Guía para comprar una Bicicleta de Montaña (Ing)

 

Before You Buy a Mountain Bike - A Buyers Guide

From Kevin Tisue,
Your Guide to Mountain Biking.
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Buying a mountain bike can be a bit frustrating and can take some time. This guide will help you put some thought into it before you lay down the cash and make the process go a bit smoother

Determine Your Price

There is virtually no limit to how much money you can spend on a new mountain bike. To keep your spending under control, figure out what price range you are willing to pay for your new bike and try to only look at bikes within that price range. I do not recommend buying a bike from a mass-merchant store such as Wal-Mart or Costco. Support your local bike shop and get a better product and much better service.

Find Your Style – What Kind of Riding Do You Want To Do

Mountain bikes are designed for several different riding styles and terrain. You will need to figure out what type of riding you will be doing most of the time. Is it smooth trail riding, cross-country racing, all mountain cruising or lift accessed gravity mayhem? Make sure the bikes you look at fit your riding style and not the sales staff’s.

·         Do I Need a Women's Specific Bike

·         What's My Suspension Style

Full Suspension or Hardtail ? – Comfort vs. Efficiency

I always recommend a full suspension mountain bike if you can afford it. Hardtails, without rear suspension, are lighter weight and pedal more efficiently but full suspension designs offer more comfort and better control. You will want to decide based on your price range, riding style and terrain.

·         FAQ - Full Suspension Vrs. Hardtail

·         How Much Suspension?

The Component Conundrum – Find Your Favorites

It is nearly impossible to compare mountain bikes component to component. There are simply too many combinations. I recommend finding a few components that are most important to you for comparison and make sure the rest fall within some sort of minimums for your price range. I usually start with the fork and then look at the wheels and rear derailleur.

·         Component Reviews

·         Disc Brakes or Rim Brakes?

·         Standard or Tubeless Rims

Sales, Seasons, and Bonuses – Get a Good Deal

Mountain bike prices can fluctuate significantly during the year. The main buying season is from spring through summer. If you are lucky enough to be able to wait until the right price comes up, usually in the fall and winter, you can save a few hundred dollars. You will also find that a lot of bike shops will offer discounts on accessories or other products and services when you buy from them. There is nothing wrong with buying last years model if it fits your needs.

Find a Good Dealer

Finding a good dealer can be more important than getting a good price. Find a dealer that cares more about selling you the right bike than selling you the more expensive one. A good dealer should have a clean repair shop and you should feel like you can trust them.

Test Ride, and then Test Ride Some More

Test ride as many bikes as you can in your price range and riding style category. You will find that some bikes will just feel right while others don’t. The more bikes you ride the better feel you will have for what you like and what you don’t.

·         How to Set Your Seat Height

·         Proper Seat Position

·         How to Set Your Tire Pressure

Do Some Research – Read Some Product Reviews

Product reviews are a great way to find out about a mountain bikes performance and reliability. Look your bike up before you buy it and make sure there isn’t anything someone else discovered that you might not like.

·         Bike Reviews

Important product disclaimer information about this About site.

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Bike Reviews

 

 

El Mito de "Bajar la panza haciendo abdominales o usando una faja" entre otros. (ing)

By Jim O'Neill |

The Facts About the Spot Reducing Myth There are a lot of people who are dissatisfied with one area or another of their body. You will often hear these people saying things like, "I need to get rid of this stomach" or "I need an exercise that will slim my thighs down". The premise behind these types of statements is that you can lose excess fat in any one given area on your body without affecting any other part of your body. Maybe if you just knew the right exercise to do, you could lose the fat in just the area you want to lose it in. The plain and simple truth is; there is no such thing as localized fat loss. When you do a specific exercise for a specific part of your body, the muscles of that particular body part will develop and get stronger and grow bigger, but it will do nothing for getting rid of the fat in the area. Usually the reason people who do exercise get stronger but do not visually see the muscle development is because the excess fat is still covering the muscles. Here are the facts about the spot reducing myth: Physiologically speaking, muscle tissue is always firm. Muscle only feels like it not firm because of the presence of too much fat. Body parts that do not look toned simply have too much fat covering them. People are genetically predisposed to carry more fat in certain areas of their bodies, thus accounting for the extra buildup in these areas. When you want to lose body fat, you must create a calorie deficit within your body. This means that you will have to consume less calories than you burn throughout the day. While you will typically seem to notice more rapid fat loss in your "trouble spots", you will actually be losing fat from your whole body because when your body goes into fat burning mode, it can not select different areas to do it from. When you start to lose body fat, it is genetically determined where the most rapid loss will occur first. Areas that do not store as much body fat will only have so much to lose, so you will see more fat loss in the harder spots as you go. Despite the popular saying, it is impossible to turn fat into muscle. They are made up of completely different types of cells and one can not convert into the other. You can only lose fat and replace it with increased muscle size. Also, you can not firm up fat, nor can you firm up muscle. Fat and muscle cells are what they are, and you can't change their composition. Simply put, softer muscle = more fat present and harder muscle = less fat present. Muscle tone is simply the visual appearance of muscle in the absence of fat. Sensible eating coupled with moderate exercise will help take off any extra fat, even from trouble areas. Just because you can't "spot reduce" doesn't mean you can't lose the fat in those areas. You just need to make the little changes in your eating habits and introduce a little exercise into your life that will make getting rid of that stubborn fat a reality. Article Source: Health Guidance

 

Como el spinning puede ayudarte a ser un mejor ciclista (en ingles)

By Roy M. Wallack, published in City Sports Washington and City Sports Florida, March, 2000, then later in City Sports and Competitor California.

