2Speed's blog

A while back, I had the opportunity to visit the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, home to Andy Pruitt and his gang of cycling experts. I've posted about Andy before and how his books have been very helpful in assisting me in ridding myself of many of the aches and pains that are associated with long distance riding and, ahem . . . age. Of the many services BCSM provides to athletes (or in my case, people who think they're athletes), bicycle fitting is a big part of their stock-in-trade.

I just did the Brain Tumor Society's Ride for Research outside of Boston today. It was a 50 miler that shouldn't have been too big a deal (see route and info here:

Last year, I moved to Conti Grand Prix 3000 tires after the Vittoria Corsas which I loved were getting loads of cuts on the roads I was riding. The Corsa's soft tread made them feel great and handle well. To be sure, the Corsa's never punctured, but I rode in fear of spending serious time on the side of the road. The Contis were much tougher in almost typical Germanic style. They held up great and, while not as nice in the corners or soft on the road, they were pretty nice overall and I mentally felt that I was riding on indestructible treads.

This year, I moved to the new Conti Grand Prix 4000. I only have a few hundred miles on them, but they seem pretty similar to the 3000s on the road. They're lighter than the 3000s and now use "Vectran" instead of Kevlar to allegedly improve puncture resistance. The tires are also supposed to be a bit softer, although I can't tell.

This year, I decided to move from the pedals that I've used for years (Shimano PD-M540s) to a pedal with a bigger platform - more contact area between the pedal and the shoe for better transfer of power, or so the literature says. After consulting with other road bike riders and the folks at my local bike shop, I chose Look's KEO pedals. And, since I seem more compelled to lose grams of weight off my components than pounds off my waist, I picked the lightest ones they offer - the KEO Carbons. I've been riding with them for a few weeks now.

First, while I'm a road biker, I chose the Shimano pedals (made for mountain bikers) originally because they were easy to snap in and out of. Also, I liked wearing mountain biker shoes - mostly because I'm too lazy to take off my shoes to run into the house when I inevitably forget something I need for my ride. Pitiful, I know.

Hmmm. My first post on this blog. I have another blog, www.2-speed.com, but I don't write much about cycling. I'll give this a shot . . .

It seems like yourcycling.com is targeted towards "enthusiasts." Am I an enthusiast? I don't know how that's defined. I don't race, but I ride about 5,000 miles per year. I ride in many charity events, and make pretty good time. For a 47 year old, anyway. It seems that most of the discussions here are about racing or training for racing. I certainly don't qualify to participate in such discussions, but I'll be an interested reader.

I’ve thought about buying a pair of Oakley Thumps for a couple of years now but have talked myself out of it because they were too:

Expensive
Heavy
Short on memory
Likely to be used while cycling

The new Thump Pro version takes care of a few of these objections.  Enough of them, in fact, to compel me to pull [...]