Why A Good Bike Fit Matters

I admit it, I've been putting off getting my bike fit. Yes, I know I bought my lovely pink bike a year ago. But I got it to a "good enough" fit by tweaking it here and there and I thought I was just fine. Except that sometimes after a hard ride my left knee would hurt a bit.

My left knee, by the way, is my "good knee", not the one I injured last year. The fact that it was hurting was maybe not such a good sign. But it was rare, and mild, and.... well, I just kept putting it off. But then hubby got a terrific bike fit from our local bike store, Collin's Cycle Shop and it made a big difference for him and so I finally found the time to fit it in.

Wow. So glad I did. For one thing Jay, my fit technician, could show me on the video exactly why my left knee was hurting. It wasn't tracking straight (the right one was). He got that fixed, and in the meantime adjusted my saddle, stem, cleats on my shoes, aerobar angle and position, and many other things. All along the way he measured me, my flexibility, the bike, my positioning, and explained what he was doing and why. It took a good 2 hours or more, and when I came out I felt much better on the bike.

So this last week I've been taking the new fit for a spin. Let's just say I loved my "Pinkalicious" bike before, but now it's like I got married to it. After a couple of shake-out rides, I set out with some friends on Tuesday to the local time trial course. I only did a 20 minute TT, about half of the 15 mile course, but I managed to average over 21 mph (without my aero helmet, wheels, or anything) and felt great. I felt like I was able to deliver more power to the pedals with less effort than ever before.

So, bottom line: Bike Fit Matters. It matters for comfort, speed, injury prevention, biomechanics, and just pure enjoyment of your ride. It's not cheap - a good bike fit usually costs $200 - $350. But considering how much we bike nuts usually invest in other doodads for our two-wheeled loves, it's an investment well worth making.

An Open Letter to Male Cyclists

Drafting behind an unsuspecting female cyclist: just don't do it.

There's no nice way to say it - following a female cyclist closely enough that she can hear your heavy breathing in her ear is Creepy. Creepy with a capital C. Now if you know her, and you're rolling in a pack on a group ride, or you're in a draft-legal race, that's different. But when she's toodling along the bike path and she unexpectedly hears you huffing and puffing behind her.... yep, creepy.

For clarification,
Drafting:

Stalking:

For the second time in as many weeks, I've passed another cyclist on the path only to have him latch onto my rear tire like a blood-starved leech. Now normally I try to maintain a very sedate pace on the path. For one thing, I don't think it's safe to go over about 16 mph when there are kids on trikes, dogs on invisible extend-o-leashes, drunks weaving all over the path on their bikes, and people riding while doing all manners of things from texting to kissing their girlfriend. Yes, I saw ALL of those things on my ride today. Really.

Now I know there are roadies and triathletes out there who think that the bike path is the cosmic proving ground where they can show how awesome they are by riding 25 mph on their drops or aerobars, but I'm not one of them. I usually use the path as my warm up or cool down and wait until I hit the open road to unleash the quadriceps. So when I passed Creepy Bike Commuter Guy with his corduroy pants tucked into his white tube socks and his coolio fixie with the straight handlebars and loaded messenger bag, he must've been going no more than about 12. A casual "on your left" from me, and he was gone in my rear view mirror, or so I thought.

Two minutes later, I hear this odd sound, like a rasping noise. I think it's coming from my rear wheel - maybe a candy wrapper or leaf got stuck to it? I look down and back, don't see anything. Keep going. Now I hear another weird noise, like a whale surfacing in the ocean with a big wet blast of air. What the heck, have I blown my tire? Look down again: nothing. The noise starts coming regularly, and I just about grab my brakes to pull over. Lucky for me I don't because this time when I look back, I notice something odd: another tire about three millimeters from my own. Yep, it's Creepy Commuter Guy, taching himself out to the redline to keep on my back tire. Ugh.

Luckily, this wasn't anything that a quick acceleration to 25 mph couldn't fix. A few minutes of putting the hammer down and he was gone like a bad dream. But the point remains, that if you're a woman it can feel kind of eerie to have a guy following that close behind you. Oh I know, if you're a man you might be rolling your eyes right now. The guy was probably just trying to get a draft, a free ride. Or perhaps show he fast he could be by hanging onto a triathlete's wheel for awhile. I'm sure there was some rational explanation. But the problem is, when you're a woman, you inevitably run into creepy guys at regular intervals in your life. This blog post by UnWinona sums up what many women face on a daily or weekly basis. If you think she's exaggerating, I can assure you that she's not. This stuff really happens. And guys really do follow you or keep pestering you, even when you've told them you're married or asked them to leave you alone.

