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Not Only Wheels

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Not Only Wheels It’s not only wheels that roll in cycling. If you have sore, tired muscles after hard riding, a foam roller can help. Not that I should talk. I haven’t used my foam roller in months; and I really need to get back to it.  The 321 Strong Foam Roller mimics the hands of a massage artist; and you don’t have to leave home to do it. That saves both time and money; and besides, I still don’t think we should let our guard down re: Covid. A good massage might be even better if you follow it up with an epsom salt bath. The plug in my bathtub doesn’t fit right; so I’ll have to skip such soaking. I tried a body scrub made of epsom salt; sea salt; baking soda; and vegetable glycerin instead. It was OK; but it took a lot of rinsing! Getting around to cycling equipment, it’s not only wheels and tires! We need so many things to keep that bicycle rolling: a pump; chain lube; and more. That’s even before we get around to caring for the “engine” — namely, proper nutrition; getting enough sleep; and so on. Getting enough sleep is easier said than done when I want to get up early to ride. Usually I don’t do that on Sundays; but today did it so I could go see the moonlight on the river. It was worth the trouble!

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It Doesn’t Feel Right

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It Doesn’t Feel Right It doesn’t feel right that I couldn’t ride to the salvage store today. With my poor hybrid a wreck, I didn’t have my usual transportation. Public transit would have taken much longer than riding to the salvage story by bicycle; and there’s no transit stop right outside the store. How can I bring home a decent load like that? There’s a small grocery store not quite a mile from here; but just try to carry bananas all that way without bruising them half to death! It’s very frustrating, because I wanted to get some cooking done. I keep catching myself thinking of riding over to that store with a pannier; then I remember that I don’t have the bike! No; it doesn’t feel right at all. I went for a ride with the road bike; then walked over to the bike shop. I test-rode a hybrid; and it’s very nice. Of course it’s stripped down; and I’ll have to buy fenders and a luggage rack. Fenders are a must in a wet climate, especially if you plan to ride to work. Who wants to arrive at the office with a dirty, wet stripe down their back; and wet back hair besides? Let’s hope the bags I have are compatible with the new rack; or I’ll have to buy new ones. The bicycle I plan to buy costs nearly $700; and that’s not pocket change! But I’m afraid I’ll need new panniers before too long, anyhow. The old ones are showing definite signs of wear. Too many heavy loads from the salvage store, maybe. I hope the weather is cooperative tomorrow. There’s  50% chance of rain and/or T-storms; and I don’t want to get caught in bad weather when I’m 20 miles from home! I guess I’ll have to take my chances. Cycle September is on; so I want to get in my miles!

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Rotten Egg

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\”Last one in is the rotten egg!\” So went the shout when a group of kids was racing to see who could reach a goal first; and who would finish dead last. I recall the 2018 Tour de Cure, when I was the rotten egg. I averaged only 12.28 mph; and that\’s not any too fast. Somehow I can\’t seem to make substantial improvement in my pace; and I suppose I\’m too much of a sissy to make the hard efforts I need to get faster. I seem to have made some marginal gain in my speed, but not nearly as much as I would like; and I\’m still a long way from a casual cruising speed of 15 mph! I think part of the problem is that I go out so early on weekdays; and maybe I\’m not really awake enough for a hard workout. On top of that, even after 11+ years of cycling, I haven\’t rid myself of the concern that I\’ll wear myself out too much; and then arrive at work exhausted. They say that one way to get faster is to ride with cyclists who are a few mph faster than you are. I can see the logic in that; but how many riders go out at 5:15 am? The groups that I do see are WAY too fast for me! I\’m not planning any Tour de Cure ride at present. The pandemic is still on; and I\’ve always had trouble finding enough donors to raise my required fund quota. I end up having to cough up the cash myself; and if I do Tour de Cure again, I suppose I can count on being the rotten egg yet another time.

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Debating Team?

