SpokEasy

SpokEasy

Author name: CAL

Not Jousting

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I\’m lucky I\’m not jousting: I\’ve been unseated! A while back, the upper part of the cover of my hybrid\’s saddle began to separate from the rest of the cover. I tried patching it with duct tape, but the tape rubbed agains my thighs as I rode. I also knew that, in this humid climate, it wouldn\’t be very long before the tape got gummy. So, off to the bike shop for a new saddle. It must be a cousin to my road bike\’s old saddle; it\’s a Selle. It seemed quite comfortable, but the very day that I bought it, I tripped over something after I got home. In keeping myself from falling, I pulled a hamstring. I would rather have fallen and skinned up both knees! It hurt to ride; it hurt to walk. Even minimal, very easy riding hurt that muscle. Pressure against the seat of a chair when sitting hurt it, too. So there I was, out of the saddle for at least a few days. For a day or two I didn\’t ride at all. Then I began riding to work, slow and easy. I hope I don\’t stay unseated like this for too long! On October 7, I began a two-week vacation. The next day, I tried a gingerly ride on the road bike. Again, I had to keep it slow and easy, and rode barely over two miles. That\’s better than nothing at all, but I\’m eager to be back in the saddle for my usual riding. As I said before, I\’m lucky I\’m not jousting.

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Head-splitting!

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New things are often head-splitting. I\’m learning how to work with a Plug-In called SEO Yoast. Like anything new, it\’s quite a headache. It seems, however, that I needed to be working with Yoast all along to create links to Google, and attract traffic to my site. I wish I had known that months ago! If anyone mentioned it to me, it went over my head. Well, better late than never, they say. Luckily I\’m on a two-week \”staycation\”, with still a week to go, and I can devote plenty of time to it. It means going over the products in my Shop, a most time-consuming project. In fact, I\’ll probably be working on that project for some time to come. Working with SEO Yoast, or \”yoasting\”, isn\’t the only thing keeping me busy. I also re-did some of the slides in my site. I had come to think that the slides in the Home part looked too chopped-up and amateurish. Just wait, though. Six months from now I might want to re-do them again! Then I\’ll be spending hours a day with more head-splitting construction. So, where did I put my hard hat?

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Playing Catch-up

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I\’m playing catch-up. BIG time. I don\’t have time for fishing! My web site, or parts of it, are once again under construction. I\’ve been re-doing slides, but that\’s not the biggest task. Learning that I should have been working with  Yoast SEO for months has been rather dismaying.  I\’m not only faced with learning something brand new, I have to go over an enormous amount of work; it\’s almost re-writing everything! The main thing that I have to work on is the Shop. There are over 400 items to be edited! Since that SEO thing is still unfamiliar, it\’s slow going. At least my advisor has said I don\’t really need to go over past blogs posts. I\’m thankful for that! Re-working one item from the Shop can take what seems like forever. This catch-up is going to take a LONG time! Today I spent so much time hunched over my laptop that I gave myself a crick in the neck. My pulled hamstring is still keeping me from riding more than a very few easy miles per day. At least I don\’t have to fight the temptation to go out for long rides; I need the time for \”yoasting\”, as I\’ve named it. Luckily I\’m still on vacation through next week, and will be able to put in a lot of time on it. It might take months, but eventually I\’ll catch up.    

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Cue Me In

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Hey, cue me in! Which way am I supposed to turn? Many a long, organized bicycle ride, such as Tour de Cure, involves a cue sheet. It  might say, start from X location; ride Y miles along Z path/road/whatever; dog-leg at A (i.e. turn whichever way from A into B, and after a very short distance turn the opposite direction from B into C). I must confess that I haven\’t had too much practice following such printed directions. Whenever I\’ve ridden Tour de Cure, the turns have been marked on the road in spray paint. If your event doesn\’t provide that crutch, you\’ll need to refer to the cue sheet. Having to stop and dig it out of a pocket every time you need to check it would be a big nuisance, so a cue sheet clip would help a lot. Being able to hang with more experienced riders would also help. They probably won\’t mind helping you learn how to read the cues. If the event in question invariably takes the exact same route, riders who return year after year might not even need printed directions. Personally, I say it would be wise to read over the cue sheet before starting the ride, just to be on the safe side. You don\’t want to be overconfident, and wind up behind the 8 ball as a result. Sometimes you\’ll find yourself riding by your lonesome. Then I, for one, would want to holler: Hey, somebody cue me in!

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MIPS

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  What!? MIPS?? That\’s a weird word. Prithee allow me to explain. Head protection while cycling — or, for that matter, in many sports — is much advised. When head impact occurs, two forces are involved: linear and rotational. Brain injuries of any sort are no joke. MIPS,  or Multi-directional Impact Protection System, is designed to lessen rotational forces to the brain should you crash and your helmet hits the ground. I cringe when I see people riding around on bicycles without helmets. Or riding skateboards and attempting all sorts of fancy tricks, again with no head protection. Or whizzing along on roller blades, or … I can\’t help thinking of what could happen if they land on the ground, and their heads take the brunt of it. When I was a kid, which was a LONG time ago, we never thought of bicycle helmets. Neither did my parents. Long ago, Tour de France riders didn\’t wear helmets. These days that\’s unimaginable. Kids on balance bikes wear helmets. Kids riding as a passenger on a bicycle wear a helmet. Many cycling events won\’t allow riders to participate without wearing a helmet. Times sure have changed! So choose your helmet, and look for the MIPS dot!

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Glad I\’m No Pro!

