One of The Reasons I'm Not A Big Fan Of Multi-Use Trails As Transportation Infrastructure

Here's the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail near my house. It's a wonderful 20 mile on-road and off-road loop of asphalt that ties together a handful of towns. One of it's little spur-trails provides people from our neighborhood with a safe off-road pathway to get into Pennington. From there you can reach neighborhood streets that even children could ride to get into town for a slice of pizza or to hang out with friends. 

But these photos were taken a week after the most recent snowfall. The roads have been clear from curb to curb for days. This trail hasn't even been touched by anyone with a plow or shovel. This is despite the fact that I've seen many other cyclists pedal the associated roadway over the past week.

Multi-use trails are rarely taken seriously as infrastructure for basic transportation. They're seen as recreational space of low priority. In the fall they are often littered with branches, acorns, and debris from trees.

I totally support trail construction for recreation. New and experienced riders all benefit. It's a real luxury to ride without concern for cars approaching from behind. I take advantage of multi-use trails whenever it makes sense to. It's a great place to teach skills to youngsters as they go from wobbly-wheelers to confident cyclists.

But in terms of supporting the use of bikes for basic transportation, the resources are much better used by adding an extra foot or two of asphalt to each side of the main roadway -- outside the white line. This approach takes less total asphalt, reduces net impervious surface, allows for easier maintenance, allows more options for the roadway such as emergency parking or passing, and provides cyclists with a well-maintained safe place to ride.

Rabbit Food? Ha!

I've heard this beautiful array referred to somewhat disparagingly as "rabbit food" with the implication that it could only feed a little bunny and is unsuitable as the basis for a human diet. Clearly there couldn't be enough protein and vitamins to adequately nourish an athlete!

Let's remember that zebras, cattle, giraffe, hippos, camels, deer, horses, rhinos, and elephants all manage to bulk up, maintain strength and hit top speed on a plant-based diet. Try keeping up with any of those creatures -- even while you're riding a bike.

I hear you laughingly suggest that hippos don't move too fast. Watch this one downing a cheetah. Mental note: Don't mess with hippo babies.

I don't have a secret agenda in converting the world to a vegan diet. But I will tell you that it's not only possible to survive on a plant based-diet, I'll introduce you to some competitive endurance athletes who choose a plant-based diet specifically as an edge in athletic performance. May even get one as a guest-blogger.

Eat well.

cattle, giraffe, hippos, camels and deer, all of which live primarily on plant material.

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/info_10003583_examples-herbivorous-animals.html

cattle, giraffe, hippos, camels and deer, all of which live primarily on plant material.

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/info_10003583_examples-herbivorous-animals.html

cattle, giraffe, hippos, camels and deer, all of which live primarily on plant material.

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/info_10003583_examples-herbivorous-animals.html

An Odd Compliment

It's not unusual for doctors to ask "what's up?" when listening to endurance athletes' hearts. I typically have a resting heart rate in the mid 40s or low 50s between tasks at work. Molly, who has been a competitive marathon runner for decades often has a heart rate in the 30s. My average blood pressure over the past ten years has been 113/73. Doctors sometimes worry about a low heart rate until you explain that you've  been running or swimming or cycling regularly more than 2 1/2 hours a week, i.e., actually doing what's recommended for everyone. Then they see your low resting heart rate as a sign of a strong healthy heart that pumps lots of blood with each beat.

I needed an ECG the other day and got an odd compliment from the technician: "Wow! That's just a perfect picket fence! Never see them like that!"

There's nothing magical or lucky about this. It's just one of the things you're training your body to do.  Regular aerobic activity has so many benefits in terms of physical and mental health as well as longevity. Your goal may be riding a century. But the collateral benefits are huge!

Wishing you a perfect picket fence,
Ted

Periodicity and Recovery Training

Optimal training is not just about steady build-up. Periodization training is something that Russian Olympic athletes were developing back in the 1950s and 1960s. West Germans began it in the early 1970s. Almost all endurance athletes use it as core a training strategy today.

The basic idea is that to build up your body to a high level of performance, you need to cause it to adapt and accept higher and higher levels of work as "normal". In simple terms, during hard training you push beyond what it can do with ease and actually cause small internal breakdowns of muscles.  You don't push all the way to exhaustion, but to a point that's harder than normal; sometimes close to exhaustion, even.Then you allow your muscles to recover. When you recover your body will repair itself back to where you started and then some. By repeating this cycle, athletes can build both strength and endurance.

