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(c) mielu.ro intr-o zi de duminica.

De la 1 ianuarie 2007, va fi introdusa o taxa de inmatriculare pentru autoturisme si autovehicule de import de pana la 3,5 tone, inclusiv.
In cazul masinilor second-hand, taxa variaza in functie de normele de poluare Euro si de varsta autoturismului.


DUPA CILINDRE SI VECHIME
In cazul masinilor cu motor Euro 3, cu o capacitate cilindrica mai mica de 1.600 cmc si cu o vechime de cel mult sase luni, taxa este de 612 euro. Pe de alta parte, pentru cele cu o capacitate cilindrica de peste 3.000 centimetri cubi (cmc), mai vechi de sase ani, suma care trebuie achitata este de 5.070 euro. Pentru restul masinilor cu motor Euro 3 de peste 1.600 cmc si pana la 3.000 cmc, prima inmatriculare costa intre 700 si 5.000 euro. Pentru o masina Euro 2, cu capacitatea cilindrica de 1.600 cmc, taxa va fi de 2.704 euro, iar pentru cele cu o capacitate de peste 3.000 cmc, aceasta va ajunge la 6.240 de euro.


POLUAREA COSTA SCUMP
Posesorii de autovehicule din clasa Euro 1, cu o capacitate cilindrica de pana la 1.600 de cmc vor achita 3.744 euro, iar la autoturismele cu o capacitate de peste 3.000 cmc taxa este de 7.020 de euro. In cazul masinilor noneuro, taxa de inmatriculare este de 4.000 euro pentru motorizari de pana in 1.600 cmc si de 7.500 euro pentru masinile cu o capacitate
de peste 3.000 cmc.

early shift



failed change



quality meeting

Aweight weenie is a rider obsessed with reducing the rolling weight of his bike and body. Weight weenies are creative, ingenious and extremely annoying people. They suffer from a sickness that requires them to constantly examine and reexamine every component in terms of grams, ounces and pounds. Their tools (other than the coveted Ohaus scale) include rattail files, pipe cutters, airdryers, X-acto knifes, sandpaper, scissors and cable cutters. Hey, we told you they were sick.
This is why we are warning you up front. Reading the following weight-weenie tips and actually using them might prove the disease to be contagious. Yes, you might become a weight weenie yourself. Proceed at your own risk.

KEEPING SCORE
You need a scale to get into the weight weenie business. Ohaus scales can be found used for between $40 and $70. A digital postal scale from a store like Office Depot is a cheaper alternative. These modern little scales will measure in both grams and ounces, but may not be able to weigh heavy items like downhill tires, shocks and forks. We use the Digital Alpine Scale from Ultimate Support, (800) 525-5628. While the Digital Alpine Scale can weigh small components, we
favor it because it weighs the entire bike.

THE WHOLE ENCHILADA
A lot of weight weenies measure their conquests one component at a time. There is a more effective and accurate way to keep score. Weigh your bike, apply the weight-saving tips
and weigh the bike again. Sometimes by shaving weight in one area, you add weight in another, so the net weight loss is negligible. The whole bike weight doesn’t lie.

WHERE TO SAVE
Start with components that rotate. You can break this down further by concentrating on the parts farthest from the center of the rotating mass. Wheels are an important component for shaving weight (they rotate) and tires are more important than hubs for saving weight (tires are further away from the center than the hubs). The next area to concentrate on is unsprung weight. These are components that move during their operation (like suspension links, shocks, fork sliders and swingarms).

INTOLERABLE TOLERANCES
There can be as much as a five percent weight difference between two of the same tires. This is due to manufacturing tolerances. You can save weight by weighing every tire you buy. Same goes for tubes. Weenies have been known to weigh 20 tubes (same brand, same model) before making a purchase. Aside from angering a bike shop employee, this practice can save you a few tenths of an ounce. Is the hassle worth it? To a true weight weenie it is. And weight reduction of the tire
and tube is a great place to reduce weight on your bike.

STRIP THE STRIPS
Scrap the rubber rim strips and replace them with rim tape from Velox or Maxxis. Cut the tape so there is no extra material. This may be the smallest weight savings in the wheel department, but
it is worth it because of the location where the weight is saved.

UNSTICK THE STICKERS
Frames, forks, stems, seatposts, rims, hubs, bars and even saddles come plastered with stickers. The stickers may be the brand name of the product or actual graphics (like racing stripes). They gotta go. Warm them with a hairdryer and peel them off. The racing stripes and logos peeled off a set of wheels can reduce the rotating weight by over half an ounce! Some bike companies apply a clear coat over the stickers on their frames. That’s a bummer because you won’t be able to
peel the stickers off and the clear coat adds vanity weight to your frame. That drives weight weenies crazy.

PAINT REMOVAL
That thick coat of paint on your frame is vanity weight. A true weight weenie will break a bike down to its frame, strip the paint off and then polish it. One 18-inch Cannondale 800 frame lost four ounces with the paint removal and polishing treatment. The frame weighed just over three pounds before the treatment. That’s a lot of work for four ounces—to everyone except a weight weenie.

FOAM AT THE HAND
Trash-can rubber grips in favor of foam grips. The weight savings can be as high as six ounces. Don’t like the feel of foam? A true weight weenie is willing to sacrifice comfort for lighter weight.

