A Year's supply of... GOLD!

Howdy... back from a hiatus on the blog, been so reliant on Twitter that I got away from this site. Will make more innane commentary here as I see fit... which begins with my bitching about the fact that I'm not in Friedrichshafen for Eurobike yet. I'm sitting at a hotel overlooking a Greg Norman Golf Course in Virginia... thanks to a tore-up tire on the plane headed out of San Diego. One day delay. Great.

As I burn through email, I came across this on Twitter: the guys at First Endurance are giving away a year's supply of Optygen.

Let me repeat that: A YEAR'S SUPPLY OF OPTYGEN. And not just Optygen, not just Optygen HP, but the new prototype that only sponsored teams (Astana, Columbia HTC) and pro triathletes (Jordan Rapp, Donna Phelan) have been testing, with a higher level of potency. This stuff is gold.

The $800 value aside, if you are training with regularity, this stuff will make you faster. There have been enough studies about Rhodiola Rosea and Cordyceps Synensis to prove the effectiveness in helping increase endurance. My wife, the aforementioned Donna Phelan ,is a First Endurance sponsored pro, and she's the most meticulous person I know who won't ingest anything that isn't good for her. For her to call me from Switzerland after two months asking me to FedEx a bottle of the stuff over because she is running low speaks volumes. Add to that the fact that First Endurance is among the leaders in testing (that is, testing to ensure their sourcing and packaging facilities are clean), and she's sold; Optygen is legal, and it works.

Here's the deets below:
First Endurance is running an contest based on the most-outrageous thing that has happened while training or racing. It doesn’t have to be long or extravagant, just outrageous.

Entries will be judged on originality, entertainment, and buzz. Photos, video, or audio increase your chances of winning.

Five finalists will be selected and their entries posted on the First Endurance blog. Readers can vote for their favorite. One Grand Prize winner will receive a case of 12 bottles of OptygenHP Prototype. The four runner-ups will receive a prize of 3 OptygenHP Prototype bottles.

Entering is easy:

1. Blog about your story. If you don’t have a blog yet, you can setup a free blog at wordpress.com.
2. Mention that this story is an entry for the First Endurance contest with a link from your post towww.firstendurance.com
3. Leave a comment below and paste the URL of your blog entry so we can find and read your entry


Detailed info on entering is here: http://tinyurl.com/kjz52r

Knock yourself out... this is a prize worth winning. Personally, I'm a big fan of it as well, hence my own excitement about the contest.

Now back to my scramble to get back over the pond to Germany. Then next week to Italy, to take part in Granfondo Colnago just south of Milan on Sunday. And I've got my Optygen and EFS Liquid Shot packed in my luggage (which is somewhere over at Dulles International right now) to fuel the day... however hilly that might be. I hope my 80 mile ride in the heat with Normann Stadler this past weekend is enough training (amid all my flights of late) to get through this one!

Tested: New First Endurance Optygen Prototype

I gotta keep this succinct because a.) I need to hit the road and ride home before dark (well, thanks to daylight savings time I have a bit more), and b.) I don't have much info for you.

But I have this: a new prototype version of First Endurance's Optygen HP.
There is a lot of study about Cordyceps Sinesis and Rhodiola Rosea, both adaptogens used first by Tibetan sherpas on Everest climbs. Those studies have shown the stuff helps drop lactic acid levels, raises oxygen utility and raises aerobic threshold.

I've used the Optygen HP since it came out, but was surprised when I received a package with bottles, for both myself to test, as well as my wife Donna, who's sponsored by First Endurance. To say I love the stuff is an understatement; I am full-on into training for a half, and Donna has just finished an Ironman a week and a half a go and is doing another in a month. I would say my energy levels, and effort levels are much higher, and Donna has said the same.

And the new prototype?

I don't know what they have done, but they have kicked it up a fair bit. There is some data on the label, which Mike Fogarty of First Endurance asked me to sit on—for the time being. He said that Astana was using this prototype in advance of and during the Tour of California, and the feedback from guys like Levi Leipheimer, they said, was nothing but super positive.

Of course, anything I could say would be anecdotal, but man, I did a hard ride last weekend to Dana Point, wanted a sustained race pace, with a little t-run afterward. No lactic acid, no drama at all...nothing but power. I am the king of sitting on wheels (well, only that of my wife), and I was getting uninvited limpets that day. Now I understand her plight of the wheelsuckers.

So yeah, First Endurance has something cooking. If you don't believe in performance supplements you should believe in this one... I wish I could be a bit less graphic, but... the shit works. It really does. When this new blend comes to market, it'll be worth a try. Heck, the existing Optygen HP is worth a look if you've not tried it.

Anyway, it's fun to be a writer who gets first looks at this, and gets to test it alongside the likes of Astana and the few sponsored pro triathletes that have their hands on it. I'm looking forward to seeing how it pans out for the next month; I have a race April 5 in New Orleans, and am glad I have this stuff in my arsenal. After all, I have a colleage to beat, and a case of beer to win.

I've just returned from a 2.5-hour trip to Leysin from Biel, Switzerland, on press trip to visit with Schwalbe tires and DT Swiss. Biel is the home of DT Swiss, on the German side of town. (It's interesting that on one side of Lake Biel, the lake is called Bielsee, the German name, while its Lac Bienne, the French version, on the other side.) East of the lake, German street signs. On the west, French. Pretty cool. The train trips are great too... rolling past Montreaux, Lausanne and Lake Geneva, and all the gorgeous countryside that comes with this area.

