Ciao A tutti,
I hope you are well.
We have 2 rides this weekend.
Saturday at 9:30am
Sunday at 9:30
All the rides will depart from Paperback Coffee in South Ealing Road,W5 4QT.
Hope to see you all there.
Have fun and be safe on the road.
SD TEAM.
Richmond Run Fest 2016
Ciao all,
As stated few days ago,we have partnered up with the Richmond Run Fest 2016. Below is a quick presentation of the event from the Richmond Run Fest Staff.
'Welcome to London's most exclusive race, Richmond RUNFEST. Do you ever wonder what it would be like to run through the world heritage site, Kew Gardens? On the 18th of September 2016, that's exactly what you can do. 6,000 runners will join us in the most beautiful gardens in London to take on the Kew Gardens 10k and the Richmond Half Marathon. Both races finish at a our Finish Festival in Old Deer Park where all finishers receive a medal, Nike tech tee and most importantly a beer!
You don't have to be a runner to enjoy an afternoon at our free Finish Festival. Invite your friends and family and come and enjoy the great line up of artists and live music.
In the afternoon 2,000 school children from across the borough will join us for the Richmond RUNFEST Nike Kids Mile and 500m races. The kids were welcome by local London 2012 Olympians Ross Murray and Andy Baddeley and every child received a Richmond RUNFEST medal and a Nike technical t-shirt.'
We have arranged a special discount code for all you SaddleDrunkers to be used when register for the event. Enter "SADDLEDRUNK" on check out.
Have fun all and see you there.
SD TEAM
A MUD...NESS WEEKEND in BELGIUM!!
Last weekend few of us from the team flew to Belgium, to spectate the 2016 CycloCross World Championships in Zolder.Certainly it was an eventful weekend.
This beautiful sport is upcoming here in UK.But last week events made even more famous than ever within the cycling world.
Let make sure that the discovery of the engine in the frame during the first day of the event does not take away the mental & physical strength of those athletes. The condition were brutal, high winds combined with rain made the track a complete MUD bath.
On the street of Antwerp.
The saturday was a quite day due to the program schedule,and mainly for the brutal weather conditions.The over 2000 people were kept warm by the live music,the Belgium Beer, the food and tremendous hard work that those athletes had to encounter.
Italian flag flying for the "Azzurri" girls & boys
We were lucky enough to have the tumble dryer in our apartment to get all of our drenched & dirty clothes washed and cleaned for the day after.In the evening our host Kris,from Kuai Sport Promotions treated us to a lovely meal in the stunning city centre of Antwerp.
Pouring Rain in the finish line
The Sunday it was a different story 80,000 fans, 1.5 million television viewers worldwide for this upcoming sport,where mental & physical strength are a must for the riders.
The dutch bike garage
Adam Toupalik,of the Czech Republic made is performance even more interesting when decided to celebrate his victory a lap before the end of the Under 23 Men Race. He managed to get a silver medal after crossing the finish line.
Antwerp Chopper Town Bike
Womens Action
Women Starts.
The Men Elite race was a nerve breaking for the home supporter and their neighbouring country,Netherland.The 80thousands were like lions roaring in a cage craving for food.They were correct to do so,Belgium potted the Gold & Bronze medals.
Antwerp Bier Central,300 beers in the Encyclopedie
It was a great weekend.
Thank you Kris for you hospitality and giving us the chance to stay so close with the Belgium Cycling environment.
If you like mud and speed,hard work & fun and you hate the concrete road,Cyclocross or CX is your sport.
Buona Domenica a tutti.
SD Team
Kelso Wheelers & SaddleDrunk
The SaddleDrunk team is pleased to announce that we have become an Official Kit Supplier for Kelso Wheelers Cycling Club .
The kit is hand made and hand tailored in our factory in Italy. The Kelso Wheelers Cycling Club Members are able to start purchasing the kit via online club shop.
The kit compromise a complete list of items from head to toe and enabling them to purchase direct to us 365 days a year,day or night.
The SD team is looking forward to a long friendship with the club.
Have a good week everyone.
SD Team
Fueling a champion: what Orica GreenEdge feeds Tour Down Under race winner Simon Gerrans during a race
Interview with Orica GreenEdge soigneur about what riders eat during the stage.Author James Raison & Credit Photos to Chris Komorek,EcoCaddy.
Danny Clarke
Seven hours before Simon Gerrans won Stage 4 of the Tour Down Under in South Australia, his soigneur Danny Clarke was hard at work preparing food for him and the rest of the Orica GreenEdge team to eat during and after the race.
It’s theoretically simple but logistically complex.
Danny starts by explaining exactly what is in the consistently wrapped foil packages he’s laid out.
He prods the largest packages containing rye bread sandwiches.
“That’s walnut and philly (Philadelphia cream cheese) spread, and this is philly with ham,” he says, before moving down to the smaller ones marked ‘sweet’.
“Those are orange and poppyseed cakes.”
On the bench next to him is an enormous slab of savoury rice cake ready to be sliced and wrapped
“That’s just ham, Arborio rice to make it sticky, and some soy sauce,” says Danny, handing me a slice of the chewy and mildly salty cake.
The sweet rice cakes sound a bit more palatable.
“They have cranberries, sultanas, honey and condensed milk to bring it all together.”
The food is simple but nutritious. The texture is important too, riders have to be able to chew and swallow it during the race.
“I alternate sweet and savoury rice cakes every day,” says Danny.
“One batch will last me two days, so the riders think I’m cooking them a different flavour every day, but I’m just alternating them,” he laughs.
The wrapping has been as carefully chosen as the ingredients.
“This paper has come from somewhere in Germany,” says Danny. “I don’t know what they do with it, but we use it for wrapping race food,”
It looks like tinfoil with a thin paper on one side and it is so important that it travels with the team around the world.
Danny lays out the full contents of a musette: two sandwiches, a sweet rice cake, a savoury rice cake, two gels, and two water bottles. Each musette will feed one rider for the stage and Danny personally hands the bag over to the team in the feed zone.
Post-race food is being prepared too, but unlike at other tours, the riders have the luxury of eating it back at the tour village in the middle of Adelaide because the stages all finish close to the city.
It’s a precise mix to take care of all the riders’ post-race needs.
“First they get a protein shake straight off the bike,” says Danny. “Then a couple of water bottles. “
Thirty minutes later they are fed meat and salad sandwiches, then an extra carb snack, he explains pointing to his slab of rice cake again.
The Orica GreenEdge team won four of six stages of the Tour Down Under, and Simon Gerrans took overall victory and the points classification. That phenomenal success is built on the efforts of unsung helpers like Danny Crke.