From experience, I'm a strong believer in active recovery rather than passive recovery. Passive recovery might involve taking a few days off. Active recovery might be switching from riding to doing strength exercises (not associated with cycling muscles) for a day, or pedaling very gently for a while.

The roads still have nasty ice patches that might force me to decide between a moving car, an ice patch, or a snowbank. All poor choices.


Sunday's hilly ride was longer and considerably more intense than my average these days.  Yesterday I rode the trainer pretty hard. So this morning involved a "recovery ride" in the basement: 30 minutes spinning lightly in an easy gear.

Pedaling to the point of breathing deeply and sweating lightly helps us recover faster than sitting around. Picture lots of fresh oxygen being circulated around your body. Picture toxins being breathed out as you exhale deeply, moved out with the blood as it circulates through your liver and kidneys, and other toxins being gently washed out with sweat. This is _not_ a time to push hard even once briefly. It's a time to get your muscles warm and your circulation moving. It takes intentionality to not over-do it on recovery days. A heart rate monitor can help with this. Your reward is that you'll be stronger for it once your body does recover from a hard effort.

We'll explore training cycles more over the coming season. For now, plan on a few days of active recovery after each heavy effort. When you're fully recovered, you can push a little harder or longer than before on the next ride.

I've found that a plant based diet allows me faster recovery. The science behind that is well documented and quite interesting.

Ice Makes Me Nervous

I watch the curb line carefully on winter days.  This scene makes me nervous.  If I can't see the white line, my part of the road still isn't available for bike commuting. Where there's a puddle during cold sunny afternoons, there will be slick black ice by evening. 

Better to pedal in the basement.

Even below freezing temperatures, some of the ice will sublimate. 

With all the salt that's dumped on roads, a lot of this ice will melt and run down storm drains, too. This clears the roads sooner. But all that salt is lousy for the environment.

Saving The Planet on a Sunny Sunday With Some Clothing Guidance For Your Superhero Outfit

Got 20 miles on the road this afternoon. Don and I went and tagged some locations in a GPS location-based game called INGRESS.

It's a massive multi-player online game. There is a science fiction back story that is played out at real physical locations all over the world. The science fiction part can only be seen via web-enabled devices such as smart phones and tablets. Playing consists of establishing "portals" at places of public art, landmarks, monuments, etc., and linking them to create virtual triangular fields over geographic areas. Players must be physically near objects on the map to interact with them. The mobile device represents the player as a small arrow in the center of a 40-meter circle which represents the perimeter within which direct interaction is possible.

The image shows a "portal" that Noah was recharging with higher power "resonators" so the Enlightenment team (green) could defend it more against the Resistance team (blue). It's an important portal to maintain because there are many links established between it and other portals.

Saving the human race was  a good excuse for us to ride up Route 31 to Hunterton and then climb up and down along the Sourland Mountain ridge before descending into Hopewell. We each wore fleece tights and a windbreaker with one or two layers underneath. One bottle of water apiece was plenty. It is so much easier and more joyful to motivate and push hard up a real hill than to deliver the same amount of effort in a gym or the basement! Great to breathe fresh air, see the world, and have pleasant company to share the time with!

Balaclavas are a good choice to keep your ears warm in cold weather. They're about $12 at Nashbar. 

I prefer heavier gloves so frosty fingers are not an issue at all. This pair from Gore is $50. Not cheap, but they have all the features I'd like. Individual finger dexterity, thick insulation, wind and water resistance, breathe-ability, long wrist, soft absorbent pad at the thumb.

Eastern Mountain Sports is having a "60% off Clearance" sale. They have great stuff. But I can't see anything I like on sale that would actually fit. Looks like mostly small or XXL. Some of the 50%-off deals look great though. This jersey looks warm and comfortable at $25. Just note that it's for runners and hikers so it doesn't have back pockets like cyclist-specific gear. This microfleece half-zip sweater might actually be a little too warm. But the related vest could be great. Either one is $25 or less.

Enjoy the ride!

Oh Yeah!

Dress For Success - Outfitting For Winter Riding

I claim not to have a low temperature limit for cycling. Tomorrow will test that theory. It's predicted to be -2F with 15 mph winds. Our neighborhood tracks about five degrees below the surrounding area.

