Ask a MAMIL

Dear MAMIL,

Why are MAMILs like you, as a group, so hated on? I mean, it’s not like you’re hurting anybody and as we age, non-impact exercise like cycling makes a lot of sense.

Lisa M, Ross, CA

Dear Lisa,

Indeed, “MAMIL” is a largely derogatory term. Fun fact: the Oxford English Dictionary added this word in 2014, defining it as “A middle-aged man who is a keen road cyclist, typically one who rides an expensive bike and wears the type of clothing associated with professional cyclists.”  It doesn’t mention the negative connotation, but then dictionaries seldom do.

I suspect the antipathy relates to the intersection of Lycra, middle-aged-ness, and maleness. So many middle-aged men are shameless about wearing Lycra despite their un-svelte girth. This can create reactions along the lines of “why are you doing this to me?!” from onlookers. The hardcore cyclists with weedy builds are no better … why would we want to accentuate such a physique with form-fitting clothing?

On top of that, cycling is an expensive sport, thus much of the ridicule is based on the showy display of wealth and status by people we don’t actually envy and wouldn’t want to be. On top of this, the very fact that cycling is a virtuous activity can trigger the gag reflex. But I think “MAMIL” is a fairly lighthearted mockery, and of course anyone able to afford this sport, and in good enough health to do it into middle age, ought to be a good sport about it. If you call me “MAMIL” to my face I’ll good-naturedly reply, “Guilty as charged.”

Dear MAMIL,

Let’s just be real for a minute here: isn’t the point of men wearing Lycra to show off their junk?

E.A., Albany, CA

Dear E,

The short answer is no. The slightly longer answer is hell no. The full answer is: I’m not going to discuss genitalia in this column. Nice try.

Dear MAMIL,

How can you justify the horrendous cost of your clothing? I mean, isn’t it like $200 for a single pair of shorts? Wouldn’t that feed a poor village for like a week?

Malcolm D, Oakland, CA

Dear Malcolm,

You can actually spend $400 on a pair of Assos bib shorts. There’s no doubt about it, cycling clothing is atrociously expensive. A relatively upscale Castelli costume (i.e., a pair of bib shorts and a jersey) is, ounce for ounce, more expensive than  MacBook Air, a leather jacket, a pair of Nike Air Jordans, or a pair of Doc Marten boots.

(Take the above AI-generated chart with a grain of salt, as I didn’t hallucination-check it.)

Now, a lot of this cost is basically a luxury tax for an upscale sport. But to some degree the cost is justified, because the fabric, the cut, the design, etc. really do help the clothing perform well. I fully appreciated this one cold January morning when I was getting ready for a race, but hadn’t changed yet, and was freezing my ass off in jeans and a sweatshirt. Once I put on my ABCs (that’s cycling vernacular for “angry biker clothes”), I was immediately more comfortable.

Fortunately, if you scour the Internet (and, depending on where you live, even your local thrift stores) you can find cheaper gear. The high school mountain bike teams in my region get styled out with all kinds of free gear, because MAMILs love to upgrade their wardrobes and donate perfectly good stuff.

Dear MAMIL,

Is there really an article of bike clothing called “bibs”? I was overhearing my teenager talking about his team’s clothing order and I kept hearing “bibs.” I know bikers eat fast, and it’d be a shame to spill on their expensive biking jerseys, but bibs? Really?

Phyllis R, Topeka, KS

Dear Phyllis,

“Bibs” is short for “bib shorts.” These have shoulder straps, kind of like suspenders, instead of an elastic waistband. The vast majority of MAMILs use this type of short. They’ll tell you it’s because bibs are more comfortable, cause less bunching, etc., but in reality it’s a) a mimetic thing (i.e., it’s what the pros wear), b) for the corset effect, and c) to avoid the discomfort of the elastic waistband cutting in to our belly fat.

Middle-age spread aside, I’ve been wearing bibs since I was a teenager. The main reason, originally, was bullying. It was surprisingly common (i.e., almost inevitable) in those days, at least in Boulder, for a rival teen rider to come up behind you, grab the back of your shorts, pull them down, and hook the waistband under your saddle like a super-snuggie. In most cases the perp then grabbed his water bottle and hosed down your butt. Once this started happening, no one I knew ever bought another pair of non-bib shorts.

Dear MAMIL,

It seems like most of your readers ask questions about the Lycra side of MAMIL. What about the middle-aged part? Doesn’t anyone care about that? I’ll start: isn’t cycling a younger person’s game? Why persist at something so physically taxing, not to mention dangerous? At our age, what’s wrong with golf?

Perry L, Sarasota, FL

Dear Perry,

I’ve wondered myself about the preponderance of clothing-related questions. I suspect it’s just harder to articulate inquiries around the inchoate wistfulness that accompanies middle age. In answer to your question—why do I persist?—I think the short answer is because I still can. Ageing alone is hard enough, with the loss of muscle mass, power, and stamina, but psychologically I was dealt an extra blow upon becoming an empty nester. For the past few years, life in general—and cycling in particular—have come to feel like when you get Extended Play during a car race video game. The real work has been done and life is starting to wind down, and it feels like if I pause for too long in my cycling I’ll suddenly discover I can’t do it anymore. So in a way, cycling is more important to me than ever … it’s like one of the few strands left connecting me to my younger life.

As for danger, the risk of injury with cycling is less than soccer, basketball, skiing, snowboarding, and even running and jogging if you factor in overuse injuries. With golf, meanwhile, you run a roughly 100% chance of being a dweeb.

Dear MAMIL,

Not all of my cycling clothing has the same washing instructions. Some tags include crazy decrees like “line dry in the shade.” Can you give some general tips that I could safely apply across all my bike garments?

John L, Ithaca, NY

Dear John,

It can definitely be confusing. Check out this label from a pair of shorts I had (click to enlarge):

Can you believe it? Two sets of conflicting washing instructions on one garment! I think it just goes to show, there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules. But my decades of experience (see how asking a MAMIL has its benefits?) have taught me a few things:

• You can use whatever detergent you want (my wife often makes her own)
• You can (and should) use a stain remover like Shout or Spray ‘n Wash
• There’s no need to wonder about fabric softener because nobody, and I mean nobody, has used this product since my neighbor Mrs. K—back in the ‘70s
• Wash all of your cycling gear (including the socks) on cold, permanent press or “casual” cycle (whatever one step down from “normal” is on your machine)
• Don’t worry about separating darks from lights, that’s a completely mythical rule with zero basis in reality, other than that weird pair of unripe-plum-colored “Thai fisher pants” that my wife bought once that turned everything pink
• Line dry all your bike clothes (except your socks), and yes, it’s okay to dry them in the sun if you want (I mean, think about it, it’s not like we only ride at night!)
• Wash your shorts right-side-out (to protect the chamois), but dry them inside-out (because it’s faster)
• For really fancy shorts like Rapha, hand-wash, and only in bottled water (just kidding—if you have any Rapha clothing,  donate it to the Goodwill and then go buy something less hipster-douche-y)

Dear MAMIL,

This isn’t a big deal or anything, but I’m kind of hung up on why we call so much apparel “Lycra” when it mostly isn’t. If I see “Lycra” on a clothing label at all, it’s usually a pretty small percentage. Can you shed any light on that?

