Saratoga 12 and 24-hour race report 2009

Summary

I got a disappointing result of 5th place and 344 miles (my goal was 400) while noting several excuses including weather delays, a slow wheel change after flatting a tubular, a slow cassette replacement, a slow spoke repair and replacement of a faulty tail light that together kept me off the course for a lot of time. And for the first 10 hours or so I didn’t seem to be properly fit.

Race description

The 12- and 24-hour races both started at 8am on Saturday July 11th and finished respectively 12 and 24 hours later. The course is a 32.5 mile loop with one significant climb up Beacon Hill and otherwise flat to rolling. Drafting is not allowed. You keep riding around and around the loop and the rider to cover the most miles wins.

Beacon Hill seems no big deal at the start. It’s one mile of about 4-5% average, including about a quarter mile of 8-10%, followed by another mile of gentle climbing. After about 10 runs up it is a much bigger deal than it was.

The 12-hour race

And in the 12-hour race the hill was decisive. The climb starts 2 miles after the start/finish checkpoint, where many people set up the supplies and have a helper. At close to 8pm, 2-time solo RAAM finisher Rob Morlock led ultra-marathon neophyte Sven Stoltz through the start/finish. From there, Sven chased over the first 2 miles and positioned himself about 50 yards behind Rob on the climb. Then Sven attacked on the gentle second mile of the climb, passed Rob who couldn’t match speed and was soon recorded at 1 mile ahead by the end at 8pm. You don’t always get a close finish in these kinds of races.

Not to detract from Rob’s result (in a race like this it was equivalent to a photo finish in a sprint), it was a brilliant debut from my friend Sven, whom you might meet sometimes on the Quad rides. 236.50 miles in 12 hours is 19.71 mph! Remember that’s not drafting and not stopping the clock when the bike is stopped like a cycle computer usually does. I wonder if, with less adverse weather and more experience in these events, Sven could better Sandy Whittlesey’s course record of 250.3 miles.

Also of note is that another well know Boston-area rider David Lafferty came in third with 227.5 miles, course record for a fixed-gear bicycle. (Boston’s messenger-wannabe fyxomatosis sufferers can suck on that!)

My 24-hour race

But I was in the 24-hour race which started at the same time as the 12-hour but finished 12 hours after at 8am. I started close to last because I was absolutely determined to ride relatively slowly for the first lap and not get caught up in the excitement and exuberant speed that characterizes the start. I had been warned over and over by Melinda Lyon, 24-hour women’s course record holder, to pace it gently early on. Nevertheless I expected to pass more of riders during the first 3 laps. The first clue that I was not fit was that I didn’t.

After 3 laps I was in terrible shape and needed to rest. I don’t know what was wrong though I have hypothesis — it’s a long story but, in short, my guess is chronic dehydration since the weather warmed up around the end of June and possibly related to some remaining diabetes insipidus (i.e. my kidneys aren’t working as well as they should) from my problems in 2007-8.

I did a 60-80 mile fastish ride most weekends in the winter and that picked up to 100-130 mile rides since April. Being clapped out after 3 laps at a moderate speed showed something was really wrong.

Diet and recovery

I switched food at that point from high-tech overpriced sports drinks and gels to real food and drink. Potato chips and coca-cola helped greatly. It was silly of me to not follow my own advice from the start. (Sven eventually relied on the same formula in his ride too.)

After a rest, change of clothes and a turkey sandwich I began lap 4 feeling pretty good and started to enjoy the ride a bit. But in the last few miles of that lap the same abject grottiness came over me again. So I took another slightly shorter food rest.

A few miles into the 4th lap I crossed 100 miles at exactly 2pm which gave me an average speed that would get me to my goal of 400 miles if I maintained it. That was disappointing since lap times don’t generally get any faster over the course of a 24-hour race. Towards the end of the 3rd lap I had noted a very satisfactory average speed so I must have stopped for a long time at that first rest.

I lost count of laps after the 5th so I don’t know which of the following events happened when. But with the change of diet, more cola, water, chips and sandwiches I was feeling stronger and ride more comfortably. Then the technical problems began.

Technical problems

I flatted about 2 miles from the start/finish. A big fat rusty sheet metal screw with washer all the way in my nearly new Vittoria CX tubular front tire (those things aren’t cheap!). I had to unscrew it to get it out. There was sealant in the tire so I tried inflating it but it held pressure for only a few seconds. (Now that I think of it, if I had left the screw in perhaps the sealant would have worked.) Being so close to base, it wasn’t worth putting on the spare tire so I called Eva, my beloved wife and support crew, to get my spare wheels ready and rode very slowly back to the car.

Next problem was that, as the rain started, the SRAM Open Glide cassette started to malfunction. I had noted intermittent problems with it in the past and I had though about swapping this cassette with a Shimano while preparing for the race but didn’t (rats!). I rode two laps using only the biggest 4 cogs, the others performing so bad that I was afraid the chain wouldn’t take it. After that I swapped the cassette with the Shimano from the tubular wheels I started the race on. A big delay.

