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Team Sky sent us a link to their team bus photos, and it’s one sweet ride.  Here’s the blurb:

Dave Brailsford, Sky Team Principal, employed designers who had formerly worked with F1 teams Honda and Benetton to ‘Pimp-My-Ride’ the traditional team bus concept. They completely gutted two brand-new Volvo 9700s and started from scratch. Their vision: to ensure everything in the bus makes the riders’ recovery time off the bike as relaxed as possible.

Nine leather seats, each with their own Sky+ (a UK TiVo-style service) box and space to stow the team-issue iPhone and Macbook Pro, can tilt and swivel a hundred different ways in the main cabin. They even feature (electronic!) retractable calf support. A full multimedia set-up, projector and screen are available for team talks, and there’s a mood-lighting system developed with the team psychiatrist to enhance the riders’ focus. At the back, meanwhile, there’s a meeting room that doubles as a massage area, as well as the all-important showers, with specially lowered floors so that even Bradley doesn’t have to stoop to wash the road dust from his hair.

Frankly, it all verges on the over-the-top – a cross between the A-Team van and a James Bond car stuffed with secret contraptions – but nine track golds at the Beijing Olympics are testament to the efficacy of Brailsford’s all-encompassing approach. Scarily, Team Sky even has a manager officially titled ‘Head of Marginal Gains’. And, what with the teams’ undercard seeming to gel so well at the Tour Down Under, it may not only be the bus that’ll be making an impression this season.

Photos of the inside after the break…

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PRESS RELEASE: Orbea USA is proud to announce that Craig Alexander has re-signed with both the Orbea and Orca brands for the next six years.

“Crowie is the top triathlete in the world, winning the 2008 and 2009 Kona Ironman World Championships, 2006 Ironman 70.3 World Championship and countless other premier global triathlons since turning professional in 2004. We are honored to have Crowie as the face of the Orbea and Orca brands in the sport of Triathlon” says Tony Karklins, Managing Director of Orbea USA.

“I have been riding Orbea bicycles with great success since 2005 and have been with Orca for nearly my entire career. I am extremely happy that I will be partnering with both Orbea and Orca for the rest of my career,” says Alexander.

Craig’s new contract with Orbea and Orca surpasses the traditional sponsorship contract. It gives him time to continue his reign at the top of the sport, while leaving plenty of time for future product development and collaboration with the Orbea and Orca brands. Look for many exciting new products to be developed from this long-term partnership.

Cafe:ine coffee sent us a bag of their Pinhoti “multi-purpose dark roast” whole bean roast courtesy of Mike at Niner.  Mike directs the Cafe:ine cycling grassroots team in the Atlanta, GA, area, and the team support is indicative of the brand’s overall efforts to support cycling.

They offer 24 roasts at present, many of which are co-branded with various teams, events or causes that support cycling in some manner, and part of the proceeds from those bags go to the group behind it.  And, you can get your own team or group private labeled on their coffee to use as a fund raiser.

If you’re headed to a major race in the Southeast, look for Floyd, their custom Airstream trailer that’s a rolling coffee shop.  Thor Hushovd apparently almost missed the start at one race because he was kickin’ it with a coffee there, and Cervelo Test Team has said it’s the best Espresso they’ve ever had in America.

How does it taste?  Read more…

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Mark Noble’s UK trails brand Deluxe has posted shots of a prototype stem designed in collaboration with Sylvain Taro.

CNC machined from 7075 T-6 aluminium, the top-load stem has been shaved of weight in all the right places so as not to compromise strength. The final production model, to be available with a 54mm reach, is hoped to weigh in under the 300 gram mark.

Assuming all testing goes to plan, the stem should hit the market during summer.

“TPE-TKY-TPE” by pommes king.

To see more Pics of the Day, click here, and to submit your own photo to be shown to the world, go here.

If you sent in your Bicycling Magazine Cadillac jersey promo form, you should be getting your jersey soon.  Word on the street (check the comments, especially if you don’t like your size) is some of our readers have them in hand and are eagerly awaiting Spring.

USA Cycling has announced the dates and venues for its 2010 American Mountain Bike Challenge (AMBC). All  events serve as qualifiers for the USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships, which are slated for July 15-18 in Granby, CO.

The 21-race AMBC series will visit 16 states over a period of seven months. Two events are new to the AMBC for 2010: the 17th Annual Barking Spider Bash in Boise, ID (April 10th), and the Bear Creek Challenge in Macungie, PA (August 1st).

Each event offers XC races, and some have short track, downhill, time trials and/or super-D competitions.  The top 10 overall finishers in each age group and category will qualify to complete at the USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships.

Full AMBC calendar with links after the break…

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Found via Cyclotourist’s blog.

