NorCal Cycling News – Cycling and Racing in Northern California

I first saw the Giro shoes on the Vanderkitten team and immediately began a plot to get a pair for my girls. Women’s specific design, which is highlighted in this interview with Giro’s footwear designer Eric, is a fantastic segment in a crowded shoe market. The attention to detail for racing cylists, and crazy low weight, of the Giro shoes is impressive as well. The folks at Giro in Scott’s Valley are doing great work on the product development side for women cyclists, and continue to be at the forefront of sponsorship with their work with development teams like Vanderkitten.

I was first introduced to Paul Components when i started riding cyclocross and realized that you needed to jerry-rig and change all the parts that come with an off the shelf bike.  Paul Components are some of the best engineered pieces out there and they develop a slew of great products for commuters and cyclocross racers.  To cap it all off they are based out of Chico which is apparently the origin of all things cool like Sierra Nevada beer, and I grudgingly admit, Rand.

Ed Note: I have 5 more Interbike videos I’ll post the next day or two, and a report from Tanaka who took a quick trip to the Montreal UCI race.  In the mean time send us any race reports and info and I’ll get a weekend recap up later tonight.

Nothing is more NorCal than Ritchey!  Tom Ritchey pretty much invented the mountain bike frame and somewhere along the line developed a love for cyclocross when the Swiss were the dominant players back in the late 80′s early 90′s. They have revived the Swiss Cross which is a beautiful piece of steel – I’m sure we will see a few of these at the races this fall.  Angelo gave us a quick tour of what looks cool on it.

Not long ago Garmin acquired MetriGear, a bay area company, that was developing a power based pedal system. Garmin was showing off the goods at Interbike this year and the Garmin Vector, full power meter system, will be available for the consumer market in the spring of 2012. Product Manager Clark Foy was kind enough to walk us through the system at Interbike. This looks like the kind of toy all the Strava/power geeks will like to try out. The tab sensor devices (pedal tabs) look delicate to me but a lot more manageable from a power source perspective than a SRM.

After interviewing Dr. Stacy Sims about her research and drink mix i dipped into my NorCal fund, and bought some. The package showed up in a non-descript package like a kilo of coke from Miami Vice.  Because the mix showed up in a normal package vs. a huge plastic container in a huge cardboard box, it was hard for me to gauge what my $38.00 actually bought me.  For comparison sake a 4.8 lb container of Cytomax drink mix costs $40.00 while the secretdrinkmix.com package was 2 lbs.

A few years ago i thoroughly tested a bunch of different drink mixes while trying to find the fight match.  I eventually settled on Cytomax after doing the rounds of Gatorade, Powerbar, Accelerade, Nuun, and a bunch of other products. Ultimately i think taste drove my decision, but calories and anti-cramping properties were also considerations.  While i had heard lore from cyclists like Dr. George Smith and newly crowned masters world champion James Mattis that sodium was one of the few methods of resolving cramping, there was never much scientific evidence to support their theories until Dr. Sims came a long.

After a few trial runs with the secretdrinkmix I tried going back to Cytomax.  All of a sudden i found Cytomax was a little bit too much link drinking baby asprin.  I liked the lighter approach that secretdrinkmix had developed.  On the effectiveness side I’m a big believer that I can’t really get enough sodium in my system given how it seemed to clear up my cramping issues when I started to pay attention to it.  Unconsciously I started drinking secretdrinkmix for every ride, when normally I would make a Cytomax bottle 2/3 times.  The light taste, manageable calorie count, 80 calories per scoop, and effectiveness.   I admit, my perception of effectiveness on the energy/calorie/hydration side could be placebo affect, but I’ve been doing this long enough that I feel like when i find something that works for my body, like a magic food for example (ex. ripe cantaloupe), I’m smart enough to adopt it weather it is perceived or placebo… i’ll take what every i can get that is legal!

Ultimately this price might be cost prohibitive for some, as I have been hesitating to re-up my stash given it is almost twice as much as your normal swill.  It means I am going to have to device a priority strategy for when to break out the good stuff (like five hour rides and A races) and keep the normal drinks on tap for every day duties.

To learn more about the science behind the formula check out Dr. Sims with Allen Lim at Interbike this week.

“Hydration Science and Practice – Secrets from the Pro Peloton w/ Dr. Stacy Sims and Dr. Allen Lim.”

Wednesday, September 14^th

11:00 am to 12:00 pm

Sands 203

Or visit them on the floor at

Secretdrinkmix.com  FloorBooth # 36108