Author Archive

You are browsing the archives of System6 - Bicycle.net | Attitude is Everything.

What’s In Santa’s Bag For Your Favorite Cyclist?

October 29th, 2010| Blogs, Book, Book Review, Doping, Hub, Races, Road, System6, Tour de France, Tour of California, Tour of Italy, Tour of Missouri, Tour of Spain | No Comments

What’s In Santa’s Bag For Your Favorite Cyclist?

Sure to grace bathrooms, kibos, and porta-potties everywhere Hardcover, soft cover, or e-book, starting at $4.95.  Get yours now at Authorhouse (best prices here!) or  Amazon Between The Sheets You’ll [...]

No Comments | Read full story »

Previous Stories

  • Who Am I?
    October 3rd, 2010

    What’s crazy? You need to decide. On Twitter you could say I’m pretty crazy, or you could say I just have a weird sense of humor. Off the court you [...]

  • Yoo Hoo, the best sports drink you never thought of…
    October 3rd, 2010

    Dear Yoo Hoo – scratch that –  Dr. Pepper Snapple company: Once in a while one gets a great idea, and if they’re smart and enterprising, they find some way [...]

  • The (other) Situation
    September 13th, 2010

    I’m a wreck, more or less, and it’s getting worse by the day. I’ve lost weight and my wife says I’m obsessing over it (admittedly I am, but even more [...]

  • Lance Doped, Says NY Times
    August 4th, 2010

    The Thursday – yes, that’s tomorrow – edition of the NY Times will sport on its front page a tasty little article describing how federal investigators now have multiple sources [...]

  • Tomorrow’s Cycling News Today, Get It Here!
    August 3rd, 2010

    Graciously accepting for the first time the Insightful Cycling Writer Of The Year Award, we have to admit that we scored a ton of “hits” this year, many times going against [...]

  • What Do Andy Schleck and Janet Jackson Have In Common?
    July 22nd, 2010

    Why is a year of sleeping calmly forecast for Alberto, while Andy looks to be tossing and turning? Still missing from the discussion of the now played-out controversy over whether [...]

  • Fat Legs: Cycling’s Real Image Issue
    July 16th, 2010

    Ever noticed your shop ride is missing a certain je ne c’est quoi? Sure, you’ve got the cocky team riders in matching kits who’ll duke it out at hills and sprint [...]

  • THE TOUR DE FRANCE, FOR DUMMIES
    July 13th, 2010

    Those who failed to stay home and catch today’s closing stage in the Alps, as we strongly recommended, missed precisely the fireworks display we told you was on the way.  So there. [...]

  • With 8 Stages Complete, We Hold These Truths To Be Self Evident…
    July 11th, 2010

    Plagiarizing our fore-fathers, there are certain immutable facts with regard to this year’s Tour; these are: Team RadioShack is in a world of hurt, faced with relegating their GC prospects [...]

  • BLOW OFF THE SHOP RIDE — YOU’VE GOT PLANS THIS WEEKEND
    July 9th, 2010

    If you’re not excited about how this Tour de France is setting up, you’ve topped your max heartrate one too many times.  May you rest in peace. On Saturday the [...]

  • A Novel Offer – Your Cycling Art/Photo On My Novel
    May 29th, 2010

    Got a perfect picture of cycling agony?  Want it on the front cover of a new book?  Send it in and it just might happen! Is this for real?  Yup. [...]

  • Pimp My Riders! The Lance Armstrong Legacy?
    May 23rd, 2010

    George Vecsey wrote a great article in the NY Times this week. I wrote him that I liked it a lot, and in laying out the reasons why it resonated [...]

  • Secret Training Tip Of The Day: 5 Hour Intervals!
    May 17th, 2010

    You heard it right:  Until now, as training methods go, it’s been a complete secret, and what it involves is spinning at 90% of max heartrate or higher, for 5 [...]

