As the newest member of 10DL I just joined to introduce myself. My name is Brandon White. Neal has been a friend of mine since 2003. A few months back I was checking in with Neal and he passed me a link to 10DL. I clicked. 10DL sounded really cool so I emailed Neal and said “sign me up for all the legs”. I intend to double up in 2010 to catch up on the European leg.

I am not a climber like Neal and not an Ironman or Special Forces guy like Adam, but am probably just as crazy as both. I have been doing adventure fishing and bush plane piloting for many years, am an entrepreneur which is an adventure in itself, and did some amatuer bodybuilding. My knees have three ACL repairs (all a result of playing lacrosse) and that’s what led me to decide over the last year to trim down from the body building bulky body to be more lean and focus more on some endurance training and events. I’ll be training and representing 10DL on the East Coast here Maryland. Happy to be here!

I’ll keep everyone up to date on my training via the blog and look forward to seeing everyone pumped and ready to go in August for 10DL North America. If you’re interested in a ride here on the East Coast let me know.

Pictures speak a thousand words… here are a few thousand words about me:

On the last day of the Interbike show we sat down with Wilier, who sponsors 10 Degrees Latitude with their innovative cycle frames.  As with all the best cycle frames, Wilier comes from Italy. The top pro riding team in Italy (Team Lampre) rides Wilier during pro races and during the Tour de France.

Gianmarco Cilli, who operates Wilier US, was calmly pleased to tell us that the “Cento Uno” (101) will be the bike of Alessandro Ballan in 2009. This is a new frame from Wilier that represents the leading thinking in bicycle innovation today. We were impressed with what we saw.

According to Harry Ault of Wilier, “the frame has become quite a spectacle at this year’s Interbike.” We can see why, the curved top tube carries through to a continuous curve around the seatstays and the beefy chainstays. This is elegant and carries the stresses better. The 101 uses “46Ton” carbon, the world’s strongest, most resilient fiber.

The frame integrates several elements to create stiff parsimony and reduce weight.

• The rear triangle is now more fully integrated. Chainstays and seatstays are unified as a single (monocoque) unit. They are asymmetrical, with the drive side chainstay lowered to prevent chain slap. Instead of conventional joining of the chain and seatstays at a sharp angle, the angle has been “softened” to dampen and dissipate road surface impacts and vibrations. The drive side chainstay also has a textured alloy sleeve for protection.
• Taking the integration one step further, the 101 includes a new integrated bottom bracket shell. Bearings are now installed directly into the frame. This design does away with the need for externally-mounted bearing cups and integrates seamlessly with the most popular cranksets.

The Cento Uno is sold as a frame, fork and headset package for $4300. Six sizes from XS to XXL are available and the bike will come in 5 color schemes. 2 years of crash replacement are included with the frame.

Like I said, we were impressed.

The Wilier Centro Uno "101"

Interbike always serves a product launching platform for next year’s most innovative products. We saw some awesome stuff this year. I’ve listed just a few below, and over the coming days we’ll feature some of the best new products one at a time.

• Wilier - Cento Uno
• Bellwether - Brilliant new line for 2009
• Cervelo - P4
• Gu - Roctane!
• Giro - New 2009 Helmets
• LAS - New 2009 Helmets
• Colagno - CX-1 Frame
• Garmin - 705 (officially launches in January)
• Wilier - Cento Crono Tri Bike (officially launched June ‘08)
• Cytomax - Functional Beverages such as MuscleMilk
• Zipp - 404’s/808’s/1080’s redesigned for 2009 (even FASTER!

Interbike was a great success this year. For those of you who aren’t aware of the event, Interbike is the largest bicycle trade event in North America. It is one of the most important events of the year for retailers, manufacturers, and and other industry folks. Over 1,000 brands are represented and 85% of all business within the cycling industry happens over these three days.

We were there for a couple of reasons. Our first objective was to personally thank all of those who took a risk and supported us last year. We’ve built great relationships with each of our sponsors, and it was great to see them for the first time since returning from Europe.

Special thanks to:

• Wilier - Gianmarco
• Bellwether/Profile Design - Barry
• Gu - Holly
• Cadence - Matt/Mike
• Suunto - Martin

Our second objective was to foster new relationships for the future. We met some great people this year, and we’re really excited about the future. Stay tuned for new sponsor news.

Hey sports fans. Not sure if you noticed, but we have a logo now. It’s at the top of the blog. We made the logo in Photoshop. We wanted a logo to symbolize the globe trotting journey that we call 10 Degrees Latitude. We are still working it; and you can expect to see new versions in the header over the next weeks.

There is lots of advice out there on how to build a logo. One of the best blog posts I’ve read on the subject is on David Airey’s blog. 

To help kick off this logo I decided to have some fun with the images below. Thought it might make you all chuckle. If you want to do this to your own images I recommend checking out Dumpr.