From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXX

Introduction

This is the thirtieth installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. (No, XXX does not mean it’s rated X … it’s more like PG-13, maybe R, we’ll see what makes it in. If this ends up being my most popular Bits & Bobs post, I’ll know why.)

Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, Volume XXII is here, Volume XXIII is here, Volume XXIV is here, Volume XXV is here, Volume XXVI is here, Volume XXVII is here, Volume XXVIII is here, and Volume XXIX is here. Are you thinking “pump up the volume?” (Didn’t think so.)

So what are albertnet Bits & Bobs? They’re generally passages from letters I wrote friends and family back in the days before email (or excerpts from emails, in the days after). If this sounds boring, bear in mind I’ve always wanted to be a writer so I tried pretty hard to be interesting. Also, these snippets are pretty candid, and in my youth I was socially clumsy and also tended to ride my bike at speeds some would consider dangerous … so read on because there’s always a chance you’ll enjoy some schadenfreude, righteous indignation, or relief that it wasn’t you.

The Bits & Bobs in this post are in chronological order. The different volumes are all over the place and can be read sequentially, simultaneously, serially, seriously, surreptitiously, scrupulously, sensitively, and/or sanctimoniously.

All of today’s dispatches were written when I was attending UC Berkeley.

September 17, 1990

Today I was out on my new Guerciotti, just having the time of my life riding. It was early evening, starting to get dim, when I barreled down Claremont Ave, this wide, smooth, slightly twisty road, something like a 9% grade. (The low bottom bracket of the bike makes it really stable—although I did hit a pedal yesterday at like 45 mph which was kind of scary.) Anyhow, I’m flying along and suddenly I slam into a pothole or something. There’s this incredibly loud noise and for a split second, I’m completely blinded. I still can’t figure this out; I really couldn’t see a damn thing. (My best theory is that both retinas detached from my eyeballs because of the impact, and then they reattached. Or maybe it was like a cartoon of some kind and my eyeballs spun around in their sockets.) Anyhow, when I can see again, I’m in the left lane and there are cars coming towards me. Not like right in my face, but approaching pretty fast because I’m doing 50 mph. (I noted this later, of course—it’s not like I was looking at my bike computer at the time.) Did I mention that both my wheels were basically caved in at this point, and my back one was a potato chip? It felt like somebody had removed my rear wheel and replaced it with a jackhammer. I actually didn’t have a chance to be scared; my mind was totally tied up trying to respond. All in a split second, I’m aware of several things: 1) My rear tire, and maybe my front, are absolutely guaranteed to explode at any moment; 2) The chances of crashing are so high that all I can really do is cut my speed and try to get back into my lane so that at least all I hit is the ground, instead of the unforgiving windshield of a ‘73 Plymouth Reliant; and 3) If I use my back brake, the rear wheel will definitely slide out from under me as soon as the tire blows, if not sooner. So, I slam on the front brake, which grabs on the caved-in section of the rim and lurches the bike around even more, but somehow I get my speed down to about thirty and get back into my lane just before my rear tire blows up, then the front.

From here on out it’s easy; I mean, hell, people bring bikes down from 30 mph after dual blowouts all the time, no problem. God, what a rush. Both wheels are completely totaled. The bent sections of rim look like beer cans that a party animal has flattened against his forehead. I couldn’t even roll the bike home; I had to carry it. I feel lucky to be alive, or at least lucky I’m not dead. But at the same time, I feel cursed that this freak thing happened at all. Half of me says I should go out for pizza to celebrate still being alive, while the other half says I should save my money for the new rims I have to buy now. One thing is certain: I’m not going to spend my evening studying. I’ve been through enough for one day.

September 23, 1990

It’s taking a while to make friends up here; as you know, for most of my life I’ve been pretty shy. In the last couple of years I’ve become a lot more outgoing, but because I was shy for so long, I don’t have nearly as much practice socializing as, say, you. At UCSB I had the benefit of being on the cycling team, where I had a leg up socially because I was a fast rider and people respected that. That should help me here, too, but the Berkeley team isn’t nearly so social and we won’t really get together much until the racing season starts in February. So I need a Plan B, and I have one: my strategy is to show up early to class, plop down next to any random person, and strike up a conversation. Now, the only way this could backfire is if I chat up some dude and he thinks I’m coming on to him. This could be awkward if he’s straight, and even more awkward if he’s gay. I figure I better not risk it. So I only chat up women, because if they get the wrong idea, that’s totally fine—women are really good at guiding would-be romance into mere friendship. I mean, it’s practically a cliché, right? Of course, there’s the remote possibility that this failsafe process will go astray and some woman will not only think I have romantic ambitions but she will, too. So just in case that happens, I only chat up really good looking women. I’m not on the make … just trying to gin up some friendships and I gotta start somewhere, right?

So, at the beginning of the semester I chatted up this gorgeous girl in one of my English classes, and again the next time the class met, and so on, and eventually I tossed the dice and invited her over for dinner. (I guess going for coffee would have been the more logical next step, being a bit more low-key, but I don’t drink coffee, and last time I went for coffee with a girl, I didn’t know what to order and got all flustered. I mean, I could have had hot chocolate but then I’d come off like a little kid, right? And tea is so fussy with the bag and the string and the little paper wrapper the bag came in, and the milk in the tiny pitcher, I mean, I don’t know, it all seems kind of twee. I don’t even remember what I did order that time, but I never had coffee with that girl again, which is a shame because she was fly.)

Damn, where was I? Oh, right, dinner. So I made H—, the girl from my English class, dinner at my apartment. My friend B— (who graduated from UCSB last summer and moved to Oakland with me) was there, at least for a bit before finding an excuse to bail, assuming I would want privacy, like this was some romantic thing. He subtly razzed me about this: when H— complimented our apartment and furnishings (most of them B—’s), particularly our couch and its pillows, Brett said, “Did you know these are throw pillows?” He didn’t actually wink at me as he said this, but it was obviously a subtle reference to “throw the ho’s,” a phrase in surprisingly widespread use by me and my Santa Barbara pals. We will say, for example, “Call me Hector. Hector Throw-da-Ho’s,” or we complain, “No meet da ho’s, no throw da ho’s,” or simply “No ho’s.” Of course we don’t mean ho as in actual whore; “ho” is just a handy synonym for woman, or perhaps for attractive woman, just like “freak.” And the “no throw da ho’s” lament is mostly true; most of us have nobody to throw most of the time.

Well, dinner went fine, and then H— and I randomly started watching “Akira,” a movie B— had rented, which was this Japanese animated thing that started off pretty well, with young attractive people zooming around on cool motorcycles, but at some point the main character has some kind of weird bodily mutation with his arms growing insanely and becoming like tentacles. I could tell H— was pretty freaked out so we shut that off and went up on the roof. It’s not that high up but had a great view of the Golden Gate and all that. Then it got a bit late and we went back to my apartment and the phone was ringing, which doesn’t happen that often, and it was H—’s roommate, calling to see if she was okay. I was surprised that a) her roommate would worry, and b) she was resourceful enough to find my phone number. Or was this a precaution? (“If I’m not home by 10, check on me, would you?”) So anyhow, I walked H— home even though it’s a pretty good neighborhood. It was a nice night and when we got to her place, she invited me in.

Well, this was unexpected. I figured I’d just see H— to the door, and then head on home. I don’t think I was even speculating about a friendly little peck on the cheek because this wasn’t really a date, not as far as I could tell. I mean, how do you tell? Was she inviting me in just to be nice? Or was this like in the movies and was supposed to lead to (dot dot dot)? Obviously I was over-thinking things, as usual. Anyhow, eventually it came to pass that I found myself sitting down in her apartment. I don’t remember what would have made me decide to sit down other than perhaps our conversation was ongoing and I didn’t feel like standing anymore. So now it didn’t look like my departure was imminent. So what was I supposed to do next?

