UK cycling team scores big wins in season opener

Goose Creek Cycle is proud to have supported the University of Kentucky Cycling team for the past few years, and it looks like this season is going to be another great one. This weekend was their season opener at Murray State and they guy pulled down the win on both days of racing despite a screw up with one of our distribuertytors wherin all their race wheels showed up as tubulars instead of clinchers. Anyway, I have taken the liberty of copying a portion of team captain Drew Lavey's race repoet below:

Murray State Collegiate Race Weekend
Saturday, February 27, 2010
After a night in a tightly packed hotel room full of 7 riders, 7 bikes, and all the appropriate gear we rolled out of “bed” and enjoyed a nice breakfast provided by Whole Foods of Lexington Green. We headed to the race course of the day, which was a relatively flat 2 lap course totaling 32 miles. After a very short warm-up, our race started with a rolling start. For the first lap we sat in the peloton waiting to make our move. The first lap was controlled by the Purdue team and the second lap the IU team took a turn keeping pace but in the last 5 miles our team took control. We picked up the pace substantially which strung out the peloton. We had our team out front with Ian Baker, Scott Ashcraft, and Patrick Sims taking turns pushing the pace. With less than a mile to go there was a crash splitting the front group in half. Then the other riders in our group started to try to make their moves for the win but Luke Avery and I covered everything they threw out. With about an eighth of a mile to go Luke began the lead out for me. After he pulled off there were two guys in front of me but I new I had it. I jumped on the second rider’s wheel. The first rider ran out of gas as we entered the final 100 meters then I kicked it in crossing the finish line inches in front of the IU rider.
With the first race of the season I was a little skeptical to see where my and the rest of our team’s fitness would be but as I expected it was there. We worked flawlessly together for our first race making the rest of the season look very promising.

Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday morning we had our criterium. The race consisted of a 6 corner ¾ -1 mile loop for 30 minutes. The first 10 minutes of the race were pretty quick with the riders at the front trying to weed out the tired/newer riders. After about 15 minutes the race started to slow down a little bit. Our team took a few turns at the front trying to position ourselves for another win. With 5 laps to go that pace really picked up again with Patrick Sims and Ian Baker taking some good turns at the front while Luke Avery and I sat back a little bit waiting for the right move. Going into the final 3 laps Luke and I were sitting third wheel, we held our positions still waiting for the right time to strike. In the last lap with three turns to go a few riders started to pick it up. We covered them and held our position after the last turn we knew we had it again. I began the lead out for Luke with just a few meters to Luke took control and sealed another win for us. For this race we took first and second finishing a perfectly planned and implemented weekend for racing

2010 KHS Flight 100

Ok as the bling bikes start rolling out we will update you with some pictures of some of the custom bikes as they go out the door. Come on, face it everyone loves eye candy. Anyway, this last one we built up is pretty much stock besides the addition of a freewheel on the flip flop hub, but it is beautiful right out of the box so we thought we would share. Below is a 2010 KHS Flight 100 Track bike in Aztec Gold. Very nice bike it is heading out the door tomorrow so if you want to see it in person, stop by today.



Ok as the bling bikes start rolling out we will update you with some pictures of some of the custom bikes as they go out the door. Come on, face it everyone loves eye candy. Anyway, this last one we built up is pretty much stock besides the addition of a freewheel on the flip flop hub, but it is beautiful right out of the box so we thought we would share. Below is a 2010 KHS Flight 100 Track bike in Aztec Gold. Very nice bike it is heading out the door tomorrow so if you want to see it in person, stop by today.

Spring is here and the wrenches are getting HOT

Spring is here?

Wait didn't it snow today?

And Yesterday?

And the day before?

Ok if you are a basketball fan you think it is still winter, but if you are a cyclist, you can smell spring and the road is calling. What this means is that it will be an act of sheer will-power to put down the wrench and get out on the shop ride tomorrow morning.

Things are starting to get crazy here at Goose Creek.

