Archive for category cycling
Time to get skinny
Every winter, when I ride less and eat (and drink) more, I put on a few extra pounds. My ideal racing weight is about 150, and this year I got up to 167. The culprits – Christmas cookies, beer, and potato chips – not to mention the fact that I’m turning 35 in a couple weeks.
Between the new job and the baby, I probably won’t get to ride as much this season as I have in years past, which makes my weight especically critical. With this in mind, I’ve created a spreadsheet to track my daily weight and to keep myself accountable:
My goal is to get to 150lbs by the time Caleb is born, which should be around May 8. This means losing 1.14 pounds per week. To do that, I have to have a daily caloric deficit of about 664 calories. I expect to achieve some of that by forgoing my nightly beer(s) and the rest by cutting out sweets and starchy food. I’m also cutting back on coffee (it makes me hungry) and drinking more water.
In addition to reducing my caloric intake, I’m also ramping up my caloric expenditure by hitting the trainer in the morning before work, and often again in the evening. Hopefully this will soon give way to consistent outdoor riding in the near future.
It would be great if I could just eat and drink all I want, then burn it off with heaps of saddle time, but I’m afraid that may not be an option until I’m retired and my kids are out of college.
Riding in 2010
This is the deepest I’ve gone into an off-season without a specific set of competitive goals for the coming year. But of course, this is not going to be a typical cycling season. I’m gonna become a dad sometime around May 8, so I don’t have any illusions of reaching new heights of fitness.
Instead, this year is going to be about riding when time permits and enjoying every mile, regardless of speed or wattage. I’m sure I’ll do some races – the Tour of America’s Dairyland in particular – but most of my riding will take place without a number pinned to my jersey. The two things I’m most interested in are non-traditional races like Barry Roubaix and long-distance events like the Dairyland Dare. If there’s a chance, I’d also like to try an S24O ride. Beyond that, I’m looking forward to some early Saturday morning centuries and maybe a WEMS race or two.
Once the daylight lasts a bit longer, I’ll start riding to work. Now that I’m working downtown, my round trip is just 12 miles, which is good, because there aren’t shower facilities at my office.
Well, that’s about it. I’m as excited as ever for spring, just for a much different reason than in past years.
Custom bike fitting
Gunnar Sport
Yesterday, I drove down to Waterford to get fitted for a custom Gunnar Sport. I’m helping them out with some copy writing, social media, and website design, and in return, they’re building me a bike. Not a bad deal, I’d say.
I would have been content with a stock geometry bike, but Richard and Johanna talked me into a custom build. The fitting process took about two hours. I brought my Salsa La Cruz, which is the bike the Gunnar will replace. Johanna began by taking some measurements from the Salsa. Then she measured my inseam, my femurs, my torso, and my arms. She entered this data into a computer, which returned a set of recommended frame dimensions.
Denny on the Fitmaster
From there, we went to the Fitmaster, which is a bike-shaped tool that can be adjusted to simulate a wide range of tube lengths and angles. Johanna set it up with my recommended frame geometry, and I rode a bit to see how it felt. The most notable difference was the seat angle. Most bikes (including all of mine) have seat angles of between 72 and 74 degrees. Because of my long torso and short femurs, a 75 degree seat angle was recommended. This put me in a more forward position, which opened up my hip angle and allowed me to stretch out more comfortably.
Most of my time on the Fitmaster was spent tweaking the handlebar position. The Fitmaster had an ergo-bend Profile bar, which has a shallower drop and a more acute bend compared to the Ritchey bar I intend to use on the Gunnar. Ultimately, we focused on the position of the brake hoods instead of the drops, which made for a more meaningful comparison.
Once I was comfortable with the position on the Fitmaster, Johanna went back to the computer to enter the exact dimensions we settled on. Here’s where we ended up:
Head angle: 73
Seat angle: 75
Effective top tube: 565mm
Stack: 582mm
Reach: 407mm
Front-center: 611mm
That may not mean much to anyone who hasn’t spent the last few weeks obsessing over frame geometries (the way I have). In a nutshell, this bike will enable me to get in a more powerful and aerodynamic position, with none of the compromises I’ve had to make on my stock-geometry bikes. Additionally, the long front-center dimension will ensure that even with my big feet, I’ll be able to run wide tires and fenders without any toe-overlap.
