Santa Monica to Santa Barbara and back - double century

Last weekend I had the privilege of riding with Shifting Gears on their fully supported ride from Santa Monica, CA to Santa Barbara, CA. This was the first time I had ridden 100 miles and I did it two days in a row! It just goes to show that you can do a lot more than you think you can if you just try. Like the old saying goes, "90% of success is just showing up". <- enter any percent over 75% and the saying will be just as accurate...

The route looks something like this: (Image courtesy of Anna Krasnyanskaya)



The shifting gears crew and their sponsors did an absolutely wonderful job of supporting the riders. There were about six pit stops a long the way where the riders could eat and drink all they could stand and also get a massage or stretch performed by professionals at each location. I stopped for a stretch during lunch on the way up and on the way back and thoroughly enjoyed it! They also had a full maintenance crew to perform some tweaks here and there as well as change out tubes / tires. The cost this year was ~$150 and this included everything (including lodging) except for the dinner on Saturday evening. At no time did I feel hungry or thirsty. Shifting Gears had these areas covered ten fold.

We had an insane headwind on the way up the coast to Santa Barbara but luckily the wind pattern stayed the same into the next day which provided a nice tail wind when we were all tired on the way home. I guess I should speak for myself... I was really tired!

If you live in the area you will be interested to know that Shifting Gears holds this ride annually so keep an eye out on their website for the date of next year's ride.

http://www.shiftinggearscycling.com

Knee Pain

I've been trying to ramp up for this double century ride from Santa Monica, CA to Santa Barbara, CA coming up at the end of this month. In doing so, I think I've increased my training too quickly and as a result I've injured my left knee. The pain is on the anterior and mostly lateral part of my knee and it's a sharp pain. It really bothered me over the weekend to the point that I had to basically coast home. It really seems to bother me when pounding up an ascent.

After doing a bit of research it appears likely that I may have jumped into long distances and steep climbs without a proper training base. There may also be some slight fitting problems on the bike.

I found a great site that had a lot of information to help with the research on this issue. I do recommend seeking professional advice as well as further research on your own above and beyond what is posted.

Cycling Related Knee Injury Link

To cut to the chase, it seems my seat may be a bit too low and perhaps too far forward. Also, I've been climbing a lot of hills and one of the possible causes for what I'm feeling could be attributed to pushing a big gear at a low cadence. Also, and I suspected this as well, it seems I need to check out the float and position of my cleat as I could be putting too much pressure on the lateral side of my left foot due to an inward positioning of the cleat on my shoe. So, I'll be laying off the hills for a bit until this starts feeling better.

I'll also look around for a good fitter as well and see about getting refitted. I've been enlightened to look for F.I.S.T. (Fit Institute SlowTwitch) certified shops to do the fitting. They mostly boast of tri-bike fitting, but they train retail shop personnel about bike fitting. I've heard that the people that are certified know all of the in-n-out's of bike fitting and you can be sure that they aren't just telling you a bunch of BS to make a buck.

It's Been a While...

OK, I haven't been blogging like I used to primarily because I was traveling on vacation last week. During the vacation I was lucky enough to be able to meet up with some old friends and go running in Virginia. It was an extremely relaxing vacation. I stayed most of the time with my parents in the countryside near Smithfield, VA. They have a house tucked away in a small community on a dead end road with the trees surrounding every corner. Most mornings I would go for a run before my parents were up and then sit on their back deck with some hot oatmeal and a nice cup of coffee. The sense of tranquility in amongst the chirping birds and singing locusts was a deserved break from the hectic vibe of the city.

I took my parents to a nature trail called the Noland Trail located on the banks of the James River on the Hampton Roads peninsula in Newport News. I have fond memories of this trail because the first time I had run on the trail was also the first time I had ever ran 5 miles in my life. I also have great memories of the trail because I used to take my wife there a lot and we'd run together and share a great runners high immediately after completing the run! The trail is wonderfully maintained and it encompasses a body of water that connects to the James River. There are amazingly tall pine trees and sturdy wooden bridges throughout the trail. It's a great place to run if you're in the area.

All in all I came back to work with a refreshed sense excitement about work and school. It's amazing what a little time off away from regular routines can do for ones perspective.

By the way, I rode my bike to work again today for the first time in almost two weeks and even though I was running throughout that time, I felt like I was a little more fatigued than I used to be. It's so hard to get in shape but its so easy to get out of shape.