It occurred to me that H— might be waiting for me to bust a move, and if I didn’t, she might take that as an insult. I sure didn’t want to insult her, and besides, she was super fly as I believe I mentioned already. The opportunity (even if it’s only a perceived opportunity) to bust a move with a fine betty doesn’t come along every day. A decision tree formed in my head: if I don’t bust a move and that hurts her feelings, that could jeopardize our friendship. But if she’s not waiting for me to bust a move and considers us just friends and then I do bust a move, that could also jeopardize the friendship, though honestly she must know she’s fly so how could she possibly blame me for wanting to bust a move? I figured, worst case, I bust a move when she’s not actually expecting—or wanting—it, in which case she’ll just turn her head suddenly to deflect the kiss, and I’ll immediately get the message, and then I can quickly blush and stammer out an apology, following which there’ll be no hard feelings, and then she and I can go on being friends. Right?

The scenario that I didn’t actually even consider, for some reason, was that she’d actually respond favorably and we’d suddenly be making out. Why didn’t this cross my mind? Who knows. Perhaps I’ve just been shut down by girls so many times, to auger in yet again seemed almost inevitable, scripted even. So imagine my surprise when I busted the most awkward move ever and it seemed to work. I said something totally inane, like “I like your sweater” and then I guess I must have reached for her, or maybe she read my mind and came forward, but next thing you know she’s sitting on my lap and we’re making out! Pretty thrilling stuff and she paused a moment to say something similarly inane like “I like your sweatshirt, too,” but mostly we’re just mashing faces. And then I become aware of this strange kind of rhythmic pulsing—not a sound exactly, but not exactly not. Kind of like a hydraulic rushing you might say. And I realize I’m hearing her pulse through her chest, which is proximate to my ear. This didn’t occur to me right away because the rhythm was pretty high for a heart rate. I mean, I wouldn’t expect a typical resting pulse rate (e.g., 60 or 70), since making out is kind of exciting, but we weren’t running stairs or anything either. Since my arm is around her, I can see my watch out of the corner of my eye, and what the hell, I decide to track the second hand and measure her pulse. Granted, in all the excitement I can’t vouch for the accuracy of my calculation, but it seems like her heart is going at about 130 beats per minute. Is she just super excited? Or maybe frightened? Or could she be having some kind of seizure?

After a few minutes our embrace subsides, as explicably as it had started, and we say goodnight and I head home. As I walk along up Alcatraz Avenue, I ponder the strangeness of recent events, this sort of hybrid between a romantic comedy and “Telltale Heart.” The song in my head (there’s always a song in my head) is “Walking On the Moon” by the Police. By the time I get home I just kind of shrug the whole thing off as just another of those strange things that happen to me.

I saw H— in class the next day, and afterward as we walked across Sproul Plaza chatting, H— seemed just a little off, perhaps a bit stiff, certainly not behaving like somebody who has just embarked on a sweet romantic adventure. Honestly, I’d have been a lot more surprised if she did seem all excited about the passionate turn our evening had taken, though I’m not sure why. I guess it’s because I wasn’t that excited either; I was feeling strangely ambivalent about it all, probably because my excursions into dating so often end badly, so why would this be any different? And thus it seemed, like I said earlier, almost scripted when she finally came out with it: “About last night. I like you and want to be friends, but I don’t want to be … well, I don’t want to get involved.” I didn’t need to ask “involved in what”—the answer was “it,” as in “it all.” Which was fine with me. From that day forward we were just friends. Which, as you might recall, is all I’d really been looking for anyway.

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Cycling Smackdown - Middle Ring Tale

Introduction

I am an assistant coach for the Albany High School mountain biking team. The age difference between the student-athletes and me keeps growing, and my bike isn’t getting any younger, either. In fact, it sports a triple crankset, a technology that has all but disappeared from the mountain bike racing circuit. One of the kids said, “We were trying to imagine you on a modern bike with a one-by, but it just wouldn’t seem right.” So this configuration has, for better or worse, become part of my “personal brand.”

What’s that, you ask? What’s a “one-by”? It’s a crankset with only one chainring, which is what most modern mountain bikes have now, paired with a  wide-range cluster of gears in the back (the opposite of the “corn cob” I coveted as a youngster). The problem with the one-by setup is, how do you properly execute the maneuver required for a Big Ring Tale?

I did not coin the term “Big Ring Tale”—at least, I don’t think I did, having used this term since the early ‘80s—but when I googled this phrase just now every single hit was this blog. Suffice to say, “Big Ring Tale” refers to a story of a showdown on bikes, with the climax coming when the hero, just before launching his final, devastating attack, “throws it in the big ring”—that is, shifts into his bike’s higher gear range. But this tale takes place on a climb far too steep for the big ring, which is why we’ll have to make do with a smaller one.

Middle ring tale

Our team rides are largely on dirt trails, but getting to them and back requires some asphalt. There’s a classic climb we do, on the road, that’s short but very steep. It’s called Canon Drive and it gains 244 feet in 0.39 miles, for an average grade of 11.7%. The top stretch is a fricking wall, topping out at 24.7%! Canon Drive is the last big hurdle we must get over during our weekday rides before descending all the way back to the high school. Most kids hate this climb because we usually have to tackle it when they’re already pretty knackered. They’ll beg for crazy long detours just to get around having to face it; one coach calls this chorus of whining “the ABCs,” for “anything but Canon.”

In my group (only the second fastest, but hey, I’m old!), there’s a kid named S— who is what we call a pocket climber. His physique is just ridiculously spare and lean, his upper body an inverted trapezoid from somewhat aerodynamic shoulders to an ideally narrow waist, and the inevitable “ripped” (i.e., lean) legs. He looks like a Pixar character, someone who could feature in the next “Incredibles” movie or something. On the big climbs I can almost never keep up with him. Today I was hoping he’d be tired enough, this having been a long ride, that I could prevail on this last, beastly climb.

So, I took the front right from the get-go, hoping to perhaps demoralize everyone into just slacking off (being teenagers, after all). I kicked out the hardest pace I could handle, which had my heart into the low 160s, which is over 90% of my maximum heart rate. The wimp that lives in my brain said, “Anyone who can come by me when I’m going this hard deserves to drop me.”

(Obviously the above photo is from a different ride when I had the opportunity to futz with a phone camera. Note the heart rate percent-of-max display, in the upper right, showing 84%, with the “ring of fire” showing in red how close to maxed out I am.)

Notwithstanding this fatalistic sentiment, my self-talk in such cases isn’t all negative. Much of the time I’m simply marveling how high I can get my heart rate when I’m riding with these kids. On no level do I feel like I need to beat them, or that anything is at stake; it’s just that their verve is infectious. Overall think my spirit animal is the cat; that is, I’m kind of a loner. But these team rides bring out my inner sled dog and I can’t help but exuberantly run with the pack, no matter how hard that is.

Soon enough, S—, the pocket climber, as if following a script, came drilling it past me. This was about 5/8 of the way to the top. (Why don’t I just say “about halfway”? Easy for you to say, armchair reader. On a climb like this, practically every foot of every effort is metered out.) S— started to pull away and I thought, “Well, he’s gone, but at least maybe I can hold off Z—.” Z— is the head coach’s kid, who has been putting the hurt on me more and more on every ride, in the process of eventually becoming faster than I, which most of these kids do (and which, let’s face it, is the whole point of coaching them, though it’s a bittersweet experience when they leave you, often literally, in the dust). Sure enough, Z— pulled level a moment later: the next thread in my weave unraveling.

