SpokEasy

May 2021

UV Sleeves

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These SHINYMOD UV Sleeves help you to keep your arms cool while preventing sunburn; and without messy sunblock. They also help keep you warm in cold weather! SHINYMOD sleeves block over 99% of harmful sun rays. As an added bonus, they help prevent insect bites. Available in packs of one or three pairs. I tried a pair of sun sleeves (although not SHINYMOD UV Sleeves), and unfortunately they\’re now so stretched out that they can\’t stay in place! They definitely do keep my arms cooler on a hot day; and I\’m considering buying some more before the worst of the heat gets here. Yes, those sleeves feel warm when you first put them on for a hot-day ride; but after you get moving it\’s not long before, um, sweat starts to let those sun sleeves cool your arms. You can even splash on a little water to help with the cooling; convection cooling, I think it\’s called. I\’m glad the weekend weather outlook is pretty good. I\’m not exactly looking forward to starting long Sunday rides when it\’s already 80 degrees at 6 am!

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Clear at Last!

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Clear at last this morning; and I don\’t mean only that we\’ve had no rain for a few days, although of course I’m not complaining about that! But for at least three days, there was a freight train blocking my usual access to the levee bike path. That train sat and sat; and it was very frustrating to have to take a half-mile detour over rough streets, especially given the road-construction messes all over the place.  This morning the train was finally gone; the crossing was clear at last; and there was a pile of ties next to the crossing. I had wondered whether there was work being done on the tracks. Several years ago, trains would sit in one place for days on end; and it was infuriating. Then when a pile of ties appeared, I finally knew what was going on. When I was coming home from this evening, work was in full swing; and the crossing was a mess. I had to walk my bicycle over the tracks and loose rocks. I\’m lucky I didn\’t have a big load of groceries; and I\’m glad I was able to cross where I did. Otherwise I would have had to ride against a pretty stiff headwind to the other crossing! I hope that railroad work doesn’t last long. It’s not fun riding over bad surfaces; and I’m not quite sure whether it’s worse on the road bike, or when I’m hauling that trailer Tomorrow is full-moon time. The forecast is for mostly clear weather, so I should get my \”fix\”. I have some concerns about the condition of the bike path, though. I chatted briefly with my next-door neighbor when I got home; and she said something about a big hole in the levee. I\’m crossing my fingers!

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It\’s a Shame

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It\’s a shame that people who live with diabetes face blaming and shaming for their condition. Isn\’t it hard enough to live with diabetes without the \”it\’s all your fault\” attitude from other people? In February of last year, my A1c levels were in the prediabetes range. My sister had already had prediabetes for a year or two; and my paternal grandmother had diabetes later in life. Family predisposition? Diabetes, I hear, is expensive to treat. I already have to spend some $80 per month on prescriptions; and I don\’t want any more! I don\’t want even oral diabetes meds; and even less do I want to become insulin dependent. That was my major motivation for getting to work to improve my diet, and shed some excess pounds. By last Fall, although I had lost weight, my A1c levels hadn\’t budged; and I began to work with a nurse practitioner and a nutritionist, so I could figure out my calorie and carb needs. Bookworm that I am, I got a book about prediabetes as soon as I received the diagnosis; and I also bought a vegetarian cookbook for diabetes. The constant meal planning and calorie/carb counting is tedious, but I don\’t dare stop doing it. It\’s too easy to slide back into old habits if I don\’t stay right on top of it. Naturally there are rough patches, and I had one only last week. For several days I couldn\’t seem to stop munching on \”naughty\” foods! It\’s a shame I\’m not sure why this happens. If I did, maybe I could prevent it; but I guess bad spells are normal. The important thing is to get past them and continue with \”business as usual\”.

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Balmy?

