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SpokEasy

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Behind the Scenes

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Behind the Scenes Let’s take a peek behind the scenes. What all goes on at a Grand Tour race that spectators don’t see? Stage races aren’t merely a group of cyclists deciding on the spur of the moment to race each other to the next coffee shop. Just as a lot goes on behind the scenes in the theatre, a stage race has a lot going on behind the scenes to keep the race up and running. The directeur sportif has a big job on his hands. It sounds like he (or maybe she) has to keep track of many aspects of the race at the same time. The chef/nutritionist, too, has a big job. Not only the riders, but everybody else connected with the team needs to be fed. In particular, the riders are eating practically every minute that they’re awake. They have to, in order to keep fueled; even though they reach the point where continuing to eat feels like force-feeding. Mechanics keep all the bicycles clean and in running order. Considering that each rider is likely to have several bicycles, that’s a LOT of work! Coaches’ work, I guess, is largely done by the time of the Grand Depart. They’re the ones whose guidance hones a rider’s fitness, technique, and so on. The bus driver gets the team from the end of one stage to the beginning of the next. Then there are the soigneurs, team doctors, etcetera. It’s definitely a full cast!

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Brick and Mortar

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Brick and mortar? Who uses them to build a store these days? We hear about the brick and mortar store going the way of the dinosaur. Yes, folks, my long-planned Amazon store is up. I have links to products that Amazon sells all over this web site, both in pages and in blogs. Having all of those products listed in one place would make it much easier for someone who is interested in a specific item, but doesn\’t want to browse through an entire web site. I\’ve been debating whether to group them by category: food and drink, clothing, bicycles, and so on. I keep coming up one idea; discarding it; and developing a new plan. Its sort of like tackling house-building without a blueprint. Nobody needs to be a genius to know that that is not a good idea. I\’m sure I would have to tear down and start over so many times that I\’d ruin all my building materials! No doubt I\’ll be adding new items from time to time. Just like a real brick and mortar store! Incidentally, I hope the \”B&M\” doesn\’t die out in my lifetime.  

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Please Pardon the Hiccups

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Please pardon the hiccups of this site. No — no tippling going on here. I\’m working on modifications to the site, but hope to be done shortly. Thanks for your patience! I\’ve been learning that having a web site is far from build-it-and-laissez-faire. Quite the opposite, in fact. Sometimes links break; sometimes I want to edit a text. I might change my mind about the picture on a slide. And always, the blog posts! It can be easy for me to spend so much time on this editing that everything else (except for cycling) gets pushed aside. I get so busy with it that preparing and eating proper meals is neglected. When I\’m working on a new idea, I\’m frantic to complete it NOW, before I can forget what I planned. Sometimes I do have to stop something mid-stride. After all, I\’ve got to sleep sometime! That\’s where the hiccups come in. So please pardon the hiccups. They won\’t last forever.

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Thor?

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Thor, of Germanic mythology, wielded a hammer. Such was his effect that they named a day after him! Cyclists call riding fast and hard \”putting the hammer down\”. To me that sounds like a sudden, final sprint, when a rider abruptly surges ahead of the others in a dash for the finish line. On the other hand, I\’ve also come across the expression \”hammer away\”, which sounds like riding hard and fast for hour after hour. How good am I at \”Thoring\”? I\’m not sure. I\’ve never really tried to see how much of a sprinter I might be, and I can\’t ride full gas for very long. Low anaerobic endurance, I guess. Or maybe my legs aren\’t as strong as I like to think they are! Maybe my \”force intervals\” count as hammering? Here\’s what I do: I keep shifting into harder and harder gears until my cadence is down to about 50 rpm; then work to push the cadence to 70 rpm; anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute or even a bit longer. It sure is hard on my legs! Sometimes my quads start to burn as soon as I begin the effort. The purpose? I\’m trying to develop better force (aka strength) so that my cruising speed will improve. Hey, that\’s kinda funny. HAMMERING to BUILD strength. Sounds like carpentry, doesn\’t it? But I hope Thor doesn\’t decide to start tossing his thunderbolts while I\’m out there hammering away.    

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Notions

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I sure do get notions. I daydream about doing bicycle tours. I imagine what it might be like to ride day after day, getting to see the country. I have notions about doing more century rides, even if just on my own. I also have ideas, admittedly rather vague, about writing an ebook based on this web site. Now, that\’s an enormous job. IF I do it, it won\’t be finished any time soon. How would I go about developing a small web site into a full-length ebook? Luckily I have all my cycling journals, going back to the early days of the tricycle. Having them should be helpful. Another idea I have is to get a flash drive to use solely for the purpose of composing an ebook. Yes, I have this site\’s pages backed up on a flash drive, but I don\’t want to be mixing up site pages and ebook pages. It sound odd for me to be thinking about doing an ebook anyway, when I\’ve always been one for BOOK-books. Reading from a screen means missing the tactile sensations of holding a book in my hands. I seem to remember things better when I\’ve read actual print. Besides, if the power goes out, I can still read a BOOK-book. A BOOK-book isn\’t likely to break if I drop it, as I suspect an electronic device would. But loath as I am to admit it, it seems as though print books may be drifting down the path to extinction. I wonder, when print books first appeared, did devotees of papyrus scrolls eye them with disdain? And did they ask, who came up with that crazy notion?

