House on Fire

This morning’s training laps were like a house on fire. Three laps in 52 minutes, which equates to a 20.7mph average. The lap splits were 17:30, 17:10 and 17:20. How do I know all this info? I finished the ride is how. I feel like a billion bucks right now.

Today’s ride had an interesting dynamic. We had a relatively large group (say 9 or 10 people) and the overall mood was ornery – my guess attributable to still tired bodies and legs from the Berkshires. The park was crowded and there was a palatable tension in the air – we had two verbal altercations with other riders – one of them almost became physical. I’m sure the amped-up tone had something to do with the speed of the ride. We lost roughly half of the group by the end. It’s especially gratifying to finish on such a fast day.

I’m trying to contain my enthusiasm because I want to make sure this wasn’t a fluke. The Berkshires definitely strengthened my legs tremendously and I got lucky in my preparation due to the fact it rained on Tuesday night. This forced me to ride my trainer and I luckily decided to do a recovery workout which was a great move because it removed all the lactic acid from my legs. My legs felt spry this morning while others were still hurting from the weekend. I also had a great night’s sleep. All that said, I don’t want to over think things and ruin the awesome feeling I have right now.

Now that the SIG is over I have to plan my own Saturday rides. There are several options for “A” rides this weekend (70 miles to Bear Mountain, 60 miles to Nyack, and 100 miles to LI). I’m thinking of doing the most difficult one to keep the momentum going.

Steep Learning Curve

The final ride of my trip to the Berkshires culminated with a climb to the famous Bash Bish Falls in Massachusetts. According to the state park website: “Bash Bish Falls is located next to the 4,169 acre Mount Washington State Forest which offers 30miles of trails, including the South Taconic Trail and wilderness camping. They both adjoin New York's 5,000 acre Taconic State Park”.

The route called for us to climb from Taconic State Park on the New York side and descend the Massachusetts side. I was warned beforehand to conserve energy at the beginning of the climb because it became extremely steep at points. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that I would have trouble pedaling several times. The approach starts with a long steady 7-8% grade which crescendos to 18-20% before flattening at a parking lot, which is the rough mid-point of the climb. After some modest rollers, three vicious switchbacks arrived. The switchbacks claimed many victims as cyclists dismounted their bikes and begrudgingly trudged up the incline on foot.

When you attack a hill/climb for the first time, the most difficult thing to overcome isn’t the pavement currently under you, but the fear of what is to come. As I like to say, hills are 90% mental and the rest in your head. The fear of the unknown can have a overwhelming and powerful effect on your psyche. Many people broke down on the switchbacks but I held strong and attacked them on a diagonal akin to “ripping off a band-aid”. This was despite the fact that I literally had problems turning the cranks at some points, even standing. Turns out I have very aggressive gearing – most people had two lower gears than I did, which allowed them to turn their cranks more easily. I’ll definitely be purchasing a new cassette before next year’s trip.

Tomorrow, I’m resuming the early morning “A” training laps with Christy and his pals. I feel the pressure to make a good showing since I met most of the people this weekend. I’ll report back afterward.

No Joke

Just got done with my first ride up in the Berkshires and it is no joke. Today was supposed to be an "easy" ride but turned in a shift at Kenny Rogers Roasters. My legs are toast from all the hills.

A group of eight people set out from Sheffield to ride into the hills and end up at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge for lunch. We got lost no less than five times, partly because Dr. Ed had to stay in Sheffield to be on call for a patient and Christy wasn't unconfident about the route. Stockbridge, on a straight shot is 14 miles from Sheffield. It took us 35 miles to get there. Granted, we were intending to take an indirect route but we ended up about 10-15 miles off course. Each time we asked Christy how far away we were, he responded "about 5-6 miles". I bantered back "we should have been there three times already".

I want to write more but my eyes are fading a bit. It's really beautiful up here.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Deleveration

In simple terms, our current society and economy is based on the velocity of transactions and money and leverage (aka financial engineering). We are now in the process of experiencing deleveraging and deceleration or "deleveration" as I like to call it. The ease of credit and increased transactional velocity created by the internet created an unprecedented boom in real estate. People were just passing easy $ back and forth very quickly and using creative financing to create more and more explicit and implied leverage. The music has stopped and the greatest fool has been found. The real estate game is done until fundamentals (rental incomes, etc...) come into play -- but this is a long way off. Unfortunately, this real estate game was also driven by another factor that is coming to a head: cheap oil. Thus we may be entering stage two of the great real estate plunge. People who bought vacation homes near and far rely upon cheap oil to drive and fly to their paradise. Suddenly, it's not so attractive to make the trip -- this is going to kill values for vacation homes and resort/tourist areas. This also puts another nail in the NYC real estate coffin as many foreigners have been fueling the boom here -- I wonder how they are going to feel about 50% higher airline tickets?

