SpokEasy

SpokEasy

Author name: CAL

As Expected

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As expected, I saw the crescent moon this  morning. Since the full moon was two weeks ago, I knew it would be down to a fingernail-paring crescent today. In order to see it, I had to ride on my usual path, and I had to take a three-quarter mile detour to get to it. A train was just sitting there, blocking the crossing. That most definitely was not as expected! It was a very bumpy ride, too. Many of the local streets are in disgraceful condition. It was worth it in the end. The moon was a beautiful gold color, and I could see the dark part of the moon, which had a faint golden edge. Absolutely gorgeous! On the way back home I could keep an eye (well, half an eye) on the moon. It didn\’t last more than 15-20 minutes, because by then dawn was breaking. I\’m glad there was practically no wind. This wasn’t exactly a recovery ride, but I did want to take it rather easy. I also wanted to get my miles in. Cycle September is almost over. It definitely is a challenge to ride to work every day when I usually take Mondays off from riding. Come October, I think I\’ll take a few days off from cycling. We all need a break sometimes.    

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Dying to Ride

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We\’re all \”dying\” to ride sometimes. On a beautiful day with perfect riding weather, we might be stuck indoors at work; but dying to ride. We all know how frustrating that is, don\’t we? Thinking of that brings to mind cyclists who have met tragic ends while riding, especially those who died during major races. There\’s Tom Simpson, who collapsed and died while ascending Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France. Eighteen years later, Fabio Casartelli died after crashing on a descent and suffering massive head injuries. When I see footage of the pile-ups that sometimes occur during the Tour de France, I\’m amazed that there aren\’t more cases of serious injuries, such as broken legs and even broken necks. I\’m also amazed that such mass crashes don\’t occur more often, seeing how closely packed the peloton is, and how fast they\’re riding. One wrong move can cause disaster. Pro tour riders must be made of exceptionally tough stuff to participate in those races. Physically tough, naturally, but also mentally tough. They know what might happen! We mustn\’t forget that pro cyclists aren\’t immune to eating disorders. It seems hard to believe that. Cycling seems like a way to burn a ton of calories, so that the rider can eat whatever, whenever, and however much. Not so. Undiagnosed, untreated eating disorders can wreck a pro cyclist\’s career. Eating disorders can also lead to death. Let\’s keep our relationship with cycling ( and food) a healthy one, so we can enjoy the ride.  

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Erasure

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There\’s an erasure in progress! For years this water tower has been one of my landmarks during my long Sunday rides; just under 13 miles from home. Or rather, it was one of my landmarks. On September 8, I noticed a big, tall crane next to it. A section of the tank was missing. The following Sunday, the crane was still there; and most of the tank was gone. Sunday next: part of the underside of the tank remained, and the legs. How soon before it\’s totally gone? I thought that perhaps the water tower was getting unstable in its old age; I suspect that it\’s at least 50 years old. If so, leaving it there would have been hazardous. The dismantling work has to be done slowly, no doubt, for the safety of the workers. In addition, that tower is surrounded by residences. I mentioned this to a co-worker who happens to live out that way. She found an online article about three water towers that were being dismantled because they\’re no longer needed. This \”gingham tower\” (as my mother used to call these red-and-white-check water towers) is among them. I took this shot during a ride two years ago. I guess I\’d better not weed it out of my Photo album. If I did, my old landmark would, indeed, be a total erasure.  

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Changing Tactics

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Should I be changing tactics? It’s now almost two years since I began doing weekly on-bike force exercises. These efforts seem to have had at least some effect. It’s easier to push my pace several miles per hour faster than I could go before I began those little intervals. But I think it’s time I let those force exercises go for a while, and focus more on just plain riding faster, now that I seem to have better strength for it! To begin, I’ve started pushing for 16 mph or more for a minute at a time, with two minutes of easier riding in between. Do it three times, and ride easy for 5-10 minutes before starting another set. However, I’d better not continue to use that approach. These intervals require some conscious effort to hold to the higher pace, but to be honest, they’re only “sorta hard”. If I’m really to improve my pace, I must either make the intervals longer, or harder, i.e. do them in a harder gear. Or maybe perform some of the intervals longer, and others harder? Would such an approach let me work both fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers? This is the point I need to have been at when I began working up to  my last Tour de Cure . I would have had more than a year to work on improving my pace. Well, now maybe I can work on increasing my speed, because I seem to have improved my strength a bit. Changing tactics seems to be a non-stop continuum.

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Lycra or Loose?

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Snug lycra, or loose-fitting clothing? I\’m inclined to agree with the statement that whatever you want to wear while riding a bicycle is up to you. If you want to ride in white tie and tails on the hottest day of the Summer, OK. Prefer a bikini? If you go for that look, be sure you wear lots of sunblock. At the same time, \”Which is best?\” is a reasonable enough question. Lycra? Or baggy? Snug-fitting lycra cuts down on wind resistance, which I can really appreciate; especially during long rides. It\’s not the most fun thing in the world to be battling a headwind mile after mile while your clothes flap around you. Lycra shorts don\’t bunch up under you, which makes longer rides far more comfortable. On the other hand, if you\’re carrying some extra pounds, lycra does make it more obvious! If you\’re self-conscious about that, lycra shorts and jerseys might not be for you. (I just try harder to hold my stomach in!) Baggy clothes, I find, don\’t matter if I\’m only riding to work. It\’s a nuisance to have to hole up in the restroom to change clothes, anyway. The \”air freshener\” in those places chokes me! Riding to the store? Lycra or loose depends on the weather. If it\’s hot, and my destination is more than a half-mile away, I\’ll wear cycling shorts. In cooler weather, regular shorts (i.e. \”loose\”) will do. Again, it comes down to personal preference, but as to lycra or loose, I tend towards lycra.  

