Day 31 done

Well, I guess I did it. 31 days in a row. I realize some of the posts were a little weak, but hey, this was a time consuming task. Oddly enough, I've still got a few more posts that I'm working on. I've definitely gotten into the  habit of taking down ideas right after I think of them, so that should help to keep this updated on a more regular basis. There's also something else I'm working on. If everything works out I'll be sure to give all the details.

I need to get my TT bike ready and get a few rides on it. The first race of the season is only a little over 2 weeks away. I'm pretty excited to use my video camera to record a few races. That will add a nice element to just giving a description of what went down.

I'm probably going to take a few days off posting on here due to the fact that I've got to get caught up on a few things. I've been downloading all my power data, but I haven't had a lot of time to analyze the last month very much. I'm still working on some different things training wise this year. I'm a little over 2 months in, but I'm still not realizing the benefits just yet. Well, a little bit, but not what I'm hoping for. I should know for sure in the next  2-6 weeks.

My buddy and team mate Rob Bell was telling me the other day he may try to do the daily blog challenge for a month. February is a leap year this year, but still, it's only 29 days. There's a link to his blog page on the right side of the screen on my blog list.

How to commute by bicycle and survive

There's this illustration that's been going around on facebook. It makes a lot of sense and everything on this illustration is correct. Still, people find many reasons not to ride a bicycle let alone commute daily on one.

Some of the things I think keep people from commuting by bicycle or just riding in general is fear of traffic, fear of crashing, fear of what other people will think of them, being stinky etc. etc.
All of these fears are justafyable, but with some patience and a little experience, they're easy to overcome. When it comes to riding in traffic, it's probably best to start in a group setting. At some point, if you're going to commute by bicycle, you're going to be doing some or all of your riding solo. I've been doing it for many years now, and a few things I can tell you to make things easier are:

• If you're going to be riding the same route daily, as in work and back, check out possible routes on Google maps or explore a few routes to find a good one. I have a couple routes that I use that are both pretty low key and safe.
• Be aware of your surroundings all the time. Make eye contact with drivers that may pull out in front of you and always be alert and ready for them to do something stupid.
• This kind of goes along with the last one, but assume you're invisible. Be ready to take evasive manuvers.
• Always ride with the traffic.
• Don't blast through stop signs and red lights.
• Be assertive when riding on busy streets. You have just as much right to be on them as the cars.
• Get some good lights if you're going to ride in the dark.
• If you don't know basic bicycle mainenence, learn. You will get a flat at some point. Carry spare tubes, tools etc. on the bicycle. Obviously a cell phone also if your bike is beyond roadside repair and you need a ride.
• No shower? Baby wipes work really well.

Really, the bottom line is if you're considering commuting by bicycle, you just have to commit and do it. All you really need is a bicycle and a positive attitude. I still drive to work about 5% of the time if I have plans or the weather is really bad. I would say I save between $15-$20 every week on gas alone though. I also get 1/2 to 1/3 of my training miles by riding to work, and it's always more fun to get faster than ride in a car.

Product Review: Cannondale Caad 10 Frameset

Working in the bike industry for almost 3 decades now, I've pretty much ridden every brand and model of bicycle around. It may have been a short test ride checking out a repair, but I think I always make a mental note as to how a bike feels. Especially if it's one I've never ridden before. In some ways, you can group most bikes together depending on the frame material. Most lightweight steel frames are pretty similar. They have a nice road "feel", but torsionally, they're generally pretty flexible. Titanium frames are about the same except lighter and more wimbly. I think titanium is a good material for a CX bike. Nice and plush over rough surfaces and you don't really need the torsional stiffness as you do for say cornering in crits. For road bikes, I think titanium has run it's course. It would be too tough to engineer a better ride quality and keep it as light as aluminum or carbon fiber.

Speaking of carbon fiber, it seems to be the number one choice for high performance bikes these days. The thing is, not all carbon fiber bikes are created equal. The person who feels their $200.00 Chinese non-brand E-bay special is just as good as a $4000.00 Cervelo R5 has no clue of the engineering, materials, and R&D work involved. Most will argue that the cost difference is marketing and advertising, and it is some, but this is just a small percentage. Just because a bike is "carbon fiber" does not guarantee it's going to be light and strong, have good torsional rigidity and a sooth ride. Some of the cheap carbon bikes are as flexible as titanium in the wrong places, and ride like a harsh aluminum frame over bumps.

Aluminum was probably the first alternative to the steel frame. The first generation aluminum frames may have been a little lighter than steel, but the ride was pretty horrible for the most part. They were plenty stiff, but way too stiff in all the wrong places as well. The ride quality eventually improved to the point of most race bikes in the mid 90's to mid 2000's were aluminum. I remember the first time I rode a full carbon fiber bike around 2004, it rode SO much better than any aluminum bike, and I knew I had to have one.

I never thought I would go back to an aluminum frame until I rode a Cannondale Caad 10. Our race team decided to go with the Caad 10 frameset early last year, and my opinion up to this point is- I'm sold on it.

Our team race bikes

The Caad 10 frame is the same weight as the Storck carbon fiber frames we were on before, with equal ride quality, but less than half the cost. As far as torsional stiffness goes, they're as stiff as any bike available. Weight wise, I would put them around the same as a mid -priced carbon frame. The flat seat and chain stays give the bike a very nice all day ride. I got 7+ hours on mine the other day with no complaints. There are definitely bikes out there that ride better and are lighter, but not much and those will set you back $2000 - $8000 more than a Caad 10.