I could go deeper into how our whole society, culture and urban planning are predicated on cheap energy/oil into perpetuity (which ain't happening) -- but it's a beautiful day out and I don't want to depress anyone. Let's just say it could be a long painful process but the Bully has a cure: Go ride a bike.

Off the Back

Cycling has been pure bliss for me lately. My bike fit and fitness are as good as ever. Last weekend we completed our training group (aka, the SIG or Special Interest Group) with a graduation ride to Bear Mountain and it was like being in cycling heaven – 70 degrees, big puffy white clouds, bright blue skies and a gentle breeze to keep you cool. The route was challenging but fair (80 miles with 5k feet of climbing) and the scenery was beautiful. Now that the SIG is done I have more flexibility in my ride schedule – this is a blessing and a curse as I need serious self discipline/regimen to maintain my fitness. More on that in a bit.

As most of you know, I am a member (and Treasurer/Board Member) of the New York Cycle Club (NYCC). The NYCC has a rich history and like most clubs a hierarchy of venerable members. Arguably one of the most revered members is Christy Guzzetta who served as President for many years in the 1980s and generated huge momentum for the club through his creation of the SIGs in 1986. In summary, Christy started a progressive ride group as a way to court his wife and named it a Special Interest Group (or SIG). His special interest was trying to get in good with a woman (you can read the full story here: http://www.nycc.org/rides_sig_a3.shtml). Today, there are SIGs for 4 different ride levels that hundreds of participants do over a 12 week period starting in the beginning of March.

I’ve met Christy a few times briefly but got to know him pretty well on Saturday sitting next to him at an outdoor patio bar in Cold Spring after our graduation ride (he has a summer house up there so he stopped by with his wife to meet some of the elder statesmen in our group for a drink). Christy has a real natural charm to him -- it’s easy to see how he generates momentum for cycling. There’s a big club sponsored ride weekend up in the Berkshires this weekend and we’re both headed up a day early so we agreed to meet up and ride on Friday with my friend Dr. Ed (another venerable member of the club and good friend of Christy). Christy and I exchanged e-mails on Monday to firm up plans for Friday and exchanged cell phone numbers, etc…

I’m leaving for the Berkshires on Thursday night to ride Friday through Monday and was thinking about my ride schedule for the week as I was surfing the NYCC message board. I came across this post:

Author: Christy Guzzetta
Subject: Training Rides, Central Park

6:00 AM
Tues and Thurs
Meet at Tavern on the Green
A paced laps around the park.
All are welcome.
Leave 6:00 AM sharp.

Perfect, I thought to myself. I love riding in the morning but just need motivation. I e-mailed Christy that I planned to meet him for laps this morning. Waking up at 5:30am was a bit of a chore (as it usually is) but I made it there in time. 6AM sharp, Christy rolled up on a bad-ass custom Richard Sachs frame and was all business. He barely acknowledged me and I wasn’t even sure if he remembered who I was. There were about five other riders there and I was trying to size them up. After about 2 minutes of blasé chit-chat, Christy gave a “ready?” and started to pedal away. I rode next to him for a bit and he asked me a few questions: Where do you live, Jeff?”, etc… I glanced around and noticed everyone in a tight paceline behind him and told him I was going to drop back in line – he nodded in approval. The paceline started to accelerate and weave through the park like a slithering snake picking up steam. We were ripping the flats in the low 20s and steamrolling up hills in the high-teens – the paceline was supersmooth and everyone had a quiet confidence. There was almost no chatter or signaling of obstacles. There was a clearly implied “keep up or be dropped” riding policy. I kept up for ¾ of a lap but was dropped at the top of Harlem Hill after ascending at 16mph (I can only usually accomplish this after a few warmup laps on my best days). I didn’t feel defeated or deterred – I loved the “take no prisoners attitude” of the ride group and was thinking I’d like to join it again and try to keep up. I finished a total of 3 laps on my own and cruised home with some roasted legs but a pretty good spirit nonetheless.

At around 10am I received an unsolicited e-mail from Christy:

The ride got off to a rocket start this morning.

Here’s the deal, you come out 4 or 5 times, try like a
sonofagun to keep up, by the 5 th or so time, you’re in the
middle of the group.

Honest. That’s how it happens. Always.

It takes a bunch of times to get the flow of it.

Right now it probably seems impossible to ever be able to
keep up.

I swear, 4 or 5 or 6 times, you are right in the middle of
it.

Swear.


This guy has me totally motivated – I can’t wait for Thursday morning to get here...

