Favorite Organized Rides

A friend of mine is writing an article for his riding club newsletter. He asked me to contribute something about my three favorite organized rides and also to give a little background on my riding style so that others could have context in case they were considering doing any of the rides. The following is what I contributed.

I don't do but a handful of organized rides. This year I am definitely doing the Tour De Carroll on April 24 in Maryland and Pennsylvania; Americas Most Beautiful Bicycle Ride (AMBBR) at Lake Tahoe on June 6th; Reston Century in August in Virginia; Civil War Century on September 11 in Maryland and Pennsylvania; and Sea Gull Century on October 9 on the Eastern Shore. I already did the Vasa ride in D.C. and Maryland on March 7 of this year, so add that into the mix. A short ride that barely counts is the Ride D.C. that occurs some time in mid to late October in D.C. and Virginia.

There are a couple of other centuries I am considering doing: the Six Pillars Century out of Cambridge, Maryland on May 1 and the Cheat Mountain Challenge in August if I can find out how to sign up for it. I also found a webpage maintained by the Oxon Hill bicycle club that links to event pages for some more local events that I may consider.

Of these ride, I have only done one of them twice. Here are my favorites based on my limited exposure:

AMBBR: This is definitely a beautiful ride around Lake Tahoe. You see some spectacular views riding around the lake. A portion of the ride is along the bike path to/from Truckee. This runs along the Truckee river and is also very beautiful. I participated as part of Team in Training to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society (please help using the following link: http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/ambbr10/amfregly). With over 1800 other volunteers participating and proudly showing their city of origin with displays on their helmets, the ride had a festive feel and there was a strong camaraderie among the riders. Here is a link to some photos from last years ride: http://good-times.webshots.com/album/572918128cgwNha?vhost=good-times

This ride could be tough for someone who is not well trained. The ride takes place at altitudes ranging from around 5900 feet to 7100 feet. It has a couple of real climbs, a 500 foot climb early on at Emerald Bay and then a 1000 foot climb over Spooner Ridge starting at about mile 72 or so. There aren't any killer grades though the climb at Emerald Bay may have some stretches of 9% or so. The Spooner climb is probably more like 5% to 6%, but it weeds out the people who have not trained enough and turns them into zombies. I think the total climb for the entire century is about 4600 feet. For me the ride was not that difficult. This might be because I stopped 17 times to take pictures and took advantage of four break stops, this adding up to over two hours of breaks during the ride. I don't remember much effect from the altitude other than a noticeably higher respiration rate. Here is a link to a capture of the ride from my Garmin 705: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/6670206

Civil War Century: This is a challenging ride that I was really worried about after not training for most of July due to an inflamed knee and then suffering through the Reston Century on a hot August day. The website for this ride says it has about 7400 feet of climbing, but my Garmin had it at about 8000 feet. Note that my Garmin capture (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/13154713) includes a 300 to 400 foot bonus climb I did due to missing a turn. This was a ride for the serious club rider. On a ride like the AMBBR or the Sea Gull, you get a lot of people doing their first century or their one century a year. On these rides I feel fast because I am passing way more people than are passing me. On the Civil War century I found myself cursing the young skinny kids cruising past me on the climbs and muttering things like "Lets strap a 50 pound weight to your back and see how fast you go." For every person I passed, I probably got passed by five people. I believe that most of the riders you see on this ride are club riders who look to this ride as a test of their end-of-season conditioning. This is a beautiful ride right in our own back yard. It also provides a timeless perspective and a sense of history as you pass through famous civil war battlefields including Antietam and Gettysburg. The anticipation of the challenge of the vertical and the feeling of success on completing the ride made if very satisfying to me. This was the most vertical I had ever done in a single ride. I also rode for a while with a number of different people and really enjoyed their company. Here is a link to some pictures from the 2009 ride: http://sports.webshots.com/album/574643963oAgzmL?vhost=sports

Sea Gull Century: It was a tough pick between this ride and the Tour De Carroll. For me the Sea Gull is the bicycling equivalent of a first girlfriend. When I decided to get into endurance riding in the late summer of 2008, I made it my goal to do the 2008 Sea Gull Century as my first century ride. I trained hard according to a program I got out of a book on endurance bicycling and was able to have an enjoyable time with no suffering at all during the ride. It was an adventure to drive there the night before and spend the night in Salisbury, MD before getting up early to do the ride. It was like being on a mission. During the ride I got into several long-lasting pace lines and really liked the camaraderie that formed in the line. Then there was the pie and ice cream stop at mile 83. I took a longer than normal break to have an equipment failure addressed, so I got some extra time to enjoy the band and the pie. This got my sugar level restored enough that I was able to do the final 17 miles in about 45 minutes with the help of a couple of other people in a mini-pace line. The best thing was that when I crossed the finish line my wife surprised me by being there to cheer me. She had not come with me to the event and faked me out when I called her at the mile 83 stop, telling me she was at home, some 130 miles or so away. Another thing I liked is that it is a big big event. There are a lot of people and a lot of energy generated by those people. It is also a flat ride where you can hook up with some fast moving pace lines and make some good time. Then there is the pie and ice cream! Here is a link to my Garmin capture of the 2009 ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/15829361 and links to pictures from both the 2008 and 2009 rides. 2008: http://travel.webshots.com/album/567773873AKdgdq?vhost=travelj and 2009: http://sports.webshots.com/album/575053586ugGfzk?vhost=sports

Honorable Mention: The Tour De Carroll metric century is a great early season ride. I did it with several biking buddies and we had a good time riding together for a large portion of the ride. The ride has enough vertical to be a challenge on a warm day early in the riding season. The ice cream and cake at the end is a real reward. Here is my Garmin capture of last years ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/4236396

Now for a riding biography. My short description is: middle-aged man who does enough training to be comfortable on century rides with substantial climbing. Now for a little more detail. I am 50 years old and will be 51 in April. I started training for endurance riding in August of 2008 after a couple of years of doing 30 minute to one hour rides about four days a week. I now ride between 90 and 200 miles a week. During the winter I do the equivalent of 90 or more by doing spin classes and the Lifecycle. I will ride outdoors in the winter if it is above freezing and there is no ice and snow on the roads. During the spring, summer and fall I usually do between 110 and 150 miles a week with 200 mile weeks occurring when I do a century to start off the week. I live in Darnestown, MD, so my normal riding area is the fairly hilly northwest quadrant of Montgomery county, MD. A typical ride will have 600 feet to 800 feet of climb for every 10 miles. At times I will focus on my climbing during training and do things like climb Sugarloaf Mountain a few times as part of a 50 plus mile ride. Once I even rode up Skyline Drive from Front Royal. Sometimes I will do interval training on close-by Black Rock Rd. It has steep 160 foot climbs on both sides of a stream with grades up to 17 percent. Please don't take this to mean that I am fast on the hills as I am currently too heavy at 195 pounds and get smoked by the skinny riders. This is my story about why I get passed and I am sticking with it.

