Belize CC - day 1 Touchdown

Landed in Belize City today for the upcoming historic Cross Country Race on Saturday. Had a great flight, and things have been going smooth so far, but we feel pretty bad that we had to leave our guys at home. The team had originally planned to have 6-8 riders come down to do the race, but unfortunately some last minute plans fell through. Harkey and I had jumped the gun and purchased our tickets about a month ago to lock in a good flight/rate, so we were not able to bring the full team down here for the race. I feel bad, especially for our rider John Delong, who is going really good right now, and would have to have been a favorite in the race...I wish he, along with the more of the team where here.

Got the bikes together and went out for a late evening ride to Hattiville and back to the city. Got a nice taste of the massive head wind we are going to have to fight for the last 30-40 miles of the 140 mile road race Sat. Harkey, as always got several shout-outs on the ride (after his 2 wins and multiple top 3 finishes), but I did get my first "die white boy" experience today while on the bike. While coming through the city, we got behind a funeral ( a great chance to see our cultural differences). 80 to 100 people formed a procession and were walking down the street towards the graveyard. There were partying, drinking and celebrating, walking behind a flatbed truck with a huge rack of speakers blasting club music. The person who passed was a 27 year old local DJ. Neat to observe that with respect.
Tomorrow we are heading out for the locally named 'speed ride' that leaves at 5:15am!

Road trip tip of the day: TSA really gets mad when you try to smuggle a jar of peanut butter through the x-ray machine! Leave it at home or chance the body cavity search.

DeLong 5th at City Park Crit

John Delong rode like a madman with tons of support from Darren and Knetch, getting into the final break and making them hurt. A great result for a stacked team with fast racing from Mt. Khakis Pro, DLP Pro, and many other strong domestic and Canadian teams. When asked of his secret..."it's the wheels". Speaking of his new Bontrager 5.0 ACC wheels he pulled out of the box the night before. However I don't think his engine was working too shaby either.

Lori 2nd at Out Like a Lion Road Race

The Hincapie/Gary Fisher/Barkley ladies had a great weekend in Albemarle and Sailsbury, NC last week. Lori took a very close 2nd place in the Road Race, just missing the win by inches with Bridgette 10th, Marianne and Lisa rounding out the top 20. Their domination continued in the following crit with a group finish of 6th, 7th and 8th place (hey...they like to stick together, what can I say?) Congrats

Team Accepts Invite to Tour de Ephrata NEW Videos

The Hincapie/Gary Fisher/Barkley Team has accepted the invitation to participate in the 2009 Tour de Ephrata Stage Race in Lancaster Country, PA. This Stage Race has historically been known for its challenging routes and attraction of many of the best Pro and Elite teams in the country. Our team will field a team of 6 racers. We are also looking forward to getting to see our lone PA racer, AT Stamp and give him a little "hometown help".

Lori takes 3rd at Falls River Road Race

Falls River Road Race, a tough course...trust me, was no match for Lori. Lori along with the women's team had a great ride, and the Gary Fishers did great over the climb. Congrats to the gals. John and Bruce had strong rides in the men's pro event, almost chasing down the break and finishing just outside of the top 10. More power to em...I hated that hill, personally!
3rd - Lori Harkey (Womens Pro 1,2,3)
11th - Marianne Holt (Womens Pro 1,2,3)
12th - Bridgette McClean (Womens Pro 1,2,3)
16th - Lisa Preslar (Womens Pro 1,2,3)

Hincapie Team Clothes for SALE

Here's your chance to purchase some of the great Hincapie Sportswear team clothing from our 2008 season as Hincapie/Coca-Cola/Barkley. Click here to visit our online STORE. All proceeds go to fund the team. Thanks for your support.

Greenville (3 top 10 results)

Results from the last 3 Greenville Spring Series Races
Greenville #1 - 9th Chris Harkey (Pro 1-2)
Greenville #2 - 7th Geri Mewett (Pro 1-2)
Greenville #3 - 10th Chris Montelone (Pro 1-2)

Holt takes 5th, 7th at Wolfpack - DeLong 8th

Marianne Holt had a good race at the Wolfpack Cycling Road Race and Criterium last weekend. Marking Marianne's first race of the 2009 season, she started it off in fine fashion, placing herself in the winning break of the day. With one lone rider breaking free from the break, Marianne had a fantastic ride to take 5th place in the Road Race. Lori provided solid support keeping the field in check as Marianne's break became established, with help from the Lees McCrae Team who also had good representation in the break. She capped off the weekend with a 7th place finish in the Criterium from Sunday.

Even though the road race was on Sat the 14th, John Delong must have had that black cloud of Friday the 13th still hanging over his head. With great early season fitness, John spent the 3rd of 4 laps away from the group. With his gap growing to close to 2 minutes, his police escort pace car took a wrong turn that took him off course. After turning around and correcting his course, the gap had drindled to less than 30 seconds. John went again for the final lap with a small group of 10+ riders and had to settle for 8th after his efforts.

