Le' Tour De Torture

After sucking wind at the Olympic training center I decided I needed some real elevation training to get me humbled and back on track with my motivation. So I loaded up the truck with a quiver of bikes and set out to climb the major passes of the Sierra Nevada's of California. I wasnt quite sure what I was getting into at this point but I knew I wanted to cripple my lungs and destroy my legs for a chance to be able to suck up the rockies during RAAM.

On the way to elevation I smashed out two metric century's on the american river bike path in Sacramento. this is actually on of my favorite riding spots since it is an all paved two lane path that winds along side the river, under bridges and through all kinds of scenery. it goes from the tourist attraction at old Sacramento all the way to Folsom lake.

I then hit Tahoe with a vigor, I smashed out the lake loop which made another century in three days and decided to hit something a bit more complicated,    The death ride.

For those of you unaware of the death ride it is a 130 mile-ish ride that hammers out 15,000 feet on three different summits getting up to 9,000 feet in elevation.

A small lake nearing the Summitt of Ebbetts pass

On the descent of Ebbetts pass looking onto the valley below

I finished my death ride day with a soak in the markleeville hotsprings.

In all the death ride was a total of 123 miles with 15,890 feet of climbing on the three major summit passes

Monitor Pass (8,314')
Ebbetts Pass (8,730')
Carson Pass (8,573')

Amazingly enough the fastest time I have seen for someone finishing this ride was less than 7 hours. My mind can not fathom the dude that can rip that out considering the 24% grades on Ebbetts. I however was no where near that time.

I took a rest day and vegged out in south lake and watched the eclipse on the beach and then set out for some more insanity for stage 6 of the tour de torture

Next stop was over the hill to attack Tioga pass. This monster comes in at just a hair under 10,000 feet and has no reprieve on the grade whatsoever.

The views were nice and the climb enabled me to inspect my lungs (that were on the ground) even at the mid point of the climb. I ended up riding the whole way up from 395 and over to olmstead just enough to be able to see half dome. Even though I had to climb back over the other side it was well worht the ride down in to Yosemite.

The descent coming off of Tioga was probably the most rewarding and entertaining downhill run I have ever made in my life. There was hardly an traffic, the asphalt was new, clean  and unadulterated and there wasn't a turn that required a single ounce of brakes the whole way down. No wind, no cars. it was bliss at 68 MPH. yeah you read that right.

I ended up doing a handful of other minor passes and mountain bike rides through the week including some mammoth mountain single track and some death valley jaunts but in all it was an amazing trip to get out and clear the lungs and get elevation under my belt.

I even got pulled over for good measure! Got away with a warning and a handshake. In all over the last 3 weeks I rode 931 miles and Climbed 36,000 vertical feet all above 6,000 feet in elevation, burnt 19k calories, drove 2100 miles, consumed one gallon tub of perpetuem, 29 ounces of hammer gel, one gallon tub of recoverite, one case of muscle milk, two cases of clif bars, two boxes of shot blocks, three tubes, one tire one chain and a intercooler boot.

I can wait for the RAAM madness to begin!

The pressure is on

Things are getting down to the wire, I will be at the team training camp in a few weeks and have a crit to race the same weekend then will be looking at the Nevada and Oregon RAAM challenges for april and may. Been hitting the manufacturers pretty hard for a wheel sponsorship that is within my price range and have been getting the bikes dialed in for the endurance factor. I have been accepted to the wounded warrior projects national campaign team and am also going to be in the after action review magazine. The media machines are starting to roll and it seems I am not escaping any of it.

The Garmin 800 is probably the best training tool I have in my arsenal and am very glad I picked one up. It has been my sole mode of motivation and self regulation at this point since I have no other riders/team members out here on the west to ride or train with. My climbing pace has doubled since the start of training (still not happy with it) and my distances have more than doubled. My descents have reached speeds up to 56 mph and my cornering has resemblance of a train on rails.