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New Product Report

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New product report today: I\’ve tried sun sleeves! I first read about them some time ago, but hadn\’t gotten around to using them. Just before I bought mine, I was chatting about sun sleeves with another rider who was wearing a pair. He said they feel pretty hot when you aren\’t moving; but once you are, you feel cooler for not having the sun directly on your skin. Today I tried mine — on both arms this time! –and found what he said to be true. I pushed for 45 miles this morning, and got in 45.6 miles. To my surprise, my average speed was the same as it was last Sunday when I rode 40.4 miles. I felt very slow on the way home (headwind of 10 mph much of the time); got very tired; and was thinking that 45 miles might be a bit too much. WAS I going for too many miles? Did I need more electrolyte drink? More water?  Good grief, I downed some 3 liters of water during that ride, and over a liter of electrolyte drink. Did I need more food? Maybe I was pushing too hard? Possibly I\’m not acclimated to the heat yet. I saw plenty of wildlife today: an alligator, a small turtle, lots of dragonflies, and a snake. I\’m glad the snake was on the opposite side of the path, and pointed away from me. By the snake\’s color and head shape, I\’d say it was a cottonmouth. I sure don\’t need to get snake-bit! If I did, I\’d be doing another new product report about a snake-bite kit. I\’d rather spare myself that trouble.    

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Here We Go Again

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Yes, here we go again. Oh, that season that nobody living near the Gulf or Atlantic coasts wants! Or, for that matter, any coast. June 1 is the start of the official Atlantic hurricane season. Here in New Orleans we\’ve been lucky since Katrina (2005), but how long will we continue to dodge the bullet? Nobody likes to think about it, but someday we\’ll get walloped again. Before \”The Big Bad K\” came along, we hadn\’t had a direct hit since Betsy in 1965. At that, Katrina wasn\’t quite a direct hit. A last minute jog to the East actually spared us being slammed head-on. If not for the notorious levee breaches, things might not have been so terrible. So what can we do, cyclist or not, to prepare? Lay in supplies! Bottled water. Canned goods of all sorts, such as tuna. Other non-perishables, such as crackers and cereal bars. Don\’t forget to be sure you\’ve got working flashlights on hand, with an ample supple of batteries. I could go on and on. Suppose the threat of a hurricane means you can\’t ride outdoors? Get that trainer set up. Or perhaps a set of rollers. It\’s nice to know that we don\’t have to miss our riding because of tropical weather. Oh, and one last thing: let\’s all hope that the butterfly on the other side of the world doesn\’t flap its wings too hard. If it does, we\’ll be groaning, Here we go again. Another hurricane!

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Carbo-Loading

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Carbo-loading is something we\’re sure to see mentioned when reading up on cyclist training. It\’s important not to run low on glycogen during a ride. Sure, riding a bicycle burns fat; but fat has been likened to the wax of a candle, and glycogen to the wick. A wick-less candle doesn\’t burn very well, does it? Therefore we riders need carbs. What\’s the method for carbo-loading? Back in the 1970s it meant several days of  a very low carbohydrate diet along with intense training, then eating high-carb just before the event. Those days of little glycogen sound miserable to me. Nowadays the advice is to keep to your usual diet, but to increase the percentage of carbohydrate in your diet to 70 percent. You don\’t really need to stuff yourself with pasta, either. There are other nutritious, high-carb foods. I haven\’t participated in enough events, such as centuries, to have any real experience with carbo-loading. When I do my weekly long ride, I take along Clif Bars and GU-Gels as my main food. I also experiment with fig bars, Combos, and so on. I\’m very lazy as far as diet goes, anyway, I really need to get back on track. Maybe I\’ll even try carbo-loading some day.

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No Funny Looks Please

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I want no funny looks, please! For one thing, others\’ funny looks appear just as weird as I do! So don\’t look at me, cat. Day before yesterday the sun sleeves I had ordered online arrived. Today I took them to work with me. When I was ready to come home this afternoon, I rolled up my long sleeves, and put a sun sleeve on my right arm. Yes, that\’s correct; the right arm only. Then I rode home. Looking weird, people might say. Hey, it was an experiment! I wanted to see whether there would be any  difference in the way my arms felt. My right arm did feel a little warmer than the other arm, but the left arm seemed to feel the sun more. I plan to wear both sun sleeves for my long ride day after tomorrow. Then I\’ll probably be better able too say how well they work. The ride home from work isn\’t even three miles. A long ride of 40 or more miles will be a much better test. So next time you see me with only one sun sleeve on (sort of like Deedle-Deedle Dumpling), no funny looks, please. I\’m my own products testing laboratory.

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Fending off the Weather

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Fending off the weather is an inevitable aspect of the cycling life. What cyclist doesn\’t get caught in the rain occasionally? Or, depending on where you live, it might be quite often! Fenders don\’t keep you dry, but they do keep you from getting a dirty stripe up the back of your jersey. That\’s the drawback to my road bike: no fenders. A poncho can keep the worst of the rain off, especially if it\’s not too windy. Unfortunately a poncho can also billow out to the sides, making it difficult or impossible to see what might be coming up from behind. A flapping poncho also slows you down. A rain suit looks like it would offer more complete cover, without the billowing of a poncho. I suspect that a rain suit can get a rider really hot and sweaty; and neither rain suit nor poncho protect the feet. Shoe covers would be nice, especially if it\’s cold. Wet, cold feet make a body quite miserable. Waterproof gloves would also be nice. The problem is, exactly what does \”waterproof\” mean? In the kind of heavy rain we can get where I live, nothing seems to be waterproof! Lights are an important component of cycling gear. That\’s true even in clear daylight. If it\’s raining — especially if it\’s also dark — lights are even more vital. Ever notice how hard it is to see a car that doesn\’t have its lights on in a downpour? A cyclist without lights would be even harder to see. On a related note, a reflective vest is also a good idea; day or night, clear or otherwise. Or maybe forget about fending off the weather, and just ride in the rain; even if you don\’t sing while you\’re at it.

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