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I hoped for balmy conditions today. It isn\’t cold; but I sure wanted a break from the wind. But did I get it? No; I did not. The wind was up to 15 mph before I got back home; and as usual, it was against me. Speaking of balmy, there\’s an aspect of sun protection that I find only too easy to forget: lip balm. I found mine in Whole Foods, next to the toothpaste; and I keep it in my top-tube pouch. That lip balm tube is so small that I could easily lose it; and I don\’t want to do that. Before I begin a long ride, I apply lip balm; but at my stops I often forget to use it, even as I\’m slathering on the sunblock. I\’m now pushing for 45 miles or so for my Sunday long rides. Getting in 50 miles means either doing some doubling back; or riding past an odiferous petroleum refinery. Today I rode to the outskirts of the refinery; and I saw even from a long way off that they have a large flare going. One Sunday in 2013, I think it was, there was such a huge flare going that there was a big plume of smoke from it! Back to the ride. Twenty-plus miles is a long way to work against a headwind; yet it puts me to shame when silver-haired riders go breezing (no pun intended) past me. Am I still too afraid of going so hard that I burn out miles from home? As long as I have a fuel supply, I should be OK; even if I have to go at a lame snail\’s pace to complete my ride.

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Always Carbs!

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Always carbs! I work to track my day-to-day carb intake; but what about my weekly long ride? Perhaps I can let myself relax a bit about carb count then.  Somewhere I read, \”Taking on 60g of carbohydrate an hour is a good rule of thumb, so check the back of packets to make sure you have enough.\” So, do I get enough? Last Sunday\’s ride \”menu\” consisted of a FitCrunch bar (27 grams of carbs); a Bear Naked® bar (26 grams); one Special K Protein bar (22 grams); 32 ounces of Nuun (4 grams); and one GU (23 grams). That amounts to 102 grams of carbs in all; and it sounds like a whopping amount. My ride, 45.6 miles, took 4:07:14, so I got far less than 60 grams of carbs per hour; but do I really need that much? I wasn\’t racing, after all; and I\’ll always be working now to keep prediabetes at arm\’s length. Ergo it\’s always carbs on my mind! On the other hand, is it possible that I need to eat more during those long rides? Is one-sixth of a FitCrunch every 15 minutes sufficient; or do I need one-quarter of a bar every quarter hour? When I get home after such a ride, I typically don\’t feel very hungry, no matter what I ate during the ride; but about mid-afternoon, my appetite suddenly wakes up. Then I eat rather too much! It might be better to eat more on the bike, if it keeps me from over-eating later in the day. Maybe I need to find some gels that are high in protein; that might help. I checked the nutrition info for several flavors of GU-Gel; and none contain protein. I also look for ride-food bars that have at least 12 grams of protein. Fat vs Carb Another thing I don\’t know is my fat vs carb burn. I do know that, the more intense the effort level, the more the body turns to its glycogen stores. There I go again: always carbs. But do I have to go full tilt all the time to burn off the carbs that I eat during a long ride? I hope not! My body isn\’t sufficiently conditioned to ride at such a high effort level for hours; and, if you\’re concerned about weight control, the big thing is to use up calories. Bicycling sure helps with that! Figuring out on-bike nutrition is an ongoing process. I\’m still experimenting with it; and I wouldn\’t be surprised if veteran pro cyclists are still tweaking the ride-food menus. We need to get enough protein; hydrate properly; and always carbs!

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Lord of the Rings?

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Which is the Lord of the Rings: standard round, or oval? With all due apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien, this product is one to consider for improving your pedal stroke. An oval ring looks weird to me, but it helps you to attain smoother pedaling. It may also help with rear-wheel traction. Look here for some MTB opinions. I also like this tour; and think it\’s especially interesting the way they minimize waste. Available in sizes from 32-36 teeth.

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Can I?

