NorCal Cycling News – Cycling and Racing in Northern California

I ran into Ryan Bontrager today, temporarily back from gallivanting the world as a Pro Tour mechanic, he’s open for business if you want a ProTour wrench!, and he reminded me of this event.  A great, rainy day weekend happening in SF for bike lovers.

At NorCal Cycling News we know we are idiots.  It is helpful when our community of readers chime in and correct the error of our ways.  But..as a great man once said (I think it was Rand) “The Blogger is Always Right.”  Below are some posts that caught my attention the last few weeks.

Early Season Hotness – Snelling

Hernando really got Anonymous Ex Pro going something fierce about late fees.  In general I do not agree with Hernando on some points which is why we work… It’s a Simon and Simon kind of thing.  I’m the guy who shoots somebody in the head later in life, and he’s the guy that goes on to play dads in multiple sit-coms and movies.  Anyways… here were some choice comments. and my own viewpoint.

But you come from the ultra-liberal, shoot anyone in authority first, don’t ask questions ever, over-entitlement mentality.

Coming out of the gate with something like that makes you seem crazy. Then going on to write three more paragraphs makes you seem even crazier.  You must have grown up in SoCal.

You are obviously bitter toward Velo Promo and using this forum as a bully pulpit.

Wasn’t a bully pulpit a good thing?  A catalyst for change back in the days of robber barons?  Either way… we are a bully pulpit. We have lots of opinions and we write them.  Spare me the obvious.

4. blaming Velopromo for the weather: Sure, why not.

That was a really good line from Hernando.  You folks need to be funnier in your rants if you want to keep up.

This is nothing more than a bully pulpit rant. Please continue with the personal attacks. Don’t speak to the facts. Pick people apart instead.

For a guy that started out with an insult about Hernando’s commie leanings, which i tease him about as well, I find this statement a little hypocritical.  And again with the bully pulpit… please, enough already.

Quoting a rulebook is not authoritative.

This is a good line too.  This guy can keep up.  Actually… he might not have been trying to be funny.  That might put him in the crazy category. Wait…is this unfair because it is out of context?  Am i picking people apart?

EVERY parent knows that giving things to children does not teach responsibility nor appreciation. It breeds entitlement.

As a parent I object to this sweeping generalization.  I am legally obliged to give my children food.  As much as it pains me, i have to give them food.  Feeding my children is actually a serious financial, and time commitment, sinkhole that negatively impacts my cycling life.  I have to work, and pay cash money, to feed them.  As much as my son Deadly wants to hunt with a knife, a fact which my dog dreads because Deadly tries to get at the knives every chance he gets, I cannot, in good conscience, let him loose on the world with a sharp object because he is not yet three years old.  Okay… that line was taken out of context but I like the bit about kids with knives.

This was WAY longer than i expected… i didn’t even get to any of the other posts.

Wow! Weather or not you agree or disagree with Hernando, at least have the balls to leave your name instead of “anonymous ex-pro”

On a side note… don’t pick on folks for keeping Anonymous. If they don’t want to sign their name they don’t have to.  We just have to guess the commentators identity.  Its not like we don’t all know it was Lance Armstrong – he hates this site.

 

 

This is a multipart series, maybe – if i feel motivated, on why NorCal is better than other regions in the US for cycling. Why be that way? Cause that’s how I’m wired.

After and odd post smacking Hernando from an LA rider this weekend i got the idea that we should discuss the lands that interlopers come from since it seems to inform their personalities – example below of “Agro LA” rider.

Sorry Hernando, who do you race for? Will we see you on the NRC circuit? Thanks for the team diss. My teammates [name] and [name] raced brilliantly on Sunday. Metromint was a shambles and they weren’t smothering anybody trying to bring the gap down, but other people were doing that work. Mr. Reporter, where do you get your facts?

Aside from calling Hernando “MR. REPORTER” which is hilarious regardless of intention – it reminded me that people from LA are crazy. Sure…they are talented, creative, and good with money, but they are crazy. They are like the relationship you had when you were 26 that could have gone somewhere, but the other person was so crazy that despite the good times, you just can’t handle staying up till 3 AM in the morning explaining why you decided not to record American Idol, and how it was not a personal attack, and how since this is the 10th time this has happened in the last month this relationship has to end. All people from LA are like that. Sure i generalize but it’s true…crazy, crazy, crazy.