Except it wasn’t Z—! It was this other kid, T—, who is a bit stockier than the others and generally isn’t a factor on the climbs. He’s not naturally built for uphills, perhaps even less than I am, plus he’s pretty new to the sport. Something about how he squares his shoulders, especially when I see him next to a pocket climber, makes me think of Frankenstein’s monster. And, when the hammer goes down, he really thrashes, body rocking all over the place. But here he was, totally going for it, attempting to burst forth and chase S— down, just flying in the face of Fate, despite the iron seeming stone cold!

It was such a cheeky move, so dismissive of  the established hierarchy, it inspired me! So I thought, heck, I’m already in the middle ring, which isn’t bad, on a grade this steep, and even though we’d just reached the final wall, where I would normally shift into my largest cog in the back, I thought: what if I just fricking shifted UP, into a harder gear? Or, even, like, two gears up? As in, what if I put the bike in the gear a real man would use here if he were going to lay down a rubber road straight to freedom?!

(Yes, I know in a classic Big Ring Tale I’d be honor-bound to throw her in the big ring at this point, but let’s be real. The grade is more than 20%. I guess I could have taken some liberties and written that I’d been in the little ring, and now threw her in the middle, but that would be false. Could I have called this a “smaller cog” story? No, that just doesn’t make any sense. And one more thing: if “lay down a rubber road straight to freedom” confuses you, you need to go watch “Mad Max” as soon as possible. I believe the expression has to do with accelerating so hard, even when already at highway speed, that you spin the tires and burn rubber.)

Could I really do this? Decide to shift up two gears, and just honor that crazy commitment? Well, my back to the wall, I was just crazy enough to try it. So I stood up (so I’d be standing already when the shift was complete) and clicked the lever twice. My derailleur is pretty bent, so under load it takes a while to shift into a smaller cog, and during this process I kind of lose some power, so mid-shift Z— finally came up next to me, like I’d known he would...

Except it still wasn’t Z—! It was this French kid, G—, the son of a fellow coach who is a brilliant world class physicist living in the US for a while helping America’s best scientists solve some crazy problem using a giant multibillion particle accelerator, but I digress. He (the kid, not the physicist) is normally off the back on these climbs, given the elite group he’s in, but he was having the ride of his life! He had dropped Z— and A— and was about to drop the fricking coach, that being me!

But it was not to be, because suddenly my bike was in gear and I fricking went! I accelerated with astonishing effect and I heard G— make this kind of odd noise, between a sigh and a puff of air bursting from his lungs through his mouth as his dream was instantly scuttled.

Okay, so, at the risk of exhausting your patience with another aside, I need to get something straight here, because when I regale my wife with tales such as this, she doesn’t quite understand the dynamic and to her, these acts of aggression are puzzling, even disconcerting. She ran track in high school but it was mostly a social thing, without much rivalry within the team. But the fact is, high school mountain bikers are just aggressive. Every climb, every descent, heck, even the rare flat section, is an opportunity to thrash your teammates. It’s automatic. It’s not the same as the road teams I was on at their age, where we were on a team with adults who let us ride with them so long as we behaved (i.e. rode predictably). And when we teen roadies went on long rides together, sure, the hammer would go down from time to time, but we also chatted quite a bit, at a casual pace, and at other times relied on each other for a good draft, taking turns facing the wind because it was a long way home. Mountain biking is different. The rides are shorter, more intense, and generally a free-for-all. And as a coach, my job is to lead, inspire, and demonstrate the subtle arts of tactics, psychology, and (when I can manage it) brute force. This isn’t like other team sports where the coach just does a lot of talking from the sidelines. We NICA coaches suffer right along with our student-athletes, on every ride. And, in the faster groups, we coaches pwn these youngsters whenever we can because our window for doing so is slowly but inexorably closing. We know it, and the kids know it: virtually anybody who sticks with the program for all four years can look forward to eventually surpassing the coach. Until that moment, we coaches are all-in, comfortably confident in the knowledge that even the most solid drubbing we can inflict won’t discourage these kids. They look at us: we’re old, we’re oddly fast, but we’re mainly old, and eventually, one day, vengeance is theirs. They will repay. [Insert winking emoticon here.]

Okay, where was I? Ah, yes, I’d completed my brave upshift and launched my quixotic attack. I was drilling it like a madman! Now, as you already know, anybody—even a guy who’s already hammering, even at >90% of his max heart rate—can stomp on the pedals and accelerate for a little while, maybe 50 or 100 feet, before he totally detonates. Such accelerations are impressive until they fizzle. Except that I didn’t! I just felt this crazy surge of power, like a giant wave had just swept me up and was hurtling me toward the beach—except it wasn’t a beach, it was a wall! The ruthless final stretch of Canon Drive! And I was flying!

The pain was so severe it just triggered some altered state where nothing could stop me, and I flew up that hellish pitch with absolutely no regard for the abuse I was inflicting on myself, much less for the laws of gravity. I felt like a squirrel running straight up a tree! It seemed impossible to catch the other two, except that suddenly they were in great difficulty—the difficulty I should have been in, but somehow wasn’t—and I was gaining on them with a quickness!

As I raged up the slope, fate caught up to T— and he detonated, right near the top, less than fifty feet from the prize, and as I overtook him I was in striking range of S—. As we went around the ridiculous corner at the top (where it’s so steep it’s impossible not to peel out in your car after stopping at the stop sign), I squeezed past S— and just nipped him at the line! Or did he nip me? There was no photo-finish camera, but either way, he must have been astonished I was even there, after having been so thoroughly distanced earlier. I looked down at my heart rate monitor, and for the first time ever, I mean in my entire life, it read 100%! So this was kind of a triple-victory! Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man, and Man vs. Himself! Daaaaaamn!

So was there a victory salute? Applause? A ticker-tape parade? An engraving in some memorial plaque? Of course not: just a fist-bump and a breathless “NOOICE.” Of course in the moment this tête-à-tête felt like kind of a big deal, as in “What a rush!” but it was ultimately just another hill, just another sprint. And when intense, all-in suffering like this becomes routine, that’s when the humble teenager becomes an athlete, ideally for life.

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

From the Archives - Brutal Bicycle Training Contest - Part II

Introduction

If you read my last post, you were left hanging, your interest (ideally) kindled about who ended up winning the 2005 Albert training competition. (If you didn’t read my last post go do that first.) This post provides the electrifying conclusion of the protracted, wrenching, ego-drenched battle between brothers. By way of review, the brothers in question are Bryan (at left in the photo below) and Geoff (at right).

Where we left off, I led the competition—after 362 days—by a mere 3.5 points over Geoff. To emphasize how close this was, that’s just 0.12% of my total score to that point. Geoff and I were absolutely neck-and-neck, and both already fried from three brutal weeks on the bike.

Thursday, Dec 29

GEOFF (before riding, and remember, he’s 9 hours ahead of Dana and Bryan): As I look over the [training competition] spreadsheet for inspiration, less than half an hour before I suit up for my final effort of the year, I feel a sense of doom, not unlike that feeling I had when Dad was going to spank the whole lot of us, and I was sent around to friends’ houses to round everyone up. I know I’m going to have to do great things here in the next few hours, and this causes my bowels to constrict with fear. I wonder what will happen... By the time you read this I’ll probably have posted my score. I hope it’s a big one.

GEOFF (42.0 points, indoor – 2 hrs 25 min): In an attempt to demoralize and crush the opposition, I have produced this score. I felt pretty good and decided to shoot for two hours above the [heart rate target] zone. After 1:45 above the zone, I just fell apart. I got off, caffeinated, drank apple juice, emptied my bladder and soaked my head, which got me through another turbulent five minutes, but then it just ended. My legs would go around in circles no longer. I threw in the towel and started cleaning up and warming down.

