Team MWC, FTJ, NGT

Review: Ropix jump rope shoes

2011-11-22T11:32:00.008-05:00

*Draft * 11-22-11

This review looks at some jump rope specific footwear called Ropix. The first question one has to ask themselves is am I willing and is it worth it to pay $XX for a jump rope specific shoe? Don't go by my answer as I am a true gear head. Whether is is bike parts, snowboard parts, rainwear, watches, or tools. If there is a product that will improve any part of my experience that is a good value for the money and designed well, it is a no-brainer for me.

My perspective is that the connection between my hobbies and the rest of my life is closer than you think. A good day on the bike, or the gym translates over in small was into the rest of the day. I've been doing certain activities for years and years, so a high upfront expense for a product that will see continuous long term use will amortize itself across many years. I spend a long long time researching a specific item, balancing out the value for the money, and magic bullet potential. Sometimes the product works out great, other times it was a bust.

So with this product, my answer is yes, it is worth it.

Why jump rope specific shoes? I've been jumping rope off and one since college. Every winter when the bikes goes away and my weight lifting routine starts (all hail the Morris plan), I also pull out the rope. I hate to run. treadmills, outdoors anywhere except when playing soccer. For whatever reason my connective tissue just cannot get over that initial pain when starting to run. I've tried at least half a dozen times over the years and never make it past a few weeks. Jumping rope on the other hand is an insane workout and the bang for buck in terms of work performed compared to time is high. All with minimal impact compared to running

I love the mechanics of jumping rope and footwork and crossovers. Combined with some good music and it is the closest to dancing that I get. Just jumping up and down on two feet can be inherently boring. However when you start getting efficient and realize that the rope is only a 1/4 thick and learning the timing between your jumping rhythm and the rope it can get really really fun. It's all about timing and knowing when, and how high off the ground you need to be in association with when the rope is going to be underfoot. I do this a lot. Take a simple concept and complicate it. You should see me work with my 13 year old on algebra!

Most people think it's all about the calves and jumping high. It's really a lot more of some of your smaller muscles like this Tibialis Anterior

I also have a good rope. Same question as earlier. Why spend a $30+ on a jump rope? when a $5 special at Dicks will work? no question here. I'd rather jump well than whip myself every time with a crappy rope. Buddy Lee is lord king buddah in this area. I've had a Rope Master for more than 10 years. Replaced the bearings and the rope once.

Anyway, back to the shoes. What makes these shoes a application specific design, and what is wrong with regular alternatives like running shoes or cross training shoes? Two major things: 1) running and crosstraining shoes are designed for heel impacts. there is very little major heel impact in this activity. 2) Running and cross training shoes are also designed with wide forefoot sections. This is a pain in jumping rope as the widest part of the shoe catches on the rope.

The designer of Ropix wanted something that wasn't a compromise. Narrow cross section combined with the specific loading of jumping rope as opposed to adapting a running shoe. This is what he came up with. I think they created some technospeak that wasn't really necessary. Why get caught up in the hype of marketing speak when there is no other shoe that is competing with you in this space. Leave that to Nike and Asics. Plain and simple, it's designed with jump-roping in mind.

I ended up ordering the Sonic White/Black leather lace up. If I were doing it again, I'd go for the mesh style with the velcro as I'll talk about in a bit.

On first glance they seemed really narrow and long. Part of that is the comparison with my other shoes and most running shoes. They just have a real narrow profile which is awesome when doing cross overs. I can really tell that I am catching the rope on the shoe much less. This gives an extra margin for error when tired and sloppy.

Sizing seems a tad big. Meaning a tad long in the toe. I typically wear 8M. I've got a bit more gap at my toe, and wonder if going a 1/2 size small might be good sort of like climbing shoes or snowboard boots. Not a big deal.

The laces on the lace up model are too long. I have to stuff them into the shoe to keep the rope from catching on them. Hence why I'd suggest the velcro model. The leather is pretty nice. Looks tough and able to stand up to anything. But it also makes the shoes warm. My feet sweat a lot anyway, so would have been better with a mesh style. I don't think they offer a mesh/velcro model. It looks like the velcro is in a nubuck material

The sole material is where this shoe is really different. Super tough material, Minimalist everywhere except the ball of the foot.

It is really weird at first. And I must say, you have to give these shoes at least 2-3 weeks to get used to. It feels like you've got a big wad of gum on your shoes. Or like you are standing uphill. If you look close, the section also has a rounded profile as opposed to a flat profile. This forces you to use extra stabilizing muscles that you don't normally use. So at first it feels awkward and unstable. When jumping with both feet on the ground it isn't as much of an issue, but as soon as you start doing some foot work and alternating between one foot and the other, you notice real quick, that you have to stabilize yourself a little more. My muscles in the front of my shin were pretty soar for a two weeks as I got used to it.

The shoes come with a sock liner that has some gel in the heel

If you've read any of my previous blogs you know of my universal hatred for sock liners on almost all shoes. They are worthless in my opinion. I have flat feet and have to use an orthotic insert of some kind and took these out and put in some Superfeet Blues. I'm a special case I'd say. One thing is if you are just going to use them for jumping rope, then there really is no need for any arch support. But I like them better with aftermarket insoles, and the designer said that was their approach. Replace them if you want, otherwise you might be fine with them.

I weighed them (w/o sock liners) and they are decently light. I didn't weigh my other shoes, but can immediately tell they are lighter on the feet.

Performance wise, it has taken a good 2.5-3 weeks to get used to the shoes. The feeling of the extra padding on the forefoot and the rounded profile has taken a while. My muscles, especially on the front of the shin needed some time to grow stronger, and were burning a lot during the first week. I love the low profile and the rope catches on my foot a lot less.

I would say that this design works very well. I am jumping better than I have in years. As some of these minor stabilizing muscles got used to the extra work, lifting off the ground is effortless. Double jumps are easier, footwork is easier. What is really weird, is swapping back to my other shoes to jump rope. It feels so crazy. Like I'm almost jumping in a little decline because that extra padding in the sole isn't there. That lasted all of about 5 seconds and changed back to the ropix immediately.

The lighter weight is noticeable. It's is like cycling which is a repetitive activity. Thousands of RPM over the course of a ride, so a small difference in weight at the pedal or shoe creates a cumulative impact. So while these shoes might be just a bit lighter than other shoes it adds up over the course of the routine.

Changes I'd suggest would be making a mesh/velcro model available, shorter laces on the lace model. Sizing down by half a size possibly. Buyers might want to swap the sock liner for an aftermarket model.

Yes, a significant investment for a piece of equipment that will get used for 20mins 2-3x week between November and February. With the few hotel gym travel days thrown in throughout the year. But for any gear head who cares about sport specific improvements, well worth it. I also just appreciate someone with entrepreneurial spirit to take the initiative to see a gap, and fill it with a specific design. That takes a lot of guts, work, and money I'm sure. Whadda-country I say, where if you want you can find jump rope specific shoe or an aftermarket lever for your Juicy 7.

Awesome Manitou service tutorial

2011-02-26T09:35:00.003-05:00

I'm a big fan of Manitou Forks. I have been on them since the Manitou 2 back in the early 90s. They may not be the best forks, and have had their share of mistakes, and creating frustrations for me. But I love 1) the customer service and 2) the ease in performing basic maintenance, and the tune-ability. Most people hated SPV, but I sort of like it, and all the forum posts on how to devolve it made for some fun.

Working on them is messy for sure and you can poke your eye out or shoot oil across the garge, but for me it's one of those therapeutic flow activities like scraping a snowboard.

Here is a great tutorial I found on working on the forks. The guy really goes into details that I never knew.

On variables and the body's ability to compensate

2011-02-07T20:20:00.005-05:00

For less than a dozen days within a year, I can get out onto the snow for boarding. Only a handful of times to not only ride, but also tweak and mess with configuration variables of equipment. In which each has the power to change performance with only mm of change. Yet within all this variability, there seems to be only degrees of improvement that the body has an amazing ability to compensate for and overcome. Leading to the question of at what point is it worth stopping the tweaking and just concentrate on the riding and adapt to whatever it is?

Here is a list of variables that can have noticeable affects.
The board
-length
-Type (park, pipe, freestyle, all mountain, freeride, big mountain, twin, directional twin)
-Camber type and flat camber
- wax type
- edge detuning

Boots
-flex
-heel hold
-toe box

Bindings

-highback flex
-highback forward lean
-stance width
-front angle
-rear angle (duck vs both forward)
-regular or goofy foot forward
-stance centering
-flex pattern on straps
-where the strap hits your foot
-toe strap set as cap or across the top of foot
-highback rotation
-canting angles
-heel wedge

With all the variables one can isolate a single one and change it one at a time, or change multiple variables at a time. And with limited time on the snow, there is no way to test all combinations. Something I'm actually looking at in my research is methodologies for testing like factorial design where you test a limited number of configurations but can gain some insight into what other combinations would be given the results

Sometimes I thinks it's time to settle on a configuration and then let you body adapt. I'm almost there, but took a little step backwards with this little gaffe. I think stance position is probably one of the most important settings. The board manufacturers provide a recommended location where the center of your bindings ought to go.

This based on the location of the side cut and the type of conditions that the type of board was designed for. Sure I know more than anyone, but I imagine that the designers of the board defined these recommended position for important reasons.
Look close at the image below which is the top of a board similar to mine:

See the four holes that have a ring around them. These are the starting centered stance recommended by the manufacturer. All the other holes provide you two things, the ability to customize your stance width, and to also shift the entire stance back or forward to compensate for varying conditions such as powder. Which I know nothing of living in the east coast, but supposedly, you can shift your whole stance back to help lift the tip in deep snow.

So say you want a wider stance. The idea is to start at the centered location and than move both bindings out but X amount (one hole, two holes) rather than just moving one 2X. The disc of the bindings also allows a little more variability

So my board has a centered stance of 21", but with the inner most set of the 6 pack of holes, combined with the extra holes in the binding plate I can get a minimum of 18.5" stance width.

Widerstance --> stability but harder to bend at the knees/ankles.

Imagine my surprise when I took loosened up my plates to wax the board (important to loosen the screws when waxing so that the screws don't pull in little divots when you heat it up).

Hmmm, the rear binding seems to be placed off center to the back.

And I rode the whole day yesterday with it like this. Was it off the last time I went too? And how did I ride, ok, pretty good actually. The reason was that my timing of weighting and unweighting was improving a little bit. Something did feel off a little bit.

I of course changed it back to proper centering. And just for good measure added a little forward lean, and will probably remove some of that padding I was messing with in the boots. Why change one thing when you can just change several and start off riding like crap and then compensate over the next few times? But then the season will be over and start over next year.

I'm sure that the snow conditions are going to deteriorate into the ice and crust we typically have which will add another level of variability that wasn't included above.

Review of Nitro Team TLS snow board boots - an Do It Yourself DIY Bootfitting

2011-02-05T20:44:00.016-05:00

This post is a combo review of Nitro Team TLS boots 2009 and some experiences in DIY boot fitting

Age:42
Male
Ride Style: just mountain, mid atlantic small resorts (WV)
Board: K2 151 Believer flat base
Bindings: Rome Targa
Street shoe size 8 (7.5 in the Nitros)

2/6/11 ***note that I am rethinking the relationship between heel hold and ankle flexion and that some of the boot fitting things I tried probably weren't good because the padding pushed the top of my ankle into the harness more. Of course I cynched the harness down as tight as I could and the tops of my ankles were fried.

Summary:
Pros:
out of the box decent heel hold
high end construction
inner ankle harness
stays tight for the most part (need to re tightnen after few runs, inner harness came loose but got new lace locks from distributor)
dual zone lacing

cons:
takes forever to put on and get set up
hard to get off
original lace locks for inner harness would not stay tight
confusing lacing (at first) SLOW, lots of extra lace to deal with
laces don't stow well in the little holders

Vitals:
42 years old, M, size 8 street shoe, (right foot bigger), intermediate boarder in WV resorts, just riding the runs, no park/pipe.

-Very flat feet and very narrow ankle and bad circulation (Perniosis) You just can't get much worse than my feet.

With a very narrow ankle from very small bone structure, finding snowboard boots is a real struggle. My bone frame is extremely small, my 12 year old son's wrist is bigger than mine, so you can imagine how narrow my ankle is.

Snowboarding is utter hell on the feet. Sure in ski boots you cram your foot into some icebox an entire size smaller than your foot. But in boarding you have to flex your feet alot, especially on easy runs and flat catwalks. The ankles and your heel hold can make or break any toe-side turn. So having tight heel hold is essential. It often turns out to be a tradeoff between how tight you can cinch your boots down to hold your heel and not cut off circulation to you foot. The circulation issue is especially aggravating because it tends to be cold, duh when snowboarding. The trade off I think is between holding the heel snug while still enabling flexion at the ankle so you can bend at the ankle and knees when driving the board forward and absorbing terrain.

I've had some old northwaves and some Salomons Synapse. The Sals are supposed to be good for narrow heels, but the inner liner packed out very fast and the lacing on the inner liner would not stay tight more than one run.

I don't live in an area with access to lots of boots to try on. From a lot of reading and forums and chatting with sales people online the list of boots that seem on the better side for narrow ankles is:
Northwave Decade SL
Ride FUL-Intuition Liner
Thirty Two TM2
Nitro Team TLS
Salomon Malamutes
Salomon F22

I got the Nitro Teams last year from Backcountry. So far they have been pretty good for the heel hold but have their issues like I am thinking any boot does.

The Team TLS is a pretty high quality boot. Construction is solid, it's decently warm I guess. I am always cold and use toe warmers almost every time so am not a good judge of that aspect. It seems to be a trait of high end boots to incorporate an ankle harness with the boot.

I seem to like this method over having the liner itself have it's own laces but I only have the Salomon's to compare to. The liner is ok I guess.

I don't think has any heat molding characteristics like the Thirty two or Ride FUL. I heard the Thirty Twos have a lower end Intuition liner. Which I also heard is a good thing to go for if you have narrow ankles. I think the Ride FUL has a higher end intuition. Intuitions require a good way of heating it. Store will have an approved oven. There is also a good you tube video where the guy heats up rice stuffed in a sock.

The sock liner is an utter piece of crap like most sock liners that come in boots and cycling shoes. They ought to just leave it out an put a piece of cardboard in or just send you a check for to go buy some super feets. Here is a picture of it next to superfeet Blues, more on this later.

The inner harness laces uses a sliding lace lock

The first one that came would not stay tight. The distributor was really nice and sent me some newer ones:

The do seem to work better.

The one problem with this inner harness is that I have to cinch it down tight to get really good heel hold, But it aggravates a nerve on the top of my foot

or it cuts of circulation but it can get really bad after a few hours in the cold.

The outer lacing system is called TLS. every manufacturer of boots has their own special lacing system. Some prefer to stay with traditional laces like a lot of Thirty Two boots. The trick with traditional laces is to learn how hockey players laces there boots. They do two things. They use a lace puller to get the laces tighter than you can with bare hands, and they twist the laces to keep it from coming loose.

The TLS use a two lace system that allows you to tighten the lower laces different than the upper. For me it wasn't an issue because it's always as tight as I can. But sometimes I do keep the lower ones a little looser. The lower laces are black and the upper laces are grey. I found that I have to pull each row of laces with my fingers to get them snug before I pull on the laces with the handles. I typically get the top ones just a little tight, then pull the lower ones then back to the uppers than the lowers again.

Here they are in the loose mode:

The lack locks are spring loaded and once you pull up they lock into place keeping the lace from coming loose.

One of the problems with these types of speed lace systems is that there is a lot of laces and they have to go somewhere. In the you tube videos they wrap the excess around the handle and then stuff the handle in these little side pockets. No way does that work given how tight the pockets are. I can barely get the handle in alone.

I just wrap the lace around my calf and stuff the handle in. Same with the inner liner lock.

Problems I've had have been the inner lace coming loose, and not being able to get heel hold totally under control, as well as just plain my foot hurts like hell after a few hours in the cold and standing up. I've tried to remedy issues in a few ways

1) Get some decent insoles.
Getting some custom or aftermarket insoles is an absolute must if you have flat feet and pronate badly like I do. I suffered in cycling for years before I finally broke down and got custom insoles.
The inner sock liner must go almost always. There are several ways to go for the insoles. Drug stores, etc, have Spenco inserts. Superfeet are a great choice. Super feet green or blues. They also make a red that has foil on the inside which is supposed to be warmer. I've used Super Feet blues for a while, but after a bad day finally got my cycling orthotics to sort of work. The cycling orthotics are 3/4 length then have a neoprene top which bunches up at the end of the snowboard boot. But I sort of have it working.
Here is a comparison showing the Nitro, superfeets and my customs:

Notice two things. 1) how high the arch is on the customs. A good test to see how flat your feet are is to step into some water and then step onto smooth concrete. Take a look at the wet impression. You can see pretty quick if you have flat feet or have a natural arch. Mine is bad. 2) Notice that the custom and the Superfeets have plastic. in the arch. That means there is very little give in the arch.

Some after market orthotics like the Shred Soles

have a shaped arch but they don't have a rigid structure.

A note on the shred soles. They are made by a small company that obviously has soul and rider owned. I got some and they didn't work out for me. The owner was really straight up, the box said money back if unsatisfied and he was true to his word. I think they are a great design and have some extra features specifically for snowboarding in the heel and asymetric design that is thicker on the outside. So for someone with a relatively normal foot, it would be a great choice over the stock liner, but for real bad flat feet probably not.

There is also the Sole brand, I got some cheap on ebay and these seem to be the thicker kind. I think they make a thiner one that is probably better for snowboard boots. They have a very deep heel pocket and nice arch. It is not totally rigid like the superfeets but it does hold shape decently well

Others I have heard of are Down Unders and A Line

Right now I have my cycling ones in there which are custom and it seems to work ok. A KEY point with flat feet and orthotics that have an arch is that you can eek out some extra toe room because your foot is raised in the arch which pulls your toes back a hair. This is a god send in cold weather and wearing boots that are tight. Which they should be. Toes are supposed to touch when standing, but move back a hair when you lean forward.

In areas with good ski shops, you can find custom insole makers. I don't have any experience with those. I got mine made mail order by a podiatrist that specialized in cyclists. He sent foam in a USPS mailing box. I stood in them and sent them back, he made the orthotics from that impression. Not the best way I'm sure, but one way if you don't have access to the expertise.

Again, I have no access to a pro bootfitter, so I started to take matters into my own hands (probably a mistake as I don't have a clue what I'm doing). Tognar sells some boot fitting supplies. I decided to try some ankle wraps

and J bars.

I also got the ELIMINATOR which goes under the tongue of your boot to take up space and push your ankle/heel back.

I just tried to mix/match and try ways to fill the dead space around my Achilles tendon.

Verdict.
Improvement in heel hold: yes. However at the high price of more pain at the top of the foot. Cinching the ankle harness down as tight as I usually did with the new padding there placed hellish pressure on the top of the foot, and inhibited ankle flexion.

--------------
note that I tested out some of the mods today. While the heel hold was improved the strain on my ankles is much higher, top of the foot to be exact. Think about when you flex your ankle, trying to bring your toes closer to your shins. The combination of extra padding around the heels and tight ankle harness put the hurt on in that area.

The real interesting thing, is that I had a free coupon for a lesson at winterplace. I ended up taking it at the end of the day when I was beat and my ankles were hurtin for certain. I've been going on the assumption that a loose boot is a bad boot, and that it caused delayed reaction in my turning. But at one point, after tightening the boots my ankles were hurting again. So bad that I stopped and loosened them noticeably. At the same time we happened to be working on initiating turns by driving with the front foot first. The first step in the move is twisting the board with the front foot while the rear is flat. Then after the twist, driving the shin forward which just lifts the whole board onto to side edge.

so foot is locked in binding, drive the shin forward, which equates to really bending at the knees AND ankles. Hmm, a few times I really felt it. funny thing is you can't do that if the ankles are totally locked down. they have to flex to get that deep drive. So I actually had the board up on edge and my boots were looser. So I don't really need that ultra locked down tightness, what I need is better technique.

I only felt it a few fleeting times, so am now thinking of going back to w/o the padding, and shooting for a very snug fit, but not locked in place.

I've always heard about bending at the knees. But I'm thinking that this also means flexing at the ankles too. And if an ankle harness is totally locking your ankle movements than you can't flex.

I've been thinking about heel lift all wrong I think. I've always 'test' it by trying to lift the heel when standing up. So standing on my toes and trying to lift the foot up in the boot. WRONG. I think that it is foot flat on the floor, strapped in a binding, and then drive your shin forward. Then see if the heel lifts????

Proof of cold fingers

2010-11-07T13:38:00.004-05:00

I was at the First Lego League competition this weekend with my son. The biomedical school of Virginia Tech had some great research displays out. They had a very impressive high resolution infrared heat camera. This thing was so good it could show down to the eyelash level, which by the way don't conduct any heat.

My son and others were putting their hands and faces in front of it, and it showed a varying ranges of red for heat signatures. A cursor also allowed you to measure the temperature of any spot on the screen. I then put my hand up to the camera.

The operator and several other grad students working the displays all gasped. My fingers shown no red coloring whatsoever. My palm was red, but right about where my callousous are, the color went completely to grey/white and then by the very tip of the fingers, to dark grey. He took a temperature reading at my fingers and it came out at room temperature. No heat generation at all.

It was so freaky, but quantitatively and visually showed something that I've known for a long time. That I have cold fingers and toes.