GO TO BED
Weigh the foot beds in your shoes and replace them with lighter beds, trim them, or, if the shoe is well-made, pull them out and ride without them.

TRIM THE WEIGHT
Cables and cable housing are sometimes too long. You can save ounces by trimming them to an adequate length. Your chain is another weight reduction target. Why pedal extra weight if you can remove a few links and still have a drivetrain that performs properly? One friend even removes the cable end caps and applies a few drops of Super Glue to keep the cables from unraveling.

QUICK TIPS
• Shorten the straps on your hydration pack.
• Use an old hydration pack bladder. They are lighter than the new ones.
• Remove water bottle cages.
• Remove bottle cage screws. Plug hole with a small amount of glue.
• Cut off any threads that protrude through a nut.
• Take the caps off the presta valves of your tubes.
• Cut off excess seatpost.

PLANNING FOR 20-40’s
You can do these on the flats, but I think they are most effective when done on a climb. A climb of 30 or more minutes is ideal as you can do two or sometimes three sets of 20-40s. Toward the end of my career, I was doing these on the road bike occasionally, but back in the day, it was pure mountain biking. Here’s the skinny (or the fat!). Be sure you are wearing a watch, or better yet, that you have a stopwatch with an easy-to-read screen mounted to your handlebar. You need to know the road or trail where you are going to do your 20-40s. You’ll need a safe place without downhills or sharp turns, because when you sprint on a flat trail as hard as you can for twenty seconds, you get going fast! Same goes for doing 20-40s on a climb. You want to find a really consistent climb without any downhill sections. Why? Inevitably, one of your sprints will match up perfectly with that short little break in the climb and you won’t get the training
benefit since you’ll be on your brakes. Ideally, I like a steady, middle-chainring climb. Find out how long it takes you to climb the entire hill at a good, steady pace. If it’s about four minutes, you’ll need to start your first sprint at the bottom. On climbs between four and twenty
minutes in length, have the 20-40 fall right in the middle. If you have a climb of 30 or more minutes, you’re in 20-40 heaven! Multiple sets on the same climb!

GEAR AND TERRAIN SELECTION
Twenty-40s on the flats are great, but the real beauty of doing them on a climb is that you are forcing your body to recover from a wicked hard effort while you’re still climbing! And then, you only get 40 seconds to try to get a tiny grip before the watch is at zero again and you’re back on the gas! You’ll want to stay in whichever chainring is appropriate for your chosen climb (usually middle, but sometimes granny or big). Front chainring shifts during 20-40s can get tricky and detract from purely putting the power down. I like them to be
a middle-ring workout myself.

IT’S SPRINT TIME
Don’t start your ride with a 20-40. Do at least a 15 to 20 - minute warm-up to get your muscles warm and your lungs opened up. During this warm-up, use your stopwatch and include two or three hard efforts of ten to 15 seconds. Put a minute of easy spinning between each of these efforts. Now you’re ready for the real effort. Start your stopwatch at zero and sprint as hard as you can for 20 seconds. Rest for 40 seconds, and when your watch reaches one minute, do another 20-second, all-out effort. I typically do four repetitions
and call it a set. So if you do four sprints, your last sprint will end at 03:20 on your watch. Pretty short workout! Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Don’t believe it. The third sprint will be excruciating and only the toughest riders will finish their forth sprint on top of their gear.
I try to recover for at least ten minutes between sets if I’m going to do more than one. Ninety five percent of the time, I do two sets of four sprints. Back in the day, every once in a while I’d do three sets of four sprints or two sets of five sprints, but never more. This workout is all about quality, not quantity.

REAL-WORLD WORKOUT
I’ll take you along with me now as I do 20-40s up the Crested Butte ski area road. You’ll get the idea and be able to make adjustments for your local trails. After the warm up, I begin the climb. It’s a solid medium effort in my middle ring, big cog. I climb steadily for about five
minutes, then start my stopwatch and sprint my guts out for 20 seconds. Here is where you’ll appreciate that big readout on your watch! Twenty seconds isn’t so long. During the effort, I began in my biggest cog, but I went through the gears and got four or five cogs down by the time 20 clicked over on my watch. Bam! Right back into the big cog. Okay, that wasn’t so bad. Uh oh. 55, 56, 57…here we go again!
Number two, number three, finally number four, and your watch is at three minutes and 20 seconds. We’re done. That’s one set. Keep climbing steadily in your middle ring, then call it a workout. Cool down and go home. I would do these once a week, usually on Tuesday or
Wednesday, and the entire workout lasted between 60 and 90 minutes. Just do one set for two or three weeks and then bump
up to two sets. If you’re doing them good and hard, you’ll rarely need to do more than two sets of four sprints. The beauty of 20-40s is that 20 plus 40 equals 60, and there are 60 seconds in a minute. This makes it easier to keep track of your start and stop points, even when suffering from oxygen debt.

FEEL THE IMPROVEMENT
How often should you use 20-40s? That depends how much you ride. Weekend warriors will feel improvements if they do 20-40s on one ride a week. Riders who log rides four to six times a week should try to start with 20-40s on two days (don’t do them on back-to back days) and increase it to three days a week as they become conditioned to the efforts. Twenty-40s will be tough when you first try them, but feeling the improvement to your riding ability is enough motivation for most people to continue with 20-40s and maybe even look forward to doing them.