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New bikes, new photos, new injury
Posted: Monday December 20, 1999 01:20 PM
In 1999, British cyclist Jason Queally set two British records at the World Championships, finishing second in the Olympic sprint and fifth in the 1 kilometer time trial. The 29-year-old also won the Olympic sprint at the European Championships and won three World Cup events. While working as a research technician at Lancaster University, Queally began riding at the Manchester velodrome and developed an interest in cycling. In 1996 he decided to ride full-time. Check out Queally's diary every month on CNNSI.com.
November 19, 1999
Hello once again to all of you at CNNSI.com I'm currently sitting in an apartment in Orlando Florida with a large and very cold ice pack on my back, I'll explain in a minute. The boys (Chris Hoy, Craig MacClean and Andy Slater) have gone out on their bikes early as they are off to Disneyland later on. Meanwhile, I'll be stuck here watching MTV for a few days, finding out which artist has the number one pop video of all time. The reason for this situation was due to a visit to the weight room. I was on my last set of squats, (An exercise where you place a weight lifting bar packed with weights across your shoulders. You then lower yourself to the floor and back up to a standing position, like sitting on the toilet and then standing back up) and my back gave way. I collapsed into a heap thinking I had done some serious damage. Unfortunately, I could not stay where I had fallen as the boys wanted to carry on squatting, so two of them dragged me out of the way -- considerate chaps eh! I lay in considerate pain shivering and feeling sick for the next hour. Eventually, I got up and hobbled back to the apartment. Weights are currently a very important part of my training schedule. I use them to increase the strength and power of the muscles I use when cycling. I am also currently riding my bike on the road for roughly 2-3 hours, 3-4 times a week. The idea behind this is to increase my aerobic capacity (ability to use oxygen) before I begin to include some specific sprinting type exercises into my schedule. It will help in my recovery after sprint training exercises, especially between each effort I make while training. That's the idea anyway. Prior to my arrival in Orlando life has been fairly hectic. I have been doing some aerodynamic testing to find out what are the most aerodynamic bike frames and wheels. To do this we place a special pair of cranks onto the bike that measure how much power I have to produce on the bike for a given speed. Using different frames and wheels with a constant position on the bike, we can find out which combination of equipment is the most aero (fastest). To date we have found, with some surprise, the best combination was actually a 2000 compliant frame equipped with double disks. I also attended the British Cycling Federations (BCF) presentation dinner towards the end of November where me, Chris Hoy and Craig MacClean were presented with a trophy for best track performance of the year for our efforts at the world championships. It was nice to have so many people congratulating us and telling us how proud they were of our exploits throughout the year and at the world championships. I then went off to the Look bike factory in Nevers, France, to find out about the new 2000 compliant track frame. When we arrived we were invited to join the directors of Look and the riders of the Big Mat team (they currently ride Look bikes) for lunch in a Chateaux. The food was exquisite, but there was a problem! I was the only person at the table who could not speak French, so for the majority of the meal I just smiled and nodded my head in agreement pretending I had some knowledge of what they were discussing. From the Chateaux we went onto the factory where all Look products are produced. We started the tour with pedal production, then onto forks and frames. The majority of these products are produced from carbon fiber. I had never seen just how carbon frames and forks are produced, it's quite incredible. They take the carbon and basically weave it into the desired shape, place it into a hot mold under pressure, and hey, presto after 10 minutes you have a pair of forks. After this we went to see their new track frame. It looked quite similar to the previous design, but they said they had improved its lateral rigidity and reduced its weight. Seemed like this could be the bike for the team, I hope so. We will be soon getting an opportunity to try out these frames on the track. Cool. The day I left to go to France I also went to London on the train to have my photo taken for the Adidas Olympic advertisement campaign. I had a really cool time. All the people were incredibly friendly and very encouraging. I was there for about three hours having my photo taken on the bike. Fortunately, I had to wear my aero helmet as they wanted to capture me as I would look in an actual race, so you won't be able to see much of my contorted face. I had to pull all sorts of different faces emphasizing the pain I endure while riding the kilometer time trial. The thing is I don't normally tend to pull much of a face. Apparently, I just lick my lips like a cow -- that's what Chris and Craig tell me anyway. The best thing about the day though was finding out the likes of the tennis player Steffi Graf the Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie and several other world class athletes had been there over past few days having their photos taken for the same reason. I'll say goodbye now until our next encounter when I'll be in Lanzarote. May I wish everyone a merry Christmas and a very happy and peaceful New Year. -- Jason
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