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Stereotypes

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Stereotypes abound in this world. Such-and-such are \”always\” thus-and-so. If you aren\’t a cyclist, do cyclists bug you? Do they all seem to have been cut from the same cloth? To this list, I can add a thing or two: Cyclists who ride in the dark sans illumination, even when it\’s foggy or raining as well as dark. I feel like bawling at them to  GET! SOME! LIGHTS!! In fact, such riders/joggers are what provoked me to move up to a 500-lumen headlight. And to put it atop my helmet as well. I can see much better that way. Cyclists who ignore stop signs and red lights aggravate me, too. Once I saw two grown men on bicycles almost get hit by a car because they had run a stop sign. One of those riders even banged his fit on the car\’s hood. What was he mad about? HE ran the stop sign! How about pro cyclists? Aside from the lean, hard, tanned pro-cyclist bodies that we\’re used to seeing in the Tour de France, are there other stereotypical things about pros? Can bicycles even be polarizing? I\’m not one of the very poor, thank goodness, but I\’m far from being among the well-off; never mind the VERY rich. Want to think I\’m dirt poor when I\’m riding the hybrid? Or rich, when I\’m on the road bike? I don\’t know what we can do to erase such stereotypes, except to keep riding; and show that cycling is for everyone.

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Cycling Takes Off!

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Cycling takes off?  I\’ll bet Orville and Wilbur would have loved it. But at Kitty Hawk it was probably beyond all imagining. The Gossamer Albatross, you might say, brought things full circle. The Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics; and they built, and flew, the first successful heavier-than-air flying machine. The Gossamer Albatross, which took off some 76 years later, was pedal powered. Thus cycling took to the air. It\’s staggering for me to think of putting out 300 watts at all, never mind keeping it up for well over two hours. And with a weight of 220 pounds! That must have been one tremendously strong cyclist. How might I fare trying to take cycling to the air? I probably wouldn\’t be able to get the unloaded Gossamer Albatross off the ground. I have no idea how many watts I can produce, but I\’m quite certain it\’s not any 300. Even supposing I could effect a take-off, how long could I remain aloft? Would I be able to deal with headwinds? They\’re hard enough on the ground; would they be worse while flying? And — perish the thought! — what if I were to suffer a bird strike? I\’m no Sully, after all. Cycling takes off? I think I\’d better continue to keep my wheels on the ground.  

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Flying High

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Wouldn\’t we all like to be flying high? Like an eagle? Or perhaps soaring aloft under our own power, as in the Gossamer Albatross? At any rate, we\’d all like to be flying down the road. I\’m not that fast, but what does it matter? I saw a bald eagle today! I was still about six miles from home, and saw that I would need to re-apply sunblock in about 20 minutes. I knew I couldn\’t get home that fast, so I stopped. I was busily rubbing on the sunblock when I looked upwards and saw the eagle. Even though it was flying high, I could still discern that tell-tale white head. After getting home and having a snack; working on blogs for a while; washing dishes and today\’s cycling clothes; and eating a sandwich (I was already hungry again!), I turned to YouTubes of national anthems. I enjoy seeing the national flags — Kazakhstan\’s is beautiful blue! —  and listening to the music. The anthems\’ moods range from elegiac to martial, and everything in between! Getting back to the eagle, does the edge of  each bald eagle\’s \”hood\” have a distinctive pattern? It wouldn\’t surprise me. After all, each zebra\’s stripe pattern is unique, just as human fingerprints are.  

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Long Way to Go

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Long Way to Go Do you ever feel like this cat? I have a long way to go before I’m ready to shoot for another 100-mile day. This morning I felt like this cat. Tired; sleepy; and do-I-really-want-to-ride? But Cycle September isn’t over yet; so I prodded myself out of bed and went for a long ride. In fact, I added a few extra miles over the long-ride distance that I’ve done the past two Sundays. Forty miles still seems like a long, tough ride; especially with a headwind all the way home. I had to make about four extra stops! If I have any idea of doing another century, I’ll need to work up to weekly long rides of 60-70 miles first. I have to improve my stamina, so that I can ride longer before needing to take rest stops; and increase my pace as well. And do not, of course, forget about training the gut! My right hamstring has been feeling strained, so for the most part I stayed off the big ring and in lower gears today. I didn’t try to push the pace, which meant my average speed was barely over 11 mph. But when I need to, even in lower gears, I can crank it up to 18 mph! Such a pace, of course, isn’t necessary for me to do a century ride on my own. If it were, I’ve sure got a long, LONG way to go!

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How Risky Is It?

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Just how risky is it to be out riding when there\’s a T-storm snooping around? About two weeks ago, I walked outside on my lunch break, with plans to get something to eat at a nearby convenience store. I had gotten only a few yards from the door of the building when an ear-splitting ka-POW!! broke loose. I hadn’t noticed anything to indicate lightning, either. I marched right back indoors, where luckily there’s a PJ’s, and got a spinach croissant. But what happens when you’re out on a bicycle, miles from home, and a T-storm breaks out? Keep on riding, and hope for the best? Exactly how risky is it to do that? Stop if there\’s a place where you can get a bit of cover? See here for some tips. Reading that article reminded me of the time I was caught in a T-storm on the hybrid. I got the \”full treatment\” that morning: lightning, heavy downpour, and stiff wind. It was an experience that I\’m not eager to repeat. Now that we\’re advised that, if you can hear thunder, you\’re close enough to the storm to get hit by lightning. Thanks to that, being outdoors and hearing thunder makes me more uneasy than it did six or seven years ago. I suppose we\’ll just have to \”play it by ear\”, and let our ears tell us when we need to come in out of the rain — and out of lightning\’s reach.  

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