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Yes, I\’m glad I\’m no pro! One can certainly daydream about being a pro cyclist. Even KOM! Watch a video clip of the Tour de France, and it looks exciting and glamorous. But judge not by appearances. Things are tough all over. Job security is rare these days. We hear of companies going out of business; mergers; downsizing; layoffs. Pro cycling is no exception. It must be hard on pro riders, wondering as each season comes to an end whether they\’ll still have their jobs when next season begins. Not all pro teams have mega-budgets, as we know. Will they retain their sponsors, and/or attract new ones? If not, what next? Even leaving such uncertainties aside, will they stay healthy and injury-free? One crash can end a career in an instant; even a life. Then there\’s the rigorous training: all the planning; being prepared to change, or even scrap, the training plan if need be; core work; stretching; proper diet. Not to mention adequate recovery between training rides! There\’s always the post-pro-cycling stage of a rider\’s life. I imagine it can be difficult for pro cyclists to plan for it when their days are full of training rides, massages, jetting off to do a race halfway round the world, etc. But what will they do when they retire from pro racing? Become coaches, or sports commentators? Turn into professional \”wrenches\”? Oh, and let\’s not forget the drug-testing! Taking an OTC medication for allergy symptoms might result in big trouble, from what I hear. Or eating tainted meat. So I\’m glad I\’m no pro cyclist. The general consensus seems to be that pro cyclists love what they do, and wouldn\’t exchange it for anything else. But I\’d rather stay an amateur.    

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Hot Dogs

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Hot Dogs Hot dogs with mustard. Or with ketchup. With relish. Same old, same  old. Let’s get exotic, and make hot dog tikka masala. I like it that “hot puppies” (as my mother used to call them) are pre-cooked; so I shouldn’t have to worry about salmonella, or E-coli. It also means I don’t have to cook the mixture until the onions are soft, in order to be sure that the “franks” are fully cooked. I prefer the onions to have a bit of crunch. I wish that little video had better sound quality. My voice keeps fading out, but I hope my instructions are clear. I also wish I could try more things from The Feed Zone Cookbook. The trouble is that many of the recipes seem high in fat to me. I’m not a pro cyclist who can burn off those fat calories during a long day of training or racing. In addition, my kitchen isn’t that well equipped. Hot dog tikka masala, of course, isn’t for every day. In fact, I make it only every three or four weeks. If I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll cook up a pot of brown rice and have the tikka masala over rice. It’s good over toast, too; and I like it with a bit of cheese on top. Naturally it’s good all by itself. Or if it all sounds like too much work, there’s nothing wrong with hot dogs with mustard, or ketchup, or sauerkraut…

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It Can Be Rough

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It can be rough being a pro cyclist. For all I\’ve read about it, such a life is no walk in the park. Training, sometimes in the cold and the rain. Pushing hard, but keeping from burning out. Recovery. Keeping tabs on the diet. (It\’s about more than Clif Bars and Zym). Any career has its \”worst part\”. Certainly being a professional ballet dancer does (see at about 0:25 minutes). I suppose that being any sort of pro athlete is similar: your life has to revolve around it. An event such as the Tour de France makes it look like pro cycling is just riding around fast on cool-looking bicycles but, as we no doubt all know, it\’s about much more than that. We don\’t see what goes on behind the scenes: the core work; the stretching; rehab following injuries; and even, so I\’ve read, having to be where doping control personnel can find you at any time for random testing. That last one sounds rather creepy, like Big Brother Is Watching You. Oh, and the rules, Rules, RULES!! So yes, it can be rough. Very rough, indeed! Compared to the life of a pro cyclist, we ordinary riders have it easy, no matter how hard or long we\’re riding.          

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Hear That, Hitchcock?

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Hear That Hitchcock? Did you hear that, Hitchcock? Or you, Rossini? When we think of animal attacks on cyclists, most of us think of dogs before anything else, don’t we? In some regions, I suppose you’d need to keep an eye out for cougars. Or even bears! But attack birds? Oh, yes; with potentially tragic consequences. I had never thought about magpies acting like attack birds. As a matter of fact, I generally don’t think of magpies. There aren’t any where I live. Mockingbirds will swoop at cats and dogs. Many a time I’ve seen one chasing a crow through the air. Mockingbirds will even swoop at people. I had one diving at my head once, and I supposed there was a young nearby. Sure enough, “Junior” started to cry for food about then. This was long before I began riding, which is a good thing. I heard the swoosh of wings several times before I finally caught sight of the bird, and it was a bit unnerving. Maybe that’s what happened in the case of that poor man in Australia; all the more as the magpie is a big bird. So did you hear that, Hitchcock? When you’re out for a ride, don’t forget to Beware of the Birds.

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Climate Ride

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Recently I learned about Climate Ride. It came about towards the end of the Cycle September challenge when, to my surprise, I received an email notifying me that I was a Climate Rider. The message said that, for riding 300 or more miles during the Challenge, I had a 20% discount. It could be used towards any of Climate Ride\’s excursions within the USA. Unfortunately all of these events take place far from home. It would be most ironic if I [GASP!!] used a CO2-belching car to get to a Climate Ride! Another catch is that fund-raising is a major part of Climate Ride events. Even raising $200 (or was it $250?) for Tour de Cure has always been very difficult for me. I know people raise money through Facebook, but I don\’t yet have sufficient traffic for such a venture. There\’s always the training-up aspect. Am I ready for the mileage involved? Some of those rides have days when the distance to be covered is up to, or over, 100 miles. If I could do a Climate Ride, I think I might like to go for either the Bar Harbor or Glacier ride. As to the \”less waste\” part of Climate Ride\’s Mission, how would they feel about riders packing along Clif Bars, GU-Gels, and so on? All that waste packaging!! I can always think about it. Maybe even put a Climate Ride on my bucket list!

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