So if you're a nice guy, and I bet you are if you've read this far, pass that draft on up and wait for the next male cyclist to come your way. Or if you really want to race, find a local time trial or crit and test your legs that way like a real man. But leave my rear tire alone. Thank you.

Countdown to Ironman, Week 11: Bike Shopping

I have now been a triathlete since 1986, and in that 26 (gulp!!) year span of time I have had just three bikes. I loved each of them in their own way.

My first, a steel Peugeot that was solid and steady, probably only had about 12 gears but it got the job done. I toured on that bike, raced on it, rode up my very first big hill, my first sprint and Oly distance races, and my first 50 mile day. When I finally upgraded to my first real "tri" bike, I kept it and loaned it to friends for their first triathlons, and to a teenager who did his first bike tour on it. It was a trusty steed that saw decades of service.

By 1990, I was a serious young triathlete. So when the Giant Cadex came out with that there new-fangled carbon frame stuff, and those gigantic Scott DH aerobars, well I just had to have me some of that brand new technology. Yes, I've been riding on aerobars for over 20 years now. No wonder my neck has a permanent crick in it! Wow, just look at the size of those enormous bars! And the round back in my rather upright aero position. Ah well, it took me to some of my first victories and gave me a decade of triathlon memories.

Then, in an extremely Blonde Moment, I inadvertantly drove into my garage with my bike still on the roof of the van. Whoops. That was the end of one carbon Giant frame. For a season, I was reduced to riding hubby's steel Bianchi touring bike with clip-one aero bars. Not the most comfortable or fastest ride, and it's my least-favorite shade of yellow. But it let me carry on. Luckily, my homeowner's insurance chipped in on a new ride, so I went bike shopping and ended up with my next beauty.

This was my current bike, my Quintana Roo Picanti, a titanium-framed tri bike that came out when they merged with Litespeed. When I started shopping, I thought I would be getting the Cervelo P2, which was the talk of the town at that point. But when I rode it, I hated it. And after test-riding seven or eight different bikes, I got on the QR and loved it. It's not the most aero frame, doesn't have a flashy paint job, and isn't the sexiest bike in town. But it fit my odd frame (long legs, short torso) just right, was comfortable, and made short work of the 112 miles of my first Ironman.

Being a mom of two kids who are happily into all sorts of money-sucking endeavors (a million dance classes, camps, sports, and activities), I don't get the chance to upgrade my hardware all that often. And I haven't wanted to spend the money until I saw that bikes had made another large qualitative leap forward in technology. But I think that day has finally arrived. The new generations of frames are considerably different than what I'm riding, and it was time to start thinking about what I wanted to ride next. I resolved to start selling off some of my old toys that I no longer use (two motorcycles gathering dust in the garage, three parachute rigs in the closet) and use the money for a two-wheeled speed demon.

So I did my research, and headed to my local bike store to ride what's available around here, then took a road trip to Portland to hit up the triathlon stores and get a wider variety of brands to ride. All in all, I looked at seven different bikes by Specialized, Felt, BMC, Argon, Quintana Roo, Scott, and Cervelo, all in the Ultegra price range ($3000 - $3500).  What did I think of each of these bikes? What two made the final cut? And which one will I be riding next week? Stay tuned!

Triathlon Training Questions?? We've Got Answers!

Questions of the day: Nutrition, training while sick, and road biking vs. mountain biking while training for a triathlon.

Laura is training for the Iron Girl triathlon in Lake Tahoe (and I'm so excited to get to meet her at the race!). But, like anyone relatively new to the triathlon world, she has questions. Since these are things that many people might wonder, I asked her if it would be okay to answer them here, and she agreed. So here's the first one:

The whole topic of nutrition makes my head spin. There are so many different ideas about what is best. My understanding is nutrition should be viewed as fuel for the body yet I am having trouble filling my tank! I am hungry ALL the time.  I graze on wholesome foods during the day but, the hunger comes back within a half hour or so.  Do you know of any foods or perhaps the timing of when I eat that will help me feel fuller longer?  Also, if you know of any foods that seem to do a better job at sustaining energy throughout the day, I would love some ideas. Some days I am wiped out by three o'clock.  I realize this can probably be a tricky question because we are all unique. I would be appreciative of your input on  general nutrition guidelines an endurance athlete should follow.