Last year, there were a few other teams out there rolling on these. I'm sure you're going too see a lot more in 2012. All and all, probably the best bike for the privateer racer on a budget or race team without 6 figure sponsorship funding. I would even go as far as saying this is the best aluminum frame ever made to date!

iPhone wonders

It's crazy how fast technology is advancing these days. Power meter technology is moving along quickly. New devices, new computers with firmware updates happening very frequently, software to analyze it all....
It's funny to me how so many are taking advantage of this new technology and yet there are the guys who have been fast for years that are still basically doing what they were doing 10 or 20 years ago and doing fine without any of this new technology crap. I bet most of these guys are not even aware of what's out there or how it could benefit them.

I guess in some ways, the iPhone was like that for me. I was one of those guys that was probably the last person you knew to not have a cell phone. That all changed when I had my job at Nuvinci. I got a company smartphone. I believe it was a blackjack. Anyway, it was just one of those things that you don't appreciate until you have it. I've had a couple of other basic phones since then. Never been much of a big phone user, texter or whatever.

That all changed again when my awesome wife got me an iPhone last year. It actually has a ton of features that are great for riding bikes plus lots of other things. I'm not really into a lot of the cycling related apps that are available, but there a few that are ok I guess. I like going on big exploration rides and it's nice to be able to use the map feature and know how long a road is before it dead ends, as in, sometimes I'm headed in a certain direction and you go back and forth on a stretch of roads, maybe riding 10 miles to find an outlet, only later to you only needed to go 1 mile north in the first place. It just makes it easier to go farther in X amount of time.

The voice control is nice also. I don't like to make a habit of talking and riding at the same time, but it's definitely been a major time saver. Pretty easy to call home without getting my phone out of my pocket and I'm running late, all while drilling it. I've also got a voice to text app that I use sometimes for writing this blog. I get a ton of ideas when I'm riding, and it's easy to just say it before I forget it. I could go on and on, and the thing is, I just keep finding out more and more things from my tech buddies and just searching things out.

There's also that Rapha rendezvous app that may be cool. I guess the deal is you can meet up with the folks you're riding with at any point in a ride. It would show the location of everyone and show the direction of movement in real time. In theory, it seems like a good way for everyone to just ride and not have to stop, regroup, make calls and wait around etc. Maybe something to try. I'm still not a big phone talker or texter, but I'm all about making things more efficient.

Double headwind all the way....

I knew last night when I checked the weather that today was going to be a little rough. The forecast was for a pretty good south wind in the morning, then switching to north around 4:00PM. The forecast was correct. About 15 mph riding to work and 20 mph riding home. Actually pretty normal for around here wind speed wise, but you usually get to enjoy a tailwind one way. It wasn't too bad. I just put my head down, found a rhythm and plugged away.

I wanted to do a post about challenges and overcoming them and the headwind all the way kind of paralleled the way our season went for our race team last year. I remember having a thought while we were riding along last weekend. This time last year, it seemed like we were on top of the world. It looked as though we had 6 strong guys on our cat 1/2 team. Everyone was riding consistent and strong, and at the time is seemed like we could have a dream season as a team. The team rides were optimistic and carefree and I just knew we were going to go out and just kill it.

Long story short, it took exactly 1 race for everything to change. It quickly became apparent that the team was now down to Rob and I. We still didn't have a horrible season. Some races went really well and some were a little embarrassing. Either way, in addition to the early season challenges, we had issues with getting product in a timely manner, and then lost another couple up and coming riders late in the season to a rival team. In many ways, I think the original core group of guys on the team were ready to turn the page and focus on 2012.

The thing is, 2011 was a big challenge. I feel like we pushed our way through it and got a little tougher and stronger from it.

Fast forward to our training camp weekend. As we were riding, I remember thinking about everything that happened last year. There were times on our rides where it was silent and no one was talking and when I looked around, the look in my team mates eyes was different this year. It was more of a look of someone that's been through the ringer. Battle tested, beat down, focused and hungry.
Don't get me wrong, we're still having fun. The training camp was one of the funnest weekends I've ever had with my teammates, but everyone seems more aware of the unpredictability of bicycle racing.

I think the attitude is rubbing off on a lot of the new guys. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we're excited to get the 2012 season started and go out and compete.

How to glue a tubular tire on a carbon rim

It seems like lately there's been an epidemic of people rolling tubular tires. I've seen quite a few that have been glued by reputable local mechanics as well as do it yourself home mechanics.
Probably the biggest mistake I see is not enough glue or not on the complete surface of the rim. I'm talking about all the way side to side all the way around.

There's this thing going in some Tri circles where they leave a portion of the rim dry to make it easier to change in the event of a flat. This is wrong and only a matter of time before disaster strikes.
Another issue is some carbon rims have a slick surface that the glue doesn't want to stick to. Many of the non-big brand name Chinese rims are like this. Some other big names as well, regardless, you'll want to scuff or rough up the surface where the tire goes with sand paper and clean thoroughly.

I've been gluing tubular tires for almost 30 years, and my methods have definitely evolved over time. I used to use 3M fast tack trim adhesive, but it seems like the modern Vittoria and Continental glue is pretty much the same. I don't like the Continental carbon specific glue. I think the regular alloy rim version works better on all rims.

Most people complain that the tires I've glued up are too hard to remove, but I'd rather have that than someone all jacked up cause they rolled a tire I glued up. The method I describe here uses the small tube of glue, which is generally enough for 1 wheel/tire. Sometimes I use the big cans and a brush, but it doesn't really matter. I usually just use what the shop has on hand or what a customer requests.

Anyway, here's another video that my co-worker Jeff and I made:

Embrocation.....Some like it hot

When it comes to enhancing your mood while riding in cold weather, nothing quite does it for me like some good embrocation. So what exactly is this stuff and what is it for? Well the answer may best be answered in an explanation from the old Belgium Knee Warmers site:

For many professional cyclists the Spring campaign is the toughest of the season; it means training from October until March in the worst, character-building weather conditions Europe can dish out. This weather and the suffering that is bicycle racing breed characters known as “hardmen”.


