#62

So there I was, circling Canyon Lake #5, trying to recondition an out-of-shape pair of legs, recovering after an uphill sprint, when I heard a noise, a swishing sound.

Then a cyclist passed me, nothing unusual in that; the years have taught me that my place in life is to get passed. But this time, the passer was about 9-10 years old, aboard a road bike fitted to him. And he was decked out in full cyclist's kit.

He was also followed by a car, from which parental eyes watched carefully.

Feeling stronger, I followed closely but not too closely. No point in threatening the kid's ego or in trying to boost mine by passing him.

But think. How remarkable that a little kid would be that involved in ... cycling. We are not talking about football or soccer or little league baseball but ... CYCLING!

What wonders hath Lance wrought?

What greater wonders are to come?

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#61

...to me! Four years ago today that I first successfully rode a bicycle for the first time. Raleigh M-80, steel frame, from about 1995. Still ride the bike, used as a commuter and errand bike now.

Started trying to learn in August 2005. Took me until Oct. 19. By which time I had read everything in the library about bicycles and riding them, and had overhauled three machines and acquired several more.

The secret was to get on and hang on without dabbing a foot down -- to trust to balance. In a single word, trust.

Life changing? Actually in small ways it has been. In the perspective of a few years, riding a bicycle was more significant than graduating from college the first time. Less significant than marriage, but important.

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#60

No secret I don't like Rush, at all. Either his political opinions or what I hear of the man himself. Basically, he is one big hypocrite who is smart enough capitalize on conservative foolishness. (Palin is now drinking at the same fountain.)

Neither do I like -- are you standing bareheaded in respect? -- Political Correctness. Didn't like it when Jimmy the Greek or Howard Cosell were kicked out of broadcasting. Didn't like it when what's his name was kicked off the broadcast team for saying that Roger Staubach ran like a sissy. [See footnote] Don't like the way the Augusta National committee gets to censure free speech among golf commentators. Folks ought to be able to say what they want without being penalized for it.

Neither do I like the NFL pro football monopoly.

Far as I'm consarned, weird or eccentric ball club owners add to the color of the sport. Al Davis was okey-doke wid me. Even George W. back when he was posing as front office man for the Rangers. (Didn't he look good in them fancy boots? Wished he'd stayed there.)

(So do weird or druggie or playboy players add to the interest in the sport. Hell, let's make up an all-convict pro football team, with convict coaches! Gotta be doing 10 to life to be eligible. Give them prisonyard weightlifters something to do with their bulk.)

A hypocritical Rx-munching, mouthy druggie like Rush would have served the sport just fine.

Will admit this. Recent pics of Rush show him to have slimmed down. Maybe it's the cocaine, or maybe he's working out. Wonder if he can swing a golf club in an arc now?

[Footnote] Well, hell, Staubach did run like a sissy. Thought it myself. You thought it too, didn't you? And Marion Morrison...pardon me...John Wayne, walked like a sissy. (Don't think I would have told him that to his face, though.) Actually, I think the Duke's problem was that that girdle was too tight. Plus those tippy cowboy boots hurt his bunions.

[Footnote to footnote.] No secret. 3/4 the stars in Hollywood got fitted with a corset for screen roles and public appearances. Which was why they often didn't take off their clothes for assignations with groupies.

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#59

Few years ago led by Shimano, several major bicycle manufacturers introduced coaster bikes--featuring automatic shifting and a relaxed riding position. A survey, the folks at Shimano said, indicated that potential bike riders were scared off by shifters and transmissions.

How have coasters faired in the marketplace?

Don't see many of them. Do see some Electra bikes with their upright riding position--which is not always a good thing; saw one college student with a heavy backpack who looked like he was about to tip over backward, a real possibility on an Electra. If you tote a heavy pack you are better off riding with your back forward 45 degrees.

