It’s one of the cruel facts of life that as you age the physical activities you enjoy doing with a nominal degree of competence slowly become more difficult to engage in without appearing like a pensioner trying to guide his Buick onto the expressway – slow, tentative and full of explosive gases. At this point in my cycling "career" (I have natural cycling abilities that require a set of quotes for that word, much like Shaquille O’Neal’s acting "career"), I find myself in an odd position. If I were to give up racing bikes, I may never be able to work my way back into the condition that I have right now. If I were to take an extended break, it’s possible that coming back from such a break would not allow me to land back to the form I have currently.

This wouldn’t be a problem if I felt about racing the same way I felt about, say, poached foods – which hold no appeal whatsoever for me – but I do still enjoy racing very much. In fact, if it weren’t for racing, I’m not sure how much bike riding I would actually do. In general, I like to fill my activities with a sense of purpose (as I am crazy), even if that purpose is to not embarrass myself in front of other like-minded, tightly-clothed people in the pre-waking hours in New York City Public Parks. It’s a nuanced purpose, of course, but a purpose nonetheless.

I suppose you could say that I’m at the age where I’m afraid of stopping, as stopping implies that I cannot start again. But that is the nature of the beginning of the off-season. Like the stages of grief, there are stages of training, the first stage is "self-doubt"; followed by many others that aren’t as descriptive (and I haven’t made up yet), culminating in the perfect stage to end the off-season – delusion.

Friday, October 16, 2009

The weather for today looked to be a mixture of rain, cold and ennui. But as midday inched closer, there looked to be a hole forming in the moisture through which I could crawl. And I’m not sure, but I think that previous sentence can also serve as a rough description of the day I was born.

But talk of my genesis notwithstanding, I was faced with a challenge today – how to save my yet un-acclimatized self from a miserable shivering plod through a wet, cold Jersey day. Then it came to me – I would ride slowly. One of the advantages of riding slowly is that there’s no disagreeable chill from hurling yourself through the landscape at a ridiculous speed. And the best way to avoid speed is to ride uphill in a large gear – which is exactly what I did.

I completed 4 climbs of my local training hill at a very slow cadence in my big ring. These efforts lasted about 4 minutes each, which is plenty of effort for this time of year – more than I deserve really. Yet I think the hardest part of this training day will be forgoing beer this evening, as I have come up as a porcupine this morning. Stupid prickly beast!

Bicycle Fun Fact (BFF) of the Day
1963 – Schwinn introduces the first banana seat, supplanting the less popular (and controversially ethnic for the time) plantain seat. 

BFF of the Day
Did you know that professional cyclist David Zabriskie is so naturally aerodynamic that he doesn’t need to chew? Food just slides through his digestive system until it lodges in his large intestine – this requires him to use a hula hoop to masticate his food externally.

The weather finally broke today, and the sun poked it’s way through the clouds and burned off the lingering malaise, leaving only a fine mist of grief here in Northern New Jersey. I am returning back to training after giving myself the weekend off. It’s far too early in the training season to bother with riding in the cold rain, so I spent the weekend parenting and watching all forms of televised sports, which is much more tiring than it sounds, as there are many sports happenings happening right now, not least of which is the current winning streak of the Beloved Iowa Hawkeyes, who are on their best run in 86 years. I did my part in the winning streak and observed their win over the Wisconsin Badgers, I now expect to be repaid for my efforts. I will invoice them after the season.

BFF of the Day
1983 – Actor Kevin Costner is shown riding a bicycle in a television commercial for the Apple Lisa computer, and the role subsequently lands him a job as a be-mustached bike racer in "American Flyers" – the Lisa computer featured in the commercial later bursts into flames in a jealous rage.

Today I awoke to find that I have gained enough weight to hit the Capybara portion of my rodent based weight graph. I’m not sure how this happened, as I rode yesterday, and didn’t really eat that much. I can only surmise that I can somehow magically absorb nutrients in to my system merely by being adjacent to foodstuffs. Right now, to test this theory, I am sitting on a bottle of vodka.

Before my ride today, somehow in an effort to zero my torque, I managed to turn my PowerTap head into a speedometer/heart rate monitor, two functions which the PowerTap does in an adequate fashion at best. I’m not sure how I did this, I was just pushing and holding down buttons like I was playing a spirited game on a Merlin (aged readers will get that reference to the red, telephone-shaped device that counted as a video game in 1978), and somehow managed to transform my PowerTap into the cyclometer equivalent of a VCR with a time of 00:00 flashing on and off endlessly. Need to say, I don’t have any wattage data from today’s ride, and that’s too bad because it would have been really interesting because I was doing uphill 20/10s today – and those numbers always have a story to tell. And that story usually involves frustration and descriptions of table inlays in flowery language, as fine woodworking is often the best way to describe duration-based exertions such as 20/10s.

But those numbers were lost and also are the metaphors I had planned about ebony veneers and the tragedy of poor clamping. I returned home to find that my wife had made egg salad and had left it out for me to have for lunch – I think she might be using my digestive tract to punish the children.

BFF of the Day
1990 – Caught in the grip of the neon paint craze, GT bicycles makes a prototype frame made entirely out of actual neon tubes. Testing for the new frames goes poorly when the crotch and inner thigh regions of all testers are cut to ribbons by broken glass, but that broken glass later is accidentally mixed with some Nutella in the GT engineers’ break room – and carbon fiber is born. 