On a side note, Hincapie/Gary Fisher/Barkley Team rider, Reid Beloni, placed 2nd and 6th in the NCSU Collegiate RR and Criterium for Virginia Tech.

Racing has begun! Look to see all of you at the Greenville Spring Series races which start this Sat-Sun at the Donaldson Center Road Race course and will continue for the next 3 weekends. Check out the calander on our website for the venues.

Tool Box: How to Install Speedplay Zero Cleats

Spring marks the beginning of those thoughts of racing again. What better time to think about switching out your worn out cleats for a better ride. The Hincapie/Gary Fisher/Barkley Team choose the Speedplay Zero pedal and cleat system as our secret weapon, therefore the pictures below apply to Speedplay cleats. If you have Speedplays then you can follow along with the fun...What? You don't currently use Speedplays? What, are you crazy? Now is a great time to try them out! http://www.speedplay.com/
Step 1: Remove old cleats - If you are using old shoes, you must remove those worn out cleats. Different pedal manufactures have various suggestions as to when you need to replace your cleats. Speedplay suggest every 5000 miles or so. Remember that a worn out cleat will effect your amount of float, pedal contact and the amount of pressure it takes to engage or disengage so you don't come out of your pedal in that mad dash city limit sprint with your training buddies. If you are using new shoes, you get to skip this step. Do notice, however, the fore/aft and lateral markings on the soles of your shoes, they will be important later. Step 2: Install the baseplate - The Speedplay baseplate allows you to mount to any road shoe with the traditional 3 bolt pattern. Your pedals will come with two baseplates, which are not right/left specific (so if you get them mixed up I won't tell). Your pedals also come with a set of added plastic shims that you may need to have a tight fit to your shoe's sole profile. I like to place the baseplate on the shoe first without bolting down to see if shims are needed or not. In our example, we are mounting the cleats on the 2009 Bontrager RXL Shoes. (Yes the shoes really are that awesome looking...look for an introduction in the near future). We have found that the stock baseplate fits perfectly with the shoe's profile, so we will not be needing the extra shims. You can also go to http://www.speedplay.com/ to look up your shoe's compatability and shim suggestions. You have 2 bolts to choose from here (see pic below). The center bolt on the is for the top cleat plate (save it for later). The far left bolt and far right can both be used to mount the baseplate. The left (black) one is your standard bolt and should work on most shoes, and where you are not using any extra shims. The far right (silver) bolt is a few mm longer and is best used when you need to add the Speedplay shims to customize your fit to your sole, or if the shorter bolts don't seem to thread fully into your shoe. Tighten them down until they are snug...no need to be Hercules here. The bolts are all lock-tighted so they will hold.

Step 3: Install the top cleat plate - Ok, now you need to get your right and lefts correct here...luckily the cleats are clearly marked. You mess this one up, and you are on your own. Notice that the top of the cleat plate have 2 holes drilled closer together than the 2 at the bottom, to help you allign the top/bottom of the cleat. Allign all the screws with the brass wear plate on top and anchor with the 8 smaller black screw that we saved from earlier. You also now have the option to freely change the left/right position of your cleats prior to tightening down. Notice the 8-10mm of adjustibility in the two pics below. (You may want to suggest someone with experience fitting cyclist help determine your perfect cleat position, or you can use the trial and error method. Either way, you can always loosen the bolts and adjust again if they feel a little off.) I suggest tightening them down til they are snug and then backing off a half turn. If the bolts are too tight they will not allow the cleat spring ample freedom to move, and your pedals may feel too tight when clipped in. Step 4: Adjust the amount of float - Float is the amount of freedom your pedal system gives for lateral motion of your heel/toe while pedaling. While widely know for their large amout of knee saving float, the Speedplay Zero's give the you the ability to customize the amount and direction of your float all the way down to ...well Zero. Using a small screwdriver you can tighten the screws in to limit the amount of float, or back them out to increase the amount of float. You can also adjust them to independently to customize your heel in/heel out travel. Personally, I back out my "heel out" screw entirely and keep the "heel in" close to it's original position. Other team riders back both screws out to create a large amount of float. Conversely, tightening both screws inward will bind the cleat ring and create zero degrees of float, if that is what you desire.Now go enjoy the freedom of your new found float!
Adam Little - Hincapie/Gary Fisher/Barkley Team

Lewis featured on VeloNews

Congrats go out to one of our very own former Hincapie Cycling teammembers, Craig Lewis. Craig was recently featured on VeloNews.com for his great first year with Team Columbia and his bright future in the sport. Click here for the read the full article. Lewis (24) started off his now famous cycling career with our Hincapie team way back in 2002 where he raced as a Jr. with us (then we were the Fairway-Cyfac team, and Hincapie Sportswear was just starting to boom in the Southeast). Craig raced the 2002 and 2003 season with the team and them moved to TIAA-CREF in 2004, Slipstream in 2007, and landed his current spot with Team Columbia in 2008. Congrats to Craig for making it to the big stage...best of luck with all your future races.