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Does the cycling world sometimes feel like a debating team? For example, there\’s the argument over whether or not to shave your legs; especially for men. Proponents say that shaved legs heal more readily in case of road rash; and make massages more comfortable. They say that shaved legs provide an aerodynamic plus; and I agree with the opinion that shaved legs simply look better. I\’ve got a personal question for the debating team; and that is whether I\’m doing my \”training\” wrong! Like so many riders, I have limited time to spend on the bike; and we time-crunched cyclists must make the best of what time we do have. I’m not sure I’ve been making good use of my time, because it’s taken several years for me to get marginally faster! I\’m sure the debating team is arguing about the best on-bike food. Some cyclists are all for energy bars; and other riders argue for real food, à la Feed Zone. I myself have drifted into the energy-bar camp; and over the years have tried a number of different products. My food for the weekly long ride has to be compact in size; calorie dense; and easy to carry. Once I tried taking along a sandwich, cut into quarters; and it was simply too bulky to be practical. The debating team can tear into everything from roadie shoes versus MTB shoes; to rice cakes versus Clif Bars; to training with power versus training with heart rate. The list goes on and on! It\’s all too much to keep up with. I\’ll leave the arguing to the debating team; and keep using what works for me.

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Not Depression Food

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Not Depression Food My ride food sure is not depression food. Just check out this video! Some of those things do sound weird; maybe because I’ve never had to desperately scrape together whatever I could find in order to eat at all (spoiled, aren’t I?). And hunger, as the old saying goes, is the best sauce. The segment beginning at 5:55 did give me an idea. “Mulligan Stew” sounds considerably more palatable than “garbage soup“! I guess that the foods that I use for on-bike fueling were undreamed of in the 1930s; hence they’re not depression food. I do get things like FitCrunch bars on the cheap whenever I can (grab-bag bin finds at the salvage store); and economizing was certainly something that people had to do during those bleak Depression years. Maybe my ride food isn’t quite as un-depression as I think? Yesterday evening I planned today’s ride food; and I got my drinks ready. And, of course, checked the weather. The forecast predicted 73 degrees at 7 am; and up to 82 degrees by 11 am. Skies, mostly sunny to partly cloudy. I didn’t like the wind forecast. I think that 14 mph is pretty strong; and a South wind seems to give me headwind trouble both going out and coming back. Bare legs, of course, meant I had to use a lot more sunblock. By the time I was back home, I had applied four layers! Often I don’t bother to wash it off; but my skin feels better if I do. Now my thoughts are turning to lunch. I haven’t decided what to eat; but not depression food.

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$10 a Day

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$10 a Day is one former pro\’s story of how he bought his first bicycle, just so he could get places; and his rise to the pro ranks. I first encountered this book through Google searches about becoming a pro cyclist. Sure, I knew I was much too old to be entertaining any notions about turning pro; but I was curious. First I read the excerpts from $10 a Day that were online. I thought they were interesting; and eventually I got the book from a library so I could read the whole thing. It\’s been a few years, so my memory is now hazy; but $10 a Day shows that pro cycling is not all glamor and glory. For instance, I believe the book mentions a Summer spent in a stink-bug infested house where the author\’s team was training. Not for me, thank you! I think I\’ll stick with being an amateur. So what if I still look like a rookie? And, if you\’re on a pro cycling team, do you get to choose what you\’ll eat on the bike? Maybe; but as an amateur I have complete freedom. I can plan for Fit Crunch bars, RXBars, whatever. $10 a Day is available in both print and kindle versions.

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Scratching out Tradition?

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I\’m scratching out tradition; or I thought I was. Yesterday I got my \”New Year\’s\” dinner: Chinese take-out in the form of General Tso\’s Chicken combination plate. There\’s an old saying that, if you want to move forward in the New Year, you should eat pork for New Year\’s. If you eat chicken, supposedly you\’ll go backwards all year. This stems from the foraging habits of pigs and chickens. The pig pushes forward when looking for food; but the chicken scratches backwards. I\’m not too concerned about that; and I prefer chicken to pork or ham, anyhow. Besides, we\’re neither going into the Year of the Pig; nor just leaving it. Come to think of it, the Chinese New Year 2021 falls on February 12 of the Western calendar. Ergo it\’s not New Year\’s yet! So my having had General Tso\’s Chicken for dinner doesn\’t count — right? Besides, today I saw that I\’m not scratching out tradition entirely. I rode to the salvage store this morning. I though I\’d get some hot dogs; and while looking at them, I found single-serve packets of thin-sliced ham. I got one so I can make a ham sandwich on January 1. I\’m glad I went to the store today. As tomorrow is New Year\’s Eve, it might be pretty crazy. They might well be closed for New Year\’s (I forgot to check for that); and Saturday it will be much colder than it was this morning. I sure got the wind on the way home today, though. It got as strong as 20 mph, with some much stronger gusts. I was thankful that I wasn\’t hauling the trailer! I would have had to granny-gear it all the way!

