me on a bike

There is a new article in the November 2003 Oustide Magazine regarding drug use by professional cyclists. The author went to a doc in LA and got the full regimen to see how it really affected an athelete's ability. Here's the teaser:

"Everybody knows that many athletes cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs like steroids, testosterone, and EPO. But what is it like to take these banned substances? Do they really help you win? To find out, we sent an amateur cyclist into the back rooms of sports medicine, where he just said yes to the most controversial chemicals in sports."

I've read only 2 of the first 11 pages so far, and I can tell you it's definitely worth a read.

or "How I learned to stop worrying and love the zero-speed fall."

I talk a good game, but I'm still a relative newbie in most things cycling. Sunday I got my first taste of (apparently mild) single-track. Naomi and I met up with her Google buddies Piaw, Li, and Ed at Wilder Ranch SP. I had to borrow a set of cleats from Piaw because I had given mine to Naomi. I quickly put on some old SPD pedals and affixed the cleats to my shoes.

Whatever the difficulties of riding single-track, my fun started very early, first time I got caught in some sandy terrain and tried to click-out. I failed, and... timber! Over like a eucalyptus in a windstorm. Fortunately, I landed in some of the aforementioned soft sand, so no harm was done. My pride? Well, only slightly wounded.

I don't really remember the second zero-speed fall, but again, I'm pretty sure I was trying to click out. But I know I must have fallen, because I have a bruise on my right hip that I don't remember getting. Now, I was really trying to figure out what was going on... I tightened the pedals. I loosened the pedals. I thought it was working better.

Then I was going up a hill behind Naomi and she lost traction and had to click-out. I tried to click-out, and again, like a dead bad-guy falling off the saloon roof, I was down. Only this time, the bike landed on top of me and gave me a really nasty bruise where the top tube crossed my shin.

I finally realized that the problem was not with the pedals, but with the cleats that I hadn't tightened properly. OK, so I'm an idiot. Hopefully no one who has any say in my earning my degree is reading this. I tightened 'em up and we were off! Except Ed, Piaw, & Li blazing away and had already been going fine for a while now. At any rate, I was off! As was Naomi, who had waited for me.

. Just in time, too for the Enchanted Loop Trail. Yeah, I can imagine worse, but going down this trail, I couldn't imagine how you could take a bike over some of those rocks and roots. It felt like I would very easily plant my front wheel and flip over the bars, or else just slide off the trail into the gulch. The others were whooping an hollering with unbridled glee as they attacked the downhill. If you can imagine tip-toe-ing down a trail on a bike, that's pretty much how I took it the first time. Yeah, I said the first time! Cos after we finished, we climbed a steep hill and looped around to go at it again! This time, I let it go a little more, and was doing great until I missed a turn. Fortunately, I was already at the bottom of the top half, so I just went gracefully off the trail into some leaf piles. I waited for Naomi, got back on, and continued on the second half. There is a section there that I had to walk through-- neither time could I figure out what line to take. But it was definitely better the second time through.

The other section of single track was called Log Cabin Trail, and it was more to my liking, given my level of expertise. Swooping turns at a manageable downgrade-- I could see really getting to know that section. I can also see getting seriously hurt having too much fun there. Of course, we had to climb back out again, and after that, we decided to call it a day... almost. We had a breakneck decent through Long Meadow first! I decided to let it fly, and had a great time bumping and crashing down the wide fire road. Ed and Li were fearless, and far ahead. I got to the bottom and was going to go back for Naomi and Piaw, but they came over the last hill right then. Guess they were letting it fly too! After we all grouped up at the bottom, did a quick loop on the coast side, for "dessert" according to Piaw, and off to lunch at Vasili's on Mission.

Came out of it dirty, bruised, and a little sore, but it was definitely a good time! I'll be going back for sure.

Many thanks to Piaw, Li, and Ed for waiting up for us, for showing us around, and generally being good hosts.

Today's ride put me over 4000 miles on my road bike. And over 250 hours riding for the year. OK, two milestones.

Got a nice, long ride in today, one of the first long ones of the new "season", i.e. base period for next year. Looking at my log, it's the longest I've gone since mid-August, before Montreal. ~47 miles. I saw a couple other cyclists out there that I recognized, they were probably thinking like me, that this was one last chance to get in a ride in the afternoon before this weekends time change. For the next 5-6 months it'll be weekends and lunch time, with the occaisional morning if I can rouse myself.

It was all good until I flatted on the way home. Fortunately that was the only delay of any sort and I had left myself enough of a daylight buffer.

Need new tires--hrm. These tires are almost worn out.

One last thing: My ride today set a new high for mileage over 5 days, despite the fact that I haven't been riding for miles as much as duration. I guess that's good.