Sean D, Austin, TX

Dear Sean,

Lycra is a brand name for a high-end version of elastane, aka spandex. A number of my cycling garments say “elastane” on the tag, and a few say “Lycra,” and none say “spandex.” (I reckon this is because “spandex” is associated with women’s apparel like swimwear, leotards, dancewear, and ‘80s aerobics wear.) Cycling shorts tend to consist of 20-35% elastane (or Lycra if they’re fancy) and 65-80% nylon. That’s enough Lycra/elastane to give enough stretch, but keeping the nylon content high makes shorts more durable. Jerseys, on the other hand, tend to be mostly (or entirely) polyester, which is a totally different material from elastane (polyester being polyethylene terephthalate, to be precise, vs. elastane which is a polyurethane-based elastomer). But we just call it all “Lycra” because that gets the point across, just like “Kleenex" and “Xerox” do.

In fact, it’s a good thing the term “Lycra” still predominates, because if we always said “elastane” then I’d be a Middle-Aged Man in Elastane, i.e., a “MAMIE,” which sounds like “someone who is maimed.” Though actually, considering how hard this sport is, that kind of fits…

Dear Mammal,

I still breastfeed my 18-month-old and refuse to apologize for it. In countries like Norway this isn’t even considered strange. Why do you suppose so many mothers in my community seem freaked out by this?

Joan L, Burlington, VT

Dear Joan,

I’m sorry, I think you’ve got me confused with another columnist. While I am a mammal (and admittedly prone to occasional mansplaining), I am not equipped to field your question about breastfeeding. I hope you’re able to find the right expert to help, as opposed to a MAMIL which is all I purport to be.

Dear MAMIL,

I’ve noticed that a lot of cycling clothing isn’t so sleek and form-fitting anymore, particularly mountain biking clothing that can be downright baggy. Why don’t more MAMILs sensibly wear that instead of continuing to wear Lycra kit that in many cases puts their extra “padding” on prominent display?

Rob S, Phoenix, AZ

Dear Rob,

At first blush this newer clothing, mainly used for mountain biking, seems like a fine idea, and in many cases totally is, but there are both practical and cultural impediments to replacing Lycra with modern, baggy bike clothing.

If a middle-aged cyclist is fairly new to the sport, isn’t worried about what cultural signals he is sending, and doesn’t need gear that’s high performance, baggywear (to coin a term) is totally fine with just a few minor caveats. One, the baggy mountain-biking shorts don’t always have a chamois, so either you wear traditional Lycra shorts underneath (which means spending more money) or you get a sore butt. Two, if this cyclist is skilled enough to hit really high speeds, the flapping of that jersey could get annoying (and eventually irritate the skin if worn as a single layer). Mountain biking is slower, which is why this clothing works at all. The final caveat is that the mountain biking jerseys often don’t have pockets. This is fine if you use a seat bag, or a Camelbak-style pack, or one of those crazy compartments that some modern bike frames have. But if you do long road rides, you’ll want pockets for your vest, your jacket, your food, etc.

Culturally, baggywear is designed around youth who think Lycra is for, well, MAMILs. When I was head coach of a high school mountain bike team, and leading the big kickoff meeting for prospective new riders, one of the questions I fielded from a new kid was, “Do we have to wear the Lycra?” My answer—that you can wear whatever you want in training, and whatever shorts you want in the races, but you have to wear the team jersey in races—really put this kid at ease, and in fact he went on to do most of the rides in a t-shirt and sweatpants. (This was before baggywear existed.) So, when I see an adult (e.g., a fellow coach) in the baggier stuff, my spidey-sense starts tingling and I wonder if it’s a case of arrested development. If I’m honest, this is probably just sour grapes because the other adult can pull it off better than I could. But if you go down this path, you should be aware that others, particularly youth, may think you’re trying to be cool, which is widely held to be a major gaff, especially when perpetrated by the middle-aged.

A final practical consideration applies if you are both a roadie and a mountain biker. If you want to wear the baggy stuff off-road, but wisely stick to Lycra on the road, you’re talking about doubling the size of your (expensive) wardrobe. My advice? Just stick with the old-school Lycra and own it.

Dear MAMIL,

It’s not like only men ride bikes. Is there any female equivalent for “MAMIL”?

Tina O, New York City

Dear Tina,

I’ve never heard one, and my light research hasn’t unearthed anything in widespread use. ChatGPT suggests MAFIL; Gemini asserts MAWIL and OWL (Older Woman in Lycra); and Copilot purports to have come across WILMA (Woman in Lycra, Middle Aged) and SOMAT  (Slightly Overweight Middle-Aged Totty) though it credits Single Track World magazine which it acknowledges is a very niche publication.

I’m not a fan of any of the above. Let’s see if we can get MAVIS to take off: Middle Aged Vixen in Spandex!

Dear MAMIL,

I once thought I could fight the “MAMIL” stigma by simply not wearing Lycra when cycling, but eventually I got over myself and starting wearing the proper gear. This started with just shorts and jersey but now I’ve discovered arm and leg warmers—what a game-changer! I don’t know why it took me so long to understand their value. Are there other types of cycling apparel I might be missing out on that actually help?

Paul M, San Francisco, CA

Dear Paul,

I eschewed the cycling vest for over thirty years, as I just didn’t see the point. What’s wrong with sleeves, right? Well, now I have seen the light. A cycling vest is a very close fit, which is doable because you don’t have the problem of bunching up around the armpits. The snug fit makes them warmer than a jacket and they don’t flap around at all. Plus, a vest can be made of a relatively stout fabric like Gore Windstopper (typically just on the front panels) and still scrunch up nice and compact in your pocket.

Another amazing accessory is the Lycra skullcap, such as Castelli’s “skully,” which looks like those weird caps astronauts wear under their space helmets. It’s just thin Lycra so it fits really well under a helmet, yet for some reason it does an amazing job keeping your head warm. I’m so fond of this skullcap, I think if it were chilly out and I couldn’t find it, I’d probably just not go.

Dear MAMIL,

A pal told me Castelli makes a product called a “light head thingy” and though I was sure he was pulling my leg, I checked and they actually do! My question is, who wears this thingy, and why?

Bart B, Chapel Hill, NC

Dear Bart,

Who wears it? That’s easy: Thing 1 and Thing 2! And why? Because Thing 1 and Thing 2! (Full disclosure: they actually don’t, which came as a big disappointment to me. Why did I think they did? Because The Cat in the Hat wears one! His happens to have a brim, but look at it: it’s clearly a light head thingy.)

Hey MAMIL,

Why are you people so annoying?

Anonymous, Irvine, CA

Dear Anonymous,

I think you meant to sign off, “Anonymous motorist.” If you were a cyclist, you probably wouldn’t find us annoying. But you live in Irvine, so you are clearly a motorist. Most non-cyclist motorists view the world though a very narrow perspective: that of somebody who is perennially frustrated while behind the wheel, but doesn’t know why. The reason, of course, is that you’re so often stuck in traffic, and instead of thinking, “I’m getting what I deserve,” you’re blaming your situation on others, like other motorists, and on traffic laws, and on red lights, and—especially—on cyclists. We drive you bonkers because we’re actually allowed to just ride right past you, gliding along merrily while you’re there fuming.