It's definitely true that nothing besides religion and politics has as many opposing viewpoints as the topic of nutrition! My views on nutrition guidelines can be summed up pretty simply: Eat simple, whole, non-processed foods. If you've followed my journey here from vegetarian to Paleo, you'll know that while I've always focused on a diet of high-quality local and organic foods, I'm also not averse to changing things up to achieve a better and more nutritious eating plan. And recently I've been tweaking my Paleo ways to include more carbohydrates for endurance fueling.

When it comes to hunger, there are some important questions to ask. The first is, are you getting enough calories in? When you start training more, you get more hungry! This seems like such an obvious thing, yet a lot of us get used to "how much food I eat", and are reluctant to eat more than that, especially if we are worried about gaining weight. The fact is, how much you eat is directly influenced by how much you burn. I may eat 30 - 50% more food on a heavy training day than on a rest day, and I'm always amazed at how little I eat on my days with no workouts. It really doesn't take all that much food to keep a sedentary body going, yet it can sometimes take huge amounts of food to fuel an athlete's body. So the first thing to do is to make sure you're eating enough. If you're curious about calories in vs. calories out, you can use an application like Sparkpeople.com or FitDay.com (both of which have Android and iPhone apps) to track how much you're burning (including workouts) and how many calories you're taking in.

The second part of the equation is meeting your body's specific needs. If you're training hard, you are burning through glycogen, which you then need to replenish, hence the need to eat at least a certain amount of carbohydrates. Luckily, carbohydrates also fall fairly high on the satiety index, so they help you feel fuller longer. Sometimes that "empty tank" feeling is simply your body's glycogen fuel stores getting low. I've come to be able to distinguish between what I call "stomach hunger" (the familiar rumbling belly) and "body hunger" which is more an overall sensation of needing fuel.

Many people find that adding more fat to their diet helps them feel full longer. Healthy fats like olive oil and coconut oil are great for this (in fact, I had an athlete friend who swears by a tablespoon of oil when he starts feeling hungry). Now that we are far from the fat scare of the late 1990's ("eating fat will make you fat" was the motto of the Snackwell generation) and hopefully know better, we can make good choices regarding getting fats from great sources like eggs, fish, grass-fed meats, nuts, and seeds. I almost always start my day with two eggs combined with something (veggies, bacon, or coconut/banana are three favorite options) and that helps me avoid the hunger-crazies through the morning.

Hopefully that's helpful and you can avoid that afternoon burn out by fueling your endurance workouts! Next question:

The other thing is biking. I am mountain biker. I love the tranquility of riding in the dirt and through the trees.  Recently, I dusted off my road bike for the first time in three years.  This bike certainly handles the road much better than my moutain bike.  However I am not accustom to riding near traffic!  I need to shake the road riding jitters. Do you have any important road biking saftey or ettiquette tips (besides the obvious like wear your helmet and pray) that I should follow? I just want to be sure that I am not missing any important safety items, especially when I am making left turns or when the bike lane crosses between the right hand turn lane. Also, if I do some of my training rides on my mountain bike will that still be adequate training for the road coarse?  Or will I be short changing myself?

I completely understand - I love being off of the main routes of traffic and I know how nerve-wracking it can be to ride close to cars. My tips are as follows:

1) Wear girlie clothes. Sorry guys, but studies show that drivers are far kinder to female cyclists than to males. They even give them way more room when passing. Anecdotally, I've noticed that when I wear my flowered cycling shirts, I get more consideration than when I wear the green/blue/black team kit. So flaunt your flower power and get some pink/orange/girlie jerseys!

2) Give yourself some room. Unless there's a wide shoulder or bike path, I don't ride right on the edge of the lane. It's useful to take up a little room in the lane, not so much that cars can't get around you, but enough that if you swerve around a stick or rock, or get buffeted by the draft of a big truck, you won't go flinging into the gravel shoulder.

3) Be courteous to drivers and obey traffic rules. Know your state's laws for cyclists (including hand signals) and use them. I always try to send very clear body language to drivers to let them know what I'm doing. A big left arm out, encased in neon yellow is an easy sign that says I'm turning left. Don't make tentative gestures.

4) Wear great reflective gear, blinkies, and lights. A blinkie during the day is even a good idea, and my reflective gear has saved my life in dusk-like riding conditions. For the most part, drivers want to see you, and are happy when you provide an easy way for them to spot you in plenty of time.

As for training on a mountain bike, sure! Make sure you're comfortable on your road bike since the saddle, seat angle, and strain on places like wrists or lower back may be different than on your mountain bike, but go ahead and put in some of your training time on your mountain bike as well. I know the year that my hubby took up mountain biking he became a monster climber on the road bike. It's great training for those hills!