Select cyclists tackle these conditions in shorts, long sleeve jerseys or short sleeve jerseys with arm warmers, wind vests, and shoe covers. A true hardman opts to forgo the knee or leg warmers and instead chooses an embrocation, or liniment to cover the knees. This liniment provides warmth for the legs and keeps the blood circulating and muscles supple. Embrocation and the sheen created is affectionately known as “Belgium knee warmers”. The hardest of cyclists will sport bare legs in the most ruthless of conditions..


Now, I don't know about having bare legs in the most ruthless of conditions, but I will certainly do some 50-60 degree racing with bare legs and embrocation. Honestly for an old guy like me with bad knees, embrocation is almost a necessity. At least I feel like it makes a huge difference. It's also nice to put on your lower back for CX races. I like putting it on my upper back and shoulders for really long rides. Helps with the stiffness you can get in your neck from a 5-6 hour ride.

Musclor #3 = Very Hot

This is the first kind I ever tried. I had a bunch of it a while back. I used the #2 the most, but all I have left is a couple tubes of the super hot #3. This stuff is super old stock from my Dads old bike shop. Like from the mid 80's. Still works fine. The smell is more of a "get the job done" than the pleasant smells of today's embrocation.

My current favorites from Mad Alchemy

I got hooked up with the Mad Alchemy stuff from a Villain CX deal. I really love this stuff. To say it's  got staying power is an understatement. Smells and feels great.

Kind of a funny story from this past weekend at our training camp that got me thinking about the whole embrocation thing - So one the new guys on the team from Kansas was asking if anybody had any embrocation as we were getting dressed to go ride on the coldest day. I told him I had some and gave him my container of "Russian Tea". Another guy wanted to try it as well, so they passed it back and forth and applied the heat. I kind of thought they were putting on a lot and were just used to it. I generally put it on pretty heavy when it's really cold, but what I didn't realize was that neither of them had ever used any kind of embrocation before, they had just heard about it. Shower time later that day was not fun for them.

I wasn't there, but from what I hear, between the screaming, cussing and calling me names, there was the quote "He saw how much I was putting on".

Tip: The first time you try any kind of embrocation, start with a small amount in a small area and see what it feels like when you get it wet, and put on a light coat overall. Also VERY IMPORTANT: Put your shorts on first then apply. You don't want to get any on your junk. Trust me on this. At least I warned the Kansas guys about that.

How bad do you want it?

I'm not sure where motivation actually comes from. Well, Actually I can think of a few things, but....
It's probably the biggest key component to success for anything in life really. I guess with most things in life, if there's something you want or would like to achieve, your chances of getting them are closely related to how badly you want them.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Just some things I was thinking about when I was drilling it on my way home trying to beat the rain. This morning I was trying to decide how hard I would be able to ride today. My legs were still tired at first, but after I got warmed up, I decided to do a little 20 minute test dig. I felt ok and the numbers were good, but I still thought just riding to work easy was probably a better plan than what I had originally planned. The desire was there, but logic trumped motivation.

Fast forward to a few hours ago, The motivation turned to survival mode as I was trying to get home before I got poured on or struck by lightning. I guess my point is that some times it doesn't matter how tired or busy or whatever you are, if the motivation is right, you can go harder than you think.

That doesn't mean you should kill it every time you ride a bike, but there are times when you need to throw it down hard if you want to improve.

I think having the desire to succeed and being highly motivated are only part of the puzzle. I've known several guys from way back that had TONS of natural talent. Very gifted athletes, but the desire to be a champion was not there. Personally from a genetic standpoint, I don't think I'm anything special, but I've stuck with racing bicycles for a long time now. I'm still improving and learning, so as long as that's the case and I'm still having fun, I think I'll stick with it for a while.

There's a video going around that's pretty funny.

The funny thing is that this is pretty accurate with a large portion of the cycling community. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Everyone has a different passion or reason to ride or race bikes. It just seems silly to me how vanity driven cyclists can be sometimes.

Anyway, I'm just rambling off into another tangent that I don't need to worry about.
I'm not going to lie......I'm trying to be patient, but I'm pretty motivated and excited to start racing. The timing of everything seems good. Same with beating that storm in.

Mechanical tip: How to wrap a road handlebar

I made a quick video tutorial on wrapping a handlebar. This is a new handlebar with the cables taped down and everything set. If you're wrapping an old set of bars, make sure they're not bent, cracked or corroded. If you have lightweight bars that are more than a couple of years old, you might consider replacing then. Especially if you've crashed on them.

Training camp wrap up

 We had a great weekend at our little training camp. Thanks to Wayne for having us. I'm really hoping we can come back here next year. Today was good. Got in a little over 100 miles. I'm pretty sure that's my 2 day record. Anyway, here's a few pictures.

Day 1 breakfast in the dining building.

Some scenic views from the dining building

On the way back to the cabin

Out side of the dining building. Kinda looks like a 70's Denny's in the middle of the woods...Pretty cool

The trail up to the cabin

Our cabin and Rob's bike



The road in front of the camp



Inside our cabin

Very scenic riding everywhere!

Training camp day 2

Today was pretty epic. The riding down here is awesome. It way exceeded my expectations of what I thought it would be like down here. The camp is very scenic, rustic and boot camp like. Rob and I got in 130+ miles and over 7400 feet of climbing. I think most of the other guys got in 100 or so.
Anyway, everything has been great so far. Tomorrow should be fun. Should be much warmer also. I don't think it got over 40 today.

Training Camp day 1

Today wasn't really a training day. More of a recovery day, but we're down here. I'll get some rictures up soon. Should be some really scenic riding here. We got really full on Johnny Carinos on the way down. We're gonna need it for our big mileage day tomorrow.

Training camp this weekend

A bunch of the guys on the team and I are going down to the Turner Falls area this weekend for a little training camp. This will be a first because I've never officially been on a team training camp. I sort of went on a mini 3 day solo camp a couple of weeks ago. I took off on Friday and rode 5 hours, then turned around and got big rides on Saturday and Sunday as well. Definitely makes the legs tired as I'm sure will be the case this weekend.