Oddly enough, I used to be just like you when in motorist mode. I would be driving my daughter across Berkeley to her ballet class, and running late, and feeling stuck, and just generally being terrorized by the imposed paralysis that is the condition of the urban motorist, and I would be tempted to start lashing out the way you do. In fact, for a brief, senseless moment I once started to criticize the city of Berkeley for all the streets I couldn’t take because they were blocked to cars and labeled “Bicycle Boulevard.” But then it hit me: Berkeley isn’t the problem; I’m the problem! I shouldn’t be driving a car, I should be on my bike! So from then on I made my kid bike to ballet class with me. It went splendidly because Berkeley, wisely deciding it had catered to motorists long enough, has designed its roads to be truly bike-friendly. Wait, don’t go yet! There’s an epilogue to this story: fast-forward a bunch of years, and my daughter is now a young adult and hasn’t bothered to get a driver license. She bikes everywhere, like her old man. Her middle-aged old man in Lycra.

A MAMIL is a syndicated journalist whose advice column, “Ask a MAMIL,” appears in over 0 blogs worldwide.

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

Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2024 Vuelta a España Stage 20

Introduction

Perhaps you don’t have time to watch the Vuelta a España. Or maybe you don’t want to pay for coverage. Maybe the sport isn’t entertaining enough for you unless somebody mouths off a lot. Well, that would be me. Read on for my no-punches-pulled report on a bunch of starved Lycra-clad athletes bashing themselves against giant mountains and trying to destroy each other, for money.

Vuelta a Espana Stage 20 – Villarcayo to Picón Blanco

As I join, they’ve got just over a kilometer to go on the third-to-last climb, the Portillo de la Sia, a Category 2. It looks like Mark Soler (UAE Team Emirates) is solo, or maybe chasing the break. It’s hard to tell. My morning is in disarray – all out of ground coffee, had to grind some beans by hand, then somehow poured boiling water on my hand. So I’m suffering more than these riders, believe me. Adding insult to injury, Peacock is showing a commercial now. Let me go get some ice.

Okay, I’m back and it’s definitely Soler in the lead. I don’t think this is so much a let’s-win-this-stage kind of break as a let’s-get-all-the-KOM-points break. Soler has the KOM jersey but it looks like his teammate Jay Vine picked up some points earlier because they’re now tied in the virtual standing. Here’s Vine, all bandaged up from a terrible crash last week, hanging on the back of the group.

As a new feature of this blog, today I have a man on the ground in Spain, giving me live updates.

He sends this nice shot of Soler leading the race.

My correspondent predicts that the GC group, only 1:20 behind the breakaway, will overtake them on the last climb, so the penultimate climb will decide the KOM. He also gave me some Lotto numbers but I’m keeping those to myself, thank you very much.

Here’s a cool photo of one of the climbs, courtesy of my man on the ground. Not shown: Don Quixote, tilting.

In the GC group, a teammate of Richard Carapaz (EF Education - Easypost) makes a sweet move to launch his leader into a stage-winning move. Alas, this guy apparently never told Carapaz of the plan, or Carapaz forgot, because he’s several riders back staring at his thumbnail and man, this is just embarrassing.

The announcers are saying that some of race leader Primoz Roglic’s Red Bull – Bora Hansgrohe teammates are sick. I’m not getting very specific info, though. The riders I see look okay to me. Maybe they’re homesick, or lovesick. Not sure how that might affect Roglic’s GC bid. I mean, homesick isn’t that big a deal, but if the lovesickness is, like, chlamydia, that could be serious.

Speaking of the GC, Roglic has chased the red leader’s jersey for almost three weeks and only yesterday finally took it off of the back of Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) and now leads him by almost two minutes, which is kind of a lot since Roglic has been riding better than O’Connor for most of this Vuelta and has won it three times before. But victory is not assured, as noted by this Roleur article which helpfully points out, “Roglic still has to stay on his bike, a non-flippant comment rooted in the fact he falls on average once every 18 race days.”

Well, I guess I spoke too soon, or maybe too late … Roglic is now past the last real descent, so things should be fairly safe for him for the remaining 37 kilometers which are mostly uphill.

The breakaway comprises Soler, Vine, Pablo Castrillo (Kern Pharma), Clément Berthet (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team), and Marco Frigo (Israel – Premier Tech).

Wow, Soler has looked pretty good on the front but now totally detonates!

Within seconds, he’s way off the back!

Now it’s all up to Vine. Not sure how deep the points go for the next KOM opportunity, but Vine might end up winning the overall KOM with this ride (and I guess it’s possible they could stay off and win the stage but that’s almost no more likely than my correspondent’s Lotto numbers winning big for me).

O’Connor’s team has changed its uniforms so many times over the years, I have a bit of trouble spotting him in the group now that he’s not in the red jersey any more. Isn’t it weird how we don’t generally translate “maglia rosa” or “maillot jaune,” but we always use the English phrase “red jersey”? Have you ever heard it called the “camisa roja”? The Vuelta gets no respect, I tell you.

The chat with my on-the-ground correspondent is a bit confusing because there’s some other guy in the texting group only identified by his phone number. I assume it’s a mutual friend or a guy on my road team, but it’s a little odd that he keeps asking for my credit card number. Anyway, he asks, “Will [Vine] make it or will the peloton catch?” I reply, “Peloton will catch, I predict. And my Visa is 4388-4972-2949-7732, exp. 02/26.”

Vine has dropped everyone but Berthet.

Okay, this is sad. My little cat was trying to get my attention and did that thing where she reaches up and hooks a claw into my leg, but the claw got stuck and now she’s kind of hanging there while I try to unhook the claw. Poor little beast!

And in the time it took for that little maneuver, the GC group has suddenly closed their 20-second gap and catches the remaining duo from the breakaway.

With about 4 kilometers left in this climb there’s a hellacious attack!

It’s Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates), who sits tenth on GC, about 7 minutes down. So Roglic’s team wouldn’t exactly be panicking about this.

Sivakov’s move is pretty cool, whether or not he can make it all the way to the finish solo … at least it takes any pressure of Vine, who I hope can hang tough in this group for the rest of the climb and maybe get those KOM points.

You’ll be happy to know that my cat has recovered from the snagged-claw episode and is now comfortably situated on my lap.

Enric Mas (Movistar Team) takes the summit of the Puerto de Los Tornos, which causes commentator Bob Roll to giggle and wonder aloud why Mas would want KOM points. His fellow commentator Christian Vande Velde patiently points out that there were bonus seconds available as well, which could help Mas in the GC. Just to catch you up since my last post, O’Connor trails Roglic by 1:54, Mas sits third just 26 seconds behind O’Connor, Carapaz is another 34 seconds further back, and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) rounds out the top five 4:33 behind Roglic.

Vine picked up a KOM point or two on that last summit, so he has the KOM lead and, with just one climb left in this Vuelta, unless something dramatic happens he’ll wear the jersey into Paris. Er, Madrid. Wherever.

Here’s an aerial view of the final climb, the dreaded Picón Blanco.

Mikel Landa (T-Rex – Quick-Step) attacks, sort of. His attacks are more like little jabs, and one of Roglic’s teammates easily chases him down, practically yawning with boredom. This is kind of hard to watch because once again, Landa’s teammates did a lot of work to set him up for this. They’re like Little League parents shouting at their children out on the diamond, to no effect.