As for auto shifting, my feeling is that it is a solution to a problem that does not exist. First, auto shifting is never perfect, even on new Shimano coaster bikes. Second, a big part of the fun of riding a bike is selecting gears. Sometimes you want to spin fast; sometimes to push a big gear; great to have the choice. And even if you don't like to shift, you don't have to; just leave the bike in a middling gear.

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#58

James Thurber wrote and drew extensively about the War Between Men and Women. I have a copy of his book, and nobody I showed it to thought it was funny. There really is a war.

There is a War Between Cats and Dogs.

And an eternal war between bicycle riders and motorists.

There are ceasefires and truces, Speeches given on the 4th of July about how we are all on the Same Side and have common interests, etc., etc. But the war persists, as the ceasefires and truces are broken by a smattering of small arms fire from somewhere on the flanks, and blood, or Coca-Cola, is spilled.

Take Ogden, for example. Here's an account of the skirmish last week from the Salt Lake City Tribune: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13039799

I note that Dave Zebrieskie was hit by a car riding at home in Utah. He did not compliment Utah or the USA generally on its friendliness to cyclists.

As an aside, there used to be a special brand of mountain bike assembled by Mormons and sold exclusively for the use of young Mormon men on their year of evangelizing. The Liahona. I liked the name and the specs and price, and have been tempted to buy a used one. Have seen two on eBay over the years. http://www.themissionarydepot.com/

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#57

No, when I use the word "cross," I am not talking about cyclocross, though that is definitely cross training in two meanings of the term. I am talking here about walking.

Ordinarily, when I am inactive, I walk 10-12 miles per week, mostly on necessary errands to the post office, bank, and various businesses and buildings around town.

Last month or so, I've been emphasizing walking as a supplement to riding bicycles. Occasional 8 mile walks to the university looping the arena, 6 mile RT walks to one of two grocery stores, and 4 mile RT walks to Wal-Mart. I am fitter for it.

Why walk?

Walking is load-bearing, unlike cycling. Cycling you sweat out electrolytes without body weight on legs and spine, which some say leads to lower bone density among cyclists.

Walking corrects some of the biomechanical ruts that cyclists fall into. Ruts? Sure. Cycling is like exercising in a posture similar to your posture when you are hunched over a keyboard, as different articles in Bicycling magazine have pointed out. Walking by contrast involves standing up straight with a sigmoid curve to the spine, which flexes and the pelvis rotates as legs are pushed out behind, stretching the hip flexors. Hip flexors that otherwise shorten as you sit in a chair or pedal.

"Pushing legs out behind"? Yes. An efficient stride is one lengthened not by sticking the front leg way out, which is the tendency of office workers and cyclists with their shortened hip flexors, but by emphasizing the leg thrust as the back leg is stretched out behind.

Walking for some is a process of standing and toppling over until a new balance point is reached and then toppling forward again. Of sticking the front foot out and braking the momentum with each step.

That's not walking. It's a type of standing.

"Walking" is a power move, in which the front foot grabs the ground and pulls the body along, while the rear foot thrusts backward powerfully. Walking uses the back, the abs, the shoulders and arms. Walking uses more muscles than running, and requires more flexibility than jogging. (When I jog I tend to "pronk" like an antelope, bouncing along on muscle elasticity alone.)

The biomechanics of walking are very important, because the walker needs to minimize any braking effect.

When I am walking well, I have the feeling that I am using my thighs, not my ankles or feet, and that the lower part of my front leg is bent and moving backward as the front foot touches the ground. I feel loose and flexible but toned in the back and abs. My arms don't swing a whole lot, but that is a personal characteristic, that I make up for with pelvic rotation and flexing the back.

Before I began cycling, my thigh muscles were weak and my soleus and gastrocnemius very strong, which led to a problem.