I can dress for any weather. But, having beaten up the road with my body few times, I'm very skittish about riding across ice.  As of this evening's drive home,  I can finally see the white line at the edge of the roadway.

So what's the well-dressed winter cyclist wear? Layers.

The base layer must be wicking to draw sweat away from the body. Ideal materials are: silk, wool, or light polymer-based fleece. Cotton is a killer in the cold. It will soak up sweat and rapidly conduct heat away from your body. Save cotton for July.


Silk is awesome, but too expensive. I love the feel of high-quality wool, it's incredibly soft and doesn't get nearly as stinky after many wearings. But wool does tend to get holes after a few trips through the laundry. Only buy wool if you can commit to hand-washing and air drying.

Man-made technical fabrics are great thermally, but it's hard to get the all-too-human smell out after a while. Trade-offs. Wool-poly blends offer a nice balance of properties.



The top layer should be a wind shell that wicks moisture. I like Goretex and equivalent fabrics. 100% "waterproof" rain clothes are to be avoided because they hold moisture in. It's better to be a little chilly and dry than wear too much and sweat and then really freeze.

My simple rule is that I wear bike shorts, low cotton socks, and a jersey down to about 50F. Add a layer for every additional ten degrees below 50F. I.e., add a jacket and tights and switch to ankle-length wool socks at 40F.

Add wind shell pants, another top layer, winter gloves, bike boots, and a balaclava down to about 30F. Below 30, have the balaclava covered by a wind-shell hood. Keeping your head warm makes a huge difference.

Rain is equivalent to ten degrees cooler. Riding with children who go slowly or stop often requires more layers, too.

Runners tend to need just a little less clothing at any given temperature because they go at slower speeds and thus experience less wind-chill. Running involves vigorous use of more body parts. Runners can't coast down hills. So they generate steady heat, too.

Fingers and toes are always the chilliest bits. When your body is cold, it prioritizes proper core and brain temperature. It will even reduce blood flow to extremities if needed. Naturally poor circulation doesn't help. I found insulated mountain bike boots with clipless cleats. A second layer of socks can help -- if your boots aren't too tight. If your socks and laces constrict circulation you'll be worse off. For the same reason that I'm not a fan of 100% waterproof jackets, I don't like neoprene shoe covers. They work for less than an hour and hold all the moisture in and you freeze. Who knew that your feet would sweat too much in the winter?

Gloves with long wrist-sections are a must so there is overlap between the glove and wind shell. Get gloves with a little absorbent patch along the thumbs. Your runny nose will appreciate it.

Tomorrow I plan to pull out all the stops. Add little chemical heaters to boots and gloves. Take advantage of some awesome neoprene wind fairings that fit over the handlebars. Think the inventor of "Bar Mitts" was Jewish? Mazel Tov to anyone so clever!

The first ten minutes of winter riding can feel cold. Really cold! Your body is suddenly shocked by the temperature change and does it's best to maintain core temperature by cutting down on circulation to fingers, toes, and nose. Once you've been moving for about ten minutes, core temperature rises, circulation begins to open up again, your chilly bits thaw out, and you wonder what the problem was. There is a trick to beat this! Do a light core-strength workout before going outdoors. It's enough to get your heart rate up and your blood vessels dilated. Just don't work up a sweat, yet. You'll be toasty from the first pedal stroke!

Always wear a helmet.

Don't forget to hydrate! If you're going for an hour or more in the cold, you'll lose an amazing amount of moisture through your breath and sweat. Pour boiling water in your bottle, use an insulated bottle, or keep the bottle in your back jersey pocket under a few layers. Take a snack, too. Tricks of the trade.

Love Your Machine

I believe that Love = Service. You naturally serve what you love. If you want to express love, there is no better way than through honest service. And if you wonder what you love, look at the things that you serve. Wealth? Stuff? The Earth? Power? Knowledge? Others? Addiction? TV? Your image? Your God? The answer exists, whether it's obvious to you or not.

Before you can fully love others, you need to love yourself. Before you can love yourself, you need to know and accept yourself. For who you are. Exactly as you are. Exactly now, with no changes whatsoever. That's not easy for any of us.

You are an image of The Divine.  Mortality, warts and all, you are whole, and complete, and fully worthy of love. It helps to appreciate that about yourself if you aspire to see others as whole and complete and fully love-able. I'm not fully there. But it's an aspiration.

