There is no way around it: crashing sucks. Besides the psychological effects of going down, the physical implications of a crash can seriously disrupt any momentum you have. For many cyclists that hit the pavement, crashing will mean at the least a broken collarbone. Add to that the financial impact of destroying wheels, bikes, helmets and tearing of clothes and the sum is clear. No matter what way you look at it, crashing sucks.

My story begins nearly two weeks ago. The roll off of the Category 4/5 Pinecone Road Race was without incident. The course is a flat 10 mile loop with five right hand turns – easy enough for those who have ridden in serious groups before. Through the first turn I chose an inside line knowing that there would be a sand trap of sorts. By putting myself through the dangerous part of the turn I insured that no one could come on the inside of me and wreck the group. If I went down, I could only blame myself.

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Competed in the Upper Freehold ITT (Individual Time Trial) yesterday, and came out tired, but with good data. This was my first race this season, having skipped the earlier time trials for hatred of the 50mph crosswinds that the Jersey shore can produce so early in the year. Until recently I have been doing entirely base miles (slower pace over longer distances), and over 1500 of them. I initially thought that I had good speed going into the race, but now on the other side I know it isn’t true. According to the official timing and scoring I managed a 00:30:01.77 (h:m:s) at a 22.575 average over 11.3 miles. My Garmin says otherwise and although I wasn’t using the speed sensor, I think the Garmin is a little more true to my performance.

Photo by Jan Curran

Immediately leaving the gate, I felt good and settled into a comfortable albeit fast rhythm. My heart rate, around 170bpm, was right where I wanted it. This beautiful scenario was quickly smashed when I hit the first roller which brought me into the red zone immediately. You can see from the data below that this is where my problems started.

(Click to enlarge)

Because it was the first hill and because I was able to topple it rather quickly, my body recovered once over the top. However, with each subsequent hill my HR went through the roof and then remained high. Somewhere after mile three or four I developed and odd sensation in my chest; like a grapefruit had been lodged deep within. I pressed on, but each roller really started taking its toll on me until I could barely get over them above 15 mph.

Overall, I am pleased that I got out and did another race and gave it my best shot. As for my performance, I know what I need to work on and know I need to work much harder if I expect to beat my personal best at the Kingwood TT (end of July).

As of today I have completed 869.41 miles on my bike in September alone. The original goal was 1000 miles but slacking off early on because I thought I was well enough ahead caused me to not be able to reach the goal. As you can see in the calendar below, there weren’t too many days near the end that I took off. In most cases I only took off because of weather or because I was feeling sick. Never-the-less I am more than happy with the work I put in and feel like it was a tough month and a great way to end the season (although there are still a few weeks left).

My weight has hit a flat spot at around 210 pounds but I continue to cut the body fat little by little. I am happy with my progression this season in that respect, having lost a total of 30 pounds over the course of seven months. The tough part is ahead as I look to maintain my current weight and lose more next season. I say it is tough because the holidays are notoriously rich in sugar and fat and my metabolism will surely slow down. I have started running in preparation for transitioning off the bike in a somewhat feeble attempt to keep my weight down. It remains to be seen what effect the new regiment will have.

This past Sunday I completed my very first Century (100 miles) on the bike. It has been a target I’ve been working towards since I started to get serious about riding last August. Not only was it tough on my body but more so on my mind.

Mile 0-46
The first 46 miles or so were spent leading our normal Sunday group ride out of Loantaka Park. Because I was the only one who knew the route, I was delegated the responsibilities of a group leader. My good friend helped me out when things got a little hectic by staying back or rushing forward to give some instructions but in general the ride was enjoyable. This was only the second time I have led a group ride and I must say that it is tougher than you expect. People, of course, have varying levels of skill in the sport and making sure all of them are happy and not getting lost can be hard work. There was one time where I repeated a hill a couple of times as I shuffled myself backwards in the strung out group. In the end, however, the awesome company from the other riders made the first 46 very enjoyable.

Mile 46-70
At mile 46 I stopped at home to refill the water bottles and was in the mindset that I would just do an extra 20 or 30 miles which would bring me to a season high of seventy. As I set off I remarked how good my legs were feeling and let the idea of a century creep in slowly. It was at this point that my mind started to take a downward turn. When you are in a group for many hours it is easy to pass the time by with conversation. In a sense it is as if the group can feed off itself for energy. On the other hand, when you are alone with the sun beating down, it is tough to stay focused 100% for so long. Luckily at mile 70 I decided to stop at my local bike shop for some food and some discussion.