My gym workouts are starting to feel simple and my nutrition has found a happy place in taste and seems like a shopping spree every week with the amount of food I am eating.
Just one problem

I can’t seem to build a long enough playlist for my rides.

why cyclists shave their legs

This topic really cracks me up; it generates some of the lamest slurs and comments from the non cycling community and creates a lot of eyebrow raising to new cyclists. Especially to the Chewbacca newbie’s to the sport.

The funny thing is most people don’t even realize cyclists have shaved legs until the topic comes up. It has been on TV, print, and magazines so much that nothing seems out of picture when you see it at first glance. Think about it, have you ever seen a gorilla like hairy mongrel on a bike? You know the guy I am talking about. The one who gets in the shower and water never touches is body because it runs off his coat like water on a ducks back?

After getting some lame heckling comments from a friend the other day I was thinking about all the reasons cyclists shave while I was riding for two hours while he was in his recliner swilling beers wearing his wife beater while watching springer.

After the ride I spent quite a bit of time researching the topic and found there are a lot of simple explanations but I set out to create the most comprehensive fact sheet on the subject.

Tradition

Believe it or not cyclists have been shaving their legs for well over 140 years! The Road bike racing scene began as an organized sport clear back in 1868. The first world championship was in 1893 and cycling has been part of the Olympic games since the modern sequence started in Athens in 1896. I did a little of research into the topic to see when women started shaving and found these little nuggets. According to an article published by Christine Hope in 1982 called “Caucasian FemaleBody Hair and American Culture”  Women started shaving around 1915 when sleeveless dresses became into fashion and started shaving their armpits, although it took a few more years before leg shaving caught on, Women's razors and other methods of hair removal didn't show up in the Sears Roebuck catalog until 1922. In other words men have been shaving their legs long before women ever started.

Aerodynamics

“A 1987 study conducted by Chester Kyle for Bicycling magazine concluded that the aerodynamic improvement is roughly 0.6 percent, which could result in a savings of around 5 seconds in a 40km time trial ridden at 37kph” For the metric challenged that’s 24.8 miles at 22.9 mph. For the average Joe just slumming it on the bike this isn’t a concern at all, but to the woolly mammoth, Sasquatch like Italian pro who lost a TT stage in the tour de France by a couple seconds it means buying a set of clippers and letting the fur fly!

Infection/wounds

Hair will actually pull more skin off, create a larger wound, will be harder to clean and more susceptible to infection in the event of a road rash incident so if you are a testosterone-laden goat boy it’s going to be a nasty gangrenes zombie scrape. It’s the same principal as when you get shaved before a surgery or getting a tattoo. And when you do go down like a ton of bricks and slide to a stop on the never ending cheese grater it will be a lot easier to scrub clean and treat without having to weave your way through the follicle forest.

Ingrown hairs

Cycling clothing has developed a great deal over the years into the current form of lycra giving away to spandex. But one drawback is the constant agitation of the material over the skin during the constant pedaling action. This isn’t a problem for everyone but for me it is no longer an issue. But if you are one of those who like to pick at scabs and squeeze imperfections knock yourself out!

Massage

Who likes massages?! Well who doesn’t, except that really furry guy getting his hairs pulled by the masseuse who isn’t particularly impressed at the same time? There is nothing better than a good post ride massage. These days there are more and more massage tables at every event from small club rides to pro events. It has become a documented benefit for cyclists helping with muscle recovery and prevents cramping, just to name a few benefits. It makes the massage ten times better.

Sign of weakness/inexperience

Nobody wants to ride near or around you if you have the Cro-Magnon man, furry leg warmers on. The reason is this. In a pace line or peloton you are inches away from other wheels and cranks moving at exceptional speeds and using cat like corning prowess in a group mentality. But when cyclists see a set of shaggy hobbit legs in the group the general mentality is that “that guy is dangerous”. I mean the perception that they don’t have the experience to ride safely in a group. That they may be a newbie rider that will make irregular swerves or brake abruptly causing crashes or accidents. Nobody wants to be around “that guy”

Mud/Road grime

A while back I was bombing down a 30 mile long grade in the mountains on the roadbike. I was on the drop bars and tucked into a kamikaze death ride to drop everyone on my tail and get every little bit of speed on my cycling computer. I sprang to the descent in such a haste it was not relayed to me that there were road crews below filling road cracks with hot tar. It made for some interesting cornering but I learned something that day. Blistering hot road tar will peel right off if your legs are glistening shorn. Same goes with the mud on the mountain bike trails. Nothing bugged me more than mud dingle berries ripping my leg hairs out. Plus it makes sunscreen easier to apply which also acts as a nice barrier to grime and the occasional high speed road kill splatter.

