The winter days mean that there isn’t much light out if you do try and ride. Lighting systems are necessary, but some are expensive and do not look that cool.
Check out the tutorial below on setting up ground effects for your bike. Get the import rice-burner street rodder look that would make Vin Deisel in The Fast and The Furious jealous. Seriously, these lights will be sure to grab attention when you ride at night, how can you not be seen.
An easy DIY project to add ground effects lights to your bicycle or other means of conveyance, utilizing inexpensive and commonly available cold-cathode lights. They look cool, and really do increase your visibility at night. Since putting them on my tallbike everone is asking to take my picture.
Check out the instructions
Rule number one of riding in the rain is do not ride through puddles. There are many reason to not ride through a puddle and number one is the fact that you do not know how deep the puddle is or what is below. A bicyclist in China had his ride through a puddle turn sour when he hit a deep crevase or some type of pothole in the road. The photographer is catching some heat because-as the perfectly caputered photos show-he was waiting around for someone to crash. The Photog wanted to call attention to the city’s poorly paved streets by documenting a crash. Mission accomplished.
Some maybe not-so obvious observations:
1) It is raining very hard, so the guy is soaked already. Why is he riding with an umbrella?
2) If he is trying to avoid getting drenched more than he already i sby carrying the umbrella, why is he riding through the puddle? His fenders would dissipate most water, but they wouldn’t completely dissipate the rooster tails caused by the puddle.
3) Most puddles can cause you to crash simply by hydroplaning or disrupting our front wheel, why is he riding through the puddle?
Bike fall: Ananova – Photographer criticised
On the list of links to rider’s sites, one of the best has to be soprojones.com. The quirky website was always worth a visit for something entertaining even though it was not always updated. The last week or so, I noticed that the site seems like it was taken over by some generic company that places holder pages on expired domains. Did the domain expire before Jones could reup? Did he move to another site? A few quick search turned up nothing. So anyone know what happened to soprojones.com?
Quick epitaph of soprojones.com, Here is a summary of soprojones.com
Mike Jones of Healthnet is from the Binghmaton area of New York, so kind of a local guy (Velochimp is from Syracuse).
Tom Boonen took the Oscar Gazzetta, the top prize offered up from the Gazzetta dello Sport for a Pro Cyclist for his performance during the 2005 season. The prize was awarded from a vote by some of cyclings top names such as Bernard Hinault, Felice Gimondi, Christian Prudomme(Tour Boss) and many others. The voters were asked to pick their top three riders of the year when filling out the ballot.
Boonen beat out Danilo DiLuca, Lance Armstrong and Ivan Basso to take the top prize. His performance during the spring classics, his domination of the field sprints in the Tour de France and his win in the World Championships showed that Boonen was the top rider of the year.
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iShares will co-sponsor the Phonak Cycling team for 2006 with an eye to becoming the main sponsor in 2007 when Phonak will bow out. iShares sponsorship shows an extension of Barclays Global Investors moving from main sponsor of the San Francisco Grand Prix to co-sponsoring a major Pro Tour Cycling Team.
Facts about iShares
iShares is the brand name for one of the world’s largest ranges of exchange traded funds (ETFs), which is marketed and managed by Barclays Global Investors (BGI). iShares manage over 129 funds listed globally, totalling over $150 billion. iShares funds are available to institutional investors and private investors. ETFs are index funds that are bought and sold like ordinary shares on a stock exchange and are a tool to gain diversified exposure to a market.
Tuttobici Web
Phonak Press Release
Only one week to go until the calendar turns to 2006 and all self respecting cycling sites do one thing. They have to proclaim a cyclist of the year. Looking at L’Equipe, they point to Danilo DiLuca, obvious choice since he won two classics and followed up with a fourth place in the Giro. He kept his form throughout the summer classics to keep his lead solid. DiLuca’s performance at the very entertaining Giro helped to solidify his standing as one of the top riders of 2005. His gritty fights for the Maglia Rosa against Paolo Bettini in the early stages were fun to watch compared to the predictable Petachi sprint victories. DiLuca never faded as the Giro headed to the high mountains, but kept with the best climbers as his team GC leaders Garzelli and Cioni faded. The stage to Sestrierre where DiLuca matched Jose Rujano and Gilberto Simoni up the Col de la Tenda and Col dela Finestre showed DiLuca’s class as he was hampered by a muscle spasm. Plus, he made the ProTour leader’s jersey actually look stylish by dressing completely in white.
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Retired sprint king Mario Cipollini will not be dancing with the stars or riding his bike anytime soon. Cipo crashed while skiing in Abetone in Tuscany. Mario came upon a group of children that were on the ski course and had to make quick maneuvers to avoid the group. Luckily Cipo hurt his knee and did not end up like Sonny Bono or that other Kennedy guy. Cipo underwent a three hour surgery to fix his shattered kneecap, and will probably need another followup procedure. Velochimp hopes Cipo has a quick recovery.
BiciRace.com :: News :: December 2005
Bjarne Riis likes to plan for races well ahead of time. A few weeks ago, CSC announced the riders who will ride the Tour, now Riis is announcing his team for the Giro D’Italia. Since Ivan Basso has decided to ride both the Giro and Tour, both Grand Tours will be a very important objective for CSC. Surprisingly, David Zabriske and Fabian Cancellara will not be on the Giro team. Their Time Trialing skills could help give Basso an early edge since the Giro is bringing back the Team Time Trial. The list of riders includes Danish riders Blaudzun and Sorensen, Spanish rider Cuesta, Ukranian Gustov, representing the US will be Julich and Vandevelde and the Italian riders include Lombardi and Peron. New signing Cuesta will surely give a hand to Basso in the mountains, while Julich and Vandevelde can help all round.
Tuttobici Web
These cold winter months in the Northeastern USA make it tough to consider riding outdoors. Most riding is done inside to a copy of the Tour de France or in a Spinning class with crappy music. Our local club has a few hearty folks that like to ride in the winter. They go by the moniker of RAW (Ride All Winter). These rides consist of impromptu announcements on a listserv for a ride on a “nice” winter day. Usually if it is sunny, dry and not too cold.
The folks at Chicao Bike Winter suggest you ride in winter no matter what the conditions. They host several winter-time riding events and seem to have lots of fun doing it. Check out the pics on the website.
The snow shouldn’t slow you down if you dress smart and take the proper precautions. So what are you waiting for, go outside for a ride anytime.
Chicago Bike Winter — Welcome Page
Ivan Basso is planning his 2006 season and it looks very ambitious. In addition to going for “The Double” he will be present at the first Classic of the season Milan-SanRemo March 18th.
Ciclismo: Basso alla Milano-Sanremo – Yahoo! Sport IT