But then I decided to try again, as this is the end of the year, and climbed back onto the torture rack, made my best effort to turn the pedals around some more, but no, it just would not happen. I was knackered. Had the stuffing completely knocked out of me.

So there it is, 42 points. Dana, if you can top this effort, why, you deserve the win. Who knows though, maybe I’ll feel inspired on Saturday, and will get back on the bike. I doubt it though....

DANA: You bastard! I have no time to ride today and no energy anyway. But I’ve been checking the FTP site all day, waiting to see what you did, and fantasizing about a sub-30 score, the natural result of the fatigue that I hoped would finally catch up to you. But no, instead you get medieval on my heinie, you just shock-and-awe me, with this grotesquely monstrous score. You are a bad, bad man. D’oh. I’m already terribly dreading tomorrow’s hammerfest. It’ll be doubly painful given the obvious futility of my attempt...

[SITUATION: GEOFF AHEAD BY 38 POINTS]

[Here’s a photo from 2006, of the three of us studying our ride data together. We were data slaves long before Strava even existed.]

Friday, Dec 30

BRYAN [catching up from Thursday]: Man, Geoff! What in tarnation are you? The Terminator? Look at these scores! Look at the slope of that graph! Every stinkin’ ride is over 30 points! And getting back on after throwing in the towel, that’s heroic! But I happen to know that Dana’s out there right now, putting the hammer down, even as I sit here waiting for the next round of nausea and the next mad dash to the toolit to puke my guts out. I’m thinking Saturday’s calling your name...

DANA (40.4 points, indoor – 2 hrs 5 min): NO GIFTS.

BRYAN: Good grief, the mother of all mother scores! Look at that score-per-hour number! Only two hours, and an hour and a half of it above the zone! Well, this is certainly going to be a battle. NICE RIDE, DUDE!

DANA: Thanks! I only wish it didn’t totally wreck me. At the dinner table afterward, I was almost too tired to chew. In fact, I became too tired to eat before I was really full. I just couldn’t stay vertical another minute, and collapsed to the floor on my back. Even typing this note is a serious chore.

GEOFF: Well shoot, you certainly are an ornery little cuss, aren’t you? Man, 40 points. Now of course I have no choice, I have to ride again. I only hope I can do something great. Man, nice effort! An ‘A’ for effort! Of course you’re going to dig deep tomorrow and I just know that you’re going to pull ahead again, and that on New Year’s Eve I’m going to have to make myself suffer again, and that it will be in vain. Oh well, I’ve never been so close to the victory before. I guess that’s worth something.

DANA: If you had any first-hand knowledge of how badly I suffered for these points, you wouldn’t be worried at all...

[SITUATION: DANA AHEAD BY 2 POINTS]

Saturday, Dec 31

GEOFF (39.7 points, indoor – 2 hrs 12 min): Well there it is, my final effort. I somehow outdid myself. At the time, it felt as if I had given it all I had. Yet I didn’t fall off the bike. Nor did I have to crawl around afterwards, I was still able to walk. Shoot, my lips didn’t even turn blue. Now I’m feeling like such a wimp. Why oh why didn’t I stay on just another ten minutes? I could have shattered through the magical 40 Point Barrier.

Oh well, I guess I should be proud of myself. It was a near death experience, after all. At one point my eyes filled up with tears and overflowed for almost no reason. At another point my pulse sailed up above 160, where it stayed for what felt like an hour, though in reality it was only a few minutes. I was sure that I’d died and been relieved of my suffering, and decided that I’d stay on the bike for the rest of the year [i.e., until midnight]. Then of course my pulse plummeted again, and it was back to reality.

So there it is, almost 40 points. Will it be enough? Will age and treachery overcome youth and skill? Or will Dana pull it off yet again? We’ll soon know. The ball’s back in your court. Punish me, young man!

DANA (pre-ride): MAN! I’m so impressed, I can’t even bring myself to call you a bastard. That’s amazing! Look at that score-per-hour, right on the heels of your 42-point MegaTour! I’d also like to point out that you took the world record for score-per-month of all time, besting my 400.2 mark from 2003! You also got the second-biggest week of all time (second to your own record, of course). Now, I’m going to swing my leg over the bike today, but I can’t imagine I’ll have the strength to even begin to convince myself that victory is possible. You’ll know soon . . . perhaps very soon, if things go badly enough for me! Nice ride, dude!

BRYAN: What an incredible finish! I’d say that you really wanted this one. An incredible week, an incredible month, shoot, an incredible year! Nice work. We’re all very proud of you over here!

DANA (10.6 points, indoor – 1 hr): Today’s ride was horrible, but at least it was brief. That is, it took me just an hour (actually 59:45, which was as close to an hour as I could get) to ascertain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was no way I could score enough points to win. I’ve attached the final graph, because it tells a poignant tale. About 35 minutes into the workout, my spirits faltered and my pulse dropped to about 145. This angered me, and I hammered as hard as I could and finally crossed the [target] zone threshold. At this point I had all the grace of a fish flopping on the floor of a boat, being murdered with an ice pick. After about 90 seconds of this I was actually crying. I blew up, and my heart fell to just over 130.

I was getting ready to climb off the bike when I had my Tom Simpson moment. Remember, just before he died on Mount Ventoux, when his famous last words were “Put me back on my bike!”? That’s what I’m talking about. Reflecting on the absurdly short duration of my ride, and motivated by an equally absurd refusal to accept defeat, I decided to try to recover and go a bit longer.

And so, 48 minutes in I decided to try one more time to burst over the zone threshold, and (I foolishly hoped) somehow pin myself there [i.e., above my heart rate target zone—that is, redlined]. And as the graph shows, I actually did get it up there for awhile. When I finally detonated for good, which of course was inevitable, I decided to just keep hammering as much as I could despite the extreme, piercing, shattering pain. At this point I was uttering strange animal noises, somewhere between groans and screams but really more like yelps (given my lack of breath). And then something really strange happened: after maybe 30 seconds of this my heart rate began to soar. It got into the upper 160s and stayed there awhile, for about 45 seconds, and then suddenly I not only couldn’t pedal anymore, but couldn’t hold myself up on the bike. I crumpled into the handlebars and it was all over. Good thing I was on the [indoor] trainer or I’d have stacked!

So, not a great score, but it did get me above the 100-points-in-a-week barrier, for a personal best. It also got me above the prestigious 300-points-in-a-month barrier. It also brought my margin of loss down to less than a percent, which I have to be happy about. Best of all, it’s finally over.

BRYAN: Well shoot, Dana, my condolences. It was a valiant effort, I must say, as your last ride’s data attest. I believe you’re the better man for it, however, and I fear what you will do in the coming year. Did you realize that you shattered your previous total scores, as well as your best week? Very impressive...

GEOFF: Well Dana, your description of your final ride has filled my head with all sorts of thoughts. First of all, there’s respect and admiration for your grit and determination and your ability to torture yourself. My hat’s off to you! Then of course there’s the enormous sense of relief that you didn’t actually die trying. Erin would have killed me! There’s also the recognition of having been right there with you, having experienced exactly the same emotions. There’s a common bond here which I’m sure many people will never know. Oddly enough, I seem to be missing the thrill of victory. Maybe it just needs to sink in.

[FINAL SCORE: Geoff 2,941; Dana 2,914; Bryan 1,567.]

Final commentary

BRYAN: Gentlemen, nicely done. I am impressed and awed at your biking prowess. It’s a privilege to be crushed into oblivion by you.

DANA: I tried. That’s all I can say. Of course that’s not true—I can always say more. For example, nice job Geoff! I’m actually not that bummed about losing this year, because I lost to such a gritty opponent.