As far as equipment, I ride a Scattante Elite Triple. This store-brand bike has a carbon fiber frame, carbon fiber fork and carbon fiber stays and uses Shimano Ultegra components. I replaced the aluminum handlebars with carbon fiber to smooth out vibration. My computer is a Garmin 705 that has GPS and mapping. I like to schlep stuff around with me sometimes so I have a Trek carbon fiber rack mounted to my seat post and an insulated case that snaps into it. I have metal Look pedals. By reading between the lines you will see that I go for value but not at the expense of functionality.

To close, here is a link to a photo album that I use as a retrospective of the places where I ride: http://picasaweb.google.com/amfregly/ViewsFromTheRoad

Please help in the fight against blood cancers!

This is a serious topic for today and every day. Millions have died and over 50,000 are headed that way this year in just the U.S. alone. Families are losing fathers and mothers. Parents are losing children. Brothers are losing sisters and sisters are losing brothers. Many are losing friends. The end is often lingering and painful. The killer is a collection of different types of blood cancers including leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkins disease, and myeloma.

The impact is tragic to the afflicted and their families. I know. Leukemia killed my aunt in January, 2010. Multiple myeloma killed my wife's father at the age of 43. Several of my friends have lost parents due to blood cancers. Over the past weekend I rode with another bicyclist who is fighting the battle against multiple myeloma and riding to raise money to support research for a cure. He is literally riding for his life. These diseases hit close to home. Ask around a little and you will find out just how close to yours.

If you want to help, please sponsor me in a 100 mile bicycle ride I am doing as a member of Team in Training to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). They fund research for cures and treatments for blood cancers. They also provide services to patients and their families. They do a world of good. I have heard testimonials from the people whom they have helped. It is a good thing. You can help by contributing online using this link to my secure donation site sponsored by LLS: http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/ambbr10/amfregly

Thanks,
Andy

2009 Tour De Carroll

The Tour De Carroll is a local Washington/Baltimore area ride. It raises money to provide services to senior citizens in Carroll County, MD. Participants in the ride can choose from several options for the ride including a metric century, a metric half century, and a flat eight mile course. I rode the metric century with a group from our work riding club including Larry, Dave and Val. It was a very good tune-up for the Tahoe century I am doing in June.

The terrain for the ride was similar to what I train on as far as size of the hills and elevation change versus distance (except for a fairly flat part in the middle of the ride). The people who organized the ride were really pleasant and the route well marked with arrows drawn on the pavement. It was quite a contrast from the only other organized event I have done, the Seagull Century. This event is quite scaled down and has a much more informal feel.

As for the ride, we took it pretty easy for the first 45 miles or so, riding as a group some of the time and sometime riding in twos and then reforming the group. Val pushed it a little too hard though and started having leg cramps around mile 38. Not good with 26 miles to go. The group photos show a happy Val (in the red jersey) prior to the cramps. After the rest stop at mile 46, I basically rode alone the rest of the way though we started off together. I had my bike tuned up a few weeks before the event and it was not well done. The shifting was mis-aligned and causing me problems like not engaging on down-shifts. Due to a very full schedule, I hadn't had time to get it straightened out and thought I could work around it by doing a technique that seemed to work, doing down-shifts off the big ring up front and simultaneously shifting up on the rear. That worked but then a new symptom showed up. My chain kept coming off. This happened a couple of times right after we left the 46 mile stop, so I had some catching up to do. I got into a rhythm as I played catch-up so once I caught them I just motored on by and ended up pushing myself really hard all the way to the end at mile 64.

I learned a very important lesson about how hard and long I can push. During the last 18 mile stretch I intentionally kept my heart rate in a zone that indicated I was anaerobic. I do this on my training rides quite often, but usually not for more than 30 minutes straight. This time I was at that level for almost all of the hour and 10 minutes or so it took to complete the ride. The first tip-off that this might be too much was that I started fading on the hills. Then at the end of the ride I decided to take some pictures of the others as they arrived at the finish line. As I was standing near the finish line with my camera, my vision was fading in and out. I immediately knew that this was an indicator that I was close to fainting. I must have depleted my body so that there was no fuel circulating in my bloodstream. What I should have done right then was go grab something sweet to eat and sat down to eat it. But this didn't happen because the photographer in me didn't want to miss the shot of the others completing the ride. So I watched myself and somehow hung in there until Larry showed up. After Larry arrived we waited together for another 15 minutes or so for Val and Dave to show up, but finally gave up. Finally I was able to grab some food and drink and and by the time I finished eating brownies covered in ice cream I was feeling much better. Next time I am going to do like Larry and remember to hit the Gue about 12 to 15 miles before the end of the ride.

By the time I finished eating it was close to an hour after I had finished and still no Val and Dave. Larry and I talked it over and decided we needed to head out since Larry had an event to go to.

I left the event feeling that it was something that will likely be on my calendar next year. It is an easy event to get other riders I know to join in. The ride goes through some very pretty countryside. The ride is long enough to require some pacing and the hills big enough to test my fitness. Two days after the ride when I did my next training ride, I found that I was noticeably stronger on the hills and felt that I had move up a level in performance. Given that I have been training for endurance rides since last August, it is exciting to see that I continue to improve.

