Mike's Bike Blog

Whenever there's a call out for a ride on Twitter I'm all over it and if it's local even better. Doesn't matter who's making the call from a Hump Day Nooner, a Friday Hookie Ride to riding with a professional bike racer. If I could I'd make them all, let's be honest if I could ride my bike all day I would, I just need to figure out how to make that happen and live above the poverty line.

When local professional bike racer Pat McCarty  sent out a tweet to come ride with him I was all over it.  Everything seemed to be aligned for me to make it, with my Mom in town for the month I had someone to watch the kids while Jennifer took Jack to his swim practice thus I could be out and about on the Austin streets with Pat.

The ride was slated to be an easy pace ride, I had ridden earlier in the day doing my typical Monday workout of a 40 minute SST (90% of FTP) up Courtyard and City Park Road down to the Emma Long Park entrance and back. About 3/4 of the way I remembered that I had a ride that evening and this ride along with my hill repeats on Easter up the 3 Sisters on Limecreek Road had me kinda wishing I might have been better off laying off the gas and not going so hard. I mean when a professional rider talks about an easy recovery pace that could be my  Steady State or Threshold level.

Luckily I didn't need to taper for the ride with Pat, for 1 1/2 hours my average power was only 155 watts right at my recovery level. The whole time we kept it at a pace so we could talk, even up the hills. I was able to pick his brain on every topic that came to mind from training, race tactics, his racing career, his favorite Austin area routes, the pro tour and on and on. Anything and everything I could think of and he asked me questions making it a two way dialog.

Pat's a great guy and I suggest the next time he does one of these that if you can that you make it.

September is upon us and that means the UCI regulation regarding publicly announcing rider transfer and new contract negotionations has been lifted and everyone is free to talk and twitter.

Some noteworthy signings:
Levi Leipheimer to Team Radio Shack
George Hincapie to BMC
Tom Zirbel to Garmin-Slipstream
Mike Weiland to Team Southwest Cycle Sport

This is a really great story of Svein Tuft from his humble beginnings to the Bejing Olympics.

Times must be tough for Astana since not being invited to the bike race in France as Astana team member Chris Horner is seen offering his pedicab services to other racers in the Cascade Cycling Classic. I wonder what kind of tip he got?

Next year the team bikes will be outfitted with rear pegs. Photo by the way of VeloNews.