Spoken

Posted by Daniel Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:23:43 GMT

Headwind? How can there be a headwind in both directions? Mother Nature sucks. – Scott Martin (roadbikerider.com)

Posted by Daniel Thu, 21 Sep 2006 00:55:00 GMT

Last Sunday I went for a really nice ride with three other folks from the RBC. The guy leading the ride has probably been riding in this area for more than 50 years, and it is amazing how well he knows the area. Around here what that means is that you can create a route that has no painfully long hills, which makes for a very pleasant Sunday morning ride.

The second part of this story is that my knee is still healing, but I went without NSAIDs (having forgot) and then hoped for the best. You might recall, dear audience, that I hurt my knee doing “out of saddle” intervals, which is short hand for I needed to get much better at getting in and out of the saddle (standing while riding) because while you support more of your own weight, you have gravity to help you push the pedals, and as I’ve noted, gravity loves me. It’s a very important tool and I was woefully bad at it, especially on a road bike where it felt completely different to me.

Since starting the conversion to “roadie” three seasons ago my approach to riding hills has been to “spin” up and over the hill. That is, to stay seated, find a gear where I can maintain some real leg motion (pushing less hard, for less long on each stroke, trading for more strokes. This has several benefits. One, it’s far easier on the knees. Two, it places a greater load on your cardiovascular system (which still needs serious work in my case) and three, and least important, is far closer to what I was used to mountain biking, and didn’t add one more bad skill to the pile required for me to shift to the entirely different position a road bike requires.

What I realized this year, is that unless you have the cardio system of three people (well that’s how it feels with my current fitness/weight situation) that spinning up and over hills has its limitations… namely that at some point you run out of lung/oxygen delivery capacity and you max your heart rate slowing one to a slug like pace that forces you to grind away despite the fact that you’re already in your lowest possible gear. It’s bad. And it makes it hard to keep up with a group of fitter folks.

This Sunday I was with a group whose pace was well within my abilities, and so I felt it was time to try something new. This was born out of an experience I had the previous Sunday riding down to Edgewater. I previously followed whoever was in front of me up the hills, and always spinning. If they went a bit faster fine, if they went a bit slower fine, except I’m not a good enough hill climber to play with tempo that way. I need to go up how I go up, and later on as I get better I’ll be able to play around with pace. But I failed to do so again and again because I thought I might learn something about hill climbing from whoever I was next to… um, well, not so much.

So I’ve been working on riding out of the saddle and have made some progress, so it was time to try it out on something longer than a rise in the road. On this ride, when we hit a hill, instead of worrying about down shifting, spinning etc. I attacked the hills and hit them hard. I’d pass whomever was in front of me… even without knowing the route, the hills, or how far to the top. I’d wait until I felt my out of saddle spin beginning to degrade and then it was out of the saddle to keep moving up and along. On this ride only one hill was long enough to cause me to have to sit and spin at all… but, well, OK I’m impressed with myself. The technique works great, and it’s certainly more fun to be the first person up the hill rather than the last.

Now this hasn’t made into a mountain goat by any stretch, but it certainly adds another power system to my climbing. That is, a different set of muscles get used, and one’s cardio system is not an instant on system. You don’t hit the hill and start breathing hard and pounding your heart (although it seems that way at times). What in fact happens is that you have a certain amount of time (depending on your fitness level and how hard you’re working) before all this happens. Work hard enough for a short period of time and you’re over the hill. You don’t start breathing hard until you’re on the flat or downhill side… where it is possible to recover. Cool. 36 miles with one lovely lady saying “Wow, you’re strong on the hills…” Mmm, not so much, but it’s all a matter of perspective. She was doing exactly what I had done until a few weeks ago, namely only spinning up the hills, and losing some momentum at the bottom concerning herself with down shifting. I thought I might share why I seemed strong, but the right time never presented itself. It will, no worries.

My knee didn’t hurt much on Sunday as I did this, but I still felt it, and I haven’t been getting the miles in I was getting a few weeks ago, so I decided to just spin on Monday, and see how my knee was doing. Not so good. Considering how lightly I was going at it on Monday, it hurt pretty good. Tuesday I stayed off the bike, and checked in with a recently written book on fit and cycling related injury. It doesn’t hurt that my wife is physical therapist.

Today, I raised my seat a bit, tried it, decided it was too high, lowered it almost back to where it was, tried again, decided it was too low, and raised it back up a bit. That felt better, and so did my knee. I got a bit lower leg crampy after doing the Lake’s little hills, no doubt because of the additional stretch, but my knee felt good. I theorize that a few weeks ago when I had to reset my seat on the fly I may have dropped it a bit, though I was as careful as could be… it’s been feeling a little low. My knee definitely felt better today, so I’m going to keep the change and see how it goes. It couldn’t be much more than 2 - 3 centimeters. It was also a reminder to do more stretching.

So when I hit the little hills today I decided I would try the same technique all the way to the golf course hill extension. It’s a short rise, but kinda steep at the end, and I use it as a test for all sorts of things. Today I popped up out of the saddle, went until I felt like I was getting a bit shaky in the legs, sat, spun, popped up etc. a couple more times and then finally down shifted and spun up the last short section. Nice! I’m definitely getting better at this.

Things on my list for the winter:

• Increasing speed and strength through steady state intervals
• Out saddle drills (done carefully so that I don’t hurt myself (again))
• One legged drills to improve my spin
• More cadence work

Posted by Daniel Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:57:00 GMT

Hans Monderman is a traffic engineer who hates traffic signs. Oh, he can put up with the well-placed speed limit placard or a dangerous curve warning on a major highway, but Monderman considers most signs to be not only annoying but downright dangerous. To him, they are an admission of failure, a sign - literally - that a road designer somewhere hasn’t done his job. “The trouble with traffic engineers is that when there’s a problem with a road, they always try to add something,” Monderman says. “To my mind, it’s much better to remove things.” [Yeah, baby. I’ve seen it work as well, and is supported by this.]