The team guys are all dialing in their bikes and we are building as fast as we can. Our riders on the UK cycling team have their first race this weekend and the guys are switching over from winter training parts to race rigs. Our new start up off road endurance team is putting the final touches on the sponsorship roster. Trainer rides and gym work are transitioning into epic road rides and weekend road trips to find trail frozen enough to be fast.

On top of all this prep work we just had a couple shipments of Demo bikes arrive from Niner bikes. The new bikes are getting pieced together slowly in between builds for customers and team riders. I had always had respect for the things Niner was doing, but the full scope of the how nice these frames are had not hit me until I got my hands of the frames and started building. If you have not seen one of these in person yet you need to come on down and get your hands on them. Cutomers bikes are the priority right now so the demos are not all built up, but we are getting there. Look for pictures of some cool custom builds to shop up shortly.

Ok, enough babbling I am building wheels and need to get back to it. After all, spring is here and there are bikes to be built.

Bling is good

It is rare that people would ever be jealous of a bike shop owner, but if you have found your way to this blog, you might actually understand this one. Every now and then you get to rediscover why you are in this business in the first place and a little bit of bling just carries you away from the rest of the world for a while.

For those of you who have been paying attention to Goose Creek for the last week it might have seemed like there is not a lot going on. The FedEx guy hasn't been coming and going as much as normal, the website just blinks you over to a "our site is down" message, and we have been keeping our energy costs down by not losing heat from customers walking in and out.

So from the outside it may seem like we are just hibernating for the winter. The opposite is very much true. Bike and Skate guys alike have been franticly working on the new improved site, getting products uploaded, categories and search functions working properly. I have been on the phone almost constantly with tech guys from three different companies trying to figure the programming.

On top of this we are putting together a pro/Elite Endurance team and we have been negotiating with sponsors and gearing up for all that is involved with a team of this caliber.

Somewhere in all this it the simple fact that this is supposed to be about riding bikes has slid into the background. But as I said before, there is nothing like a little bling to snap you out of a funk.

The nice thing about being the boss is that you can pick your projects. So you can be assured that if a Huffy comes through the door, Schoen will be your mechanic and I will be working of something else. Today's project was a little different.

At 7:30PM, and hour and a half after close, I grabbed a stack of tools and pile of parts for a little home wrenching. By 9:30 PM dinner was done, the little man was in bed, and I pulled a $1200 hub out of the bag and started lacing it up. (Sorry Schoen, no bling for you, I claim this one)

Before I go further, let me say that if you don't build your own wheels, you need to start. There is some sort of zen experience involved that I can't really explain. Visit SheldonBrown.com and he will help you through it.

Now mind you, tonight was not a typical disappear into the basement with a six pack of beer and wrench until you get the urge to raid the fridge night. This is a Caffeine Free Diet Coke so your hands don't shake night. Somehow an old Trance CD seemed fitting and computer synthesized music blaring in the headphones seemed to go nicely with the slow spinning of an alien looking PowerTap hub with enough technology to launch a space shuttle.

I build wheels slowly. I am not one of these guys that builds 20 wheels a day, so I lace them up one spoke at a time. Keyspoke first, Driveside Trailing spokes next, and group by group the wheel comes together. Headphones come off so I can hear the rim in the truing stand. Tension comes up 1/8 of a turn at a time, there is no shop mechanic that will sort out any slush in the build later. The wheel is tensioned into dish, and true and round are checked after each round of tensioning. Two Hours dissapear.

By midnight where there had been a pile of parts, a ZTR 355 / Powertap / Revolution 29er Mountain bike wheel sat spinning in the stand. If you could walk into a store and buy this wheel if would cost you over $1400, more than the average cyclist is willing to spend on the entire bike. And if you bought this particular wheel from a bike shop your would probably be thinking that the shop owner would be really excited for such a big sale, but you would be wrong. The reason for that look he has on his face is that this one wheel, that one project, that one piece of craftsmanship is the reason he is in the shop in the first place. In a world where cheap machine build junk is a dime a dozen and there is still a place for products that are crafted rather than assembled. He would have built that wheel for free.