It may not be possible to keep this updated the next couple days, but we'll see. I've actually been doing a lot of this with my phone, but if I don't have any Internet access where we're at, I'll just have to miss a couple of days.

We've got some pretty epic rides planned and the weather looks like it's going to be real nice. I should have some pretty good miles in by the end of the week. Actually this month should be a pretty good mileage month, well, a good mileage month for January. I'm pretty stoked with the training program/plan I'm working on now. I guess I'm about a month and a half in with a month and a half to go. I'll be sure to do a post in a month or so with all the details and results etc.

Springtime in January

It seems like the cycling season is already rolling pretty good here in OKC. I guess it's a combination of a lot of things. The weather is probably the biggest contributor. There's been about a half dozen really cold days, but it's been a pretty mild December and January so far. It's not limited to the folks that race either, we're overloaded with repairs at work and it's mainly recreational riders and triathletes.

The local race scene is another animal all it's own. There seems to be a ton of people riding a lot. If you're planning on racing well this spring, you better be training smart now because there's a bunch of people ready to kill it right now! That's all fine and good, but if the weather stays nice till spring, I'm going to go ahead and predict a bunch of dudes are burned out come June. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty excited to get the race season underway. The first race is exactly 1 month away for our team. Some folks are already racing down in Texas.

No more space for bikes in the parts room...

The main repair storage area is full as well

Trainer VS Rollers

When it comes to riding a bicycle in the winter or any other time the weather isn't great, there are a few choices one has. One is to tough it out and go ahead and ride outside. Another is to ride your bike inside. Personally, I would much rather ride outside 99% of the time, but it's not always possible. When it comes to riding inside, there are a few choices as well.



Kreitler Rollers

  If I had to choose between the two, I'd pick the rollers. They require much more focus, which means they're less boring. When it comes to using either, it's pretty much a must to have a plan or some kind of structured workout planned or else really it's just plain torture.
I like the Kreitler rollers with the killer headwind unit. It's not super loud, you can adjust the resistance, and the air blows back up on you and helps keep you cool. Rollers also help maintain a nice smooth pedaling style.




My old Cyclops fluid Trainer - a ton of miles and still going strong

 It's pretty rare that I ride a trainer anymore. Mainly just as a warm up at races. They do fold up into a more compact package so it is easier to travel with them. Most of the big races, Cyclops has a tent set up with several of these to warm up with. I usually hit those up if there's any openings. Some benefits to trainers are they're very quiet, well, at least the fluid type are. You can also hammer on them harder while standing. One of the downfalls are trainers are hard on tires.

Product review: Powertap G3 hub and Joule 2.0 computer

I've been using cyclops powertaps for over 6 years now. I started with an old wired SL, then went to a wireless SL+. The SL+ was starting to get old. It worked fine, but had over 25,000 miles on it, so I figured it was time for something new.

There's a lot of choices for power meters these days. I considered getting a quarq, but in the end, I went with the new Powertap G3. Why? Well a few reasons. First off, price wise, for me, the G3 was less than half the cost,and that's for a complete wheel set. Also, my Caad 10 uses a BB30 system and my TT bike is conventional. I also like to use a shorter crank on my TT bike. I've also been very pleased with the customer support from Powertap.

The G3 has to use a different ANT+ computer than the old little yellow head unit. I thought about getting a Garmin 500, but after weighing all the options, I went with the Joule 2.0. I realize there is a newer version of the Joule coming out soon, but after using the 2.0 for the last month, I think I'll keep it for a while.

The Powertap G3

My old SL+ hub weighed 412 grams. The new G3 hub weighs 325 grams. The overall outside diameter of the G3 is also a lot smaller and much more aero looking. The carbon windows that were on the old SL's have also been deleted. This was actually a minor problem as both my old hubs malfunctioned due to water getting into them through the carbon windows. Powertap repaired the issue on both free of charge, and honestly, that's the only issues I had with either.

The G3,s flanges are also wider, which will result in a stiffer, stronger wheel. Another benefit is that all the electronics are housed in the battery cover now, so if you have any issues, you can swap the cover or send it in instead of the whole wheel. The hub also uses a single 2032 battery instead of the 2- 357 batteries. The only issue that I've had so far is I've already gone through 2 batteries. I called the Powertap tech department and they said they had one other hub with the same issue and a new electronics cap corrected the problem and sent me a new one. Other than that, the hub has performed great. It spins very smooth and has a nice ratchet sound.

The Joule 2.0

Before I got the Joule, I was a little concerned that it was going to be a data overload type computer. After using it for a month, it's one of those things where I wonder how I ever used a power meter without it. In a nutshell, it's a VERY usefull training tool. I find myself changing the 6 available metrics on the dashboard for whatever type riding I'm doing. It's so much easier to plan a ride based on TSS and adjust during the ride as needed. The interval feature is much improved and very easy to see all intervals at one time. Very helpful when you're doing a lot and you lose count where you're at. Another feature I love is the ability to have a back light. I leave mine on all the time for now. Makes it nice on the commute home when it's dark.

All in all, a major improvement over the system I was using before and I'm very happy with both units.

FTP Test results and random thoughts

So I went out riding today to do a little testing. Just looking to check in to see what condition my condition was in. I guess overall it went ok. Not great, but ok to good. I like to test out at Lake Hefner. I guess the dam at the lake to be more precise. Anyway, I had just finished my warm up and short duration efforts and was about to start my 20 minute test, when I had a little run in with a golfer. I was rolling up the road where the dam starts next to the golf course and about 30 seconds away from getting on it, and this guy who had hit his golf ball off the course said something to me about riding on the road and not on the path.