How I Train

This posting describes bicycling related training regimens I have followed with a focus on what I have done lately to support my transition into endurance bicycling. I will lightly describe some fundamental concepts related to training and reference sources for learning more about these topics. My hope is that this posting will give the reader insight into the factors to be considered in creating a bicycling training program. One thing I want to say up front is that training regimens such as those described below are meant for people who do not have medical conditions that would put them at risk due to the training.

For a long time I rode a bicycle without much knowledge on how to train. In my twenties and thirties I would do rides that ranged from 30 minutes to an hour in duration. When road riding I would ride as hard as I could sustain for the distance of the ride. I had only one goal when road riding, to not be passed by another bicyclist. When I went to the gym I would ride a LifeCycle and do the hill profile at a level that would put me in the upper ranges of my aerobic zone. The results of this approach were satisfactory relative to my purpose of achieving a level of aerobic fitness to provide balance with the weight training that was my focus at that time. What I did not achieve by this approach was any significant improvement in my bicycling capacity once I had achieved a certain level of fitness.

When I resumed bicycling a couple of years ago, I went right back into the same training mode as I had done in earlier years. Sure enough my riding capacity hit a plateau fairly quickly. I was fine with this for a while. I thought this was about as fit as I could get given that I was approaching 50 years in age. This perception changed once I decided to start endurance riding and did some homework to support that goal.

My homework started late in July, 2008 with some reading. I bought three books on bicycling: "The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling: Build the Strength, Skills, and Confidence to Ride as Far as You Want" by Edmund R. Burke and Ed Pavelka; "Bike for Life: How to Ride to 100" by Roy M. Wallack and Bill Katovsky; and "Cycling Past 50 (Ageless Athlete Series)" by Joe Friel. After glancing through the books, I decided to read the Burke and Pavelka book as a starting point. It seemed to be offer the broadest introduction to bicycling. This was something I needed since I didn't really know much about bicycling at that time. I had time to read the bike cover to cover during a vacation I took at the end of July, 2008. What I learned in the book has been the foundation for my training since that time. I have also read about half of the Wallack and Katovsky book and found the information in it to be a useful supplement. It provides a more rounded perspective on training that puts a broader emphasis on overall life-style. The only knock I have for the Wallack and Katovsky book is that it presents several alternative approaches for most of the topics it covers with very little discussion by the authors as to relative pros and cons. I suspect the "Cycling Past 50" book will offer additional insights. I promise to read it around the time I cross the half century age threshold in April of this year.

So what did I get out of these books relative to my training? I will start with the results. After following the century preparation training program I found in the Burke and Pavelka book, I was able to do my first century with ease. After the last break at mile 83, I was feeling strong and hooked up with a couple of other riders. We formed a small pace line and maintained a speed of between 22 and 23 mph on the flat routes of the eastern shore of Maryland. After a few miles one rider dropped out and the other rider and I kept up the pace all the way to the finish in Salisbury, Maryland. We covered the last 17 miles in 45 minutes. We did not get passed and flew past many other riders. Now this was an easy century due to being flat, at sea level, and the weather being perfect. Still I did far better than other people who had done centuries expected me to do, averaging 17.7 mph excluding breaks. Another result I credit to the training program is an over 2 minute improvement in my best time for the 13.3 mile route that was my standard ride before I started endurance training. I achieved this recently on a cold winter day. I suspect I could shave off even more time on a day with optimal riding conditions. UPDATE - In May 2009 I shaved another five minutes off the time of the 13.3 mile ride, achieving a seven minute reduction after about nine months of heavy duty training. The final thing I will note is that I can see a huge improvement in my hill-climbing. Four percent grades that I used to grind up at eight mph are now done more briskly at 11 to 12 mph. UPDATE - June 2009, my speed on one 1/3 mile four percent grade is now up to 14 to 15 mph. For me this is a huge breakthrough.

To help in understanding my training program, I will describe some of the basic underlying concepts. I recommend you read the books I referenced above plus whatever information you can dig up to satisfy any need for an in-depth understanding of the theory behind the training.

The core of the training approach is taken from an approach popularized by the former coach of the Bulgarian weight lifting team, Tudor Bompa. My understanding of this approach boils down to a few basic principles. First is the need to vary the load put on different muscle groups over time so as to keep them from optimizing their response to a particular load level. Second is the need to give muscles time to recover and expand their capabilities based on an optimized schedule. This approach is executed by varying workouts over time. The varying workouts provide a periodic focus on different muscles and muscle loading, thus the term periodization being coined for this workout approach. Another element of the approach is something I was already doing on my own and which was supported by the Wallack and Katovsky book. This is the need to mix in a variety of exercises and stretches so as to exercise a broad range of muscles and to keep muscles and tendons limber. Equally important to training is diet. This is a topic I will discuss in a separate posting.

The first step in setting up a bicyccling training program is to determine your maximum heart rate and then use this information to determine your heart rate at the point where you exceed your lactic threshold. The Burke and Pavelka book gives several ways to determine your maximum heart rate. It takes some effort to determine this as accurately as possible including doing fun things like riding so hard that you get to the edge of blacking out. An easier way is to estimate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. For me this gives a maximum heart rate of 171 beats per minute (220 - 49). For someone in decent shape the lactate threshold can then be estimated as 85% of the maximum heart rate. For me this worked out to 145 beats per minute (85% * 171). Riders in good shape will have a higher lactate threshold and people in poor shape will have a lower lactate threshold. If you ride enough and use a heart rate monitor, you will soon get an idea of what your lactate threshold is for you. Based on how my body has reacted on recent rides, I believe I have pushed my lactate threshold up to around 152 beats per minute.