The guy was saying that frostbitten fingers show up completely black on this camera. It's because the tissue and blood is actually frozen. People who try to rub their hands against each other to create heat from friction actually do cellular damage to frostbitten fingertips, because they are actually abrading the tissue away. Since it's frozen it's like chipping ice crystals away. It takes much longer to heal from frostbite.

This picture is nowhere near the resolution of the camera they had. Their camera was able to show the lines on the hand it was so good.

Shoulder update

2010-10-31T14:17:00.012-05:00

It has been many months since the last post regarding some shoulder problems. Here is an update on the situation after many months and several mistakes taken on the diagnostic pathway. I'd have liked to make these updates in real time, but I continue to live in another world of family/full time work/part time school that has isolated me from many other activities.

While the exact trauma can be traced to a particular day, I think that I've got a particular physiology that makes this type of injury harder to recover from and easier to to get on my right shoulder. I naturally have bad posture, and participate in an activity that contributes to slouching and rounded shoulders (ie biking). Not just cycling but mountain biking with several years of falling and rolling probably a few landings on outstretched arms all leading to stresses on the AC joint. The bad posture contributes to shoulder impingement by decreasing the amount of space in which shoulder ligaments have between the shoulder socket and the AC joint. The smaller this AC space the easier it is for the ligaments to get caught or impinged. This right shoulder has always seemed to have a strength imbalance compared to my left side, even though I am right handed.

For years I've easily 'thrown my shoulder' out when tossing a ball or a football. When doing turkish get ups with my right arm, I was fine when the arm was totally vertical in plane. But, if it got off angle at all, my arm would almost buckle when compared to my left arm. When viewing my trap muscles from the front, my left side is noticeably bigger and stronger.

I'd been working out 2x a week at crossfit, and really loving it. I loved the combination of high intensity, camaraderie, and time efficiency. 1 hr in and out, endorphin rush, and full body workout. We'd been doing some pushpresses . Light weights, high reps. The problem was my bony AC joint. I've got a point bump there, I think I've always had it. But every rep, I kept landing the bar onto this bump.

The next few days it was sore, but didn't think much of it. At first, while my bony AC joint was tender to the touch, it was my shoulder muscles that really felt bad. Any motions that caused isometric contraction of the front of the deltoid, such as pushing, sanding, RIDING MY BIKE hurt. The muscle just felt engorged or overloaded. And the bicep tendon running up the shoulder was tender and swollen. Additionally, and in hindsight the really telltale signs, were pain in movements where the arm crossed the chest and when moving the arm in an arc to overhead, the last third of the motion hurt.

I followed the natural course of action of rest, and ice, and ibuprofen. Combine being very busy with inherent desire to not go see doctors and I waited much much to long before doing something.

Several cycles of this and it really never went away. Finally, I went to my family doctor.
1) Mistake 1: Not going to go see an orthopedic specialist the first time. They took and xray and he prescribed high strength naproxen. The staff radiologist said the X ray was in spec and that the AC spacing was ok and there as no separation.

Several weeks go by, some improvement but not that much. Then I went to see a sports doctor.
2) Mistake 2: not going to see an orthopedic specialist. He prescribes PT. I go to PT and the PT assessment shows significant strength imbalance in my internal and external rotators on my right arm, and bad posture consisting of shoulders rolling forward which contributes to decreased AC spacing and potential for impingement. A combination of tight chest muscles and weak back muscles helped perpetuate the hunched forward position. The exercises several for internal/external rotators, stretching the chest. Plus some ultrasound and icing using the game day machine

After weeks of little to no activity, the PT was welcome. My whole shoulder system was so weak. We started with the lightest band and the smallest weights. My deltoids were just blown. afterwards.

Over the course of a few weeks, my strength definitely increased and the stability of the whole shoulder improved, but the pain the certain movements continued. The reassessment showed the improvement but still some significant weakness compared to the left arm.

Finally went to go see the orthopedic specialist. He does his assessment and history and then looks at the first xray I'd gotten months ago. The same xray that had originally come in as being fine. He takes one look at it and says AC osteolysis.
Also known as weight lifter's shoulder. Also known as arthritis of the AC joint. This issue is common with people who weight lift for a long time or do lots of overhead work. Ironically, bench press is also known to cause this problem and bench places significant stress on the AC joint. Along with dips. Pull ups also can aggravate it. I have been lifting off/on since highschool. But rarely did overhead work till this year.

The next step was either a cortison injection right into the joint. Which would be a definitive diagnostic more so then any sort of cure. But I wanted an MRI just to be sure that there wasn't anything else going on, because so much of my issues seemed to involve muscles and tendons.

As part of the MRI they also retook xrays.

If you look close in the XRAY you can see some black spots where there should be bone. This is the part of my clavicle that has eaten away. Healthy bone would remineralize back.

You can see the bump I speak of in my AC joint. The MRI was so weird. It was a contrast MRI which involved injecting dye into the shoulder area. The whole MRI experience was interesting but not something I'd like to go through on a regular basis by any means. Thankfully I'm not too claustrophobic. Here are some of the shots of the dye being put in:

And the MRI with the dye

The MRI came up fine, maybe a little bit of tendinitis, so the next step was the cortisone shot. He'd said that it may cause temporary relief or it may be all I needed. Several cortisone shots could be taken over the course of a year. Though there are some negatives of multiple injections. Surgery, an arthroscopic technique known as Distal Clavicle resection aka mumford procedure would be a final step if the cortisone didn't offer enough relief and I didn't want to continue dealing with the pain.

Getting the cortisone shot hurt like all get out. Like someone was taking a hammer to the joint. It was sore for a few days, and then all was good. The pain is virtually gone, it still hurts in certain places especially when puttting on/taking off a shirt. But the important thing is that I can bike again. I still ice it afterwards but other than that very little issue.

Who knows how long the shot will last. But I will put off any surgery as long as possible.

It was a bad summer/fall. School was/is very bad, combined with being unable to do much exercise at all and riding just made for some generally negative vibes. I felt like I lost out on a whole summer. But now that I'm back on the bike I feel much better.

I guess like many things in life, I took for granted the ability to ride. I've realized how much I miss it, and the social interactions of riding with friends. Missing all that time wasn't fun, but coming back to it helps me value this time much more. Plus starting over is good. I can relearn good habits instead of ingraining bad ones. It's taking several rides, but I'm amazed at how well the legs are starting to come back and how well the feeling of moving with the bike is coming back.

I still am gun shy on the downhills, and I can tell I don't have total shoulder stability like when I was lifting a lot. As soon as I can get past this class I'm going to restart the Morris lifting plan and stick with that into winter and ride when I can. Doubtful that I'll go back to the other xfit even though I miss the style of working out. But I think that the highrep workouts aren't the best thing for my joints. I'd like to do some yoga maybe as the one thing I can really feel from returning to the bike is lower back fatigue.

Lesson's learned.
1) the shoulder is very very complex, and not to be messed around with. If it feels bad go see an ortho w/o waiting.
2) cycling is a wonderful sport. Road riding, mountain biking, doesn't matter. For me, it is more than just an activity.
3) while different types of working out provide more balanced body development, there is no substitute for time on task and actually pedaling your bike to get better at actually pedaling the bike.

It's not over yet I'm sure. I've heard lots of people's cortisone stories so we'll just see the next step.

18:55 OF, shoulder pain, etc

2010-05-22T07:01:00.003-05:00

Lately, I don't have a chance to get on the bike during the week until Friday or Sat. I think that is too long to go without any saddle time. The legs get stale and one starts to loose the ability to tick the pedals over well.

Last week I'd done a hard high rep/low weight squat workout on Wed Enough to make the muscles tender to the touch. Then hard ride Thurs, followed by road ride with lots of climbing Fri. My legs were toasted. Yesterday I got out onto the Azure for up OF and down beast and up sidewinder.

18:55 up, legs felt better at the bottom, then started to fade. I need a new rear tire, the tread is gone and spinning out too much. Front end still feels wonky. Loosey goosey. Just can't tell if it's the wheel that feels flexy, or the fork. Gotta re-bleed the rear brake too.

My right shoulder is still a mess. Time to get a little more serious about treating it. I think a combination of events and continued use has contributed to inability to heal.

It started after we did a fair amount of shoulder work with push presses and push jerks. The problem wasn't the lifting it is my bony shoulder. My right shoulder has a little bony bump protruding from it: the acromion

On my right side it is big bump. The bar ended up bruising that bone I think. Then the next 3 days I rode on the mountain bike which places a fair amount of wear on the front of the shoulders. Then with all that fatigue in place, I was doing some basic pullups. But, it's amazing how much load is on the shoulders with pullups when you go all the way down and your arms are too close together. When you arms are fully extended and your shoulder is jammed up into your hear, it places a serious stress on the front part of the deltoid. That seemed to really do me in, and since then it just hasn't felt right. Just too much overhead work combined with bruising the tip of that bone. My right shoulder has always had some strength instability compared to my left

I ice it, rest it for a few days, then go and do something like a few days of mountain biking or back to working out. I'll take it easy, but there is no way you can avoid using your shoulder in daily activity or working out. Never realized this till it has issues.

The issue seems centered around the muscle at the front part of the deltoid (anterior deltoid). When I massage deeply and use the massage ball, muscle is knotted. Seems more so on the right side than the left, but the left also has knots.

,

But I think there is more going on here than just muscle. The worst pain is when my arms extended overhead and I hold my right wrist with my other hand and the try to move the arm in an arc to my side. This is an adduction motion, and the thing is, that muscle, isn't used in adduction. If I do this isometric motion against a wall, that muscle isn't even flexed.

I've been icing it and doing isometrics and stretching it, and it gets a little better, then I go an aggravate it again. The pain is sharp sometimes and even though it feels like it's coming from the front shoulder muscle, when I press around with my fingers to try and find it, I just can't pinpoint it.

After more googling, I think I found a potential answer: BICEPS TENDONITIS (LONG HEAD OF BICEPS TENDONITIS). Here is another site.

What struck me was this description:

What does biceps tendonitis feel like?

Pain related to biceps tendonitis is usually felt over the front of the shoulder, often with some radiation to, but not usually beyond, the elbow. Typically, the pain is aggravated by overhead activity and is worse at night. People may report a clicking or popping sensation in the affected shoulder

Makes sense that it is this tendon and not just the muscle. When I press around hard with my fingers trying to see if there is some trigger point in the muscle that is I just can't seem to get to it. The pain is radiated from the front of the shoulder but it's deeper. It seems counter intuitive for this to be related to the bicep because I consider it shoulder issue. But when you look at this diagram you can see that the bicep muscle connects into the shoulder joint.

So I think several weeks dedicated to
1) no overhead work
2) limited mountain biking
3) icing
4) isometric and band type strengthening excercises
5) stretches for biceps/shoulders
6) vitamin I or naproxen

5/8

2010-05-09T11:47:00.002-05:00

19:10
dually
dry

no riding day before
still don't feel that great on the azure, something isn't right with position or suspension (front and/or rear), maybe it's the legs, last two weeks have been off in general, not working out regularly or riding regularly.

TP massage ball

2010-05-02T20:26:00.002-05:00

Here's a video of using the Trigger point therapy massage ball on shoulder. I this alot especially after mountain bike rides. I've been trying to keep my elbows flared out a lot ala moto style and it places a lot of strain on my shoulders, front and rear (external rotators)

You'll see when he puts the ball underneath his shoulders he'll start taking deep breaths. !! believe you me it can take your breath away

The difference that a centimeter makes

2010-05-02T18:35:00.004-05:00

I knew something was wrong with my position on the Azure. At first my mind was explaining it away as cummulative fatigue, allergies, etc. But on rides the last two days I just couldn't turn the pedals over and had to just plain get off and walk several times on Old Farm and Beast. Now I am not saying that I'm so good that I don't ever have to walk. Yet for months I've been riding fairly well on those trails, maybe not like years past but definitely decent riding.

My left hamstring had been tender too. Deep in the belly of the muscle. I also noticed that my hip flexors hadn't been a sore as when on the hardtail. It's so obvious that my saddle had shifted on the rails given that this has happened several times before. The saddle has ti rails and this seatpost has a known issue with not being able to hold fore/aft position. When the saddle slides back, it effectively lengthens the saddle height. A telltale sign of a saddle that is too high is sore hamstrings. And for me, diminished capacity for leg turnover and good spin.

I pushed the saddle forward today and rode for a third day in a row on Brush. The result:
18:55 up OF. So that is 1 minute off of yesterday and 1:40 something off the day before. But keep in mind that today is the third day of hard riding and cumulative fatigue. So after 2 hard rides I'm now posting a faster time? I think the time savings would have been much more had I not been tired. Yesterday I climbed the beast and was just shut down several times. Today, it was noticeably different.I'm hurting for certain today. So bad that I took the offer for a ride home from the trail head. One thing though is that being tired, I just physically couldn't blow up like I had a few days ago. With out complete blowups I never did slow way down after a technical section.

It just amazes me the sensitivity to certain elements of position. Sure I can feel if my brake levers are even slightly rotated or if my cleat position has shifted a mm. But the actual affect of the saddle fore/aft on my legs was amazing. This shift for practically shut the legs down.

My body is tired. Especially my upper body. My right shoulder is tweaked a little. I'd messed it up in cross fit doing some shoulder presses where the bar had bruised the top of a little bone on the collar, but now the front muscles of the shoulder are hurting.

I see another crest forming for riding either this upcoming week or two weeks from now. I'm setting a goal to try and get the OF time down to sub 16 from the wood fence to the top.

notes - OF

2010-05-01T23:59:00.003-05:00

Azure, dry day, loose
19:45 OF fence to top

had taken a little air out of shock. Grabbed harder gear after spinning up legs. Helped bring heartrate down.

Think saddle has slide too far back. Hamstring hurts, deep in the muscle. Hard time spinning legs like I remember and compared to hardtail,

tracking OF climbs

2010-04-29T18:14:00.002-05:00

I'm going to start tracking OF climbs just for baseline.
Azure, rubbing brake, worn rear tire. calf, hamstring on left side hurting.

21:36 from fence to top. Felt really bad. I'm not sure if it is the pollen, coming off a good weekend and 2 workouts M and W, not used to position on bike, nutrition, etc. But I haven't felt this bad in a long time.

Left calf even cramped up within 10 minutes. I rarely cramp in training and if so not till many hours in. Breathing was very labored.

I think the key to climbing old farm is leg turnover. This is the ability to tick the legs over at good cadence throughout the whole thing. OF is not a steady grade, it is made up of many technical sections. In order to tick over through those sections you have to have the ability to maintain the gear you are in and spin up the legs and then recover while still under fire.

No doubt that I've got some strength but my best time is 5mins less. Today I tried to spin up the legs through some sections and I would just blow up over and over. This is all good as paying now means sooner or later the investment will come through.
on Azure, first time in a long time. In fact, just the ability to go hard enough to blow up such that I had to get off or just stop is a success in itself, in that it breaks through the typical self preservation mode. I think it was the pollen for combined with fatigue from the weekend and muscle fatigue from M and W workout.

I haven't been on the Azure in months and months. Wheel issues, brake issues, shock, etc. I can build a wheel but maybe not so great. I think something is wrong with the front, maybe spokes not tight enough. Still love the bike, but my timing is way off after being on the Hardtail for awhile. The 100mm fork and rear suspension had me zigging when I needed to be zagging. But when you zig when you're supposed to zig you can work with the shock and the terrain and get some free speed.

OF

2010-04-26T20:33:00.003-05:00

note to self
19mins fencepost to top OF, hardtail, after a light rain, little wet. day after hardish ride, eating wasn't timed right

big gains

2010-04-26T15:02:00.002-05:00

As I predicted, it was a good riding weekend in terms of fitness. Two weeks ago, I'd run myself in the ground with 4 consecutive hard/short rides. One week ago I felt terrible on the bike. No power, no energy, whole body having difficulty holding my body up on the bike. When that happens than every root, and every rock goings into you and it's the fatigue spirals up.

The whole past week though I hadn't been on the bike at all, which is a bad thing. No riding at all makes it take at least a few days to get the systems back in order and ready to go. So first day back, the legs are sluggish, but next day is good.

My whole body felt strong and was riding technically very well. On the hardtail, I was riding technically strong, but after two days on brush I was starting to feel the fatigue. The biggest limiter right now seems to be my mid back. The muscles just are fried and tired.

I'm not sure why this is a limiter now. I'm very strong these days in general from crossfit. The positive wave I'm on continued today with the CF Total which is Maxes in Squat, Shoulder Press and Deadlift. Squat I matched my best in 185 and I think could have gone higher. Shoulder press also maxed at 90 even with a bad shoulder, and PR'd Deadlift 295.

My speculation right now is that I am real strong in my quads and hips and can push a big gear. But all that power has to go through the low and mid back. I might have strength there, but maybe not the muscular endurance needed for multiple hours in a riding position, on rough terrain and pushing the gears.

1994 24 Hours of Canaan @ timberline

2010-04-20T19:40:00.003-05:00

From my friend Denny. Me coming out of the trees onto the ski slope 1994 24hrs of Canaan.

good video on stans install

2010-04-16T20:45:00.001-05:00

http://singletrack.competitor.com/2010/01/gear-and-tech/technical-faq/tech-faq-so-many-sealants_5696

Blocks

2010-04-11T21:22:00.004-05:00

I've been running a new training program the last few weeks with the return of bikeable weather. It has it ups and downs but seems to be producing some worthy results.

3on(bike), 1on(CF), 1off, 1on(CF), 1off. I'd like to try 3on, 1 off, 2on, 1off

During the week I'll work out at cross fit, in the mornings if I can get out of bed. No coffee, no food, just roll out of bed and go. Works best for me that way, as long as I can get out of bed and the out the door.

Friday if possible, short ride. Sat and Sunday also. I've been unable to put any ride together longer than 2hrs though. I need to get some of that endurance back. The rides though are hard by design and course. Hills always. The third day is always hard, and uncomfortable. mid-lower back is starting to give way and it's harder to posture right on the bike so every thing hurts more.

Combining both types of training can get hard because they overlap in certain areas. Upper body isn't too impacted. My shoulders get a little tweaked mountain biking and my triceps. However, not so much that it seems to affect the other workout. Where it really gets me is in the hip flexor area and mid-lower back.

A 3 day block of riding leaves my mid back completely fatigued. This impacts my posture and is a real cause of slouching. My lower back has some serious knots in it but isn't tender or fatigued. When I put my Trigger Point ball under the mid back muscles and find the tender spot, it just takes my breath away, like jumping into cold water. I'm not sure what muscles area actually taking the brunt here, The seem to run vertically about 2 inches away from the spin. about 5" above the belt line.

The other area where I really get taxed from both workout types is in the hip flexor area. Both cycling and any of the olympic style lifting we do hammer these

The area that cycling really taxes too is my piriformis.

What I am seeing is that my Monday workout is tough due to the cumulative fatigue created on the weekend rides. By Wednesday I'm doing better. On Friday when I get back on the bike things are usually going ok but trashed again by Sunday. There is a macro 2 week cycle that I'm seeing. This shows up in defined crests and troughs. Any 3 day block for me crosses the line of 'overreaching' It's not overtraining but it's enough to require about 10-11 days till I'm fully recovered. Prior to that I can and do ride, but these rides never go very well. Whether I sat on the couch or rode, it wouldn't matter too much, come the 11th day as long as I've kept the legs spinning a little bit that I'm on a crest.

There will be one or two days every 2 weeks where I'm riding very well. Meaning perceived exertion is low but the power output is high. I see something similar in the gym too. Some days will be high, feel easy, and pulling big #s, others will be miserable and hard.

This is actually the point of event based training. The sweet science is coordinating those crests with your event. I don't seem to be overdoing it, but could see the potential to. I think that self limitation on the riding created from being pretty busy during the week helps me recover enough for the weekend block. At the same time the break from crossfit between Thursday and Sunday gives time to recover. The fine line though is the continual fatigue in the hips and mid back. It'd be interesting to see which element would tip the scales to overdoing it. Sometimes I do a mid week ride, never long but usually short/hard. I never do any recovery riding anymore.

Also of late, I've been wearing these compression sleeves after riding. My wife got them to help with a calf injury from running. I've commandeered them. I love them after rides. I think they look cool with shorts, sort of like I'm a freerider wearing some shin pads. Or I could like like an elderly man, like my dad who walks around in them in shorts.
they really work whatever they do.

unlocking the power

2010-03-15T08:59:00.003-05:00

I've been able to get on the bike a few times in the past two weeks. So far the legs are feeling pretty good. This past 6 months I've been striving to do crossfit 2x a week, and then get on the trainer 2x a weeks.

My trainer plan follows the progression of the typical Morris plan but is much more haphazard with regards to the timing of the workouts. I sort of just go down the list and check one off an then move to the next one. I'm fairly pleased with the power outputs. Power is up from last year but I am not completing the full workout usually. So if the workout calls for 3x8min MSP I might do 2 of the sets. But power #s are 10watts or more higher which is significant.

The first days back on the bike hurt. The biggest limitation seems to be wind, meaning just getting air into the lungs. Not the huff/puff kind of wind during high intensity efforts, but more the aerobic side of just being able to get enough air into the lungs. My chest feels constricted.

But I feel this power in the legs. The kind of power that just needs some time to get used to the bike and get used to pedaling. In years past I've experienced this feeling early in the year several months past the lifting phase. That was when the strength/power in the weight room started to convert over to cycling specific strength. It manifests itself in the ability to push a biggish gear up a hill without it being a mashfest, but rather something approaching a spin. Maybe 60-70 rpm.