Athletic tape

Ever ripped tape of your shaggy legs?  Enough said.

Ticks

This benefit is more when I am on the mountain bike since I am usually free riding or dowhilling with knee or skin guards on. I am often blasting off the trail like an out of control missile picking up those pesky suckers like a magnet. Once I get back to the truck it makes inspection and removal a charm.

Tattoos

Who in their right mind would spend thousands of dollars and hours of pain on intricate ink and have it covered with teen wolf hair? A lot of others like myself nowadays have a lot of ink and are proud to show it, but it doesn’t make sense if you don’t showcase it. In fact this makes me think of a great tattoo for the back of the calf for the guy behind you to read “if you can read this you are slow”

The Psychological effects

This one goes both ways. The effects of seeing the clean intense rippled muscle definition of the hulk like sinew calves of the guy in front of you on a pace line makes you wonder what more that guy has in store towards the end of a vomit inducing race. And then you personally have the feeling of being aero and fast as you pedal faster and gain satisfaction that the air glides seamlessly without disruption around you.

But in the long haul there are a lot more than just cyclists that dwell in the shaving conundrums. You have Tri athletes, swimmers, runners, bodybuilders, even divers whom are constantly donning wetsuits.

I am not sure what the ladies think about this topic but then again, I never did care what other think of me.

It fits like OJ's glove!

If there has ever been a topic that has purely been beaten to death and caused more arguments between bike shop employees (other than shop music), it is bike fit. In the last generation this niche has even evolved into a complete boutique business in itself. I can remember when I was on my first road bike in the 80’s, the local cycling club (a handful of old hippies) helped me out to get it in a somewhat comfortable position in order for me to endure the massive initiation rides ahead. Even though I got dropped a lot, I was always able to tell which way they turned by following the smell of pot and patchouli oil. My bike was a very large steel framed Schwinn hand me down with a standover height that was way taller than my inseam. They hacked off enough of the seat post in order to slam the seat clear to the frame and replaced the old school integrated (quill) neck and stem with a stubby and I was off! That was it. I rode that bike that same way for many non ergo miles behind those stinky hippies. Why I didn’t quit then I have no idea.

Over the years and many bikes later I learned the hard away about fit. Knee pains, back pains, wrist pains and something every male cyclist has experienced, the dreaded numb genitals. But today it has been taken to a new level with technology and “industry standards” but this isn’t the best for everyone. There are a myriad of clinics and courses that shop owners and employees will spend weeks in classroom settings in order to better understand fit and the various methods and high dollar 3D system equipment used to imply industry standard angles and postures on you and your bike. Is this a bad thing? No, I have taken these courses myself and consider myself fairly well educated on the principal. There are a lot of items on the bike that may need to be addressed or replaced in order to get the correct fit. Everything from saddles, seat posts, stems, bars even different crank arm lengths…..But!   Here is the caveat

Bike fit is purely specific to an individual because there are no two people the same and the intended purpose for fit is different to every rider and application. The industry geometry will get you in the ball park but it is up to the rider to make the right changes for his or her outcome. Of course the keen eye of an experienced fitter/cyclist and customer feedback is paramount, however some people will have to rely on a shop fit since they don’t have the miles under their belt to know what they need or want. Others who have gone through many miles and have a history of riding will have a much better grasp on the comfort VS. Performance fit battle and will be able to relay specifics during the fit process.