So why is it important to know what your lactate threshold is? My understanding is that it is the point at which exercise transitions from aerobic to anaerobic. This is an important threshold. When you exercise aerobically your body is most likely fueling itself from fat reserves and sugars in the bloodstream with some dip into short-term glycogen fuel reserves. This mechanism of fueling can be sustained for long periods of time. This is also a level of exercise that changes the body at a cellular level so that it can burn fat more easily, an essential capability for staying fueled during rides of more than an hour and a half to two hours. When the lactate threshold is exceeded, the body needs more fuel than what can be supplied through fat burning, and thus starts burning through glycogen reserves very quickly and also may start burning protein (muscle). This is not a bad thing unless it is done for an extended duration. Riding above the lactate threshold creates a stress on the body that it responds to by increasing its peak performance capacity. The drawback of exceeding the lactate threshold for an extended period of time is that readily available fuel supplies will be exhausted and there will not be enough fuel in the bloodstream to satisfy the demand the body has created. A "bonk" results when this happens. If this happens to you, you will know it. You will be incapable of doing any significant physical activity. It will be like a car running out of fuel. It is a strange and unwelcome feeling that I hope you never experience, particularly not when you have miles to go and are out in the middle of nowhere on a solo ride . This I know from personal experience.

Now that the underlying concepts are explained I will finally get around to what I actually do in training. I will start by describing the program I adopted leading up to my first century ride. This program was derived from a program I found in the Burke and Pavelka book. I do four training rides a week. I do two of the rides on weekdays, one on Tuesday and one on Thursday. These are shorter rides. When I started training for my initial century, the duration of each of the weekday rides was about an hour. I increased the durations by about 10% per week. I strongly recommend keeping the increase to 10% or less versus increasing more aggressively. This will allow the body time to adapt to an ever increasing load without the risk of injury that a more rapid ramp-up could lead to. My Tuesday ride has a mix of about two thirds riding at an aerobic pace with my heart rate no less than 15 beats below my lactate threshold. One third of the Tuesday ride is spent with my heart rate a little above my lactate threshold, perhaps 5 beats above with an occasional spike a little above that. I try to alternate between above and below my lactate threshold so that I am never in one state for more than a few minutes. For the Thursday ride I keep the same ratio of heart rate above and below my lactate threshold, but do it differently. I start by riding below my lactate threshold for about the first 15 minutes. I then do a continuous period where I am above it. This period is approximately one third of the total duration of the ride. I then try and ride the remaining length of the ride at a pace that keeps me below my lactic threshold though some hills may make me briefly exceed it.

The weekend rides are my long rides. Both weekend rides will be about the same length and duration. I started out with 90 minute rides as I trained for my first century and increased the duration of the rides by about 10% per week leading up to the century. The Saturday ride emulates riding in a pace-line. My emulation has me riding 20% of the time in spurts that put me well above my lactate threshold and pretty close to my max heart rate, with the spurts followed by stretches where I am riding at a rate that has me 15 beats or more below my lactate threshold. Given that I live in an area with many small rolling hills to ride up and down, I use the hills to generate the load needed for getting the heart rate up. The challenge is in keeping the heart rate down when I need to and have a hill to climb. I handle this by riding routes that have less severe grades to the hills. My Sunday ride is similar to my Tuesday ride, just longer.

As I ramped up my distances each week in preparation for my first century, I noticed that my legs were getting a bit fried after about four or five consecutive weeks of training. The evidence for this was a slight decrease in performance and a more noticeable burn when walking up several flights of stairs. I then missed a few rides due to business travel and came back with fresh legs and a very noticeable improvement in performance. This has led me to the practice of taking a week off from riding about once every six weeks. This practice is consistent with the periodization theory and recommendations you will find in the Wallack and Katovsky book.

By the time I was ready to ride my first century, my weekday rides were about 105 minutes in duration and and my weekend rides were over three hours. A week before the century I did my last training ride and then took the week off as advised by the Burke and Pavelka book. I ate a lot of carbohydrates that week, particularly in the two days before the century. This all worked very well. I felt completely fresh and very strong at the start of the century and as noted above, I was able to ride strong to the very end of it.

Since doing the century in October I have kept riding at a level that I hope will allow me to easily ramp up for my next century. I have not been as religious about manipulating my heart rate around the lactate threshold as described above. I have kept the overall mix fairly close to the two thirds below and one third above formula. My riding has me doing a lot of hill climbing on rollers with elevation gains ranging from tens of feet to over a hundred feet, and grades ranging from 4% to 15%. I also have recently begun climbing Sugarloaf mountain weekly, a 500 foot ascent at an average grade of around 7%. In general the area around where I live gives about 1000 feet of ascent for every 15 miles, excluding Sugarloaf mountain.

A good portion of my winter riding has not been on the road. Given that I get off work after dark during the winter months, my weekday rides have mostly been one hour rides on a LifeCycle. There is an occasional exception to this when I join a group from work for a lunchtime weekday ride. In the spirit of periodization I do a combination of hill and random profiles when I ride the LifeCycle. Overall my training currently adds up to the equivalent of 80 to 100 miles of road riding per week.

Based on how I felt on a recent 43 mile ride with 3200 feet of ascent, I feel I could do a flat century tomorrow at a better pace than I did the Seagull Century. The challenge is that my next century is going to be at Lake Tahoe where the altitude will vary between 6000 and 7000 feet. My plan is to do some weekend riding in the mountains of West Virginia at an altitude of 3500 to 4000 feet as a way of getting some preparation for the altitude at Lake Tahoe. I will also do some reading and see what the experts have to say and take that into account.

The other aspects of the physical part of my training regimen are weight lifting and stretching. My weight lifting program is not yet optimized, but is something I have tailored for the purpose of maintaining my muscle mass as I get older. I try and do weight lifting twice a week, alternating muscle groups and exercises so as to give my body a variety to work with. I usually don't lift for more than 40 minutes. The typical workout will have me doing perhaps eight different types of lifts with two sets for each type. I lift to point of failure. For everything except the bench press, I take about a minute between sets. After reading a little bit of one of Tudor Burpa's books, I now realize that I should change my weight lifting program if I want to have a chance at improving my performance.

Given my focus on bicycling, weight lifting is secondary to my bicycling and is usually done on weekday nights after I have done my cycling for the day. I was once told that this approach would allow me to improve my lifting capacity more easily versus doing the lifting before riding. It would be good to do some checking and find out what the latest theories are relative to mixing lifting and riding.