I had my ipod up pretty loud, so I paused it to go back and talk to the guy. Basically it was the same old routine you tend to run into on that stretch of road about being on the road instead of the path. I explained to him I had as much right to be on the road as any other vehicle, and he replied I was really takin' my chances against a 3000 pound car.

I had about a 3 second window for a good burn as he made a u-turn back over the fence to the golf course, but sure enough, I wasn't quick witted enough for a good comeback. I yelled a few names at him and started my interval. I'm not sure if this was a good thing or not. It seemed real easy the first 8 minutes or so with my adrenalin all jacked up. I also had a pretty good tailwind to start with.

So after finishing, the results were power wise about where I had estimated I was at. Not where I want to be in a couple of months, but I think I'm on the right track. My FTP is about 12 watts less than my all time high, but my weight is between 5-10 pounds less than it's been at this time the last 3 years. That makes my power to weight at 4.21 W/kg, which is actually right at it's peaked at the last few years. Pretty stoked about that because I know I can bring the power up.

Anyhow, sometimes I question the point of writing a blog. Sometimes I don't really know, but other times, the reasons are crystal clear. A few of the reasons I can think of are:

1. Sometimes Friends and family want to know how the racing has been going and when the season is underway, and races are going on every weekend, it's hard to keep up with all the details and results. It also time consuming to tell the same story over and over if it's an epic one.
2. I've been in this cycling racket a long time, and I've got a ton of knowledge that I basically had to learn the hard way. If I can pass this knowledge along, that's good. Maybe folks can get something out of it or maybe not. If it seems like nonsense, you don't have to read it or take my advice. I've had a couple people come up to me at races and say they learned how to pin up their numbers from my video, so if I can help out a few people here and there, I'll keep on doing it.
3. In a lot of ways, this is like a personal or training diary in a way. Every race season kind of repeats itself . It's nice to be able to look back and see how things have progressed or remember small details about a certain course or remember how a race went down and what mistakes were made etc.
4. I want to get better at writing. This definitely wasn't my strongest subject all through school. In fact I hated it with a passion. I'm not sure when things changed. Maybe after reading a lot of Henry Rollins' early stuff, not sure, but I really enjoy the challenge now and want to get better at transforming my thoughts into text.
5. This kind of goes back to reason #2, but what if the golfer guy is right and I get taken out by a truck tomorrow. What kind of legacy would I leave behind? What if my daughters wanted to know me (at least more than a 4 and 1 year old can comprehend right now) or know more about me when they get older if I wasn't around. In addition to that it just seems like it would be a waste not to pass on some of the lessons I've learned. I'm not trying to be morbid or anything, I'm not planning on dying anytime soon. I saw a statistic one time that commuting by bicycle is actually safer than commuting by driving a car. I don't see too many people worrying about their daily drive, so I don't really stress about it, but the thought has crossed my mind.

This is day 15 of 31 that I've made a post. It's pretty much what I thought it would be like. A lot of work. Doing this every day is tough.  A couple of times a week would be doable. Maybe I'll try that when January is over.

Testing

Tomorrow I'm going to do some testing. One of the beauties of a power meter is the ability to accurately test your current fitness level. I'm going to be testing the full range of power,IE: 5 second, 1 minute, 5 minute, and 20 minute. I'm not expecting a lot from the short duration tests. I haven't really been working on any of those durations yet, but who knows.

I'm mainly concerned with the 20 min FTP test, at least that's what I've been focusing on the past month and a half. A big goal for me this season is to raise my FTP higher than ever. I'll be pretty disappointed if it's not headed in that direction.

Hopefully I'm feeling good tomorrow. There's been several times when the numbers didn't come up to what I thought I was capable of, only to re-test a couple of days later and everything was where I wanted it.

I'm one lucky guy.....

I was riding my bike to work the other day, and my mind just started to wander like it normally does when I'm riding by myself. It's amazing how you can come up with ideas or solve problems or just come up with some really random thoughts and theories when you're riding around on a bicycle.

Anyway, I was thinking about things, and I had an epiphany: I'm one lucky guy. First things first, I have the most amazing wife ever. I could go on and on about how great she is and list all the ways, but with this blog being a bicycle related blog, I'll just keep it to how not only does she support my silly hobby/habit, she encourages it as well. It takes a lot of compromise on her part when I go off on a long 6 hour Saturday ride or a 3 day weekend bike race.

So many little bike related items I use on a daily basis she got for me as gifts. Most of the things I'm too much of a cheapskate to actually go out and purchase. I typically will use something until it should have been replaced months or years ago. It's nice to always have someone looking out for me like that. She makes me all kinds of food for riding and meals pretty much every day.

I think one of the keys to reaching your full potential in bicycle racing is having full support of your spouse and family, and I definitely have that. So as I was riding to work with my toasty new gloves that my wife got me for Christmas, and sipping on my beet juice that she made, I realized I had it made.

The fact that I've somehow managed to take something I have a passion for, and actually participate every day and make a living doing it, really is like winning the lottery. I would much rather ride my bike to work than drive. My route to work is pretty cool. I'm really pretty fortunate to have good roads to ride and train on with all types of terrain, plus other places an hour or two away if I want something different. There's also plenty of people to ride with as well as rival race teams to keep me motivated.

It's nice to have a job which I truly enjoy. I've worked in the bicycle industry for a long time, and I can't think of anything else I would want to do. I also race on an awesome race team with great team mates that are a blast to ride and race with. Pretty stoked for the upcoming road season.
So, basically all of these things went through my mind on my ride in the other day, and I realized.......I'm one lucky guy!!!!!

The recovery week

Recovery weeks have a tendency to make me a little nervous. I'm not sure why, they seem like they would be the easiest weeks to get through. I guess one reason for me is in general, the recovery week is when I tend to get sick or get a really flat feeling, or even start to lose some motivation.