Since getting new bikes for this year’s race I have been able to Geek out and go through this process with a fine tooth comb since I am training at least twice a day and doing some distance at the same time. I can tell when I have some discomfort or tension in certain areas. I can feel when my geometry isn’t right and I can briefly maneuver on the bike to see what specific item needs to be addressed. It isn’t rocket science to know if you’re getting pain that something needs to change. Every ride I go out on I take a couple hex wrenches with me to be able to make small tweaks here and there in order to mitigate geometry problems. I use small pieces of athletic tape to mark the changes and then a sharpie once I am happy. The biggest part of making these small adjustments is doing one specific adjustment at a time, keeping the adjustments small in nature and riding a fair deal in-between. It does me no good to ride a short distance in between adjustments since I would not be able to tell if the adjustment is working or not. In the case of getting fit in a shop you would do this on a trainer and only for a couple of hours at most. They will use levels to find angles, use protractors to get skeletal points and will change out stems, seats, and spacers in order to get you into “guideline angles”. Shops that have true 3D fit technology will use video cameras and protractor software to be able to tune and pinpoint your skeletal angles to a more precise fit. Even so, the rider will still change something on their own within a couple days of riding.

The biggest fit battle these days are with the Time trail/triathlon bikes. Aerodynamics verses comfort in long rides and peak performance output according to geometry of the body. It can get so silly with technology that it boggles the new rider to the point of drooling and eye twitching and astonishes the high dollar bike buyers who just like the amount of detail and whimsical gadgetry they get when buying a “boutique fit” on their 8 thousand dollar bike that will hardly see anything but fair weather club rides on the occasional weekend. Then it goes to the extreme of Pro tour athletes who sit on a jig and are positioned to their most natural forms and have custom frames engineered and tailored just for the specific performance output in a wind tunnel while being filmed at 300 frames per second with cool smoke streams gliding over their back. And I guarantee they will still make a lot of changes and adjustments here and there on the road.

My bottom line to my personal fit is this. If you’re not comfortable you won’t have a performance kind of day. The industry fit angles are just ball park fits. 

The eye in the sky

Since my Roadside bomb encounter in Iraq in 2005, I have had a hard time with memory and recall. Usually when I tell people the extent of my Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and the specific things I have a hard time with, all most all of them have the same reply, “Hell!, I have that same problem and I never went to Iraq!” So I guess this blog post will benefit everyone.

There are certain tools and compensation techniques I use to overcome this problem. Since I am not much of a multi-tasker I rely on GPS units whenever I am traveling. It was actually the VA’s doing on getting us in the traumatic brain injury ward up on the technology. I don’t have to read a map and drive at the same time, I don’t have to take my eyes far from the road, I always know when my turn is coming before hand and it is less likely to spur some PTSD road rage incident. This is why I am opting for the Garmin Edge 800 cycling computer. Not because it is the neatest little gadget for the nerdy cyclist but simply because it will prevent a lot of problems for me. But there is one more step to my madness.

Google earth has probably been the most adaptive tool I have ever been blessed with since my injury. I have always had a knack for the “lay of the land” after 17 years of fighting forest fires all over the country using nothing but a map and compass and combined with my military training I have a well built skill set for navigation. (which any of my comrades can relate) But when I use Google earth I can honestly say I have enough information to say I have been there. Call it experience, call it calibration, call it what you may but when I can download a route in Google earth and follow it to the road level it is seared into the back of my head. It has become my greatest tool in my arsenal and I use it all the time as if I was a CIA/spec ops operator.

I use it to plan my training rides, I use it pre scout leisure destinations I have never been, but most importantly I am using it to nitpick The RAAM route. At road level I can determine the problem spots along the way and make the mistakes on the computer rather than on the bike at 3 in the morning. It enables me to make a direct correlation between the images I studied on the laptop to the actual route data that will show on the Garmin screen on my handle bars. Landmarks, surface conditions, inclines, choke points, wind breaks, and hazards are now perceived before hand and take’s the worry out of the “unknown factor” of what may lie ahead. But it can’t foresee everything…..what fun would that be?

Besides, what else am I going to do in between rides?