I find it easy to acknowledge many weaknesses. What I want to do is simply accept them as reality and work from that reality. Whatever that means today. If I have an Achilles heel, it's probably my knees. Many years ago I switched from running to cycling due to knee pain. After millions of pedal strokes my knees feel fairly stiff in the morning. I'm grateful for railings.

What's amazing is that a half hour of cycling or a half hour of core strength exercises can restore completely fluid motion. I get an immediate and noticeable benefit from just a little time on the bike. I feel great. And it lasts a while, too!

This morning's basement workout was half an hour of spinning -- alternating between high cadence and moderate torque. I maintained essentially the same power output but varied what I was doing with that power. I concentrated on maintaining even power delivery through the whole pedaling circle. This is much easier with bike shoes and clipless pedals it's pretty tough with vintage rat-trap pedals, and impossible with sneakers and flat pedals. I think this helps build and balance the muscles that support my knees. Mostly felt it in the calves.


As a cyclist, it doesn't hurt to love your bicycle. After all, it bears you.

Chris sent me this an awesome old video of Raleigh bicycle fabrication in 1945. Enough to make any cyclist fall in love with the machine all over again.

Treat your machines with love. Enjoy the day!

It's What's For Dinner

Getting us all ready to ride our best is really about wellness. That is, it's not just about one-dimensional training. It's about seeking and living a whole, healthy lifestyle. Most lifetime athletes will tell you that competitive events are more incidental snapshots of particular moments. In many ways, the training is what the sport is all about.

Our food choices are just one aspect of a healthy lifestyle. For many years, I didn't realize how important healthy food choices are. I was on a "see food" diet. See food: eat it. Riding thousands of miles every year, I could easily burn off all the calories and maintain a healthy weight and high fitness. What I wasn't aware of was how much plaque was accumulating in my arteries.

I believed that as a lifetime endurance cyclist I had earned a free pass in terms of nutrition. A few years ago I was eating along the lines of a Mediterranean diet plus a mess of chocolate and snack food when I felt like it. Why turn down free, delicious food if I'm burning off all the calories anyhow?

Blockage of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery is what interventional cardiologists nickname "the widow-maker". As it turns out, it's a pretty common way for fit folks to die a sudden, unexpected death from heart attack. We all know that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of all American adults -- but not us, right? I slept well believing that an incidental benefit of my thousands-of-miles-a-year fitness program was getting to skate right past any worries about heart issues. With a resting heart rate in the 40's why worry?

So I got a shocking slap in the face back in February of 2011 -- all the signs of an impending heart attack. Sudden weakness, deep achy arms, tight chest, immediate complete exhaustion, other feelings of stuff generally coming undone. I happened to be only about five minutes into a bike ride at the time. First time I figured it was jet lag. It went away a few minutes later. Second time my co-workers convinced me to get to a doctor. I'm lucky (blessed) to have gotten a second time. Many people ignore symptoms and die from heart attacks -- every day. After a flurry of doctor visits and exams, it turns out I'd managed to get my LAD 95% blocked. I hadn't had a heart attack, i.e., no heart muscle damage due to lack of oxygen. But I was about five jumping jacks away from sudden death.

I got to enjoy an angioplasty, a stent, a lot of medical bureaucracy, and several weeks out of work to recover enough just to walk at a fast stride. I'm back to riding a few thousand miles every year. But this is not a sequence I have any interest in repeating.

My cardiologist proscribed various medications including statins that mostly disguise the problem but don't get at the root cause, and don't extend lifespan. As I learned from painful experience, they can also cause some nasty collateral damage.

Instead of following that path, I re-learned how to eat. First I learned what to eat. I continue to work on what not to eat, or at least what to minimize.

Lesson One is easy: For the next 30 days, commit to eating at least three different fruits and three different vegetables -- every day. It's not hard. But no slacking! Every day. We're not (yet) discussing what else you jam down your gullet. Do it right. Put a piece of paper and a pencil in the kitchen and make three columns. Write the next 30 days dates down the left column. Write "fruits" above the second column. Write "veggies" above the third column. Score yourself with little stars (or check marks) every day. Not kidding. Do it.

Refining The Ramp Rate

You will find a graph illustrating the two training ramp rate strategies listed earlier, i.e., linear, and geometric. My son, Thomas suggested a Fibonacci Sequence strategy.