  • “Race Fit” and then some!
    May 7th, 2010

    Letter addressed to the kind folks at Cannondale Bicycles Dear sirs or ladies, as you please, I implore you to make clearer on your website that the your cycling clothing come [...]

  • Shop Rides, Texas-Style
    May 2nd, 2010

    When it comes to cycling, it seems like everyone’s fast in Texas.  So much so, I’m having a hard time seeing the upside of paying money to pin on a number [...]

  • 2010 Tour of Missouri – Saved?
    April 11th, 2010

    It’s not exactly news when a U.S. based pro cycling race loses sponsorship, ala the now-dormant Tour de Georgia, and in these unusually harsh economic times it’s actually newsworthy when [...]

  • Early Season Shake-Down
    April 4th, 2010

    Saturday morning was fine time for a killing. It being early April, in much of the country riding and racing is still hit-and-miss.  You get a beautiful day, but it [...]

  • Shake-Down Time In Amateur Land!
    February 11th, 2010

    It’s early in the year, but Texas weather is already so much hotter than, say, April in Chicago, or June in Minnesota (when winter officially ends there, by the way).  [...]

  • Amateur Road Racing Season Now Officially Underway
    January 24th, 2010

    Saturday unfolded a balmy sixty degrees, shockingly sunny, and with just the mildest of breeze from some direction or another.  That’s what left a few of us worryingly overdressed for [...]

  • Living For Cycling? Why?
    October 19th, 2009

    Now, There’s A Question. Saturday morning I took a step that was far from monumental, but certainly not a trivial one on life’s forced march.  To be specific, I showed [...]

  • Lance vs. Alberto 2010
    October 18th, 2009

    What A Difference A Year Makes The 2010 TdF route was announced last week and, ou est la! It largely involves a long, hard bike ride around France.  Yes it [...]

  • HARDER’N HELL 100
    August 30th, 2009

    BEST ULTRA RACE IN THE COUNTRY? Parts of me just returned from the best day of road racing ever.  Arguably not my best day, but more about that later.  However, [...]

  • CAT UP AND QUIT RIDING…HOW TO PREP FOR THE BIG RACE?
    August 14th, 2009

    PLEASE DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME…WITHOUT A CYCLOPS I haven’t ridden either of my Cannondales a single mile since before the 4th of July, and now it’s mid-August, but nevertheless [...]

  • HOTTER’N HELL HUNDRED, COMING UP!
    August 7th, 2009

    This year I moved to North Texas and what perfect timing — August 28th brings a 3-day cycling fest up in Wichita Falls called the Hotter’n Hell Hundred, or HHH [...]

  • NO “I” IN TEAM, By Lance Armstrong
    July 28th, 2009

    So now that the battle on the bikes has ended, the war of words seems to be fully underway.  To whit, Alberto Contador remarks to the spanish press that there [...]

  • LANCE STRUGGLES WITH SUPPORT ROLE
    July 4th, 2009

    Lance Armstrong took the bold but unenviable step of leading out his team’s squad in the Individual Time Trial in Monaco.  Perhaps he thought getting out so early he would [...]

  • 24 Hours Of Pure Motivation
    June 17th, 2009

    Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen Before we can tell you about the book we just finished reading, its probably [...]

  • LANCE TO ARM-WRESTLE CONTADOR!
    June 6th, 2009

    READ ALL ABOUT IT! That’s right, Lance is smiling himself silly these days contemplating an opportunity to one-up the skinny spaniard by shifting fields of play at the last moment. [...]

  • Out Of Time, Money, And Good Ideas – The Astana Story
    May 27th, 2009

    …Or, “What I Learned This Summer At The Giro D’italia” Cutting to the chase, it’s been a lousy month for the squad whose paychecks are mailed from Kazahkstan.  First, they [...]

  • IT’S NOT WHAT’S IN YOUR LEGS…part duex
    May 17th, 2009

    First, this is Part 2, as the title suggests.  So if you haven’t read Part 1, trust me when I say that what follows will have essentially no meaning unless [...]