Starting in my 20s, I tended to overuse the muscles of my lower leg--the soleus and gastrocnemius and tibialis--rather than the thighs. I lengthened my stride by sticking my leg farther out in front, instead of concentrating on the long push by my back leg. And in consequence I hit the pavement hard with my heel in a braking movement--which shocked the tiabilis anterior and caused crippling pain in the tibialis. (This is one of several lower-leg pains that go by the name of "shin splints." Fortunately it is the most easily cured, by simply shortening the stride in front and lengthening it in the rear, and by concentrating on walking with the thigh muscles instead of those of the lower leg. It helpsme to visualize myself as walking on my knees, without any lower legs at all.)

Cycling has developed my hamstrings and quads, resurrecting vastus medialis muscles that disappeared 30 years ago, and giving me a nice fullness to the back of the leg, but the most remarkable effect has been to strengthen my hip flexors. This is perhaps because I pull the thighs upward in the pedaling movement more than most--certainly more than most who use platform pedals.

Cycling combined with vigorous walking is a complete lower body workout.

I wish there were such events as "low impact triathlons," with race walking substituted for running. I think we'd see far fewer injuries and many more older and heavier competitors.

Added: Obviously in a triahtlon you can walk instead of run if you want to. But you will still be competing against runners. When it comes to triathlons with a sanctioned race-walking category, I see obstacles. Race walking, unlike running, has two rules, and warnings and even DQs are not uncommon in competition. By requiring a bevy of race-walking judges to be added to the typical triathlon, this adds to the logistics and expense of staging a triathlon. So I don't see this as becoming too popular. Now, a Google search did uncover one use of a trademarked name, "Softathlon," that was applied to a tri with race-walking substituted for running. Softathlon has a warm and fuzzy appeal to the sedentary, but sounds too namby-pamby to appeal to triathetes.

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#56

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#55

Well, the pecking order of Team Astana seems to be established, and Alberto Contador is the alpha male. [Am I mixing up wolves and chickens here? No matter; one can learn a lot by watching chickens and wolves.] Though never before a Lance fan, I had been rooting for him.

How much did the loss of Leipheimer last week undermine Lance's chances? Or the fact that Chris Horner was not on Astana's TdF team? Chris Horner says that his presence could have made a difference for Armstrong. Maybe so. And was eliminating Horner from the TdF squad a decision by Bruyneel to handicap Lance vis-a-vis Alberto, who was before the start considered team leader?

I've been thinking of the shootout at O.K. Corral, where Wyatt Earp was sided by his brothers and Doc Holliday. Lance as Wyatt Earp. Well, Levi was a good Morgan Earp, and Chris Horner a perfect Doc Holliday, minus the cough. Cut down on Wyatt's friends, and you change the outcome.

This weekend gave us two examples of great aging athletes not going quietly into that good night. If Armstrong also comes in second, it will echo the lesson of the British Open, whatever that is.

All in all, it does encourage the athletic endeavors of those of us who are a bit long in the tooth, shall we say.

Monday I rode my canyon route, which I skipped for a couple of weeks. To my detriment, because the inclines offer a form of interval training that is lacking from my flatter rides. I don't get a lactic acid burn anymore in any of the riding that I do, not do I usually breathe hard. It feels good to struggle for breath at least once or twice a week.

(This actually was a big benefit of riding a bicycle. Before I started riding back in late 2005, I walked for exercise. Walking is good weight-bearing exercise, which I recommend to anyone who rides a bicycle, but you don't get a burn from walking, and you don't get out of breath unless walking becomes climbing or running. Neither, BTW, does walking build up the kind of muscles you get from cycling.)

Anyway, I had pulled in at a little park within a park to eat an orange, when an older gent--probably about my own age though I still think of myself as a kid--walked by, puffing after striding uphill. He called out, "Is this a rest day? This is not a rest day!" Which he repeated when I encountered him a quarter of a mile on. A coach type, or former "I'm-not-tired-yet" drill instructor. It worked with me, because I did another lap instead of quitting and riding home.

(Had I realized that in the TdF Monday WAS a rest day, and if I were less tired, I could have come back with a snappy reply. No matter.)

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#54

Anybody see the network-televised MJ memorial service?

