Pro bike wrench Josh Boggs just posted a link to a Craig’s list posting. I now share it with you – without comment *snicker*

I stole your Trek Madone road bike near 33rd and Vine (33rd and Vine)

Well actually I stole it from the guy who stole it from you so that I may give it back to you.Sunday afternoon there was a homeless looking guy rolling a bike by the back wheel down the alley. The u-lock was still around the front wheel and downtube so I stopped him. It was clear it was not his bike so I took it from him.

Please contact me to describe and claim.

Yes, the key you bring must fit the lock for me to turn the bike over to you.

What I know about you:
You bought the bike at Turin within last few years, you are over 6′ w wide shoulders, you have a kid, and you don’t ride as much as you had hoped.

Mike

We all know “Its all about performance”  Well – if you don’t know, then go find out now!  Next up in line is an all new serious cyclist.  It is good to make fun of yourself!

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcjoWL6hJg8&feature=player_embedded’]

Be careful out there on your training or casual rides, folks.  The Sacramento cycling mailing lists have been abuzz with reports of an incident of gang violence against an unnamed Rio Strada rider recently.  According to the circulated report:

Hey all,

Last night after the generic ride I was riding solo from Sac St to Discovery Park where I parked my vehicle. I was at the .5 mile marker and saw 5 teenage males walking/riding down the bike trail, on the same side that I was on. 4 of them were on bicycles, and 1 was on foot. I was traveling about 13 mph when I yelled to them, “on your left”. As I crossed the yellow line and began my pass, one of the juveniles looked at me, and swerved left trying to run me off the road. Another juvenile hopped off his P.O.S. bmx bike and used it like a baseball bat to try and knock me off my bike. His bicycle made contact with my right leg (causing no injury) and my frame (minor scratch). I was fortunate enough to not crash and continued to the 0 mile marker where my vehicle was parked. My phone battery had died so I asked another couple who was already in the parking lot if I could borrow their phone. As I explained the situation to 911 dispatch the couple advised me that the same dirtbag kids attempted to do the same to them. In the following minutes, I spoke with a few other riders at Discovery that were finished and they all had similar stories. I gave dispatch a description of the 5 males and also continued surveillance of them as they were riding around by the bridge at discovery. Within 3 minutes there was 4 marked Sac PD units, 1 County Ranger, and 1 City Ranger. All 5 males were proned out at gun point. All 5 were validated NORTENO gang members. 3 of the juveniles ended up going home, as they were just, “witnesses” not, “participants”…..the other 2 were arrested for PC245 (assault with a deadly weapon) and transported to juvenile hall. In april, the juvenile that hit me with the bicycle was arrested for gun possesion and a few other things….

So, moral of the story…..

Both Singletrack and Bike Rumor are reporting that the Fox Racing equipment has been stolen.  Keep your eyes peeled folks.

According to Fox:

The entire FOX RACING SHOX RACE Trailer and FORD F550 Truck was stolen late Monday night 6/27, in route to the UCI World Cup event in Mount Sainte Anne, Canada.  The truck cab is a white FORD F550 Turbo Diesel with beige interior, CA license plate.  There are many distinguishing features with this cab such as all FORD logos have been converted to FOX logos, FOX custome embroibered seats, FOX instrument cluster and custom FOX footwheels.  The trailer is a 28ft FEATHERLIGHT flip down door.  The trailer contained custom proprietary racing equipment as well as two YETI bicycles, a medium ASR-5, and medium ARC hardtail.  A reward is being offered for any information that leads to the return of the vehicle.  The Race Rig was last seen at 6/28/11 at 4:30am traveling West on Hwy 20 just outside of Montreal.

Despite my best efforts in the past, looks like I’m back to working in the bay area, while living in Sacramento.  The dynamics this time around are a little different from my previous Palo Alto employment, so I’ll be spending some nights in the bay area and some nights in Sacramento.  So what does that mean for cycling?  Well a couple of things.

For one thing this will put me withing “striking distance” of one of the best fitness studios in the bay – Integrate Performance Fitness – run by the VeloReviews Fitness Editor Al Painter.  It also gives me access to an entirely new set of roads and terrain.  I’m very much looking forward to exploring some new roads.  Any of you bay area folks have any specific recommendations for me?

I feel like I need to preface this post with the statement that I’m not looking to embarrass or disparage any sponsors. Corporate sponsorship is absolutely critical to the sport of professional (and amateur) cycling. It clearly takes a lot to run a pro cycling team – a delicate balancing act between athletes, sponsors, crew and media.

But these names are making it really really hard for me to cheer for you as you go flying by me.

The problem actually seems to stem from the fact that the sport has a difficult time finding individual companies willing to invest enough in sponsorship to provide most of the funding a team needs.

There are some obvious exceptions to this in the pro peloton.  Team Rabobank is just ‘Rabobank.’  That makes it easy when you want them to win.  “Go Rabobank!!” rolls off the tongue like a tubular across smooth tarmac.  Team RadioShack is in the same boat – perhaps even easier.  They’ve got a nick name to go off of – ‘The Shack.’  Bissell is just Bissell – they officially don’t even put ‘Team’ in their name.  Makes it super easy to cheer for them:  “Suck it up Bissell!!”  or “Drop that wheel suck Bissell!!”

All of the above teams have the advantage of a major title sponsor that is footing a majority of the bill.  They all have other sponsors, but the title sponsor gets the honored spot in the name.