Another problem was a broken spoke on the rear non-drive side. Thankfully I didn’t notice it out on the road or I might have tried to fix it out in the dark and rain. It took ages to get the tire, tube and tape off, replace the nipple and spoke and reassemble/adjust everything. The hubs and rims on these Neuvation wheels seem solid but this event confirmed my doubts about their no-name spokes and dubious-looking aluminum (i.e. not brass) nipples.

Next failure was the Planet Bike Superflash I had on the back. It’s a great performer when it works but it started to turn itself on and off at will, apparently cycling through its modes. (I had another rear light on, a Cateye, so I wasn’t in grave danger.) While I tried to fix it at the start/finish check, John, the race official, mentioned he had some of the same model available for sale. I bought one.

And my Polar CS200 computer/HRM failed owing to the rain. (It has since recovered.)

Considering the result

Here’s the most annoying thing in all this: as the rain started in the evening I was starting to ride well and really enjoy myself out on the bike. I continued to get better through night and, while I was on the bike, I was having a really good time, feeling good and soaking up all the unfamiliar sights and sounds of overnight riding in the countryside. I picked up speed relative to the first hundred miles and could probably have made my goal of 400 miles if I hadn’t had so many technical problems. But they just kept on coming.

The last lap and a half were hard going. On the previous evening I had steeled myself to do the best I could despite the problems and I paced myself to ride to my limit at 8am. I paced it about right and gave it my all on the last half lap so I was really ragged at the very end. It was a relief when John picked me up in his van and drove the last 7 or 8 miles.

So I have to address the question: why was I riding on racing equipment rather than something more conservative? That’s a very good question that I’ll maybe answer in full in another blog post. In short, it was just a fancy, a whim, though one I’ve harbored for two years, and I’ve learned my lesson: a broken bike is not a fast bike and support vehicles are a necessary part of cycle racing because racing equipment is delicate. Unsupported long distance riders, even many of the fastest in the world, e.g. Sandy Whittlesey and Melinda Lyon, both course record holders as I already mentioned, use more conservative, heavier gear.

Weather

It was very hot and humid for most of the day with a stiff southerly wind which offered little advantage going north on the way out but slowed me down to 10-15 mph coming south along the Hudson on the return. The wind let up somewhat as the rain came in the evening. There were two big downpours and I was lucky to be fixing some problem under the canopy at the start/finish for one of them. The other downpour was much more fun.

I left the sort/finish some time after midnight with light, on-and-off rain, distant lightning lighting the sky and landscape but no thunder. The storm came gradually closer. Eventually I became a bit anxious. Around mile 15, shortly before the half-way checkpoint and exactly as I got to the traffic light at 32 and Bluebird, the clouds opened and I headed for cover at the gas station there. The roof of the Stewarts Shop there provided cover under which there was a bench for me to sit and watch the storm. Perfect timing! And thanks for the accommodations, Stewart. The sky put on quite a show, one of the best I’ve every seen, with several ground lightning strikes within a quarter mile, shattering thunder and rain so heavy I’d be scared to drive a car in it, let alone cycle. As the storm moved off to the east I set off and met up with the unlucky official at the half-way checkpoint who had stood under a modest canopy through the storm. (He shared some coffee with me. Thanks! I’m sorry I can’t remember your name.)

Specific memories

The freight train passing through Gansevoort blowing it’s whistle, narrowly avoiding some critter on the road that turned out to be a skunk, intrepid frogs (it was a very wet night), slugs in sufficient number to clog my rear brake caliper, several high-performance cats sprinting across the landscape, swirling fog around dawn, the sun appearing suddenly through the fog perfectly framed straight ahead just above the horizon, watching my first shadow of the morning riding beside me along the Hudson River.

Concluding thoughts

Would I do it again? Hard to say. Part of me wants to go back and get my 400 miles, which I’m now sure I can do. Another part says there are many ways to have more fun on a bicycle. Repeating the loop is less fun than doing one long loop or out-and-back. That part of New York is very nice but not so nice I want to do it 11, 12 or 13 times.

No drafting is really antisocial. The rules say you’re not even allowed to ride side-by-side during daylight. And the 10 meter separation rule makes riding near people with about the same average speed really annoying — you keep passing one-another since people’s instantaneous speeds vary in individual ways and that makes it hard to keep a steady effort.

So while this particular cycling discipline is not my favorite, I did enjoy the evening, night and morning riding and I hanker to do better after this disappointing result.