  • IT’S NOT WHAT’S IN YOUR LEGS — IT’S WHAT’S IN YOUR HEAD
    May 16th, 2009

    PSYCH 101 – You’re Only As Good As They Think You Are! You train hard through the winter. Spring comes and you ride better.  You’re no longer a follower, and [...]

  • CANNONDALE HEADED WEST — TO FAR EAST
    April 5th, 2009

    Cannondale Shifts Manufacturing from Bedford, PA to Taiwan SportsOneSource Media Posted: 4/2/2009 Cycling Sports Group (formerly the Cannondale Sports Group) plans to consolidate all North American product development, marketing and [...]

  • Diary of a Cat 5 – First Race Of The Season
    February 24th, 2009

    Saturday night I checked the weather forecast for the fifth time, noting the forecasted high temp on Sunday would be a whopping 30 degrees with a wind chill of 18.  [...]

  • Diary of a Cat 5er, Part II — Winter In The Dungeon
    February 4th, 2009

    It’s been a long, cold winter here in middle America, our windy days coming with a particular “bite” that makes cycling outdoors a sport for the bold or the sick-of-mind, [...]

  • Cycling Stories: Taste bad, or Less Filling?
    January 25th, 2009

    Last night I got up from my computer, at which I’d been surfing Cyclingnews.com and Velonews.com and so on, went in another room and sat down with a stack of [...]

  • The Three Legged Power Station
    January 17th, 2009

    The first time I viewed a set of SRM power cranks in action was in 2001. I had read about the training tool in the media, where sensitive sensors were [...]

  • TOUR DOWN UNDER – Presented by ASTANA
    January 13th, 2009

    WILL A TEPID STAGE RACE ACROSS PAN-FLAT AUSTRALIA BE THE MOST IMPORTANT PRO EVENT OF 2009? Next week we will all find out how dominant the Astana/Lance combo can be, [...]

  • Diary of a Cat 5er – Part I
    December 21st, 2008

    Winter Training On pretty much any cycling site you can find “diaries” of professional cyclists, in which you can read about things in their world.  Some of these are well-written [...]

  • LANCE RETURNS — LONG LIVE KING LANCE?
    October 30th, 2008

    I’m absolutely frustrated with the negative jawboning going on within the sport of cycling about the imminent return to competition of the most influential rider – and one of the [...]

  • Winter Training & Watching Your Weight
    October 7th, 2008

    I’ve spent the entire season riding more & faster than ever before and, according to my handy-dandy Garmin 705 calorie-counter and multi-tool, I’ve burned off enough energy to shed one [...]

  • Gain Weight Off-Season? You’ve Got Company.
    September 30th, 2008

    “Normally I would start the season at about 178 pounds,” Lance Armstrong stated in a recent interview.   When I saw the statement, I was more than a little surprised.  [...]

  • Say It Ain’t So: Frank Schleck Investigated For Doping
    September 27th, 2008

    €7000 in Payments To Dr. Fuentes Confirmed Early indications are that another high-profile rider may have been caught-up in the performance-doping, the culprit this time being Frank Schleck, who co-captained [...]

  • DINNER WITH MR. HINCAPIE
    September 18th, 2008

    What a coup!  The Tour of Missouri ends and our hearty bike troupe has the good fortune – courtesy of our shop’s relationship with Hincapie Apparel – to have the [...]

  • Sunday’s News Today: Vande Velde Wins Tour of Missouri!
    September 10th, 2008

    What year-long coming out party it has been for the former hyper-domestique Christian Vande Velde, who – now keep this a secret, please – just WON the Tour of Missouri [...]

  • Armstrong Back, Landis Back..Now You’re Talking!
    September 10th, 2008

    If you’re reading this, you’re really into cycling. You probably go out of your way to keep up about the sport at all levels. You can recognize the names of [...]