Last question:

What happens when you catch a pesky head cold during training? =(  Can I keep going and watch and see how my body feels? Will throttling back on the training hurt me race day?    

  Taking a few days off to recover shouldn't hurt you much on race day, but more than 4 or 5 might start to have an effect. Generally, I'll train through a light cold, but if I feel it start to go into my lungs or if I'm running a fever, I give it a rest. Also, my sister makes this awesome soup that has a ton of cayenne and garlic in it. If you feel a bug coming on and drink a couple bowls of that stuff, it knocks that pesky cold right outta the ballpark.

An Airbag For Your Head Makes Cycling More Stylish

This goes in the "too good not to share" category. An airbag for your head, instead of a helmet. Because one of the things I really admired when we were in Italy was how glamorous everyone looked while cycling around town. There's just no way to look this stylish when you're wearing a clunky piece of polystyrene on your noggin. Plus there's that whole helmet-hair thing. So far this new technology is only available in Sweden, but we can all hope it gets to this side of the pond soon.

This video is worth watching, not only for the cool crash-sensing airbag for the head, but just for the pure geek factor of watching a crash test dummy endo a bicycle in slowmo.

Worth It After All

We're packing up today to head south to the Reno Air Races tomorrow. It'll be the first time that hubby and I are away from the kids for several days (can you believe it?) and we're picking up my dad along the way to take him with us and celebrate his birthday. You see, my dad's been a pilot for over 50 years, and my earliest memories of airplanes come from our trips to the airport together and flying touch-n-goes in a small plane. When I got my pilot's license, he (very bravely I might add) was one of my first passengers. As I recall, it was a windy day as I was trying to land on the runway at Orcas island and I might've bounced the wheels one or two times along the way, but he was still smiling when he got out. So we share a love of airplanes, and most especially warbirds, that goes back a long time. As hubby is a pilot and a plane nut as well, the three of us are bound to have a great time.

But this does mean that with eleven days to go until my last triathlon of the season, I'll be without my bike for the rest of the week. So I just HAD to squeeze in a ride today. It was late, I had to be at work at 7:15, I had a dance team parents' meeting that went until 6:30, so there was precious little time but I set out anyways. The bike path was under construction, now I had a detour to go around, by the time I hit the country road that I was intending to ride on, I had about twelve minutes left in my ride. Racing the clock and the setting sun. Just enough time to go up and over the one hill at the start of the road and that's about it.

Sometimes in a hectic life, it seems like I have almost, but not quite enough time to get something done. This was one of those days. Sometimes it almost seems not worth it to try and fit something in when what I really wanted to accomplish was longer or more focused. Today, when I got to the top of that hill on the road, feeling just a bit frustrated by my lack of time, I was greeted with the sight of the sun setting over a bend in the river. I never bike on that road so late in the day, so I've never seen it look just that way. Suddenly I began noticing all sorts of different things: the way the air smelled like blackberries warmed by the sun, the fact that I could hear the crickets in the hay fields, the sunset turning the water into molten gold. Being in a familiar place at an unfamiliar time made it all seem new and different, and although the ride was short, it was worth it to go.

Sometimes although we may only have a few minutes to do something, we forget that minutes are all we really have anyways. We let them slip by unnoticed, or we get frustrated. I was lucky today to be reminded to appreciate them no matter what.

What Doesn't Kill You.... Makes You Cry??

It didn't seem like it was going to be that hard of a bike ride today: 42 miles, a lot of hills (but what bike ride around here doesn't have hills??) not a ton of wind (the usual 12 mph afternoon perpetual headwind, no matter which direction you're biking it's there). I knew it was going to be warm, temps have been in the low 90s all week. Who knew it would be almost 100 today? I guess that serves me right for not looking at the weather forecast.

We set out at 12:30, and hit the first hill at 12:35, the second at 1:15, and by 1:45 we were on the biggest ascent: a 700 foot climb of exposed piece of blacktop that was baking under our wheels. This is the point where I should point out that I don't sweat. Also that hubby in his kindness got both of our bikes ready this morning while I was coaching, and he happened to fill both of my bottles with Gatorade. I usually keep one with water to douse myself with since.... I don't sweat. Somewhere along the switchbacking broiler rack of a road, I went from just plain hot to truly hot, then ridiculously hot then dangerously hot. By the time hubby looked back and noticed me struggling and pulled into some shade, I was close to dropping over. Once in the shade, I proceeded to break out in big sobbing ridiculous tears, and then hyperventilate. Good thing hubby keeps a cool head on his shoulders and got me breathing right and poured some water on me.