GEOFF: Well, I can scarcely believe that I actually won. I honestly thought it was impossible to beat Dana on the bike. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who made this victory possible, including the artists whose music made it possible to dig a bit deeper, my parents for providing me a genetic gift for determination, my equipment suppliers whose gear stood up to the task, the promoters and producers of this great sporting event, and of course my unwavering fellow competitors, whose dedication and guts are an inspiration to us all. So, what am I doing after the celebration? I’m goin’ to Di’neylan’!

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

From the Archives - Brutal Bicycle Training Contest!

Introduction

For over a decade, every year I held a year-long bike training contest with my brothers Bryan and Geoff, and sometimes a few friends. It started January 1 and ended December 31 and was a points competition. We didn’t race head-to-head, nor did we compare times (like Strava does). Instead, we used the data from our heart rate monitors to score each ride in terms of duration and intensity.

(Here’s what these heart rate monitors looked like … fairly primitive by today’s standards, though they did offer data upload to a PC so we could crunch the numbers. Yes, that 39 on the screen is my heart rate … I was much fitter back then, and this was at rest.)

Intensity was determined by each rider’s average heart rate, and what percentage of his maximum heart rate this average represented. The closer to redline a guy rode, the higher his score was, based on an accelerator applied to his base score; i.e., total score =  [duration]*[avg HR]*[accelerator].

There was also a bonus based on the amount of time spent with the heart rate over the target zone (i.e., more than 85% of the max heart rate). This meant that whatever part of your ride was at absolute redline earned you big bonus points. In a nutshell, you scored high by hammering your ass off for as long and as hard as possible. (Downhills and other periods of low-intensity riding were chucked out by a special software algorithm Bryan coded.) So the real total score = [duration]*[avg HR]*[accelerator] + [bonus].

We tracked one another’s scores closely via a shared spreadsheet we would trade around via FTP. The score per month and running total were displayed graphically. We commented on each other’s rides, cheering and jeering, and often going off into the weeds with stories of family life. Often we’d review and update the spreadsheet several times a day.

(Here’s a photo of Bryan, Geoff, and me taken in 2006, during a training ride for the 2006 La Marmotte cyclosportif.)

The contest of 2005 was particularly close, with the winner not determined until the final day, December 31. This meant we spent our Christmas and New Year’s Eve holidays pedaling like madmen. It’s a wonder our wives put up with it.

This post gathers up our scores and comments, with a pretty graph at the end, so you can read the amazing story of our end-of-year death march. (If you’re not that into bicycling, fear not: there are some great side stories about our kids barfing, which ought to pique anybody’s interest.)

A final note: Geoff lives in The Netherlands, so he’s nine hours ahead. This meant I sometimes knew his most recent score before I rode, but not always. Sometimes we didn’t update our scores right away (either due to time constraints or a backhanded keep-‘em-guessing strategy).

Training contest showdown – December 2005

Saturday, Dec 24

GEOFF (35.8 points – indoor, 1 hr 52 min): Dana, I’ve taken your [virtual] yellow [leader’s] jersey! How ya like me now?!

DANA:  (14.1 points – 1 hr 21 min, 21 miles, 2,913 vertical feet of climbing): Doggone it! I didn’t see a score for you as of this afternoon, and thought maybe you’d taken the day off. So I went out and hammered (as well as I could, anyway), thinking I’d be padding my lead. Instead, I lost it! I just didn’t have it today … too many hard rides already this month!

I’m going to have a hard time putting up the big scores this week because I can no longer ride indoors. We’re having the kitchen painted, and though the painters put up a plastic sheet, it’s been punched full of holes, and the fumes have filled the office [where I ride the trainer]. I considered riding with a gas mask down there but that would get mighty gross. So I rode in the rain today. What a mess. My chamois was like a thick soggy pancake by the end, and my socks weighed a pound apiece. To dry out my shoes, I stuffed inside-out diapers in them (for lack of newspaper). It’s supposed to keep raining, so this next week will be a real test of my gumption! And I’ll be in Sacramento for Christmas so I won’t get any riding done…

BRYAN:  Man, Geoff, nice ride!

[SITUATION: GEOFF AHEAD BY 19 POINTS]

Monday, Dec 26

DANA (17.2 points – 1 hr 23 min, 21 mi, 2,976 vertical feet):  D’oh! We didn’t get back from Sac until this afternoon. I’d hoped for a longer ride but simply ran out of daylight. Man, I can see the contest slipping through my fingers! I live in fear of the next Geoff Albert MegaScore. And I didn’t even get the lead back today!

[SITUATION: GEOFF AHEAD BY 2 POINTS]

Tuesday, Dec 27

GEOFF (32.6 points – indoor, 2 hr 1 min):  Well that was painful, but I’m pleased. Man. I was practically hyperventilating for the full two hours. It was one of those struggles to keep the pulse up. Thinking about the rest of the week is terrifying. Such pain, such misery. It will not be fun. If I weren’t such a coward I’d just throw in the towel and announce that I won’t be riding any more this year. But I can’t, of course.

BRYAN:  Well, Geoff, shoot, it looks like you’re poised to take away my score-per-month record and there’s nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, you’ve earned it!

DANA:  (7.2 points – 1 hr 34 min, 20.6 mi, 2,920 vertical feet): Nooooooooooo! This was just what I was afraid of. I suffer long and hard to eke out another tiny advantage, and then Geoff comes along and obliterates it. [Here, I did my ride before seeing Geoff’s score, so when I went to post mine, I saw right away that he had hugely outscored me.]

That does it. I’m going to play this like a numbers game. No more strategizing about how much rest to take to feel best on training day. I’m going to have to ride every day, on the off chance that I’ll feel good. If I feel lousy, I fall off the bike and drown my sorrows in my own sweat. If I feel good, I go as long and hard as I can. Trouble is, tomorrow is my last day of vacation and I doubt I’ll feel very good, if today is any indication. Man, I’ve been on the sofa most of the day, between loads of laundry. My legs feel like they’ve been actually injured, like somebody shut them in a car door. Man o man. I felt SO lousy on this ride. I had big ambitions, too. I ate breakfast, mixed up two big bottles of Gatorade, two Clif bars, clothes for any weather . . . I was going to ride for hours and get a shock-and-awe score. I figured I’d finished yesterday’s ride with something still in the tank and would feel good. The horror! I just didn’t have it. I felt slightly less than mediocre going up Spruce, fairly lousy on South Park, and absolutely abysmal on Lomas Cantadas. There were times on that climb when my bike would come almost to a complete stop at the top of the pedal stroke. I went from intending to conquer the world to simply hoping I could limp home. Even my arms were tired.

In other news, just before bed last night Lindsay had sudden, violent bout of projectile vomiting. Her aim was uncanny:  she sprayed down a large pile of silk sweaters, fanned her blast over to our goose down pillows, nailed the down comforter and duvet, coated a bunch of clothing, and created a huge slip hazard on the hardwood floor. Never has such a small person created such a huge amount of laundry in so little time. Plus we had the bedroom windows open due to the paint fumes, so without that comforter I froze the rest of the night. I dreamed that I was riding with soaking wet chamois and tights. D’oh.

BRYAN:  You’ve got to love those little vomiters! Last night at the dinner table (our family has been afflicted to varying degree with illness) Jamey announced that she felt like she was going to barf. So we told her to go to the bathroom. Then we heard her heaves—they sounded like those of a full-grown man! That little angel hit the toilet with every blast, and there were four of them! So we tucked her in with her bucket. Poor little fellow, with her sheet-white face...

Last night Lydia was complaining of some serious stomach problems and today she’s hurling hard. She even threw up out the window of her uncle’s car, spattering all down the side of the car! This was in heavy traffic, no less.