Weird, like the kid was weird. Here was a kid aged 50 who spent a ton of money and time trying to escape from his blackness by reconstructing himself into a causasian caricature and here were all these black celebs celebrating his blackness. A kid who may have been a child molester (though I think perhaps not), who ODed himself on drugs obtained illegally, and he gets a chorus line of millionaire celebs who fed his eccentricities and bled him and now tell us how great he was. Getting themselves valuable face time in front of the cameras, of course.

James, or whoever wrote the Epistle of James, had it wrong. It's wealth and fame that cover a multitude of sins.

A funeral as a theatrical production? Nothing wrong in that; they all are. Pity MJ was not around to script and produce it. Wish he'd thrown open the lid of the coffin and jumped out to dance around the room and to tell each person speaking exactly what he thought of them, then hop back into the coffin, lain down again in time to the music, and slammed the lid shut.

"The King of Pop." Yeah, Elvis was the King of R & R, Glenn Campbell is the King of Country, and James Brown the King of Soul. Roy Rodgers was the King of the Cowboys, though his name was Frank Slye and he was never a cowboy.

Damned hyperbole and stupid pride...

Reminds me of my cousin's funeral, where those of us attending were informed by a Baptist preacher how good a Christian and faithful a Baptist he was, though in our last conversation he told me he had doubts that there was a God.

Well, funerals are never about truth. Perhaps the most honest funerals are preached by those who did not know the deceased, who read out the dates of birth and death and merely intone "from dust to dust and unto dust do we commit him." The kind of service a ship captain gives for a common seaman before tipping his worldly remains into the drink and going below to wash his hands--or did give, before ships were equipped with walk-in refrigerators.

Perhaps those of us near MJ's age should write our own eulogies. Not more honest, necessarily, but at least the lies are our own, and not those told by someone else for their benefit.

And the bike? Yeah, I want to go on a ride this pm.

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#53

Two reasons.

1. I hate to get my bike and moving parts dirty. Hate to ride with them dirty, too. And getting out the Q-Tips, cleaning solutions and lubes for a half hour's labor is a hassle. And if I clean my bike by spraying it with water, I worry about getting water into the bearings. Guess I am just obsessive-compulsive.

2. I hate to have to fix flats.

Finally, I am getting the tires on my Specialized hardtail ready to go again, after more than six weeks. (Good thing about having a bunch of bikes is that when one needs work, you can just hop on another and ride on.) Rear tube needed five patches, front one 11. Should have just bought a new tube in front and thrown the old one away. Went through most of two patch kits.

Btw, both tubes were bought pre-slimed. Slime didn't do a damn thing, except to help mark the holes where it seeped out.

What made so many holes was riding the day after a hailstorm, that knocked a plethora of thorns off the mesquite bushes. My airing up the front tire after it flatted didn't help either; it caused the half-inch thorns sticking through the tire to poke new holes in the tube when I put more air in. Fortunately, I managed to cover the clusters of restabbing punctures with one patch. So the front tube had a lot more than 11 holes in it.

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#52

The death of a famous person rarely affects me emotionally. I didn't cry when Elvis died, or JFK, or Robert Kennedy, or Michael Jackson, or even Johnny Cash.

Often I hear about it a year or more after the famous person has died. That was the case with Roger Zelazny and Jack Williamson, who lived and died in New Mexico not far from where I live.

I tend to mind more when certain writers die. Guess that is because I spend so much more time with them, so to speak, than with singers or actors or politicos.

Isaac Asimov's passing affected me. And Sheldon Brown. RIP guys.

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#51

Good ride Sunday. 23 miles in varying neighborhoods at varying speeds. Circled a park in a tony neighborhood, crossed a lot of railroad tracks, went throught some lonely industrial spaces and bad pavement, few miles by lakes and parks, encounter with two junk-yard dogs (well, nearly; they were policing a towing company's lot and got out the gate to chase me), ran out of water and got lost twice, all within a radius of 5 miles from home!