I've been scared to just go out for a 2hr ride, but have rather opted for shorter rides with some hills. The additional thing I've seen is that my core feels strong and hence feel good sitting on the bike. This leads to a more overall connected feeling. Telltale signs of having been off the bike include severe shoulder knots, neck knots, and tricep soreness just from being on the bike. The TP massage ball works wonders here.

So how does crossfit work with mtb/cycling? I think well to a degree. I've been doing it now for 6mos so have adapted a little bit. Overall body fitness is much better and am much more of a complete athlete vs just cycling. It will pay big dividends off road. There is good combination of strength as well as high rep. But I think for optimizing race fitness, the heavy strength work would need to taper some.

I still continue to see some patterns of fatigue/feeling very good now and then. Two week cycles seem the norm but sometimes I get taken for surprise. The other day I just felt terrible, but this morning I posted new PR in shoulder press and dead lift and matched my squat. Mornings w/o any breakfast-coffee seem to work best. 10am is bad, 1pm is slightly better.

275 dead lift. I weigh 130. My squat and overhead press are decent but for some reason my DL is very high given my size.

new position with Trigger Point massage ball

2010-03-06T16:35:00.003-05:00

no secret that I love my TP massage ball. It is a godsend for my shoulders, and hips.
Just read about a great way to hit hamstrings.

while seated in a chair, put it under leg. then slowly extend leg straight. Oh yeah it works well.

snowboarding notes

2010-02-24T11:01:00.002-05:00

Notes to self:

I made some changes to the snowboard setup the other day. I've never been sure about my stance width, binding angles, or high back tilt. Over the years I've tried some different things but was never sure regarding if the changes made any difference, or if was snow conditions, my own conditioning or my own skill levels at the time.

For a while, my angles have been +25 on front and +9 on rear. Stance width was 19.something I've wanted to try a narrow stance width but my board only allows a certain width due to the hole patterns. My bindings are Rome 390s which include some additional lee way for narrowing width, but unfortunately the board is limiting. An interesting note is that the board is a 146 but the stance range on the next size up actually allows for a narrower minimum width.

The positive angles on both the front and rear foot create a more forward facing stance and supposedly are recommended for more free riding where there isn't so much switch riding. I've always had poor shoulder/neck flexibility so the constant neck rotation created when you are in a sideways position (as in snowboarding and skateboarding) has always been an issue. I've wondered if my limited flexibility range in neck rotation made heel side turning harder because they say to look over your shoulder to help initiate heel turns.

But the forward angles on both feet is an inherently unstable position. Just jump in the air a few times, and see how your feet land. Or do some squats and feel the difference between angling both feet forward vs standing in a more natural 'duck' stance with both feet angled outwards.

This last weekend I change to a +15 on front and a -6 or -9 (can't remember) on the rear. It felt pretty good. but again I was feeling good that day fatigue and muscular, the snow was decent, and I've had more board time than in the past. But 'sitting down' in heelside turns felt a little better, and I felt more stable overall and more balanced.

I still have a limited speed threshold and when I get scared I'll dig in that rear foot on heel turns. It would be so much smoother if I'd just turn faster and not wait so long on one edge. The waiting is when I start digging in and then end up sliding out or blowing an edge out.

interesting snowboarding instructional site

2010-02-12T20:33:00.002-05:00

I'm doing a little snowboarding this winter. It's a fun activity, but also very very challenging for me and hence also rewarding. In some ways I think I've hit a little plateau in improving and some bad habits. Flailing rear arm and using twisting the upper body (ala windmilling) to get turns to initiate faster are two. The last time I rode, the snow was choppy and some small moguls were appearing, and it was easy to fall into the trap when tired of twisting the upper body hard the opposite way of needing to turn.

One tip I've seen and read about is holding your arms clasped behind your back or grasping the sides of your pants to help ingrain the right movements.

Here's a site I came across that has some of the best content. Looks like a lot of work went into these including some admitted hokie scripts.

Training Update

2010-01-24T12:02:00.003-05:00

Still following the loose Morris/Cross-training plan. It seems to be a good fit for now. Early on, the cross-fit alone was fine for general body fitness but I think cycling prowess fades naturally with no cycling specific efforts.

For the time being, I workout 2x a week in the Crossfit gym and then hit the trainer 3 days, barring travel, etc. With the weather we've been having there is no thought of going outside, but as soon as the weather holds above 40 and not raining and the at least sweep up some of the gravel on the road I'll get in some outside time. It has been over 3 months I'd say since turning the pedals any more than 40mins at one time.

I'm not as gung ho on the intervals as years ago, so if a particular workout feels too much I'll just bag it and not go to super human lengths to push through it. The power numbers are encouraging. Even up a tad from the last few years. So I wonder if the X fit has done some real good in setting up the legs to go into the SMSP intervals. What is missing this year is absolutely no endurance riding. It's going to be sort of a reverse taper in that if I get any at all it will come after the intervals.

The other thing that is unchecked is planned rest blocks. In the Morris plan there are planned almost complete weeks off that occur about every 3 weeks. About 10 days after them I feel really great. But in the current plan, these rests occur more randomly due to work travel, family travel or other life events that disrupt the schedule. The fact is there is more worry from over doing it in this current plan. Because the X fit workouts are intense, and the intervals are intense, so there is a cumulative fatigue that builds up. Which is fine and good because that is why training works. But it's the rest where we get stronger.

What I've seen is cycles of ups/downs occurring. Where I'll go into a crossfit workout and it will feel easy but I'm setting PRs in times or weights. Other days will be the exact opposite, tired lethargic with poor performance. I'm not tracking what is going on but I imagine I'm matching my known patterns for peaking. Hard efforts, back to back to create an 'over-reaching' combined with about 8-11 days buffer and you get a peak. In The 8-11 days it doesn't really matter what I do either couch or working hard. It just seems that the body recovers and comes out the other side pretty well.

But now with the interval training combined with the 2x a week cross fit it will be interesting. It will be nice to ride outside again. I miss it.

Thoughts on hard shell-soft shell gore tex eVent and other musings

2010-01-09T09:06:00.011-05:00

Snowboarding season is on. Time to obsess about gear related issues. Right now, my big obsession is on clothing. I've realized now that having the right gear, even if you pay a ton of money and only use it twice a year, is worth it. Because having wrong gear can just make life miserable. And when you travel several hours and pay out the wazoo you are going to get onto that slope for the mere principle of it. So you better have your system together otherwise it is going to make you hate it all.

My current thinking is that a good hardshell system combined with flexible layering is the way to go to accomodate varying range of conditions.

Here is a super Great article on layering.

Here' a good treatise on waterproof/water resistant fabrics

Proper gear encompasses wide definition. For me and snowboarding it includes good safety gear (wrist guards, kneepads, butt pad (you gotta not care what others people think, cause it looks lame, but I LOVE it. You sit in the hard snow alot and sit on cold lifts and fall on your but alot, so I love it. It gets sweaty some but so worth it to me)a helmet, Good wicking base layer, any old insulating layer and a good outer layer. Especially pants cause your in the snow a lot, mittens, and shell.

10 years ago I'd gotten the typical Gore Tex shell. You know the first generation that was super stiff when cold, didn't really breathe all that well, felt heavy, and lost its water beading quickly. I didn't like it all that much. It was so stiff it rubbed my chin raw, it was hard to move in. BUT, it was a hard shell: meaning windproof, waterproof, and tough as nails.

Part of it was that I didn't know how to take care of it the best, nor layer properly. See the key to waterproof style jackets that have 3 layers is that the DWR, or durable waterproof coating has to be in place.

The DWR is what gets the water and snow to bead on the jacket , then it rolls off. But if the DWR is rubbed off then the top layer will 'wet out' that means that the water soaks into the next layer. The fabric will look wet. It's typically NOT actually going through the other layers and leaking into the jacket But it does weigh down the fabric and enables the wind to start chilling you down very quickly.

The other part of the equation is the breatability. That means letting water vapor generated by exertion leave your body and the inside of the jacket. Without breatheability, like the sitution you have with those garbage back type jackets is that you get water moisture building up on the inside of the jacket and hence into your inner clothes. Which means getting and staying cold.

When DWR wears off, and small pores in the gore tex material get dirty, then the breathability starts to shut down and you get clammy and moisture builds up on the inside.

So it's a complex situation, because even though you are not running and sweating like cycling and sprinting you are working hard, so you are creating some moisture, So breathability is important, waterproofing is equally important. The other thing I'm learning is that the insulating layer is al so important from limitations it can place on movements. I'm always bending over to get into my bindings and if I've got so many layers it it's a pain, also too many layer restrict movements and fleece on fleece friction makes twisting and moving hard.

So I was hating my jacket when a lot of the issues I could have taken care of with some good care.
Such as:
1) washing the jacket with a good NON-detergent soap. like Atsko sport was. Then reapplying a DWR such as this one that I saw recommended for Gore Tex and eVent and other waterproof breathable fabrics.

Wash, then let air dry, then apply the waterproofing, let it dry, then stick it in the dryer for 1/2 hour to really activate it and open up the waterproofing. Does it work? Not sure, I'm doing right now on some gore tex pants and other gear.

A few years ago, the whole soft shell phenom was going big. Softshell is a hybrid combo of a hard shell with an light insulation layer. In traditional layering systems, you start with a light base layer designed to wick moisture away from your skin. This layer is not warm at all, it's sole purpose is to keep your skin from being clammy and damp which leads to getting cold quickly. Hence the reason why cotton is considered a killer when next to skin, because cotton does not wick and it once damp it stays damp.

The second layer is in insulation layer. Something designed to hold warmth in when underneath an outer shell. Fleece, wool, down, primaloft. all fall in this category. You can pick the thickness based on how cold it is. These then go under the 'hard shell' like the old gore tex I described above.

Soft shells hit the scene, where then integrated a water resistent/windproof outer layer (some of the real expensive ones were truly waterproof) and an insulating layer together into one unit. So it was thicker than a hard shell, and it felt nice to the bare skin because it had a fleece inner fabric and not just that slick inner material of a shell. The material felt cool, and it looked cool and was/is all the rage.

So I obsessed for days and days searching for the best deal/value in a softshell and ended up with an Outdoor Research soft shell. And was promptly disappointed with it.

Why? Because softshells for me only work in a very limited range of conditions. Dry for one, and not super cold. Sure you I layer with it just like I did with a hard shell, but some things bugged me. like I'd put a fleece top on then the jacket, but the inner fleece of the jacket has so much friction with the fleece top it's so hard to move.

The outer layer is water resistent. Meaning that it has a DWR on it, but when it fades, water does seap through. the DWR on it was terrible, it wetted out quickly. Where we are, in the mid atlantic/virginia, we have short runs and slow lifts. And snow makers. So you don't warm up on the way down. You freeze in the wind on the slwo way up, and you get snowed on with ice pellets from the snowmaker. They melt immediately and if your DWR isn't beading you'll get wet quickly. Once the material is wetted out I start slowly freezing my ass.

Don't get me wrong. Softshell is breakthrough, and I wear it a ton. It is windproof, and it works in milder not so wet conditions great. But to me it isn't versatile enough for what I need and adaptiple to changing conditions.

So NOW, I'm back to obsessing about going back to a hard shell. Hours of googling and I'm starting to come to some conclusions that I'll share here. My perspective and singular focus is to go for the best functionality and best gear at the lowest price. Hence bang for the buck and value is always my driving compass. Good gear costs. ALOT one must change their pain threshold in terms of cost. I'm ok with this from my years of cycling and also power tools, etc. While I'm ok with it, hell if Im going to pay $400 for a shell. Closeouts, used or non popular brands is where I lean.

also one must be careful of the fakes products on ebay. The North Face products are notorious for this to the point that there are forums dedicated just to this issue. I came across this Peak Performance line at ebay that is a rip off of a high end line out of Europe. They look so much like the real deal, maybe they are real that are grey market overruns.

There's so much info out there you just gotta read a lot and see where postings agree with each other to filter out the junk.
Here are some good ones
eVEnt and Gore tex
another gore vs eVent
forum posts

One confusion I have is between 2 layer and 3layer fabrics. My conclusion is 2 layer is lighter and designed for more aerobics like running cycling and isn't as durable, I'm going for a tougher 3 Layer fabric.

Another thing to keep in mind is that many of these articles are written from an alpine, mountaneering, or backcountry mindset. Meaning that these activities involve a higher exertion level and hence place a much higher premium on breathability. Back to mid atlantic resort snowboarding, and breathability isn't as much of an issue. In fact the eVent fabric mentioned below has been criticized a little in that it breathes too well, and trapped warm air can escape cooling you down, so you need to dress a little warmer. Than compared to pro shell. I don't know but it sort of makes sense. But breathability is still very important because wear a cheap rain jacket and you'll be clammy in short order.

Gore tex is like kleenex. They are the king of market share. The old school Gore tex is now called Gore Tex Performance Shell. They lightweight hiking style is called Gore Tex Pac lite, they came out with a new product that had better breathability, not a stiff, and was still tough and waterproof called Gore Tex XCR. XCR has been replaced with Pro Shell, which is the top of the pops in the Gore line.

eVent fabric is considered the biggest competition. Lowe alpine made an eVent a few years ago that you might find for sale. Backcountry's Stoic line is made from eVent. Seems to have some sizing issues in terms of being cut for layering. WildThings uses eVent and has good reputation.

There are also a myriad of gore tex want to be's that tend to be lower priced. EMS System III, TNF Hy-Vent, AquaStopint,Membrain, conduit, Toray makes a couple of Entrant like Entrant GII-XT ,Columbia's Omni-Tech Platinum ,dermizax (by Spyder), Repel storm used in Eddie Bauer's First Ascent line (which by the way went to Chapter 11 and you can find a $300 jacket for under $130. Some don't have the breathability of Gore Tex or eVent

Here is an older chart that I think someone at an Army cold weather research center made that compares breathability in terms of water vapor passage. Interestingly, it shows the Entrant GII-XT to be very good compared to eVent. What isn't shown here is the level of waterproofness. But again I caution that waterproofness is really only as good as the DWR and capability to bead the water on the surface and not allow the top layer to wet out.

Everyone has their #s something like 20,000/20,000 these are measures of waterproofness and breathability. But I think the fundamental issues hold true for any of them. The DWR must be in good condition for water to bead, and the pores of the breathable fabric must be clean to promote transfer of water vapor from inside to the outside.

Other things to consider are taped sealed seams, Which truly keep water completely out.

so I'm still looking, I only want to do this once so I'm leaning towards Gore Tex Pro shell, 3 layer eVent, or possibly the Eddie Bauer 1st Ascent on closeout

Some more good reading
Older breathability comparison chart

UK climbing article on eVent

First time on the trainer

2010-01-07T20:12:00.002-05:00

Back it it. Well sort of. I've been crazy busy with school and work and family, and blogging has gone by the way side. I have missed it, and while I'm in the short time period before classes start up again, I figured I'd post a few updates.

For the past year, I've gotten out of formalized training for cycling. If you've been following the BLOG for a time, you know that I had utilized a great plan that fit within my busy life of family, jobs, and other commitments. It worked realy well, and on a realizable amount of time, I could ride well enough to have fun and be competitive.

However, the last years I had more added to my plate, and just couldn't deal, as my approach tends towards the obsessive compulsive end so racing went by the wayside. Recently, I started working out at a local Crossfit Gym Twice a week. And while the weathe was decent, I'd get out on the bike for some short rides once or twice a week. The cross fit is great. I get to the 6am class M/W which is really hard, but nice to get it out of the way, otherwise I know something would come up and it I'd miss.

The format works realy well with my needs and personality. 1/2 time we do with functional movements, and strength training. All core movements like squats, presses and full body olympic style movements. The second half is more aerobic/anaerobic workouts that include huge variety. Box jumps, pushups, pull ups, jumping rope, runnung, medicine balls, etc. Typically, combinations of set/reps with time on and time off. HIGH intensity.

I also like working out with the small group of people and the trainer. You get a morale boost from sharing misery with a touch of competitiveness. And every one there is empowering. Why, cause we are all just regular people. Moms, dads, jobs, normal genetics. Getting our asses out of bed and killing it. Regular people doing extraordinary things, like cleaning weight off the floor to overhead, or setting PRs on squat and working hard.

Riding had still be going relatively well, just 1hr rides here there. Getting by on good technique. This winter weather we've had has just killed any riding. I finally got pshyched enough to get back onto the trainer for the first time in over a year I'd say. Right into SmSp Morris intervals. I was actually excited and motivated to get on there.

Just doing 2 days a week crossfit and then nothing else wasn't cutting it. The intervals, at least the first two days of them went relatively well. Power was ok, not like it was years ago, but doable And the high intensity of the crossfit has helped with just general tolerance of the uncomfortable feeling associated with high intensity of short intervals.

So for now my plan is to continue with crossfit 2x a week, then fill in a few days with my old training plan from Morris and just follow it checking one day at a time. What I've removed from the equation is the endurace phase that included a few 3-4 hour low intensity rides, and I've removed the entire Morris Strength training.

The xfit does a lot of the stength training part, but the Morris one was specific to cycling and periodized specifically to tie into the rest of the training program for racing in spring.

As soon as this freeze leaves us I'd like to get outside on the bike provided my toes can handle it.

seized pivot pin in Azure

2009-09-14T06:52:00.002-05:00

Tried to take off my shock today on the Azure. Tapping with a punch did not remove the front pivot pin. I was wailing on it and not even a budge.

after some searching I found the solution on mtbr using a vice and some sockets to press it out. It worked finally, with some liquid wrench but I am still amazed at how much force I had to use to get the pin to move. Big vice, plus a cheater bar on the lever.

Check out this post with some pics/links I did a mtbr:

Crossfit

2009-08-26T07:09:00.003-05:00

Ok,
Jumping on to the crossfit wagon for a little while.

My riding is going well, about two days of high intensity then every now and then some good hard rides. But haven't been lifting and my body is just collapsing. Core/upperbody.

I tried to get to the university gym to do some dead lifts, upperbody, but could just never put it together. Decided to change around my whole schedule and go to a 6am crossfit class 2x a week. I've made it to a consultation and one class so far. Got my neighbor to go with me to motivate me.

All I can say is it's hard. And it will be good. The intensity is so hard it's like sprinting on the bike for 20 mins. Just like there is no way I can train by myself as hard as I race, there is no way I'd ever train like this without others around and the trainer yelling.

I like it for a # of reasons.
1) i don't have to think, just go and do what they tell you
2) it's all functional movements and requires complex movements that utilize several muscle groups which requires timing and neurological development. Just like mountain biking
3) it's done in an hour or less
4) it's high intensity (puke intensity)
5) there is camraderie (misery loves company) and light competition.

It's hard, there is potential for carnage/injury and puking. We'll see how long I last, and how long my schedule of getting up at 5:30am lasts and whether I can get to sleep early enough regularly. Especially with classes starting up again.

Dirty Dawg write up

2009-08-26T07:05:00.004-05:00

Very late, but still a good story

Race writeup Dirty Dawg.

The Dirty Dawg mountain bike race occurred several weeks ago. This is a local race held up on top of Mountain Lake resort made possible by the great people at East Coasters and the Mountain Lake Conservancy as well as the Hotel. Kirby, a transplant from the soul capital of agro mountain biking has been promoting some local grass roots events.

The last few years, I’ve cut back a lot on my racing to concentrate on other major focuses such as going back to school part time, work and my family. However, last year I did this race and had a great great time. I had been and still am training to a certain extent with enough fitness to be able to ride hard and have fun for at least a certain length of time. The weather was working out and family activities didn’t conflict with the race and was excited to go up.
The last few years I’ve really missed racing and missed all the energy around the events as well as the minutiae associated with training, dialing in the bike, prepping the bike, planning, obsessing, etc. With so much energy going into school and work I’ve sometimes felt a little lost unsure if the path is the right path. Doing a few races here and there help significantly to re ground me and energize me in general. Every ride reminds me how much I love mountain biking, but races remind me how much I love racing. It’s certainly not solely about the competitiveness, though there is enough there to get me to do stupid things like trying to pass when there is no reason and no good place to pass. While I’ve no doubt that with good training there is potential to do well; It is more about be able to push myself and put it on the line so to speak. There’s a simplicity and purity in racing and it’s just a nice social group as well.

In years past I’d obsess about the race for weeks prior, this time very little energy at all was expended prior to the day before. As we’ll see the lack of technical rigor placed on bike prep finally came around and got me.

The butterflies started to flitter starting the day before. Which is a good thing. Butterflies, mean that your body is getting itself ready. I’d be way more worried if I wasn’t nervous. I’d been going over last year’s course in my mind mapping out nutritional strategy and pacing strategy as well as identifying places to go hard or hold back. It was a decently hard course last year, but imaging my surprise when they said it was a Completely different course than last year.

As the traced the course out on the map my stomach began to knot up. It was similar to a course ran many years ago. That was a bad bad race for me as I recall. This year 2 big loops included the technical Moonstomper course twice as well as a long climb up towards the start/finish. It also included a walk down the stairway to hell which is the kind of rock staircase that is featured on the cover of Bike Magazine with Hans Rey trialsin his way down it.

This course does not have any major big climbs like Dragon’s Back or Douthat, and it doesn’t have super big tech ridgelines like Massanutten or D’back. But after finishing this course, I’d wager that it is one of the most body punishing courses around. The ubiquitous buried rocks, loose shale, roots, steep power climbs, and steep chattery downhills takes a toll on the body. I had short travel full suspension and could not fathom a hardtail for 2 laps.