The stretching I perform is made up of a variety of stretches I learned over the years as fallout from being a football player and running track in high school. I also have learned some specialized stretches which were given to me by doctors who treated me for back problems. Note that my back problems did not come from my recreational athletic activities, but rather from some stupid lifting I did as part of a job I had when I was in my late teens.

My stretches are a combination of leg stretches focused on different parts of the legs and ankles, special stretches and crunches to help with my back, stretches to maintain limberness in my mid-section, and stretches and warm-up movements for my chest, arms, shoulders and neck. I always make sure and do the upper body stretching prior to doing any weight lifting. It takes me 15 to 20 minutes to do my stretching. I cannot claim to be an expert in stretching, so advise you to do some more research on this topic as you devise your own routine. The Wallack and Katovsky book has a good discussion of non-biking exercise. What most interested me is the section on yoga. It seems like it could be a really good way of doing a single thing to obtain multiple benefits, such as increasing flexibility and strength in combination with a meditative experience.

With that I encourage you to take this posting for what it is meant to be, which is to be an example based on what one newbie did to get himself trained for a century and how that worked out him. The hope is that it will convey a flavor for the types of things to be considered in training and lead you on to more investigation as you develop a training program suited to your needs. As you create your training program, listen to your body as it will let you know what works for you. Whatever you do, be careful not to push yourself too quickly. Think of training as a life-long and evolving process that you will tune over time. Seek to keep your needs and goals in synch with your training schedule and you will be able to sustain it over the long haul.

Basics of Buying a Road Bicycle

Suppose you are one of those people who has been inspired to start road bicycling but don’t really know what it takes to get started. This is the situation I found myself in a couple of years ago even though I had done a fair amount of riding 15 years ago when I was in my mid-thirties. Back then my rides were limited in duration and not my focus. At that time I was much more into weight lifting and used bicycling for aerobic activity to give me a decent overall level of fitness. On re-entry into bicycling I found the world of bicycling was a lot more complicated than I remembered, particularly since I had set a goal to get to a level where I could do 100+ mile rides in a day. This would require more serious training than what I had done in my younger years. In this posting I will share some of the basic things I learned as I got back into bicycling with a focus on selecting a bicycle. In later posts I will share some more detailed thoughts about other topics I introduce here.

The first thing to do is to decide on the type of bicycling you want to do. Is it something you want to do occasionally for recreation or are you looking to use it as a training tool for staying in shape? Do you want to work up to doing endurance rides or even racing? Are you on a budget and need a single bicycle for both riding on the road and also doing light duty off-road riding? Perhaps your priority is on commuting to work. The answers to these questions are important as they will determine things like what type of bike or bikes you should own, how you should train, how much you might need to spend on clothing and accessories, and how much you need to learn about fueling your body during a ride. You may be thinking that this is sounding more complicated than expected and therefore considering just going to the bike store, buying a bike, and then start riding. I encourage you to take the time to learn a little so that you can make good decisions that will allow you to have the satisfaction that is achieved when you get exactly what you need.

Suppose you decide that you want to get back into bicycling by doing recreational road riding with an occasional ride on smooth bluestone or packed dirt trails with no significant hills. For this you will need a bike with wider tires than what is found on pure road bicycles. It is likely that you will want an upright riding position for comfort given that you will not ride enough to acclimate to the more aggressive position needed for a road bike. You may also want a wider padded seat that is more comfortable to the occasional rider. All of these things will point you towards buying a type of bicycle often referred to as a “commuter” bicycle.

If the trails you sometimes ride are a bit bumpy, you may go for a “hybrid” bicycle that has a suspension that will cushion the ride while still providing fairly efficient road riding. A “comfort” bike is an option for those who have no concern for performance and just want a bicycle to cruise around on occasionally.

If you decide that you want to use bicycling for fitness with an eye towards doing endurance rides or racing, you will almost certainly want a pure road bicycle. The efficiency of the pure road bicycle for its intended purpose warrants the adaptation required to get used to the riding position and the harder smaller saddle.

Your riding intent will also influence how much you will need to spend on a bicycle and what type of accessories you may want to get for it. A pure commuter and recreational rider will likely want to only spend enough to get a durable bike that has a pleasing look. A rider looking to do a lot of road riding for training purposes will likely be willing to spend a bit more to get a lighter bike that shifts gears more quickly and can cushion road vibration. A commuter or someone who wants to do touring will spend a fair amount of money on accessories to adapt a bike to the task.

At this point, I would like you to take a look at some online information that will give you an overview of some basic information and terminology that you should know. This keeps me from having to repeat it here. Performance Bicycles has a short overview of different bicycle types. You can download it using the following link: http://www.performancebike.com/images/performance/web/PDFs/08_BuyersGuide_Choosing.pdf . Revolution Cycles provides an excellent overview of factors to consider for road bikes: http://revolutioncycles.com/page.cfm?pageID=439. For a discussion of hybrids and comfort bikes use this link: http://revolutioncycles.com/page.cfm?pageID=527. In the following discussion I am assuming you have read the information I refer to above and therefore will be familiar with terminology such as “rings” and “cassette”.

After reading these materials you will likely still be in a quandary about what you should do in selecting a bicycle. Here are a few recommendations to help you choose based on my personal experience and consequent opinions I have formed.

If you are going to do occasional recreational riding on the street, get a basic comfort or commuter bicycle. If the area you ride in is hilly, get one with triple rings so that it has a wide range of gearing, 24 to 30 speeds . If you are riding on relatively flat routes you can get by with fewer speeds. You should not need to spend more than $500 to $600 to get a decent new bike. A used bike would cost perhaps half that, but you will need to learn a lot more in order to make a good decision about a used bike.