Sivakov is riding really well, taking his lead out to about a minute. But man, this upcoming final climb is kind of a beast, 7.9 kilometers at 9.1% average grade.

With 14 kilometers to go, Sivakov now has 1:13. Perhaps his chances of a stage will win depend on whether, this far into the Vuelta, anybody has enough energy left to mount a real attack on Roglic.

Sivakov’s shoulders look a little tense. I get accused of this. My wife tells me I need to do yoga or some such shit, but honestly I think it’s just the stress of middle age. Imagine how much tension Sivakov will carry in his body when he’s in his fifties, running a bike shop or tour group or something to try to fund his remaining years. Damn, I’m getting depressed now and he hasn’t even been caught yet!

Okay, this is noteworthy. I have two separate chat threads going and both of them include a doctor who is at work right now and hungry for updates. What does that say about cycling fans? Probably nothing, though I would like to think most football fans work at, like, accounting firms. Does that make me a snob? No, probably more like a wannabe snob. I am not myself a doctor, after all.

I would love to see Carapaz launch a hellacious attack and take three minutes out of Roglic on this climb. And then a geisha would bring me a platter of lasagne, and my kids would phone.

Sivakov is starting to show his age. Well, actually, he’s a young buck, just 27 years old … maybe he’s starting to show my age. His lead has dropped to just 38 seconds in a matter of a couple kilometers.

Some guy attacks and nobody cares. It’s Eddie Dunbar (Team Jayco Alula).

Everyone just sits there, as if Dunbar didn’t matter. He’s just rolling away. He doesn’t even look like he cares. It’s like they’ve forgotten where they are, maybe they think they’re at a roller rink or something.

The GC group just pedals away as though this were a sightseeing jaunt. Roglic, finally frustrated at his teammates’ pace, now takes the front as if to say, “Damn it … let me do it.”

Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), who won a stage solo earlier in this Vuelta, is dropped. I’m okay with this. Yates looks just a bit goofy on the bike. I can’t tell what it is. It’s like his body is pointed uphill like a hyena’s. Does that make any sense?

Sivakov is hanging tough, holding on to his slender lead for now. Even his shoulders look a little more relaxed … maybe his sports director gave him some advice through his earpiece. “C’mon Sivvy, you’ve got this, you’re the best, eh, lower those shoulders, remember what we talked about, breathe like a kettle now, relax that jaw, Namaste.”

In the GC group Roglic goes to the front and drops the hammer again, Mas glued to his wheel. Now Gaudu pulls through pretty forcefully and you can see Ben O’Connor going out the back, paced by his super-domestique Felix Gall.

Now Gaudu flat-out attacks, and so far only Carapaz can respond!

Up the road, Dunbar (remember him?) catches Sivakov.

Gaudu has a decent gap on the GC group.

And now Dunbar drops Sivakov. Sivakov vanishes from my screen, just straight-up gone, like he was levitated away by a UFO or sucked into a sinkhole. Dunbar is now solo but perhaps Gaudu is gaining?

Dunbar looks really disassociated, like his mind is somewhere else. He almost seems bored. It’s strange.

Roglic is smashing the pedals going after Dunbar, surely wanting yet another stage win. Even so, Mas goes to the front and drives the pace even higher. Mas is having the best grand tour of his life, he’s been en fuego practically every day. They overhaul Gaudu.

Behind, Gall is doing a great job helping O’Connor to limit his losses.

OMG! In the final 500 meters, Dunbar is dying! And the GC group isn’t far behind! C’mon, man! Go go go!

And now Landa attacks again, this time for reals!

Was that photo even worth posting? Look, I’m sorry about the shockingly poor quality of these images. Peacock blocks screen captures because, you know, every time somebody saves a still shot from Peacock’s footage (which by my calculation totals something like half a million frames), God kills a kitten.

But Landa’s attack is like all Landa’s attacks, it accomplishes nothing. It’s actually starting to look like Dunbar could hang on for a win!

Wow, Roglic actually just doesn’t have it! He never launches the cruel final move that usually dooms a humble breakaway rider! In fact, Mas is distancing him! And now, Dunbar is out of the saddle, grunting his bike along, totally dying but still going kind of fast, and the meters click by, 50 to go, 25 to go, still no sign of the chasers and—he’s got the win!

That is as close to a smile as I was able to get, even with my camera’s burst mode. Dunbar looks satisfied, perhaps, but not exactly elated.

Surprisingly enough, the next rider across is Mas, with a pretty good gap back to Roglic.

Gall is a baller. He brings O’Connor home with only a handful of seconds lost to Roglic, and more importantly to those who would knock him off the podium.

Here is the stage result.

And here is the new GC.

Not much change … Mas took nine seconds total out of Roglic (seven at the finish and the two bonus seconds), which won’t exactly jeopardize Roglic’s chances since he’s the better time trialist anyway. The big loser was Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers), who came in 2:34 back today and drops from seventh to tenth overall. Last year’s winner, the American Sepp Kuss (Visma – Lease A Bike), had a bad day today and drops from 11th to 13th overall.

They’re interviewing Dunbar.

INTERVIEWER: You’re practically smiling, which I find unusual. What’s going on?

DUNBAR: Well, I never expected to win a grand tour stage, and now I’ve won two.

INTERVIEWER: Do they have Pop Rocks action candy in Ireland?

DUNBAR: I felt pretty good, and I knew this climb from 2020, I knew it leveled out in places which isn’t shown in the profile, so I’d have a chance to rest here and there and go harder on the steep bits.

INTERVIEWER: You didn’t answer my question about the Pop Rocks.

DUNBAR: When Sivakov went, nobody reacted, so I figured no point wasting bullets on a climb like this. I’m a ways down on GC, so I knew I’d get a bit of leeway.

INTERVIEWER: “Wasting bullets” … what does that even mean?

DUNBAR: I want to thank my team for this. The guys did good keeping me out of trouble over the last few days.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of trouble, can you elaborate?

DUNBAR: We were at the salad bar, and the guys were like dude, don’t eat the marshmallow-and-Mandarin-orange salad, it’s looking really manky. I was totally gonna eat it, too, before they spoke up. And just look at what happened to those [Red Bull] Bora-Hansgrohe guys. They ate the salad and then blew chunks all last night, I could hear it through the wall.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you for finally answering one of my questions. That’s what I was getting at, with the Pop rocks thing. The way they fizz is similar to how fermented fruit feels on the tongue, which could have tipped you off.

DUNBAR: Yes. Except, like I said, my teammates had my back. I never even tasted that salad. Nor your silly “action candy.”

INTERVIEW: Touché.

If this is your first albertnet blow-by-blow, I should come clean about something: I don’t try very hard to record these interviews accurately. Much of what I “quoted” from Dunbar above was real, but I freestyled the rest of the exchange. That is a service to you, because these interviews can be really dull.

Speaking of which, now they’re interviewing Roglic.

INTERVIEWER: This had to be a stressful stage, with your teammates projectile vomiting all last night.

ROGLIC: Yeah, I mean uh, anyway, yeah, uh, luckily  I am quite fine for the moment, so uh, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Eddie [Dunbar] was saying it was the Mandarin-orange-and-marshmallow salad that poisoned your teammates, is that correct?