The Great American Blame Game

Here’s the American dream in a nutshell. Do nothing for 40 years, retire and do less. We’ve lost our competitive edge as a nation because we produce nothing. Our whole society is based on paper pushing (sorry, I mean financial services) and consumption. In order to consume as much as we do, we import goods and export debt. Someone explain to me how this is sustainable? In order to fix the imbalance, we are going to either need to work harder, consume less or some combination of the two. The forces to drive this change are in motion (falling dollar, higher inflation, etc…) – it’s unfortunate we weren’t able to proactively change them on our own terms. It’s very likely a massive redistribution of labor is on the horizon.

Call it what you will but we are clearly having a fall from grace in this country and I believe it stems from one main indomitable trait we hold as U.S. citizens: ENTITLEMENT. Nobody wants to look themselves in the mirror and take responsibility for their own actions – it’s always someone else’s fault. Everyone faults George Bush for attacking Iraq but at the end of the day he did it to secure the oil our country consumes. When push comes to shove, every president is a populist – he’s going to pursue policies to get the American people what they want. George Bush attacks the Middle East, while Obama will shake their hands – all in the name of oil. If you want to blame anyone for attacking Iraq, blame yourself as an oil consumer.

Last night in our maintenance class I couldn’t contain myself when Eric was complaining how the government’s stupid decision to use ethanol as a gas substitute was driving up food prices. With his permission to speak candidly, I hauled off on him (just to clear the air, we’re cool now -- he was just busy the day I came in the store/The Morning After). I told him I found it laughable that a guy who drives 100 miles a day round trip to work and consumes tons of oil would complain about the very problem he is causing. I couldn’t script a better example of the American Blame Game. Of course he went into a story justifying how he can’t take the train because he’d miss time with his kids, etc… I’m not trying to sound insensitive but there’s always a way to justify the habits created by our momentum. This also highlights another absurdly irrational mindset we have. Every person I speak with agrees we consume way too much as a country yet nobody thinks they consume too much themselves – this is a mathematical impossibility.

The Bully has a cure all for what ails our country: Go ride a bike.

Not so Fast

Took the Brooks out for a ride last night and it just plain doesn't fit. The front/nose of the saddle is too flat. I compared it to my current saddle and noticed the Brooks nose doesn't slope down which is a function of its design. In short, the saddle was nosing around my genetalia. On the bright side, it's been a while since my genetalia's been nosed. I digress.

So the saddle is for sale on ebay right now. There's a slim chance I may profit from the sale as I found a place in England that had a killer about $100 lower than anywhere in the U.S. Assuming there's at least one idiot bidding who doesn't know how to use froogle to search for best price, I will at least break even.

I only got 10 miles in last night due to my saddled mind. I'm not sure I could have done much more as my legs were still roasted from the difficult weekend riding. I'm taking off tonight and will do a longer ride tomorrow night (25-30 miles), but with a nice easy pace. Saturday is the big graduation ride of 100 miles culiminating in the climb of Bear Mountain.

Dialed-in

I know it’s going to upset at least one of my readers who was rooting for my back wheel to fall off (just in the name of good blog content), but my ride on Saturday actually went well. I decided to use my backup wheel to remove one controllable variable. The other variables (my riding shape and the bicycle fit) also held up surprisingly well. I was shocked at how well my conditioning held up. I have to give some credit to the better fit, which is giving me more power and ultimately stamina because of better comfort. I really dialed-in the fit at the halfway point when we broke for lunch – I moved the saddle up a bit and tilted the nose. Final stats for the ride were 85 miles and 4,500 vertical feet of climbing.

On Sunday, I rode my bike to my brother’s house in CT for Mother’s day. I was originally intending to ride my touring bike so I could pack some clothes, etc... in the panniers but I ended up using my road bike with a backpack because I was so pumped about the fit/feel of the bike. I took the 6 train to Pelham Bay Park, the last stop, in order to cut down on the overall mileage since this was going to be a recovery ride. This is the first time I’ve done this route and I definitely underestimated the hilliness. I’m not sure there were any flat sections – I was either going up or down. I ended up logging 40 miles, which was the perfect distance but there was too much climbing and I also underestimated the extra work associated with 10-15 lbs on your back. As far as the route quality, about 50% of very scenic – the other 50% was the exact opposite and in fact, some of the route was through ghetto areas. It’s amazing how quickly the terrain changes from beautiful Greenwich to crack houses.

Just got my new Brooks racing saddle in the mail. I was cautious about putting it on my bike since I had everything so perfect but I think this will be the cherry on top. We have our training graduation ride this weekend. It’s a 100 mile ride culminating with a climb to the top of Bear Mountain (not for the faint of heart). I’m going to ride the Brooks saddle this week and see how it goes – typically there’s a 500 mile break-in period for a Brooks but out of the box it doesn’t feel any less comfortable than my current saddle. First impressions are good – I got the titanium rails which cut down on the weight – I was surprised by how light it felt – it’s only 100 grams heavier than my current saddle. That’s a lot for a weight weenie but only ¼ lb in the real world. I’ll just skip a few potato chips today at lunch to make up for it.