Part of my problem was diminished technical skill and a lower speed threshold than ideal. That means that the speed at which I was comfortable downhilling was a lot lower than I’d wish. This also means that the slower you go the more you absorb trail shock. It’s counterintuitive, but the faster the go the more you float over trail features. And 9 times out of ten you’ll crash less the faster you go. It’s when you hit the rock/root going slower that your front wheel is more likely to deflect and turn. Hitting the rocks at slower speeds induces more shock.

It also means that I brake more, which really transfers the shock to the body; hitting the rocks while braking is like running into small square curbs all day. The grass was taller this year, and was hiding some rocks. Mentally, this scared me and I went slower which made me hit the rocks harder which wore me down. Ideally, you gotta let it go a little which means that even if you hit them your chances of getting through are better when going faster.

This kind of terrain requires power and lots of it. There’s very little opportunity to just spin up something. And forget about standing up and lightly dancing on the pedals like an angel of the mountains as seen at the Tour day france. The buried rocks, loose rocks, roots, grass, big rocks, little rocks, sissy rocks, rocks with angry eyes on them, etc makes that impossible.

I’ve been doing my riding primarily on the road and on smooth trail. I found that some of the climbs here required a gear higher. It’s similar to the situation where you put a pure roady on single track. They spin like mad and bounce all over the place. I recall an article by John Tomac about using a one to two gears higher than you would on the road on singletrack in order to give yourself something to push against. It was just hard to get into a rhythm.

Nutritional preparation:
I used to start eating the full carbs several days out. For the past few years, I’ve followed an eating strategy outlined in Performance Cycling and echoed in …… X# of grams/kg body weight. With the goal of being done 4 hours prior. Some contend that this influx of carbs is too much and enables too much water weight gain. I contend that it works very well for me. But it is also very hard to do.
The number just doesn’t do justice to exactly how much food this is. There’s no way for me to accomplish this without liquid supplementation (link to ensure). I haven’t been doing mega rides or races lately so haven’t rebuilt tolerance for this type of eating. I almost hurled this time. Right afterwards I go comatose and crawl in bed for a little while. I eat NOTHING more except drinking water until the start.
From the start on I sip on Gatorade out of the camelback, and if longer than 2.5hrs I eat something else.

But listen to me now believe me later. This eating plan has made a huge difference in my racing. It gets me through 2.5hrs w/o bonking if I’ve eaten enough. Planning on adding some fat like turkey bacon to the mix too.
I also hit the sport legs (link), and timed them to perfection. Call it a crutch or a secret weapon, placebo or whatnot, but I’ve suffered lock up leg cramps in races forever and this is the only thing that has ever worked for me. Maybe with better training I’d not cramp, but going into a race with so little miles under my legs made me need them that much more. They take about 50mins-1hr to kick in after swallowing. (note then stick in your throat so take with lots of water.)
5 on the start line, 5 at 50mins, 5 at 1:40. Typically I’d not take the 3rd dose but I ended up extending my stay at the resort and needed that extra.
The start was off the horse barn. Onto some sweet single track with a little bit of rocks. I got behind some guys and the adrenalin was flowing and just had to try to pass. I hit a low hanging branch and my helmet visor almost came off and was flopping around. Worthless waste of energy as we just ended up popping out on a fire road climb that provided plenty of room for passing.

I’ve got my self all turn around with regards to the course by this time, as we went opposite of last year and hit toejammer going the opposite direction. It’s actually much easier to ride this direction. But no less hard when under race conditions. I walked a bit, and rode more than expected. Also ended up jamming the front wheel into a crevice and doing a flip but luckily did not land any bones onto any rocks.
Climbing out after the downhill was really brutal. We got ourselves back over towards the golf course road and I was riding pretty well keep near some other riders. After going back into the trees I was on the brakes hard, as I know that there is this dip at the end of the downhill that just eats people and spits them out. I practically crawled through it at walking speed. This guy was standing next to it and I’d thought he’d just got a flat as he said “looks like my race is over” Turns out just seconds before he’d supermanned it over the bars and landed about 15 feet from his bike. His wheel was tacoed. We’ll revisit him later in the story as he’d performed the wack-a rim move against and tree and got back into it.

I was cruising along feeling pretty good and climbing back up to the start when my rear freebody spun out. It was toasted again. In a way, I was relieved a little. I could walk to the finish and say that I gave it a good old try and was riding pretty well. And I wouldn’t have to go through the real pain and face the potential of failure. Sure a little disappointed but not as much as you’d think.

Walking all alone till near the finish and I saw CB from East Coasters. He offered me his rear disc wheel and I said what the heck, but his tire was too wide to fit into my frame so I said no problem, we tried. Then I saw Scott from work and he said try my wheel. So I did and it worked. And off I went. No shifting problems, no braking problems. Now for the fun. I figured I was going to be out there for ½-1hr past when my food stores would take me.

It was definitely a hard slog, and so lonely. I contend that one doesn’t know true loneliness until they are on a forested singletrack with no one in sight/sound in front or behind. One time I hit the golf course fire road where you have extended line of sight visibility for ½ a mile and I didn’t see a soul. Finally I came upon a guy crawling. I mean I was going slow and he was virtually standing still. Hey man, you gotta gel or anything. I handed him my ancient save for a rainy day gel from the bottom of my camelback. But I told him that if it came down to the finish line that he’d have to let me win. This was the same guy that had tacoed his wheel earlier.

Finally made it home to the finish. Quite glad that I endured to the end, and this race will be remembered long after any of the other few that I actually won or did well in. The promoters were kind enough to go deep in to the expert ranks for prizes and lo and behold, but what was waiting for me on the prize table? A rear wheel.

Trials and tribulations of a home mechanic

2009-08-09T19:52:00.002-05:00

I'm always working on my bikes. By choice mostly, by necessity others. Lately it's been messing around between hardtail and dually, rear wheel rebuilding, hubs, moving disc brakes, overhauling forks...

I overhauled my Black 80 SPV fork on the hardtail, and put it back on and had that well known SPV top out klunk. My modus operandi is that if I can do it wrong I will, and then will not give up until I've found out what is wrong and fix it or totally destroy it in the process.

Took the whole thing apart again to find the SPV damper was not screwed together properly. I redid it and put it back together and it seems to be working decently now. Hardtail is set up as a 9 speed right now. Mullet with V brakes in the rear and disc in the front.

This was the first disc tab that BREW had ever put on about 12 years ago. It wasn't done completey correct as it is way to far inboard. My first foray into discs was with the early Hayes and even after we modified the disc brake adaptor, I did not enjoy them and on that bike had only used Vs in the back. With the new bike I never had the need/desire to revist this issue but lately while on the kick to revitalize the hardtail I took a good look at the disc tab again. First I had to file the inside to get the actual disc to clear but it was still too far inboard at the top. Brought it to the Bike Barn the resident framebuilder on staff cut into it with the facing tool.

He stopped partway because it was so far inboard that he it was going to start cutting into seatstay and not the tab. It's getting closer, but I think I'll grind off some of the inside of the disc adapter. Now need to build up another rear wheel. But the rear V is working pretty well actually, so not in too much of a hurry.

Dually is slightly better, but this is fun. Plus it's good body punishing training when you can't ride off road a lot.

Weight weenie plans on the HT
-Laser Disc lite rear wheel with stans Olympic rim
-Some light weight front hub with stans Olympic
-tubeless with rim strip if the Stans valve doesn't work (which it hasn't for me in the past)
-Thomson masterpiece post
-WTB Laser V Ti saddle
-XTR pedals
-Ceramic bearings for the Real Ti Square taper BB

May or may not go back to 3 on the front. Need a XO grip shifter and Front Der too.

Rookie move

2009-07-29T21:25:00.002-05:00

I put on a longer stem and new bar on the hardtail and was going to do a test ride. However, I'd forgotten to tighten the stem down onto the steerer bar. Doh. Thankfully I didn't crack my head on my own driveway. I imagine several children would comment on why Mr. Amanna wasn't wearing a helmet when he crashed.

death of the 26HT

2009-07-27T11:11:00.002-05:00

Interesting article In velo news on the death of the 26er HT

I agree that a short travel XC dually is probably the best. Especially if you can make it really light out of carbon and it has efficient suspension that doesn't require any fiddling with lockouts or knobs. Imagine a carbon short travel DW link. Of course it would probably cost 3000 for the frame alone.

I think the key from this article was that the 26 dually and 29er become weapons of choice when the weight can be brought down enough and the suspension technology is good.

Can't make any statement on the 29er as I've hardly thrown a leg over one. Seeing those pictures of Heather Irminger's small 29er make me think some more abou it. I like a really high bar, so the naturally high bar created by a larger frame might work well.

Regardless, two things I know. I still love my 26er HT. Riding it is still fun, and even just the look of it, the proportions, the lines. And they are affordable for most. A cheap 29er is going to weigh a ton. Hence you'll need to spend a lot more to get the weight down.

wierd aches/pains

2009-07-23T14:14:00.002-05:00

Not sure what is going on with my leg but I've got some wierd aches on the inside side of my leg near my knee. I'll be sitting down on a chair working or eating, and then when I get up I'll limp on my right leg. A few times it's been weak enough to almost give out, but then after a few steps it's virtually gone.

I've been getting the hardtail setup and something is wrong with the saddle position, cause after a ride today I really had some pain in my hips and this spot on the inside leg near the knee.

I'm going to spend some time trying to get the dually and HT to match. the dually has a 22.5 Effective Top Tube with a 70mm stem. Both of them have the same seat tube angle so their saddle should be placed in the same place in order to place my knee in the same position above the BB.

The HT has an ETT of 22.3. 22.5-22.3=0.2 inches--> 5mm. So I'm going to go for a 75mm stem on it. Right now I've got a 70mm and it does just feel too short. I always seem to be pushing myself back on the saddle. With the saddles in the same place, and with a slightly longer stem on the HT the reach from the saddle to the bar should be the same.

I've noticed on the dually, that my saddle has been slipping inside my seatpost. When I notice it and put it back to where it belongs I do pedal noticeably better, but then I also get much more tenderness in my hips (piriformis). Today on the HT, my hips were just on fire.

Oh how I love my trigger point massage ball! Man that things works great on deep into the hips.

body workout

2009-07-23T14:10:00.002-05:00

I realized after the last race that the only way to train for technical mountain biking is to mountain bike on technical terrain. For fitness the road bike comes in very handy as does the trainer, but there is no subsitute for creating that full body fatigue that accompanies technical riding.

I decided to get the hardtail going again. One reason is it's just fun, but the other is that it will beat me up more especially on the terrain we have out here at Brush mountain. If I had to choose just one off road bike I would go with my short travel dually (Azure). But my thought process is that by riding the hardtail a little bit more off road, I can incorporate just body fatigue training as well as fitness. 1hr off road on the hardtail may be equivilant to 1.5hrs on the dually from a body pounding point of view.

dissed in ebay

2009-07-22T14:28:00.001-05:00

Ebay sure seems to be going downhill lately.

Got some XO shifters for the hardtail as well as an XTR front der. The front shifter was shot on the XO and the front derailleur was mis advertised. I wanted a top pull and it was a bottom pull.

The front der. refunded my money but the XO lister was a pain. I'd already left the good feedback upon delivery but hadn't gotten around to installing it till the other day. Oh well learned my lesson.

but I did just score some Stans Olympic rims to build up a new light wheelset from some soon to find I hope hubs.

inside of wtb hub

2009-07-14T16:57:00.001-05:00

Ever wander what's inside a hub? Those little arms are called the pawls. This is a 6 pawl system.

There is a plate called a cam plate that sits on the bottom and there is a stiff wire on the back of the cassette body. The tip of this wire dragging across the cam plate is what creates the ticking sound of a spinning freebody.

When it turns the other way, ie when you are pedaling, the stiff wire engages with holes in the cam plate which rotates. When the cam plate rotates it engages the pawls. The pawls rotate in which engages them onto the teeth of the cassette body

When I busted up my hub recently, here is what the cam plate looks like:

Vbrake rubbing on Black SPV fork

2009-07-14T08:45:00.002-05:00

I've been messing with the hardtail again, trying to get it trail ready for kicks. I put on my black spv fork and had to go to full V brakes because my disc wheel went to my son.

When i stand up and lean the bike to the left, or take a left corner or track stand (with wheel turned to the left) my front V brake deflects so much that the pad rubs the rim. So much so that it messes up my trackstand because it practically stops the front wheel from moving.

I just can't remember so far back when I actually ran it that way with V brakes on the front to recall if it was this bad. I tried another front wheel and it still did it so I'm thinking it is something with the fork lowers.

Won't mess with it too much because Vbrake on the front is so bad that I must go Disc. Rear I can live with a little bit.

Building up a bike for my son

2009-06-26T21:06:00.003-05:00

My son is turning 11 this year. Last year we got him a 24" Specialized through craig's list. It was sort of an impulse buy and I sort of wish we hadn't done it. It's beefy and like many kids bikes has too much crap on it that they don't need, such as a heavy ineffective suspension fork and chain guide. The brakes were crap as were the shifters.

We've been him riding on some trails and he was belly aching away. I'm tired, I'm having trouble shiftin, I'm having a hard time braking.... We'd sort of chocked it up to the typical 10 year old I'm really a teen ager.

I took a harder look at the bike and was in a debate regarding redoing all the cable housings and putting some nicer brakes and rear shifter on it. It really was heavy and didn't brake or shift well. Instead of putting any money into it I decided to just go ahead and look at 26" bikes cause he'd be growing into them soon enough. He already likes to ride his mom's bike around

Now the next hurdle was finding an affordable small bike that didn't look like a women's bike. No women's bike names, sky blue, pink or lavendar or flowers. I wanted a frame so that I could use some of my parts bin parts and then ebay the rest. This proved much harder to do than I'd expected.

Ebay was the only real venue. All the small frames were going for more $ than I'd wanted or were full bikes. Some that I'd seen that fit the bill for a short effective top tube included trek, Fuji, a haro, marin, specialized. But once you included shipping the costs were getting a little more than I wanted. Plus I just plain lost a few in the bidding process. Small frames are hard to come by.

But then someone at mtbr turned me on to some frames that performance sells. They picked up the older superslow Access frames and their own house brand. I emailed and got some geometry measurements (shown at the bottom of this.) Decided on the red Access bike. Sort of funky tubing but cool. ETT seemed short and the plan was to put a short 50mm stem on it with the goal of increasing stem size as he grew.

$149+shipping -10% discount coupon. Plus I could send it back no questions if I needed. I was pretty impressed upon opening it. They upgraded their powder coating process and it looked pretty cool. Light too. Note that it comes with a seat binder and crap headset cups (zero stack) I did order a Woodman zero stack just to be safe. A cheaper frame is there perf. brand but I wanted red

I'd had some parts and picked out the rest through some closeouts at Icycles, treefort bikes and ebay.

We gave a box of parts and the frame to him as an early bday present. But he had to help put it together. I must say it was really really fun to do it with him. Real father son time. He did a great job and helped with almost every part. I was a little bit more excited about it than him at times. Explaining each part in detail especially some of my prized parts bin treasures like my Real Designs Square taper Bottom Bracket.

I showed him how to grease parts

and press in the headset.

Scoured the Internet for some red platform pedals

He now knows Race Face and has brand loyalty to them over nike. As I have several other race face products. They had 50mm stem. Its a downhill stem heavy and beefy but cool.

We wrapped the chainstay and even put heat shrink tubing on all the cable ends

I'm pretty stoked on it. He loves it. 27'lbs with full disc. Heavy parts, front hydraulic disc, rear mech disc. WTB saddle, Sugino impel crank, heavy easton post, bar, nashbar rigid fork. The reach is good, but the big wheels make it a little on the large side. Sort of looks like a 29er. He'll adapt no problem and will grow into it in short order.

All in all, I'm really happy as is he.

Here are the measurements from performance on their frames:
small frames geometries

http://web.archive.org/web/20061017142713/www.fujibikes.com/2006/geometry.asp?id=163
performance frame xsmall:
XS-14 S-16 M-18 L-20 XL-22
Seat Tube (C-T) 355.6 mm 406.4 mm 457.2 mm 508 mm 558.8 mm
Seat Tube (C-C) 275.6 mm 326.4 mm 377.2 mm 428 mm 478.8 mm
Effective Top Tube 533.4 mm 546.1 mm 558.8 mm 571.5 mm 584.2 mm
Actual Top Tube 516.6 mm 523.7 mm 536.7 mm 556.1 mm 577.2 mm
Chainstay 430 mm 430 mm 430 mm 430 mm 430 mm
Head tube 120 mm 120 mm 120 mm 120 mm 130 mm
Bottom Bracket Drop 32 mm 32 mm 32 mm 32 mm 32 mm
Wheel Base 1018.6 mm 1031.3 mm 1044 mm 1056.7 mm 1069.7 mm
Head Angle 71 deg 71 deg 71 deg 71 deg 71 deg
Seat Angle 73 deg 73 deg 73 deg 73 deg 73 deg

Build Requirements
Seatpost diameter 27.2 mm
Headset Threadless, Standard, Pressed-in, 1 1/8" Steerer
Front Derailleur 31.8 mm
Seat Tube Collar 31.8 mm
Bottom Bracket Shell 68 mm

Miscellaneous
Weight 4.18 lbs
Replaceable Dropout Yes
Rear Rack Eyelets Yes
Rear Rack Braze-ons not included, but there are braze-on

access
2009 Access XCL Comp Mountain Frame Geometry (item 30-1873)

14.5 16.5 18.5 20.5 22.5
Seat Tube (C-T) 368.3 mm 419 mm 470 mm 520 mm 571.5 mm
Seat Tube (C-C) 298.3 mm 349 mm 400 mm 450 mm 501.5 mm
Effective Top Tube 540 mm 580 mm 605 mm 630 mm 650 mm
Actual Top Tube 524.3 mm 555.7 mm 579 mm 607.2 mm 630 mm
Chainstay 420 mm 420 mm 420 mm 420 mm 420 mm
Head tube 110 mm 110 mm 115 mm 140 mm 155 mm
Bottom Bracket Drop 34 mm 34 mm 34 mm 34 mm 34 mm
Wheel Base 1012.6 mm 1047.3 mm 1072.1 mm 1098 mm 1113.2 mm
Head Angle 70.5 deg 71 deg 71 deg 71 deg 71 deg
Seat Angle 73 deg 73 deg 73 deg 73 deg 72.5 deg

Build Requirements
Seatpost diameter 31.6 mm
Headset Threadless, 1 1/8" steerer, Zero Stack
Front Derailleur 34.9 mm
Seat Tube Collar 34.9 mm
Bottom Bracket Shell 68 mm

Miscellaneous
Weight 3.9 lbs
Replaceable Dropout Yes
Rear Rack Eyelets Yes
Rear Rack Braze-ons No, and no openings for them

a bear of a maintenance weekend

2009-06-15T20:37:00.004-05:00

I have a WTB LaserDisc Lite wheelset. It might not be the most bombproof and it might not have the Chris King Bling but it's the best value in weight weenie hubs around.

From a bombproof perspective I mean having the ability to ride through anything without needing maintenance. It isn't sealed very well from wetness so after a few soggy rides the pawl mechanism gets a little crunchy. Also key is to use very lightweight grease or even thick oil or gear oil in place of they typical Phil on the mechanism, which means that is resists water even less.

Given all the wet weather we've been having it was in need of an overhaul. One thing I love is how easy they are and actually simple to work on. I get into these things so it doesn't try my patience that much to break them down. Some people can't handle the down time of working on stuff when they'd rather be riding.

Another little character flaw with this version of the hub is that the specs call for a little bit of play in the hub when installed on the frame with the quick release tight. This is a little disconcerting as typically you try to adjust hubs so that all play is gone when the wheel is tight. But with this one the manual says just a little bit of play. I heard that the newest version gets rid of this though.

Also nice is that there are replacement freebody kits and cam plates available which I'd actually changed out fairly recently after more than 2 years of beating on it.

Well when I put it together I think I erred on the side of too tight. Maybe wasn't thinking or thought I felt the play. But after some riding it started to feel funny. Difficult to backpedal , some skipping but I was out of town and decided to get one more ride on it, then pop, no more pedaling.

When I finally got into it it was ugly. cam plate was shattered and there is a spring on the under side of the freebody that was broken off in there. It had gouged out the innards as well. Thankfully I had the old freebody that was working ok just had one tooth broken off, and the new cam plate that had come with the replacement. I chiseled off the gouged out metal and put the old body on.

It was having lots of problems catching on the backpedal and it looks like the teeth were pushed out just enough to engage the pawls, so I took a file to it and wore it down enough so that it clears the pawls when backpedaling. It's not great but I think it will work. so back in business.

BUT...when putting the wheel back in I bent the hell out of my hanger. See, with gripshift/sram somewhere I read that it's easier to get the wheel back in if its in the biggest cog in back. Most other shifting systems they say to put it on the small cog in back. It does work better in the big, but not a good idea if the front chainring is also in the big ===crosschaining. Well for whatever reason I'd had it in the big and when tried to put the wheel in the chain was so tight and I was pulling on it so much that I bent my hanger.

I was going to bust out the safety replaceable der hanger but decided to have more fun with one of my favorite tools the park DAG-1

I manhandled it into alignment and shifting is much improved which means that it has probably been tweaked for a little while. I doubt it will stay well adjusted given how much I'd bent it trying to get the wheel in so It might be better to order a new one anyway. Also since IH is out of business and the parent company is under investigation there might not be many more around.

