ADVENTURE RACING – THE NEW CONTIKI
Contiki tours offer a unique experience. You visit exotic places with like minded people, experience the local culture and see the sights and sounds of the local tourist attractions. Then after a hard days travelling you kick back and enjoy a few frosty ones with your new friends in your free T-Shirt.
Adventure Races offer a unique experience also. You visit exotic places with like minded people, experience the local culture and see the sights and sounds of the local tourist attractions. Then after a hard days travelling you kick back and enjoy a few frosty ones with your new friends in your free T-Shirt…mmm. The only difference is you’re the one doing the hard days travelling not your young attractive bus driver.
I spoke to Brent Burton from the Mandurah Tri Club down at the Anaconda Adventure Race last year. He’d just returned from the Great Southern Adventure Race and although overwhelmed by the difficulty of the course (yes – everyone found it hard) he was impressed how the course was orientated around all the sights and sounds of Albany. ‘You really wouldn’t need to visit Albany again, we saw it all.’ So it really begs the question: Is there a better way to experience travelling foreign places than to jump right in and get down and dirty with an adventure race? We searched around for some of the more exotic adventure races and here’s what we found.
Adventure Races can last from a few hours to multi-day events. They vary from exhausting desert races to arctic crossings. Let’s check out the Adventure Racing scene in of all places…
Greenland.
(Thanks must go to the producers of this video who have allowed us to embed it in our website. All words, images and video are copyright protected) Producer: Inuk A graduate of Film & TV-studies at the Department of Information and Media Studies, University of Aarhus (2005-2007). More videos from this producer can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/inukjorgensen
There is simply no better way to experience the nature of a region than traverse it on foot, bike, and kayak or simply swim. Let’s not forget similar to a Contiki tour when you finish you get to piss it up with a whole bunch of strangers in you free T-Shirts. So, if you planning your next holiday interstate or overseas consider an Adventure Race to add to your itinerary.
So this month we ask:
What are the ingredients for the perfect Adventure Race?
Have you say on the sidebar survey.
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HOW TOUGH IS YOUR TRAINING PROGRAM?
Yeah we praise the elite athletes and aspire to go faster but train too hard and we could be doing more damage to our insides than what we think. This month we hear from Ryan who takes us through a dialogue about training, overtraining and what effects it has on our body. Yes training is good but overtraining is detrimental to going faster and possibly detrimental to our health and wellbeing.
Have a listen to what Ryan has to say and think long and hard about how tough your training program is.
(Thanks must go to the producers of this video who have allowed us to embed it in our website. All words, images and video are copyright protected)
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5 DAMS RIDE
Now let’s be honest, Perth’s Flat. We do have hills but in the grand scheme of cycling we certainly don’t have any mountain passes to conquer. Cyclists from Europe, the US or Canada they all say Perth suffers from a lack of ‘Big Rides.’ These ‘Big Rides’ they talk of are usually circuits that can traverse several mountain passes, states and even countries. Several ‘Big Rides’ in the US are century rides meaning over 100 miles long and some are classified as double century rides – yes we’re talking miles so multiply by 1.6. US riders have also coined the term ‘Credit Card Ride’ the idea being: you jump on your bike with your credit card and take off for the weekend. At the end of a days ride you find a place to stay for the night, then jump on your bike and ride back the next day, just you, your bike, your credit card and the freedom of the open road. This idea conjures up visions of epic cycling trips, great scenery and mateship amongst the peloton. Unfortunately Perth suffers from a lack of these epic rides…that is until now!
Let me introduce you to the 5 Dams Ride. A ride I’m predicting will be the next ‘Big Thing’ when discussing cycling in Perth. Triathletes have the Ironman in Busselton, Swimmers have the Rotto Swim, Paddlers have the Avon Decent and now Cyclists have a ride I’m predicting will be the benchmark of ‘Big Rides’ in WA. Although there is no race or event scheduled around the 5 Dams Ride I don’t think it will be long before someone sets one up.
Justin Lewis has ridden the 5 Dams ride and has formed his own Facebook group. Read his tracknotes on the completion of the ride in the anticlockwise direction. Link Here
So here's a summary of the ride in the clockwise direction:
The 5 Dams Ride is exactly that, you pass the 5 dams nestled amongst the hills of Perth. I would expect most to start their journey in the CBD of Perth and head up Welshpool Road through Kalamunda and along Mundaring Weir Road to Mundaring Weir, the first Dam. You then take a series of back-roads passing through the back of Pickering Brook and Roleystone until you reach the next Dam; Churchman Brook Dam. It’s only a hop, skip and a few hills over to Wungong Dam before back-tracking a little to tick off Canning Dam. You then have a long ride between Canning Dam and your final Dam that of Serpentine Dam by this stage the legs are starting to hurt and you’re Damn sure you’re never going to do this Dam ride again! But don’t be put off as there are only a handful of cyclists who have actually completed this 230km epic so you can be damn happy with yourself knowing that you’ve just joined one of the more elite ‘clubs’ in town.
ZIPP SLIPS A NEW DISC
For years the disc wheel has been king. Unsurpassed is its ability to aerodynamically slice through the air. The disc’s domination of the aerodynamic throne has never really been under threat. The greatest discussions regarding the disc have usually involved the argument that it should be allowed in the Hawaiian Ironman (it is currently banned due to the high winds Hawaii can experience) or the banter between which front wheel to match it with. In this case you usually belong to one of two parties; the tri spoke party or the deep rim party. But be warned, choose your side carefully else expect the usual ‘you’re one of them’ comments at the bike rack.
Now, for the first time in years, the disc wheel has once again become one of the most talked about topics in the cycling community all because a bunch of engineers from Zipp went wind tunnel testing one afternoon and came back with some numbers with a (+) symbol in front of them. Zipp had stumbled upon a prototype disc that actually pushed the rider along rather produce the normal aerodynamic drag. Wouldn’t you love to have been a fly on the wall when that happened? Along the way they found that their clincher disc was actually faster than their old tubular disc. Hmmm, is that the sound of my old clincher going up in price?
‘It started with our clincher disc
which almost on accident we
found was faster than our old disc…
we had to reinvent the wheel…’
A few months later Zipp released to the world the Sub-9 disc wheel. Upon hearing the news cyclists and triathletes around the world sat up and took notice as never before had a piece of cycling technology actually provided a positive force, science had always been geared to discovering ways to reduce the amount of negative drag. If before the disc was king it must now be surely approaching god-like status.
Watch below as Mark from Zipp takes us through the new Sub-9 Disc.
The video above of the Sub-9 is provided to us by Competitive Cyclist. Full authorisation and permission has been obtained form the producers of the video to embed it in our website. It is protected by all copyright rules and regulations. More videos from Competitive Cyclist can be viewed from their site http://www.youtube.com/user/competitivecyclist