If you are going to do both recreational road riding and occasional mild off-road riding, get a hybrid triple with 24 to 30 speeds. You should not need to spend more than $500 or so to get a decent bike for this purpose. Hybrids can be adapted to handle different usages by changing a couple of things about the bike. For street riding, locking the front suspension (if your hybrid allows this) and using a narrower street tire will reduce rolling friction and preserve momentum on the street and allow you to ride faster. For off-road riding you will want to have the suspension unlocked and have the right tires for the surface conditions you will be riding over. When riding on sandy or gravel surfaces with an occasional mud puddle or creek crossing, you will want to put on a tire meant for off-road use. I have a set of Michelin tires that have tread similar to a snow tire. They work very well for gravel roads and fire roads even in wet conditions. Deep sand and mud will require a knobby tire like you would find on a mountain bike.

For the rider who is going to do a lot of road riding for training purposes, a pure road bike fits the bill. I recommend a triple with between 24 and 30 speeds for just about anybody except racers. The bike snobs at the bike shops will often try and push non-racers to get a 20 speed racing bike (two rings, 53/39, up front and 10 cogs on the cassette) due to the benefit of slightly lighter weight and slightly quicker shifting. My experience has been that if you are going to do any riding that involves going up hills of more than a 6% grade for lengths of more than a couple of hundred yards, you are going to want to have the lower gearing that a triple provides. There may come a time when you will be able to pull higher gearing on those hills. Unless you are in good shape already, that will take a while and you may get turned off to bicycling before you reach that point. The bike shop guys may counter my arguments by saying that a “compact” (two rings, 50/34), is a good trade-off between the triple and a bike with the typical 53/39 front rings. I would only consider this if you plan on putting in the time to get into really great shape before taking on significant hill climbing.

If you don't know what a grade is, it is the ratio of altitude gained or loss relative to the distance traveled. A 6% grade therefore indicates a gain in altitude of six feet for every 100 feet of distance traveled. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but I can assure you that if you are out of shape, a 6% grade for a few hundred yards will make for a tough climb even on a triple. Once you are in shape you will be able to handle steeper grades, but the triple will allow you lower gearing that lets you sit on the bike and spin your way up hills that would require you to stand and muscle your way up with the higher gearing of a two ring bike.

If you have not priced bicycles in a while you may be amazed by the range in pricing. My belief is that bicycles follow a similar price curve to many types of things we buy in that price goes up near exponentially in relation to incremental improvements. This means that you can buy a decent bike for $500 to $600, a very good bike for between $1000 to $2000, and an exceptional bike for more than $2000. For people who are casual riders, the differences due to price will only be mildly perceptible. If you fit this profile I do not recommend spending a lot of money on a bike. For racers and hard-core enthusiasts who want to get everything they can out of their bike, the incremental improvements of the most expensive bike they can afford may be worth the additional cost.

Now for a few thoughts on the key differentiators that account for differences in the price of road bicycles. It seems that road bicycle prices from major manufacturers tend to be closely correlated to the following factors: frame material, fork and stay material, and quality of the components. Most manufacturers make one or more series of bikes, with each series sharing a common frame, fork and stay across the series. The differences in prices between the bikes within a series are based on the different levels of component quality. Series with a steel frame, steel forks, steel stays and low-end to mid-level components are at the lowest price levels, from $200 to $600 or so. For a little more the frame, forks and stays will be aluminum. This will bump the price up to as high as $1000 or so. In the $1000 to $2000 price range you will see aluminum framed bikes with carbon fiber forks and stays. These bikes will have mid-level to near high-end components. Bikes with all carbon fiber frames, forks and stays and mid-level to high-end components start at around $1500. Other materials such as titanium may be used at the higher end price levels. Of course there are exceptions to these rules as I have seen high-end steel frame bikes selling for thousands of dollars, but the majority of bikes seem to slot into the levels I describe here.

The component level used for a particular bike within a series of bikes sharing the same frame, forks and stays accounts for a range in price of hundreds and even thousands of dollars between the low-end version versus the high-end version. My experience has been that mid-level components such as the Shimano Tiagra or Shimano 105 component sets will satisfy all but the most discerning riders who desire the incremental benefits of high-end components.

Perhaps the biggest decision to make once you have decided to buy a road bike is to decide what material you want for the frame, forks and stays. This will be somewhat governed by how much you want to spend. If you want to spend less than $1500, it is going to be to tough to find a new bike with a carbon fiber frame. In my riding experience, I have not noticed any huge advantages of one frame technology versus another. The steel frame bikes have a very smooth ride but are heavy. The aluminum framed bikes with carbon fiber forks and stays are supposedly a little more jarring than the all carbon fiber bikes, but I have a hard time noticing the difference. I went with a bike with a carbon fiber frame mainly because of the cool factor combined with the great price I got for it considering the level of components it came with.

Given the above factors, I believe an enthusiast needs to spend no more than about $1500 for a new bike. For this price a brand new aluminum framed bike can be purchased with carbon fiber forks, carbon fiber stays, and high-end components. The careful shopper may find such a bike with upper mid-level components for as cheap as $495 (as my boss did. He should have been arrested going out the door!) by buying a last year's model at a close-out sales event. My store brand carbon fiber frame bike with high-end Shimano Ultegra components was bought on sale for less than $1500. If you are brand conscious and have to have the very best, you may pay quite a bit more. I leave it to you to do the additional homework to decide if this is warranted. In support of this I encourage you to do your own explorations on the Internet, particularly once you are starting to evaluate specific bicycles. If you do an internet search for reviews of the specific bicycle model, it is highly likely that you will find some online reviews of the bike by a number of people who have owned it. You will quickly discover that most people really like whatever bike they bought. You will need to use some reading between the lines and comparisons across reviews to get a more objective view.

Once you decide to buy a bicycle, I recommend you buy it from a shop that has the expertise to ensure the bike is the proper size for you and that it is then adjusted to fit you. Bicycles have different frame heights and lengths, this affecting how far you have to lean over to reach the handlebars and the position of your legs relative the pedals. This positioning on the bicycle has a substantial impact on comfort and riding efficiency, so getting a properly sized bicycle is important to having satisfaction in your riding.

If you are planning on buying a used bicycle you may want to go to a bicycle shop and get fit to a bicycle by an expert. Use the information you learn from the experience to select a used bicycle that is the correct size.