In 1998, when triathlete Ruben Barajas of Torrance, CA finally qualified for the Hawaii Ironman after many years of trying, he credited his success to one major change in his training:

Spinning. Specifically, Spinning taught by cyclists.

That qualifier is critical when serious cyclists analyze the benefits of the popular pedal-to-the-music health club classes.

"I learned from instructors who were real bike riders—people who knew about proper body position, sprinting, hill climbing, using hamstrings and calves, not just quads" says Barajas, 35, the director of the Scott Newman Center, a drug prevention charity. "You don’t get that from converted aerobics instructors."

The point is well taken. Most spin-class teachers are indeed aerobics teachers in clipless pedals. Many have never even ridden a bike on the road. They know how to select good music and exhort their followers through a killer 45-minute workout. But can they make you a better cyclist?

Emilio DeSoto says yes— and no. "Yes, you’ll get a great workout and see some increases in leg speed [due to the momentum of the 44-lb. flywheel of a Schwinn Johnny G Spinner]," says the president of De Soto Sports triathlon clothing, a former pro triathlete and popular twice-a-week instructor at La Jolla’s Personalized Workout. "But no, you won’t "learn" much cycling."

"Instructors who don’t come from cycling often will stress things like ‘Jumps’ (popping up and down off the seat) and doing pushups on the handlebars—things that have nothing to do with real cycling," he says.

BE YOUR OWN TEACHER

For that reason, you have to be your own coach if you are an outdoor cyclist on the inside, according to Chris Kostman, the teacher of triathlete Barajas and hundreds of instructors nationwide through his instructor workshops (www.adventurecorps.com).

"While you can’t rely on the instructor since few are real cyclists, you can easily build outdoor cycling skill in any class with a little knowledge and discipline," says Kostman, a one-time Race Across America finisher and founder of the RoadRacers indoor cycling program at the L.A.-based Bodies in Motion fitness chain.

"Spinning classes are an ideal place to work on classic, old-time technique—a traffic-free laboratory environment that can go a long way toward replacing the on-the-road instruction once handed down by veteran riders," he explains. "It’s a great place for cycling novices to improve two aspects of cycling that will quickly make them a better rider: climbing and speedwork/turnover.

"By the same token, it’s a great place for the vets to refresh their technique—as long as they remember NOT to ride an indoor bike the same way they do their ‘outdoor’ bikes."

Here’s what Kostman means:

1. CLIMBING:
Face it, there is no greater confidence builder—and time saver— than good climbing. That’s why it is crucial to learn how to use all the muscles of the leg—not just the quads. There’s no better place to focus on this than indoors.

a) SEATED CLIMBING: Most outdoor cyclists know that they should pull up on the pedals on the upstroke, which activates your calves and reduces the load on the quads—but they rarely do it for long outdoors. Here’s the technique for indoors: Suck in your lower abs to help push your butt to the back of the seat, then drive the pedals down with your heels lower than the toes. Keep the heels low when you pull up, too; as soon as you lift the heel above the ball of the foot, you turn off the calf muscle. Most outdoor cyclists sit too high on an indoor bike and don’t hinge their torsos forward enough, says Kostman, keeping their heels up and pulling up with their shins and quads, not calves.

b) STANDING CLIMBING: To cultivate the hamstrings, glutes and back muscles as you would outdoors, you must adjust your posture for the lack of angle, says Kostman. On an outdoor climb, the front end of the bike is tipped up. To replicate the position on an indoor bike, hinge at the hips, keep you back straight and parallel to the ground, and push your nose down to within a few inches of your handlebar.

In addition, since a stationary bike cannot be rocked beneath you, simulate the effect by moving your body side to side.

2. SPEEDWORK:
Road cyclists are locked into a "90 rpm mentality" says Kostman. While the spin bike’s weighted flywheel will push any rider’s cadence higher, huge gains can be had with specific techniques.

a) STANDING SPEEDWORK: To build explosive power and raise your lactate threshold as well as rapid turnover, stand straight up and "run" on the pedals, says Kostman. The key to is put the entire weight of the body on the quads. The technique: Stand tall, with ears, hips and bottom bracket in a straight line, the upper body stabilized by tensed abs, with no hand pressure on the bars (using only fingertips for balance). Then blast your cadence up to 200 rpms—which blows away the 150 rpm most top cyclists can manage outdoors.

b) SITTING SPEEDWORK: Ideal for building rapid turnover, this technique is easy: Use very little resistance, sit forward on the saddle, suck in abs to stabilize hips and upper body, and go like hell. Again, shoot for 200 rpms.

3. GRADUAL WARM-UP
A big problem indoors is that many classes redline from start to finish. "That shoots your heartrate up—and once it’s up, it’ll never come down (the rest of the session)," says Kostman. "Consequently, you never train for recovery—allowing your heartrate to drop— a key to cycling endurance."

What that means is that a truly fit person will see his heartrate drop by as much as 50 beats on a 30 second downhill. That is important because it allows the body to rest. The problem with charging out of the gate and freezing your heartrate at a high level is that you never train your heart to rest. "You’ll burn out," says Kostman.

Warm-up goal: Warm muscles in conjunction with a gradually rising heartrate. Never do speedwork until 12 to 15 minutes into the class. Regardless of what your class is doing (unless you’ve done your own spin warm-up before class began), ride the first two songs seated with light resistance, followed by a seated and standing climb for one song each. Then, go for it.