Good route, but not the full monty. By going around Canyon Lake #5 I can add another 5 miles. More, by lapping the lake again at 2.8 miles per lap.

Felt so good, that later in the day I rode another 2 miles to loosen up. Urban cycling is fun! Feel like a kid.

Today, hamstrings are sore. Man, I was out of shape.

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#50

Got egg on my face again. When I learned to ride a bicycule 3 1/2 years ago my goal was to do a 100 mile ride the next year, 2006. Maybe the Hotter Than Hell Hundred, though that is not a good first century ride; too hot, too crowded, too many logistical problems, from finding a place to stay to parking to avoiding one of their patented mass pileups. Lot of new riders do a century a few months after learning.

Did do a 40 miler in 06. In 2007 rides of 46 and 53 miles. No 100 milers. No metric centuries.

Few weeks ago I declared that I would ride 100k at Muleshoe June 20. I've chickened out. Hadn't been riding middlin distances, just little 5-15 milers round town. Two weeks ago, I started on 20+ miles of intervals. Felt sick, had to cut the ride way short. Lost confidence. Spent my time staring at my bicycle instead of riding it. Bike began to look like it had the word "G-U-I-L-T" written on it. I started avoiding my bike, averting my eyes when I passed by.

I'm better now. Rode the last two days and enjoyed it. Enjoyment tends to go away when it is spelled "work" or "need to" or "have to."

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#49

Sure in some ways it is safer to ride with another, or in a pack. For visibility to motorists, absolutely.

Awareness-wise, it is not. Two bike riders are often less aware than a single rider, both because they tend to distract each other, and because each relies on the awareness of the other. Two heads can be worse than one.

There is another factor as well.

Adam Smith the financial columnist once wrote that a group of men behaves like a single woman, unpredictably, irrationally. He was talking about mob mentality in investing. Male chauvinism aside, he had a point.

A group of cyclists demonstrate increased irrationality. They tend to violate traffic laws more than a single rider, to do things they shouldn't, and individuals in the pact are driven to take chances they should not simply because they are part of the pack.. Really skilled riders, of course, fight that tendency.

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#48

One of the pleasures of riding a bicycle is the way you are aware of the things around you, from smells to birdsong to architecture to vehicles in a 360 degree circle all around.

There is a kind of zen state of awareness or receptivity that you want to cultivate, for your own safety. Which is one reason why I like to ride alone; conversation distracts you from that state of awareness. So does tiredness, exhaustion, worry, the voices within.

Maybe riding a bike is such fun because it is a return to a natural state. We humans did not evolve as denizens of asphalt and concrete, where dangers are regulated and minimized. We evolved as hunter gatherers, and when you went out to hunt or to gather, you never knew if you would be back to the campfire that evening or end up as a meal for dire wolves or sabertooth cat or dying in a ravine with a spear between your ribs.

Always, you had to cultivate awareness. To still the dissonant voices within and just hold yourself open to the environment with all senses.

In the real world, danger was out there, lurking in the grass. So it is today when you ride a bike, around the corner or backing out of a driveway or overtaking from behind.

In the modern world, we do not often practice awareness. Instead, we are supposed to focus narrowly on tasks, like the flint-knapper sitting at the campfire evenings, chipping stone tools. School and work requires that we narrow down and restrict awareness, to do the unnatural.

Education and work and much of our entertainment try to force us into abnormal, unnatural paths.

When I drive a car, it is the same. I try to enter a mental state of perfect receptivity where I am at one with my vehicle, aware of the sounds and vibrations of the engine, the circulation of engine and transmission fluids, and of other vehicles and the sights and goings-on around me. I can keep up this state for some hours unless distracted, and I think it is one reason why I have so far been accident free.

Obviously, that means no cell phone or i-pod.

ADDED: Can it be that what we call attention deficit disorder is adaptive? That the unnatural trends of our society have created it as a disease? Are those with ADD better hunters or scouts than those who are better at narrow-focused tasks? Worth thinking about.

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