So hopefully I'm back and running. My hardtail is dead in the water with a busted rear wheel and I stole the front disc off it for a buildup for a new kid bike. Which leads me to my latest obsession, possibly trying to convert it to singlespeed.
more on that later. I've been there before and it was fun, but I'm going to do it different this time if I do it.

aching lower back

2009-06-09T21:45:00.002-05:00

Been riding some here and there. It's a little bit of a condundrum. I'm riding very strong at times, but it definitely doesn't last long. Climbing really well, most likely due to long road climbs. It's interesting though how my power riding on the singletrack has weakened. They don't go hand in hand and are different systems.

Power to weight vs pure power.

I'd stopped lifting in April and I could feel my core and upper body collapsing within a few weeks. I started back with some upper body work and stiff legged deadlifts. This put some strain onto my lower back and then went on some serious climbing. Ohh that put a hurting on the lower back.

hopefully in a few weeks my back will be back (pun intended) to a more stabilized state.

North American Handmade Bicycle Show coming to Richmond

2009-05-12T19:48:00.004-05:00

The NAHBS is coming to the east coast, Virginia for that matter.
Velonews just announced the North American Handmade Bicycle Show is coming to Richmond, VA on February 26-28.

I am beside myself. Since almost the beginning of my bicycling career I've been enamored with custom frames. It is just the ultimate culmination of two of my passions: cycling and making things. I just love the fact that you can make something. Actually anything whether it is a table, boxes, a fishing rod, a knife, but a bike, sheesh it's my nirvana. Steel tubes, welding and paint. From a raw materials perspective, not much, but designed right it's just a thing of beauty.

My very first local hero of cycling in Davis, CA was a local expert mountain bike racer, Kurt. Kurt, the ex..pert was the saying. Super super nice guy who helped me get into racing and would always offer tips on training and riding. Enough so that I forgive him for trying to shift my truck into reverse when going 55mph on the highway. He wasn't that good at driving stick and was going for the 5th gear overdrive and went to reverse instead. I also forgave him for taking us on a incredible epic without telling us how much food to bring. All I remember was this other guy, Mike, getting all pissed off at Kurt's goofy smile and happy go lucky comments after 4 or 5 hours. Every time Kurt opened his mouth to say something, Mike would immediately talk over him and say..."Shortest way home, Kurt... Shortest way home".

Anyway, Kurt had a Rock Lobster hardtail. They were all hardtails back then. Deep burgandy with yellow decals with black letters. Man I loved that bike.

Years later when I finally had a little money, I decided to get a new frame. Turns out that I do not fit the typical mold. I've got long legs and short torso, in fact my inseam is similar to some people 3-4 inches taller than me. So I decided to go the custom route and got a BREW. In fact got my wife one too.

Over the years I got a second BREW, went through a lugged road bike phase then a single speed cross phase, but I didn't design the geometry right on that, otherwise I would have kept it. Somewhere in there, I scored a custom Ti road frame on ebay. That might have been a keeper except the top tube was just too long and a short stem would not cut it, as it threw the handling off for my extremely fine tuned senses. I also didn't care for the feel of the Ti. It was light for sure and it definitely muted some of the road buzz, but no joke, to me it didn't have this little bit of liveliness that a good steel frames has.

And then moved to a TIG welded road frame. Which is my current love. That bike has hit the spot for the time being. Sometimes I want to not like a frame after a period of time so that I can justify going for a new one. This one is pretty darn perfect. But the wonderful thing is that the frame is the heart and everything else can be swapped on it to create a virtually new bike. A repaint, new wheels, a new shock, and you gotta new bike.

I think my favorite is the TIG welded frame, hardtail mtb and road. There is something really clean looking and utilitarian about it. But there is also a beauty to the lines of a good frame. Sometimes I'll be in the garage or basement where the bike is on a trainer and I'll just look at it. For several minutes at a time.

Years ago there were only a handful of builders and hardly any dedicated mountain bike builders. Recently, with the advent of the internet and resurgence of things like the single speed, 29ers, 650Bs, free ride-hardtails, hipster bikes, dedicated commuting bikes, beach/snow bikes, cyclocross...custom frames are in a golden age.

You'd think that with so many production companies out there who now offer many options in sizing that you wouldn't need to go custom unless you just wanted to. But take my road bike for example. It's got a 49cm Seat tube length (c-c) but only a 51.5 effective top tube length. Most road bikes that have that short a top tube, have much shorter seat tubes. I also got an upsloping top tube and a 14cm head tube length so that I wouldn't have to use one of those high rise stems in order to get the bars high enough for my inflexible back and hamstrings.

My wife is very petite, and even with the proliferation of women's specific road bikes, there are still few options for frames. There is still a market for customs from a hard to fit perspective, but it's really about 1) having something that few others have; 2) supporting a small company/one person; 3) being able to bug someone on email every other day about the tiniest detail of the location of a cable stop and the gold fleck on the clear coat. Frame builders consider many potential customers and many of their actual customers to be time toilets, cause bike geeks can suck a lot of time from someone, and a $500 deposit is license for a desk jockey to email every day about their frame.

I'd love to go to framebuilding school. There are a few other classes around the country and lots of online resources and some out of print books. It's one of those I'm going to go sometime things, just got to find the time and allocate the funds. My 'bucket list' is pretty much Go to frame building school.

Right now I want a single speed mountain bike. This is probably a passing fad and after a few weeks on Brush mountain I'd be over it. But I've tried the chain tensioner route and want a real singlespeed. I also want a commuter built on my road bike geometry.

I daydream about building and selling frames but highly doubt I'd like to do that for a living, rather I'd like to build a few a year... No hipster bikes though.

check that chain

2009-05-09T12:48:00.003-05:00

There is a wonderful, inexpensive little tool by Park that you can use to check chain stretch. It gives you a go/no go check for whether or not to change your chain.

The basic premise is that your chain, cassette and rings all wear together. The chain stretches over time and the cassette and rings wear down too though not at as much.

At some point the chain stretches enough that if you keep riding it then when you do change you will have to change both the chain and cassette at the same time. But if you change the chain first you can eek out much longer life from the cassette and rings.

You will learn this first hand the first time you change your chain after a long long time and don't change the cassette, you will go to stand to hoss on the pedals and you'll get a kaaa-chunk, kaaaa-chunk as the new chain slips on the cassette. Also there is a much higher chance of getting some serious chain suck when using a new chain and an old chainring.

With this chain checker you can identify when it is time to change the chain out. I like that you don't have to think too much about it, just try to stick it on the chain and at the .75 setting and if it fits you're still ok, but if it fits with the 1.0 setting than you gotta change.

blast from the past

2009-05-07T07:01:00.002-05:00

A co-worker of my wife is graduating this year and she wanted to give a small gift. He's into the whole new biker scene in the town and asked if I had an of this bike jewelry I used to make years ago.

Back in the day I'd take old chain and form it into keychains and necklaces and earings. This was before you could buy them from online catalogs.
Down in the basement in a dusty old box, I found the last two pieces I'd made.

One time I even set up a booth at our local street fair in town. The booth was sold for Friday afternoon through Sunday. I didn't feel like setting up and Friday afternoon and went to see a band instead and set up Saturday morning. So I am setting up this rickity wooden display easel that I'd jury rigged the day before and a folding chair and old card table, next to the seasoned street fair regulars with credit card machines, nice canopy tents, and lots of merchandise who were all geared up the day before. The street fair enforcers from the town downtown council came by and chewed me out for not setting up on Friday and that they would have sold my spot to someone else ,etc, etc. And I sat all day in the baking sun. Sold enough for several nights of Cellar pita pizzas and beer money for a little while and never did that again.

I think I gave one to an olympic track cyclist who worked with a friend of my brother's out in California and I sent one to Missy Giove. One day I saw a cover shot of her on MBA or similar magazine and sure enough there is my necklace
*That's it but the star shape came apart*

(like the one below) around her neck. The funny thing is though she had sent me a thank you letter that started with :
Dear Homegirl, or Dear girlfriend or something like that...

She must have thought I was a woman as my name alone isn't really distinctive to gender for someone unfamiliar with it.

This morning my kids saw the keychain and I made one for my son on the spot with a dime in the middle of it. My wife still has hers from 15 years ago.

Fun stuff. I like to make things now and then. For most months out of the year I have shop tools that lay dormant, but a few times out of they year I have to make something "right now". A box or a knife or something tangible. Something about taking whole process from drawing a design on paper to forming some raw materials into something that transforms from just wood or steel into something beautiful, tangible, and real. My son and I are making some small boxes right now. 6 mos later it might be done given the rate I'm going...

as good as sliced bread: Trigger Point Massage Ball

2009-04-27T20:43:00.002-05:00

One of my many mini ailments over the years has been tight muscles. Yes, Yes i know that Yoga and stretching are things that I need to do, but never seem to be able to get around to it.

My hot zones include my IT band, especially where my bulging quad muscle transitions to the it band, my hamstrings, lower back, psoaz,
soleus by the calf

back of the shoulder

piroformis

Without my usual rub down and physiotherapist on staff I've resorted to a whole cadre of tools to help. These include some of my most prized possesions and all fall into the Hurts so good catagory. Such as The Stick

I've got the blue one. I love this thing. the key to it is to get deep into the muscles when they are in an unflexed state. It takes a little experimenting to find the right positons to hit things like the hamstrings totally unflexed and to find the piriformis.

The key to it is these rollers that surround a slightly flexible core so you can really bend it and lay it into your muscles. The transition between my quad and IT band is like a square edge so that when I roll the stick over it it will stop until I give it more oomph.

Love it on my quads, hams, and piriformis.

One of my favorite aids is the Theracane.

I can really get to the sweet spots of my upper back with this. I often combine it with this ointment called Bio Freeze. After using both I can definitely feel some relief on my external rotators.

But while using the theracane feels sooooo so good, I havent' found it to truly 'release' my muscles like you hear about. The theory is that stimulating these trigger points of knots helps the muscle release and regain its flexibility.

For the IT band I got one of these foam rollers

This was outside of the hurts so good realm to, omgood help me. It took a few weeks before I could put unsupported weight onto my quad/IT band. Again, with some funky positions I can really get to my piriformis.

I've been working out my external rotators on a regular basis which has helped significantly with being able to keep my elbows out in downhilling. But they get really tender and soar and knotty. The best thing I've found so far for relief has been the elbows of my kids. Once they find the right spot I just have them lay into it with their full weight. But it takes about 5 minutes of wait, wait, just a little higher, no to the left, ahhh not there that is my bone, higher, higher...wait wait right there......

Then the get tired, and cya.

I'd been thinking about this product called the Trigger Point Massage ball for a while.

I've tried tennis balls, and the even the corners of walls to get deep into the muscle. The idea behind this is that the ball simulates the same combination of give firmness seen in a thumb. Where you have a flexible outer and then a firm core. This allows you to get deep into the 'belly' of the muscle to really work it out.

When I first got it I was squeezing it and didn't really see how it did what they say. But when I followed the instructions...Well let's just say I'm a firm believer in it. The instructions say to either use it against a wall or the floor or to press it in using your hand, to wait 5 seconds then take a deep breath and then roll it around a around the trigger point.

The instructional DVD calls this a hurts so good technology. When I first used it, I put it on the floor and laid down on at my rear shoulder. Well, I didn't need to take a deep breath, because I pretty much was gasping like I'd been hit in the solar plexus or had jumped into a freezing lake. It just took my breath away. And rolling it around the trigger point, again. Heavan and hell in one.

But something was different than like when I'd used the theracane. For the first time in memory I could turn my head to the side farther than I ever could. I mean it really did seem to 'release' the muscle. I've used it on my lower back, shoulder, hamstring, soleus, chest, IT quad.

oh man, I went riding over the weekend and didn't bring it. My seat had moved back on the rails over the past few months, and I moved it back to the right spot. This change was very noticeable to my piriformis. And I'd left my ball at home.

I'm telling you, for real, the first thing I did when I got home was get this thing and sit on it

What I'm realizing is that I need to use it almost every day. My muslces just want to revert back to that tight, knotted position. I've had a little bit of rolfing done years ago. One of the theories behind it is that the fascia that is on top of the muscle hardens up over time and maintains poor position. I'd like to go through the whole rolfing procedure sometimes cause I think it did work. This TP ball might be the closest thing.

I want to get this masochistic device made of the same material to replace the foam roller. I've heard that this thing hurts so good/bad that it makes the foam roller seem like a walk in the park.

Anyway, I love this thing

Back on the trainer

2009-04-13T11:56:00.003-05:00

We did a family trip up to Upstate NY this Easter. The weather was a little cold and I didn't feel like packing up all my associated gear. It was nice opportunity to actually bring the trainer though and get a little bit of a workout in order to justify the extra holiday food.

I haven't done structured intervals for some time now. I'm trying to follow a full Morris interval program in order to stay sometwhat in shape. A structured plan is helpful when life is so busy that it is too easy to just say forget about it. These intervals can be hard but are very time efficient.

I actually set my power level pretty conservative on these first ones. One reason was to just successfully complete the entire workout, rather than burn out and have to bag the last ones. The first few intervals are always hard and there is a point about 2 weeks in where the supercompensation starts to take affect and I can up the power settings at least 10W.

We'll see how long the plan lasts but at least for the last few days it went well. If the weather is nice, I will probably opt for a lunch ride on some steep hills, either way it'll help to maintain some fitness.

Marion Loop

2009-04-06T07:56:00.001-05:00

Hit a sweet loop out of Marion, VA this weekend. I must say that Mapmyride is a great resource to find rides, even around where you live. Though I wish I had a GPS with me to make sure I was on the right road. There are so many route changes and offshoot gravel roads around country roads that sometimes you never know.

If you go to Mapmyride and do a search under Marion, VA you'll see some cool stuff.

This had to be one of the best rides I've done in a long time with a huge variety of terrain. Right out of the door 1/2 hour wheezer climb followed by somewhat scare downhill with bad brakes and gravel on the road. The views are to die for in this part of Virgina. Secluded green valleys and streams. The ride turned onto some other backroads that lead into some really rough landscape, the kind that is only good for running some cattle on.

Part of the ride meandered along a beautiful small river and then lead into another long climb. But this climb had that false flat sort of optical illusion. It looked steeper than it was and you could really get on it if you wanted. This was the kind of road that I'd much rather climb up than go down. No guard rails, narrow and gravelly. It passed by these really steep V notche gullies. In one I saw a bunch of turkey vultures riding the air currents. They were doing these long slow loops back and forth without flapping their wings once.

The only bad part of the ride was when I popped out onto route 11 with a headwind and some traffic. It only lasts a short while before you offshoot again back onto some backroads.

fun stuff, nice to ride something different. Good hill training for sure.

philosophical notes

2009-03-30T20:31:00.002-05:00

I need to keep better notes, but throughout the last few years I've been drawing analogies between life and mountain biking. There are so many parallels that one could say that everything I've learned I've learned through mountain biking. A lofty observation, to be sure, but when you break it down to specifics there is lots of crossover.

Things like hard work trumping natural ability, or being committed vs hesitating, and doing a little bit consitently is better then cramming all at once, keep your head up, ....

While we're on philisophical notes, I've been reading a little Dan Millman lately,and while some of it is out there, I've connected with several golden quotes that really resonante, especially with other endeavors in school and work.

Here's my current favorite:

Every positive change--every jump to a higher level of energy and
awareness--involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on
the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of
initiation. I have never found an exception

Or as the Call said, "Brush of the dust and straighten your tie. " *what I can't believe is that in this day and age I had to actually go down to my basement and read these lyrics off the album as they weren't anywhere online.

If I had a million

2009-03-23T18:40:00.005-05:00

With the demise of Iron Horse I just posted about, I was daydreaming about what kind of bikes I'd make if I owned my own bicycle company. If you want to make a million in the bike business, start with 2.

I'd love to work with some designers to come up with a boutique line of bikes. Here's what would be on my hit list.

-A bike just like my Azure.

Aggro XC,

70.5 head tube

around a 100mm fork.

3.5"-4" rear travel,

very tight, balanced for climbing and downhilling.

DW link performance or similar.

Set/forget rear shock like my 5th element, none of this 3 position crap like the Fox RP3, I don't know why I dislike shocks and forks with knobs. Maybe it's because I invariably forget and end up downhilling with lock out on.

Rear tire clearance for some wide tires

Light alloy

long top tubes designed for short stems

sub $700 price point for frame (not likely)

A road bike designed for comfort but also doesn't look like a comfort bike. I don't like the aesthetics of a stem with really high rise. But most people who don't have the flexibility of a euro roady need a higher rise. Instead of a steeply angled stem, start with a taller seat tube and an uplsloping top tube. Maybe slightly shorter top tube than most to cut down on the reach in order to also maintain 110 mm minimum stem length. That way you can avoid those really short stems that some people have to resort to in order to get it to fit.

-high end steel only, no carbon, no AL, noTi. TIG welded,

Interesting, that I like short stems for mtb, but at least 11o or longer for road. It's weight distribution I think. I learned the hard way that too short a stem on a road bike and the front wanders too much.

A flat bar cross bike

This is not just a road bike with a flat bar. I've also tried this too, and it only works for climbing, in other situations it feelt too cramped to me. Makes sense because all this does is put a flat bar in place of your current bar tops of your drop bar. I ride on the tops when climbing a lot but prefer to be on the hoods for most of the riding, which is Xcm out farther. I think a flat bar cross bike would place the bar partway in between where the hoods are and the bar top of my current road bike.

Geometry similar to a stable road bike and maybe not as slack as a full cross bike. Disc tabs

Hardtail

26" light steel, long top tube, built around 100mm fork, convertible drop out to single speed.

Oh..beat to the punch by Soma Fab, see the side bar for their new hardtail.

Women's Specific

XS Petite versions of each bike, 650c for road/cross models. With a wife who is XS petite, I know firsthand the trials of finding a bike in this size. Even with the new proliferation of women's specific frames, it's still hard to find one for truly xs that isn't a kids bike.

Iron Horse out of business

2009-03-23T18:28:00.003-05:00

I've been off the forums for awhile now being so busy with other endeavors. But I jumped on for a little bit to just troll around and was surpised to see this little tidbit over at the Iron Horse Forum at mtbr.

How it ended.

Oh well, as a truly destination brand they really ended when DW pulled his licensing from them. Those few years with the Hollowpoint and their Sunday downhill bike and of course my adored Azure really put them on the map. The combination of remarkable suspension platform with made in Taiwan prices made those bikes some serious value leaders.

It is sad about the MKIII cracking issues, as I've seen a few post their problems with cracked welds. I've been beating my Azure hard for awhile now and I doubt I could break it w/o some sort of quality control issue underlying.

Who you gonna call nowfor DW link, Turner, Pivot, IF, Ibis. At $2395 retail for a Turner Flux, frame alone...doubtful. Giant seems to be a good value leader now, as does Marin, in terms of suspension technology for the money.

Endurance

2009-03-21T10:02:00.003-05:00

Spring supposedly had sprung, but it sure feels cold right now. According to my plan the time has come for 3 weeks of endurance based riding. A key in the Morris plan is to also include some power based work within the endurance.

His plan suggests doing sprints first then a long ride. The next day a long ride and ending with Muscle Endurance (ME) low cadence/high gear work.

I can never pull this off. If I'm in long ride mode I'm in long ride mode and never really do the sprints. But I will do big gear work on hills and some flats. If I only have time for a trainer ride then I'll do the sprints.

Sprints are the hardest thing for me. I just feel like utter crap when I do them and during the workout they seem worthless. It's not till weeks later when I'll be on ride and can just spin up the cadence and just rocket forward. I don't race the road and rarely have need for a true sprint, but the paybacks are huge for off road riding in technical sections, where you can keep the same gear and spin up cadence and blow through a rock garden like nobodies business.

Work is chaotic right now, and I'm falling behind and just treading water in my class. But if I can just burn some vacation time and get a few long rides in over the next 2-3 weeks then I'll be all set to jump into the Interval training, which is hard as anything, and takes incredible mental discipline and motivation but is very time efficient.

I've noticed issues with my blood sugar again on these long rides. I've been off the Paleo Diet 4 Athletes a little, and maybe need to get back on track.

Empower yourself

2009-02-27T07:12:00.004-05:00

I started snowboarding over 10 years ago. Stopped for a while and started again. Taking up this sport as an adult has got to be one of the hardest must humbling things I've ever done. This past season I had the chance to ride for a few days in a row on some nice snow and made a significant improvement.

It is such an empowering experience and I've seen it with mountain biking over the years too. Though those episodse are much fewer and farther between given the higher level at which I mountain bike.

Empowerment doesn't come without a price. Pain, crashing, embarassement and humility are all up there and need to be embraced. It's a hard thing to do no doubt. It's much easier to stay within a comfort zone. But the comfort zone only gives limited payback. If you're not crashing every now and then or not falling then you aren't trying hard enough. The hard part is figuring out how much to push your envelope so you can avoid catastrophic crashes yet still improve.

But regardless of pushing past your limitations the most important thing is to just try. Without care of what others think or how you'll look. Try and keep trying.

The transformation begins

2009-02-27T07:07:00.002-05:00

The lifting transformation is beginning. Today was a power day. Weight is dropped significantly and you perform the lift with explosive movements. With Squats I jump off the ground. I love the fact that I am jumping off the ground with more weight than I started within the transition period.

I just do squats and hamstrings in this explosive movement, then still do strength with upper body and some regular stiff legged dead lifts. still loving the beefcake upper body until I start to get on the bike and do some road climbs.

And also did one round of sprints. 4x4 of 15sec on 60 sec 0ff 5min between sets.

I tell ya, these sprints and the leadout sprints are the workouts that when I am doing them seem worthless because I feel like I am not able to accomplish much work and more feel like I am flailing.

