Progress

It's amazing to me that I spent the better part of two months working my way to a certain point, only to take a ten day vacation and be back to, what feels like, square one. Given I did get a little sick on my trip to Costa Rica and Panama, but I thought I would be better off than I am. C'est la vie.

The good to come out of this is that I now feel like I have to push myself. Before, I was stalled at doing a 20-35 mile flat rides at an average speed of 15mph (18-22mph until you have to slow down for other riders). Now I feel like I have to push myself to be comfortable doing a 50 mile ride in a month. So to prepare for a 75 mile ride, I'm going to do a 50 mile ride a month before hand. It's added a nice dose of urgency that I didn't have before, and it's one hell of a motivator.

I also decided that I'm terrible at climbs.

My normal rides are Bridgeport to either the Art Museum (35 miles, 45 if we ride from Betzwood), Audubon (20 miles) or Valley Forge (19 Miles). The Art Museum ride has a few hills, but nothing long enough to count as a climb. The Audubon Loop has a hill that reaches 9% at the top, and is a quarter mile long, but is otherwise flat. Valley Forge has three hills that when done one after the other are challenging, but only wouldn't be any worse than the Audubon hill. So the main thing that started to stand out to me is that I don't really have any climbs on the rides I go on. So my goal for the next few weeks is to go out and find roads that go up and last longer than a quarter mile. They don't need to be destroyers, but I want a challenge. As it stands, I hate climbing more than I love anything else, so if I can find a twisty road with a 5-8% grade that goes on for two or three miles in over developed, suburban Philadelphia, I'll be stoked.

I'm also in the market for a a small point and shoot camera so I can take snap shots while riding and have some fancy pictures to go along with all these silly words. Something tells me I wouldn't enjoy lugging around my SLR on rides.

One last note...

BOO RICARDO RICCO! BOOOOOOO!

A Few Things I've Picked up

There are a few things I've picked up in the two months I've been riding that have given me some insight into cycling. I figured I'd share them. Any of this info can be found online or in magazines, so I’m not exactly reinventing the wheel here, but feel free to list any thing you (the reader) have picked up along your way.

"Cyclists" Are Assholes

To be fair, I've met so many more nice people than douche bonnets while riding, but as a whole, I would classify cyclists as assholes. From the guy with the $10,000 bike who looks down on everyone else who doesn't at least have a carbon frame to the guy who was riding two abreast and called me a "fucking asshole" because I got to close to him, to the amateur and pro racers who don't say a thing as they pass you then cut you off... they're just pricks. Judgmental, classless pricks. If I had a choice between riding with a group a guys who think that every ride is a qualifier for the Giro, or a group of guys with mountain pedals and a seat bag on their road bike, I'm taking the "uncool" seat bag/Mt. pedal group. At least I know that they wont have their front tire two feet up my ass when they're drafting me. Speaking of which...

Drafting

The sooner you try to get used to doing twenty miles per hour a foot behind the rider in front of you the better. It's uncomfortable and down right nerve wracking to a person who's not even comfortable on their own bike, but it's a must for riding with a group. Just remember to look as far ahead as possible (sometimes that's only the jersey in front of you) and not at the tire in front of you.

Climbing

Why people want to climb is beyond me. The rational part of me what's to go "Fuck this shit, I'm walking." about three rotations into a climb, but there's some part of me that needs to prove to myself that I can do it. So much so that I crave it some times. Like cold Pizza, only I'm probably more likely to throw up from the climbing. In my attempts at climbing, I've found a few things that make it so much easier.
1) Breathe with your stomach. I didn't even know what that meant until Jen started her Yoga Teacher Training course, but it's something I used to do on long runs that I was completely forgetting to do when climbing. Now I breathe like a fat guy taking the stairs. It's okay though. I'd rather sound like I'm about to give birth, and make it up the hill than breathe silently and have to get off my bike.
2) Pedal all the way around. When I first started riding, I would only push down on the pedals. But part of the reason you shelled out so much money for them fancy shoes and pedals is so you can take advantage of the upstroke as well. This makes a huge difference is how long you can climb.
3) Calm down. I found I was so tense climbing that I would forget to do things. Like breathing. I would also Tense up my back and have a death-grip on my handlebars. So I started a check-list in my head for when I start a climb. Breathe, sit up a little and relax. Relax is relative because my legs are screaming at me, and no matter how deep I breathe, I never seem to get enough air, but my back no longer hurts half way up and I get enough air to make it to the top.
4) The only way to get better is to do more hills. Jen likes to tell me that I should go to the gym more and lift weighs to help my climbing. I've found that the more I do hills, the easier they become. There's a hill by us that is a quarter mile long and is a nine percent grade until the top when it only gets steeper. The first time I did it I had to stand up at the end, and I could barely move after that. The second time I made it up just as fast, but I got there sitting the whole time and I was able to ride like normal afterwards. I was tired and a little out of breath, but I could ride.

