Sunday, December 20, 2009

Merry Christmas

Hello guys,

Just want it to wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year as this might be the last post for this year... Thanks a lot for the support to my parents, Simona, my team mates (Eli, Tudor and Oli), to my closest friends and to all the mates that know me, helped me and supported me this year.

I also wanna thank you to my sponsors and partners: Cannondale Bikes, Maros Sport, Ashima, Continental, Syntace, VDO, Sapim, Adidas Eyewear, Xpedo, Buff, Kool Stop and my new sponsors Joe's No Flats, Grip Grab, KMC Chains, Thule and Cratoni

Hope that the next year will bring you all peace, love and health. With all these you can realise whatever you want.

Take care guys, don't eat to much cakes and don't freeze on the bike.

Vlad

Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Copenhagen Wheel



Smart, responsive and elegant, the Copenhagen Wheel is a new emblem for urban mobility. It transforms ordinary bicycles quickly into hybrid e-bikes that also function as mobile sensing units. The Copenhagen Wheel allows you to capture the energy dissipated while cycling and braking and save it for when you need a bit of a boost. It also maps pollution levels, traffic congestion, and road conditions in real-time.

SENSE and SUSTAINABILITY

Controlled through your smart phone, the Copenhagen Wheel becomes a natural extension of your everyday life. You can use your phone to unlock and lock your bike, change gears and select how much the motor assists you. As you cycle, the wheels sensing unit is also capturing your effort level and information about your surroundings, including road conditions, carbon monoxide, NOx, noise, ambient temperature and relative humidity. Access this data through your phone or the web and use it to plan healthier bike routes, to achieve your exercise goals or to meet up with friends on the go. You can also share your data with friends, or with your city - anonymously if you wish thereby contributing to a fine-grained database of environmental information from which we can all benefit.

ABOUT the PROJECT

The Copenhagen Wheel will be unveiled on December 15 at the COP15 United Nations Climate Conference. The project was conceived and developed by the SENSEable City Lab for the Kobenhavns Kommune. The prototype bikes were realized with the help of our technical partner Ducati Energia and funding from the Ministry for the Environment. Progical Solutions LLC provided technical support for the iphone control of the bikes.

The components of the project are an electric bicycle wheel that can be easily retrofitted into any regular bicycle and location and environmental sensors which are powered by the bike wheel and in turn provide data for a variety of applications.

The Copenhagen Wheel project demonstrates that small intelligent implementations can lead to major changes. This work will be displayed at the 2009 Cop 15 UN Climate Summit where the next version of the Kyoto Protocol will be signed.

PS got the info from here

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Cluj Winter Race 2009

Cluj Winter Race celebrated the 4th anniversary. I've managed to organize it again, to race it, but not to win it. Well, this is one of the races where I am not disappointed, because I organize it. This year year was even harder for me because I was almost alone. My team mates Eli and Tudor helped me before the race a bit, and in the race morning more riders helped to mark the course, to put the banners and so on.


Also my dad helped me with the barbecue and also got some photographers on the course and cameraman's.

Another novelty was the think that this was the first race ever in Romanian history where a television came and transmitted a short live coverage ! So history was made on the 5th of December, for me and for the rest of 50 riders !

In the last 2 days, before the race I've slept 3 hours/night, and in the race day I didn't had an XC race... was more like a duathlon, running from 8am, until 11:30.

I was leading the race 5 laps out of 7. But in the last 2 laps I was so smoked out that I've lost 10 minutes on my team mates. The last lap was made only to finish the race.
Finished 6th, but with the smile on the face, because the race came out well, and we didn't have any major crashes. But my team mate Oli won and Eli was 2nd. Congrats guys !

I was happy that some friends of mine where there to see me and to encourage me. Next time I will organize the thing long before the race so they can whach me winning. I would like to say a big thank you to my girlfriend who was there and cheered up for me.

Bellow I also have a movie made by On-Board.ro. When I'll have more movies I'll post here.



Now I am trying to recover, because the lack of sleep seems that is still present. I will finish some projects for the school and continue the training for the 2010 season. I have to focus also on school to keep my scholarship, wich for me is important.

Now I am the image of another Winter Race, which is making me really happy. CLICK HERE to see it.

As the park where the race was hold, was dirty, in the spring I am planning to make an clean-up action, so the people enjoy the green space and the bikers to ride easier.

I also wanna thank you to my sponsors and partners: Cannondale Bikes, Maros Sport, Ashima, Continental, Syntace, VDO, Sapim, Adidas Eyewear, Xpedo, Buff, Kool Stop and my new sponsors Joe's No Flats, Grip Grab, KMC Chains, Thule and Cratoni

The photo gallery can be found HERE.

Thank you once again for helping me organize the race, for racing, and even for watching.

Take care you guys !

Cheers,
Vlad

*articles in the Romanian On line press ->Clon.ro
*Other photos on Picasa: click HERE and HERE