  • Exclusive Conversation With Ricardo Ricco, Former Star Of Former Pro Cycling Team Saunier Duval
    August 1st, 2008

    Bicycle.net, clearly well-regarded among influential persons throughout the sport of cycling, was able to get exclusing and unprecedented access to the 24 year old climbing specialist who just today confessed [...]

  • Lance Was Wrong, We Were Right. It Happens.
    July 28th, 2008

     Why Cadel Didn’t Win The Tour de France On July 12th, we published an article (see link below) laying out the reasons why Cadel Evans would lose the Tour de [...]

  • The Anti-Tour: The Lighter Side Of Cycling
    July 21st, 2008

    Okay, so we have some degree of drama in the Tour (finally) as Cadel Evans struggles to hang on to his presumed superiority in the race, and yes, we’ve had [...]

  • Stage 5 Recap — And How To Bet Tomorrow’s Stage 6
    July 9th, 2008

    By now you’re wondering if we have some kind of inside connection to the Tour, because pretty much what we have been saying is going to happen — happens.  Yesterday, [...]

  • Tour de France Through Stage 4 — All You Really Need To Know
    July 8th, 2008

    There’s little exciting about a time trial unless you’re the guy on the bike. For fans, it’s just “there goes one, there goes another.”  But we all know the Tour actually [...]

  • Tour de France Stage 3 For Dummies
    July 7th, 2008

    Ok, you’re back.  Good.  You saw what we wrote yesterday, you made a TON of money with your bookie based on our recommendations, and now you want more.  Naturally.  We’ll, [...]

  • What You Need To Know About The Tour After First 2 Stages
    July 6th, 2008

    Your Talking Points, Mon Ami… Alright, you’re headed for the shop, or the office, or the neighborhood party, or whatever, and, as a fully-outed cycling nut, you know you’re going [...]

  • If Soler Is Out, A More Civilized (Boring) Tour Of Mountains?
    July 5th, 2008

    Last year, the mountain stages at the Tour de France were all about three guys: Rasmussen, Contador, and Soler. Everybody else, including riders and audience alike, were left to hold [...]

  • GARMIN 705 PRODUCT REVIEW — Surprising Features In A Little Black Box
    July 5th, 2008

    I’ve been riding for the past couple of months with the Garmin 705 and I’m blown away by all the info I now have at my fingertips. When I purchased [...]

  • THERE SHOULD BE A LAW OR SOMETHING!
    July 5th, 2008

    …About Cat 5s Racing  On $5000+ Bikes I mean, last year when I put down $5G+ for a swe-e-e-e-t SystemSix at a local bike shop, nobody even carded me! I [...]

  • Cyclists’ “Woodstock” Weeks Away
    July 3rd, 2008

    Going to RAGBRAI again, God Bless! The cyclist’s version of Woodstock is once again, gratefully, at hand, and I’m positively stewing in anticipation of the chance to get together with [...]

  • What To Do When You Can’t Do The Bike…
    July 3rd, 2008

    Going into 2008 I had put in a lot of hours on the spin bike doing hard intervals in the basement to the point that the sump pump kicked on to vacate [...]

  • YOUR FAVORITE SPORTS DRINK — 85% OFF! GET IT, NOW!
    June 24th, 2008

    First, this isn’t an advertisement.  It’s just math.  Second, relax — YOU don’t even have to do the math.   Cutting to the chase, you can go to your local [...]

  • TEACH YOUR CHILD TO RIDE IN ONE HOUR OR LESS!
    May 22nd, 2008

    With No More Tears, No More Fears First, a moment of gratuitous, self-indulgent bragging:  I’m certainly not Superdad, but I tell myself I’ve got redeeming qualities.  Like, I’m the parent [...]

  • Amateur Racing Update From America’s Breadbasket
    May 21st, 2008

    Okay, so this year it seems the common thread of logic, is that to attract good money-paying racers one has to claim they’ve got the GOD AWFUL HARDEST race course [...]