Some things floating around out in the cycling world are of dubious benefit, but KitOrder seems serve a real purpose.  I’ve only been on the receiving end, but starting in a few weeks, I’ll be getting email list and forum updates, reminders, questions and deadlines for our local cycling club’s kit orders, and those messages will continue right up until (and likely past) the deadline.  Oh, and because some people can’t just reply to sender, I’ll see strings of irrelevant conversations clogging my email inbox.

While this is a minor irritation, I’m sure the club director that’s actually trying to place the order is in the fetal position somewhere swearing repeatedly they’ll never run for office again by the time it’s over with.

KitOrder has a solution, and here it is in their own words:

KitOrder is a third-party, web-based application designed specifically to assist the cycling or multi-sport team manager manage large custom team orders and collect money from team members. KitOrder is not a manufacturer and does not hold inventory – KitOrder DOES make your life easier. After you select and contact your clothing or pro deal vendor, set up a team specific shopping platform to handle any type of order, including clothing, nutrition and team equipment. The service is free to set up and charges team members a minimal, per unit transaction fee.

Janelle Kellman, President and co-founder of KitOrder, commented “We developed KitOrder based on our own experiences in dealing with the enormous headache of chasing down checks and sizing details. Custom team orders typically include lots of pieces with a wide variety of options and sizes. In addition, vendors require at minimum of 50% payment up front. We designed KitOrder to address these challenges by providing a fast, easy, distributed way for team managers to collect and organize their ordering details and avoid the errors and delays that are common in the manual process.”

If you’re the one having to manage this for your club, team or group, it might be worth checking out.

As previously reported, Team RadioShack is using a variety of tires from Hutchinson, including the Intensive 25cm training tire for those long, hard preparatory weeks, and Carbon Comp tubulars (shown) for Race Day. We just got word to keep our eyes open for developmental Road Tubeless tires to be on the bikes as soon as Paris-Roubaix starts in April.

And for those of you holding out for a custom edition, Hutchinson NA Managing Director, Dana Carson says “we are proud to announce that we will introduce a Team RadioShack Atom Comp to our line of tires before summer. The Atom Comp is the lightest, fastest clincher in the Hutchinson Line at only 185 grams.  This will allow RadioShack fans to ride Team Edition tires while cheering them on in the Tour.”

They currently offer a Tour de France version with yellow striping.

FROM SAMPSON: The new Sampson Stratics s5 shown here features a huge contact area (61mm wide), The shiny part is a replaceable,  polished steel Anti-Friction Plate (AFP) for very consistent feel and easy release.   The asymetirc alloy body increases cornering, and is very durable in the event of an impact.   The new pedals also feature a very low profile, with the pedal center to top of just 9.6 mm.   The 12 mm diameter spindle is cold forged and precision cnc finished.   Sampson designed a new rear cam profile that makes entry fast and easy, and the alloy has a lower friction co-efficient than does composite for much crisper entry and relase . The pedals run on a fully sealed cartridge and needle bearing, and maintence requirements are minimal.

The very light wieght s5 pedal is just 121g each, and retails for just $129!   A titainum spindle model, the s6, will start shipping in March, and is expected to weigh about 99g each and retail for $239.

“IMG_1782” by Xander N’Dante. Check out his blogs (here and here) where he posts his fabulous pictures of cyclestylish people riding their bikes in Toronto.

To see more Pics of the Day, click here, and to submit your own photo to be shown to the world, go here.

Taking the X-Dome technology from its XX component line, SRAM has debuted the XG999 9-speed cassette.

Set to release in mid-March, the XG999 is very light at 175g for the 11-32… a full 100g from their PG-990 cassette and about 50g lighter than a comparable Shimano XTR cassette.  Like the XX model, all but the largest and smallest cog are milled from a single piece of billet steel, forming a dome shape.  The large cog is a replaceable press-fit aluminum gear, and the smallest keeps it real with steel.

Because it’s mostly steel, SRAM claims it’ll be more durable, too, making it the obvious choice for all us weight weenies that are still on 9-speed bikes (ie. most of us).  Well, obvious if you can plunk down $300 and don’t need the extra range that a 34-tooth cog would provide.

Bikeradar quoted SRAM’s U.S. road products manager Mike Zellman as saying “our best technologies consistently find their way across our product platforms.”  And that March release date comes just before Sea Otter, where SRAM is known to launch most of their new goodies for the year, so our hunch is we’ll see something like this on the road side before too long.  Funny, just the other day we were just wondering how they were going to improve RED now that Force is so similar…

More pics after the break…

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Just delivered to Lance Armstrong from Trek’s team liason, here’s how the paint scheme translates to Trek’s Equinox TTX Speed Concept time trial (and triathlon) bike.  Check out the stubby seat!

UPDATE: Thanks to several readers for the correction on bike model!

Via RidingPretty, by way of BikeHugger, comes the story of a woman (Maria Michaelson, to be exact) whose riding her bike up the entire coast of California while pulling this talking art sculpture.  There’s a recorder embedded into the sculpture, but it’d be even better if they put Verne Troyer in there and had people talk to it.