A long shade break later and I was ready to keep rolling. A stop at a little store later and I had a stock of water to dump on myself. The rest of the climbs (all 1700 feet of them) seemed easy by comparison. It's funny, but I remembered that the only time I've ever cried in a triathlon was (no, not getting my toe dislocated at Ironman Florida) when I did this race in a hellishly hot and windy location in the Columbia River gorge. It was 104 degrees with winds up to 30 mph. The 38 mile bike course took me three hours instead of my planned two, and when I hit the run in that blowdrier I just started crying uncontrollably. Then some lady rescued me with a lawn sprinkler and I managed to finish. I have never DNF'd a race, but that was the closest I've ever come. And I've never not finished a bike ride but I came damn close today. I wonder why I cry when I'm overcome with heat? Panic maybe? I'm not usually a crybaby, but that sure got to me!

Reminder to self: you don't sweat. Take water (plain water) and dump on self repeatedly until normal temperatures have been achieved. Also, don't go out on a hilly ride on the hottest day of the summer in the middle of the afternoon! As I write this at 11:30 at night, it's still 78 degrees outside according to weather.com. I think tomorrow's long run better be at 6:00 am, so I should be going to bed now...

Those Cute Little 650 Wheels

A friend of mine sent me this great link on 650 vs. 700 wheels. It seems like I'm one of the few triathletes out there still riding 650 wheels, and it's true that sometimes it's harder to find tubes and tires for them. For me, it's a real bonus because I have almost no torso whatsoever. No really, I'm not kidding. I look so ridiculous in my white karate gi because the belt is about an inch below my boobs. I have to tug the belt down to my hips just to look normal. And you're supposed to chamber your non-punching hand several inches above your belt, which puts mine somewhere in the vicinity of my armpit. When I was pregnant with each of the kids, I looked like I was carrying a torpedo because my torso is so short. I'm 5/7" and have a 34 inch inseam. All legs. Buying jeans is a nightmare too, but that's another story.

So anyways, I had to buy a bike with a top tube sized for a 10 year old, and then I had to get the absolute shortest possible stem ever made. This is all so that I can reach my aerobars. This is most easily facilitated with 650 wheels, and then I just have to put my seat up ridiculously high because of those legs. In any case, it was cool to read this article, which gives a good techie description of the differences in wheel sizes, why tri bikes were originally switched to mostly 650 and why many of them have switched back to 700. Just thought I'd share.

Things You Don't Expect To See on the Bike Path

There are things I've more or less come to expect to see on the bike path around here. Like gaggles of geese (which can actually be a pretty big hazard), and the occasional snake. When it's a rattler, it's a bit more disconcerting...I'm pretty sure this big guy was a gopher snake, but I wasn't about to get any closer to make sure. He was about four feet long!

Once I even saw a strange parade of big orange crawdads walking down the bike path with their claws in the air (wish I had a photo of that one). But what I didn't expect to see last night as I bombed down the bike path on my way home was an ancient Deadhead-driven bright orange VW van! Kind of like this one, driving straight down the bike path! I told the driver that he was on a bike path (gee, maybe the fact that the path is only as wide as your vehicle and there are no street markings might've been a clue), and he kept insisting that he had read the sign and it didn't say it was a bike path. I think a little bit of ganja might've gone a long way toward that conclusion as well.

I have no idea if or how he get himself off of the path, but I continued on my merry way home. Less than a mile later I came around a corner and almost ran into a cop car, also driving down the path. The officer warned me of a drunk and disorderly transient ahead of me who had passed out across the path and somebody had taken a magic marker to his face and tied his shoelaces together. Apparently he was combative enough that the officer couldn't get him to let him help untie the shoes. So he warned me that he might still be in the path. Luckily he was off to the side by the time I cruised cautiously by. Luckily there were no more strange encounters for the rest of my ride!

Landmarks

Every cyclist and runner has favorite routes: we know their length, we've memorized their contours, we see them in all seasons, all weather, every time of day. We know our times on our routes, they become touchstones to our training. I bet I'm not the only one who has secret names for landmarks along the way. Sometimes these landmarks are associated with time benchmarks so that I know if I'm ahead or behind my goal time when I hit them.