Though for a fact I know that the leadout work that comes later has a direct and quantfiable benefit to technical rocky riding and short steeps.

dowhiller for a day

2009-02-15T15:35:00.003-05:00

Last 3 weeks. 2 mountain bike rides. Skills suffering? I don't think so. We hit Brush mountain for an up down up down ride and I was just killing it on the downhills today. I've almost never ridden down Old Farm like I did today. That is a tough trail, up or down. I know lots of people that don't like it but I love it, even more so than typical dream downhills like at Douthat. You just can't let it go on this trail. There is always some feature coming up like a rough corner, or rooted out section. Today I was a downhiller for real, totally railing in corners and then sprinting out. Typically, it's just fine to coast down it as it's fast enough but not today.

Never lose an opportunity to learn from a mistake or overthink why something went right. I'm trying to pin point what it is that made today feel so wicked.

Something was dialed, and it wasn't my brakes that's for sure. I think my seals are shot on them from the bike shop putting in synthetic style dot 5 cause even after constant rebleeds they are not working well. Today instead of the usual going to the bar after a long downhill then were actually experiencing a lot less travel....

Anyways for me there seems to be 4-5 key things that really make a big difference
1) Vision. Looking out and turning the head around corners. Today? It was ok, I wouldn't say great. I haven't been doing my figure 8 drills which really help my vision.

2) Braking. Braking before the corner and rolling through. Today? Decent. I made a good effort of braking more than usual and trying to roll through the turn as opposed to going in too hot and dragging the brakes through the turn

3)hip twist. Gene showed me how to twist the hips when cornering which I've found to be one of the single biggest metrics for cornering for me. It just seems to lock in my rear wheel and solidfy my entire position. I went snowboarding a bit ago and realized that the hip twist also cross over and helped me a lot in turning. So reinforcing that motion on the board helped to cross over to the bike. The figure 8 drill is also good for ingraining this motion. Today? Very good. One time I twisted so much I unclipped from a pedal.

4) elbows out Gene was always says 'get moto' get your elbows out. Way out. Exxagerate it even in your mind because in real life it always can be better. When I exagerate it I get them in a 90degree angle like Shaums March made his own 'trainer' to help force you into the right position. (note the date on the post) Regardless of a joke or not that is the position.
Today? Very good
Why?

1) been on it with the lifting. Chest, back. but..also new this year is external rotator muscles.

When I've tried in the past to work on elbow position, I always get tweaks in my upper back/back of the shoulder. In fact I feel it now in the back of my shoulders. This year I've been working for the past few months on external rotator exercises. This is a very very weak muscle for me, and isolating it requires use of super small weights, like 5-8 lb dumbells or 10-20 on the cable machine when I first started. I'm up higher now. But still doing any of the exercises is humbling. I've been doing cuban presses:

These are super hard.

I get knots so bad that when I work them with my fingers I can literally hear it. I thought it was just something made up, but my son actually heard it too.

But external rotator excercises helped me keep elbows out and combined with my other upper body work and stiff legged dead lifts I just felt solid.

ending first week of strength.

2009-02-14T22:49:00.002-05:00

down to sets fo 6 reps.

On tap... sets of 5.4.3.2

strength day 1

2009-02-10T19:50:00.002-05:00

took a few days off before hitting the weights again. Today was the first phase of strength. I do one week at 6 reps, and the next week goes to the big dogs of reps of 5,4,3,2.

It went really well today, except my lower back is tired right now. It doesn't hurt just feels worn out.

On one hand it is nice to be done with the sets of 12, but I do get a little scared when running heavy weights. But the thing is the way this plan is structured I'm totally ready. My muscles, and more especially connective tissue and tendons are ready too. it just my head that worries a little bit

Hypertrophy phase done

2009-02-07T14:57:00.003-05:00

Just finished the last workout of 3 weeks of Hypertrophy. It went very well. If I were to continue to another week I'd bump up weights again.

Did a road ride today with the spring weather we are having. First road ride in months. Climbed a few hills ouch, that didn't go so well.

Onwards to 2 weeks of strength. There is going to be some big weight moving, then 2 weeks of the power. I like the power phase. Doing squats and jumping totally off the ground. Also gotta get back on the bike too if time permits.

long winter

2009-02-03T10:31:00.002-05:00

Whew, this winter is draggin on like no one's business. Tough time for mtb because in order to ride the trais you need to go out when the ground is frozen, but when it gets nice they turn muddy (except for gap trail system).

Went out on a nice day this weekend and that was a mistake.

Funny thing though is it isn't bothering me too much, in fact it might be a good thing. It's a pain because it's painfully cold sometimes and it limits potential bike commuting. But at the same time I'm busy and lifting so I don't feel bad if it's a bleak day.

In a few more weeks I'm going to hit a short endurance phase where I need to get one or two long rides in a week and then I'll be bummed if it is still this cold. But after that I'll be heading in to the interval stage and I won't mind at all if it's nasty.

Sometimes when it's nice out it is more depressing because if you can't get out and are busy then the woe is me songs gets sung a little. But I'm hoping to commute more by bike.

Regardless of anything I'm glad that I lifted this year. My body feels more balanced, and I hope I can continue one day a week.

i can relate

2009-01-29T09:50:00.002-05:00

I can relate a little to this.

We'll see how it goes come the first trip down to the pain cave in April.

plan

2009-01-28T21:44:00.002-05:00

Here is the general plan for the next few months. It's just a compass to keep me doing something. Life is still super hectic and the point of this is to remove any thought process from training and make it just something that gets done (if time is available). Without this I'd not be motivated.

I'm already falling a few days behind. Just finished the 2nd full week of hypertrophy and it's going quite well. I've upped my weights from the what was first listed on the spreadsheet just like last year. 6 sets of 12 is starting to get old so I'll be glad when it's over. But then getting into strength, it starts into sets of 6 for the first week then heavier and sets of 4 the second week. I do get a little scared when doing the squats and leg press that week just because it is so heavy. But I always amaze myself at the end.

Doing endurance in March will be a lot nicer than in January as in years past. Though around here you never know what you'll get. Time will be a factor too as I just don't know what it's going to be like with work, school, family...But a plan is helpful just to have direction.

Now the SMSP in April and MSP in may are not going to sit well on a trainer. Maybe the SMSP because I can just get up have coffee and bust them out. And the best training for that phase is done on the trainer. But I can get the workout done early and then go into my day. MSP can be done outside.

The one catch is exactly what race lies at the end of this tunnel. Douthat is one that I've never felt that I've raced to full potential. I've cramped almost every one, and the last time I overcooked it too early, and rode the hardtail when I should have ridden the dually. But it falls on May 3 which is just into the MSP, so technically I'm not fully developed but at least it falls after the SMSP so I'll have some pop in the legs.

I haven't decided yet, maybe there will be on later in May or June to shoot for. But I better pick it soon to have some beacon, some goal to shoot for.

Quick ride

2009-01-24T20:56:00.003-05:00

Hit the mountain bike for a quick ride today. It was a good thing too because it got me off my but to get the bike back together again. It's been so cold in the garage that my wheels, linkage and BB have been in pieces.

In the middle of the hypertrophy phase I don't worry at all about riding or not. In fact it's usually a good thing to not do too much. And with the cold snap we've been having it's been since 1/1 that I was on the mountain bike.

Whenever I go that long off the bike I always worry that I'll forget how to ride, and that my skills will be terrible up and down. Sometimes though I've seen that when you're away from the bike for an extended period of time that I can do things, that I normally don't do so well, like ride a certain log or technical section.

Today the legs were burning badly at the first steep section but other then that it wasn't too bad up Old farm. Going down too I was happy that I remembered how to ride. I think the lifting I've been doing in the upper body was key to downhilling well. Last year I could feel and visibly see my body caving in from lack of lifting or something like Yoga. Lower back, shoulders, etc. Downhilling today, I felt much more connected and in control of the bike. My upperbody work has focused on chest, back and my external rotators of my shoulders.

On another note, I know that I gush about my Azure often here, but today again I just get this overwhelming feeling to shout to the heavens how much I love that bike.

From a value for the money it's hard to beat.

Several things have come together I think that make it click for me.
1) Progressive 5th element shock combined with a platform (Minute SPV) fork. Together I think the suspension action is balanced and tuned for agressive XC
2) Good setup in terms of sag/rebound. (though something was a little bouncy today)
3) Light wheels - Stans rims, tubeless, Laser Disc Lite wheels. Not the most expensive, not the most robust, not the best engagement, but pretty darn light
4) long top tube/short stem. I'm 5'4 and am riding the size 17" which has a 22.5 Effective top tube combined witha 70mm stem.
5) Learning to ride in the middle ring, and be more aggressive with throwing/hopping the bike forward on steep climbs - This a a new thing for me in the last year. But I've probably used the granny ring twice in the last 8 months, and each time I wish I'd stayed in the middle. I think this bike is tuned for the middle ring. Even though DW has a treatise here on why triple rings are necessary for duallies. Combine this with some better techniques for throwing my weight I've been able to clean some steep stuff in the middle.

Granted I don't demo any bikes so have little to compare it to beside my Hollowpoint, and a Salsa FS that I had for a bit and of course the hardtail. But the only bike I'd even consider right now even if I had money to burn would be the Azure Factory.

Maybe maybe a little, the Turner Flux, which has a DW link on it now. But out of sheer principle I wouldn't because of the price difference in an Azure and the Flux. I bet my entire bike right now is less than just a Flux frameset. And I also don't understand the point of a Fox 3 way shock. I cannot stand shocks/forks with knobs and dials on them that are designed for adjusting while riding. Maybe it's just me and my mindset that doesn't work with them. And if the suspension is so good, like I think the DW link is than there should be no need for having 3 different settings, except for locking it out on the tarmac.

Commute bike thoughts

2009-01-20T22:01:00.003-05:00

Some random thoughts on commute bikes. Lately I've been commuting on my hardtail mountain bike outfited with a rigid fork. It's ok to commute on. Sometimes I go to work on gravel and the fat tires are nice. But for the most part it is a little slow. I've tried slicks and just didn't like it the feel of the 26ers with thin tires.

On the other hand I have commuted a few times on my road bike and it's definitely faster except I can't track stand on the road bike at lights.

That has been a function of how I learned to track stand, and I basically have the wrong foot forward in relation to how I turn the front wheel. With toe overlap as I have on my 700c road bike I clip my toe during a track stand. My road bike is too nice to commute on regularly, I would never want to leave it locked up outside. I feel somewhat bad doing that to my hardtail right now.

I've been thinking about what the best choice for a commute bike would be. I had a cross bike a few years ago that had a surly dropout which has horizontal ends with a derailleur hanger. I didn't do the geometry right and it just never seemed to feel right. I tried outfiting it with a flat bar, but that only felt right when climbing all other times it felt too scrunched up. Tried a super long stem and that just threw the steering off.

Several options I'm considering.
1)find a road bike with similar geometry to my current road bike. Considering that it is a custom built road bike with custom geometry this is a little harder than it sounds (seat tube 49.5, effective TT 51.5, upsloping top tube, 73/73 geom)
2) get road bike with a 10mm longer top tube that what I have and put a flat bar on it with similar stem size to what is on the road bike. This is a little more doable because my top tube was shorter than normal road geometry - the problem is that the seat tube might be too all).
3)getting a cheap 29er mountain bike frame and putting road tires on it
4) getting this conversion kit that lets you run 700c wheels on the 26er and set the brakes up properly

I think the concept of single speed is good. But I won't do that stictly because it is just such a hipster fashion thing right now. If I did though it's a little hard to find road bike geometry because everyone is making theses track bikes

I sort of think that drop bars are a better position for commuting on. It just seems that the flat bar on smooth roads places more pressure on my arms. Off road you are always dynamic moving around shifting weight all over. Drop bar riding in the hoods with a slight bend in the elbow seems takes more pressure off the triceps.

The Hypertrophy 2 minute drill

2009-01-18T14:34:00.002-05:00

I'm full swing into the Hypertrophy phase. Amazed once again of how well the body can adjust and adapt. A few weeks ago I was barely able to get through the transition lifting, and now I'm doing 6 sets of 10-12.

From a time perspective I would not say that the Hypertrophy phase is the best time efficiency. 6 sets of 10-12 with 2 minutes rest between sets takes some time. When I first started I used to rush through the rest. Lately I've been taking the whole 2mins and then some and it makes a big difference in making it through the final sets with good form and getting up to 12 reps. Especially as you increase weight ever other set.

The plan calls a Heavy day and then a light day the next. The light day cuts the weight by a certain %. So back to back days. Heavy Day/Light Day/rest/Heavy/light/2 days rest

When I first did this plan I said no way. But I am able to get through it pretty well. The rest days are the worst from a sore/stiffness perspective. Also I can feel my knees are week later in the day especially if I'm on my feet a lot. I've hyperextended my knees just standing around wrong in the past so I try to be careful.

A good dissection of mtb power needs

2009-01-15T06:34:00.002-05:00

FastCat Coaching is a contributor to velo news a lot. I like what he has to say. His web page has some good training articles too. This article on the power breakdown of mtb is interesting food for thought.

It shows the bursty nature of mtn riding over a 10 minute climb. He suggests specific training that targets this type of riding.

cold/impending sinus infection derailing hypertrophy a little

2009-01-13T22:39:00.002-05:00

Got a head cold the other day, and I know, just know that it's going to turn into a sinus infection. I think the issue is that I'm chronically stuffed from about November through early spring. Non-allergic rhinitus due to coal burning plants in WV. So when I get a cold I think that there's already junk backed up and it turns to sinus infection within days.

1st day of hypertrophy was going to be yesterday. Took it off and did some upper body this morning. Tomorrow morning I'll go for the legs. I'm feeling ok, but am just waiting for it to go full blown sinus infection. Already have appt with doctor. Got on the sudafed immediately as well as the Neil Med but don't think I can prevent it.

1st few days of Hypertrophy are hard. I never make the plan. But things come around strong starting into the second week and by the end I've usually upped the weight a little. I am also going for full 12 reps before upping any weight.

Interesting muscle imbalance on my left side. The front part of the shoulder right where the pec connects to the shoulder is really weak compared to the right side. I am doing incline dumbell press and my right arm can easily do 10lbs more. Left side is barely getting the dumbell up. It's all tied to that small muscle in the front of the shoulder

Cool E-book

2009-01-10T20:36:00.003-05:00

I saw on the roadbikerider.com newsletter an announcement for a new ebook of theirs called
The Ride of Your Life

It's about how to fit cycling into your life. A guide for the rest of us with demanding jobs, kids, other interests.

Life's been hectic that last several months, and promises to get more hectic. Work is on the rivet, add in seriously hard class, combined with lack of the prerequisite coursework, plus trying to think about research, plus the kids are getting older. Some might argue that the older the get that it gets easier. But I contend that the older they get, the more they need dad more than mom.

Pretty soon the math homework is going to get harder, and they will begin to learn to drive....That's a ways off I know, but just in the last 6 months I've felt the change in their activity levels in terms of after school and weekend activities.

This is regular life. It isn't what you see or read about in BIKE, and it doesn't include sipping latte's on the patio in Durango or Whistler after a kick ass ride with people with intersting facial hair, and stylish sunglasses. But then again, I live in an idylic college town with a rush 15 minutes and no beltway. I just can't even imagine the basal amount of tension the people contend with on a daily basis in most of the country. But with me, Type A is blind to the scenary

But somewhere in regular life balance needs to find a place. I've been missing that. With me, it always seems to be full tilt on one thing or another. Wide momentum shifts back and forth all or nothing. Drop one at the flick of a switch and pick another up. Like the BLOG. notice how there was nothing for months. Then lately several posts.

Not quite sure I know how to do it. But I'm gonna try. I'm putting the band back together (I hope). On the training plan. Just finished the 3 week transition for lifting and am starting Hypertrophy on Monday or Tuesday. My goal is to find a single race to put on the calendar. And follow the entire Morris training plan to (off season + my inseason plan).

A goal. A beacon of light in the distance. A compass heading to aim for.
You want to know how to achieve a major big deal goal?

Do something (no matter how little) every day towards that goal.

No big goal ever gets accomplished in one day. Or even one week. And my full tilt attitude and nervous anxious need to get it (whatever it is) done now, right now, doesn't cut it for the long haul. The tortise always beats the hare in the end.

So classes haven't even stared yet and I've got a little dream. Now you be the judge come Jan 20 to what kind of posting frequency the blog gets. It could all go down in flames in a few weeks. Dunno.

The good thing, is that Morris plan gives good fitness and results in minimal time. (not minimal effort). It can be made to fit into regular life. I just gotta make it fit that's all.

The training is something that will get written down on a calendar. With something every day. Even a rest day, has a purpose towards the goal. And each day leads to the next day a little at a time.

Somewhat sad a little, to require a plan to keep something so special as mountain biking in the picture. But desparate times require desparate measures. This is such an awesome activity, and the people who are part of my life because of it and the trails I've ridden, the empowerment that it creates, all the cool bike tinkering.... that it is something that needs to be nourished a little bit for a long time to come.

3 week transition for lifting

2009-01-08T15:24:00.002-05:00

I'm almost done with my transition lifting. I always want to rush it but know that is a bad bad idea. I didn't even experience the shocking soreness that usually accompanies getting back to lifting this time because I eased into it.

But my left knee has been tender. I've been icing it and taking some advil. I know that it is the lifting. My muscles can easily handle more weight especially on the leg press, but I'm slowly and deliberately increasing sets,reps and weight over this 3 week period. And have been taking 2 days off between some days to let it rest.

examples of hugeness

2009-01-05T21:05:00.002-05:00

took apart my WTB Laser Disc lite hub today. I try to grease the pawls up with very lightweight grease every 6months or after some serious wet riding. Using regular grease isn't a good idea because the thick grease makes the pawls sticky. I have some left over Manitou M Prep that is great for this. It just doesn't last long because it is so thin.

But this time I noticed that a tooth on the carrier was busted out. I haven't really noticed it though. These hubs never had the quickest engagement so I might have just chalked any slipping to that. Overall I'm pretty happy with these hubs given their weight to cost ratio. They have a slight annoyance in that they adjustment requires that there be a little bit of play. So it always seems like the bearing adjustment is off or there is play in the quick release. Sure they are not Kings, Hopes or DTs but they are less than half the price too. And they aren't annoyingly 'hey look at me I have chris kings', loud. Not that I wouldn't mind some annoyingly loud hubs.

I heard that they have an upgraded system but am not sure if it would apply to my model hub. Hopefully I can get a new carrier. I think Cambria sells them.

break it down

2009-01-05T16:10:00.003-05:00

a little bike maintenance has become a complete overhaul. Worth doing once every few years.

I ordered a bearing replacment kit from Enduro Fork seals but honestly only know how to get in/out one set of the bearings.

updating trails at Hungry Mother

2009-01-03T22:01:00.002-05:00

My wife rode at Hungry Mother today and saw a bunch of bobcat tractors and trail workers adding some new miles.

I guess they are extending the CCC trail and the Molly's knob trail so they are longer and are not as steep. The goal is to make it more accessible to a larger complement of riders.

There's some fun riding there. Some great introductory trails that won't rattle the teeth out of or require donation of a lung for new riders, yet still create some challenges for experienced riders when they turn on the speed. There is also no shortage of climbing when you hit the CCC and Molly's.

The glutton for punishment in me hopes they don't take out all the steep stuff. But anything they can do to get more bikers to the top of Molly's would do wonders for the general karma of the world cause that view is to die for. I've only hauled my butt up there on the bike twice. neither time clean and left portions of lung on the way.

The only thing I'd wish for would be more tight singletrack and more technical riding. Granted you have to make do with what you've got and bobcat tractors can hog out trail a lot more than nonexistent volunteers who are more busy blogging and bellyaching.

Kudos to the work they do out there. Wonderful park rangers who dig mountain bikes and mountain bikers and great local heros making the sport accessible to more riders.

This skills DVD looks interesting

2009-01-02T19:01:00.002-05:00

I've always loved the skills aspect of mountain biking and enjoy any book or movie on the subject. Favorites have included
Mastering Mountain Bike skills
Ned Overend's book
One of my favorites, the out of print Single Track Mind. I was so bummed when I lost this book. Can't remember if I lent it to someone or just misplaced it, but I'd had it at my office and moved offices and then couldn't find it.

I just saw this DVD in Bike.
Fluidride:like a pro
It looks really interesting.

Of course reading a book or watching a movie or putting one under your pillow is going to improve skills. In movement sports that can only be accomplished by two things. Repetive movements and time. I've found that it takes up to 2-3 weeks for specific movements to become integrated as 'second nature' where you can implement them without having to think about it

The downside too, is that not practicing these movements regularly for me leads to a noticeable decrease in skills. Did the new years day ride. Cold and out of practice and feeling stiff and disconnected.

I'm a huge proponent of the better ride skills clinics and the basic practice routines Gene shows. My favorite is the endless drill. Basically just a figure 8. But this simple drill creates the muscle memory and integration of the body positioning, weight shifts, and hip twists that absolutely make or break your cornering.

Havent done it in months. It takes just a few minutes and can be done on any flat place.

Even my basic lofting of the front wheel skill is going to hell.

If I do these drills consistently about once or twice a week, I will notive a big jump in cornering comfort and downhilling comfort in about 2 weeks. It's just like something clicks, and can feel the balance during subtle shifts of the rear wheel as it drifts in a corner or slides off a wet root.

