SpokEasy

SpokEasy

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A Little List

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I\’ve got a little list, like Koko of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. I love Gilbert and Sullivan! Sir Arthur Sullivan composed delightful music; and as for Sir William Gilbert, he had a way with words if ever anyone did. When I go grocery shopping, I\’ve got a little list; and if I didn\’t, I\’d forget half of what I needed to buy! And then there\’s this kind of list. For some years I\’ve enjoyed making my own additions to such lists. Earlier ones that I saw did not include the item about using hand signals while walking along the sidewalk, an addition that I had made. I can make this amendment, too: You\’re in the grocery store, pushing along a cart. You want to get past somebody, and instead of saying, \”Excuse me, please\” you\’re feeling around on the cart\’s handle for a bell to ring! Or you keep thinking you\’re wearing your bicycle helmet even when you aren\’t. And this freakish one: you sit down on something that\’s not your bicycle\’s saddle, and are surprised that it doesn\’t feel like that saddle. It reminds me a little of something I read about Dick Button, I believe it was. One day, while not on the ice, he suddenly felt unsteady. He then realized that he felt more confident on ice skates than off! Maybe we can add \”You\’d rather ride a bicycle across a frozen lake than walk around the lake\” to the list?

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Drink Up!

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Drink up; but is plain water best while on the bike? I\’ve read plenty about drinks for cyclists doing long rides. I\’m not sure I\’ve ever tried a carbohydrate variety. Zym, my preferred non-water, on-bike choice, is non-carb. I\’m not sure that I really need a carb drink. I\’m not out there doing pro-level training; and I\’m not doing long, intense rides. I get the impression that carbohydrate drinks are best reserved for very long rides of 100 miles or more; especially if you\’ll be pushing the pace hard. Maybe they\’re a little easier on the stomach than solid food. When I\’m doing a hard workout, I notice that my stomach starts to feel  uncomfortable. That\’s to be expected, I guess. It seems that everything I\’ve read about cyclist training says that, while you\’re riding, your blood gets diverted to your legs; heart; and lungs. That leaves much less blood for your stomach, compromising digestion; and makes training  your gut vital when you\’re working up to long rides. Training the gut also includes fluids. It\’s easy to say, \”Drink up\”; but if I drink too much liquid while on a long ride, my stomach starts to feel \”sloshy\”. That\’s uncomfortable at best; so the trick is to drink enough that I don\’t dehydrate, but not so much that my gut approaches the edge of queasiness. Yet another way in which cycling is a balancing act!

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Fartlek

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Fartlek, despite its off-color sound, doesn\’t fall into the \”unprintable\” category. It derives from the Swedish for \”speed play\”. I first encountered \”fartlek\” in reference to cross-country skiing. It\’s rather like a song I heard as a young child: \”Giddy-up, giddy-up little pony/Now walk a little while\”. Speed play is very similar; whether on skis or on a bicycle. Incidentally, this predates My Little Pony® by many years. It was from a kiddie book that my brother had, about a little boy named Billy who got a pony. A rider doing an interval workout is performing speed play, too. The intervals might be very fast and hard; and the time between them very slow and easy. A cyclist who is out on a casual long ride also might goes fast or slow at whim. Maybe I should try that when I\’m out on a Sunday long ride; instead of trying to maintain a steady pace! In a sense, you could say that we perform fartlek all day long! Sometimes we walk fast; and at other times we drag our feet. We might run like heck to catch the bus before it pulls away from the bus stop. There you have it. Play with your speed, and have fun!

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The Numbers Are In

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The numbers are in! To be precise, my Cycle September numbers are in. I logged my rides in the Love to Ride site all month; and today I checked to see what my total was. The number given was 542 miles. I was surprised, because I didn\’t think it was really that much.  I dug into my pen-and-paper cycling journal to double check that figure; and I came up with a total of 521.23 miles. Then I remembered: when I log rides online for such challenges, the numbers are automatically rounded off. For instance, 14.6 miles becomes 15 miles. Those extra few-tenths of miles, like pennies, can really add up! Now that the numbers are in, I\’m back to my usual routine; and take Mondays off from bicycles. I think it\’s good for me to have a day away from riding once a week. My legs can recover better from the long Sunday ride. Did anybody out there do the Cycle September challenge? How did it go?

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More Power to You

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More power to you if you can generate enough wattage to light up the world like this. I doubt that I\’ll ever be able to do it! I do hope that I\’m improving my power on two wheels. That was the point of beginning \”force\” exercises last November, well in advance of Tour de Cure. My earliest such efforts were limited to 10 seconds of tying to pedal 70 rpm in a very hard gear. Initially, it took most of those 10 seconds for me to get my cadence up to 70! Over the months, I\’ve very gradually increased the length of those intervals. It took until about August for me to really see some effects of those hard efforts. The faster a cyclist can pedal in the harder a gear, the more wattage he or she generates. The longer the cyclist can keep this up, the more distance covered in X amount of time. Thus I\’ve been working at riding for longer and longer on the big ring, and smaller cogs. On days when I\’m working against a headwind, I catch myself longing for a power meter. (I\’d rather have a crank-mounted type, if I could find one; I still don\’t feel ready for roadie shoes and pedals). As I\’ve seen stated in so many sources, speed isn\’t necessarily the best way to measure your progress. Factors such as terrain and wind can skew your speed quite a bit. But power? If you\’re generating X amount of watts, it\’s X amount of watts, whether you\’re laboring up an hors cate´gorie mountainside, flying along on a flat road, or battling a 20 mph headwind. If you can generate megawatts against such a wind, more power to you. Or should I say, more power from you?  