  • US ENERGY CRISIS UPDATE
    May 21st, 2008

    Gas prices are too high, right?  Absolutely unbelievable — somebody should do something about this, shouldn’t they?  How can we get by paying $4 a gallon?  Who’s getting rich off [...]

  • Local Racing Season Is On….Finally!
    April 22nd, 2008

    After a long, cold, wet, gray winter of Dickensian proportions, followed by those too-early-in-the-year “training races” with names like “Froze Toes” for good reason, the temps have finally surpassed the [...]

  • Ever read Ten Points, by Bill Strickland?
    March 30th, 2008

    Hillsboro-Roubaix; Got Bombed Yesterday   Bicycling magazine editor Bill Strickland spilled out the deepest, most painful secrets of his troubled life in a small but incredible book that contrast these [...]

  • Rolling thunder, A CYCLING TALE, “finis”
    March 30th, 2008

    Following is the end of “rolling thunder” — a cycling novel Subject to copyright.      ROLLING THUNDER (cont’d)       Chapter 25 Raleigh Spriggs was the seventy six [...]

  • Rolling thunder, A CYCLING TALE, part onze
    March 25th, 2008

    Following is Part 11 of “rolling thunder” Subject to copyright. Friends don’t let friends edit-copy-edit-paste.      ROLLING THUNDER (cont’d)   Chapter 23   Saturday rolled around, and the already [...]

  • Rolling thunder, A CYCLING TALE, part dice
    March 15th, 2008

    Following is Part 10 of “rolling thunder” Subject to copyright. Please enjoy responsibly.      ROLLING THUNDER (cont’d)   Chapter 20   Shamus lost focus on assisting the investigation once [...]

  • Rolling thunder, A CYCLING TALE, part neuf
    March 6th, 2008

    Following is Part 9 of “rolling thunder” Amazingly still subject to copyright.  Some things never change.  Please enjoy responsibly.      ROLLING THUNDER (cont’d)   Chapter 17 Petre Patrovski rumbled [...]

  • Rolling thunder, A CYCLING TALE, part huit
    February 29th, 2008

    Following is Part 8 of “rolling thunder.” Blah, blah, blah, this story is copyrighted.  Comprend?  By the way, thank you for leaving your thoughtful comments along the way…we live on [...]

  • Rolling thunder, A CYCLING TALE, part sept
    February 25th, 2008

    Hope you had a great weekend.  Following is Part 7 of “rolling thunder.” In case it hasn’t crossed your mind, this story was written by someone for their therapy and [...]

  • Heaven came hard today…
    February 20th, 2008

    Cyclops rules nice job hills flats distance you handled it good ride. Not exactly scribed from the pen of Hemingway, but no sweeter words have come to me — at [...]

  • Rolling thunder, A CYCLING TALE, part six
    February 20th, 2008

    Following is Part 6 of “rolling thunder.” Thanks for being patient. As we may have mentioned ad nauseum, this story is subject to copyright by the author. Not that we [...]

  • Heaven came hard today…
    February 17th, 2008

    Cyclops rules nice job hills flats distance you handled it good ride. Not exactly scribed from the pen of Hemingway, but no sweeter words have come to me — at [...]

  • Rolling thunder, A CYCLING TALE, part cinq
    February 17th, 2008

    Following is Part 5 of a manuscript titled “rolling thunder.”  Coincidentally, it picks up amid the Tour of California and it’s being posted on the eve of the start of [...]

  • Las Cruces – A novel (yeah, there’s cycling in there too)
    February 14th, 2008

    If you’re enjoying the preview of Rolling Thunder in its pre-edit version, you might want to take a look at an earlier novel by the same author Buy the book [...]

  • rolling thunder, a cycling tale, part quatre
    February 13th, 2008

    Following is Part 4 of an excerpt from a manuscript titled “rolling thunder.” Parts 1-3 of the story are also posted at bicycle.net in the “Hub” under the page for [...]