Later on today, Naomi tried out a tandem bike with her friend from work, Piaw, while I tried valiantly to keep up on her mountain bike. Ugh! (even with significant drafting.) We did a nice loop from Piaw's house up to Rancho San Antonio, Stevens Canyon, Mt. Eden, and back Pierce. To make a long story short, she liked it so much that it's now high up on our very long wish list!

Race: SJBC Winter Series Race 2 - Henry Coe Hill Climb
Date: 10/19/03
Cat: 3
Field: 59 overall; 11 in my category
Distance: 6.5 mi., 2450'
Result: 15th best time, 17th best time after handicap, 4th in category
Course Profile

This race is the 2nd of 11 in the SJBC winter series, a 6.5 mile hill climb. The course is at around 8%, but it never stays the same very long. There are two really steep sections, one just before the finish, and two short downhill sections. I'd only ridden this once before, and never with this kind of competition.

The race was a mass start with the Cat-1, -2, & -3 riders together and the -4, -5, & -6 riders a minute later. Since I was with the 123 group, I decided I'd be fried if I tried to stay with them, so I decided that I'd ride my own pace off the bat. I didn't really want to get caught by any 456 riders, but better that than blowing up.

Within the first 1/2 mile, I was last wheel. I kept ticking the pedals over, and gradually I caught riders one by one. First a big guy. Then a guy who had beaten me by about two minutes in the time trial. Then there was a guy at the side of the road... "you all right?" I asked. "Broke my derailleur off." Bummer. At least it happened like 10 minutes in, and not a half mile from the end. (I talked to him later and he thinks he needs a new frame! It broke off at the weld.)

I passed another rider, and then saw a long line of riders stringing out ahead of me. I was feeling pretty good, and it looked like these guys maybe went out too hard (told you!) and were coming back. So, I started calculating... I was now in 20th out of the 24 in the first group.

By the first downhill section (4 miles up) I had caught a few more guys, including Bob, who was clearly having a bad day. I urged him to come along, but he was blown. I was also right behind a couple Cupertino Bike Shop guys. Bob did catch me on the downhill, (I gotta get better at descending! - I'm wasting free energy) but he couldn't stay with me once the road turned up again. The Cupertino guys had pulled away a little, too.

So, I started cranking after them again. Gradually pulling some guys back, until I was 13th on the road on the second downhill section. Right after that, was the tough 20% section. I had a little trouble with my shifting, and two Cupertino guys passed me right back. Then there was a more mellow 8% section going up to the finish. I didn't realize how close it was! I didn't have enough time to bring those guys back (they obviously knew where the finish was). But I came in, called out my race number, and checked my Polar: 39:15. Excellent! I was hoping for sub-40. And 15th in that group was pretty good, too.

I think this was one of my better efforts, because I never cracked but I think I pushed myself to the limit. Although I felt like maybe I could have gone harder at the end, I have a theory that when you feel like that after a race, that actually means you metered out your effort just right. So, we'll go with that for now!

Average HR: 159 again. Right on the money.

Results were posted tonight, and I did some quick calculating and found I'd moved up from 20th to 11th in the overall Time Trial competition (includes two ITTs, this race, a 2-man TTT and a 4-man TTT). Four people ahead of me didn't ride, and I caught 5 others on time. I'm 10:02 off the leader, and there a two guys within a minute. I'm hoping to make the top 5 by the end.

I took my bike out for an hour today to test out my new road shoes. And of course, while I was riding, I started thinking, how much faster will these make me? A rough calculation follows.

My new shoes are stiffer and lighter than my old ones. Because of the greater stiffness, less energy will be lost bending the shoe with each pedal stroke. I estimate roughly that the work done while cycling is mostly in the downward direction. The crank length is 170mm, so the force of pedalling is done over a distance of 34cm. So if b is the amount the shoes deflect when under the force of a pedal stroke, then the percentage of effort wasted in each pedal stroke is b/34cm.

Now I need to figure out what "b" is. For a rider putting about 200W of power into the bike at 90 revolutions of the pedals per minute (i.e. 180 pedal strokes per minute, or 3 pedal strokes per second), that's 67W per pedal stroke. Again, using the 34 cm distance, that means each foot is putting about 200N of force onto the pedal, or about 44 lbs. Now very, VERY roughly, I put each shoe, old v. new, under about 40 lbs of pressure and see how much they deflect. It looks like about a one-cm difference to me.

OK, back to the wasted effort. The old shoes deflection of 1 cm gives 3% power wasted due to flexing of the shoes. At higher speeds, power is proportional to velocity-cubed, so that is roughly a 1% loss of velocity. So, instead of going 20 mph, I get a bump up to 20.2 mph. Whee!