US Cyclists Apologize to Olympic Hosts

It is a courteous thing to do, apologize to your host when you say their house stinks. Like I said in my previous post, I can see how the Beijing hosts would feel a little ashamed if their visitors wore masks to their home. And, I'm sure that some big wig US Official convinced the US Cyclists to write the letter of apology. Let's not forget that most Olympic athletes are very young and their whole life has revolved around sports and being as health conscious as possible. So, in their defense, I don't think they meant to cause any political tension.

This statement from an article found here sums it up. "The perception that Beijing's pollution, which prompted a shutdown of factories and reduction in auto travel during the Olympics, was so harmful that Olympians needed masks on arrival was seen as a slap in the face to organizers." Hey, everyone understands that measures are being taken to reduce the pollution problem that evidently exists, but precautions are being taken by the athletes on a personal level because they want to maintain peak performance. As stated by US Olympic Committee chief executive Jim Scherr, "fractions of seconds can decide the fate of the competitors involved and that each was simply looking for every possible edge by wearing the masks as a precaution."

If your whole life led up to this competitive point, the world Olympics, what would you do in this situation? Keep in mind that the US Olympic Committee issued these young athletes the masks to begin with.

U.S. Cyclists Arrive in Beijing Wearing Masks

For a while now there have been media reports about how the pollution situation in Beijing will affect the Olympic athletes. It's become a pretty controversial issue for many Olympic followers. Some groups believe this is a great opportunity for Beijing to be the host of the Olympics, while others believe that the pollution is such a big factor that it makes no sense to hold the Olympics in Beijing. Then there are other groups that view this as an opportunity for the pollution levels in Beijing to be put on display for all to see, while another says the pollution levels aren't any worse than that of Los Angeles.

For Beijing officials, its an important matter that the world have a positive impression of their city, so when the U.S. cyclists stepped off the plane and into the airport wearing US Olympic Committee issued masks just for pollution, its no wonder that it became headline news. Apparently U.S.O.C. officials were unhappy with the choice of the athletes to wear the masks and they were reprimanded for wearing them. But, I agree with the cyclists when one of the cyclists, Mike Friedman, said "This is really a surprise because I didn’t think it was going to be such a big deal. Why we wore the masks is simple: pollution. When you train your whole life for something, dot all your I’s and cross all your T’s, why wouldn’t you be better safe than sorry?"

Mike Continued to say "They have pollution in Los Angeles, and if the Olympics were in Los Angeles, we would probably wear these masks, too."

Yesterday I saw an article about Beijing's pollution and how a fencing athlete planned to deal with it. The fencing athlete said she wouldn't wear the mask unless someone else wore it first. Well, people had a field day with that statement. I have to also add that, ok, she's an athlete and that's fair enough, but cyclists put quite a heavier demand on their cardiovascular system than that of a fencer.

If I were an Olympic cyclist I'd probably be wearing the mask too. Why not? I see people wearing these types of masks a lot in Los Angeles. Ordinary people.

Weight Loss - Surprisingly Rapid

In my estimation, I've been quite active my entire life. Throughout my working life, I've managed to run and bike throughout the week and weekends, though not religiously. Meaning, I didn't keep a regular schedule that dictated I run x miles on this day and ride x miles on that day (unless I was "training" for an upcoming race). Having said that, I considered myself to be within 2-3 lbs of my optimum weight for my height. Over the last few years I've been around 185 lbs (at 6'1" tall). A couple of years ago I do recall getting up to 187 during the holiday season.

But, after moving to Los Angeles in July 2007, I ran a half marathon in December 2007 and began riding my bike to work a few months ago about three times a week. On the weekends I generally run about 3 to 5 miles (if I feel like it) or have a longer ride. As a result, I've noticed the weight shed, and shed. When I graduated high school I weighed 175 lbs. Yesterday I weighed myself and the scale hit 168 lbs. OK, so that was right after a relatively long ride and I was slightly dehydrated. But, after re-hydrating I checked my weight again and the scale reads 170 lbs. I've lost 15-17 lbs in one year. The good thing about that is that I'm not really going to a gym and exercising. I'm just getting myself to work and back. So, when I get home, I've already had my exercise and I'm free to lay around the house!

I felt that this would be a good topic to write about because I know that weight loss is a big topic, at least in the US. For those who live within 10 miles of work, perhaps you'd enjoy riding your bike to work a couple of days per week.