ROGLIC: Uh, yeah, uh, maybe it was that, I thought, uh, yeah, maybe really the pineapple-and-cottage-cheese salad, so, uh, I ate neither, and yeah, maybe that’s why I’m good.

INTERVIEWER: These salads sound disgusting, what a crappy hotel you guys must have been at. I mean, what kind of salad bar is so badly maintained that it has riders puking their guts out and shitting like minks all night before the queen stage of the Vuelta?

ROGLIC: Yeah, well, I am not so sure, and uh, I don’t know much about minks, whether they really shit like this, so, uh, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Are you starting to believe that you can actually hang on and win your fourth Vuelta?

ROGLIC: Well you know we uh you know, uh, I am one day closer but tomorrow, it’s another GC day.

INTERVIEWER: Come on, man, I was just taking the piss, you’ve gotta know you got this race in the bag.

ROGLIC: Uh, taking the piss? Whose piss? You mean doping control? Blood bags?

INTERVIEWER: Has anyone ever told you you’re the most boring rider to interview in the entire peloton?

ROGLIC: Yeah, a couple of times, so, uh, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Well, anyway I want to thank you for not shaming the race, and the sport, by being absolutely dominant like [Tadej] Pogacar or [Chris] Froome. The times you’ve faltered in this Vuelta, like losing time to Mas today, showed us you’re still human, which made the race worth watching, and that’s a nice change. So … thanks.

ROGLIC: Uh ... you’re welcome?

Several words from that transcript were faithful to the actual interview, including “uh,” “yeah,” “so,” and “one day closer.” I stole “shitting like a mink” from the late Anthony Bourdain. The interviewer’s final sentiment is 100% my own opinion.

Well, that’s about it for this Vuelta. Tomorrow’s final stage, a short, flat time trial, will be totally boring and probably won’t change much about the GC. Check back next April because the next race I cover will probably be Paris-Roubaix.

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Test Ride - Specialized Turbo Levo SL 2 Carbon E-Bike

Introduction

I almost called this post a “road test” like in “Car and Driver” magazine, as I did technically test the Specialized Turbo Levo SL 2 Comp Carbon on the road, or more precisely the street (but I don’t think “street test” is a thing). Obviously a trail test would have been better, as the Levo SL is a pure trail bike, but it’s also an e-bike, and the electronic aspect is the bigger deal. So the eight minutes you spend reading this will be worth it, trust me.

Overview

I suppose I should start by telling you what this bike is and what it purports to do. It’s an $8,000 motor-assisted mountain bike that provides “2x You” performance. That is, it’ll basically take your ability and double it. So, if the Stone Temple Pilots guy singing “Half the Man I Used to Be” bought this bike, he’d be made whole.

Since we’d all love to double our performance, it’s tempting to think this bike is for everyone—but it’s not. I learned about it through my friend R— who texted me about it and said, “Only level 3 coaches can get this bike.” He’s referring to the most advanced NICA high school mountain bike coaches, of which I happen to be one. But coaches shouldn’t ride e-bikes at all, and surely Specialized would sell this bike to anyone, wouldn’t they? R— can be cryptic in his texts and ignored my request for clarification, so I went to the Specialized website for more information.

The web page for the Turbo Levo SL 2 Comp Carbon explains that this bike is “for the trail rider who craves serpentine singletrack, sending it skyward, and lives for advancing your skills and fitness.” This confused me further. So, this trail rider, a third party, lives for advancing my skills and fitness? Lives for it? Really? Sounds kind of obsessed, like a stalker. Or maybe I’m just being deliberately dense, reluctant to acknowledge that this Specialized marketing person simply got stuck with that old pronoun problem, his vs. her vs. his/her vs. their, and didn’t want to be political. I can understand that. But this innovative switch from third person to second person could have been even more dramatic—how about switching to first person? “For the trailer rider who lives for advancing my skills and fitness.” I’d be like, your skills and fitness? Who are you?” And the marketing person would be like, “Exactly.” And I’d be scratching my head, like, “How did we get into a dialogue? It was just words on a page.” And you’re like, “Exactly.” (By “you’re” I mean the marketing person. Even if that isn’t you.)

So why is this bike $8,000? Well, they spared no expense to make it as awesome as possible. For example, they “stripped away the mass to keep the Levo SL lean and responsive.” Thank goodness. I hate it when a bike manufacturer leaves all that mass on there. So many bikes, especially e-bikes, just have big clumps of material, maybe it’s actually fat, and the bikes are sluggish. My Salsa backup road bike, though not electric, is just massive and clumpy. (I still love it though, like an oversized teddy bear.)

The Turbo Levo SL 2 Comp is loaded with innovation, such as having a 29-inch front wheel and a 27.5-inch rear. But it doesn’t stop there. Check this out: “If you prefer the rolling and traction benefits of a 29” rear wheel, just flip the pivot link chip and mount the big wheel.” The big wheel? Where would you get this big wheel? Does the bike come with two rear wheels? Or are we talking about the Big Wheel from the 1970s, i.e., this?

It’s a very confusing bike all around. Like, where does the name “Turbo” come from? Well, according to the website, this bike offers a “TURBO OPERATING SYSTEM.” So, I guess the way this works is that there’s a turbine powered by the exhaust system that enables the bike to suck in extra oxygen to mix with the fuel, so ... wait. I’m getting confused again. This bike is electric, not internal combustion. And “operating system” sounds like software. I guess they mean “TURBO” as in, just, really really good. I’m getting tired now, processing all this nuance, so I’m going to go make a sandwich. I’ve got fresh avocado and San Luis Sourdough so it’ll be a totally turbo sandwich!

Okay, I’m back. To round out the tech specs of the bike (before I get to the test ride itself), the website says this model has a “new kinematic with flatter leverage curve which provides more support and playfulness off the top, but plenty of control in rougher conditions.” What is “kinematic”? Wikipedia says kinematics is a “subfield of physics and mathematics” and offers this illustrative graphic:

So what does this “kinematic” have to do with bikes? I was a bit lost so I googled it, and found that this bike-themed web page mentions kinematics (albeit only once). I guess “kinematics” is kind of like “geometry” but that term is so dated, so pre-electric. I guess we should just absorb and acknowledge that a “new kinematic” is a good thing. As for the rest of that sentence, “playfulness off the top” and “flatter leverage curve” may have to do with a kicky, young, sexy woman who might be a little bit flat-chested. I mean, obviously the kinematic doesn’t literally have to do with that, but it’s just the feel of this thing. If this bike were a young woman she’d be playfully alluring and her name would be, like, Kylie. And you’d be dying to meet her. Wow. I can’t believe you just said all that. Who are you? (Besides, of course, a marketing person who understands that the majority of e-bike buyers are male.)

Speaking of which, it’s high time I stopped blathering about the Turbo Levo’s specs. I should get to the test ride itself.

The ride

I’ll start by saying that I didn’t have the proper shoes, or even a helmet, when I rode this bike. I hadn’t planned on riding it at all. I’d been at the pub with some pals, two of whom are cyclists. One, in fact, was R—, the fellow coach who’d alerted me to this bike. For once, we weren’t talking about bikes. We were talking about R—’s mentally ill neighbor who put padlocks on his garbage and recycling cans and constantly hassles everyone and at one point got right in his other neighbor’s face, yelled something like, “You wanna piece a me!?” and ripped off his shirt. (His own shirt, I should clarify.) I said, “In fairness, though, who among us hasn’t done that?” I know all this backstory has nothing to do with the Turbo Levo SL, but I’m just setting the stage here. Think “Deer Hunter.”

