front as much as the guys who were working. Webcor set tempo on the last lap of the race and we all prepared for a long drag race to the line into a stiff headwind. Roman graciously got me onto his wheel coming into the final corner and led me out for the sprint. He dropped me off pretty early, and I had to start my kick a long ways out into a stiff headwind. John Wilk of Webcor managed to come around me on the finish line. I had to settle for 2nd place, but was happy that I’d done a good sprint and had “good sensations” during the harder parts of the race. All in all, it was a fun race and made for some good training for all of us.
On the way home, we took a more direct, urban route back to Oakland/Berkeley. There was some excitement on the way when a groups of kids (we’re talking 13 years old!) jammed into a beat-up car burned through a stop sign like they were fleeing a crime scene, nearly taking us out. Roman also survived a comical low-speed crash on a steep grade that ensued when he pulled his rear wheel out of the dropouts. Once back to Berkeley, my Garmin told me I had ridden 105 miles. I thought long and hard in the shower about how best to gorge myself, and eventually settled on a big mess of pork ribs from Everett and Jones BBQ, along with a couple of beers.
Just as the beauty of a painting isn't based on the quality of brushes or paints used, a fit on a bike is not perfect just because of the fit method used. Without taking the analogy too far, the creativity and skill comes from the painter, or in this case the BG Fit Specialist.
The artist fitting me on my bike was Mike's Bikes Jared Franzoia. Jared has been trained and certified in the Specialized BG Fit method and has years of experience in the fitting process but more importantly was recently re-certified. In order to be a current certified fit specialist, Specialized requires you to not only go through the training and certification process, but to submit proof that you are actively fitting and pass an exam performing the fit process.
Even with all the training and certification in the world, Jared has something which I find important to a fitter, race experience. Jared competes on the road, in cyclocross races, and now in single speed mountain bike races. He knows first hand the racer type, our habits, vigors of training, and necessities for a six hour road race or 30mph crit.
Ernesto from SRAM/Zipp explaining the development and innovation of the Firecrest design in the 303,404, and 808 wheelsets the team will be riding.
Ernesto from SRAM/Zipp answering questions from the riders on the aerodynamic benefits and drawback of each wheel depth.
Terry from Capo detailing the materials used in the teams custom Wind Vest.
TMB Race Machines all ready to be picked up. Each bike has a piece of paper attached to the top tube with the riders chosen specifications.
Blue Mike's bottles to match the blue decals on the Venge.
Any pro (other than ) or coach you ask will tell you the importance of measuring performance on the bike. There are hoards of articles, books, seminars, webinars, and real live people that will tell you all about the many aspects of training. There are top secret methods that only top level athletes get to use. Only recently has Allen Lim exposed and explained a few of his 
- It's super minimal. Setup is quick - you can take it out of the box and be out riding in twenty minutes. The system itself is very simple, with only one sensor for both speed and cadence. Heart rate and power also pair up quickly via ANT+, and all together, you can be out training and nobody has to know. Stealthy.
Check out some of these spy shots snapped of the teams custom builds.
Daniel, in grey tank top and shades, is running alongside naked dude on right.
Peter Parker/Rainier/Spiderman up front (albeit briefly).
In 