I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but over the course of an hour, that's 36 seconds. That theoretically could have bumped me up a few places in that last Time Trial. :)

It's a different story on a climb, though. Since the speed is low, wind resistance is not as big a deal. In fact, you can pretty much neglect it next to the power you need to go UP. That 3% power saved due to stiffness comes off your time. For a 15 minute (-ish) climb, like Hicks or Metcalf, I should save around 27 seconds.

Ok, now the weight issue. This is a factor mostly on climbs. My new shoes are 11 oz lighter, about 0.7 lbs, or about 0.3 kg. The weight of my and my bike (and water & gear 'n' shit) is around 85 kg. So, we're looking at about 1/3 of 1% decrease in weight. Basically, on the aforementioned 15 minute climb, it's a handful of seconds. Like, three.

Yes, I really do figure these things out while I'm riding.

But, wait, wait! How did they feel?!

Schweeeet!

Race: SJBC Winter Series Race 1 - Willow Springs ITT
Date: 10/12/03
Cat: 3
Field: 65 overall; 7 in my category
Distance: 15.3 mi.
Weather: around 70 degrees with a NNW wind of a few mph.
Result: 20th best time, 49th best time after handicap, 5th in category
Course Profile (pdf)

This race is the first of 11 in the SJBC winter series, a 15.3 mile Time Trial. I haven't been riding much near my LT for about two months, so I wasn't expecting much. Still, I always want to do well and of course, I always give everything.

I am very familiar with these roads, as probably at least 80% of my rides start out in this direction. I rode down to the course start at Bailey & Santa Teresa. Benson wasn't sure if I should be a Cat 3 or a Cat 4, and I told him a didn't really care (I was there for some fun and some experience), so he put me in Cat 3. I guess it's flattering that others think I'm better than I think I am, but at some point I'm going to want the possibility of a good finish. I was assigned rider #62, which meant a half-hour wait before I'd start-- fine, I could use the time to warm up. Right behind me were Rafi, and Bob, so I knew I'd be hard-pressed to hold them at bay for even a little while.

I started out at a reasonable pace, heart rate below my LT, trying to save something for the harder part of the course. With the tail wind, I was holding around 26 mph on the 4.25 mile flat section of the course. Not really as fast as I thought I should be, given the conditions. Maybe I didn't warm up vigorously enough? Rafi caught me quickly, as did Bob, both flying by at about 30 mph.

Made the right turn onto Willow Springs and realized my stop watch didn't start when I took off. Oh well, hit the button now. I wound my way up the hill (it's about a four minute climb for a strong-rider), working pretty steadily by trying to limit my time in the red zone. I spied a rider up ahead (!) and felt another coming up from behind. Cresting the hill I realized that the rider ahead was still about 30 seconds up on me, so I hadn't gained or lost anything on him. That's OK.

I hit the descent trying to stay in aero position the whole time, but there is a tough left turn that I moved into the drops for. Good thing, as I misjudged my speed a little bit and started to go wide. Uh-oh. Leaned a little harder... then a little harder. A quick vision flashed through my mind, me flying off the road into the ditch, hitting the barbed wire, Naomi scolding me when I came home bloodied. Leaned harder (it never occured to me to brake here... I guess I figured I was already leaning too hard and braking would send me off on a tangent!). Finally, both wheels hopped off the pavement, jumping a few inches to the right. The whole bike shuddered. By some miracle, I kept my feet in the pedals and held the bike upright. Bullet dodged!

The rider behind me must have seen this. I imagined he was probably a little bit afraid to pass this out-of-control descender. After I caught my breath, I pulled right and waved him past, so he knew I knew he was there.

After that, fortunately I wasn't freaked out or anything. I just stayed in aero position and drove up the road. I saw a Sheriff making a bunch of suspicious U-turns. I wondered idly if he was planning to ticket all the bikers as they made the right onto Uvas?

On the long false flat up Uvas, a few more guys passed me, and I finally caught up with Reed, my 30-second man. He seemed to be having some gear trouble, clanking up the hill.

The rest was uneventful. I pushed hard and steady, right onto Bailey, and attacked the smooth and wide curves of the descent comfortably. Came off the hill in my top gear, going as hard as I could, but only reaching about 32 mph. Couldn't hold it the whole way, though, as that long flat at the bottom seems to strech on forever. That top end speed really isn't there at this point. I caught a few riders at the finish, and stopping my watch at the end it read 33:06. Adding my estimate of the time before I started my watch (conservatively about 11:00), that put me right around 44:00, which would be satisfactory.

Checking my race data later, my average heart rate for the final 33 minutes of the 43-minute ride was 159-- right at my LT, so that's good--my estimate of my LT is about right!

When the results were posted today, I found my actual time: 43:19. Definitely ok!