When it was time to head home, R— had a surprise for us: he’d gone out and bought himself the very Turbo Levo SL 2 Carbon I’ve been writing about. No, he won’t ride it on high school team mountain bike rides, because that would be cheating, and setting a bad example, and embarrassing himself because we coaches pride ourselves on being able to (more or less) keep up under our own power. R— uses the Turbo Levo for commuting across the Richmond Bridge to Marin County. The spanking new bike was locked right out front (with a lock worth more than an entry-level mountain bike, I’ll bet). He invited me to try it out and I didn’t hesitate.

I set off up Solano Ave, and right away discovered that the Turbo Levo really does have a new kinematic. In fart, wow … what a strange typo. I went to type “in fact,” and because I’m on the Dvorak keyboard layout, the “R” is right next to the “C,” so it’s a pretty predictable typo and I’m only surprised I haven’t made it before. And no, I’m not at the pub as I type this, I’ve actually only perhaps had too much coffee. So where was I? Oh yeah: the new kinematic. It was, in fact, so dramatic that some rando on the street corner yelled, “Nice kinematic!” Full disclosure, it wasn’t actually a total rando, it was M—, the owner of a local bike shop, whom I see at the pub sometimes. Well, okay, even that isn’t completely accurate: to be totally transparent with you, nobody on the street corner actually yelled anything. In truth there was nobody there. But that doesn’t change the fact that this bike’s kinematic really was breathtakingly novel and refreshing. Its flatter leverage curve and playfulness off the top had me whispering, “Come here, you.” (Naw, just kidding. That was actually you.)

Well. If you’ve ever ridden an e-bike, particularly the Class 3 type (click here for details) that simply add to your power as you pedal, it’s a pretty awesome experience. Instead of pushing a button or operating a motorcycle-style throttle to engage the motor, you just pedal along as though you were on a regular bike, but you go way faster, still in accordance with your effort. So it rides a lot like a regular bike, except you feel like you’re young again, and impressively strong. Naturally I wanted to intensify this experience. Instead of going only 15 or 20 mph, I wanted to steam up Solano Ave at like 25. So I shifted up.

The SRAM GX Eagle AXS wireless electronic shifting is smooth and precise and I would have been very impressed, except the button I pressed did exactly the opposite of what I wanted it to. It shifted me into an impossibly large cog in the back (the cassette being a 10-52). This made for such a low gear, there was nothing for the motor to do as I spun ineffectually at a comically high cadence, my speed dropping woefully. It was like all the wind suddenly vanished from my sails. Now I was mincing along pathetically and getting nothing out of the electric assist. If I weren’t such a mature, unflappable type I might have started crying. I fumbled around with my thumb trying to find the up-shift button but could not. I pulled over, frustrated. I will not say this is a criticism of the SRAM GX Eagle, since this was my first time using it, but it is a bit odd I’ve never struggled with this kind of thing before in my life. Perhaps I was a bit light-headed from having to adapt to the new kinematic.

There wasn’t enough light to see the controls, as I live in the kind of upscale community that doesn’t need to supply powerful streetlamps. Plus, my eyes are going. I have this irrational fear of already getting cataracts. I think it’s happened to all us 50-somethings. You should see my home: it seems like every week my wife brings home a new area lamp. As much as I squinted I couldn’t discern a second button. I got out my smartphone and struggled to unlock it. The fingerprint reader is pretty tricky and the facial recognition scanner even more so, especially in low light. (I really wish Samsung had gone for a TURBO OPERATING SYSTEM on this phone.) Finally I got the torch feature going, and found the up-shift button. Tech tip: it’s right above the down-shift button.

Based on what you’ve read of my test ride so far, you might be wondering at this point how much I’d had to drink. I want to assure you that, like all those who appreciate quality, I enjoy it responsibly. Was I tipsy? Well, of course, a bit … I mean, it was boys’ night out after all. But was I, to borrow a phrase from James Acaster, “hella tipsy”? I was not. Four of us had shared two pitchers (not counting the one that mostly gone when I arrived) and one of them was Trumer Pils, noted for its 4.9% ABV content and very flat leverage curve. Plus, I’d had two dinners right before meeting my pals. (One dinner was at the new pizza joint that, obviously, has miniscule portions.)

Now that I’d mastered the shifting, things got real, real good. I won’t say I could feel the difference with the 27.5-inch rear wheel—the “compact chainstay and super responsive behavior” weren’t prominent—but I did have that warm, relaxing sense that with this bike I’d never need to wonder if it would be wise to rotate the tires occasionally (which would be a hassle since they’re tubeless ). I’m also not sure I was fully appreciating the “low bottom bracket, slack headtube angle, and reduced fork offset” because I was just riding on a city street, not shredding singletrack ‘gnar, but the important thing about this bike is that it was fast, easy to pedal, and probably made me look really, really cool particularly because I wasn’t even wearing a helmet, mine being locked to my 3-speed back at the pub. For that reason, and because I didn’t want R— to think I’d made off with his superfly new ride, I made a nice sweeping U-turn in front of Gordo’s taqueria and made my way back to my pals. I cruised up the sidewalk and … WTF? Where did they go, and who were these randos standing out front?

As it turns out, the two randos were R— and H—. Even though they were right where I expected to find them, the fact is I didn’t recognize them. And they were behaving strangely, staring right at me as if they wanted something. For a moment I felt an impulse to rip my shirt off and yell, “You wanna piece a me!?” but it passed. R— was wearing a new helmet and maybe that’s what threw me off. Or maybe, just maybe, the Turbo Levo SL 2 is that special kind of bike that makes you see the world differently. Okay, thinking through this a bit more I guess that’s probably not it, since I have long believed myself to be face blind. My struggle probably had nothing to do with the bike.

Well, it was kind of sad climbing aboard my 3-speed Triumph commuter bike after that. I call this bike the Arseless, short for Arseless Horse, after the hero’s bike in A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle. The Arseless is so old (older, even, than I) and has been so neglected, it probably wouldn’t even roll downhill if you didn’t pedal. All its bearings are practically seized. None of its mass has been stripped away, and it doesn’t even have an operating system. But I couldn’t help but to ponder, as I pedaled my way home, that the difference between this bike and the Turbo Levo SL 2 is a lot less than the difference between a bicycle and nothing. The Arseless cost just $65 (albeit secondhand), practically nothing compared to the $8,000 Turbo Levo, but both of them are infinitely superior to walking. In the final analysis—to quote the Irish cycling champ Sean Kelly—“a bike’s a bike.”

Postscript

Lighthearted mockery aside, I love Specialized bikes. I still have an old Stumpjumper; I bought my daughter a Stumpjumper M2 for her first mountain bike; and I met my wife at the bike shop where I sold her the Rockhopper Comp she still rides. The Turbo Levo SL 2 Carbon is an amazing bike and if you’re looking for an e-bike, you should totally buy it. Just don’t ride it on no-e-bikes-allowed trails (which I think ought to be most of them ... but that’s another post).

