My Plaid Thermos: Coaching, Buzz, Tour of California, going solo, and Sutherland videos

This week I put on my coaching hat and conducted three back to back anaerobic threshold tests in the basement of Hincapie Sports. Getting this number will help them calculate their training zones and fine tune their training efforts. Now I hope they actually train within the prescribed heart rate zones. When I talk to other coaches we always discuss how easy it is to get riders to train hard. The challenge is to get them to ride in the easier zones when necessary. It’s not always “full gas”.

"All you're left with is a plaid thermos..." the wolfman

It’s good to see the Hincapie Development guys fired up about the upcoming season and particularly for the Greenville Spring Series races. I did a recon ride of the River Falls road race course and I like it. It has an uphill finish that starts off a little steep and then the gradient decreases a few degrees to the line. The one challenge I see in that course is the run-up to the climb. It is flat and straight and I can already tell there will be a lot of nervous riders trying to get to the front at the beginning of that climb. I think I’m going to do well there or blow up spectacularly on the hill. I can’t wait for that race.

I’m a big fan of new tech or new applications, but I’m still figuring out the worth of Google’s Buzz. It’s like Twitter in that you have followers and you can follow people as well. However, Buzz isn’t limited by 140 characters like Twitter so you can use it to send documents and videos. However, I’m not sure why I would use this. It reminds me of Wave email that Google came out with a few months ago. Everyone was so excited about it and were begging to get invites to Beta test it. I have it, tried to use it and didn’t know what the hell to use it for. And like Buzz, no one I know uses it. For now I’ll stick to tried and true email and Twitter to disseminate all of my socially critical messages.

Stage 6 - a buzz kill

Speaking of buzz, I was pumped when the Tour of California announced that stage 6 was going to end in a mountaintop finish in Big Bear. Finally, a stage that could do some real damage and shake up the GC! Today they rolled out the details of this Queen stage and I’m wondering if AEG heard the collective groans of disappointment from journalists and Levi Leipheimer. While the stage climbs up Big Bear, there is a six-mile flat run-in to the finale. Talk about a buzz kill! The Tour of Utah does it right with a real climb up Snow Bird and actually finishing on an incline.

While on the subject of cool things in Utah I can’t wait to see Burke Swindlehurst start racing. I’m still excited about him going solo and bucking the system. I’m wishing him a lot of luck this year. Make sure you follow him on Twitter as well as Facebook. And someone needs to start a Swindlehurst Fan Page for crying out loud!

While Burke is going solo one of my favorite Australians, Rory Sutherland, is on one of the biggest American cycling teams, United HealthCare p/b Maxxis, and he’s filming behind the scenes footage from their training camp in Arizona. Here Rory shows off the new team bus. I wonder who will be the first to blow up the RV’s bathroom. I’m guessing it would be Menzies.