Case in point…

• 1. Lindsay Lohan
• 2. Charlie Sheen
• 3. Paris Hilton
• 4. Michael Ball
• 5. Christopher Thompson

• The scene just seems nutty. Office park crits with big money, and indoor track with no riders, angry drivers, angry riders, the most bizarre pro team of all time (Rock Racing), it’s like somebody picked up NYC from 1985, dipped it in Las vegas from 1994, added a little raz-ma-taz and dropped it in California. To top it off some how SLO get’s dumped into SoCal district which just seems wrong. LET THEM FREE SOCAL! LET SLO GO FREE!

   

   

  Still, for some reason, i like LA. I can’t help it. The mountains, weather, and ocean are awesome. The track is awesome, and while the crits suck ass, the surrounding areas host some of the best stage races in the country (San Dimas, and Redlands.)

  And goddamn if this doesn’t always happen. Every time i try to rip on LA i end up defending it. Look at the cool stuff and people down there…

• 1. – She organizes everything cross, road, teams. I think LA (i use this to describe everything down below the belt) would melt without her.
• 2. – He’s the most organized track promoter/guru out there. He should move to Hellyer. He’d be happier.
• 3. Disney Land – Happiest. Place. On. Earth.
• 4. Jen See – Best writer on women’s cycling (and doping) that I have read this year. See her stuff on Podiumcafe.com under pen name Gavia.
• 5. TOC Mt. Baldy Finish: That should be a rock star like euro party.

• Now… this doesn’t mean i think it’s worth moving for. The epicenter is still here, in NorCal, and I think folks crazy enough to live in that plastic zone should move to where the real scene is…here in NorCal. However… i appreciate that Socal might appeal to a certain personality type that secretly yearns to be discovered and put in an episode of Hellcats.  .

Leopard DC-1 … a curmudgeon convinced

So, I’ll admit it up front ~ I’m an old-school, steel is real, kind of bike racer.  I like the Merckx time trial, super spoked box rims, and the only radios at a race being used by roadside picnic’ers as they follow the race and pass the wine, arguing who has displayed the most “bon courage.”

When the folks at Leopard Cycles asked me to review their DC-1 … I was a little hesitant.  For me, the only way I can truly say I’ve got a good bearing on a bike is by racing it.  And racing it hard.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure if Leopard would be all that in to letting me pound around the pocked, windswept, gutterfest central valley racing circuit on one of their super-fancy carbonium rigs.

But they were fine with it … showing either a tremendous amount of confidence in their bikes, or really really deep pockets.

Either way – the Leopard DC-1 was tested hard and heavy during a couple of California’s early season March classics, the MERCO and Madera stage races.  As you’ll see below, I had to mix in a bit of extracurricular activity to fully test the DC-1, but I can say that after the last few weeks of riding this thing full-throttle, I’m pretty confident in my thoughts about the bike.  Thanks for reading.

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Hernando’s Criteria for bike awesomeness: Handling, Traffic, & Dirt

The Leopard DC-1 is nimble and can handle the pound

OK … I might as well start out with the weight issue.  I hate admitting it ~ really hate admitting it ~ but, weight does make a difference on a bike.  The Leopard DC-1 tested was decked out with SRAM Red components and a SRAM S30AL-Race wheelset.

The bike weighed in the 15-pound range.  That’s just ridiculous.

Of course, accelerating on climbs was pretty sublime with such a paper-light machine.  But the power transfer of the rear triangle was also quite, quite good.  You stomp on those pedals and the DC-1 jumps up a hill like somebody shot a quick cattle-prod shock to the nether regions.  It really does jump.  The DC-1 is efficient, it’s stiff, it moves.

But I will never sacrifice bike handling for weight.  For me, whether racing or riding … the way a bike handles is of paramount concern for me.  I want to feel confident and safe in a bike’s ability to carve a corner, take a beating from rough pavement … and not crack under pressure.
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Strength & Agility

The DC-1 is a surprisingly stout frame.  I mean, this is a bike that has withstood the linebacker legs of Tim Farnham crushing it all over the NRC circuit.