GEOFF:  Good grief! I’m counting myself very lucky that I haven’t had to clean up vomit in a while! The last time was when Max didn’t make it to the tiled bathroom in time, stopping mid-stride to empty his system on the brand new carpeting upstairs. I couldn’t help but grin as I was scraping it out with a spatula, just like Mom used to do. I don’t know how I got the vomit patrol task, but I did.

DANA:  Speaking of Max, I chatted with him the other day, international long-distance, and bragged that I ate roll-mops [raw herring wrapped around a dill pickle spear] as my recovery food after a cold, wet ride. I was bragging, of course, but he unknowingly deflated my wimpy American swagger instantly by asking, “Was it yummy?”  It hadn’t occurred to me that a food that gives one (wussy American) man culinary bragging rights can be another (cool European) man’s (well, boy’s) delicacy...

BRYAN (20.6 points – indoor, 1 hr 3 min):  I’ll take it. It won’t help much, but it was a good ride, all things considered. It sure hurt to ride the trainer. I had forgotten how much suffering and drudgery it is. In fact, I wondered for a few minutes why I’m even doing this…

DANA:  Not bad! Your score-per-hour is stellar, as always. Did John work out with you?

BRYAN:  Nope, just solo. I think he was feeling a bit ill and went to bed early. It was a late-night ride. Now I’m feeling sick too! My belly’s all queasy and I feel like I should be puking, but I’m not—yet. Fine by me, but I sure didn’t feel like mounting up last night. I was hoping to ride every day through 12/31, but it’s not going to happen.

GEOFF:  You know, I’m feeling a bit ill myself. My head’s heavy and hurts, like one of those colds coming on. Of course it sure doesn't help that I only got five hours of sleep last night…

[SITUATION: GEOFF AHEAD BY 27.5 POINTS]

Wednesday, Dec 28

DANA (30.4 points – 3 hours, 47 miles, 5,975 vertical feet):  Boy, this one hurt. I psyched myself up as much as possible first, reading a Tour de France book beforehand while waiting for my NoDoz to kick in. I achieved some good time-above-zone early on, by suffering hugely, and then about halfway through I started to fall apart. Man. I felt every pedal stroke today. Each one was so hard, I was able to count them. There were 14,387. Oh, such horrible suffering. Every climb the Berkeley hills can throw at a guy—South Park, Fish Ranch, Claremont, South Pinehurst, Pinehurst, El Toyonal, and Lomas Cantadas. I’m glad I took the lead, but of course it’s another of those ahead-by-a-hair deals that will certainly be crushed out like a cigarette tomorrow.

I was absolutely destroyed at the end of this ride. Erin saw me come in the door and gasped at my blue lips. (It wasn’t that cold out; I think it was the problem I had after the 2003 La Marmotte, when my body was having trouble reoxygenating.)  Boys, you know you’re hurting when you have to sit down in the shower.

BRYAN:  Remember how I was feeling sick, like I should be booting, but I wasn’t? Well, I guess it just took a little while to come on, but boy did it! It’s like a hydrant! Wet cleanup in aisle 3!

DANA:  Dude ... what a grind!

[SITUATION: DANA AHEAD BY 3.5 POINTS]

To be continued…

For the thrilling conclusion to this barbaric, ego-fueled struggle, tune in to Part II, coming to albertnet on December 31!

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

“Glycogen Window” for Sports Recovery - Proven!

Introduction

Haven’t heard of the glycogen window?  It’s a period of time, roughly half an hour immediately following exercise, during which any carbs you ingest provide extra benefit in restoring muscle glycogen.  In other words, if you exercise good and hard, you not only deserve a treat but are well advised to have one because it’ll help you recover.  Among my racer pals, post-ride chocolate milk is all the rage.  (Protein, calcium, and antioxidants are also touted as important recovery aids.)

I suppose I should add that this glycogen window thing isn’t widely viewed as hard science.  I first read about it in “Bicycling” magazine back in the ‘80s; cycling hero Andy Hampsten wrote about it.  I’d link to the article, but I doubt “Bicycling” has archived all their issues electronically like “New Yorker” has.  (Perhaps “Bicycling” assumes their readers have no patience for text, especially old text that has been regurgitated countless times anyway, with articles like “It’s you—fit, fast, and self-trained!” and “10 easy ways to improve your power!” run in constant rotation.)

Naturally, I believed what Hampsten wrote because he won the Giro d’Italia and the Alpe d’Huez stage of the Tour de France.  I began eating things like ice cream, fruit, or yogurt right after a ride or race, and immediately noticed an improvement in my recovery so I’ve stuck with it over all these years.  (Yeah, it could be a placebo, but if so, it’s a strong one.)

In this post I will make a cursory examination of the evidence against the glycogen window theory, before presenting substantive proof, recently obtained from a very talented young scientist, that the glycogen window is for real.  Here is the scientist, enjoying the fruits of her labors, both scholastic and athletic.

The case against glycogen window

It didn’t take long to find “evidence” against the glycogen window theory.  The first Google hit came from an online magazine called evidencemag.com.  I won’t summarize their arguments—you can read them right here—but suffice to say, I’m not impressed.  This article depends entirely on a) other people’s research, and b) sentences beginning with “there’s little evidence that,” which only show the lack of information available to the author.  Perhaps evidencemag.com will retract the entire article after reading this post and seeing my evidence. 

One other thing:  their headline is really wishy-washy:  “Why Most Endurance Athletes Don’t Usually Need to Eat After Workouts” (italics mine).  It wouldn’t hurt to define what an endurance athlete is, and why some would sometimes benefit.  Meanwhile, this glycogen window thing (according to what I’ve read in support of it) only works if you do it as a standard practice—which means that nobody needs to do it sometimes.

That said, one thing mentioned in that article does present damning evidence against the glycogen window theory.  It’s one of the footnotes, linking to an article that supposedly supports the notion:  a book called “The Lance Armstrong Performance Program: Seven Weeks to the Perfect Ride.”  Obviously, if Lance Armstrong—a known liar—says the glycogen window is legit, then it must be a myth, right?  Well, it’s not actually that simple.  You see, it’s clear Lance didn’t really write that book, but merely lent his celebrity to the project.  So we’re still good.

You know what?  I’m tired of paying lip service to the glycogen-window haters.  You can research their silly positions on your own.  It’s time to get to the proof that it’s valid.

Hard science

Occasionally, I make the time to carry out scientific experiments on my own.  For example, I proved that cyclists have extremely high pain thresholds (click here) and that rinsing—the practice of tasting something sweet without actually ingesting any calories—actually does increase athletic performance (click here).  But I don’t have time to test every theory I come across.  Thus, when I had the opportunity to leverage the considerable brainpower, time, and energy of my daughter Alexa, I jumped on it.  (As I’ve documented here, I’ve long dreamed of exploiting my children’s intellect for personal gain.)

Here’s how I got my chance:  my daughter was assigned a science project having to do with heart rate.  It was supposed to be a fairly simple affair, such as measuring the heart rate of each test subject before and after eating chocolate.  (Needless to say, it’s never a problem finding subjects for such a study.)  Obviously Alexa could have done a really easy project like that, but you can guess what happened:  I got involved and pressed my personal agenda.

It wasn’t hard to get Alexa to tackle a difficult research project, because a) as a budding athlete and lifelong lover of sweets, she has a vested interest in validating the glycogen window theory, and b) she knew she’d get some treats, in the form of candy and accolades, during the testing process.

Of course, using heart rate to measure the benefit of sports nutrition is not particularly straightforward.  Alexa’s methodology involved measuring the change (i.e., delta) in heart rate between lying down and standing up.  On the morning after exercise, this delta is usually greater than if the subject didn’t exercise the day before.  Alexa sought to determine if getting a snack during the glycogen window reduced this morning-after effect.  (Where did she get this idea?  From me.  I read it somewhere, ages ago, and a coach once explained it to me.)