Neophyte errors at Quabbin Reservoir Road Race

i was in the 4/5 35+ race. the pace was pretty strong and i’m glad there were downhill stretches between the ups. it’s 63 miles with very little flat. nice course with good quality surfaces and safe wide downhills.

by 25 miles in there were only about a dozen riders left in the group i was in. having kept close the the front, i was under impression it was the lead group. at 35 miles i got a flat and pulled over to wait for the support vehicle. it never came.

eventually the support for the 4/5 open race drove by without acknowledging me. later the women came by and a vehicle stopped. an official said she had no support with her but took my number and said the wheel truck is only a minute behind. it too blew past me.

it seems that the error i made was to misconstrue the organizers’ promise of support, as stated in the flyer and then explained to us before the start of the race. i spoke to an official after the race and he explained that the support vehicle only supports the race leaders and vehicles aren’t supposed to help riders in other races.

so there must have been a break ahead of us that i was unaware of. though i rode near the front (i thought) until i flatted i didn’t see them go and i didn’t see the support vehicle pass. i guess it must have been a small number of riders in the lead group.

thus in a relentlessly hilly race like quabbin, in which the field necessarily gets strung out, it seems that when they say that support is provided, this has to be construed as meaning that no support is provided to 95% of the riders. unless confident of being in the money, you must assume that you’re on your own.

i wish i had known that in advance.

anyway, i chased the women’s support truck for 8 miles on a flat without catching it. i stopped to talk to the policeman at the turn in hardwick and asked if there was a way to contact the support crews. he said he had no idea and bemoaned that he had been completely unprepared, that nothing had been explained to him.

a back-marker from the 4/5 open race came past then and offered me co2. i remembered that i had sealant in my tires so i accepted and it worked. the tire stayed inflated to the finish. i’m very grateful for that. i rode on my own except for about the last 8 miles with one of women from the group i passed.

my other error was: forgetting to get the 3-hour bottle of perpetuem out of the cooler box before going to the start line. with spending half an hour waiting for imagined support i was out of water with more than an hour of hot riding to go and very thirsty. 3 bottles was not enough. i was getting bonkers towards the end. i have only myself to blame for that dumb error.

astonishingly, the results put me 60th out of 70 starters and 67 finishers, 45 minutes behind the winner. i though my ride was bad enough; i’d love to hear the stories of the 6 behind me.

Bontrager inForm RXL saddle review

Bontrager inForm RXL saddle review

Summary: I tried out a Bontrager inForm RXL saddle for two weeks and took it on two 70+ mile rides. It was ok on short rides but after about 40 miles it started to hurt. By the end of the two long rides I was hurt so bad I needed a couple of days to recover. The saddle also has a fairly slippery cover that I also found undesirable. I prefer a saddle that presents more resistance to lateral forces so I don’t slide around unexpectedly.

Background and requirements: I am 44 years old, male, with 40+ years cycling experience. I ride long distance events and recently started road racing. On my long distance comfort bike I usually ride a Brooks B17. It is generally comfy but puts too much pressure on the perineum when riding low on the drop or on aero bars. I can start to feel my family assets go numb after only about 100 miles on a B17. That’s ok if I’m in no hurry because I can sit up more but I’m planning on riding the Saratoga 24-hour time trial this July and would like to do 400 miles if I can. A B17 isn’t going to work for that. I need a saddle that will be comfortable for 24 hours with a lot of that spent low on the drops or aero bars.

My racing bike has a Specialized Toupé saddle that is pretty good but also not comfortable enough for long rides. After about 80 miles the tissue under my public arch (the bone cyclists sit on) gets sore. So I’m looking to solve that problem too.

I was interested in the Bontrager inForm because of their claim to have put some formal scientific study into the physiology and biomechanics relating to saddle design. I was also attracted by their 90-day trial period. I was measured and chose the RXL medium width. It was good as far as reducing pressure on the perineum was concerned. The problem, like the Toupé, was with the tissue under the public arch. I became so sore after about 40 miles on both the longer rides that I found myself standing far too often just to relieve the pressure. The pain was present for a couple of days after both rides. It is a wonder that anyone could achieve such an uncomfortable saddle design. I returned it.

So I’m still looking for the right saddle. Fizik Airone has many followers, perhaps the Tri version. And I was recommended Sella Italia Flite Gel Flow and SLC Gel Flow. Any other ideas? Trial and error can get expensive in this game.

Recovering from lithium

In late August 2008 I consulted my GP about the Lithium, frequent urination, dehydration and associated symptoms. He knew a lot about lithium-related diabetes insipidus (which means watery pee) and has several patients on lithium with the side effect.

He considered my theory that lithium was responsible for loss of athletic performance plausible given that the symptoms began when I started taking the drug and that dehydration can produce these symptoms. His view was that putting up with these urinary problems as an active 44 year old man was not a good choice. For an old person who mostly sits at home, perhaps the decision would be different but for a person with decades of active life ahead it’s not a good way to live.

I took a few other factors into consideration. The effects of lithium on the kidneys may get worse with duration of treatment. The effects may be only partially reversible or not at all with the chances of recovery worsening with treatment duration. Moreover, cycling is beneficial to my mental health: the flow, the accomplishments, the fun. And it’s the closest thing to meditation that I’ve experienced – it changes my mental state.