Here are a few other thoughts about buying a used bicycle. I have not done this but considered it and did a fair amount of looking for used bikes on eBay and Craigslist. What I found is that it is easy to find bicycles in nearly new condition that are priced between half and two thirds of the price for an equivalent new bike. This is very enticing. What held me back from buying used was that at that time I did not know enough about bikes to feel comfortable buying a bike without getting to ride it first. This would be the case for almost any eBay purchase. I was particularly concerned about possibly getting a bike that was not sized properly. For the bikes I saw on Craigslist there was a different problem. The selection was much smaller so it was harder to find a bike that matched up to exactly what I wanted. The combination of these factors, my finding what appeared to be an excellent deal on a new store-brand bicycle, and my eagerness to have a new bike for a fast-approaching century ride led me to buy a new bike.

If I were buying another bike now I would almost certainly buy a used bike. I would not be under time pressure since I already have a couple of decent bikes. This would allow me to wait for the right bike at the right price. I would look for a fairly recent model bike of a brand that I was familiar with. I would look for a lightly used bike. There seem to be a lot of bikes that come on the market that fit this profile as it is common for people to buy bikes thinking they are going to ride a lot and then not follow through. Hopefully this blog will help keep you from being one of these people! Given that the bike under consideration would be a recent model, I would try and test ride a new version of the bike with the same frame size. This could be done at a local bike shop. Some of you may consider this unethical, but I don't think so. A certain percentage of people will end up buying a new bike from the shop after the sales guys have worked them over. The test ride would allow me to make sure the sizing was correct and that I liked the ride qualities. Of course a short test ride will not give enough information to determine how comfortable the bike will be on long rides. An experienced rider should be able to use a test ride to determine that the fit is close enough so that the bike can be tuned to be comfortable on long rides. Based on what I have seen on eBay and Craigslist, I would eventually end up with a bike in new condition and pay about half of the retail price of a new bike.

A couple of other alternatives for paying less are to look for close-out sales or to buy store-brand bikes. My boss was extremely patient and ended up buying a close-out (Felt with aluminum frame, carbon fiber forks and stays and Shimano 105 components) for $495. This bike compares well with other name-brand bikes retailing in the $1200 to $1300 price range. This was an exceptional deal. As stated above, I bought a store-brand bike (Scatante Elite Triple with carbon fiber frame and Shimano Ultegra components) for under $1500 (actually $1465). This bike is feature equivalent to name-brand bikes in the $2600 price range. I test rode both the bike I bought and some name-brand equivalents and was very satisfied by the comparison. I do admit there are visible differences indicating corners were cut to allow the Scatante to be manufactured more cheaply, such as having cables routed externally. I did not feel that these differences affected function and was willing to trade them off given the $1100 savings.

I suspect I am going to get some grief about my statements relative to store brands from people who buy the name-brand bicycles. The most likely point of contention will be about build quality and engineering that produces a more responsive ride and greater durability in the name-brand bikes. There is even some concern that no-name bicycles may be hazardous due to a higher propensity for frame failure. This is certainly a discussion worth having and that will be of value to many people. I do not have the engineering expertise and knowledge necessary to provide advice relative to these factors for any particular brand of bicycle. This leads to the advice that you should do some research about the quality of a bike before buying buying it. Here are a few links that can give you additional insight into the factors related to bicycle manufacturing and quality:

http://joelcory.com/blog/2007/10/25/cheap-carbon-frames/
http://bicycledesign.blogspot.com/2006/05/whats-in-your-fork.html
http://allanti.com/page.cfm?PageID=328

I hope this posting has given you some of the basics to get you started down the road to selecting a bicycle. In upcoming posts I will discuss topics such as accessories, clothing, training, fueling for longer rides, and participation in organized events. I will also produce a posting with references to resources I have used in learning about bicycling such as websites and books.

Training on the LifeCycle

Rides on the LifeCycle are simple to prepare for. These are usually shorter rides so I don’t have to worry about fueling my body during the ride. I ride at my local gym on one of a number of LifeCycles conveniently placed where I can get a good view of three different TVs. To get prepped I just put on my workout clothes and headphones, then connect the headphones to my mp3 player/FM radio, then tune the radio to the frequency that is being used to broadcast the sound from one of the TVs I will watch. I highly recommend the Sansa e250, e260, or e280 mp3 player/FM radio models as you can get them cheap off buy.com.

To start my ride, I get on the LifeCycle, program in my first 30 minute workout setting, then start spinning away. The LifeCycle starts off at a low load for a few minutes, allowing me to get warmed up before being put under significant load. I alternate between a couple of different types of programs on the LifeCycle as a means of keeping my body from habituating to the training program. The two programs I use are the "Hill Profile" and the "Random" programs. After the first 30 minute program completes I will do at least one more 30 minute program before calling it a day. Between 30 minute programs I will take a minute or two water break. If I am riding for more than an hour I will drink some Cytomax and ingest a Clif Shot Blok every 20 minutes.

Riding the LifeCycle feels much more like work than when I am out on the road riding one of my bikes. Because of this I don’t get near a much stress relief as I get when on the road. This is one of the reasons why I ride on the road as much as I can. Still I do spend a lot of time on the LifeCycle as that is often the only convenient means I have to putting in the time I need to meet my training goals. I also find myself keeping up with the world of sports and political commentary as I alternate between watching ESPN and CNN on the overhead televisions as I ride.

As I approach 50 I can say that I am stronger on the LifeCycle than I was 15 years ago when I would do four 30 minute sessions per week. On the older LifeCycles I used back then, I typically was only able to push level eight out of 10, burning maybe 260 calories in 30 minutes. On the newer machines I start out at level 19 out of 20, burning between 365 and 411 calories in 30 minutes depending on the program. I drop down to level 17 for the second 30 minute program, but still burn between 330 and 365 calories. For those of you who are approaching or beyond 50, I hope this offers encouragement that you can be better than you were before.

The Road Riding Experience

Road riding is an experience that appeals to me on many levels. It provides an opportunity to intimately experience the world while at the same time taking care of both my physical and mental well-being. This post is an attempt to explain both what I do during a road ride and also perhaps more importantly, convey how I experience a ride.