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Reschedule?

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Must I reschedule my breakfast time? For the longest time, my usual weekday-morning thing is to eat something small, e.g. a banana, before I go out on the road bike. When I get home afterwards, I eat \”real\” breakfast. But after a ride, especially if I did intense efforts, I usually don\’t want a large meal right away. That causes complications on the days when I must go to work on-site. I have only half an hour to forty-five minutes to fix and eat breakfast; dress to go to work; and then head on out. If I do eat a large meal then, I have to gulp it down too fast for comfort. I feel overly full and bloated afterwards. But a small meal won\’t hold me over until my morning break; much less until lunch time! Reschedule breakfast so I have a full meal before I ride? Uh, no, I don\’t think so. A big meal 15 minutes after I roll out of bed doesn\’t sit very comfortably in my stomach; and can get a lot more uncomfortable if I do on-bike force exercises! I keep snacks at my desk; and try to leave them alone unless I really need something to eat. Now that I have pre-diabetes and must be carb-conscious, I have to watch what I eat for snacks. Too many easy-to-grab items are chock-full of carbohydrates, and not the good kind. We really aren\’t supposed to eat at our desks, and that\’s another limitation. Plain carrot sticks are permissible, I guess; but no hummus! I\’m very much looking forward the holiday break (we get two full weeks this year!), when I don\’t have to rush off to work post-ride. Then I can have real breakfast!

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What\’d I DO?

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What\’d I do in the last day or two prior to Tour de Cure? Was I carbo-loading, or not? For months now I\’ve been watching the carbs, working to limit them to 150-200 grams per day. The objective is to get my A1c levels back down below the pre-diabetes range. At the same time, I\’ve been watching the calorie intake. But there I was, with a 62-mile ride looming. Two days before the event, I went overboard with the \”bad\” carbs; the biggest offender being a large chunk of cake! On the other hand, my meals that day included quinoa, sweet potato, and cauliflower. Those are good carbs; and unless I miscounted somewhere, the day\’s total carb count was 192 grams. My carb count yesterday reached 212 grams; that\’s a lot! The banana and Bald Eagle were OK. Tempeh isn\’t bad for carbs; it\’s at least twice as dense in texture as firm tofu, so I\’m not surprised that it has about double the carb count. Unfortunately I ate bad carbs, too; will I never learn to tame my sweet tooth? Today I rode the 62-mile Tour de Cure, and did I ever chow down the carbs during those hours of pedaling! In total, 181.5 grams! But during long rides I need the quick fuel. I\’m drifting away from Clif Bars; they\’re very high in carbs, and just as low in protein. My nutritionist advised me to look for energy bars that have at least 8-12 grams of protein, and RXBars fit the bill quite well. What\’d I do? I took along four RX Bars, plus two other energy bars, as on-bike food today. I also ate three GU-Gels during the ride. THAT was some carbo-loading!

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Buzzwords

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Buzzwords are all around us. Sometimes, I admit, they\’re as annoying as a mosquito buzzing around my ear. On the other hand, such lingo has its place. So, how about come cycling buzzwords? Athena? It\’s lucky my weight doesn\’t fall into that category, or I\’d be in a LOT of trouble. But even if it did, it wouldn\’t have to mean I couldn\’t ride. See also Clydesdale. Bibs aren\’t only for infants. These shorts with built-in suspenders have some advantages, such as no waist band digging into your middle when you\’re riding on the drops. Bonk? We don\’t want to go there, so we must keep ourselves fueled during long rides. Ride food alone can set anybody\’s head to whirling, thinking of RXBars, GU-Gel, and so on. One step at a time! Try one new food or drink per long ride; or better yet, test new foods when you\’re not riding. Hammer sounds like something from a carpenter\’s toolkit. If you love pedaling hard and fast in the hard gears, you\’re hammering. But don\’t use a hammer on your frame! LSD doesn\’t necessarily mean street drugs. Long Steady Distance riding helps develop aerobic endurance. Those are just a few of the terms that get tossed about by cyclists. I suppose a non-cyclist, or a newbie rider, would quickly feel punch-drunk when surrounded by all this lingo. Fear not, you\’ll catch on. After all, they were all newbies once!

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