I'm right in the middle of a recovery week now and I guess weather wise it came at a good time. I know some folks who use nature to dictate a recovery week. Seems a little dicey to me. Other folks take their recovery weeks completely off - as in not touching a bike at all. I definitely don't think this would work well for me for sure, but who knows.

Anyway, I've been just rolling through this week taking it mostly easy and keeping it unstructured. Just riding to work mostly and doing a couple efforts here and there just to see what my legs feel like. It always seems like there's a delayed reaction after a really hard week, as in Monday I felt great. It felt like I could keep on rolling after the weekend, but by Tuesday, my legs felt pretty smoked.

I like to keep some intensity during a recovery week. I mostly cut the training stress by cutting back the volume. I'm still feeling some fatigue today, but mainly when I first start into a ride. After that everything feels good. Hopefully the weather will cooperate on Sunday so I can do some testing.

Want to learn how to do basic maintenance?

I will be teaching a novice repair class this Saturday at Schlegel Bicycles. Here are all the details.


We’re pleased to provide this great hands-on program for learning bicycle maintenance and repair. Taught by the man, Joey Mesa, we’ve developed our class around a curriculum designed by the Park Tool Company, the world’s largest bicycle-tool manufacturer.
Class size is limited and advanced registration is recommended. Email us at http://schlegelbicycles.com/learn/marty@schlegelbicycles.com to reserve your spot for one of our future classes. Schedules will be posted here once finalized.
Our bike repair classes are taught by our technicians, who are experts in repairing and maintaining bicycles. You’ll learn the best ways to care for and fix problems on your road and mountain bikes using pro tools and procedures.
We suggest purchasing Park Tool’s Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair. (It acts as the class outline.) The Big Blue Book uses color photos and instructions to clearly explain the topics covered in our class and more than 100 various repairs and maintenance tasks including servicing bearing assemblies, wheels, braking and shifting systems, adjusting components and more!
You’ll learn a lot about bikes at our Park Tools School and have a great time, too.

PTS: Novice Bicycle Maintenance ClassStudents get an overview of many aspects of bicycles maintenance. Tires and tubes, brakes and gear adjustments are demonstrated, discussed and worked on by the students. The class content is similar to a 90 day check-up on the bike.  This is an excellent class for someone with a relatively modern or brand new bike who wishes to learn about maintenance, but can only make a limited time commitment for the class.  In the novice class, the emphasis is placed on knowing when there is a problem and on cleaning the bike.  The presentations will often be descriptive.  For example, showing what rear cogs are and how they work is part of the class, but demonstrating or practicing their removal is beyond the scope of this class.
This is about a 3 to 4 hour class. Cost for the novice class is $40.00 per person.  Class is typically held on a monthly basis.
2011-2012 Schedule:
Saturday, December 17th – 2pm
Saturday, January 14th – 2pm
Saturday, February 11th – 2pm

Product Review: The Feed Zone Cookbook

I remember several years ago, I attended a a seminar where Allen Lim was speaking. It was primarily a seminar about training with power, however, in the two hours the talk lasted, Dr. Lim packed in about 4 hours worth of knowledge on all kinds of things from his training philosophy to nutrition and lots of other topics as well.. It was definitely an eye opener for me as it changed a lot of the ways I thought about preparing for racing bicycles.

I've been following Dr. Lim since then and a couple of years ago had heard about his rice cake recipe. I found a version on youtube, and really liked them for an on the bike or an anytime small meal.

When I heard he was co-writing a cook book, I knew I had to have it. Coatney's mom got it for me for Christmas and we've been using that book like crazy since then. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to eat better. In addition to 150+  easy to prepare recipes, it's got tons of nutritional info as well. Overall, the book is presented very well and is easy to read and follow.

The Performance Manager Chart part 2

In continuing from yesterday, the first graph of the first 8 months of using the performance manager chart is actually off some for a couple of reasons.  First off, the chronic training load (CTL) blue line should have started a lot higher. For one thing this was the start of my current job at Schlegel bicycles, whereas before I was working for a company that manufactured the Nuvinci bicycle hub. My job was in quality control, so I basically rode a heavy bike a lot everyday for about 6 months straight. Honestly I think my CTL at that point would have been higher than any other point in my cycling history, but that's only an estimation. Also I had very little power data up to this point because I was only riding my road bike with a power meter on the weekends. Therefore, I chose to start using data in WKO+ at this point.

Again - 3-3-08 through 11-30-08  double click to enlarge

So you could say the first chart is flawed because it should have started much higher, but it doesn't really matter. The data will correct itself in 6 weeks as long as your threshold power is correct in the WKO+ program. I will say there is something to having a very large base as this period was my best race wise as a cat 3. A couple of mistakes I made in looking back were that I tried to keep building to the point where I was somewhat burned out. Rather than take a summer break, I jumped into a cyclocross build in mid August (half of which is not included in this chart) and eventually pulled the plug on the season in mid October due to lack of motivation.

12-1-08 through 6-14-09

The 2009 season started strong with 3 solid base periods and a good 4 week build period. The ramp rate of my fitness may have been a little steep for what my body was used to or maybe just not used to this much training stress. I remember going good into mid April and setting lots of power records (the peak 10 minute one still stands today) and then I got really sick. It took a full month to fully recover, and after the Tulsa Tough, I decided to take a summer break.

6-15-09 through 12-20-09

A little micro rebuild for cyclocross in August, then after the cross season was over, it was time to start preparing for 2010.

12-21-09 through 6-27-10

A little less ramp rate this year, but the build periods were too weak. This seems to be a problem for me in keeping up training volume once the race season starts. I've somewhat solved this by choosing the races a little more wisely, or at least the ones I really wanted to do instead of anything that came my way as in this period. I took my summer break around the end of June after the state TT. The huge pink ATL spike was from the 4 day Joe Martin stage race. Notice my highest 10 minute power numbers came shortly after this heavy dose of training stress....