Biel is also the home of Breitling, Rolex, Rado, Swatch and other timekeeping legends. Its also home to tons of CNC factories. So to say the that Biel is loaded with some of the world's top engineers is a fair understatement. And DT Swiss has a ton of 'em. I had a chance to tour the factory, which was an impressive scene. I hope to have a nice tour story, one that's pretty eye-opening (at least for those who wonder how much work goes into how something as simple as a spoke is produced) at Slowtwitch.com soon. I will never take for granted the lowly spoke again. Or rim, or spoke nipple. Or freehub body. All of which are created right there.

We did a good 3:30 ride, with about 2:30 of that climbing up to Mount Chasseral. Some turned back (the MTB guys.. I'm not naming names), while the rest of us continued up. Actually, VeloNews tech editor Lennard Zinn continued up on his own, ahead of us, eager to reach the massive radio tower at the top, while the rest of us refueled with water from all the little fountains you find in town through these parts of Europe. He said from there on a clear day, you could see the Grand Ballon and the Ballon d'Alsace in France, as well as the Alps. The mount is the namesake for the Mon Chasseral climbing wheelset. It consists of long grinding climb of about 40 minutes, a flat to recover, then another long climb through forest, opening to clear fields, and the iconic cows, bells clanging about their necks, finishing at the massive radio tower you see at top right. The reward is a view of Lake Biel and Lake Neuchatel... a gorgeous view after over 4,000 feet of climbing.

It also marked the start of the flies. For whatever reason that day (Donna said the files were bad in Leysin as well), flies were just... bad. Everywhere. On the climb, I was going juuuust fast enough for the flies to keep pace. Schwalbe North America's Henry Horrocks came up on my wheel and past me, and as I bitched about the flies, waving them off as I struggled to keep the bars in a straight line, he said "the trick is to go just a little faster than they can fly." Hard to do when the pitch is a steady 13 percent and you've been ascending for an hour and a half. Someone said the flies are slower at altitude too, a bit more sluggish. I tested that theory, and easily killed every fly that landed on my arm.

On the descent: blat-blat-blat, they stung the forearms and face. Die, flies. And once we were back to the lakes, we weren't done yet: swarms of gnats hung in the sky, and even going 23mph behind the big figure of Zinn acting as a big cowcatcher for the flies, they still hit you, sticking to sweating skin, getting into the mouth, the nose, the vents of the helmet, inside the jersey. Showering at Rut von Gutte afterward and watching them all swirl down the drain was... just nasty.

That was a minor concern, however. One fellow scribe, Bicycling mag writer Dan Hart, took a spill on our descent from the mountain, overcooking a left-hander as I heard "whoa, whoa, whoa!" behind me. I circled back to find Hart prone on the pavement, his bike 35 yards further down the mountain, on the opposite side of the road. It took a while for the medics to arrive, but they scooped the young guy up and carted him off to Biel... then to Bern. Turns out his little offroad-to-rock-to-pavement adventure netted him three broken vertebrae. He destroyed his helmet and was totally lucid as I kept his mind off his aching back before the ambulance arrived...he was so concerned that his girlfriend was going to be mad at him. But at least he remembered he has a girlfriend. Unfortunately, Dan's first trip to Europe was memorable for the wrong reasons. Maybe he comes with his girlfriend next time!

Spinning the clock back, I was saved on the ascent from blowing up on two counts: gel and drink. I've been using the new Gu Roctane, which is simply awesome.. I think I've talked about that ad nauseum.. it's da kine. but I also sucked down two bottles of the new Fruit Punch First Endurance EFS. They styled me with their two new flavors, fruit punch and grape, and I opted to take fruit punch with me to Switzerland to try.

I've never done such a steady, long climb, but I brought the right stuff to sustain it. I had no idea how long it was, but being a triathlete, I settled into my tempo, letting the roadies attack early up the road. And watched some of 'em come back to me as I tapped out my tempo. First Endurance says its aminos (Glutamine, Leucine, Iso-leucine and Valine) helps keep your acuity sharp when fatigued. And it's loaded with 1,000mg of electrolytes and 270mg of sodium, which is what my body craved. For as long as that climb was, I was happy to say I held a straight line, bottom to top. Maybe it wasn't the drink... but maybe it was. Whatever, it tasted awesome, and it was wet. Those two were top of my priority list at the moment.

My wife Donna, on the other hand, is product-sponsored by PowerBar. But it hasn't stopped her from now religiously using First Endurance's Optygen HP, for two reasons: one, she's training like never before, and the stuff truly helps her recovery and ability to work hard, day after day under the TeamTBB regime while she gets ready for Ironman Switzerland. She never takes anything if she doesn't have to, and it didn't take much convincing from me to start using it. Now, she feels she needs it to keep her oxygen uptake and recovery on track. I used it every day when I did my 50-mile ultramarathon, and felt the same, that I had to have it to stay on point. It's really that good.

The other reason: they test their lots. The last thing Donna wants is an inadvertent positive test. The fact that First Endurance goes to the lengths it does via certificates to prove to its customers that its products are clean means a lot. It means it's safe.

Will have more to update... gotta chat about my ride to one mountain stage of the Tour de Suisse, and maybe my trip to the first few stages of the Tour de France....