FYI- Article in NY Times

[lovelylibrarian]

An Olympic Cyclist’s Levelheaded Advice

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/fashion/19fitness.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

I thought some of you might be interested in this.

To log in, you can use this site to find a generic login if you don't already have one: http://www.bugmenot.com/view/nytimes.com

[mimitabby]

thanks!

[ilima]

VandeVelde's awesome. Not a flashy rider, still a helluva rider and seems like a great teammate and person, to boot.

[VeloVT]

I just read this article in the print edition. Glad they're spotlighting cycling, but the article is full of serious errors.

--the reporter writes "when negotiation curves, he (Vande Velde) said, position your feet so that the pedal on the inside of the curve is down, with the outside pedal up (which keeps your weight balanced." WHAT?

--and: "Until the last five years or so, Mr. Vande Velde said, serious cyclists typically used the heart rate or a wheel cadence -- the number of times a wheel rotates per minute -- to gauge effort." Cadence = crank rotations, not wheel rotations.

--also, in a section describing powertaps: "Watts are a measure of energy output, the amount of energy that a rider applies to the pedal. On a bike, that figure is determined by a meter integrated into the rear hub. The meter also records a rider's speed and the time and distance of the ride (as well as the heart rate and calories burned per hour), using this data to determine the rider's watts at any given moment." Ummm, watt meters actually measure watts, they don't derive it from some algorithm of heart rate, speed, and calories burned...

--in the graphic illustrating fit, the writer attributes to Jonathan Vaughters the following formula: "for proper seat setback, imagine a straight line from the tip of your saddle to your bottom bracket. Edge your seat back from that line, so that the nose is about 0.05 inches for every inch you are tall." Well, I don't know, maybe Vaughters does use that formula... But it seems kind of like fitting with boxing gloves, huh? Two riders of the same height can have very different femur-tibia ratios, which will affect the setback they need, throwing this formula out the window... the other fit advice seems like it came off some generic LBS website too...

Who is this Gretchen Reynolds person, and who did she sleep with to get this article in? What happened to fact-checking???

[MM_QFC!]

Yeah, I saw those bloopers, but was glad to see that there is a "corrective" note at the end of the article.
Also saw another cycling-specific article earlier with an (to me) annoying typo ...shouldn't we be able to expect that any rider and/or author of a cycling ad or story, should really know better than to use "peddle" or "peddling" when they're referring to PEDAL-s or PEDAL-ing??! (unless they're trying to sell the pedals, right?:p)

[ilima]

Yea, there were a few errors. The on-line edition took about 18 hours before it was fixed.

Last week I read an article where the author of the article mentioned JD Salinger rising from his grave. That would be impressive, as Salinger is still alive. Took only a few hours for that one to get corrected.