12:15am

Time to trade the Caffeine Free Coke in for something with a little more kick and return to the real world. There are products to be uploaded to the site and we need as much of it done as possible before the shop ride at 10:30 in the morning.

Slow day at command central

Website conversion is almost complete. It is January. It is raining. Perfect time to open up command central at the shop. Good news is that this will double as living quarters for employees who are working late.

Sneak Peek

The new shopping side of the website is under construction, and the guys are uploading products, descriptions and images as fast as they can. You can check out a sneak peek here Our instore database is liking to the site as we speak, and we should be able to process orders within the week (Probably tomorrow). The site should also start looking a lot prettier by next week. So for those of you that like to be on the cutting edge, you can start looking around.

Also watch for some special promotions coming down the line. We will be linking up some likes that act like coupons and having some contests. For example, the first 100 unique customers to order from the new site will receive a 10% discount off all their future orders for life. (Not a bad reward for fighting through our site in the current disorganized fashion.)

Power transfer and Cycling shoes.

After years of cycling, reading the literature and spending hours and hours on new equipment of all levels and qualities you develop ideas about things that you just stop questioning in your mind. The problem is that over the years, as equipment changes and riders progress advancements in products are for the most part small incremental changes. Updates to products are the results of geeks on computers in labs and wind tunnels. We generally accept that what their computer models say are true, but the actual difference you feel on the bike is so small that you have to believe that all these product testers for magazines are simply regurgitating what the manufacturers say simply because the have to say something.

The discovery I made today comes not from side by side duels of the latest and greatest, but rather from backing up a few years.

The standard line on cycling shoes is that the stiffer the sole the better. The logic goes that a stiff sole basically becomes the platform of the pedal which is why we can get away with having tiny little pedals like Speedplays or Eggbeaters. This stiffness allows more energy to go into each pedal stroke and less energy to be lost trying to keep your foot from flexing around the pedal. As an exaggeration you can go ride barefoot and see how well you do.

The problem for me is that the last time I did a serious ride in tennis shoes I was a freshman in high school. From there is was a slow progression. My first pair of cycling shoes was a pair of resin soled velcro Shimano shoes and I attributed the boost in performance to the clipless pedals that came along with it. Maybe once in the history of all the shoes I have had have I really noticed a significant boost in power transfer between the old worn out shoe and the new one. So while I have sold and been sold on various shoe designs in the past it has always been more of a theory than experience. Because of this I have passed up Carbon soled shoes because they didn't seem to warrant the expense.

Today by taking myself completely out of my normal element I learned the real value of good cycling shoes. As many of you know my winter project bike this year is a 1982 Schwinn Fixed gear bike. I have been riding it mostly in sneakers and toe clips. The performance dip from my other bikes is across the board. In other words I didn't just change to sneakers, I also changed to a fixed gear and toe clips and a frame that was made when I was just learning to ride my first BMX bike.

But todays ride was a little different. I had left my fixie at the shop and I wanted it back, so I jumped on the Fat Chance with a pair of old SIDI shoes, rode to the shop and switched bikes.

For the last few week I have been learning to skid on the fixie. I feel like it is a skill I need to be able to ride safely, but the problem has been initiating the skid from high speeds which is where you really want it. As I headed out in the SIDI shoes with toe clips I hit a little skid just to see where I was at and found myself actually pedaling backward while still moving forward. The difference of changing only the shoes was amazing. No longer will I make fun of the people in spin classes who want cycling shoes but aren't using cleats. As it turns out the performance enhancement that until today I had attributed mostly to being locked in the pedal comes largely from the stiffness of the sole of the shoe.

Mind you I am not advocating that everyone go back to toe clips and just use cycling shoes, but never again will I regard the shoe design as just a little perk of going clipless. The difference is night and day. It just took linking pedaling power to braking to demonstrate just how great the increase is. So for this winter I will be wearing cycling shoes and have a lot more control over the bike. Next season maybe I will spring for some carbon soled shoes.