My GP advised that I try another mood stabilizer but warned me not to stop the lithium without consulting with my shrink.

So I stopped taking lithium immediately without consulting my shrink. I’m like that sometimes. It was a mistake. I don’t recommend it. I became really depressed very quickly and ended up back at my shrink in a couple of weeks with my tail between my legs.

She offered either valproate or trilptal. Valproate appears to be more effective but has worse side effects. Trileptal doesn’t look all that impressive from the trials data but it doesn’t have the threat of serious weight gain. I chose Trileptal.

At low dose made me irritable, anxious, jumpy, easily angered and sometimes confused. So we decided to try a higher dose which made these side effects even worse and made thinking quite hard at times. Then we switched to valproate.

The trileptal side effects went away and I started to feel myself again. Depressed. Mild to moderate depression was my baseline condition by now. It had been like that for about three years. But I wanted to give it time to see if the valproate was working as a mood stabilizer before adding an antidepressant. What’s happened mood-wise since then is a story for another blog entry.

But the main point for this story is that about 6 weeks after quitting lithium, I noticed that my cycling performance was improving. Then it improved quickly over the next two or three weeks, after which I had a couple of rides that confirmed that I was back on form. I was pretty much back to my former condition. Since I’d never quit training, my legs and cardio system were still strong and it seems that all I needed was for my kidneys to recover so I could get my hydration back to normal.

That was back in October and was very encouraging. I’ve kept the training up over the winter and I’m planning to start racing in a couple of weeks and have plans to ride the Saratoga 24-hour time trial in July.

D2R2 really delivers

• Photo gallery below, after my comments

I first heard about D2R2 while riding a brevet in 2006. I think it was the BBS 400 km. I was with two riders who spoke of it. I think they were Ted Lapinski and Russ Loomis. They talked about the ardors and cruelty of the ride, the relentlessly steep rough roads, the pain and suffering, the exorbitant length and breadth of the thing, the sadism and masochism, and the DNF rate. I listened while they went on. And on. And I listened on. Eventually I had some sort of a brain malfunction, perhaps an overload of the brag detection centers, and I blurted out, “So why would anyone do this other than to prove how much pain and hardship he can endure? Is that the whole point of it?” I think it was something like that.

Ted, I think it was, corrected me. I had it all wrong. It’s a beautiful ride, one of the nicest in the region, one of the nicest he’s done. The views – splendid; the roads – quiet; the terrain – varied; the sights – all overwhelmingly picturesque. I immediately regretted my outburst and made apologetic sounds (uh huh, mm mmm, right, yeah) as though I understood. Since then I heard a lot more riders talk about D2R2, usually about its vicious brutality.

I didn’t get to ride D2R2 in 2006 or 7 but this year, 8, I did. Clearly I was going to ride the 100 km variant. I wasn’t going to spoil what sounds like a very enjoyable ride by choosing the 170 km death march. I know how my mind works: concern about finishing would cause me to focus on the difficulties and finishing and would distract me from enjoying the ride. I don’t need to drive a gasoline-fueled motor car four and a half hours round trip  from Boston for that. Besides, the nine o’clock start for the 100 km is quite civilized.

So what can I tell you about the ride besides the already well known? I used a road bike with 35 mm cyclocross tires, standard Shimano triple (30t granny) and 12-27 cassette. It was fine. I used the 30/27 ratio a lot. I put SPD pedals on for this ride but I’d probably have been alright with KEO too. I unclipped on the climbs only twice. Once, when a stick got caught in my chain-set and the chain dropped off inwards. The other time, close to the first climb, was more educational.

There was a tight group at the front on the flat roads before the first climb. They made me nervous. It was like I feel on CRW centauries – too many of the riders (a few is enough) in the front group looked more eager stay attached than skilled. There were a lot of skinny tires in that group. I let a gap develop without going so slow that I got swamped by those behind me. In short, I wanted some space. But the gap wasn’t enough. On the first climb, which, in the D2R2 genre, is steep and rough, the lead group got off and walked. It only takes a few riders to put a foot down (and discover, teetering, that they can’t get stated again) to block the road. I slowed down as much as I could and looked for a gap to get through. One opened and I went for it, only for another cyclist to ride into it ahead of me stop, right there, to get off and walk. Sigh.

After that I spent way too much of my attention on other riders rather than on enjoying where I was and what I was doing. Things only settled down in terms of overcrowding after the first water stop.

Lesson learned: give the leaders a few minutes head start. Or ride the route some other day.

D2R2 is a swell ride. Really lovely. It’s picturesque to the point of absurdity in places: vistas seemingly composed for the photo shoots of exaggeratedly pastoral picture postcards and glossy Vermont tourist calendars; the sort of views that flat-landers might sprinkle croissant crumbs over in the Sunday Boston Globe while reading the tips on where and when to find the best leaf-peeping.