Learn/use call signals

If you're riding in a group, this is a must. The first time I heard someone yell "Rider up!" I had no clue what was going on. I learned what they meant, and then never used them. This caused a lot of confusion to the other people I was riding with. Since I'm very soft spoken and It's impossible to hear me while riding, I just use the hand signs when I'm leading. I even use them when I'm riding by myself. Mostly to keep myself in the habit, but also because some times I never know when someone has snuck up on me. It helps the strangers know what I'm doing. And maybe they just think I'm nuts and back off. That's fine too, as long as no one runs into me.

Practice the easy stuff

I had the hardest time clipping in and out of my SPD pedals. Mostly getting in, but I've had at least one spill where I just forgot my feet were locked in and I fell right over. I started practicing clipping in and out on the trainer, just to get used to it. It helped a lot. I also would ride to a parking lot and practice things like riding in a figure 8, or riding with one hand. The more you do it, the better you'll be at having to do it when you need to.

Ride with one hand/ Learn to drink while on the bike

I didn't used to drink unless we stopped when I first started riding. That's very bad. I knew I should drink more, but I was never comfortable enough in a group to take my hand off the bars. Dumb. Add "drink while riding" to the practice section above. Once I was comfortable, I had a hard time figuring out when I should be drinking. I was so excited and scared to be in a group that I would forget to drink. To cure this, I would just drink when the person in front of me did. They're slowing down, so It's an opportune time for me to grab a quick sip too.

My History With Bicycles

The question I get asked the most lately is "Why a bike?" For people who know me, it's a valid question. Bicycles and I have had a weird relationship over the years. Most kids get a bike around 5 or so, but I didn't get my first bike until I was 7. My dad finally got around to teaching me how to ride it when I was 8.

All of the neighborhood kids I played with had bikes. For two years I would just run behind them while they rode around. I was a natural runner so it didn't bother me at first, but as my friends got older, and we could explore farther, running began to get old. So I made my dad teach me how to ride that two-wheeled thing in the garage. I don't remember who made the bike, but it was black and gold with the word "piranha" on the down tube. It didn't have hand brakes and pedaling backwards was so foreign to me that I almost rode into traffic on more than one lesson. I would ride with my friends, even though I had absolutely no control over what I was doing. Most of the time I would pedal with my left, and push off the ground with my right in a half riding/half running manner that made my piranha an awkward shaped scooter more than a bicycle. I was a laughing stock to my friends, but I didn't care. I was going to get it. Eventually, it clicked, and when it did I was addicted.

I lived at the bottom of a steep, long hill, which had a sharp right turn at the end. The hill owned me. It became my life mission to make it up the hill without having to get off my bike. I used to fly up the hill in a fit of fixed gear fury, only to have to stop half way and walk up the rest. All so I could bomb down the hill at stupid speeds and take the sharp right hand turn as fast as I could, followed by slamming on the brakes to make the longest skid mark possible... and not ride into traffic.

By the time I was 9 I could not only make it up the hill, I could sprint up it without thinking. I would ride my bike for miles. My dad one day asked me if I wanted to go for a bike ride. I said "sure!" and he threw my bike and I into the back seat and we were off. Little did I know that by "bike ride" my dad meant "you want to do a 30+ mile ride down to the Philadelphia Art Museum and back?"

It was hot, I was less than 10, which meant I had the attention span of a gnat, and neither of us were prepared for how long it was going to take. When I said above that I would ride for miles, I didn't mean these kind of miles. To this day I still wonder what the hell my dad was thinking.

Valley Green (also known as Forbidden Drive) is a gravel path that follows a stream that eventually dumps you in Fairmount, which is a section of Philadelphia. From there, we would have to make it to Kelly Drive (East River drive then) and ride down to the Art Museum, circle around and come back up West River Drive and go back through Fairmount, find Valley Green's path, and make it back to the car.