I was out on a ride the other day, one I've been doing for over 20 years. As I passed by some of my own personally named landmarks (Frog Song Hill, Dead Marshes, the Hot Pocket), I thought about the human need to give name and meaning to things. One of my favorite books to take on travels around my home state is the heavy tome Oregon Geographic Names by Lewis A. McArthur. Giving the history behind names of everything from towns (Rome, Oregon was so named because some nearby rock formations nearby looked like Roman ruins) to rocks (there are, not surprisingly, three Haystack Rocks, though the one at Cannon Beach is probably the most famous), creeks (Fiddle Creek was so named because in 1894 two men passed through the area aiming to buy cattle. One broke his leg and they had to hole up in a cabin to wait for it to heal. He wished repeatedly during the time of his confinement for a fiddle to help him pass the time) and rivers (the Rogue river's name has been disputed for years with one camping claiming it came from the French "rouge" meaning "red river" and others saying that's nuts because it's a clear blue-green river that never runs red and that even the French in the area called it "La Riviere aux Coquins" -- or "Rogue River" in French -- after the local Native Americans who the settlers found "troublesome").

Even worse in the geographic names department, I spent my entire youth going to church camp at a place called (I am not making this up) "Dead Indian". Dead Indian Methodist camp was named after Dead Indian Creek, which flows right through the camp. Oregon Geographic Names tells this story: In 1854, some settlers found two dead Rogue River Indians in some deserted wigwams near the creek, and supposed that Klamath Indians had killed them in a fight. They named the stream for their discovery. Fortunately, the camp has now been renamed "Latgawa" after the local Native peoples. In their own language (which they shared with the Takelma who lived in the same region), Latgawa means "those living in the uplands".

As I bike or run or hike through the valleys, hills, and by the rivers of my community, I envision the peoples that walked here before me. I know that they, too, had names for places. Although most of those names are gone, some reminders remain. The Willamette River runs through my home town, and the name comes from an original native place name (although there is much debate about the spelling) that means roughly "where the river ripples and runs fast". Even better, near the river in 2002 the Kalapuya Talking Stones were installed, reintroducing words of the Kalapuya language in a beautiful and artistic fashion. The one I run by most frequently is set in a hazelnut grove and says "Ga-Ach-Li" or "Peaceful in Daylight". There are also stones that say "Kanaa" the "going across place", "Hi-Dwa" - "in a wooded area" and many more. They are tangible reminders that peoples have been walking these trails long before the bike paths of my time, and the hazelnut groves of the white settlers time.

My strangest personal landmark name was on a ride I did frequently when I lived in Washington. The ride went out from my work at Microsoft onto Redmond-Fall City road, I could go all the way up to the incredible Snoqualmie Falls on this ride. Coming back into town, there was a bit of a hill -- not long but short and steep -- and parked at the top in a little gravel turnout there was a worn brownish van with a sign painted on the side that said "Man Bullets". I never stopped to find out what that meant, but it always intrigued and to tell the truth scared me a little. Nevertheless, that became "Man Bullets Hill", even long after the van disappeared.

My place names keep me connected to the world around me. My rides and runs are not just about paces, lactic thresholds, and when to eat a gel or powerbar. They are about being in contact with the greater world, seeing the green peacefulness of the forest overhead, hearing the birds, tasting the water in the air from a creek running hidden beside the road.

And what about you, do you have personal names for places that you run or ride by? Share a few!

Finding Your Climbing Power

It's that time of year: when we look at our upcoming races and the terrain we'll need to cover, and we start to get more specific in our training. If your races involve hills, that means training on hills. Over the years, I've been lucky enough to cycle with some great hill climbers and learn a few tips that have made me a better climber. I'm still learning and growing as a cyclist, but here's a few things I've learned along the way:

While it might look dramatic on TV to be climbing while standing on the pedals (in fact, I had to laugh out loud when I watched the Ironman Florida television coverage - the footage they got from the bike course was of athletes standing on their pedals to climb the only "hill" on the course, an overpass. The triathletes were just stretching out their legs after miles and miles of flat windy riding, there was no other reason to get up off your seat on that tiny incline!), in reality you're often better off staying seated while climbing. This is especially important if your build tends toward the sturdy and muscular and not to the slim and whippetlike. A top road biker who is an expert climber will generally weigh (in pounds) no more than twice his height (in inches). Yes, that's  144 pounds for a 6' tall male. If you haven't yet (or never want to) achieve this body style, every extra pound you carry will cost you in the climb.