You know what?  Alexa describes all this better than I have: 

One way of testing your recovery time is by comparing the delta of your heart rate between lying down (first thing in the morning) and standing up.  After physical exertion, your muscles are tired, and standing takes more effort, raising your heart rate.  This assumption is based off of the existing studies on the subject. My experiment will in part test this hypothesis. However, the main point is to examine the effects of  getting a sugary snack within 35 minutes of exercising (i.e., during the so-called “glycogen window”).  It has been proposed that getting this immediate sugar helps replace muscle glycogen (which is like the fuel in your car’s tank).  This greatly enhances recovery (i.e., getting over fatigue).  In my experiment, half of the test group will have some form of sugar after exercising, during the glycogen window.  By comparing the delta of their heart rates, I will be able to see how the heart rates of the people who had sugar compare to that of the people who didn’t.

Procedure

Alexa’s project got off to a fine start:  she baked cookies for her friend’s soccer team.  Half the team would get cookies right after soccer practice, and the other half would take cookies home to eat later.  (Just try recruiting kids for the control group without offering them tasty snacks, too!)  Unfortunately, the soccer practice got canceled, and though Alexa tried to get half the team to forego snacks after the next game, they all (predictably) flaked.  So she got pretty far behind on her project. 

I always try to strike the right balance between giving my daughter too much help versus letting her make her own mistakes.  So, in this case I helped my daughter find replacement test subjects, but made her drive the project.  This resulted in a real nail-biter:  Alexa didn’t have all the data she needed until the morning the project was due.  At 6:00 a.m. she was frantically collecting the final test results, writing her report, preparing her graph, and putting the whole thing together.  (Perhaps this was the best thing about the project:  she learned the hard way not to procrastinate, and got some good practice working well under pressure.)

Here is Alexa’s procedure, in her words: 

Procedure: People participating will:

1. Take their heart rate first thing in the morning.
2. Stand up and take it again, recording the data, to get a baseline heart rate increase (aka “delta”).
3. Exercise in some way (something aerobic) at some point during that day.
4. Half of the group will have something sugary within 35 minutes of completing exercise; the other half won’t.
5. The next day all will measure their pulse again, first lying down and then standing, and recording the data.

Results

Alexa ended up with ten test subjects, their ages spanning 12 to 50-something.  One subject was herself.  I participated twice:  I served as a with-sugar subject and then (a day or two later) as a without-sugar subject.

In the table below, a row shaded in yellow indicate a sugary snack was received within the glycogen window.  I’m subject #1 and #2.  Alexa is #3.  My brother Bryan is #7.  As you can see, getting a  snack resulted in much less of an increase in the delta; that is, subjects recovered better when they had a glycogen-window treat.

Here is the conclusion Alexa wrote: 

I have concluded that my hypothesis is correct, and having sugar after a workout helps you recover.  The percent change in delta was in every case greater in the people who had no sugar after exercising.  This shows that getting up was more of an effort for them, meaning that their muscles had not recovered to the extent that others had.  This is illustrated by the graph.  The red indicates people who did not have a sugary snack after exercising, and the blue indicates people who did.

Just look at this graph.  The data unequivocally support her thesis.

 Every responsible scientist notes certain caveats that could make the results less compelling, and Alexa is no exception: 

In one case, the data set was not complete, and without a proper baseline delta, I couldn’t calculate that person’s percent change.  If I were to redo the experiment, I would try harder to get that data in time.

Her final sentence is my favorite, with its unexpected twist at the end:

This evidence supporting my hypothesis could prove extremely beneficial in the area of after-sports snack debates.

Happily, Alexa’s findings guarantee that she (and her sister and I) will continue to get glycogen window treats after every serious workout.  For me as a parent, this is a win-win because this coveted sugary reward guarantees my daughters will continue to do serious workouts.  (Alexa will do a 45-minute trainer ride for just five or six jelly beans.)  It’s touching to see these kids racing into the kitchen after exercise, jockeying for position and throwing elbows, yelling “Glycogen!  Glycogen!”

A final note

I realize that neither Alexa nor I made any effort to prove that the lying-down versus standing heart rate delta actually means anything.  But hey, we can’t do it all.  If one of you would study that on your own and send me your results, that would be great.  Or better yet, get your kid to do it!

Biketronics

oooo
Introduction

This isn’t a post about the new electronic bicycle shifting system from Shimano. Electronic shifting is not the future of the sport, nor is it anything new. Mavic took a fruitless stab at it in the ‘90s, and in 2003 Campagnolo did too. Electronic shifting was a dumb idea then and it’s a dumb idea now. Why spend many hundreds of dollars to shave grams off your bike, only to spend thousands more adding needless complexity and a battery pack?! Electronic shifting is a solution looking for a problem. Enough said.

Nor is this an essay about two-way radios in professional cycling, and the debate over whether to ban them. That’s an interesting topic, but I doubt I could shed new light on it; without access to the riders in the pro peloton, I can only speculate on their perspective. (Doubtless some appreciate the radios because they remove the stress of having to figure out race tactics, while others chafe at the idea that they’ve been hired from the neck down.)

This is, rather, a post about the electronics more commonly used by mainstream cyclists: bike computers, heart rate monitors, power meters, altimeters, and GPS devices. In addition to some personal anecdotes, I will share the results (comprising 52 responses in all) of a survey I sent to my cycling pals on this topic.

Early devices

The first cycling data-gathering device I remember was the Huret Multito odometer my friend Aaron had back in 1982. It was actually pre-electronic: a clunky little black box mounted at the front axle, with a little rubber ring that looped around a tiny wheel, like a pulley, that rotated with the hub. Its readout was like a miniature version of a car's odometer.

The main purpose of the odometer was bragging rights: Aaron and I were only thirteen and doing our first century rides; seeing that thing tick over from 99.9 to 100 was pretty exciting. The rest of the time the Multito was a bit of a nuisance because the little rubber band was always falling off.

The first proper bike computer I remember was the Avocet 20, which came out in 1985. It was black, pretty small, and had a recessed display that tended to pool up with sweat. The squishy, rubbery round buttons had a pronounced click to them. The Avocet was fun to use, but this fun came at a price: when I’d ride with my friend Peter, he’d use the speed data to help drive up our pace. I’d be sucking his wheel for dear life, longing for that moment when he’d pull off so I could finally slack off and rest at the front, but as soon as he got on my wheel he’d yell, “Don’t let our speed drop below thirty!” (Maybe it wasn’t actually thirty. It felt like thirty.)

Lots of bike computers came out after that, and new ones hit the market all the time. They were and are handy devices, but their usefulness only goes so far. Perhaps this was why the coach of the Boulder-area 7-Eleven junior team, Dale Stetina, was no fan of them. (Dale was not a technophobe; in fact, he had eight-speed gearing in ’83 before anybody else did, having ground down the body of his freehub to make room for an extra cog.) At the start line of the 1986 Iron Horse Bicycle Classic Durango-to-Silverton road race, Dale chatted casually with one if his riders while reaching down and suddenly ripping the wires out of the poor guy’s computer mount. I thought this would hamper the guy’s ability to pace himself, but during that race I learned for myself how useless the mileage data really was. The race was only forty-seven miles, but featured almost 5,600 feet of climbing.