It was so hot that I went swimming in the stream for a little while. My dad allowed this, probably knowing the ridiculous amount of chafing I was about to endure on the rest of the ride. When we made it close to the Art Museum, I was so hungry we had to stop. My dad bought me the worst tasting hamburger I have ever had. A homeless man asked if he could have a piece and I handed him the whole thing. He said "you know I'm not going to give this back, right?" I responded "Good, It taste terrible." Somehow, we made it back. My dad and I never did that ride again.

After that, things went back to normal. As we grew, my friends all got larger bikes. Most of them were mountain bikes, so I naturally wanted a mountain bike. Not just any mountain bike. I wanted Huffy's White Heat. For those of you who don't remember, White Heat was probably the ugliest bike ever created. It was white with black and neon yellow highlights and had motocross style hand protectors on the handle bars. It also had hand brakes which was a huge plus for me. My parents got me White Heat. A few months later I got into skateboarding and bikes were no longer cool. So at age 12, I stopped riding, and wanted nothing to do with riding a bike. Because of how obnoxious BMX bikers were when I was skating, I grew to hate bikes. When I got a car, this feeling only grew because now bikes were traffic obstacles that slowed me down. I could never again see myself on one.

Fast-forward 10 years. At 26 years young I was working all of the time, eating like crap and couldn't run anymore because of stress fractures in my ankle. I was getting fat and was so out of shape that the first time I tried doing anything athletic I threw up. A lot. In a gym full of people and my girlfriend. It was embarrassing. I wanted to do something I could ease into and was low impact. I was going to buy a bike. I had a friend who worked at a bike shop, and I only knew two things going in: I wanted to ride at Valley Green, and I wanted a Trek. Why a Trek? I think it was the only manufacturer that I knew. He pointed me towards a hybrid. My test ride consisted of three circles in a parking lot big enough for 5 cars. I took it. I regretted it. The hybrid had a triple crank up front and shifted like crap. I could barely make it up small inclines because my legs were so weak and I had no idea what gear to be in when, and the few times I did have an idea, my bike wouldn't shift. The deal breaker was when my girlfriend (Jen) got a bike. She had been doing spinning classes and decided to get a bike. She bought the cheapest road bike REI had and we went down to the Schuylkill path. At a blazing 12mph she would get so far ahead of me that I couldn't see her anymore. I was agonizingly slow and weak, not to mention embarrassed and pissed. I hated my bike again.

Jen went on to ride all summer. She found out her cousin Niko was riding too, and they became riding buddies. They signed up to do 75miles of the MS 150 in September of last year and they did it. I was there as they crossed the finish line and I couldn't have been more proud of Jen. I also couldn't have been more jealous. She had been having so much fun on her bike all summer, and it made me think of how happy I was as a kid riding my bike and I wanted that back. So then and there, at the finish line in Ocean City NJ I decided I was going to get a bike I loved.

After the MS ride, Jen got fitted for a custom frame. She got herself a carbon fibre frame made by Guru called the Geneo. Weighing in at less than 4lbs for the frame, and aerodynamically shaped, the bike is a looker and a performer. It evokes the same kind of response from cyclists that a Ferrari does from car enthusiasts. It made me even more resolved to get a bike I loved.

In late January, I finally found it. I had decided through research that I was going to get an aluminum frame with a carbon fork and rear stays. I wanted comfort, speed and a price tag around a grand. Something that I could keep up with Jen and Niko with. I went to Highroad Cycles in Wayne and talked to Lauren and John about what I wanted. After a few test rides, I walked out with a $2,400 Specialized Tarmac Comp. It's a carbon frame with Shimano 105 components. The second I got on the bike it took me back to being 10 again. At one point on the test ride I had passed a car I was moving so fast. I was hooked again.

That brings you up to date. I now ride about 2-4 days a week, and anywhere from 50-100 miles a week depending on weather. I signed up for the City to Shore MS 150 (donations can be made here:http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/PAEBikeEvents?px=4568102&pg=personal&fr_id=8150) to ride with Jen and Niko in September. My goals for the summer are to be riding 150-200 miles a week, climb the wall in Manayunk and do the Art Museum ride, and the Audubon Loop in one day (approx. 55miles or so).