Staying seated has many advantages: it keeps your weight partially supported by your saddle instead of by the muscles in your legs (a rule of thumb is that you use about 10% more energy as soon as you stand up to climb), it uses less of your core and arm muscles (fewer muscles engaged equals less oxygen consumed), it utilizes your legs and glutes more effectively with less wasted motion, and it allows you to keep up a faster more consistent cadence.

In order to stay seated, you have to use your gears wisely. Many triathletes who are not yet comfortable on their bikes tend to avoid shifting as much as possible. You wouldn't do this in your car, where you would hear your engine lugging or over-revving when you refused to shift. Your body is doing the same thing when you don't shift to keep your cadence constant. So picking the right gear for the start of the hill and then staying on the shifters to maintain your cadence in the 70 - 90 range is crucial. Keep those pedals spinning and your heart rate in a manageable zone as you cruise up the hill. Hammering a hill and flooding your muscles with lactic acid (especially in a race) might look cool in the moment, but is a recipe for disaster. Those lactic-flooded legs will feel dead on the run!

If you do need to stand, either to change body position, give your back a break, or because the hill is too steep to stay seated, work on keeping a steady line while rocking the bike back and forth underneath you. This is a skill that will come with practice, but many triathletes weave and wobble when they stand on hills, potentially endangering any athletes trying to pass on the side. So when you're out training on hills, be sure to get some practice with standing climbs. Use your body weight to help you push down on the pedals and let the bike travel side-to-side underneath you, but not too far (6 - 8 inches is enough). Observe the track of your wheels and make sure you're still traveling in a straight line. Don't lean way far forward over the handlebars as this takes efficiency away from your legs, try keeping your weight centered over your cranks as much as possible. Don't forget that just before you stand you may need to shift into a higher gear to account for the increased power of a standing climb.

Best way to get good at hills: stop fearing them and start doing them. I know I used to hate hills but now I kind of find that I like them. I've started tracking my times on some local doozies so I know when I'm getting better over the course of  a season, and even when I've started off a new season with better climbing skills than I started the last one. This year's Crossfit training has made me a stronger hill climber with lower body weight and more power, so I'm eager to see how I'll stack up against my benchmark hills this season!

Allez Allez, It's the Finish Line!

Just a fun reminder to always finish like a winner...
Warning: brief nudity in the final moments (3rd cyclist)

How Not to Taper

Violating all of my own rules and best interests, I played hookey on my karate class, blew off my notion of tapering this week and took advantage of the beautiful break of spring weather (in a week of pouring rain, sleet, and hail) to take my bike along the ever-lovely McKenzie river.

There was a sun shining overhead, there was not the tiniest draught of wind to be felt other than that made by the speed of my bike, the roar to my left was a rushing waterfall, the brilliant sentinels to my right were wild apple trees covered in blossoms. Orchards lay in spring green with fields decked out in emerald and all the while the river coiled and uncoiled, rushing and calming to the side of the road. Sometimes you climb way above it and look down on the rapids, sometimes it's right off of your shoulder drowning out anything else. I've ridden this road for over two decades, when I was in college its hills used to intimidate me. How amazing is it that at almost 44 years old (in two weeks!) they seem like minor bumps in the road now, to be spun up while gazing out at the scenery?

There are times when cycling fills my heart to bursting with joy and I have to yell down the hills "Wheeeeeeeeyaaaaaahhhhh!" like a crazy person. Today: such a day.

Nervous Nellie Rides Again

My bike and I are like two halves of a titanium/human fusion that were separated at birth. Normally, that is. Now we've been apart for two months while my arm recuperated, and just today we've been reunited again. The scene was set, the sun was out, the bike path beckoned... and I've lost my cycling nerve. I felt like a six-year-old whose mom had just let go of the back of the seat and has discovered they're now pedaling on their own. Every little thing on my two-wheeled journey appeared as a gigantic hazard, from little Fifi on her extendo-leash coming perilously close to my wheels to the bits of gravel on the path to the lady who scatters cracked corn for the ducks on her back porch, enticing them to a dangerous bike path crossing to the homeless people in the underpass who could at any moment swerve into my way. I wanted a jersey with foot-tall neon letters saying to all "STAY AWAY FROM ME". Whoa, talk about your Nervous Nellie. I am definitely afraid of tipping over, which makes me a far worse cyclist than when I didn't think about it much.