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Can I clear out some of the stash of canned goods that I\’ve amassed? Sure I can; but it might take a while! After work yesterday, I got busy. My stash includes quite a stock of chicken, and I decided to use up some of it. Naturally, I thought of chicken tikka masala. I used two cans of the chicken: a 5-oz one, and a 10-oz one; and I used a can of condensed tomato soup. That got rid of another \”tin\”. I put cauliflower, red onion, and red bell pepper in this dish; and of course that meant that I had to do a lot of time-consuming chopping. It took a good 45 minutes to get the concoction ready for the stove. Now I\’m down three tins, but that hardly makes a — well — dent in my supply. What can I do to use up some more? Of course I don\’t want to use up everything! Hurricane season is upon us, and it\’s important to have at least a few days\’ supply of non-perishable foods on hand. I probably don\’t need to be too worried any more about a COVID-19 shut-down; but you never know. Even leaving hurricanes and the pandemic out of the picture, emergencies happen. The cooking done, I began to think: Can I get out for a ride tomorrow morning? At 6 pm yesterday, the wind was 18 mph; and gusts up to 30 mph. There was still a 70% chance of T-storms, too; and I decided not to try going for an evening ride. The forecast predicted some pretty stiff wind for today as well. Can I ride against that? None too fast, for sure. Wet Ride This morning I rode the hybrid. It was raining; and the hybrid has fenders. I wanted a few things from Whole Foods, too; and using the hybrid meant I could have the trunk. Bringing only the trunk meant, How much can I fit in there? Fortunately I bought only five items. I thought of riding over to the drug store during my lunch break, but about 10 am I heard the wind pick up; and by noon it was up to 25 mph. The wind advisory is still in effect; and now that I\’m off work, I don\’t feel like going anywhere, anyhow. The weekend weather is looking pretty good; and in fact, all of next week looks pretty good. So it\’s salvage store tomorrow; and a long ride Sunday. But can I resist bringing home another big haul of, er, cans?

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The Other Shoe

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I\’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. When the pandemic began we started work-from-home; and I had the feeling that more than remote work might be in store. Layoffs? Might it come to offers of a buyout? It felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop; and I still feel like something is going to happen. Many of us are stuck in this limbo, I think. The weather forecasts this week also make me feel like I\’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Most evenings, the forecast for the next day looked dire: T-storms, strong winds, heavy rain. Such predictions made me anxious about whether I\’d get to ride at all; or whether I might get caught in nasty conditions miles from home if I did ride. In fact, I had to forgo the ride day before yesterday. Heavy rain in addition to darkness is a bit much, even if there\’s no lightning. I felt \”off\” all day from the lack of exercise; and maybe that\’s why I couldn\’t seem to control my appetite! Yesterday morning the weather permitted an outing on the road bike but my legs didn\’t have much \”snap\”; so I took it easy, and made the ride shorter than usual. Then I rode the hybrid to work. Again, I was on edge about the weather because I knew there was a wind advisory. I got lucky with the wind on the way home; and thank goodness it wasn\’t raining. Then I could start fretting over today\’s weather: will I get to ride, or will it be pouring? Again, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. It Dropped And this morning, it did. Long story short, I was very tired and sleepy; and could hardly get myself going. I wanted some things from the supermarket, and decided to go straight there; no laps around the park first. While I was on the way to the store, the wind strengthened; and the sky looked gloomier and gloomier. On the way home, I had to stop and pull on the poncho. The wind, fortunately, was behind me most of the time; but it made the rain seem worse than it was. Raindrops on eyeglasses made it harder to see. Maybe anti-fog spray would help? The poncho kept flaring out to the side, and obscuring my rearview mirror. It was a relief to get back home. Now that the other shoe has dropped, I hope I can get a break from constant worry over the weather.

