Cyclesport Travel information meeting

Cyclesport Travel/Cronometro

Cycling Vacation information night.

Have you ever thought about a cycling vacation in France, how about Italy? Thursday, January 19th is your chance to stop in and check out the great trips

Cyclesport Travel is offering for 2012.

The Pyrenees Playground Trip June 25th to July 7th
This trip include an opportunity to participate in the Ariegeiose Cyclosportive and ride virtually all the important Pyrenees climbs.
Castles, cave paintings, the Tourmalet, Plateau de Beille, Ancizan, Col dAspin, Col d Agnes, the Corniche and the Mamar are all
on the menu for this incredible experience.



This years L'Ariegeoise Cyclosportive will finish atop Plateau de Beille in the L'Ariegeoise 161km and La Mountagnole 117km events.



Tour de France trip July 9th to July 17th
Experience the TDF like the French villages do! We will let the Tour come to us in the our mountain village and ride up the Port de Lers to watch the pros!
Ride every day and come back to your cabin or head down to the local bar to watch the Tour excitement.






You will have the chance to ride the 18 percent grade on the last climb of stage 14 before the tour attacks it.

Italy, Gran Fondo Prosecco and Chianti October 1st -10th
Ride through two beautiful wine producing regions and celebrate by rolling through the Prosecco vineyards during the Gran Fondo on Oct 7th.
 LINK TO GRAN FONDO PROSECCO


We will have wine and cheese snacks and lots of pictures of past trips.
Time: 6:00-8:00

We hope to see you then.
Colin, Dave, Mark and Scott

Cyclesport Travel is now able to take credit cards! Just our way of trying to make your trip more convenient.

This is just to good.

To good not to post.

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Adventures In Compatibility

With Cervelo's new "BBright" bottom bracket standard comes new challenges in mating drivetrain parts. The BBright layout is similar to the popular BB30 standard in that the crank spindle is 30mm in diameter, but Cervelo has chosen a BB shell width of 79mm instead of the typical 68mm found on road bikes, even those using the BB30 standard.

Interestingly, the drive side of Cervelo's BBright bottom bracket shell is unchanged from a BB30 shell and the extra 11mm in shell width is added to the non-drive side of the frame.

Partering with Cervelo in the BBright project is Rotor, who makes an impressive crank specifically for BBright frames. Unfortunately, Rotor does not offer a BBright crankset with 180mm crankarms. We therefore chose to outfit Tom's new Cervelo R3 with a Shimano Dura Ace crankset, which is offered in 180mm.

The most obvious challenge in using the Shimano crank is to reduce the bottom bracket opening from 30mm to Shimano's 24mm Hollowtech II spindle diameter. This is fortunately achievable using BB30 adapters currently on the market. The problem, however, is that these adapters are made with a 68mm bottom bracket shell in mind and not the BBright 79mm shell.

Because the drive side of the bike follows the BB30 standard, the adapter works fine on the non-drive side. On the non-drive side, however, Colin had to fire up the lathe and turn this:



Into this:



Tom's crank is now spinning happily along. Stock Q-factor is preserved, and it has ample clearance on both sides.




The appropriate adapters should be commercially available at some point, but I could not find them at the time of this post.

Cyclocross Brake Chatter/Shudder

Lennard Zinn wrote a great article (HERE) about the common problem of chattering front cantilever brakes on cyclocross bikes. Basically, when the cable housing stops above the top of the steerer tube, as it does on most 'cross bikes, fork and frame flex caused by braking forces can create sharp spikes in cable tension. These spikes lead to increased braking force, to the point where one of the following must happen:

1. The front wheel locks up and skids
2. The rider is thrown over the handlebars
OR 3. The brake pad finally breaks free from the rim surface

The path of least resistance is option number three, and that's precisely what happens. After the pad breaks free however, the cycle begins all over again. This constant sticking and slipping is what causes the shudder that can be truly terrifying.



This Trek X02 had the worst chattering front brake I had ever seen when equipped with its stock cable hanger (above the head tube). Simply switching the hanger position completely eliminated the chatter. No change in brake pad material or toe-in angle was required.

A very stiff frame and fork should reduce the problem, but I have seen really nasty chattering on newer 'cross bikes with 1.5" oversized lower head tubes that are supposed to be ultra stiff. It seems that any frame and fork, oversized or not, will flex to some degree under hard front braking. If the cable hanger is placed above the head tube, this flex is going to translate into cable tension spikes to some degree. On some bikes, it is minor enough that there's not much of a problem, but a crown-mounted hanger could be the solution if your cyclocross bike shudders badly.

As Zinn states, many carbon fork crowns are not equipped with a bolt hole for mounting a hanger there. Luckily the XO2 above did have a hole. If you're stuck without a bolt hole in your fork crown, you could try Cane Creek's Drop-V lever and using linear pull front brakes instead of cantilevers. The Drop-V is a brake lever only and not a shifter, so you would only be able to run a single chainring on the front.

Stolen!

Colin rode his Surly Traveler's Check to work yesterday and locked it up outside the back door. Someone managed to steal it in broad daylight despite the visibility and constant traffic of people in and out the door.



The thief must have been a really smart guy, as the genius put it up for sale on Craigslist today. We called him posing as a buyer, but sent Madison's Finest to the meeting instead. Now the bike is back and he's in jail!



Unfortunately he had already stripped it of its Nite Rider light, its fenders and seatpost with Regal saddle. It came back with a crappy suspension post and crummy saddle. All in all a great success though.

One of those days.

You know you're in for a long day when you've already had to slam a Cherry Coke and cut up the can for shims before noon. I was already jacked up on coffee too.

We got some nice words from pro triathlete Charisa Wernick recently. Her bike was a little bruised up from the airline's henchmen, so I realigned the rear derailleur hanger and replaced the cable. Good as new, and she took 5th place in Sunday's Ironman Wisconsin!

@crono_Madison thanks for fixing my bike!! Awesome bike shop if you need anything before #IMWI http://twitpic.com/2n5h5l

...and were back!

Ironman Wisconsin is right around the corner, which means life is hectic but also fun because we get visited by professional triathletes from all over the world who have made a habit of bringing their bikes to us for service before the event.




Today I got to get Hillary Biscay's machine ready to do battle. She has won the Wisconsin Ironman before, so be sure to watch for her out on the course. Don't blink because she'll be going by pretty fast.