Foot problem identified

2008-12-25T09:21:00.002-05:00

The internet is just amazing. Its ability to help you find random information is just sweet. Even though it is like white gas to fire for hypocondriacs and shopaholics, it's still worth it.

Check this out.
Chiliblains (Perniosis)
This is exctly what has been happening to me. I haven't read it all yet to see if there are any treatments, I was just stoked to see something written specifically about it.

Ritchey Crank Recall

2008-12-19T11:35:00.001-05:00

There is a recall on some Ritchey WCS and PRO cranks. I've got one of the Pro compact cranks.

even a little ride is a good ride

2008-12-05T08:38:00.002-05:00

Hola all.

(Hola because we got back from a vacation of lifetime to Puerto Rico. Fun place. Saw lots of roadies there. Nice to also see that the bike shop elitism crosses territorial boundaries. I went into a shop in San Juan and none of the employees even make eye contact.)

Still busy as crap. But did ride my bike to class yesterday. It felt so good to just be on a bike and feel the pedals turning. There is something about the integral balance between the body and the bike that I love. Did a couple trackstands at some red lights. Just fun.

Though the air around here does some funny things to my lungs. Only 1/2 hour and I was hacking some phlegm from my chest. Excercise induced asthma or sometime like that.

On the excercise front, I can't actually believe it but I've been running a little. It just hurts plain and simple and doesn't seem to be getting any easier. 1/2 hour-40mins is my limit. Though today my wife goaded me into running with her and it was a lot of fun. Running with someone else is mucho better than alone. With riding, I am quite content to ride along, either road or mountain, or with people. But with this running thing having company really helps mask the discomfort.

It's the off season for many, and every year around this time I get a few emails from people who have been checking out the mtbr archives and are interested in the Morris plan. I've sent out my spreadsheet to several people. Truthfully, I'm a little sad that I'm not on some long planned out program. I'm just waiting a little bit in hopes that things settle down in a month or two and that with some stability I can set up a long term plan.

But to those who are into their off season and looking to an April race season good luck. There was a new letter from Gene Hamilton this week that had some great things to say about short term and long term goals and keeping your perspective. Definitely hit home as a huge weakness in my life is maintaining the proper perspective on issues. His bottom line. Enjoy each day. A victory is great and all but is fleeting. After the victory your life still might suck. So work on all parts of your life and not just the intervals. Cause if you get second, well it isn't a win, but if your life is in order than it won't matter as much.

Cold induced uticaria

2008-11-20T20:52:00.002-05:00

I saw this news story on CNN about a woman who gets hives in the cold. When her skin is exposed to cold air she breaks out in hives.

I've been having this thing where my toes and hands get hives in the cold weather. One cold weather ride usually triggers the hives and they stay off/on through the winter. It was interesting to see the story. They are trying a new treatment based on an asthma. When mine gets bad I use Benedryl.

still here lurking

2008-11-05T08:03:00.002-05:00

From a cycling/blogging point of view I've pretty much fallen off the face of the earth. Things are hectic with going to school part time, working full time, change at work and of course family. Not to mention the other various sundries of time suckers as well. The focused thoughts on cycling, training, and gear have been pushed to the side for the time being.

I miss it. Miss the hours of googling and thought process focused on some miniscule cycling issue. But for now it's relegated to some random ebay watching and mtbr trolling. I miss thinking, preparing, getting scared and doing some races. But I just can't get into that right now as racing takes over as a monopoly of my thought processes.

As winter begings to roll in I've gotten back in to a the gym a few days. My goal is to follow the Morris plan loosely for my legs, and do a random hodgepodge of upper body stuff. I had tried a Crossfitworkout a few weeks ago and was intrigued.

The stuff is messed up in a good way, and time efficient, and whole body. Painful as all get out too. A friend has started up a local gym and I might try it out. Some stability and a fixed schedule would do me good right now as randomness bouncing all over the place is not helping out in terms of general life balance.

In just a few weeks I've seen my riding performance fall dramatically. Interestingly, though I think it could come back pretty well with a few focused back to back ride followed by some rest. But I'm ok to let it go for now and build back again later.

Some random cycling thoughts to leave off with. I still think about trying a single speed. It might be something fun to try out to just get excited about. I love my Azure. Something about the geometry and the setup right now just feels so good. I've been trying to isolate what it is so it can be duplicated if needed. I hope to rebuild some lost power this winter, but still be able to maintain this stand up and dance sort of pedaling style when climbing.

Maybe a trainer ride this morning

2008-10-17T05:08:00.002-05:00

With sleep aid medication, like Ambien, it's quite often that I wake up early. If I try to go back to sleep more often than not the remaining sleep is fitful. This half sleep leads to a groggy feeling so it's better to just get up.

Today I get up and say, 'you know,self, I need a ride bad. The stresses of the times are putting me on the edge' Gotta fuel up right to ride so start hitting some carbs. It's still pitch dark outside and didn't check the weather but assumed it would be at least rideable.

My wife comes down and in our conversation says that she's going to skip running because it is raining. Raining!. I check out the back and sure enough it's raining.

Ate those carbs. Now what am I gonna do. Gotta burn it off somehow. Maybe it's time to pull ye old trainer out. It has honestly been 6-8 months since I've been on it. Maybe twice and both those workouts were bust. The trainer used to be a magnet for me drawing in the moth to the flame. But these days I have no desire, no drive to get on it.

The saving grace for me is the terrain here. It's hilly. So by virtue of the route I can hit many hills. No need for desire. The only way to get home is to get through the hills. A 1hr hilly ride 2x a week provides enough effort to keep me with a little fitness.

I hope the trainer still works. But betcha I make it no more than 10 mins!

Thank you to the mountain

2008-10-05T08:31:00.002-05:00

Thank you to whoever invented cycling and the mountain bike.
Thank you to the mountain for letting us play on you.
Thank you for a way to leave behind worries and burdens for a few moments. And if I don't well then I'll be on the ground cause you can't corner and downhill unless you're focused on the moment.

Neat training article

2008-09-23T14:15:00.002-05:00

http://www.biketechreview.com/performance/stripped_down.htm

Time for some maintenance

2008-09-11T07:23:00.004-05:00

My rear brake pad.
Still worked pretty well. I replaced it though before I kill the rotor

nectar of the gods

2008-09-11T07:22:00.002-05:00

Orange powdered Gatorade. Not found locally anymore.
Thank god for the internet

First new bike I've wanted in a while

2008-09-09T05:15:00.003-05:00

I've been very very happy with my Iron Horse Azure. Two keys to making it work properly that I've discovered are
1) light wheels
2) middle ring

My climbing has improved dramatically ever since I made a conscious decision to stay in the middle ring as long as possible. The rear just hooks up and stays solid. My pedaling style has changed a lot during climbing steeper grades but it all seems to work well together and I've clearing things and climbing pitches that I haven't in a long time.

So for the past several years, I haven't felt any desire for a new bike. Well I always want a new custom steel frame of one kind of another, but I haven't felt the desire to scour the forums and google may way to a slow death with regards to new suspension frames.

Until I came across this. My man DW Link has moved his licensing over to Turner. This Flux looks like sweet little XC package. The Pivot bikes that came out last year didn't catch my attention, but this one does. Then I can be part of the Flux zealots. Man I've never seen a group of people who love their bikes like those.

Bad thing to be trolling the forums and mtb web pages again. Bad thing to spend more time googling than actually accomplishing anything.

**** but at more than $2k for a frame you gotta be kidding me ****. After selling off parts I got my Azure for under $400 for frame/shock. Upgraded shock for another $100. I don't think it's going to be that much better!!!

good days are good not so good days hurt

2008-09-01T14:53:00.002-05:00

Man my legs hurt. It's amazing the difference between riding the wave and when the legs are tired. Last week I could do no wrong with it feeling effort less. Today just riding to class was hard.

failing functional strength

2008-08-21T08:33:00.003-05:00

I've definitely seen my core strength and overall functional strength dimish this year. I'm mountain biking much less, maybe once week if that, not doing any back stretches or ab work.

With the slight loss in weight recently, my muscles look beefcake but just trying to pick up my kids across a stream or move boxes makes it readily apparent that my functional strength has dimished. Riding feels fine for the most part, but short rides don't create that cummulative fatigue in the upper body that you can only get from a long day on the mountain bike.

Yoga, pushups, some basic back stretches are all in order. It's more just a mental hurdle to get it on my radar. I'm always bee-bopping back and forth full engagement from one thing to another and if it's not right in front of me then I forget.

the 1 gear dividend

2008-08-21T08:24:00.002-05:00

Still not on any set training plan, just some rides here/there. Longest ride in a while has been about 2 hrs. Even though I'm not on any sort of schedule or periodized plan, I can feel the ebbs and flow in my riding. My personal cycles seem to work on an 11-14 day pattern.

On a good day, on a given hill I can pedal one gear higher at the same cadence, with lower percieved exertion. The good days only last about 2 days then it's back to normal till the next cycle. Creating these good days is a function of some hard riding combined with lots of rest. Too much mid intensity riding spread throughout doesn't seem to do much except stagnate the legs and create cummulative fatigue.

Instead I've been just riding but trying to get out of the saddle more and give it some pop while on a hill. And when the 1 gear dividend pays out, to try an take it and go to even one more gear harder to make it feel like it does when tired.

The limiting factor is not VO2 max or threshold power or anything like that. The limiting factor is how much discomfort can you put yourself into. For now, my discomfort threshold is just a little bit beyond a smile and into that slight grimace territory. It seems to be enough to maintain some semblance of fitness

Middle Ring Optimization

2008-08-12T06:06:00.002-05:00

For the past several months I have been riding virtually everything in the middle ring here on Brush. I went into the granny one time up at Mountain Lake and it messed me up :).

At first I thought I just try it to force myself to work harder and to simulate a tad bit what single speeding might be like. Middle ring and big cog is a fair amount lower than what single speed gearing though. My expectation was that my legs would get blown fairly quickly and it would turn into a grind on the climbs. However, I've been pleasantly surprised that it's doable and even made me climb much faster.

One reason it works is that my bike seems optimzed for the middle ring more than the granny. I've experienced this many times where the bike just lags in the small ring but tightens up in the middle. Another factor contributing to the success of this riding has been a new found technical capability that has been fostered from riding the rocks up at Mountain Lake

A week after riding up there I came back to Brush with this surging stutter pedal stroke on some climbs and technical situations. I was throwing the bike forward with each pedal stroke. When my right (strong foot) pedal gets to the top of the stroke, I'd thrust the bike forward and move off the saddle a hair performing a mini forward bunny hop as the pedal reached the forward position.

I was thinking that this type of movement would just take me anaerobic too fast, but for a short period I can pull it off. The net affect is that it saves my legs from blowing so I can keep turning the bigger gear without it becoming the grind. The ability to just slightly spin the gear vs mashing equates to good climbing speed.

So my experiment has now turned into a goal to try to keep doing it. Just for kicks anyway.

those little sealing crystals..

2008-08-07T16:53:00.003-05:00

It is time for some new dogs on the mountain bike. Pulled down a Nevegal that I've had hanging on the wall for months and mounted on the front with one press of the air chuck onto the Stans rim. It seated immediately. I love those rims.

But it kept losing air over a few hours no matter how much sealant I put in there or swished it around. I put it into my utility sink and found hundreds of micro bubbles coming out indicating that the sealant wasn't working.

I removed all the sealant and tried again. This time making sure to shake the bottle while inverted and also to use the scoop and scoop up some sealant, swirl it around and pour it back. The trick is to get all the little 'sealing crystals' off the bottom of the cup and into the tire. It even says so on the instructions on newer bottles.

Sure enough this helped a lot. It is still losing some air but nowhere near as fast as before. Can't wait to try it out. Things have been so so hectic around here for the last 3 weeks, I'm hoping things will settle down and just get back to some level of normalcy.

By the way. I'm on face book now. I feel so shallow. Invite me as your friend even though I don't know you just so I can have more friends and feel more fulfilled.
ashwin@vtti.vt.edu

We should make a Morris follower group and a paleo diet for athletes sort of following group........

Patch kit cement

2008-08-03T15:52:00.003-05:00

I've got 5 tubes sitting on my workbench waiting to be patched. But almost every tube of that small patch kit glue is dried up. Found this
at Utah Mountain Biking Which is a great site with lots of content about working on bikes and some hard to find specialty items like disc truing tools.

On my commuter bike I used electrical tape for my rim strip and it was a little narrow. Twice now I've gotten a flat on the way home from the spoke holes in the rim getting exposed and cutting the tube. Needless to say I'm going to go back to no tubes here. But I will patch up those other tubes just to have them around.

You warrie

2008-07-31T16:51:00.003-05:00

Was down in NC near Albmarle, and Troy this past weekend. Found a little jewel of a trail system in the Uwharrie National Forest - Don't ask me how to pronounce it. Hit the Woods Run parking lot and the the Supertree and Keyauwee loops plus a little connected trail off Supertree.

Got lucky and hooked up with some local riders on Friday and rode till dark one day. What a fun little trail system. A little chattery with lots of small rocks and exposed roots. Depending on the direction you go some hard short climbs.

Keyauwee loop Counter Clockwise was a hoot. I mean the kind of fun that begs you to go faster but you have gotta be on your toes cause the loose rocks, off camber and stray trees will get you.

There is this small connector off of Supertree that was also primo single track. Having the local riders to show me the loops and also provide some backup let me loosen up a little and rip it with less fear of being left out in the unknown alone if something happened. Chasing and being chased was fun.

Trail systems like this remind me that the best mountain biking is wherever you are. It might be a little small, but these guys rip it up and make the most of it putting together some cool loops. IMBA is going out there and putting in some more which will be great.

It also reminded me that if you can ride Brush mountain and SW Virginia, where I live, you can ride a lot of stuff pretty well sight unseen.

No Rhyme, No Reason. Feeling good

2008-07-22T12:31:00.002-05:00

No Rhyme or reason these days to the training/riding. The past week has been topsy turvy with wife out of town and having the kids and work. It'll be another week till things settle down as I go out of town.

There have been no events on my calendar to work towards which leads to non-structured riding. Typically this leads to noticeable fitness loss, however this time around things seems to be going great. In fact I'd almost venture to say I'm riding as well if not stronger than last year.

It's been so lax that I haven't even been keeping a log of the rides, rest, etc. There are a couple of basic observations that seem apparent though.

First is my eating plan and weight. The Paleo Diet for Athletes plan seems to be working well for me. It's become general sort of plan that is followed about 75% of the time. While riding I'm typically using only energy drink and am riding pretty strong for up to 2.5-3hrs as long as I've scarfed well 3 hours prior. Sugar spiking is under control more. Appetite is down in general. Weight is stable and lower than in the past. Though for sure it's got some downsides.

It's only a few pounds but it sure seems to be noticeable on the bike. I feel more 'punchy'. My riding style seems to include more out of the saddle efforts than in the past. It's kinda fun. Dancing on the pedals a little. Not for very long or very fast but it feels fun.

Training rides have been shorter and with some good intensity. Can't bring myself to do any intervals on the trainer, but outside I just try to find some hills and hardly ever more then 1.5-2hrs If I ride at lunch, it includes the hardest route back to the office. Then a few days without anything, maybe a commute on the bike. A day to get the legs back and then a couple of short hard rides. Every 2 weeks a good MTB in there.

After a few days off the bike, it's a little mentally hard to actually get back on sometimes. Which seems ironic to me. I'd think I'd be pining to get back out but it seems to take a little effort to make the time to get out.

So all in all riding is fun and I feel fit

Carvin's Cove and upcoming race

2008-07-13T16:06:00.003-05:00

Made a trip down to Carvin's Cove today.

The cove is a wonderful place to ride. It has an incredible variety of terrain that ranges from flat gravel road to smooth flowing single track to technical VA rooty, rocky and loose downhills. The flow of the trails is incredibly well done.

The parking lot was full and it was great to see people enthused about mountain biking. There is some great developmental terrain out there that can get people exciting about mountain biking without killing their spirit or body.

Next week is a sweet sweet race with a hillclimb Saturday and XC at the cove on Sunday. Wife is out of town so I might not be able to make it, but this is a jewel of a course put on by some great volunteers. The course has everything in it. Fire road climbing technical descending, and just incredible single track.

Always a nice treat to go down there, and kudos to the crew down there for turning the Cove into a destination riding spot. They have all the ingredients to grow mountain biking out there and it's great to see the energy.

PDA4A continuing thoughts

2008-06-25T21:53:00.002-05:00

I've had a long lasting stomach bug the past few weeks. It seems to have finally left my system just in the last few days. It sort of threw off my evaluation of the Paleo Diet 4 Athletes. You can read my past comments here, here and here.

During that stomach bug, my appetite for anything was shot, then transitioned to being hungry but with a rumbly stomach afterwards no matter what I ate. One a two weeks ago I saw the lowest weight I'd ever been but was probably dehydrated.

So what's my take now? The last few days I noticed a significant change compared to the first few weeks on it. I used to be totally famished in the middle of the day. With a sharp hunger that seemed exacerbated by the fruit and vegetable regimen of this eating plan.

This very hungry feeling seems to have disappated significantly. In fact I'd go so far as to say that I'm just not very hungry much at all these days. Don't get me wrong, I still eat. Quite a bit, especially when preparing for a ride. But oftentimes when I'm not hungry like during the first few weeks.

I have been adding back in some carbs during lunches, not too much though. Dinners is where I try to stick to the plan unless a big ride or race is coming up in the next few days. While on vacation recently, I pretty much went off it and scarfed down major desserts almost every day. Once back home and in familar environs I got back on pretty quick.

Blood sugar levels have stabilized very nicely. I can tell when I've eaten some carbs though, especially when I'm at my desk or sitting around at home. I feel it in my arms of all places. The muscles in my arms seem to feel bonked. It's interesting.

What about the affect on riding? If I just go on a ride w/o having eating significant carbs 3 hours before it usually doesn't go too well. Not too bad but not as good as if I'd prepared properly. I'll intake some carbs as soon as I start pedaling or sometimes within the first few minutes prior to starting. Within a few minutes the legs seem to come around ok.

If I've prepared well 3hrs prior the ride goes real well. Also during the ride I intake a constant stream of energy drink and sometimes high carb food. Blood sugar spikes while eating on the bike have gotten much better. But I really need to test it out with some gels or cliff blocks to truly verify. I seem to be able to last as long or longer than I used to last on just go-juice.

After riding I'll slam some serious carbs. Ensure, Coke, chips, candy, fruit cup.. you name it it is fair game. Then later at night typically a meat dish with vegetables.

Recovery seems to be pretty good. As the propaganda points out the higher protein content is supposed to help with that.

Lunches are still the hardest. I tried making some stews but often get stewed out by Weds or Thursday. On the Fast food front, Chili and salad at wendy's or the taco salad at The border work well. Or a turkey sandwich. I'm not too strict at lunches. For snacks I stick to fruit, dried fruit/nuts trail mix, beef jerky, and yogurt (technically not on the plan). Too much fruit and vegetables leads to you know what so sometimes I slack off those.

Breakfast is usually scrambled eggs (with several eggs being just egg whites), and fruit. I'm thinking some lean bacon or sausage in order too. Sometimes left over meat from the night before.

I was Xlbs nothing before I started this and have lost a few pounds. I'd say I'm still losing a little per week. Definitely noticeable on the bike. And all my clothes are loose. This was not the aim mind you, but a side benefit from a cycling point of view. The main thing is I just don't think you carry as much water weight on this plan.

So what now? It can be a pain in the ass. If it's not convenient, I deal with it and eat what is there. If we're out and they're serving pizza, I'll take two. If we're at cold stone give me a Peanut Butter Delight. 'Nuff said' about it being too restrictive. It's not if you don't let it. But most of the time, I try to stick to the basic principles of
-Carbs:
-3hrs before
-during
-1hr after
All other times, lean meats, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, nuts
I throw in some addition like yogurt too.

I do have low energy on non riding days if I haven't had enough fruit vegetables. It's a low level feeling and not a spiky feeling.

The nice thing is that the plan is an enabler to riding. Sometimes even us cycling nuts need incentive to ride. Want to eat some good shit, then ride.

So for know I'll stick with the general plan as a compass and go from there.

Good little accessory for shock pumps

2008-06-25T21:46:00.002-05:00

One of the annoying things about shock pumps for forks and rear shocks is the loss of air when removing the chuck from the shock. You have to thread the pump on just tight enough so that when you take it off you can do it in one swift 1/4 turn motion. The goal is a very short pffft sound. More often than not though it's a longer psssss sound and you've lost more air than you wanted.

I saw this little gizmo at the bike shop and decided to try it out.

First you thread this unit onto the shock. Then thread your shock pump on. If there is air in the shock you have to pump up past the intial pressure in order to break the seal of a check valve inside this thing. The pressure will increase quickly then once the check valve is broken it will drop a little bit immediately. Pump up to desired value from there.

Then, if the shock pump has a air pressure release hit it short and quick to remove all the air pressure from the pump. Unthread the pump from the unit then unthread the unit from the shock.

I think it works. I pumped up to a value took it off then put it back on and once the check valve was broken it was at the same pressure I'd finished from the first time.

Mountain Lake Dirty Dawg race report

2008-06-15T14:46:00.008-05:00

This was going to be titled the race report that almost wasn't because I was waffling back and forth till about the last possible moment. I'm so glad the way it finaly waffled and that we went. It was a wonderful event

The location was idyllic at the Mountain Lake Hotel. The course was unlike any around, challenging technical rocks, but also some power fire road climbs, loose shale off camber, twisty single track, and bomber fire roads. With trail names like Moonstomper and Toejammer which ironically lived up to it's name in my case

Thanks to Ben, The Mountain Lake Conservancy and the Mountain Lake Hotel. For putting on such a great race. Putting on events takes such effort, and we wouldn't have races to go to without people like that. Race or no race, the riding up there is super fun and they are committed to creating more and more trails.