Fancier stuff

An altimeter suddenly seemed like the more useful device to have, and a few years later my boss at the bike shop loaned me his for the summer. It was, to my knowledge, the first bike altimeter on the market, made in Germany by Ciclosport. I’m guessing that cheap, small barometers weren’t around yet because this used a very strange alternative mechanism: within the computer’s casing, a dangling wire measured the angle of bike vs. the ground, and since the computer knew the speed of the bike, it could calculate the vertical gain. Setup was really tricky: you had to use a level to make sure the bike was absolutely horizontal in order to calibrate the device. And in practice the altimeter was almost useless, because rocking the bike in a sprint made the wire fly all over the place, so the device would go nuts and tally up several hundred feet of utterly fictitious vertical gain.

The next big thing for me was the heart rate monitor, which helped me with my weakest cycling event, the individual time trial. These races were boring, and I was lazy, and I’d actually forget to hammer. I’d be plowing along, and then my mind would wander, and I’d be in la-la land for awhile, not hammering nearly hard enough, until I came to my senses—but by then it was much too late. With a heart rate monitor, this focus became a snap. Knowing my anaerobic threshold (i.e., the peak heart rate I could sustain before going anaerobic), I’d just peg my heart rate there for the duration of the event. This really improved my results.

Heart rate monitors also help keep you from going too hard in a long event. Going by feel doesn’t always work, as I learned when I totally overcooked my first effort at La Marmotte, a cyclosportif race in France. My brain had been so completely marinated in adrenaline, I decided to ignore the sky-high numbers on my heart rate monitor. I guess I thought I was like Luke Skywalker and could trust my instincts over the instruments. That didn’t work so well: I had a total core meltdown halfway through the race. Three years later, I heeded the heart rate monitor, and though it seemed I was loafing for the first two passes, the numbers didn’t lie and I paced myself much more wisely. Nowadays, people use power meters in much the same fashion, with similar benefit.

Clearly, electronics are useful for bike racers. That said, I only race here and there (e.g., this race and this one) and yet I use these devices more often, and more assiduously, then ever. You may think I’m just a nerd; if so, I’m in good company, as I learned by surveying my friends’ devotion to these cool toys.

The survey

Most of the guys I sent my survey to are either current or former racers; all are riders who could hang with my bike club’s weekend rides; ten are either current or former Cat 1s or pros. (It’s the same group I surveyed for my leg shaving essay.) I set out to discover how many use these devices, how they use them, and to what extent this data affects them psychologically when they’re riding.

Here’s a breakdown of the 52 respondents to my online questionnaire, in terms of racing experience. (Click to enlarge graph.)

Keeping in mind that only 17% of my respondents still race regularly, check out how many use electronic devices:

Racing isn’t everything, of course, and it’s perfectly reasonable that a non-racer who wishes to increase his or her fitness would use performance data from these instruments as part of a sophisticated, methodical workout program. But I had a hunch most of the guys I ride with—strong though they are—don’t adhere to a formal training regimen. I asked them what best describes their approach to riding, and here’s how they responded:

A question presents itself: if we don’t follow a strict training program, why bother with heart-rate and/or power data? Why pay attention to average speed or rate of vertical gain? Could it be that the minimal weight of these devices makes them analogous to the windshield ice scraper we Californians keep in our cars—seldom used but occasionally handy? Or perhaps it’s just smooth-talking bike shop salesmen getting us to buy accessories we don’t really need?

Not the case: the survey respondents seem to get a lot of use out of these devices. I asked the question “How much attention do you pay to your electronic device during your ride?” and offered up, as one of my multiple-choice responses, “I don’t look at it at all and arguably shouldn’t even own this device.” You won’t see that response in the graph below, because nobody selected it.

Okay, suppose we continue to play the devil’s advocate (or “devil’s avocado,” as I like to call it) and question what features actually get used. What if all theses guys are only checking the clock function (as one rider commented)? Perhaps the acid test of how truly hungry we are for data is whether we upload device data to our PCs to analyze post-ride. Here’s how that inquiry shook out:

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A bunch of nerds?

That’s pretty remarkable: fully 60% of the device-using riders (21 in all) either upload this data or wish they could, and 69% have purchased instruments sophisticated enough to do this. As a group, we’re clearly highly tuned into ride and performance data, even though the majority of us don’t follow a formal training program. What is going on here? Shouldn’t we all just put the bike computer & heart rate monitor aside, lift our heads up, and enjoy our surroundings and the speed—the things that got us into cycling in the first place?

Well, that’s a nice idea, but let's look hard at what actually did get us into cycling. I’m sure we’d like to think of ourselves as purists, but really, an awful lot of cyclists, including myself, are tantalized by the cool gear. We shouldn’t be too ashamed of this, and I harbor no ill will toward those who continually upgrade their equipment even if they don’t use it that much. (After all, wealthy enthusiasts—the ones who actually pay full retail—are the financial backbone of the sport, keeping worthy bike-related companies afloat.)

Bicycles are beautiful machines, after all. I started racing largely because I wanted a cool racing bike, and I wanted to be worthy of it. In this sense, it was about the bike. Eventually, after several years, this finally shifted, and the bike became what it should be: a tool to serve the sport, not the other way around. But even now, even for a guy like me who’s still on 9-speed, the “cool stuff” legacy continues, in a dampened mode. I'll never outgrow it.

Why so popular?

But this still doesn’t explain the popularity of these electronics. They’re just gadgets, after all, and will never be as important to us as our bikes. So why are they so prevalent? I think part of it is that these devices are just one more way to get us to go hard. Especially as we age, they can be part of the feedback loop that keeps us focused during a workout. To see if others felt the same way I do about this, I asked a final survey question: “Do your device’s real-time performance data (e.g., power, speed, heart rate, stopwatch time up a climb) influence you psychologically during your rides?” Here are the responses:

There you have it: of those who use these devices, 54% (21 riders) are stoked by good numbers. I suppose this phenomenon is no different than a diet that has you count your calories: measuring performance holds us accountable to ourselves. Especially when I’m riding alone, little contests against myself or the mountain (how fast can I go up it? how hard can I run my heart? how many watts can I sustain?) keep things lively.

The downside of data

The flip side is what I’ll call the “data slave” effect: watching these instruments can become a pointless addiction, like crosswords or cheap, plot-driven novels. I should know: for me, watching my heart rate is like constantly checking my watch when I’m in an airport—a reflex whose repetition is excessive. I acknowledge the absurdity of this behavior, but hey, why not indulge in data obsession, if it’s not hurting anybody?

Well, the numbers themselves are harmless, but it’s possible to read too much into them. Performance data seem to answer the fundamental question “Am I any good?” (or, for us ageing cyclists, “Am I still any good?”). We run into trouble when their answer is “Hell no!” As 13 respondents (a third of electronics users) indicate, lousy numbers can frustrate or annoy us.

Rationally, I understand that on a bad day I’m not going to post impressive heart rate or power numbers, but at such times I can’t help feeling like my instrument is taunting me. This can have the demoralizing effect of turning a trivial circumstance—tired legs—into something that taints or even ruins my ride. (Sneer at me if you want: a dozen of my pals have the same experience.) One respondent commented, “If my numbers look slow I go even slower and enjoy myself,” which is wise; of course, bike racers, myself included, often aren’t.

The weather channel

To help myself cast off the “data slave” shackles, I’ve come up with a technique I call the “weather channel.” If your device tells the temperature (I think most do), put the display in temperature mode. (If your device has dual displays, put the second display in clock mode.) Temperature is the perfect statistic for lousy days: after all, you have no control over the weather, and it doesn’t say anything about you. As corporate blatherers are so fond of saying, “It is what it is.”

The best thing about this arrangement is that every time you reflexively glance at your bike computer, you get a reminder of how trivial ride data ultimately is. The non-verbal equivalent of “How am I doing?” is answered by the non-verbal equivalent of “Who cares?” And maybe, bit by bit, this practice can help wean the data-obsessed among us from our fixation on these (albeit useful) electronic devices.