As you'll recall, the beautiful Fibonacci sequence begins with zero, then one, and each subsequent number in the sequence is created by adding the previous two i.e., 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8...

The Fibonacci sequence was used by Indian mathematicians as early as 200 BC. In 1202, the first Western mention of it was made by Leonardo of Piza, a.k.a. "Fibonacci" in the book Liber Abaci in which he introduced the use of Arabic numerals to European mathematicians.

Math students know that the ratio of any two successive Fibonacci Numbers  approximates the Golden Ratio of 1.618025751... and the ratios of successive Fibonacci Numbers approaches the Golden Ratio in the infinite.

Practical use of the Fibonacci Sequence and Golden Ratio can be found in art, music, architecture, economics and applied mathematics. Elegant examples in nature can be seen in the arrangement of a sunflower's seeds, branching in trees, and (my favorite) in the pedigrees of [idealized] honeybees.

     * If an egg is laid by an un-mated female, it hatches a male or drone bee.
     * If, however, an egg was fertilized by a male, it hatches a female.
     * Thus, a male bee always has one parent, and a female bee has two.

     * If one traces the pedigree of any male bee (1 bee), he has 1 parent (1 bee), 2 grandparents, 3                 great-grandparents, 5 great-great-grandparents, and so on.

Unfortunately, the Fibonacci sequence seems like a recipe for late-season injury if used un-adjusted as a training ramp rate. It's too little mileage early on and too aggressive towards the end. A"Modified Fibonacci" training plan is shown in purple. It is the Fibonacci sequence plus a fixed 21 miles. It's still too light in the early spring and too steep by the fall.

But, if you want to leave your training buddy's head spinning, you can explain that this year you've decided to follow: "A hybrid of Fibonacci and Geometric endurance training  ramp rates targeting late season optimization." The subsequent discussion should carry you several miles and be worth at a Tall Mocha Latte.

It's February. How Far Should I Be Riding Now?

It's absurdly cold this morning. -4 F outdoors. -20 wind chill. Drifted snow half way across the road.

These are non-ideal days for epic road rides. But you want to do your first hundred mile ride late this year. How far should you be riding now?

Don't worry much. Just ride.

We're not returning racers. We're not looking to out-perform the competition in April. We're trying to get you strong and fit enough to take on a mid-to-late season endurance challenge without injury and feeling good about your accomplishment.  

ZERO TO 100 IN ONE DAY?
Fearless teenagers and experienced riders might jump on the bike and ride a century tomorrow. It's do-able. 25 years ago, Nancy rode 85 miles one day with no prior aerobic training. She was pretty sore and tired. You're more likely to enjoy the ride and feel good the next day if you increase your effort gently. A few years back, I rode with Randonneurs whose first ride of the season was a 200k (124 miles) in March. That's the shortest event they even organize! But these ultra-distance folks had ridden or qualified for RAAM before. They had deep experience managing energy and effort levels on the bike. Their muscles knew what to do. They were mentally prepared. They had already figured out how much to drink and what to eat. 

LINEAR INCREASE?
The simplest thing might be to ask how far you can ride now, and how far you want to ride and just ramp-up training linearly. Say you can ride 20 miles now and have 8 months to go. You could just add 10 miles to your longest ride each month. 20 miles in Feb, 30 in March, 40 in April, 50 in May... ...100 in October My experience is that this isn't the way it works out and this approach is more likely to result in an early season injury.

GEOMETRIC INCREASE?
Increasing effort in the same proportion each month is a lot easier on the knees. Our Sunday coffee & pastry rides are about 23 miles. If you can ride 23 miles in January, try this sequence of "longest rides of the month":
Jan - 23 miles
Feb - 27
Mar - 32
Apr - 38
May - 44
Jun - 52
Jul - 61
Aug - 72
Sep - 85
Oct -- 100 .

 This represents about a 15% increase in long distance ride each month. More aggressive is very do-able. But this approach should be gentle on your joints and minimize the risk of over-training fatigue.

In fact, if you follow this approach, you'll be ready for a century long before October.

FAR more important than putting in long miles is putting in regular miles. Right now, you should begin telling your body that aerobic output is a regular part of most days.

I think much more about weekly mileage than daily mileage. If I'm doing 100 miles in a week, 100 on any given day is not out of question. Even that's not hard and fast.