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Letter to a Middle-Aged Cyclist - Buy New Wheels NOW!

Vlog

This post is available as a vlog. And check this out: if you launch the video and then close your eyes, it magically becomes a podcast! Naturally, the traditional text-O-rama blog format follows below.

Introduction

I’m not much of a consumer, but recently a friend bullied me into buying new wheels for my road bike. Based on the outcome, and with all the zeal of a convert, I exhorted another friend, who complained about broken spokes, to buy these wheels as well. Seeing an opportunity to expand my beneficence, I hereby entreat all middle-aged road cyclists to buy new wheels too. Here are my top five reasons, followed by a handy Q&A.

Reason #1 – You’re not getting any younger

Okay, right off the bat you can find some pretty badass looking wheels nowadays. Case in point, these Dura-Ace C40s I just picked up. Have a gander at these bad boys.

Now, if you were 70 years old, would I be recommending these to you? Of course not. You’d be a geezer, unlikely to get much use out of them. When my dad was like 70, and had suffered some shoulder injury he thought to be permanent, he decided he needed a recumbent, because it was closer to the ground. “If I crash on a regular bicycle and land on my shoulder, it is done,” he explained sternly. Alas, he was too old a dog to master the recumbent bicycle, so then he bought a recumbent tricycle. Now he no longer needed to balance, but the supine riding position, he complained, gave him terrible neck pain. Well hell, I could have predicted that!

The awkwardness of the recumbent is not just a physical problem. There’s also the aesthetic consideration. Nobody should ride recumbents, any more than any tortoise should be flipped over on its back and laughed at. Fortunately, after giving up on the trike, my dad decided his shoulder was okay after all and bought a sensible Fuji hybrid/commuter bike. Not bad, except he never rode it either; apparently after his hip replacement he couldn’t swing his leg over the bike. So he asked me what I thought about him trading it in for a women’s model, with no top tube.

My instant reaction was, “What, are you crazy? What’s next, you gonna start drinking rosé? Dude, it’s time to man up, do some damn physical therapy, and ride the bike you got!” But if course there was no point in saying this. By the time a guy is asking you if it’s okay to ride a women’s bike, it’s too late to help him. “Sounds like a great plan,” I told him, “and I’m sure Performance would gladly swap your bike for a women’s model at no charge. After all, you’ve never ridden it.” This was a gamble, of course; would he take my advice, and if so, whose demise was approaching faster—his or Performance’s? (In the end it was a dead heat.)

I hope I’ve made it clear we need to put off the geezer years for as long as possible and hang on to youthful stuff with all our might. In this battle, aesthetics are important. If you’re over 50, you’re heading toward the years when you wouldn’t necessarily carry off those badass new wheels very well. Similarly, there’s something sad about a 65-year-old in a distressed-looking leather jacket and that’s where we’re headed. At some point that jacket would need to be traded in on a cardigan sweater because who the hell are we kidding? As Anthony Bourdain once said, “There’s nothing cool about ‘used to be cool.’”

[Above: my brother Max and I when we were younger and cooler (even if we weren’t, strictly speaking, cool). Can I still wear that jacket? Yes, I think … but not forever.]

Don’t even get me started on all the super-cool sports cars you see in the Bay Area—the Porsches, the McLarens, the Audi R8s, even your occasional Lambo—that inevitably have some 60-plus douche behind the wheel (driving responsibly, of course). Seeing this grotesque pairing of speed-obsessed engineering and delusional, over-moneyed, existential Viagra, I fantasize about the guy’s irresponsible 18-year-old grandson stealing the car and taking it out for a joy ride, maybe even leading the cops in a stupidity-and-adrenaline-fueled high-speed pursuit.

At least bikes provide a healthy outlet for midlife-crisis ya-yas. So we should all be using high-end, kickass gear while we still can. If we can still put the hurt on younger riders, and we can still make our racing bikes go jolly fast, we’re not too old to deserve really awesome machines. Yet. So you need to snap up and enjoy these wheels while you still have the mettle, the minerals, the sound & the fury to put them to good use. Seize the day!

Reason #2 – The price is right

I hear anecdotally that everything is cheaper now because of the COVID-19 shelter-in-place and the low price of oil. New cars, as described here, are still being shipped over here and there’s no place to put them because the dealers aren’t making a dent in their current inventory. It’s kind of a consumer’s market in general, apparently.

So when I broke my third spoke in under 500 miles on my current rear wheel, and complained to my friend Pete, he immediately urged me to buy new ones. He even sent me a link to where the wheels he recommended were on sale for $350 off. Within a few minutes I found them on closeout at another place for $600 off. DAAAAAAMN!

There’s also the price of not buying those wheels. Look, your gear is going to wear out at some point. Why wait until then, when the economy may well be booming again, and you’ll have to pay what the market will bear? And why run the risk of finding out the hard way that your hubs and/or rims are approaching wear-related catastrophic structural failure, like my crankarm back in 2011?

With my new wheels the cost analysis included the crap I’d have had to put up with from Pete if I’d stuck to my penny-pinching ways. He wrote, and I quote, “Do it do it do it do it. Don’t be scared.” I hemmed and hawed and he pointed out, “It’s not like you’re gonna go on some expensive vacation any time soon.” I acknowledged this point and he replied: “See, you’re practically making money on the deal!”

Not a bad argument, but the “don’t be scared” was even more powerful. Did you catch that? How he was, albeit subtly, impugning my confidence? Like I’m too scared to throw money around? I went silent for a bit and he texted me, “I assume your silence means you bought them!” He basically rim-shamed me into the purchase, and I hope I’m doing the same with you. If not, read on because I’m not done yet.

Reason #3 – Aero wheels actually will make you go faster

By “modern” I mean the truly aerodynamic ones. No, not like those super deep-dish time trial wheels, which is frankly overkill, but something a bit more aggressive than what you might have on your bike. In my case, I had been rocking the HED Ardennes, which claim to be aerodynamic but aren’t very deep (and frankly aren’t very durable—long, dull story). I’m talking something at least 35mm deep, from the edge of the rim where the tire sidewall begins to where the spokes go in. And the wheels need to have a relative paucity of spokes—not a mere 16 front and rear, like the early Shimano wheels I swore off of, but not your old-school 28- or 32-spoke build either. And bladed spokes, needless to say. Why on earth did my replacement HED wheel, which I just bought late last year to replace the defective one I bought in 2014, have non-bladed spokes? What, did they forget? What’s next, toothpaste without fluoride? Leaded gasoline? CRT televisions? Dial-up Internet?

Now, the bicycle industry has a long history of total BS when it comes to aerodynamics. I give you the aero water bottle, which led to famous victories by nobody ever.

They’re just hideous. I doubt anybody would use them even if they did confer a real advantage. Aesthetics, remember?

And you think the placement of these shifters, and the internal cabling, led to any actual benefit?

To some degree the bicycle industry pretended that making something needlessly ugly would automatically lead to aerodynamic improvement:

So I’ve been skeptical about aero wheels too (other than, obviously, disk wheels, tri-spokes, etc.). When I was pondering my last new wheel purchase in 2014, I incredulously emailed my teammate Sean (a legit bike maven), “It’s crazy ... the more expensive Dura-Ace wheels are heavier than the C24s … could that be right? Is the idea that the aerodynamics are so much better, it’s worth it? The order of the universe seems out of whack all of a sudden.” Sean replied, “Yes, that is correct. I too have trouble accepting the idea that heavier wheels can be faster, but apparently the aerodynamics more than make up for the weight gain, unless you are doing major climbing.”