Usually I start out my rides from my home. I am very fortunate to live in a part of Montgomery County, Maryland that is adjacent to a huge agricultural preserve. This is a part of the county that is not open to development and thus has a lot of lightly traveled roads that are a Mecca for bicyclists. In this area it is easy to put together very scenic rides of almost any reasonable length without having to do much if any back-tracking. For variety I will often ride through the back streets of the neighborhoods where I live. I have worked out various routes that cover up to 35 miles while never being more than a few miles from my home.

I am often joined on my weekend rides by other cyclists whom I either work with or who are affiliated with my co-workers via the networking that occurs over time for most who bicycle. Larry, my boss at work and neighbor, is my most frequent companion. No matter whether I am riding alone or with a large group, there is not a lot of formality to the initiation of a ride. If I am riding with others there might be a few comments about the weather, the route, and bicycling related matters as we get prepared for the ride. The chatting stops almost immediately once everybody is ready to ride and then there is just a quick “let’s go” by someone and we take off.

I like to start off my rides at a reduced pace for the first few minutes so as to get my legs warmed up before putting them under load. After the warm-up I quickly get into a zone that varies a little depending on whether I am riding alone or with a group. When I am alone, the zone is a near meditative experience as I get focused on just a few basic things. There is a background alertness that is observing any traffic and almost automatically taking actions to minimize the chance of my becoming a hood ornament. In the foreground is a focus on the body, the pace, the road, and the senses.

The observation of the body is my means of metering out my effort so as to get in a good workout while not pushing so hard that I will bonk (have my legs just quit on me due to exhausting the fuel supply in my bloodstream) prior to the end of the ride. The pace is primarily a result of the observation of the body. The internal competitiveness that is innate to my character influences the pace as it urges me to go faster than I have gone before. This battles with my observations of my body and has put me into trouble on occasion. I have recently started using a heart-rate monitor as a controlling mechanism for regulating pace and found this to be very effective.

The observation of the road is the part of riding that is most like a game for me. The area I ride in has very little level ground. The game for me is in the evaluation of the slopes and curves that I am riding through and the playing with the bicycle gearing and my level of effort as I deal with what the road is throwing at me.

Last but not least in my foreground focus is the awareness of what my senses are feeding to me. A bicycle ride provides many sensations that form the texture of the ride. My eyes take in the scenery I am riding through. I am often moved by thoughts of what a beautiful rural area I have the privilege to ride through. The routes I ride go over a number of streams, through wooded parkland, and past family farms that are becoming hard to find in other parts of the Washington D.C. metro region. My ears are attuned to the sounds of the bicycle as it whirs its way forward. The snick-snick sound as I move through the gears gives me feedback as I adjust for the rises and falls of the route. The wind noise varies from a light white noise at lower speeds to a loud rush during fast downhill descents. The sense of touch detects the temperature and feels the wind. On cold mornings I will be quite chilled for the first few minutes, this going away quickly on the first hill. On hot days I look forward to the cooling that comes from the self-generated wind as I maintain a fast pace on the flats or a faster pace on the downhill slopes. The sense of smell appreciates the fresh air of the parkland I ride through. This contrasts to the pungent smells that sometimes emanate from the farms on the route. Taste buds are stimulated periodically as I drink the sweet Cytomax mix and then wash the taste away with a few gulps of water. This is followed by a Clif Shot Blok that has a gummy texture and a mildly sweet taste I let linger as it dissolves in my mouth. In the background at all times is the sensation of a body at work. On the flats and mild uphill grades there is the feeling of being a smoothly running machine that is just humming its way down the road. Climbing the steeper grades makes the body labor and the mind soon focuses on each rotation of the pedals and the exertion this takes. Breathing becomes deep and the stress of the labor brings thoughts of rebellion against the toil. The response to this is to focus on the goal of surmounting the hill and to appreciate this as a worthy cause. Often times the reward for achieving the top of a hill is the relief of a following descent. It is an opportunity to use speed to generate a wind that cools the over-heated body. The descent also provides the opportunity to rest for a bit and let a pounding heart subside its cadence. All of the sensations of the ride work together to create the memorable impression of the ride that is the essence of the experience.

The meditative aspect of cycling comes from the constant focus on the four elements that are in my foreground thoughts: body, pace, road and sensation. This focus on just a few things empties the mind of other thoughts, cares and worries. The resulting meditative state is one of the most addictive things about bicycling. The meditative state I experience has brought perhaps the biggest benefit of bicycling, a huge reduction in stress in my life. The stress reduction due to a long ride leaves me feeling like I have had a rejuvenating vacation.

When I am riding with a group I receive most of the same benefits I receive when riding alone. In addition a certain type of riding relationship tends to quickly form between members of a group ride. The group riding dynamic is an interesting mix of individualism and social interaction. Each rider has their own pace and also most riders seem to like to spend time in the focused zone they would experience on an individual ride. This is counter-balanced by the interaction that naturally occurs when a group of people are engaging in a common activity, particularly one that has some challenge to it. The result is an ongoing fluid switching of roles where someone will ride on their own for a bit separated from others, and then periods where they will ride alongside or behind someone else and chat for a bit. Pace lines (a line of cyclist closely following each other to reap the benefits of drafting) form on long flat sections and a feeling of camaraderie develops as the group works together to go faster than each could on their own.

As a group nears the end of the ride another behavior tends to kick in. The ride becomes a case of every man for himself as the cyclists who are still feeling strong kick it into gear and go for one last burn, leaving those with less energy behind. I think one of the reasons this happens is that as the end approaches, the unspoken need to make sure that others in the group are okay weakens as it becomes clear that everybody should be able to make it home without incident.

The end of a ride is usually a subdued event. If I am riding alone I will lean my bike up against a porch rail and sit for a bit, cooling off and enjoying the concept of what I have just done. At the end of a group ride there may be a few quick comments related to the ride just finished and maybe some suggestions for a next ride, then everybody says goodbye and resumes their busy lives. And so the experience ends with knowledge that it will soon be repeated and a looking forward to this.