Newly discovered running / bike route mapping tool - runningmap.com

Today I signed up for "Stumble" because I kept seeing people sending me links to videos through "Stumble". I downloaded and installed the handy toolbar add-on for FireFox and began "Stumbling" around on the Internet. Glad I did. I ran into this little gem called runningmap.com. If you've read one of my prior posts titled "Improving the online biking community - a new website?" you'll remember that one of the things I would include in a new mapping website is a feature to show an elevation profile for the route you plot. Well, we're getting closer. In fact, runningmap.com has a plotter and an elevation tool. You gotta check it out.

Here is a map I made of one of the routes I ride sometimes. Pretty sweet, eh?


Since mapmyride.com has changed their business model, their site has become a bit busy and buggy. So, to show my appreciation to the minimalists out there, I'm going to start frequenting the runningmap.com website.

Improving the online biking community - a new website?

I've noticed several improvements in the realm of biking community web sites with the use of google maps. However, I think there's still room for improvement. Especially in the mountain biking sector. I imagine a place where a person can go to a map and view all mountain bike trails for a particular region and view many different properties and statistics for that trail.

With the use of GPS devices, we can keep very accurate trail data including x, y and z coordinates. Google maps can provide the topo map to get a good idea of the terrain for a specific trail. It would also be nice to have a profile for the ascent / descent for the trail.

GrannyGear.com has a good example of the type of map I'm talking about:

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This included with a topo map can really give you a great deal of information about a trail.

Another feature that would be nice to have is a ranking system that takes an average for all votes / rankings. We often see a single statement that says "Advanced, Intermediate, or Novice" but that can mean a lot of things to different riders with different skill levels. We should use the accuracy in numbers theory to improve the trail rating methods.

Sites like mapmyride.com are nice for keeping personal trails and sharing routes, but the data is a bit disorganized. It would be great to have a list of all the trails in state parks already plotted out that everyone access and rates accordingly, and if someone wanted to add that to his/her own training log data they could do so. And if they wanted to share the route, it'd be a link to the published trail. That way we're all working from the same data instead of thousands of people mapping and sharing the same route which gets jumbled together.

I've thought about working on such a site as a hobby but the magnitude of the work scares me since most of my time out of work is spent taking classes to finish up my degree. I'd like to hear what other people think would be required in such a web site and we could create a community based specification for a site that we'd all like to use. Perhaps there are other bikers out there with the capacity for web development and we could pool resources. I work primarily with asp.net and sql, but I'd be open to discussing other options.

Do we really care as much as we say we do?

Living in Los Angeles, I get my fair share of traffic. I have only lived here for about a year, but I knew of the traffic problem (like I'm sure everyone else does) before I moved here. However, it's not so bad if you plan your living and working locations properly (or have the luxury to do so). I live about 9 miles from work. In the morning, if I were to leave home at 7:30 AM to go to work, I can generally get there in about 35 min. However, if I leave work at 5 PM, it'll take me the better part of an hour to get home. 9 MILES! So, I adjusted my schedule to get to work at 7 AM and leave work at 4 PM to avoid the traffic. This has cut my commute time down to about 35 min going home. Now, traffic isn't something new to any major city, but a lot of major cities have done well in setting up mass transit to help mitigate the issue.

LA has quite a few buses, but not many subway / metro trains. They have streets that they claim are bike paths. Some of these streets actually have an extra white line to dedicate to bikes while most are simply a normal street (perhaps a bit wider) with a sign that says "bike path". This is a joke. The number of auto drivers that actually respect a bike rider is about 50/50. A lot of times a car will not nudge over, not even a little bit, to give the biker room. I think it's high time to paint that extra line on those other streets that are labeled "Bike Path" and give some added assurance to potential bike commuters that they aren't going to risk severe injury or death when attempting to ride their bike to work in one of the most populated cities in North America.

Do we really care as much as we say we do about fuel prices, green house effect, global warming, etc... If so, there are many things that could be done in our own cities to promote greener living. How about starting by giving bike commuters dedicated lanes to ride in?

To ride or not to ride...

So, now that my summer classes are in full swing, I find it hard to ride my bike to work like I did last quarter. I'm going to make an effort to ride to work on the days that I don't have class, but it's been hard to get motivated after taking a week off. But, with fuel prices the way they are, its an added incentive to burn less fuel!