Farnham rode the DC-1 for the old Adageo pro outfit, and is still hammering away on the frame.  If that featherweight carbonium bike can withstand Farnham’s massive watt’onage and outputs of beef’ocity … it can handle anything.

Both the MERCO and Madera races had stages with bumpy, technical, and butt-busting aspects to them.  The MERCO criterium had a 180-degree hairpin that sent you diving and dodging  as riders entered the turn, and then kickied an almost standing start up to 35mph in a short few hundred meters.  That was a good test of the DC-1′s handling abilities.

I did the 35+ and p1/2 crits at MERCO, which ended up shooting me about 90 times through that stupid hairpin.  And, I have to admit … the DC-1 took to it like a shark.  The bike is designed to distribute a rider’s weight very well.  I felt a solid connection with the bike – in control and able to throw the bike in any direction I needed to dodge wheels or boys sliding out.

Both the Madera and MERCO road races had sections of road that were bumpified with cragly central valley pavement and splayed open with potholes galore.  Madera was probably the most butt-busting road race I tested the DC-1 on ~ as the backside of their  course was a cow-country ghetto version of a Paris-Roubaix.  There weren’t any cobbles … just a whole lot of empty-budget road disrepair.

The DC-1 really did absorb the barrage of bumps and potholes with efficiency and comfort.  Honestly, I was kind of shocked.  I’ve ridden that Madera course on steel, carbon, and even an aluminum frame once.   But I’ve got to say – the DC-1 was the strongest I’ve hit through that stupid road.  The power transfer was constant and I was able to float over the Roubaix-light roads with an evil grin on my face.

Light, durable and nimble?  I hate technology.
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The real test … TRAFFIC and Off-Road

After all the years of racing and riding ~ I rarely do any group rides nowadays.  It’s not that I’m anti-social … it’s just that I like my training to be specific and targeted.  But there are benefits of doing group rides … you get to work on your speed and handling skills.  So for me ~ I replace group rides with … traffic and dirt.

I live in Oakland.  And I’ll admit that racing cars around O-town is about as stupid and dangerous a thing as one could do outside of enlisting for Afghanistan.  But I love it.  I’m a street junkie. I love the hard accelerations of merging into traffic, the adrenaline surges of keeping pace and changing speeds, the overloads to the legs of matching velocity, and the constant need for awareness and decision making.

That’s why I’m always smiling in crits … they’re so much less stressful than training.

I’m sure the folks at Leopard Cycles don’t want to know that I took their uber-ka-ching bike out to fight amongst the gangsteryuppies of Oakland and Berzerkely … but, the reason I’m writing about it is to confirm that the DC-1 did what it should have … it responded under me like an unconscious extension of my body, it freed up my mind to play safely and fiercely in traffic.  Is it geometry?  Is it carbon modulusness?

I don’t know.  All I know is, the bike worked.  The bike worked very, very well.
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My other true-blood testing ground is pushing a road bike through the rigors and mayhem of dirt.  Now I KNOW the Leopard folks won’t like hearing this, but after the Madera Criterium – I rode over to the afternoon TT course in Chowchilla and ‘accidentally’ got lost out in the dirt roads and cow pastures of rural’opia.

It was awwweeeesome.

I pushed the DC-1 through some seriously rutted and rain rampaged third-world jeep tracks.  I pounded that bike like it was a hate-crime over a bunch of pocked, chunky fallow fields ~ spraying a rooster-tail of clods and weedwackery behind me like a gap-toothed hick doing donuts in his F250.

Oh man … I know writing about this has probably just scratched me off Leopard Cycles test riding list forever … but it was just soooo much fun.
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In Conclusion …

I’m sold on the Leopard DC-1.  I might as well not beat around the bush – I think they have a superior product on their hands.  It’s been tested by both men and women’s professional teams and did nothing but purr underneath me for the weeks that I tortured it.

It’s super light, has proven durability, and is intelligently designed to allow for quick handling, efficient power transfer, and vicious accelerations.  It’s not rocket science … it just works.

Check out the Leopards they’ve got in stock at Cycle Path in San Mateo.

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