Today I woke to a scale full of porcupine, which is better than yesterday’s capybara, but still not down to my goal of marmoted-ness, so today will be another day of dietary timidity. There is a bright spot in my morass of rodent-gauged weight watching, my new saddle came today. A few years back, I went through an exhaustive and complete search for a saddle that would fit my underworld regions well enough to ensure that I would not be grinding the area between my posterior and my gentleman parts into an awful gelatin made of ooze, bone and tragedy. And I was successful in my search, the Neuvation S3 was my salvation, with a shape that was perfect match for both my sit bones and my beef underpass.

This would all make for a fine fanny fairy tale except for the fact that my trusty S3 saddle began to show signs of wear and impending failure early this summer. I did my best to stave off the inevitable, I wrapped the splits in the saddle surface with electrician’s tape. I tried to stand whenever possible, but it was no use – the saddle would have to be replaced. But imagine my despair when I found that Neuvation no longer made the S3 saddle, in fact they had abandoned all saddle making whatsoever. My hair tunnel wailed in grief. I resigned myself to the notion that I would have to put my nether regions through another search for a luxurious lower loin landing pad. This would be the sad end of my tale but hope and light came to bear down upon me when I found, through the miracle of internet banner ad, that Neuvation has indeed, begun producing saddles once again. I ordered mine without hesitation, in fact I considered ordering two saddles, to have a spare at the ready should anything happen to my main perch.

I have mounted my new white (my first white saddle ever, in fact) butt buttress, and look forward to the joy that a new bicycle part brings – it doesn’t take much to get me excited, as the last two paragraphs show in excruciating detail.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

BFF of the Day 
1910 – In the beginning of a tradition that would last for decades, Ignaz Schwinn presents a gift bicycle to President Taft, made from the new miracle material steel. Taft later has the bike pulverized into powder in the belief that eating the metal filings would cure his gout.

One of the staples of my training routes is riding on the bike trail in the Saddle River County Park. The trail is about 10 miles long, dead flat, free from any motor vehicle traffic, and in a testament to the Bergen County Parks Commission’s zealousness, it is plowed and salted in winter. I use it quite often, so often in fact I think I could close my eyes and do a pretty good colored pencil "Google Map" style rendering of the entire route. And since I use this route on such a consistent basis, I’ve come to know the other park users who frequent the trails at the same time I do, usually at midday during the work week. They are my compatriots, and they are the cast of characters that comprise the asphalt drama that I view from behind my silver sunglasses, and I will share their stories with you here.

Firstly there’s the MILF Hunter, he rides a mountain bike with a set of clip on aero bars. He always has on a set of headphones that I believe were a giveaway with the last Cheap Trick album. He never wears a helmet, but instead opts for this feathered hair to blow in the breeze. He seems to enjoy riding his bike in the aero position, and seems quite dedicated, in fact, the only time I’ve seen him slow down is when he decides to throw his rap down on any of the ladies who are out trying to jog their way through the park before returning home before picking up their kids at school. In fact, he can often be seen riding slowly next to the next character in this suburban melodrama, the Goose Feeder.

The Goose Feeder is a woman of early middle age who dresses in the manner of a loose moraled teenager sneaking out to meet her boyfriend for a date at a 1970s roller rink. And despite the fact that there are Canadian Geese in the ponds, streams, fields, parking lots, bathrooms, playgrounds and park benches along the bike path, she insists on bringing along a bag of stale bread to feed to them, lest they go hungry or somehow stop multiplying like white cheeked rodents. I’m not sure, but I think that there might be a flirtation between the MILF Hunter and the Goose Feeder, as I have seen the MH slowly riding next to the Goose Feeder as she does her walkjog to a secluded spot where she can discharge her dried bread bounty for the waterfowl from up north. She could also be out of MH’s league, and may be just tolerating his presence to be polite, Needless to say, I will be keeping a very sharp eye out for any developments.

On the opposite end of feeding, we have the Frighteningly Skinny Lady. She’s out walking all the time, and really, she needs to stop exercising. If I could I would prescribe a winter in Green Bay for her, in order to beef her up and allow her to acquire a taste for sausages of all manners; but usually I don’t say much as I roll past. Sometimes I blow a snot rocket, but I don’t think that counts as an intervention.

Finally there’s Reflective Helmet Guy, an individual I see almost every time I’m out on my bike. He’s a classy septuagenarian who can be found pedaling his hybrid about the bike paths in all seasons. He wears a vintage black Skid Lid helmet, which he has customized with a Tron-like pattern of reflective safety tape for a look that’s both safety-conscious and fashion forward – well, forward back to 1982 at least. Needless to say, I hope to one day have one-fifth of his moxie.

We all share the path that winds along the Saddle River, and I’m sure I have become as much a part of their path routine as they have become of mine. I can’t help but wonder what they think of me. Do they notice as I whizz past? Do they have their own nick name for me? If so, what do they call me? Do they think I’m a Lance wannabe? Do they dread seeing me coming? Are they impressed by my cycling acumen? O do they just know me as "That jerk-off in tights"?

And finally, I hit the Guinea Pig (which sounds dirty) this morning, so I can booze freely when I meet up with my teammates in the city tonight – who says I can’t set a goal and meet it?