Mile 70-90
As I left the LBS I made the crucial mistake of not topping off my water supply. I have always been a big consumer of water and with no clouds in the sky I should’ve known that my half bottle of gatorade would not be enough. At about mile 75, I realized the situation at hand but pressed on knowing that I would start to feel really dehydrated. At this point my mind was going crazy because water was all I could think about! At mile 85 I was seriously close to hallucinating and took my last sip to try and take my mind off the increasing stiffness in my back. I stopped by a vending machine but it wouldn’t take my money and so I set off for home, finally making it at mile 90 exactly.

The Home Stretch
Hitting 90 was certainly enough for me to be happy and so my spirits were on the up at this point. As I sat down and consumed at least 1-1.5 liters of liquid and ate a banana I could feel mile 100 was well within reach. I retopped both bottles at this time despite only having to go 10 and set off. I took a fairly flat route and when I hit the 5 mile marker I turned around and headed home with refreshed legs. Suddenly I found myself going 19-20 mph again, a speed I hadn’t seen since the 65 mile mark, but I let it continue since the adrenaline was kicking in.

A tenth of a mile from home I saw it: 100 miles. I was grinning like a stupid kid at Christmas, as happy as the one who got the N64 [in that commercial]. I had finally made it to one of my more epic goals and with fairly no planning either. While it wasn’t the most exciting route ever, the mileage is what counts.

Total time in the saddle? 6 hours and 37 minutes…

Here are some other stats from my Polar CS200:
Execution Time: 6:38.55
Avg HR: 140
Max HR: 185
Calories: 5436
Distance 100.1
Avg Speed: 15.1
Max Speed: 41.7
Avg Cadence: 85
Max Cadence: 126
Ride Time: 6:37.44

Extras…
Start Weight: 214.5lbs
End Weight: 208.5lbs (yikes!!!!)
Water Intake: 5-6 liters
Gatorade Intake: 1-2 liters
Food: 2 powerbars, 4-5 Cliff ShotBlocks, 1 banana

My next goal for distance will be something over 100, but with a much better route. I definitely repeated some of the easier parts of my local courses several times and I can’t help but feel it contributed to my poor mental state in the late portion of the ride. One idea I have toyed with was to ride to High Point Monument (and perhaps back) which will be very interesting and certainly epic.

Recently I entered myself into a mass-start ride that would be well over 60 miles long (70+ in fact) with over 5000 feet of climbing. While this may not seem like much to some of the ultra-cyclists out there, when you realize that the climbs are nearly all at a steep gradient (New Jersey is just a bunch of ridgelines) and that I have been working on my time trial position, something was going to break – and it did. My left knee started giving me problems at around mile 40 and I just rode through the pain.

My mother (a physical therapist) did a few simple checks and decided that my quad muscles were lopsided and one side of the leg was pulling the kneecap off center. Ok – not good but also not bad! After a fairly easy week though the pain had subsided off the bike because of the exercises I had been doing to strengthen the inner side, but on the bike the knee still hurt. I decided it was time for a cyclist’s opinion. Speaking with the person that has done my fit twice and is a good rider himself the conclusion was that there is something wrong with the way I was pedaling and/or sitting on the bike.

The problem could be one of many things…

1. I had adjusted my saddle position to be farther forward and this was crunching the knee too much on the top of the pedal stroke due to the lower position. Fixes? Raise the saddle or sit back farther.
2. I was pounding too hard on the pedals and not lifting enough on the upward portion of the stroke. Fixes include spinning lighter and spinning faster.
3. Unlikely possibility but my left leg could be a different length. Fixes would include a refit with some shims or something.

I can hear the programmers wondering what the hell this post has to do with debugging code. If you are a learned programmer you should understand the benefit of the scientific method and having controlled changes. By limiting the number of things you change between builds a programmer can see how A affects B directly or indirectly without worrying about how C fits in. I take a similar approach to my health: when sick, eliminate something until the problem changes or is fixed and then work backwards adding things back on. Unfortunately I didn’t do that this time around!

What ended up happening is I bought new bibs (shorts with suspenders built in) that have a thicker padding than the ones I was wearing when the problem started. I also lightened my pedal stroke and sat farther back on the saddle. I just committed debugging suicide by changing three things about my fit and while it may not seem like a big difference remember that a 1mm change in saddle height can be the difference between excruciating pain and pure bliss for some riders. The effective changes include higher sitting height from the bibs and the saddle position, a different KOPS measurement due to changing the saddle position and spinning lighter meant that my quads would not be working against each other so much.

Where do I go from here? While the changes have eliminated the pain, I need to actually work backwards no until I get some sign of the pain reoccuring. This means sitting forward on my saddle with the new bibs as well as sitting at the back of the saddle with the old bibs. I have to mix it up completely until I can figure out specifically what triggered the pain. The problem is that it is time wasted towards a goal I don’t want to sustain (knee pain) and with a race in five weeks, my fit should be the last thing I am worried about.

