History shows that there are many many versions of watches that have been manufactured specifically for professionals, from pilots to divers, but consider bike racing and the extreme impacts, shock and temperature variations, the watch should be tested to its limit. It’s interesting since there are higher profile manufacturers currently doing he same thing with sportsmen such as Rapha Nadal, however, the watch he is currently testing at Wimbledon costs £500,000!!!!

Watches are one of my hobbies so this is very interesting for me, I own some 23 watches to date, including a huge spectrum of both price and functionality including pieces from the likes of Omega, Breitling, Longines, Perrelet, Dunhill, Marvin, Polar etc and I could talk about them for hours, however I don’t want to bore you, just give you a little insight into the industry.

Official timekeeping throughout the sporting industry has been around for years, probably the most famous being Omega, official timekeepers of the Olympic Games for many years.

The publicity and exposure these companies get through this advertisement must be huge because sponsorship in this sector is growing at an exponential rate. The 6 nations rugby had an official timekeeper for the 1^st time in its history in 2010, Graham, an expensive UK brand gave watches to each referee to wear during the matches. The FIFA world Cup has got a new official timekeeper Hublot, again, a prestigious newer brand, but very exclusive.

The Tour De France has had many different official timekeepers over the years, a favourite seems to be the French watch manufacturer Festina, probably best known among cyclists for the team they sponsored in the 90’s.

In my experience, I have only seen watch advertising in the form of riders wearing watches once. It was several years ago when Floyd Landis was riding for Phonak, their whole team wore yellow Polar HR monitors which also had new technology at the time in the form of altimeter and climbing speeds etc. I actually own one of these watches and they are an interesting piece of kit.

Anyway, that’s enough of my ranting, hope this has been a reasonably interesting article which may or may not flick a switch to start your watch collecting, hopefully not as its an expensive hobby!!!!

Roll up roll up its competition time.

Rutrainingtoday.co.uk are bringing to you the opportunity to become a Tour de France director sportif in 2010!!

No, Footon-Servetto haven’t realised their roster completely comprised of TdF debutants are going to get drilled and then bye bye their team boss, but you can manage your own (fantasy) TdF team in our latest online competition.

Just log on to www.velogames.com to pick your team and join our competition by joining league code 30231530

The director sportif topping the league come the champs elysees will win the South West’s version of the Maillot Jaune, a stunning and equally as prestigious JBC nutrition hoodie and a tub of high5 protein. The director on the second step of the podium  will earn a selection of high 5 energy gels and whoever rounds out the podium will get a tailor made 12 week training plan.

So get your entries in and join the league.

Get the bookie on the phone, here is the 2010 tour GC.
With the Grand Depart days away, I thought it time to repay all those who have supported me this year by informing them of who will fill the top 10 places of this year’s tour so they can go and win themselves some beer money down the bookies.

The parcours this year is an interesting one, the spice which has been added to the first week is very welcome in my view and should see excitement right from the off. I don’t think you will find a bookie who is going to give you decent odds on predicting that Spartacus is going to crush the field and take the first yellow jersey. The UCI will surely pay close attention to Spartacus’s TT rig, making sure it complies with the 3:1 rule and there are no energizer batteries in it, but even without its a brave man to bet against him.

So a bit of branching out for the RUTT team.  We decided to set up a female only running club.  Free of charge initially with the option of buying a vest at £18.

Here is the vest as worn by our first two members Judith and Julie.

A warm evening was the perfect start to the two lap run of Saltram for the girls.

Check out the run http://lh4.ggpht.com/_E6GkT3XNG0w/TCj4mWeeBdI/AAAAAAAAOWo/p-449EcbjsQ/s512/jude%20run2.jpg

From this you can see it was nice and steady with the only hiccup being a quick rescue of a man stuck in some mud!  Good work girls!!!

The back of the vests hold the tradtional RU crown logo.  If you want to get involved with the club then please drop an email to Judith or julie at chiefdocster@gmail.com or just visit the forum.  You can even find us on Facebook rutrainingtoday group

Beginner to Advanced Ab and Core Exercises

Everyone wants to be in great shape and have rock hard abs and in addition to eating a healthy diet, the best way to get these abs is to do the right exercises. But some exercises are good for some people and some are not be as beneficial. It really all depends on your level of fitness when you start your exercise program. If you are just starting out, it probably isn’t a good idea to do some of the more difficult exercises, since instead of getting in better shape, you could end up hurting yourself. The best thing to do is to make sure that you are doing exercises that fall within your fitness level and as your fitness improves, you can change the exercises to more difficult ones.

Workout Equipment: What is a Spin Bike?

Have you ever heard of a spinning class? No, we don’t mean spinning wool, but a popular form of aerobic exercise known as spinning, which is actually very much like riding an exercise bike, with a few significant differences. Spinning is a form of aerobic exercise, one that has grown in popularity in the past few years. It is a form of exercise that you can do in the privacy of your own home, or at the gym. And of course, you can always take a spin class, which you can do, no matter what your fitness level. Depending on how hard you work out, you can burn as many as 500 calories during one 40-minute spin class.