Also remarkable is how the route avoids roads with much traffic. This was impressive. We touched Route 2 briefly and that was about it. But beware: these dirt roads are not entirely devoid of traffic and some of the locals are fast. Don’t assume and don’t, as I witnessed a couple of times, take a blind bend riding fast downhill on the left.

Anyway, I loved it. Immensely. D2R2 really delivers. I want to do it again soon when leaves are turning.

I recommend it to anyone who’s ok with steep climbs and rough dirt roads and who likes overlooks with old-timey country goodness. Don’t let the D2R2 war stories put you off – it’s not that hard. Nor do I think that’s what this ride is about. Certainly the 100 km route isn’t. It’s relatively hilly by Massachusetts standards in that there is proportionately less flat and gentle riding than is typical. But it’s far from mountainous and none of the climbs are long.

 

 

Essex County Pancake Ride

On July 5th 2008, 5 cyclists including myself joined Melinda Lyon on a very lovely bike ride of her design. It was 83 miles with about 20 of them on unpaved surfaces ranging from decent dirt roads to rivers deeper than my knees and stuff I probably wouldn’t be able to do even on my mountain bike.

It was one of the most enjoyable bike rides I’ve done. The route took in the best and the variety of beauty available in that corner of Massachusetts. The roads ranged from nice for cycling to top-notch. The off-road stuff was entirely away from traffic and, it seemed, hardly used (why not?). Among us, only Ted had a mountain bike, the rest on road bikes with wide knobby tires. Young John made it through the tricky bits on his Surly LHT, a touring bike with absurdly long wheelbase, much better than the rest of us. We took the whole thing at a gentle pace that caused no stress. I had a really swell time. I hope Melinda runs it again in the fall.

The ride passed by the famous Clam Box in Ipswitch. Here’s a high-res of the parking-lot scene: click the thumbnail.

 

Update on dehydrated lithium athletics

Since I published my fairly optimistic May 27 2008 post on this topic, I’ve a few observations and thoughts to add.

1. It takes considerable discipline to keep up with my drinking, especially now the hot weather is here. (I don’t like to use the central AC if i don’t need to. I just strip to my shorts when it’s hot.) For a couple of days I attached a 45 min timer to a pint bottle, and that worked, but…

2. It seems to be quite easy in hot weather to wake up dehydrated. I have a pint every time I pee at night but I guess you can evaporate quite a lot during 8 hours in bed. Don’t really want to

3. I’ve had several long rides and it seems quite feasible to maintain hydration. If I drink at least 1.5 oz/mi or 2+ in hot weather then I don’t seem to be dehydrated at the end. I have the impression that the kidneys take a break on their polyuria craze while exercising.

4. I’ve had some very good rides and no really bad ones since I upped the drinking. But there have been several on which it seemed as though I was staring at the end…

If a well rested and prepared cyclist goes out for a ride, she or he can ride very hard for a couple of hours. After that, things slow down and effort level (as monitored by heart rate) diminishes as though approaching a steady state of roughly 65-70% of max heart rate as the limit of what can be sustained. After many hours riding, huffing and puffing up a hill and enduring considerable muscle pain, you can get it a little bit higher than that. But that compares with taking a similar hill at the start of the ride much faster and with ease at 90-95% max HR.

The difference, as I understand it, very roughly, is that at the beginning you have the glycogen reserves available which can be metabolized quickly and anaerobically. At the end you have to rely on metabolizing fat aerobically. Some of your muscle cells are the type that burns glycogen, other fibers burn fat, and some others can do a bit of both. So at the beginning of the ride you can use all your leg muscle as both fuels are available, at the end only the fat burners are working.

I figure effort level using heart rate. There’s a lot you can read about on the web about why that’s reasonable. The graph shows my best guess, based on experience, how my sustainable heart rate depends on ride duration, which is on a log time scale from 10 seconds to 100 hours (assuming I’m well warmed up for the short rides).

I’ve had several rides recently when I felt like I was starting at the end of a ride. The heart rate I could sustain at the beginning of the ride was around 145 to 155. There were no other issues. I recently rode, for the fifth time overall, the Boston Brevet Series 300 km in 12:24, 16 minutes faster than my previous best. So I’m riding fairly well but it’s definitely different.

It feels and seems as though I’m starting my rides with depleted glycogen reserve. And I think this may be the case. My suspicion is that lithium produces chronic dehydration which, among other things, cripples the glycogen recovery between rides.

Tom’s nutrition tip for long distance cyclists

A great deal of discussion, both enlightening and occluding, envelops the topic of nutrition for long distance cyclists but you can take it from me that it is a very good idea. There is a bit of a tendency for the discourse to become rather technical. Even the word “nutrition” borders on the esoteric. I think we can more usefully call it “eating and drinking” instead. And again my view is that both are highly advisable.