6-28-10 through 11-14-10

Building back up for cross season...

11-15-10 through 6-27-11

Another build for the 2011 road season. Still not enough follow through after the base periods, but it got as high as ever and I never got sick or felt burned out all season. I didn't set any new power records in this period though either.

6-28-11 through 1-7-12

So building for this past cross season, I put in a record for me of 1300 miles in July and a more intense 1100 in August. My cross season went ok. I guess I felt faster than ever, but my season was mediocre. I did set several new power records in September where my CTL peaks.This chart is my current up to date PMC graph with my first 2 base periods complete. Double click any picture to enlarge.

The Performance Manager Chart part 1

This post is going to be interesting to some folks and very boring to others.

I've been training with a power meter since 2005.  In that time, there's a few things I've found to be certain: for me it's been a learning experience the whole way as instead of hiring a coach, I've chosen to coach myself and try to learn as much as possible from reading and just plain old experimentation.

Another thing is that the majority of folks who race bicycles have no interest, or the knowledge for that matter of the actual benefits of a power meter. So what is a power meter and what exactly does it do? Well if you don't already know, it's a device (hub, crank spider, or pedals) that measures power output in watts.

This measurement along with other metrics (heart rate, speed, cadence, torque and more) are recorded second by second with an on board computer and can then be analysed on you home PC with the many different power analysis software that's available.

I'm not going to get into the different types of power meters or software, nor try to convince anybody to buy one. A power meter will not make you faster. Some things it can do that are undesirable are: Tell you how bad you suck when you are out of shape and sometimes even when you're fit. It can also make you very frustrated when it malfunctions.

Now, I'm not trying to convince anybody not to get one either as it is a very powerful training tool if used to it's potential. Anyhow, as I'm to keep this somewhat short, one of the software programs I like to use is TrainingPeaks WKO+. The current cost of the software is $129.00 I believe. In my opinion, it's totally worth the cost. It has a ton of features and customizable graphs. The Performance Manager Chart (PMC) is worth the cost alone and is what I'm going to focus on in this post. For more info on the PMC chart go Here.

So I was talking the other day with Rob, one of my team mates, when the subject of the PMC chart came up. I have training data going back to early 2008, and I thought it would be interesting to see what the PMC charts would look like back to back etc. in about 6 month increments.

3-3-08 to 11-30-08

This is the first 8 months that I used the PMC chart. The basic gist of what all the lines on the graph are =
Acute training load of 7 days is the pink line. Chronic training load of 42 days is the blue line and the yellow line is training stress balance. Another way of putting it is Blue =fitness, Pink = fatigue, and yellow = form.

The 10 green dots connected by lines are my peak 10-60 minute efforts, the 10 red dots are my peak 20 minute efforts, and the 10 black dots are my best 10 minute efforts for this time period.

I'll continue this post with some more explanation on this graph as well as the 6 that lead up to the current date

Mt. Scott VS The hills east of Oklahoma City

I've been wanting to try a little experiment to see how beneficial it is to drive south to the Mt. Scott - Medicine Park area compared to riding from my house and hitting the hills east of town. I guess I wanted to see if it was worth the extra drive time in addition to ride time or a 5-6 hour total time day to Mt.Scott VS a 5-6 hour ride from my house. I got a Powertap Joule about a month ago, and so far, the altimeter feature has been pretty interesting. Anyway, I collected some data from last weekend at Mt.Scott and some more riding out east yesterday and today.

It's funny how small Mt.Scott looks from the parking lot until you see a car going up.

Basic data from Mt.Scott 12/31/11

 I have to admit I wanted the ride at Mt.Scott to count. The elevation screen on my Joule was definitely a motivator to keep climbing. Judson and I climbed the big rock climb 4 times and Mt.Scott 4 times. I honestly don't think I could have done much more this day. About a 6.5 hour investment total for the day. The actuall ride time was about 3 hours and 45 minutes.

Solo ride out to Jones hitting as many hills as possible.

 Yesterday was kind of an elevation experiment. I didn't ride super hard or spend a lot of time over my threshold. I wanted to do the hilliest ride I could do to see if it could come close to matching Mt.Scott's feet of climbing.
It didn't. The best I could come up with was just a little over 1000 ft. of climbing per hour, where Mt.Scott is close to 2000 ft. of climbing per hour. It could actually be more if you just stuck to doing repeats on Mt.Scott. The solo ride was the most steady of the 3, and had a higher average power as well, but the normalized power and overall training stress was lower. I tried to save my legs a little because I knew the next day would be harder. A little over 4 hours invested to bike riding for the day.

Team ride to Jones/Luther today

 The ride with the team today definitely had some more intensity and a little more of a variable ride, We didn't climb as much but the overall normalized power and training stress were almost identical to the trip to Mt.Scott last weekend.
So which one is better? Well, I guess if you live in a world of unlimited training time on the weekends, Mt.Scott would be the better choice. You can do more types of riding and climb as much as you can stomach as well. If your ride time is limited, riding out to Jones is a good choice. It actually could be better if you wanted to get the maximum amount of training stress in 5 hours or less.

I think the best option is a mix of the two. Way more fun that way as well, especially when you've got some awesome team mates to ride/travel with.

I think the hardest part of the ride today was wrestling my recovery drink away from my daughter Josie!

Forgotten Projects

There's a few projects that I have going that are on hold...Some have been on hold for years, but what can you do. A man can only have so many hobbies, and riding and racing bikes pretty much takes all of the free time I currently have.



My old beast - 1967 Camaro

 I got my old Camaro back in the mid 80's. My first car. It's been in some form of being "worked on" since then, although it hasn't been touched much in the last 5 years. I did work on it some this past summer - it felt just like old times. I'm not sure when I'll get to start back on this project. Probably if I ever get tired of racing bikes I guess.

