Death by mainstream...

If you haven't heard about fixies and the hipster culture surrounding them yet, you must have kept your eyes firmly shut or lived in a very far away place. These things are everywhere, yet there are very few people who know how to ride them - especially without brakes. Annoying or super cool? I'll leave it up to you.

Well, you know a trend has been killed by the mainstream when they make a Hollywood movie out of it, so: RIP.

(thx to Jens for the link)

Le Mont Essertines, souvenirs, souvenirs

Magnifique sortie d'un peu plus d'une heure à vélo ce midi avec mon redoutable ami Jonas qui une fois de plus m'a fait subir de plein fouet la méforme qui est la mienne en ce début de duel. Le neuchâââteulois peut fairrre trrré mal surrr un Vééélooo! Mais j'aime ça et c'est toujours un plaisiRRR de faire ces sorties avec lui.

J'avais à coeur pour cette première sortie et par ce beau temps de retourner dans cette bosse du Mandement non loin des Baillets afin de revivre les sensations magiques du 1er octobre dernier où j'ai eu l'honneur d'accompagné mon ami Stéphane vers ce qui sera la surprise pour ses 40ans.
Lui fan de cyclisme, nous fan de Rémi Gaillard!

Strippy 40 ans - Etape Allondon from Bernard Allseits on Vimeo.

In our corner: Velocite bikes

Time to give some recognition to one of the three companies who are kind enough to support us on our adventure: Velocite Bikes. Alain alias Bibi and I are team riders with Velocite, Bibi riding a Magnus in M, and me a Geos in XL.

I came across Victor Major, the founder of Velocite one day when I wanted to build my first carbon bike. Wanting to be thrifty and looking for something special I looked for a nice frame, and Victor gave me the opportunity to try a prototype of the Helios (picture on the left is from the Julier Pass in St Moritz in 2009), a great bike that Karen and some other friends are riding, too, now.

Victor was great in taking on feedback from the testing and has been pushing product development hard over the last years. Velocite expanded its line in the meantime, stepping up its game: The Geos, a compact frame that is more comfortable over rough roads but still as stiff or stiffer than most of the top end frames from other companies in the head tube and bottom bracket area. Matt, who is preparing RAAM 2012, also rides it. The Helios got replaced by the Helios Aero, a very cool aero road bike that is not only aero, but also stiff, which is pretty difficult to pull off. Charlie actually rides one to good effect, when we can get him to ride with us :-). Then there is the Magnus that Alain rides, arguably one of the - if not the - stiffest and most aggressive frames you can buy today. Sucks for me because now I have even less of a chance during the infamous city limit sprints... Then there are also the Selene, a high quality aluminium frame (the only one that is fully shot peened) and the Flux, a very nice mountain bike hard tail.

A still missing piece of the puzzle is a dedicated frame for Ironman - a great time trial frame. Velocite is working on it, but being a small company and since they want to do things well, development has been taking a little while. But I am still hopeful that we might see something for 2012. We have talked with Victor about what's important to us in an Ironman bike, and if they are able to include the things we asked for, it is going to be a wicked machine :-).

Thanks again to Victor for the support!

La Grande

Week 1: summary

The first week of the duel is done! Alain is focusing on form and strength work, I am building my base. Let's see who is taking the right track :-)

	Bibi	La Grande
Swimming
Sessions	1	3
Distance	3.3km	6.7km
Time	55min	2h00
Biking
Sessions	2	3
Distance	?	202km
Time	2h10	6h40
Running
Sessions	3	5
Distance	25km	47km
Time	2h50	3h44
Strength
Sessions	2	2
Time	3h30	1h00
Total
Sessions	8	13
Time	9h25	13h24
Other	1 massage 1 acupuncture	1 massage
Summary
Goal for the week	Sport quand j'en ai envie, focalisé sur la force, technique. Travail de vitesse par des sprints	Work on base endurance, swim technique and running frequency
The good	Ressenti du bénéfice du travail de renforcement à Vélo et surtout en CàP	Finshed the training block strong. Great negative split swim on Sunday, and foot hopefully getting better
The bad	Varice douloureuse à surveiller	Left foot is still troublesome, but I hope I have found the solution to it!
Thoughts	Gras comme un cochon et terriblement heureux de faire du sport quand j'en ai envie	Cruising along nicely, stay patient, build a base :-)

Sortie du dimanche

Fin de semaine, je suis venu profiter du soleil valaisan à Martigny et avant de manger la soupe avec son fromage du col des Planches, je suis allé me faire plaisir du côté du col de la Forclaz. Un bonheur immense de pouvoir courir après quelques semaines d'arrêt avec un décor à couper le souffle qui donnerait des ailes à n'importe quel poisson!!
Place à la soupe, puis retour dans le brouillard genevois en passant par la case massage. Que veut-on de plus?!

In search of nutritional excellence

Watch "Nutrition Ironman" on YouTube

Readings this week

Some interesting stuff out there this week.

Ross Tucker on the 10,000 hour theory to reach greatness (Science of Sport Blog)
Ross Tucker again - this time on barefoot running (Science of Sport Blog)

Endurancecorner on structuring a basic training week to qualify for Kona (ah, the dream)
And another goody again from Endurancecorner: a bunch of workouts from the founder, Gordo Byrn - in PDF format.

Also pros have a bad day from time to time: Jordan Rapp recounts his Ironman Arizona experience - including some pretty nasty tummy experience.

The FAZ (German newspaper) on food supplements - and how they are mostly not needed and might actually be bad for you.

And something funny: musketeer triathletes - all for one or one for all? Which way was it again?

The duelers: tu vois comment?!

Qui sommes-nous? Comment nous résumer en quelques chiffres, sur quoi se baser pour débuter les débats sur ce duel au sommet ? Par ici la première pierre:

Clique là tézigue!

Who are we? What can numbers tell about us? Which elements to start with for a debate about this duel? This way for some answers:

Click on me!

Pick-me-up for a grey November Wednesday

Aahh, there is nothing more fun than other people's unfortunate accidents. This is why I don't race cyclocross...

Ride safe!

Frozen toes

The joys of winter riding: 7am start in the dark, 3 degrees, and frozen toes. Matt's threshold intervals had me sucking his wheel and still putting out 300w... there is a reason the guy does RAAM. Good way to keep warm, though (except for the toes, of course).

Shitty picture in low light on the way back:

Le duel, le blog, mon entrainement et mes conneries

Lundi matin à beaucoup de jours du premier duel au sommet, après une nuit agitée de rêves étranges, de chiffres, de post, d’idées de vidéo, d’entrainements drôles comme on les aime, le réveil sonne et me voilà dans mon premier matin prêt à revêtir mes gants et mon armure pour aller à l’assaut de ce blog.

Résultat: Malgré tous les scénarios de la nuit, le Grand Blanc.... et pas le requin ! En même temps, c’est normal, c’est le matin et c’est Bibi !

Objectif de la semaine: Bibi, en route pour ses premiers pas de blogueur, mais quelle route?! Bel objectif, oh OUI, bel objectif!

Le duel est lancé