That advice, I suppose, is already in the domain of controversy. Some cyclists choose only to drink and shun eating. There are a good few magic potions on the market (if their sales blurbs are to be believed, enchantment has to be involved) purporting to be a good replacement for food. If you happen to dislike eating food then this approach – soluble pulverized energy bars, as far as I can tell – might be for you. But it seems a bit too much like watered-down baby food for me. We all make sacrifices for our sport but why should good food should be one of them?

So what then to eat? Breakfast! Pancakes with blueberries, waffles with strawberry compote, corn muffins, bagels with marmalade, English muffins with jelly, scrambled egg with home fries, corn flakes and toast, oatmeal and, with any or some combination of these, a big mug of coffee. The best long distance routes are designed to take you past a suitable diner, café or other eatery at least once every 25 miles. With luck and some planning you can have breakfast for breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner, bedtime snack, midnight snack and middle-of-the-night snack. If the brevets you’ve been riding have been designed according to some criteria other than the locations of breakfast, have a word with your RBA to see if that can’t be fixed. Suggest a few of your favorite breakfast joints.

“Fast” “food” has some convenience advantages: there’s a lot of places selling that kind of substance and sometimes the service is indeed quite rapid. But there are serious risks. A lot of cycling can alter one’s tastes to a remarkable degree. I once had a yearning for a Coca-Cola soda-pop half way through a hot hard 600 and it tasted good to me under those conditions. More than once I’ve heard rumor of healthy civilized people having eaten a Hamburg sandwich from MacDonald’s on a long ride and reporting that tasted good and was very satisfying! So clearly we have to be extremely vigilant to avoid this kind of catastrophe. I find Shaw’s comment helpful: “You can get used to anything, so you must be careful what you get used to,” (and not just in regard to cycling). I recommend careful planning of the fast food strategy in advance, preferable during a period when you aren’t cycling for a few days, writing it down and swearing in front of all your acquaintances that you have the will power to stick to it.

My strategy for the fast food is of course, breakfast! Cycling mostly in North East USA, I can take advantage of Duncan’s Donuts. I read recently that the specific stem cell mutation responsible for the metastatic growth of this orange/pink phenomenon with the Hello Kitty logotype has been identified. Perhaps that knowledge will lead to their cultivation elsewhere.

But anyway, these establishments have bagels, cookies, pastries, muffins, etc. and can even quickly make you a “breakfast sandwich” from a bagel or croissant (très chic) with egg and, if you like, sausage, designed to be eaten with one hand. Let’s go over that one more time: they have sandwiches that contain breakfast, indeed are breakfast, that can be eaten while riding a bicycle. Splendid! Moreover, they also serve, and this is of considerable importance, a perfectly respectable cup of coffee (unlike that coffee retail pestilence with the green circular logo).

Here’s a suggested routine for a stop at Duncan’s:

1. Dismount (not required if you choose the drive-through).
2. Use the bathroom (wash your hands before eating).
3. Order food you can eat while riding.
4. Now this is the tricky part: order a medium cup of coffee in a large cup. The clerk may stumble over this request so I have taken to saying the order, as Shakespeare might have endorsed, three different ways one after the other. For example: “I’d like a medium-size coffee in a large cup, please.” [Pause to assess the degree of blank stare you engender.] “So that’s your largest cup but with just a medium coffee in it.” [Pause again, if necessary.] “So there’ll be lots of space above the coffee in the cup.” Once, the clerk and I needed the mediation of the duty supervisor but that was before I perfected the three-ways order.
5. Discard any food packaging and accessories you don’t want.
6. Move the water bottle in your seat-tube cage to a jersey pocket or your saddle-bag (fits neatly in the side pocket of a Carradice, I found).
7. Put the coffee in the freed-up cage. Check the lid is secure.
8. Put the food either between your teeth or in a pocket or handlebar bag.
9. Ride off.
10. Eat the food.
11. In three to eight minutes the coffee will be at the right temperature. By this point, only a very small amount will have splashed out of the cup, if any. You may want to alternate this step of the process with the previous one.

Warning: as far as Duncan is concerned, a cup of coffee has cream and sugar in it unless otherwise specified. This sometimes catches me out. On the last leg of a recent 300, I inadvertently got a cup of their so-called “regular” coffee. I chastised myself for carelessness, drank it, and a couple of miles later I regained my strength, stride and rode like a daemon to the finish. Moral: don’t be a snob – the most exalted of gelati also has cream and sugar in it.

Helpful tip for right-handed cup-holders: use a crank with triple chain-wheels. You can comfortably ride for miles on rolling terrain shifting the front derailleur with your left hand with a cup of coffee in your right. Lefties should be all set already.