This summer has been very good to me so far. I got my old job back and couldn’t be happier in that respect now that I have a title (Web Developer) and received a nice raise over the winter. I have also been very grateful to have the time to put a sublime amount of miles on my bike. I am fast approaching having it for a full year and have already put on well over 2000 miles. In fact, here are the stats:

Totals from 08 August, 2008
Time: 283h
Kcal (Calories): 111 161
Odometer (Miles): 2184.91
Max Speed: 42.5mph
Max Cadence: 130
Ride Time: 133h

Anyways, being able to put so many hours into being on the saddle and just enjoying the ride has taken a serious toll on my weight. On 25 February I decided that at 240 pounds, enough was enough and realized that I could be a serious cyclist within a year or two if I poured everything into it. No fancy tricks, no secret diets; nothing but extremely long hours on the bike whenever I could and reducing the consistency of junk food. It has been 103 days since that day and I have lost roughly 25 pounds. As you will see I didn’t lose it all at once; the first few weeks were really rough as I couldn’t always get on the bike but now that my diet is balanced and my body is used to consuming large quantities (faster metabolism) I can slack off a bit during the week due to work and still lose weight.

The ultimate goal would be 180-185 pounds and if I achieve that I will certainly reward myself with some nice Zipp 808s but I keep in the back of my head the knowledge that at a certain point I will stop dropping body fat and my weight loss will seriously plateau. The other problem is that it is already June and the Winter is fast approaching. I haven’t decided what I am going to do when the snow hits and I can’t ride every day, but I plan to seriously reduce the amount I eat every day when my metabolism slows down. The realistic goal right now is somewhere between 190 and 200 would make me very happy and I would be okay with 200 on the dot.

I have also seen some major changes to the basic physique of my body. Obviously my stomach has gotten quite flat but I have also lost quite a lot of muscle and fat on my arms which was a welcomed change from the days of throwing shotput and discus.

My bike has also changed a lot since I got it. I just recently installed new bar tape, got a new chain (Dura-Ace 7900!) and have dropped the handle bars about 1-1.5 cm from the stock position. The goal with that is to never be comfortable on the bike for weeks while there is still a more aero and powerful position to be achieved by dropping the bars further. Also, I love that pro look of a huge drop from saddle to bars.

I think the best part about this sort of “diet” program is that it is long lasting because I enjoy doing it not just for the fitness aspect but the simple enjoyment of riding and feeling good as well. If only I could solve the dilemma of having to work in a cubicle for 40 hours a week…

Here is a video of me (in the blue) finishing the Cape May Time Trial. I ended up with a 19:59 which over the 7.5 mile course comes out to a 22.5 mph average.

For awhile now (62 days) I have been trying to lose weight. While I have only lost 12 pounds overall, I have certainly gotten stronger. This past Sunday I entered a 7.5 mile ITT (Individual Time Trial) and got clocked at 19 minutes and 59 seconds which equates to roughly a 22.5mph average. This is a lot better than what I could have done 62 days ago!

But it isn’t enough. My improvement in the races is going as I want, but on the scale it isn’t. So rather than get really drastic with my diet (I have cut out sugar, soda, and soon pizza) I am deciding to just go on two bike rides every day that it is possible. Today I went for a total of 36.2 miles over two outings but that number will increase drastically once it cools off a bit (it was 90F today).

The point of this is two fold: get a lot more miles on the bike without needing to spend constant hours on it and lose weight faster. Last year I was able to gain strength quickly after I bought my bike by doing large amounts of miles in a single day. This caused my muscles to break down enough so that they rebuilt much stronger. Furthermore more hours on the bike means more calories burned and more burnage means more weight loss.

Me at the Cape May ITT

The plan for the near-distant future is to have two weeks, one in middle May and one in middle June to spend an insane amount of hours in the saddle. For the week in May I plan to be doing large single ride days of 60 miles or more and mostly in the hills. This will set me up nicely for the week in June when I will be in the Adirondacks and am faced with nothing but incredibly large rolling hills.

I hit 1 000 miles of riding this season. I actually hit it sometime last week, but was too lazy to post anything about it. This is by far the most miles I have done in any year of biking and the year is not over yet! I attribute a lot of those miles (682 to be exact) to the fact that I got a new bike that is just such a tremendous joy to ride.

Today’s ride was a 21 mile loop that I did pretty hard. I came in at 1 hour and 12 minutes, a 17.x mile per hour average. While this speed not what I will need to compete in TTs next year, my loops include a few hills (TTs around here are mostly flat) including one I can only go up at about 8mph. In the flat sections I am consistently above 21mph and on descents I stay at around 30mph just to be safe. So if I can get a trainer for the winter and work on my aero form I should be in top form for next season.