The Morning After

Remember back in college when you hooked up with the hot girl you always had a crush on and you thought it was the start of a storybook relationship? Then when you saw her at the bookstore or on campus the next day she acted like she barely knew who you were and it sent daggers through your heart?

Well, I just had that experience with Eric, our maintenance class instructor. When he made the fitting adjustments for me on Monday, he asked me to e-mail him with how it felt after I rode. I e-mailed on Wednesday that it felt great but that I was coming over the top a bit and maybe it was that my cleats needed to be moved forward on my shoes – I asked for his opinion and also if they had cleat replacements since mine were shot. No response. I called the shop the next day to ask if they have the cleat replacements. Yes, we have one more they say. They begrudgingly agree to hold them for me (in the back area where Eric works) after I tell them I’m in the maintenance class.

When I visited the shop on Thursday to get the cleats it was like Eric barely knew me. He is so animated during the class and now he was like a robot. I asked a few questions about the fit and he was going about his business giving me a few “uhu”'s and “right”'s. Pure blowoff lingo. I felt used but then again, it may be a bike shop, but it’s an NYC bike shop.

Last night when I rode the fit suddenly felt awkward. Was it a reflection of my interaction with Eric? Who knows. What I do know is my shifting started getting weird and I was losing power. I moved my seat around a bit. Still issues. This sucks. BANG. My cassette (back wheel gear sprocket) explodes into pieces. I replaced my cassette on Wednesday and apparently I didn’t tighten the lockscrew enough. I fixed the wheel when I got home but who knows if it’s defective/will come off again?

Now I have three issues for Saturday’s ride, which is a brutal 85 mile climbfest. First, I haven’t had a serious ride in two weeks (I was in Vegas last weekend for a bachelor party and have been super busy at work). Second, I’m still not 100% confident in my bike fit. Third, I have a potentially defective untested back wheel that could come undone at anytime.

Ain’t cycling grand?

Stroke of Genius

I’ve really been thinking about the fit of my bike lately as I’m not getting as much power as I think I should be. Further, I don’t see or feel as much muscular development in my legs this year, which indicates I’m not positioned correctly.

After some self reflection, self-measurement and triangulation, I definitely think the top tube of my bike is too long (the top tube is the bar on the bike that is below your crotch when you are standing over the bike). It’s 58cm but should likely be 56cm. While bike posture is a complex interaction of many measurements and angles, the basic impact of a longer top tube for someone like me who is inflexible (muscle-wise) is that you are more stretched out which can impede your leg stroke bc you feel too compressed in your hip area.

Unfortunately, top tube length really can’t be changed. I was convinced I needed a new frame to accommodate my measurements. However, Eric from my maintenance class has made some genius revisions and recommendations that have really improved my posture and power. Basically, he gave me a steeper angled stem which brings the handlebars higher and has recommended shorter reach handlebars. Effectively these changes will give me the feel of a shorter top tube.

I had my first ride with the new stem last night and it was incredible how much more comfortable I was. Also the power was back in my legs and I could feel my muscles working more directly. I felt a little pain in my kneecaps but that should be easily fixable by tweaking my saddle position. Now I just need to change my handlebars and my problems should be solved.

Suffer-O-Rama

Suffer-O-Rama is the story of my life lately. Work has been brutal -- stockpicking is no easy task these days and the hours have been long. This creates a huge conflict for my cycling training. In order for me to get an effective ride in outdoors, I really need to leave work no later than 5:30pm given that it gets dark just after 7pm. That's a near impossibility.

So, I need to resort to unusual measures and last lines of defense. Yes, I need to use the trainer. Oh man. Talk about mental torture. The trainer SUCKS. Actually, maybe it's not the trainer. Maybe it's Coach Troy who SUCKS. See, for the 50% of my audience who don't cycle, Coach Troy is the instructor on the cycling training video series Spinervals. Coach Troy is an enigma -- you respect him because he pushes you hard but you despise him because he is so damn glib about it. The bottom line is the trainer is a necessary evil if you want to maintain a consistent workout regimen. I realized tonight it's a great compromise because I can get a full days work and a great workout in the same day. I own about eight spinervals DVDs -- each one has a different focus with a catchy title (e.g. Spinervals 7.0 The Uphill Grind). When I got home tonight and perused the titles, the choice was pretty clear: Spinervals 3.0 Suffer-O-Rama.