Aside from breakfast, fruit is worth mentioning. It is the other pocketable convenience food and its a whole food without the value-add manufacturing, packaging, brand name and scientific-sounding marketing copy of the so-called energy bar. The banana is popular among cyclists, for good reason, but it is fragile when properly ripe for eating. Dented, it soon becomes unappetizing and there is the problem of the peel. In a jersey pocket it stands a fair chance, if you’re not careful, of festering there until the garment goes into the wash, or possibly even beyond that point. But tossing it into the hedgerow, regardless of its rapid biodegradability (which is exactly the problem of carrying it with you), is, ipso facto, littering. Don’t be a litter lout cyclist!

So I’d like to make a few of other suggestions you might not have thought of. First, for a refreshing astringency that foils the gallons of water you’re guzzling, a pomegranate is hard to beat. These stimulating and convenient rations are very durable in pocket or bag and the peel won’t turn to mush before the end of even a 1200. You might want to practice one-handed peeling using your teeth at home beforehand. Another excellent choice: succulent and delicious, bursting with energy and tropical goodness, is the pineapple. This handsome fruit tucked in a jersey pocket will garner envy and admiration from your fellow riders. Lastly, but I warn, this is not for the beginner cyclist, is the coconut. It can be opened with a firm bonk on the cap of a steering tube or top of a quill stem. Be careful where you place your cycle computer and cue sheet in case of dribbles. This maneuver, deftly executed, will bring you respect, awe even, especially from those drafting you at the time.

I mentioned coffee already. It is in the top three of the endurance sports drinks. It is good hot or cold, satisfying and stimulating – simply one of the best drinks ever invented. I’ve already mentioned the trick of putting one of Duncan’s large cups, filled with a medium coffee, in the bottle cage on your seat tube. But there is another technique not every one knows: filling a Camelbak with iced coffee. The Camelbak was designed for effective insulation to keep your beverage cool on a hot day. If you fill it with ice (which is cheap and widely available and is free on-tap at some stores and gas stations) and then top it up with chilled coffee then you’ll have a refreshing supply of iced coffee for your ride. The larger Camelbak models can keep you in iced coffee for several hours, long enough for a hot stretch between even remote breakfast stops or contrôles without putting a foot down.

Number one on the sports drinks list is of course water. It is does the job like nothing else, it is widely available and remarkably inexpensive if you can find my favorite variety which is named “Tap Water”. (The evil absurdity of brand-name water needs no repetition here.) Many people mix their food into their water with the afore-mentioned pulverized soluble substances. When I was a beginner brevet rider I experimented with these products. I admit their marketing can be really quite persuasive. But I found that they all had one crucial property in common: they are the only food I know that becomes less palatable with the miles, rapidly and dramatically so. On Boston-Montreal-Boston 2006 I was sick of whatever enchanted Perpetuum Mobile I was imbibing by the middle of the first day. By the second, the stuff was nauseating to me, all other foods conversely having become more attractive, some perilously so (I swear I could have eaten at Taco Bell without expecting a large sum of money in compensation).

The third in the triumvirate of perfect sports drinks is beer. That this beverage becomes profoundly attractive on a long ride has a solid biological basis. It is watery and cold (at least outside of the UK), which is a great start. It has lots of carbon dioxide in solution which stimulates the heart and blood flow. And the alcohol, if taken with some food (breakfast, preferably), enters into the glycolysis pathway towards its end thus efficiently producing adenosine triphosphate or ATP which is the chemical energy source your legs use to push the pedals. Alcohol actually yields cycling oomph with less digestive effort than does breakfast. In moderation and dissolved in sufficient volumes of water (as in beer) the negative effects of alcohol are, in my experience, not perceptible.

I’ve noted that some American riders are a bit surprised at the idea that beer is a sports drink, perhaps even a little taken aback. But it’s on tap at every stop on Paris-Breast-Paris for a reason. (I had one at every stop and made very satisfactory progress as a result!) In Germany they have a drink called radler which is available everywhere. It is half beer and half lemonade (the European kind of lemonade, which is a soda-pop much like 7-Up), giving it about the same alcohol content by weight as American lite beer. The word radler means cyclist! I don’t overdo it with the beer but a little bit helps me go a long way.

So there’s my contribution the complicated, ever evolving debate on nutrition for long distance cyclists: breakfast (preferably six times a day), fruit (pomegranate, pineapple and, for the advanced rider, coconut), coffee (medium in a large cup or iced by the half gallon in a Camelbak), water (of the variety paid for in your taxes), and beer. Zum Wohl!

Scooby-Doo and Mini-van drivers

Riding in the burbs, boonies and exurbs in orbit around Boston, as I often do, there is ample opportunity to contemplate the nature of human behavior. In those situations I am often interested in the behavior of people driving cars. I observe, record, tally, analyze, and classify. Recognizable patterns arise. Sometimes with sufficient definition to have some predictive power. And sometimes I like to wager a hypothesis as to the cause of the patterns.

