The Incidental Cyclist

Our Cannondale Road Tandem is going to get new wheels. I have looked around for something that will be durable yet provide a significant performance boost by shedding a considerable amount of weight. Not wanting to spend the kind of money Rolf wants for their Vigor Tandem Wheel Set or Topolino’s AX3.0 Wheel Set, I have looked for other options. I finally settled on building my own set of wheels.

The first thing I needed to consider was what components I was going to use, I had some great success with DT Swiss R1.1 rims. Not the original R1.1 but the newer model with dual eyelets. My other choice was to use something like the Velocity Fusion or Deep V rims. I made a decision that the DT rims would be my choice.

Garmin has provided Edge users (both the 205 and 305) with an update to Chipset G. Chipset G is Garmin’s name for the SIRF Star III GPS chipset. The latest firmware version from SIRF is 3.2.5. Please note that is is a SIRF Chipset Update and not a unit firmware update. Improvements include better jamming mitigation and enhanced ephemeris collection in difficult environments, something that helps to get a "warm fix" in the morning. No additional information is available about what is included in the SIRF update. You will not see any additional information in Garmin’s WebUpdater. The Chipset G update applies to all Garmin products using that particular chipset, including some of the Nuvi products.

Ron Fitzwater is an idiot! Who is Ron Fitzwater? He is a writer for the Boone, NC newspaper, The Ashe Mountain Times, that’s who. On October 25, 2007 Ron wrote the following article titled, Here’s My Point: Bikes Turn Parkway Into Parking Lot.

Leaving from Spartanburg, SC the first 72 miles has about 4,500 feet of climbing. This portion of the tour moves through gentle rolling country side of South Carolina. While you are riding in South Carolina - there are several locations that you can see your goal of Mount Mitchell. You have several very short climbs to go up but for the most part, this is the leisure part of the ride where you can just sit back and enjoy the country side and the morning sun rise!

Building on the success of the Time Trail series at Lowes Motor Speedway, Flight Club Velo is pleased to announce the 2008 Inaugural Carolina Speedway Series. The series is a winter series of events tentatively set to take place on February 9^th & 10^th. The venues include Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, NC on the 9^th and Rockingham Speedway in Rockingham, NC on the 10^th.

Or should I say Team High Road? This news is all over the web so I am not going to say much here. The former T-Mobile professional cycling team is now named The High Road team.  Obviously a name that falls in line with their stated anti-doping policies. The sponsors that gone are; Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile), Audi and now the bicycle manufacturer Giant.