 The Bottecchia project has been on hold for about a month. Well, sort of. I've still been gathering up bits and pieces to get it built up, but I haven't done much work on the frame since I got the dropouts and headtube.

 I don't have a frame jig, but since this is a unique one off project, I'm just clamping the frame straight and in place, tacking it, then cut/grind the tubes to fit the dropouts and headtube. I still have to re-locate the brake boss, as it's sitting to low for the wheel.

 My first weld on a bike frame in a few years. Not that good, but acceptable I guess. I got everything mocked up, and it's pretty close to the geometry on my Caad 10.

I did get the wheels built up. They're tubulars. The rims are some old mavics that I've been holding onto for years. The hubs came off some trashed warranty wheels and the tires are some that a customer deemed too worn out. Pretty much junk yard specials, but they'll work real nice.

Product Review : Craftsman C3 19.2 Volt Hand Held Inflator

I think I first heard about this tool on the Steve Tilford blog. I guess some of the pro cyclocross team mechanics were using them in the pits at races. We do a lot of event support at the shop and I thought a few of these would be a lot easier than hauling in a compressor or inflating countless tires with a floor pump. One event that came to mind was the Redman triathlon. At 5:00 AM when it's dark and people are lined up to have their tires topped off, some get a little irate when you test the PSI by tire feel.

I've been using this one for a little over a year. No issues so far other than the hose popping out 1 time after the collet came loose. I've even had to use it to inflate a car tire a few times - a little slow, but it works.

The inflator is perfect for dialing in tire pressure on any kind of bicycle tire and can be adjusted in very small increments. I believe the gauge is pretty accurate, but, it's consistent so that's what's important.

 The only modification I made was replacing the stock schreader chuck with a current universal smarthead type chuck. Works much better for a performance bicycle tire application. I just cut the hose below the old chuck, stabbed the new chuck into the hose and secured it with a hose clamp.

The gauge is easy to see,but the best thing is that it's back lit. A super nice feature when you're trying to top off your tires when it's dark like before the HHH road race or a night time crit. The small increment adjust ability makes experimenting with tire pressure easy - especially important for cyclocross tires.

The total package will set you back $110.00 to $150.00 depending on what type batteries you go with. The inflator itself runs $35-40.00 and the ni-cad 2 battery pack W/charger is $76.49 - the lithium-ion battery W/charger is about $120.00. Pretty much the same as a good floor pump.

How to survive winter part 2

So I wrote a post a while back called Surviving Winter. I decided to do an update because it seems like every year, the same thing happens over and over as people make excuses to stop riding. It's dark so much sooner and cold weather makes some just shut down from riding bicycles. But what folks don't understand is that riding in the winter is great. It's the best time really for all kinds of riding. Long rides are by far the best in the winter time.

So, how exactly do you make it through the winter and come out ready to go really good in the spring?

The thing is, if you can just keep your riding consistent through the winter, that temperature that once was "way too cold" now becomes no big deal. For example, let's say 30 degrees was your cut off temperature. If you get a bunch of rides in at 30 degrees and a bunch at 20, 15, 10 etc. and get used to that, 30 and 40 start to feel really good. A 50-60 degree day feels awesome when they randomly come around.

Lake Hefner dam is the perfect place to do technical FTP intervals under these conditions

I guess my point here is, it's always going to sting a little for the first 10-15 minutes, but after that, it always feels good and the more you do it the easier it gets.

 First off you need to acquire a few key clothing pieces. Knee warmers, arm warmers, medium thickness full finger gloves, long and short sleeve base layers, a light jacket or vest, and maybe a hat that covers your ears in addition to your normal kit to start with, and you're good to around 45-50 degrees F. A light shoe cover would be nice around here too.

When it gets colder, I'll add another layer for every 10 degree drop. A heavy jacket counts as two layers.

There's also different gear for different temps. - tights with wind block and/or inner lining, heavy-med-light gloves, same with hats, shoe covers etc. Just make sure you have the right gear for the temperature you're riding in. I've been riding in the winter consistently for many years now, and there's still a learning curve at the start of each season as to what works best in any given temperature.

Bikes thawing out

Indoors Vs. Outdoors

I know a few guys that do the majority of their riding and training in the winter indoors on a trainer and thrive on it. In fact some even do a substantial amount year round. I'm not faulting them in any way. There's no wrong way to get fitter or faster for bike racing if it works for you.

There's hasn't been a winter that I haven't done some riding indoors. It can be difficult to do FTP intervals outside in an ice storm or blizzard (and we had a few last year). It's also tough to do a recovery ride outside if the wind is blowing 50mph.

The best way I've found to deal with riding indoors is to have a plan. Get your warm up, main set, then cool down and done. 30-90 minutes seems best to me. Going along with some of the cycling workout videos works well.

The wrong way (or at least the way that feels like torture to me) is to just get on the trainer and start riding with no time goal or plan. It's not the same as just going for a joy ride outside. 15 minutes on a trainer feels like 1 hour outside in this manner.

All and all, the benefits to riding indoors:

• It's available to do anytime you have to do it
• The conditions are the same- it's easy to control your workout
• No time wasted getting all bundled up
• No chance of getting hit by a car or chased by a dog
• No stoplights or stop signs= steady uninterrupted workout
• It builds a different kind of mental toughness

Some of the benefits to riding your bike in the cold winter weather:

• If you have lights and the proper gear, you can do it any time you're tough enough
• There's no substitute for the mental toughness and inner hardness you develop
• Essential skills are learned by riding in snow and ice
•  After a winter of riding outside, the early spring races feel warm
• You develop ninja like bike handling skills dodging cars, dogs etc.
• It's hard to do a 5-6 hour endurance ride indoors





Early spring road race in 2011 - Cold but it felt good

So far this year the temps haven't gotten too cold, so it's time to get out and get acclimated ASAP!