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Calling Names

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If calling names is a disreputable thing to do, I must be quite disreputable. My antics in the kitchen have me calling names, because I want the recipes I invent to have \”handles\”. Monday night I was fixing the next day\’s lunch. I had a serving\’s worth of salmon in the fridge; and that was the starting point. But what to do with it? I had never combined salmon and tofu before; but why not try it? Sometimes what seems outlandish turns out to be a hit! So I mashed 6 oz of the tofu; mixed in the salmon; and then added a tablespoon of Green Goddess dressing. After that came some freshly ground black pepper. Now I get to calling names. What handle does a body give to a mixture like that? Tosam? Samfu? Tofumon? It\’s sort of like my Hoppin\’ John variations. The original recipe uses black-eye peas. l like to substitute other legumes for the black-eyes, and invent names according to the particular legume used. The one with lentils is Leapin\’ Leo; the garbanzo bean one is Gallopin\’ Garbanzos, and so on. More Names Then there\’s calling names with our bicycles. Mine both have names; and so did the tricycle. The trike\’s name was Valkyrie. That came about one morning about ten days after I got it. I was making a circuit of the local park before going to work, pedaling as fast as I could; and Ride of the Valkyries popped into my head, out of nowhere. Instantly I had the tricycle\’s name. The hybrid\’s name is Katy; named for the Katy Trail. A co-worker of mine is originally from Missouri, and he rode the Katy Trail a time or two. He told me about it; and it sounded great. At the time I had just gotten the hybrid, and my interest in long-distance riding was growing. I thought it would be fun to ride the \”Katy\”, and named my bicycle after the trail. The more I though about it, however, the more I saw how much money such a trip would cost; and I decided I\’d rather put that money on a road bike. I\’ve never regretted the decision. And the road bike\’s name is Scottie! I wanted the bicycle to have a name, and it\’s a brand called Scott; hence Scottie. I guess I\’ll be calling names all my life, won\’t I? By the way, that salmon-tofu mix: it came out very bland. Next time I\’ll do more to spice it up.

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At Odds

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Sometimes everything is at odds. My blog ideas, for one. At present I\’m suffering a \”dry\” spell, which is much at odds with the weather forecast! Yesterday evening we went under flash flood watch. We\’ve hardly dried out from the last rainy spell; and here comes another one already. When I left work yesterday, for a minute the sun would try to come out; and the next minute the clouds looked like it was about to rain. I was eager to get home, and had a nice tailwind. But a freight train was sitting on the tracks, immobile. It wasn\’t \”split\” at my usual crossing; and I had to backtrack against a headwind. That sure gets my goat! This morning the weather was definitely at odds with any idea of riding. At the time I\’m usually setting out on the road bike, it was pouring. On top of that, the lightning and thunder were moving in; and the National Weather Service had issued a special statement about strong T-storms. I decided not to ride, but knew that there wasn\’t much point in going back to bed. I ate my \”pre-ride\” snack of grapes and peanut butter; cleaned two pounds of carrots; and had breakfast. By 6 am the rain had slacked off, at least temporarily; but six o\’clock is late to be starting a ride on a day when I don\’t work from home. Today I left the hybrid at home, and walked to work. I expected stormy weather; but as it turned out, I could have ridden to work! Before I left for work this morning, I put the hybrid in the trainer so I could \”ride\” as soon as I got home. Tedious, but better than no ride at all. Other Odds My eating for the last two days has definitely been at odds with getting my A1c levels down. I don\’t know what\’s the matter with me! My appetite was suddenly voracious, even when I knew I wasn\’t hungry; and what I ate was not good for carb control! Maybe I need to track protein intake along with calories and carbs. I check the nutrition info for the bars that I take on long rides; I want at least 12 grams of protein per bar. But what about \”normal\” food? How much protein is in a serving of brown rice? Or of refried beans? How much protein do I need in a day to begin with? Years ago I read that, for most people, a half-gram of protein per pound of body weight each day is sufficient. The same source stated that, if you\’re getting enough calories, it\’s almost certain that your protein intake is adequate. So maybe I\’m OK; but it won\’t hurt to check. I hope I get to ride tomorrow morning. Half an hour in the trainer is sure at odds with my appetite for miles! Unfortunately heavy rain is expected tonight and tomorrow; and the flash flood watch has been extended to tomorrow evening. This is driving me crazy!

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