Rivendell Mark's Rack
The Sport itself is a cool bike. It’s got a low bottom bracket, which makes it super-stable, but not at all suited to pedaling through corners. It’s also got clearance for tires as wide as 35mm. It’ll be my first choice for training rides, centuries, and any sort of long-distance ride that may involve brief unpaved excursions. I’m going to build it up with SRAM Rival and a Brooks Swift saddle. Oh, and I’m having braze-ons installed on the fork to allow me to mount a Mark’s Rack from Rivendell, in case I ever make good on my intentions to get into randonneuring.
After we completed the fitting process, Johanna gave me a tour of the Waterford facility. Click here to view my photo gallery.
Too sick for cyclocross
I’m sick. I don’t think it’s the dreaded you-know-what. It’s probably just a common cold. In fact, I’m already on the mend.
Regardless, if I do the cyclocross race tomorrow, I’m going to end up sick as a dog next week. I wouldn’t mind so much were it not for the fact that tomorrow’s race is one of the most fun races of the entire year – the Velo Trocadero Halloween Classic. Last year’s race was an absolute blast. There’s nothing like a bunch of costumed weirdos bunny-hopping a burning barrier and being heckled by an enormous, diaper-clad man-baby in 40-degree weather.
Illness notwithstanding, I will be at the race tomorrow, but I’ll be packing a video camera instead of a bike. Hopefully I’ll capture something YouTube-able. I just hope I don’t see anything as shocking as Katy’s 2008 costume (I looked for a photo, but mercifully, couldn’t find one). Looks like she’s going high-class this year.
Season Review
Posted by Denny in Chequamegon, Door_County, Sea_Otter, cycling, racing on October 13, 2008
With the possible exception of a few cyclocross races, the 2008 racing season is over. Time to take a look back.
The season began poorly with my big crash at Sea Otter, in which my new Specialized Tarmac SL received a fatal down-tube injury. I crashed again in my next race, but fortunately, the replacement frame survived. That pretty much quenched my thirst for mass-start races. The only exception I made was for the State Road Race Championships – an epic battle with the elements from which I emerged as a very wet state champion, thanks in large part to my teammates’ help.
After the RR championships, I focused on my main goal for the season- the Masters National Time Trial Championships. Thankfully, that went well. I ended up taking bronze and setting a personal best. My teammate, Scott Latell, came up from his home (and a very busy work schedule) in North Carolina to keep me company and serve as my soigneur deluxe. It was great hanging out with Scott and not having to worry about anything but turning the pedals. Plus, there’s no better post-time-trial drinking buddy than Scott.
After Nats, I came back out for a few Superweek crits. Those went reasonably well. Most notably, I didn’t hurt myself or break anything.
The next highlight of the season was the Door County Century, which I did with my wife, Kelley. It was her first 100-mile ride, and she did awesome – that is, she did awesome after I diagnosed a rubbing brakepad 15 miles into the ride. The rub was my fault, but she was so relieved not to be dying that she forgave me almost immediately. In fact, she even had the energy and nerve to punk me in a sign sprint.
The final big event of 2008 was the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival – a 40-mile mountain bike race in northern Wisconsin. With a field limit of 1,700, it’s the biggest mass-start mountain bike race in the world. I hadn’t done a MTB race in four years, and I hadn’t done Chequamegon in about 12 years. Despite a poor start and a flat tire with five miles to go, I managed to finish in 236th place, achieving my goal of finishing within 30 minutes of the winner. Plus, I had such a good time that I’m thinking about devoting the second half of next year’s season to endurance mountain bike racing.
So praise God – it’s been another good year. There’s still some great riding to be had, but it’s never too early to look back and think ahead.
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