“The common thread in the new approach to traffic engineering is a recognition that the way you build a road affects far more than the movement of vehicles. It determines how drivers behave on it, whether pedestrians feel safe to walk alongside it, what kinds of businesses and housing spring up along it. “A wide road with a lot of signs is telling a story,” Monderman says. “It’s saying, go ahead, don’t worry, go as fast as you want, there’s no need to pay attention to your surroundings. And that’s a very dangerous message.”

Chaos = Cooperation

1. Remove signs: The architecture of the road - not signs and signals - dictates traffic flow.
2. Install art: The height of the fountain indicates how congested the intersection is.
3. Share the spotlight: Lights illuminate not only the roadbed, but also the pedestrian areas.
4. Do it in the road: Cafes extend to the edge of the street, further emphasizing the idea of shared space.
5. See eye to eye: Right-of-way is negotiated by human interaction, rather than commonly ignored signs.
6. Eliminate curbs: Instead of a raised curb, sidewalks are denoted by texture and color.

Posted by Daniel Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:49:59 GMT

Posted by Daniel Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:49:05 GMT

Posted by Daniel Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:32:00 GMT

Posted by Daniel Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:13:22 GMT

On to 2000 miles…

Posted by Daniel Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:39:35 GMT

Posted by Daniel Tue, 12 Sep 2006 12:42:38 GMT

Posted by Daniel Tue, 12 Sep 2006 12:30:15 GMT

Posted by Daniel Mon, 11 Sep 2006 16:38:55 GMT

Posted by Daniel Sun, 10 Sep 2006 23:52:02 GMT

The weather was spectacular, my wife joined a mommy and me music class with Noah, so it was time to ride!

Two weeks ago I tweaked my left knee doing out-of-saddle intervals, something I really have to work on more often. I was working on it, but clearly got out of control somewhere. Ooops. This past Thursday (a week past the injury) I joined some folks for a fairly flat 25 mile ride and my knee was still bothering me despite being off the bike quite a bit due to inclement weather. Though I rarely ride on a Friday, I decided that I should try spinning it out a bit the next morning and snuck in a brief cruise around the lake. I did the outer, slightly hilly, loop just once and decided that pushing it any more was a bad idea. A few more gentle loops and I called it a day.

It was with some trepidation that I joined this ride this morning, since they were headed down toward the city although not actually crossing over the George Washington Bridge… but actually going past it a bit on the Jersey side. I know that there are some real hills on route 9W, and I wondered if my knee (and everything else) would hold up.

A nice crowd of 12 turned out for the ride. And I warned the ride leader that I might be bailing depending on how I felt. I survived the first climb, got dropped on the second (oy, they waited for me) and had a blast rolling on the flats and downhill sections (knowing full well that we’d be going back up those same hills). A reasonably brief stop at Whole Foods and the climb back began.

The first hill leading up from the Hudson sucked, but because I was fresh from the rest wasn’t as terrible as it might have been. Strangely, I got cut off midway up the hill by a guy trailing his boat up from the Hudson… couldn’t he have cut me some slack? Could he not see how hard I was working? Anyway, I caught up with the group briefly before being dropped on the next climb, knowing that I should be able to catch up on the other side. And sure enough I did, although I’m not certain that the person who I caught wasn’t waiting for me, they might have, or they might have been caught by the light. I’m not sure. But I had them in my sights…

One more very brief stop in Tenafly, one last climb, and the rest of the trip was essentially flat.

I made the whole ride but got dropped hard. So it goes. My knee held up (I did use some Advil to help) without feeling worse, but spinning up hills without getting out of the saddle is very hard on my cardio system for hills like that… I was afraid of tweaking my knee again, and it was really doing well, but I really have to get stronger and lose more weight. Sheesh. Nothing wrong with getting dropped, although the waiting-for-me, was more than I wished for, I was enjoying the chase, and had a clear advantage in love of downhills and gravity. Ahh well. It *was* kind of them.

I don’t have the exact stats but it was 36.38 miles. [It occurs to me that I never mentioned the headwind… is there anything more annoying than a headwind on slight incline when you’re trying to chase back on? I don’t think so.]

It did use up a nice portion of the day, but I realized that between the holidays and weather there won’t be too many more Sundays like this, and despite the risks (knee), had a great time. Allez!

Posted by Daniel Sun, 10 Sep 2006 23:26:01 GMT

Posted by Daniel Sun, 10 Sep 2006 23:22:09 GMT

Posted by Daniel Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:41:55 GMT

A bunch of weeks ago I wrote this… but never posted it:

I went for a short spin with my friend Chris this morning. He hasn’t been on his bike in a couple of months between his busy schedule and a trip to Russia, so it was just some very easy spinning, a bit of catching up, and that’s it. Just over 9 miles at a very recreational pace, but it did make the odo click over… 800.2 miles. I doubt I’ll have time for a ride tomorrow, so I may have to jump on the trainer. We’ll see.

If I recall correctly I did. But do I clearly remember? Nah.

However, despite the rain (and sure enough it started raining (sigh, again) shortly after I started riding today I got a bit over half an hour in, and I crossed the 900 miles threshold I was tripping over last week. I was certain that I would get it, and then life conspired otherwise.

I rode some new hills so that I would get some sense of how I feel compared to other times and then rode one last hill that nearly killed me over a year ago… thank goodness it was no challenge today. That’s the way we like it.

Soon talking about 100 mile increments we’ll be passe, only thousand mile increments will do. Heh.