It has definitely reminded me of what it's like to be a newer cyclist, my tires haven't felt this teeny and skinny and barely-balanced in decades. I put my foot down at every stoplight, braked at every corner, and gave everything a wide berth. I know the comfort level will come back, and for today I was just more than grateful to be out there on the bike, especially with that almost-spring sunshine bearing down. The wetlands are full of birds right now and the bike path meanders through them with the sounds of meadowlarks, kingfishers, and red-wing blackbirds all around. So I got a great big happy smile on my face to go with my now sore back, neck, and quads!

How Many Cyclists Does It Take To Run a Hairdryer?

I posted a link to this article on my sustainability blog, but I thought it was also really interesting to read from the standpoint of a cyclist. Think about how much energy we generate and how that translates to the real world. Also, wouldn't it be really cool to be part of an experiment like this??? What a workout, sign me up!

How many cyclists does it take to power a hairdryer? The answer's 18, as one family discovered in a unique TV experiment

As a side-note, here's the best instructions I've found online for building your own power-generating bike trainer.

Ever Ride in a Group??

You can probably relate to this one:

Exactly How Much Life Insurance Does He Have Out On Me Anyway??

I live on a hill. Not a big hill (though it seems that way sometimes at the end of a long hot ride when I'm chugging upwards) but a pretty steep one, with a stop sign at the bottom. So when I start off on my daily ride and go bombing down the hill and grab my brakes a few feet from the stop sign to roll gently to a stop, imagine my surprise when my front wheel locks up and my back wheel rises off of the ground and I almost go endo, ass over teakettle.

Yes, dear considerate hubby decided to install new brakes on my bike "for my safety" but neglected to TELL ME.

Cosmic Justice

I wish this happened every single time someone threw a flaming cigarette butt out their window. I'm tired of getting hit by these things on my bicycle! This is one reason that I insist on the kids (and myself) always wearing sunglasses while cycling. And in the summertime, the odds of starting some kind of brush fire or forest fire is also high. Besides, who do they think picks these things up? Even my kids know to pick up after themselves and never litter. Sheesh! Cosmic justice if you ask me...

Subterfuge

There are people on this earth who must be able to calmly and patiently await the attainment of their goals. The face of the Dalai Lama springs to mind, but I'm sure average every-day people like this exist as well. I've never been one of those people. Sometimes that is an advantage - the ability to push yourself beyond all reason is, obviously, a necessary attribute to training for something like an Ironman, something no really actually truly sane person would do. But often it's a disadvantage too.

Last week I was sick, I basically ran myself into the ground with some overwork and some lack of sleep thrown in for good measure and caught myself a terrible bug that's been going around. This week the sunshine came out to play and, not being able to resist its siren call (though I probably, in retrospect was not 100% well), I headed out for a nice hour and a half bike ride in the cold wintry air on Thursday. Fast forward to Friday morning and I feel like someone had taken a blow torch to my lungs. I can picture them in there all red and angry and inflamed, probably cursing the stupid brain sitting atop their body for putting them through such torment. Today I'm slightly better, but not much. So there goes my workouts for the weekend, blown up for the joy of a ride outdoors after months on the trainer in the basement.

The good news is that all of those basement trainer workouts made riding outside feel effortless and beautiful, something that couldn't describe my first season's rides in years past when my bike sat ignored in the garage all winter. So I have hope that once my lungs truly heal up (and I am NOT, NOT, NOT going to run tomorrow no matter how good I feel) and the good weather returns as it always does, I'm going to have some great early season riding ahead of me.

For now, it's back to bed with my hot tea and my cough drops.

Up the Down Hill

Here's how to spice up a downhill ride: I was out yesterday on one of my favorite hills. It's about 7 miles of gradual winding up one side, and 3.5 miles of brutal uphill on the other, so you can take your pick which way you want to go, depending on your mood. It's been unseasonably warm here and I'm actually still riding in shorts, and the long side was sunny so I decided to head up that way. I was pretty toasty on my way up the hill, but down the other side I was on the shady side of the hill away from the setting sun and the descent started getting chilly fast. So I decided to do something new and fun.

I set my watch timer for 1:00 repeating intervals. I descended for one minute, then when the timer beeped I turned around and sprinted uphill for the next minute until it beeped again. This is actually a great exercise in the relativity of time, because time while coasting downhill simply is not the same length as time sprinting uphill. Try it, you'll see what I mean.

So at the end of the ride, I not only got my seven mile hill in, I got about eight more uphill sprints. Then of course I realized that this road puts me at the bottom of the hill separating the valley from my house, and I had one more ridge to climb up and over, then up the hill that my house is on. By the time I hit that road, my legs were completely and utterly toasted. This workout is a good one!

Base season, what base season???