  • rolling thunder, a cycling tale, part trois
    February 9th, 2008

    Following is Part 3 of an excerpt from a manuscript titled “rolling thunder.” Earlier parts to the story are also posted at bicycle.net in the “Hub” under the page for [...]

  • rolling thunder, a cycling tale, part du
    February 7th, 2008

    Following is Part 2 of an excerpt from a manuscript tentatively titled “rolling thunder.” If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, you might want to. The story flows better in [...]

  • rolling thunder, a cycling tale, part 1
    February 5th, 2008

    Following is an excerpt from a manuscript tentatively titled “rolling thunder.” The aspect about rolling becomes obvious within the first moments of the story in the unlikely event you haven’t [...]

  • Bikes Outsell Cars Again! (hint: not where we live)
    February 4th, 2008

    New figures showed bikes outsold cars in 2007 for the eighth consecutive year. In Australia. The nation that’s larger than our own sold a record 1.5 million bicycles in 2007, [...]

  • More reasons to continue to do what you already do (yeah, I’ve had my eye on you)…
    February 4th, 2008

    From a recent St. Louis Post Dispatch (my local fish wrapper) the Health Facts of the Week caption on page H2 contained startling information. Checking further with the newspaper, the [...]

  • Cycle Life, A nicer community to (really) live in…
    February 1st, 2008

    Cycle Life, A nicer community to (really) live in… Support your local Cycling Writer Have you heard of Second Life (www.secondlife.com)? According to Wikipedia (my favorite place to find out [...]

  • Welcome To Bicycle.Net; Self-Proclaimed Center Of The Cycling Universe
    January 24th, 2008

    Welcome To Bicycle.Net; Self-Proclaimed Center Of The Cycling Universe By: System6 There are countless places to read about our much beloved and besmirched sport on-line or in newspapers and magazines. [...]

  • Good Karma Wanted…Apply Within
    October 12th, 2007

    As cyclists, we’ve had almost as tough a run lately as your neighborhood mortgage banker or your favorite post-teen Hollywood starlette.  Seems we just can get no respect.  More troubling, [...]

  • Disco’s dead…or do thine eyes deceive?
    October 2nd, 2007

    Months ago, Tailwind sports dropped the bomb that it couldn’t secure appropriate sponsorship to replace Discovery Channel, though LA himself said they were 90% along the way to doing so.  But [...]

  • Design the Official 2008 Slipstream/Chipotle Jersey Contest
    September 17th, 2007

    Contest Lets Fans Design the Official 2008 Slipstream/Chipotle Kit by J. T. Fisher Out with the old and in with the new…whereas our beloved Disco team did us all proud more times [...]

  • Tour of Missouri – Highlights (plenty), Lowlights (few)
    September 16th, 2007

    By JT Fisher The big question has to be, was it successful? We have a brand new US stage race, rated 2.1 nevertheless, which boils down to it being a [...]

  • Tour of Missouri – Stage 3 Time Trial and Our Time With The Discovery Boys
    September 14th, 2007

    Where to start, where to start…. Okay, first, big kudos to the citizens of Branson who were perfect hosts and set up a spectacular race venue amid gorgeous sunny weather. [...]

  • JT Fisher’s Stage 1 Recap
    September 12th, 2007

    Stage 1 of the Tour of Missouri has completed, and seems to have exceeded expectations on a number of fronts, including: GOOD RACING: Obviously it’s common knowledge that there were [...]

  • Tour of Missouri Underway – First Update
    September 11th, 2007

    On Tuesday the first running of the Tour of Missouri gets underway with 119 riders heading out for six days and almost 600 miles of racing under beautiful Midwestern fall [...]

  • Safety In Numbers by J.T. Fisher
    August 20th, 2007

    SAFETY IN NUMBERS by J.T. Fisher Whenever possible I complement my “weekend warrior” routine with cycling to/from the office. Some weeks I might ride in three times, other weeks not [...]