Training Camp: part 1

We had a good team training ride today. In total we had 12 of the team members out together which was great. We had a nice long ride and it was good to catch up with everyone and see that they were all looking forward to a great year. I was the lucky dog who got the honor of being the first to test out the new Gary Fisher ARC Pro team bike, and was very impressed. I spent 4 hours on the new bike today on the ride, and it was a nice ride straight out of the box. Other than looking freakin hot, the frame was very responsive (as always, we played around with a few city limit sprints) and also climbed well. It was very easy for me to dial in my position on the bike, since it's geometries were virtually identical to the Lemond's we rode last year. The new Bontrager Race Lite bars were perfect and had a good feel on the ride. We are still waiting for a few extra parts to get all the bikes built up, but I know the other guys will be equally impressed once they get their first ride. We were able to hand out a few pairs of the new Bontrager RXL Shoes and the fits were perfect. Hopefully we can get our cleats dialed in and get our first ride in them tomorrow. Stay tuned for some pics of the new rides...Later, Adam

Gary Fisher: 2009 Team Bike and Co-Sponsor

NEW for 2009: The 2008 Hincapie/Coca-Cola/Barkley Team will become the Hincapie/Gary Fisher Team presented by BARKLEY! We are pleased to introduce Gary Fisher Bikes as our new Co-Sponsor for 2009 and beyond. The team will race the newly introduced Gary Fisher ARC Pro, equipt with top of the line Bontrager and SRAM components. The ARC Pro features a stiff aluminum frame with carbon fiber seatstays and chainstays, along with a Bontrager carbon fork. Look for the team edition Gary Fisher ARC Pro at the head of the races in 09'. Thanks to Travis, Chris, Jeff and Travis G. for making the dream a reality.

SRAM Pledges 2009 Support

SRAM Continues 2009 Team Support

For our second year in a row, the Hincapie/Gary Fisher Team presented by Barkley is pleased to have SRAM return as our official groupo sponsor for our Gary Fisher ARC Pro framesets. Our team had great success with the SRAM Force groupos last year and look forward to a great 2009 season with their continued support. This year the team bikes will be equipt with a combination of SRAM Force and SRAM Red shifters, cranks, brakesets, bottom brackets and derailures. Thanks to Alex, Ed, Paul and Jim for all their help. The team is also proud to be contributing through SRAM to the World Bicycle Relief program, along with other SRAM sponsored teams, in order to provide stable and sustainable bicycles to areas around the world for transportation and labor uses. http://www.worldbicyclerelief.org/Visit our friends from SRAM at http://www.sram.com/ and follow other fellow SRAM Athletes at http://www.theroaddiaries.com/

Just Training

This weekend we were glad to get in a little "mini-camp" with the guys. Saturday we did the Polar Bear together for some miles, and Sunday took a jount out to Morrow Mountain. John was able to come down from VA, and Reid, who has been spending the last week training with the Virginia Tech Team in Florida also popped in. Sometimes it is just good to get together and experience the ride... going to be a good year.

Reid cropped this picture to hide his uncontrolled mullet
John and Adam pondering the meaning of life (and the future joy of our Gary Fisher bikes) at the overlook down to the Pee Dee River

Belize Day 7: One the Road Again

Sunday: Monte, Lori, David and I got up early on hit the road on the bikes for a 55 mile ride back up to Orange Walk. Monte said "he was really tired, but wanted to get in one last good ride". I matched him 2 up for a 3x 15minute pulls, and he was must have been feeling a little "better" than he thought. Seemed like the Northern Highway never ended. Made it into town around 9:30am and found a nice local fruit concoction to cool us down. After a quick parking lot change we started packing up the bikes for the flight. Got to see our friends and sponsors from the Sugar City team one last time which was nice. Went outside of the box and tried some local rice/beans and grilled fish for lunch. Harkey stuck with his same boring grilled chicken, Coke and baked tater.
Jumped in the van and did the long 6 hour mach 3 run to Cancun. Andrew scored us some great fresh pineapple from the locals on the side of the road. (You may have noticed that the theme of food seems to run through these posts...funny how comforting good local food can make a long, hot, sometimes stressful trip seem a little more easy. 'Bout all you can think about when you days shape up like "eat, ride your bike, travel, eat, travel, eat, travel some more, sleep") Scored a nice room at the Avalon Grand on the strip in Cancun for a few hours, then off to the airport tomorrow back to good ol God's Counrty NC. Thanks for joining us for the ride! Adam

Belize Day 6: Let's be Tourists!

Saturday: Not sure if we had another night's room, we packed up all our gear, left it in the hotel lobby and headed off to meet Tony for a 12 hour tour of Belize (Caracol Mayan temples, Rio Frio river and caverns, Twin Tunnel Caves and 1000ft falls). Long day, but a once in a lifetime experience to see the awesome sights of highland Belize. I got to share a pizza with Charles and life was good.