Within the broad class of drivers who’s aim appears to be to maintain strict limits on the distance between their car and the one ahead of them on the road, some are more urgent in their efforts than others. Of course, the only thing that can be achieved (on the roads I cycle on) by accelerating a car is reduction of the distance to the car ahead. But most drivers avoid colliding with that car and few will ever pass it so they just end up maintaining a certain distance. This then appears to be the goal, maintaining strict upper and lower bounds on that distance.

Thus these drivers appear to be motivated to either a) get close to a car, if they aren’t already, or b) to stay close it if they are.  I’d say that the majority of motorists in Eastern Mass. display this behavior.

Nothing new there, of course, but what’s interesting is the priority of this goal relative to other dimensions of the driving experience. Some will risk the safety of a cyclist in pursuit of this goal. This is actually quite common. By no means the majority of drivers do it but for cyclists it’s a routine experience.

Before postulating the underlying reasons for such behavior, let’s estblish some simple facts:

1. The opportunity to pass a cyclist safely when it isn’t now is usually only a matter of seconds away.
2. The consequences for the driver, his or her passengers or anyone else in the world of waiting those seconds are almost certainly nil. Even if the wait is 30 seconds (extraordinarily long), it’s only going to be a minute or two before the car in front has been regained, so arrival time for the journey will not be affected. Even if it were, what do 30 seconds matter?
3. The consequences of passing a cyclist unsafely can be very serious. While the life of the cyclist may be of some concern to the driver, almost all would prefer to avoid a collision with an oncoming vehicle. Even on slow country roads the relative speed of the vehicles can easily reach 60 mph — enough cause injury (even with today’s safety technology) and cause considerable inconvenience.

So there is no incremental cost to anyone if the car passes safely as opposed to unsafely. But there is potentially high cost to driver, passengers, cyclist, other road users, emergency services, families, etc. to passing unsafely. The choice to pass unsafely is therefore irrational.

And that’s what makes it interesting. Why do people make that choice?

• They don’t know that their driving is unsafe?
• They feel that they are safe and don’t care about the cyclist or other drivers?
• They feel entitled to drive without having to slow down to the speed of the vehicle in front if that vehicle is a bicycle?

I’m sure you can think of more possibilities. But in any of these three cases, the position taken is clearly unsupportable by obvious and available facts. So there’s a fair chance that a cognitive dissonance is involved.

My guess is that the core underlying cognition is a belief that one is important and that one’s journey is urgent. It’s obvious that neither is true, hence dissonance. So cognitions consonant with the core cognition of self importance are piled on: “I shouldn’t have to wait for cyclists.” “Cyclists should be on the shoulder or sidewalk.” “This is a 40 mph road.” and other such nonsense. (I’ve heard all of those from drivers, btw.)

One that I heard earlier this year really stuck with me. I was riding on a Sunday morning in the pastoral burbs arourd Acton or Westord or somewhere like that with a group of three other cyclists. The stretch of road was straight, narrow enough so a car had to cross the center line to pass, but undulating enough that you couldn’t always see what was coming the other way. We were riding in line carefully at the right, knowing that traffic wanted to pass. One car began a passing maneuver without being able to see beyond an oncoming rise in the road. It got half past us when an oncoming car emerged over the now very near crest of the rise. The passing car slowed and moved right forcing two of us to brake to make space. The oncoming car had to stop.

One of our group had a word with the driver. She declared in her defense: “But we live here!”

For a cognition to reinforce the core self-importance cognition, that’s reaching pretty far into the absurd. ”But we live here!” She was perfectly serious. She was driving a Subaru.

I mention the brand of car because I’ve noticed that among the minority of drivers who choose to pass unsafely rather than safely, Subaru (Scooby-Doo as call it) and mini-vans are over represented. And I’m curious as to why.

And so finally to my outlandish conjecture. If I were living in a vinyl-sidewall house on a standard plot in a banal subdivision of a town without one decent restaurant, without a bar women can comfortably frequent, without a cinema, a theater, art gallery, with virtually no cultural or intellectual life but with plenty of churches, and I had to face that fact that I had sacrificed my foreseeable future to little more than the transportation of groceries and thankless children, I’d be pretty pissed off too. It would be hard to resolve that dissonance by adding consonant cognition. What alternative would I have? So I’d be living in constant tension and insecurity regarding my self-importance. 

Pity these Scooby-Doo and mini-van drivers. But if your out on a bicycle, take care too.

Bicycle storage

After much to-do, we finally installed the bicycle storage I had envisaged but been unable to describe to the most beloved. I think it works rather well. For an apartment of 1250 sq ft, nine bicycles, two of which are tandems, is quite a lot. This solution puts four of them into a volume of space that is otherwise little used. I have to nod my head when I stand under a front wheel but I don’t want to stand there very often so it’s no big deal.

The hooks were at the Home Despot at South Bay, Boston. I can’t find the hook on their web site. They have a big screw that requires a 5/16″ pilot hole. The hook part has a rubbery coating. We used a stud finder to locate a joist in the ceiling to screw the hooks into.

I hope the photos could be useful.