On Wednesday, I got this GI stomach bug that has been going around town. A terrible stomach upset then low grade fever that just put me in bed. The fever went away after a day, but the stomach has been on strike since then. I had no appetite and if I did, no food irregardless of type felt right. It wasn't getting that much better into the weekend, and was thinking that racing might be out of the picture. The event was billed as a weekend festival with campout, bonfire, etc. My buddy and I and some of our kids went up there Saturday night to just say hi.

While up there my son started to haze me about racing. What to do, my own child, who seems to have reached a new level of maturity, is razing me, while the violins are playing in the background as I remind him of the stomach thing I've got.

It was pretty much decided to go that night. I'm really glad, and have been jonesing for some of that fullfilment that comes from racing. I'd made a conscious choice to not race much this year due to other commitments. I'm glad to have other priorities and not be so uber focused on cycling to the point of nausem, yet have also missed that good feeling that comes from voluntarily putting yourself through physical hardship. Running the gauntlet and coming out the other side feeling like utter crap, yet feeling empowered and fulfilled at the same time. That is mountain bike racing. If it was easy everyone would do it.

In the morning I tried to eat some serious carbs but nowhere what I'd use to eat prerace. It sat ok, but I could tell things weren't 100%. The legs were primed though. Two weeks ago, I performed my standard peaking protocol of doing three consecutive days at high intensity, with duration decreasing across each day. Due to the stomach bug and other obligations I'd had no saddle time from Wed to Friday prior to the race. But Saturday I did some zone 2 on the trainer and some 5x1min on, 2off on the trainer. The legs felt a dead, and later that night they felt tender to the touch. Typically that would be cause for alarm. But I've learned that this tender feeling after a wake up the legs effor t is the tellatale sign that something's going to happen...something wonderful.

The start was uncharacteristically mellow. I think many had either preridden or heard how much harder it was than last year and took it slower out of the gate. My goal was to take it easy and not get sucked into the start frenzy. I've not been training like years past or racing for months so doing that would be a recipe for disaster. As we turned to the single track, I actually started to catch a few. This one crazy foo' on a rigid single speed was practically going backwards. But when we hit the dirt road, I was sprayed with gravel off his rooster tail as he light it up.

The course leads to some off camber shale sections. Flat city for many. Then into the hardest climb out to the start of the technical single track, Moonstomper. I actuall got my foot wedged into a rock within minutes of starting this track. My pinky toe got munched. I thought I might have broken it. But racing is racing, and it didn't keep me from riding. Throughout the day,I sometimes pressed it down in my shoe to get a jolt of pain to wake up.

After passing someone on the rocks I was alone for a long time. Trying to just stay steady. For about an hour and a half I was riding strong. Right around the 2hr mark the energy stores were fading and the first dose of sport legs was waning. My in race dose was taken at the 1hr mark and didn't kick in until 2:10 or so. Would't you know that right around the 2 hr mark Dave passed me. We'd traded spots in the rocks where I chose to burn many matches pinballing off rocks while he saved some energy.

More often than not I don't really race my bike. I just ride as best I can, but don't often dig deep to hang onto wheels or bridge gaps. I was proud to focus hard and stay on the wheel as he passed. But just as we top out on the golf course road, the leg locking cramps hit. So I had to back off a tad. These days I ride through them as best as I can cause I know they'll go away as soon as the Sport legs kick in, but I lost the wheel though had him in sight.

On the last major climb through a grassy jeep trail I'm slowly chasing. Grinding the middle ring and see him get off and walk. Grinding and grinding and the gap is barely closing. It was like that scene from Monty Python where those knights are running and running and aren't getting any closer to the castle. All of a sudden I finally crawl by.

I'm thinking that if I can make it to the last technical singletrack downhill maybe I can gap enough to hold him off. Look at me, thinking all competitively and tactically. Through the last single track alone and onto the fire road climb. I'm dying. Knowing I'm being chased. Trying to just get through this last road. Big ring as much as possible then middle. Ahh the last checkpoint meaning that it's just a grinder hill away to the finish.

God that hill hurt. Oh then there is the climb to the stables. Just as I'm near the top of the fire road, who but that rigid single speeding yahoo blows by me. No way possible to hang onto the train. Rolled through to the finish with snot hanging down my nose, stomach in knots. I heard my name but couldn't even think to look around. My wife and kids had come up but didn't even see them till after I'd crossed the line.

Look how old my kids are getting

See my face. To the untrained eye it could be seen as a smile. Grimace is the correct term. I used the large picture so you could get the full effect. That is the face I came here looking for. For the next 4 hours my face looked like that. My stomach was in utter rebellion. It wasn't that sickly over carbed feeling but more of general turmoil.

Great day, great organizers, great competitors. So glad I came. In the end I got 5th with 4th less than a minute and 3rd less than 2 minutes. Way way better than I would have expected given this year and the last week. The top two were like 20mins ahead. I'd love to see those two dancing through the rocks.

Please come next year when they have it. And to the mtn lake crew keep building trails. But if I could make a request, make some smooth but twisty single track that can be enjoyed by rank beginners as well as experts. We need to grow some new bikers so they can go after those rocks.

Notes to self
-haven't been keeping a training log the last few months. So not exactly sure about what has worked so well
-Combo of some hard rides back to back. Good tough routes:
-460 to mtn lake, jenelle road, woodland hills, pearman, Old brush and hills in the neighboorhood, up beast, up OF. And lots of rest and not riding.
-Want to bring back one trainer session a week. lead outs to get my leg spinning ability up and/or butt kickers.
-Peaked well two weeks before
-Have lost weight. Combo of PD4A which I'll be writing more about soon (good and bad), and just plain not eating crap, and just plain not eating much the last week with the stomach thing. No doubt about it weight matters. My power numbers are all down from last year but the weight is lower and I feel good on the bike.
-I was pushing a bigger gear an lower cadence most of the day. Still seems counter intuitive that it works but I think this course combined with the Sport legs worked better with that strategy
-I don't like being dependent on those things in races, and I don't like that they take away snap and ability to spin up on demand. But damn do they work on my cramps, and damn if I can't just keep pedaling middle when I should be in granny.
-Still can't start fast. But caught a few people after in several minutes.
-Technical skills were big factor today. Needed em.
-Skills felt on today. I did a skills session with the cones last week and another a few weeks ago. It takes several days for the feelings to get ingrained and I could feel the rear wheel breaking and coming around on turns w/o it freaking me out.
-Bike had no problems.
-Stans is key in this terrain
-Had a competitive fire today. Rode it like I stole it for some golden moments.

Dirty Dawg Mountain Bike Festival

2008-06-06T14:58:00.002-05:00

Dirty Dawg
Mountain bike festival.

Wow, great course. A very very technical rock section in there. Take Gap rock sections and do it about 10x. Save some gas for that section as you'll need some power in the legs to push a decent size gear through. Spinning does not work in this kind of terrain. You need a large enough gear to be able to pop the front wheel up on demand.

I might ride it on Sat. May race may not. Last few days having problems breathing or something with the allergies or heat. Legs are ok though.

Interactive Trail map of Pandapas pond trails

2008-06-06T14:57:00.000-05:00

Just came across this
Amazing amount of work. Cool interactive trail maps with elevation profiles of all the trails in my back yard.

PD4A going on 2nd week

2008-06-03T21:16:00.003-05:00

So I'm going on the 2nd week of the Paleo Diet For Athletes.

I actually haven't even looked at the book since skimming it the first time. The book didn't read very well to me. Written by two authors, it definitely feels disjointed. You can easily tell which author wrote which sections and it isn't laid out very well.

What I prefer is a very simplified plan based on Gordo

Gordo distills these ideas to what he calls the Key Three:

Majority of nutrition from whole fruits, lean protein and fresh veggies.
Starch and sugar only during and after training.
Eliminate as much processed food as possible

I augment this to eat whatever you want a few hours before a ride or 10min before a ride, or 1hr afer ride.

For dinners we've been getting some frozen fish from Kroger. Cheaper brand of wild caught salmon and tilapia. Plus lots of fruits/vegetables. BBQ chicken.

Before a commute bike home it's...cookie time. Get outta my way. Cookie time. And at home I'll 'recover' with somthing..

So far I haven't been feeling as bad during those low points in the day. And haven't been going off the plan too much. And this is important. Except... When I damn well please I eat what I want to. I if I want pizza I'll get it. Same for bday cake. And if the BBQ goes on, a beer comes out.

If you are following a 90/10 goal fo 90% of the time the plan, 10% deviate. Or 80/20 whatever. This is a goal eating plan not a diet. It's not a caloric restriction it's more of a scheduling. For someone just starting out, I'd suggest only try it for dinner. Switch to a lean meat/fish and vegetable dinner (except if a big race was coming up the next day)

results to date
-still feel a little energy lull in middle of the day, seems to be getting better.

-Just fruits/vegetables for a snack doesn't cut it. Nut/with dried fruit helps. Supposedly peanuts are not the best, but those peanut/fruit mixes are about 5$ cheaper per bag so that's what I get. Also yogurt helps, even though it is technically not on the plan.

-Planning is key. I've been cooking up a stew in the crock pot the past two Sundays. It gets me through several breakfasts and lunches. When cooking up some BBQ chicken make the whole package and eat it for breakfast or lunches through the next few days.

-Going riding w/o planning for it and then taking something 10mins before works, but only for a short time. the 10minute thing is only for riding moderate or light pace, not for race pace. cause it makes my legs feel like lead.

-No blood sugar spikes at all even during riding and eating a little debbie.

Weight scale said lighest ever, BF% showed lightest ever. But I was probably dehydratded....My guess is that with less overall muscle glycogen in storage I'm carrying less water in general. It seems that I don't need as much water as previously to stay hydrated.

As long as I eat properly to prepare for riding (with influx of carbs 3 hrs before) I am riding real well. Climbing well especially due to lower weight.

Pedal stroke over obstacles

2008-05-24T22:14:00.002-05:00

Rode some of the new trails up at Mountain Lake today. Kudos to Ben for creating some incredibly technical trails. Very challenging requiring total A-game. Great to wake me up from complacency and get excited to ride.

Some of the trails had some serious rock gardens on them. Like Dragon's Back and Harrisonburg rock gardens. Fun stuff if you've got balance, momentum and power.

I think on of the keys is gear selection. Choosing the right gear that you can pop your front wheel on demand. This can't be too low because you can't go very fast, and not too high otherwise you might not have enough oompfh behind it. The gear needs to match how fast your going.

Something I struggle with a lot is timing a wheelie inducing pedal stroke such that when my front tire lands on an object (rock, top of a log, etc.) that my feet are in my strong position (the coasting position, the chocolate foot forward as Hans Rey calls it) with my strong foot forward. From this position I can much easier hop forward to get the rear wheel to clear the obstacle I just pedaled over.

The ironic thing is I used to years ago know how to do this w/o thinking. Clearing 1"-1.5" ledges and logs. Though now it's hit or miss. Sometimes I hit it right other times my feet are opposite how I want them, other times the whole thing is mistimed and my wheel is on the other side of the log and my chainring is stuck on the log.

It's so hard because you have to time your pedal stroke at the same time that you are moving towards the obstacle. Sometimes you just can't stop pedaling in order to get in to position prior to the obstacle as you'd lose all your momentum especially if it is uphills or rocky. So you have to be pedaling towards it and then be in the right position to perform your pedal stroke such that your strong foot is forward when your front lands on the obstacle. Then hop.

The other trick is knowing how far away from the obstacles to be before you start the power pedal stroke. Depending on speed probably a foot and a half. I used to think about it in terms of which foot to start at the 12 o'clock position, then how many pedal strokes do you do with that foot. With your weak foot at the top of a pedal stroke, a 3/4 pedal turn will put your strong foot parallel with the ground.

But this video I found changes around the semantics a little and calls it a 1/2 pedal power stroke with the weak foot + a 1/4 power stroke with the strong foot to get you in the right position.

I think I like this way of looking at it and need to practice and ingrain it. This is going to be key to ride this stuff as well as any other big obstacles out there, when you don't have enough speed to coast to it.

This is definitely one of those things you just can't think about.

PD4A day 6 or 7

2008-05-23T06:36:00.002-05:00

So I figure I'll throw out some random thoughts as I go day to day on this Paleo Diet for Athletes.

-Need to have some fruit/veggies on hand between meals. Went to the movies with my son and had eaten at noon. Around 2-3 just felt really weak. Afterwards got some fruit in me and felt better.

-Also around 11pm same thing. But I don't want to eat that late. Should have been in bed a little earlier anyway.

-Last night school function. Only thing around was Pizza and bake sale. Pizza was good. Very little desire for the bake sale stuff. 90:10 philosophy. Go for 90% of the time, 10% diversion from the plan is required. Sort of like training. A good plan executed 80% of the time is better than a bad plan executed 100% of the time.

-Cravings for pasta, candy, doughnuts are not as bad as I thought.

-Grapes banannas seem better for me. Apples make me feel hungier after eating.

-This is going to get expensive. Fish, chicken, lean meat. And lots of it to feel satiated.

-Need more ideas for eating out fast food. Not sure who's got the best salads. But need more meat to make it substanial enough. This isn't a diet, I'm not cutting back on calories. So it eat as much as you want, just of certain foods at certain times.

-As I read in somewhere else on the net, the scale and the mirror are motivators. Only been a few days but already feeling fitter similar to last year. That tight skin feeling. Could just be dehydration too. Earlier this year, without the motivations for racing, I definitely had been upping the snacks. So I can't say definitively if just cutting out the crapola for the last week is the reason, or if it is this eating plan.

-I will be surprised if I make it to 4 weeks. It's going to get interesting the next few weeks when the transition period gets harder and the newness of this obsession wears thin.

-Today will be a good test riding later in the afternoon. I'll carb it up 10mins prior and carb up on the ride.

Interesting Princess and the Pea issue

2008-05-22T07:33:00.002-05:00

So I'm riding my road bike around, and it just feels weird. A tad Unstable, difficult to ride a consistent straight line. All of a sudden I'll just be over there. Like a big gust of wind moved me over.

I've had this feeling two times before. One time when I broke my frame. There was a hairline crack at the seatstay and seat tube. The other time was when I had a frame where the top tube was too long. The short stem I used didn't provide enough weight on the front to make it really stable.

I'd turned my bike over several times looking for cracks, nothing. I've loved this bike since I'd gotten it considering it the best frame road or mtn I've ever had. Why all of sudden would it feel weird.

The only thing I'd done recently was mess around with tires. The rear tire had been really squared off from riding on the trainer. I moved the front tire to the rear and put a new tire on the front. I was wondering if I just wasn't used to riding on a properly shaped tire after riding on the squared profile trainer tire.

But I think the issues was that I bought a different brand tire for the new one. One that had a slightly taller profile. The new tire was in front and it raised up the front, decreasing the weight on the front by a tad. To test this out I rotated the new tire to the rear and moved the rear tire to the front.

Bingo. felt back to normal.

I haven't measured anything, just going by feel. It still seems implausible that the small difference in tire height, if there is even one, would be enough for me to feel. But sure enough from one ride to the next the bike felt better.

more PD4A thoughts

2008-05-22T07:23:00.002-05:00

So Keith or anyone else on this Paleo thing. I need suggestions for meals.

What do you eat for breakfast when not riding that day? Egg whites and fruit is all I can think of.

How do you cook up enough meat/fish for lunch/dinner every day? Do you cook up several at once and use leftovers over a few days.

What are you cooking up? What fish, what cuts of chicken, what cuts of steak, other meat???

Any suggestions for keeping the cost down?

Snacks? What are you snacking on between meals? Fruits/vegetables snacks seem to make me even more hungry than if I don't eat at all. Nuts are working a little. what else, Yogurt? beef jerkey?

For your paleo meals, have you cut out bread/pasta all together or just cut back compared to the typical cyclist big plate of pasta?

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I'm about a week into it. Trying to make it to 3-4 weeks to truly assess it. The difficulty in pulling it off is readily apparent. It takes effort to have meat/fish/vegetables for 2 meals a day. Snacks of fruits/vegetables are not satisfying from a hunger perspective. Transition period is creating general low energy. However blood sugar spiking is not a problem. Scarfing some carbs 10 min before riding has helped a lot

10 minutes before riding / Other Paleo Diet 4 athletes thoughts

2008-05-19T19:46:00.004-05:00

Just a quick observation on the Paleo Diet for Atheletes plan.

In the first section they give some guidelines for eating for training. 2-3hrs before, 10 minutes before and after riding.

The 10 minute thingy is interesting. Intaking an influx of carbs 10 minutes before exercising tops off the tank but because your body is working you don't get that bonked spike followed by a deep valley==> the bonk.

I've learned that I can't eat carbs within an hour of riding. If I do I'll be bonked during the ride. I've tried slamming an energy drink right before a race to top off the tank. It did not cause any bonking feeling but due to the high intensity of a mtb race it wasn't the best for the stomach.

However today I was commuting by bike. I love to commute IN. I hate to commute home. Riding in the morning is such a great way to start the day. Riding home at the end of the day, my blood sugar is always low. Can't eat cause within a few hours of riding home otherwise its worse than nothing at all due to the spike/crash. Sort of a catch 22. So riding home always seems more uphill, windier and a PIA.

Today I ate lunch at 12. No other snacks the rest of the day. I'm famished had to get home somehow at 5:30. So right before leaving I gobbled down some soft cookies. You know the kind pure sugar. Within 5 minutes I'm starting to blink my eyes really hard which is what I do when trying to clear the cobwebs.

By this time I'm changed and on my way down to the bike. With some energy drink in the bottle I start riding home. Once I got on the bike the light headedness started to fade and I was also starting to sip on my energy drink. My legs felt great. I was riding well which is such a contrast to how I normally feel riding home.

I need to test this out again. But I know that 1hr-10mins before I can't eat otherwise I'm screwed. However this -10mins seemed to work out well.

With regards to the whole Paleo thing in general, I'm cutting back on carbs in the morning, more egg whites, less PBJ/english muffin. At lunch I had some soft tacos and some chips and sure enough felt the crash.

Dinner was steak/vegetables and fruit. No issues. By 9pm at night I am hungry. Having a beer now because I read the propaganda that beer is as good as wine for heart health! Trying to eat more vegetables and fruit. Problem is that just veggies don't fill me up.

As typical with Friel the book has a more phased approach depending on where you are in your training. I'm just trying to simplify the whole thing and create some general guidelines to make it possible to truly follow.

Basic plan
When riding. Either eat a ton of carbs 2-3hrs before and/or 10 mins before. Anything goes. Energy drink, yogurt, Ensure, COOKIES..
Right after riding eat some carbs/protein. Good stuff hopefully. Gotta figure out a good smoothie mix.

When not riding, or several hours after riding. Cut back on carbs a lot. More fish, chicken, lean meat, vegetables fruit.

Snacks: nuts, dried fruit, vegetables,

Doable? Not sure. It's still a total paradigm shift especially when eating out. I'm real good about getting gung ho about something at the start. And then fading away after a little while.

All I know is that the spike/crash is a tangible event for me and I'm tired of it. But I love my carb food: Pizza, tortillas, pasta....

Paleo diet for athletes

2008-05-15T20:52:00.003-05:00

I've known for a long time that I've got issues with blood sugar stability. And have also known the common sense guidelines of eating whole foods, cutting down on processed sugars and trans fats. etc.

A reader mentioned the Paleo Diet for Athletes in response to my latest episode of blood sugar spiking. I decided to order the book. Probably my third or fourth sports nutrition books in the last few years.

I'm only partway through it right now. It's an interesting juxtaposition between the traditional carbo is good philosophy of the typical endurance athlete and the high protein low carb camp. The key is timing. Carbs are ok before during and right after and emphasized much less during other times.

The sections on what to eat before during and right after hard riding mirror what I've found works well for me. They even mention (twice) Ensure which is the one of the only non-dairy high carb good protein and easily digestible products around.

The Paleo aspect of the plan is to emphasize real food over processed food cutting back on processed grains and in taking more lean proteins from fish, meats, poultry, fruits, vegetables. I'm lactose intolerant so cutting back on dairy isn't too hard, but I love cheese. And man I just got this sweet panini grill.

So it's all good except for the fact that this is going to be very very hard to implement in practice. Why? Because I eat carbs all the time and love em. Bread, sandwiches, pasta..etc. Even though I know that they do make me feel worse. It's just ironic. Case in point, yesterday had to take the kids to karate and then have late dinner after they were done. Had some cookies and soy milk to tie me over till the late dinner. Tasted good but felt like crap after. Then for dinner had a sandwich at Fazolis and some Pizza. Just continued the feeling like crap and then later at night, stole some more cookies and felt like crap to bed time. And this is while reading the damn book.

It's going to be a a huge mental shift in eating. I do like how they have highlighted the need for carbs for an endurance athlete and I like the recommendations for how to implement it. The whole paleo thing is probably a great idea for someone with my blood chemistry. Whether or not I can accomplish it is yet to be seen.

More fish, lean meats, vegetables, fruits. Cut back on the pastas, breads, refined sugars.

I can almost guarantee that I will feel pretty good after 2-3 weeks transition. But it's just going to take a major shift to get over the difficulty associated with any major change.

Anyway I think I'm going to try it out for 2-3 weeks and see what happens.