Check out our snazzy tag cloud! This cloud automatically creates tags from the content of our previous posts. It animates the tags into a sphere and makes the most frequently appearing tags appear larger in a sphere. All hipness, all the time.

[UPDATE] For you wordpress geeks, to get this working you will need this to automatically create the tags from your content and this to build the tag cloud.

Hi guys. A quick poll just for fun…

Last night I swam in black glass, as my friend Laurin calls it. We jumped into the San Francisco Bay ocean water after dark. It was so darn peaceful as the light of the Ghirardelli Chocholate Factory shone across the black glassy water. These are the nights that can make any workday worth living. It was a wonderful cold water training swim. My buddy Dave joined us for the apres-swim sauna then we all went back to a French place and talked about adventures past and adventures future. These are the days worth remembering.

Adam has been training these days too in Denver, where the temperatures have dropped down at night to the 40s, so I suspect most of his training has been on the Wilier cycles (shameless plug, sorry, but we love these guys).

Hope everyone’s training is going awesome. Take care.

A good friend of mine, Brandon White, asked to join us for 10DL North America. We said YES! He’s an entrepreneur and amatuer bodybuilder. His story is a typical one and three ACL repairs (all a result of playing lacrosse) and a history of endurance training and events. He’ll be training and representing 10DL on the East Coast at his home Maryland. Glad to have you join us Brandon. Welcome!

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 Cento Uno "101"