So is he right? In a word, yes. There really is a big difference with these Dura-Ace C40s (35mm deep in the rim-brake version). It’s not subtle. Consider this: there’s a little downhill on Wildcat Canyon Road, where I try to get as much speed as I can to carry me up the next rise. I’m accustomed to hitting a little over 30 mph on that if I pedal fairly hard. With these wheels, putting out about the same perceived effort, I hit 37 mph! Digging extra deep yesterday, I reached almost 40. Going down South Park Drive, without pedaling, I can feel the bike picking up speed like it never has before, as though gravity had gotten stronger. (In a sense its effect is stronger, as it’s impeded less by wind drag.) Descending with these wheels is the difference between paddling your little canoe out on the lake vs. feeling a giant wave pick up your surf kayak and hurl it toward the beach.

Now, I know just what you’re thinking: your decisions these days are data-driven. You don’t want this mealy-mouthed, feel-good subjective nonsense clouding your AI-like judgment. So here are the cold, hard facts about my first two rides with these wheels.

My first ride was one of my favorite loops, 19.3 miles with about 2,500 feet of climbing. My previous best time of the year was 1:19:02, an average speed of 14.7 mph. On this route with the new wheels (their maiden voyage), I clocked a 1:16:26, averaging 15.5 mph. Pretty staggering improvement, eh?

Now, there’s a such thing as “new bike syndrome” where you automatically go faster because a) you’re excited about the new bike, and b) you’re frightened into riding harder by the looming specter of buyer’s remorse. Does new bike syndrome extend to wheels? Anecdotally I wouldn’t say so, and anyway we can account for that effect, to some extent, by looking at average heart rate across the two rides.

For the ride that produced my former best time, my average heart rate was 131 bpm, and I was in Zone 3 (>144 bpm) for 0:17:49. On the new wheels, my record-breaking ride was at an average HR of 132, with only 0:15:55 in zone 3 (and no time in or above zone 4 for either ride). In other words, the level of effort was comparable, one ride to the next. So, yeah—it was the fricking wheels! They actually made me faster!

Of course I can’t base this conclusion on a single ride. But the next ride corroborated this; it’s a bit shorter at 16.7 miles, with just over 2,000 feet of climbing, and I beat my 2020 PR of 1:07:43 handily, completing the ride in just 1:04:45 (15.5 mph vs. 14.8). This year I’ve done one or the other of these loops 17 times on the old wheels, and never averaged above 15 mph. With the new wheels, I’ve broken the coveted 15 mph average all three times on the longer loop plus the one time on the shorter loop. Four for four!

Moreover, factoring in longer rides (with more flat sections), my highest average speed of the year on the old wheels was 16.3 mph (on a 33-mile ride with 2,900 feet of climbing). On the new wheels yesterday, I averaged 17.6 mph (on a 39.4-mile ride with 3,300 feet of climbing). That’s an 8% improvement … stunning.

Reason #4 – New wheels will actually make you ride harder

Okay, I’ll confess that comparing my average heart rate across rides is somewhat specious, given the slippery nature of the term “average.” After all, the average person has one breast and one testicle. Coasting on downhills will lower the average heart rate figure inconsistently, etc. Meanwhile, by looking closely at some of my climbs, it’s clear I’ve been going harder lately. On the old wheels I recently clocked a non-stellar 8:13 up Pinehurst Road, whereas with the new wheels yesterday I managed a much better 7:39. My average heart rate over the slower ascent was a mere 140 bpm. Yesterday, my average for this climb was 148 bpm. Across the whole ride, I’d averaged 122 bpm for the first ride, and 133 yesterday.

So does this deconstruct my whole argument, suggesting that greater effort, not greater efficiency, explains the improvement in speed? First of all, no—the difference is too great, and too consistent, and I do have the pair of rides with very similar heart rate yet dissimilar speed & time. Second, it kind of doesn’t really matter if I could have gone as fast, or as hard, on the old wheels. The fact is, I didn’t. I’m going faster and harder now, clearly. When better equipment puts better performance within our reach, we’re much more likely to stretch ourselves.

There’s also the matter of momentum. The parts of my rides that aren’t big climbs or descents are still lumpy, and with the new wheels I find myself carrying more speed from a downhill into the next uphill, such that if I go a bit harder I can stay in the big chainring for longer stretches (in my case, from Summit Reservoir all the way to Inspiration Point), which inspires and enthuses me. It’s a virtuous cycle.

[Google Maps says it takes 23 minutes to ride the above route. With my old wheels I did as well as 12:58. My new PR with the aero wheels is 11:35.]

Reason #5 – COVID-19

Let’s face it, if we’re smart during this pandemic we’ll all be riding alone for the foreseeable future, with nobody to draft, so we need to be as aerodynamic as possible or we’ll a) get too frustrated to continue, meaning we’ll give up cycling, launching a downward slide into sloth and depression, or b) we’ll be unable to resist drafting others, meaning we’re one snot rocket away from bringing the coronavirus home and killing our entire family.

Meanwhile, returning to the fiscal discussion I started earlier, during shelter-in-place it’s harder to spend money. My credit card bill hasn’t been this low in years, and for the first time in forever all the transactions fit on one page. Why not splurge a little? Besides, there’s a good chance we’ll all be dead soon, along with our would-be heirs, so what’s the point in saving? It’s time to buy! Buy buy buy!

Questions and answers

Q. Why not just get a whole new bike, since there have been so many improvements in technology, such as disc brakes?

A. How can you even contemplate such a major purchase when the global economy is melting the fuck down?! I can’t believe you’re thinking so irresponsibly. Besides, better brakes will not make you go faster. Aren’t we slowing down enough as we head into middle age? Meanwhile, it might be pretty hard finding a new bike anyway ... the pandemic has caused a major bike shortage, as described here.

Q. Why wouldn’t I upgrade my mountain bike wheels instead? Maybe with some sweet carbon rims?

A. With the vast hordes of hikers I’m seeing in the regional parks, I don’t consider mountain biking safe whatsoever right now, or even fun. How are you supposed to socially distance on single track? I can’t imagine spending money on a bike I might not get to even ride in the foreseeable future.

Q. What about crosswinds?

A. Whaddya mean, crosswinds? What the hell are you even talking about? Listen to this guy … crosswinds.

Q. In your previous post about selecting bike wheels you touted the benefits of wider rims and claimed that “the HEDs really do ride better” and “the ride is really plush.” Now you’re pushing Dura-Ace wheels with a narrower rim profile. What gives?

A. You know what else is really plush? Your bed. Or we could ride around on beach cruisers. Look, we’re heading toward old age, infirmity, and death … this isn’t the time to make ourselves comfortable. To paraphrase Andrew Marvell, “The grave’s a fine and restful place/ But no one there is fit to race.”

Q. You seem to assume that all your readers are still gainfully employed right now, even though unemployment in the U.S. is now at historic levels, with more than 20 million people out of work. How can you callously pretend we’re all in a position to spend money on nonessentials?

A. Just buy the damn wheels.

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