So what happens if you don’t have a title sponsor as a team?  Well, you get more than one sponsor to work together, and combine their names in convenient ways.  Saxo Bank used to be just Saxo Bank, but when funding started to get difficult they became Team Saxo Bank Sungard.  Then we’ve got our hyphenated teams.  HTC-Highroad, for example.  Or Team Garmin-Cervélo.  But those are still easy names to use.  You can even opt to use only part of the hyphenated name and folks will still know what you are talking about.  “Go Garmin!” is just as effective as “Go Cervélo” and everyone will know exactly who you are cheering for.

But things get more complicated quickly.  This particular affliction seems to effect the Pro Continental teams – where luring in corporate sponsors to the “title sponsor” role is more difficult.

Introducing the “Presented By” – or p/b – moniker.  Teams started using the hyphenated naming conventions, then throwing in an additional “presented by” – a hyphenated name further hyphenated.

There is the UnitedHealthcare team.  Simple name, right?  Well, Maxxis just happens to be one of their major sponsors, so the official team name is “UnitedHealthcare presented by Maxxis.”  That’s a mouthful.

Some teams like to mix it up a bit.  Instead of simply being presented, they are “Powered by.”  Team Spider Tech powered by C10.  Hmmm… Still not too bad I guess.

But Kenda really takes it up a notch.

Like I said – this is not in any way a disparaging remark against the Kenda tire company.  In fact, they sponsor a comparably huge number of cycling teams at all levels, and for this I applaud and salute them.  However, they seem to be the company that results in some of the longest names.  Prohibitively long names, that is.

Things start out innocently enough.  There’s one of the oldest pro cycling teams in the US – Team Jelly Belly presented by Kenda.  OK, that’s still not so bad.  I can easily cheer for them when they fly by.  “Go Jelly Belly!” works great.  But as soon as Kenda steps into a shared title sponsorship role, things go completely south.  I present to you:  “Kenda/5-Hour Energy Pro Cycling presented by Geargrinder.”  Are you serious?  I honestly don’t think I can even say that name verbatim in my head in the amount of time it takes the peloton to buzz by me.

Frankly, I think us bloggers should adopt this strategy.  JustAnotherCyclist is clearly too easy to say.  From now on, I’m thinking we call this blog “VeloReviews/JustAnotherCyclist/Integrate Performance Fitness/PROBIKEWRENCH powered by WordPress/Ning presented by Hostgator/Ning.”  And that’s not even with the minor sponsors included!

The American River Bike Trail in Sacramento will be closed on the morning of March 13^th for the 7^th running of the Shamrock’n Half Marathon.

According to the published map, the event does a loop through Sacramento, and enters the bike trail at Northgate Blvd.  It follows the trail all the way into Discovery Park.

Ahhh the GoPro – the little camera that could.  I’ve talked here about this camera before, and some of its wonderful features (or potential enhancements under development.)  That’s because it is a damn fine, action sports oriented camera.  I’ve shown a small subset of my cycling life as seen through the time-lapse view it provides, and I even caught my own crash in high definition glory.

Well the folks at GoPro have been busy, and have release a couple of enhancements to the cleverly minimalist design.

One thing that some folks have found frustrating with this camera is the lack of an LCD display to show you what you are shooting.  I actually appreciate this somewhat.  The focus of this camera is to be as small and light as possible.   It is designed to be worn or mounted onto other items – like your handlebars for example.  In situations like that, being able to see what you are shooting doesn’t seem to add a lot of value.  An LCD display would just add unnecessary weight unnecessary weight and fragility in those applications.

However, the GoPro folks have thought about this design decision and now offer an accessory to meed this need: the LCD BacPac.  This is an LCD screen that can be attached (non-permanently) to the back of the housing.  The camera allows you to view video you’ve already recorded, as well as see what you are about to shoot.  And not to worry – they provide an additional waterproof back door allowing you to keep the same level of weather (or scuba diving) protection as you’d get without the LCD accessory.

Another option – just recently announced – is the Battery BacPac.  This allows for the addition of a second battery – in addition to the one in the main body of the camera – effectively doubling the 2.5 hour recording time.  This addition also allows you to charge extra batteries off of the camera, by connecting the detached (from the camera) BacPac directly to a USB power source.  Without the Battery BacPac you’ll need to charge the battery while it is in the camera, or find a third party charger.  While $49.99 is probably a bit of a hefty price if all you want to do is charge batteries outside of the camera body, it seems a reasonable price if you want to film for longer that 2.5 hours.

For me, GoPro is one of those devices that has turned out to do exactly what it is supposed to do, better than I expected it to do it.  These couple of optional accessories only enhance that.

I fell in love with cycling watching folks play mental and physical games with each other to be the first to cross lines in the road.  While not particularly fond of “drama” I got some small enjoyment from the human stories behind the riders too.  I’ve taken doping allegations, personality conflicts and shifting alliances in stride and without any real detraction from the sport I love.

Until recently.  Really – Contador riding again without even actually getting a slap on the wrist?  And why am I supposed to care that Lance has retired – again?

I want my drama on the bike.  Suffering riders, folks overcoming impossible odds to beat the rider next to them to the top of the hill, or past the next flag, or across the line.  Sorry – but I’m not going to get too excited about legal maneuverings until we put the lawyers on trainers.  Americans will stick up for Mr Armstrong, the Spaniards will stick up for El Pistollero, Italians will … you get the idea.

Maybe it is just an expression of the crappy media coverage for international cycling here in the states, but when the only televised cycling mentions I get on my TV are about everything but people riding bikes, something is really really wrong.

HTFU

This creation truly brings new meaning to the term “lunch ride.”  What the heck is going on out in Boulder, anyhow?

Of course the purists among us will point out that this is not, by definition, a bike.