Biking To Live

Cycling Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: July 2009

// June 30th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Desktop Wallpaper Calender

With July comes the biggest professional bike race of the season. The Tour de France. How could I not design a desktop wallpaper that doesn’t pay tribute to this great race. Instead of profiling pics/names of individual cyclists I decided to go with the classic images from past tours which includes fields of sunflowers and El Diablo. The size of the image is 1024×768.

2009 Tour De France Wallpaper

Finding an affordable sleeveless cycling jersey

// June 29th, 2009 // 9 Comments » // Cycling Clothes

With the heat really ramping up here in Texas I decided late last week that I should start investing in some sleeveless cycling jerseys to maximize the ventilation. The no-sleeve design would also help me get some sun on my pasty looking upper arms. So I set off Saturday to visit some local bike shops to see what I could find.

Richardson Bike Mart was my first stop because I was up near it due to attending a Wordpress conference on Saturday. I’m still totally blown away every time I walk into this place and Saturday was no different. They’ve got everything and the store is just huge. I headed over to the clothing section to check out the selection. In no time I found a sleeveless jersey that looked pretty good. It was pretty plain and red/gray in color. I don’t believe there were any designs on it. Just a plain jersey. My memory could be failing me though after the trauma I received from looking at the price tag. They wanted $100 for it. I just shook my head and moved on. Now I remember why I don’t come to this store. I did try on a few helmets since I’ll be needing one and found that I basically need a medium in any style which is good info if I find a good deal online. Alas, I couldn’t resist the temptation to have a look at the new bikes. I kept my sticker shock to a minimum and just casually browsed around looking at all the carbon fiber rigs. I pulled one or two out to see how they felt and was totally blown away by how light they are. Maybe some day.
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June 26 Waterspout in Jacksonville, Florida (pics)

// June 29th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Uncategorized

I first heard about this from @metamarshall via twitter and had a quick look at weather.com to check out the weather since my wife and kids still live in Jacksonville. There were several reports of a waterspout and I saw one pic on Friday that looked pretty amazing. Today, a friend of mine sent me four pics of the waterspout that are stunning.

Being in the Navy for such a long time I’ve seen lots of waterspouts, including three at one time off the coast of Virginia on one stormy day, but these pictures simply blew me away. Maybe it’s because of its proximity to downtown. There’s a blog entry over on weather.com that talks about this particular waterspout (it also has links to videos). Here’s a local news story with more pics.

I don’t know who the pics below were taken by so I can’t give proper credit. Check’em out. See that glass building on the left of the last pic? I used to work in there.

Jacksonville, FL Waterspout

Jacksonville, FL Waterspout

Jacksonville, FL Waterspout

Jacksonville, FL Waterspout

Will politics ruin Astana’s Tour De France?

// June 27th, 2009 // 10 Comments » // Opinion

For those of you following professional cycling you know that teams are selecting their final nine-man rosters for next month’s Tour De France. The Cervelo Test Team and Team Milram released their squads on June 23 and Garmin-Slipstream released their team on June 24. Astana released their roster on June 25 but not without a little controversy.
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Is cycling nirvana possible?

// June 26th, 2009 // 15 Comments » // Uncategorized

I’ve watched cycling for as long as I can remember. It’s thrilling to me to watch men and women push themselves to feats of physical stamina that us mere mortals can only dream of. Though most of us can’t attain those heights of physical performance we still push ourselves to ride harder and lose that extra weight, lower the time on our favorite route by a few seconds or hang with the elite riders on the Saturday morning group ride. Those are our feats of physical stamina.

When watching the pros ride their bicycles it’s amazing how effortlessly they propel themselves and how comfortable they look on their machines. They ride for hours at a time in what appears to be euphoric comfort while trashing their bodies in superhuman efforts. Is the ability to ride for hours at a time actually comfortable to them or do they suffer as much as I do? I’m not talking about suffering from a physical exertion stand point but rather suffering from actually being in the saddle and hunched over the bars for a significant period of time. For me, that period of time is limited to about an hour or so. After that I begin to feel discomfort and wonder if every cyclist feels what I’m feeling or is there something wrong with me or my equipment.
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