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More Culinary Adventures

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I\’ve been up to more culinary adventures. Every few weeks I get a hankering for macaroni and cheese; and here is what I like to do. I fill a 2-quart pot about halfway with water; and put it on the stove over a very low flame. The water heats while I get the other ingredients ready. I drain and flake the tuna.  I open the can of peas; drain it; and measure out 1/2 cup. I put the peas with the tuna until it\’s time to add them to the macaroni. The directions on the box say to use 4 tablespoons of margarine or butter; and 1/4 cup milk. I use 1 tablespoon of olive oil; and 1/4 cup plain, low-fat yogurt. I also prepare some freshly-ground white pepper and parsley flakes. When the \”mac\” is cooked to my liking, I remove the pot from the stove; but leave the burner on very low. I drain the macaroni in a colander and return it to the pot. Then I add the olive oil; pepper and parsley; the yogurt; and the contents of the cheese-powder packet. I return the pot to the stove, stir until the cheese powder is well mixed in, and stir in the peas and tuna. When I have olives on hand, I like to slice up about six of them and add them to the mix. Voila! A cheapskate version of Pasta with Smoked Salmon (The Feed Zone Cookbook, pg. 227). When I\’m hungry after a long Sunday ride, this makes a nice lunch; with enough left over for lunch (or breakfast!) the next day. And there are always more culinary adventures out there! Note: this isn\’t an endorsement of the brands shown here; it\’s what I have on hand at the moment.

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YES!!

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Oh, yes; it was good today. \”Ja\”, pronounced \”yah\”, is German for \”Yes\”. And today\’s ride got lucky. The sun almost came out at one point; but the overcast remained. The rain held off, however, which makes me happy. When it\’s overcast on a hot day, of course it keeps me cooler. I don\’t need quite as much water or electrolyte drink. The wind got as strong as 10 mph; and, wouldn\’t you know, was against me on the way back home. In spite of that, my average speed was slightly higher than that of last Sunday\’s long ride. When I got the headwind, I stayed on the small ring and used a high cadence. I think I need more such low gear/high cadence work. It makes me feel a bit short of breath; and it also makes my legs feel funny. I\’ve developed the habit of doing much of my riding on the big ring, and maybe my slow-twitch muscle fibers have gotten shortchanged. Mileage, 51.60! It was tiring when I had the headwind; but I\’m not exhausted. Things seem to bode well for Tour de Cure!

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Dark vs Light

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                      Dark vs light? Which is better for riding? I ride in the dark is on a regular basis. During the work week, it\’s the best way for me to be sure I get to ride. In hot weather, when the afternoon heat index is over 100 degrees, I don\’t want to try to ride at 5:00 pm. There are advantages to riding so early in the day. During the Summer, it\’s cooler early in the morning. I\’ve seen many a beautiful moonset; and I don\’t need sunblock.  The drawbacks: come Winter, it\’s colder before the sun comes up. I also have to be much more attentive to where I\’m going than I do in the daytime; especially if it\’s foggy or raining. I must always be  sure my lights are properly charged. Riding in the daytime is a very different thing. I don\’t have to be nearly as concerned about other path users. They\’re far easier to see. Of course I can see much farther ahead than I can in the dark. It could be argued that I don\’t need to use lights in the daytime; but I do. Cars with no headlights are hard to spot in broad daylight; so how much harder it must be to spot a bicycle with no lights! The downsides: I need sunblock; and it needs to be reapplied every 80 minutes. Especially in Summer, I need to start early so that I can be home before the worst of the heat. That means no sleeping in; even on Sunday! Even if I start a 50-mile ride before 7:00 am, it\’s blasting hot before I finish. Dark vs light is analogous to the \”heat vs cold\” debate (see Archives, 05/07/18). Cycling is a balancing act in more ways than one.

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Flip of the Coin

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Another flip of the coin! We\’ve gotten another one of those \”50% chance of showers and thunderstorms\” forecasts; for both tomorrow and Sunday. One way to think of it is, \”is the glass half-full\”. Maybe it won\’t rain. There might be blazing sunshine all day. Then again, it might pour; and bring lightning with it! That makes me very uneasy; and I feel like a rolling lightning rod. Bicycling, like life in general, is a a gamble. When you go for a ride, you get what you get as far as weather is concerned. Forecasts aren\’t always accurate, as cyclists know only too well. The weather can change very rapidly, too; and a ride that began in the sunshine can end in the pouring rain. Hence the reference to flip of the coin!

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A Very Special Team

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Well … not that kind of special. But every year, as Tour de Cure approaches, my thoughts turn to a very special team: Team Novo Nordisk. Those folks really are extra special. Living with either type of diabetes must be difficult enough. Imagine balancing the demands of monitoring Type 1 diabetes with the demands that pro cycling makes on the body. It\’s quite a fine line to walk, I imagine. Er, I mean, to ride. If I had diabetes, would I dare to ride at all? I can just see myself blacking out and crashing because I had run out of GU-Gels and my blood sugar has dropped too low. My desire to ride, however, would probably outweigh that concern in short order. Perhaps even against doctor\’s orders! Tour de Cure time is also time to applaud another very special team: the Red Riders. All riders in TdC are on Team Red, but the Red Riders are TdC participants who have diabetes. There are five weeks to go before the local Tour de Cure. Those weeks will zip by in no time. Soon I must get my road bike tuned up. I also must decide what I\’ll take along for ride food that day. There will be rest stops with snacks, so it won\’t be as critical as food for my long, Sunday rides. I want to be sure I don\’t bonk, though. We cyclists must keep the glycogen levels up!

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