boston mobile bike service -- blog

Training for endurance -- Fat is where it's at

2010-03-26T13:47:55Z

Most endurance athletes think in terms of fueling primarily with carbohydrates, whether complex or simple, whether sourced from grains, fruits, veggies or plain old sugar; when most coaches and athletes think about fuel, they think first about carb intake. That doesn't mean we don't value fat as a fuel, I think most endurance athletes understand that training and racing for periods longer than a couple of hours can only be accomplished because our bodies source substantial energy from burning fat stores, but we tend to think in terms of 'sparing glycogen' more than 'metabolizing fat'.

At shorter distances and in competitions lasting 2 hours or less this may indeed be the entire story. Trained athletes typically store enough carbohydrate (in the form of glycogen) in the musculature and liver to sustain about 90 minutes of activity at high output, and certainly, the highest-output efforts -- sprinting, hill climbing, taking your turn at the head of the pace-line, etc can only be fueled by going into anaerobic (i.e. burning glycogen) output zones. We are mostly also well versed in how to fuel to restore glycogen reserves, and how to do so rapidly for days with multiple scheduled workouts.

Take-away: -- It is possible to train the body to burn fat stores at 70% effort levels this is aided by increasing intake of (healthy) fats]]> I've read a ton of resources about endurance training and the until recently most I've been able to find about fat metabolism has been that studies have drawn conflicting conclusions. In his definitive work on endurance running, "The Lore of Running" Tim Noakes discussed Ironman distance racing as a 'Metabolic impossibility', noting that Mark Allen's 2:40 record IM-marathon time required him to burn fat at a 50% higher rate than observed in 'national champion' athletes. What has been discovered more recently is that the changes necessary to stimulate/train the body to increase fat-utilization require a month or more to actuate (explaining why studies that varied diet and training protocols for a week or less found no effect).

What is certain but rarely discussed is that the body stores intra-muscular triglycerides (i.e. fat stores) in much the same manner as we store glycogen. Research suggests that these IMTG stores can exceed glycogen stores and can be drawn on at moderately high exercise intensity (70% of VO2-max), so an athlete of moderated size who may have glycogen stores of 1500Kcal could also develop IMTG stores of 2500 Kcal or more.

Details and some references

The protocol that is said to help both increasing storage of IMTG and improving ability to metabolize adipose fats in training involves adopting a higher-fat diet, as well as focusing on longer distance/duration training. Triendurance.com reports finding that 2 hours/day training sessions on alternating days work substantially better at teaching the body to metabolize fat than daily hour-long sessions. Mark Twight, a highly accomplished high-altitude mountaineer and training guru discusses the same effect but also makes the important point that burning carbs is always acidifying the system, which fat-metabolism doesn't do. -- Raising body pH is a significant source of training stress, In order to buffer acidity developed in exercise, the body draws on reserves of iron and calcuim. Dietary and training acidification is discussed extensively in Joe Friel's The Paleo Diet for Athletes. With thanks to teammate Adam Brown, here's Mark Allen's words on base-phase training (which he's also called the 'patience phase').

How To Do It: longer training sessions and increased intake of (healthy) fat

1: One big piece of this is going to happen naturally for anyone training for iron or half-iron distances, that is training sessions of 2 hours or longer or multiple sessions per day require the body to burn fat and we naturally learn how to spare muscle glycogen reserves and to parcel them out over the course of the day. As you might expect, teaching the body to utilize more fat at higher output rates requires that we train at those rates. We're targetting 70% of max HR output, meaning that we need to exercise discipline and avoid pushing up into higher output for our long rides / training sessions.

2: The research suggests we don't get the full benefit until we also change up the fueling plan to increase the percentage of fat intake. This season, I'm doing just that, I've moved from a diet that was very low in fat and big on complex carbs coupled with simple carbs for training and recovery to increasing my intake of fats to about 30-35% of overall intake. Particularly, I'm using hemp-seed and flax-seed oils as well as increasing my fish intake some to keep the Omega-3:Omega-6 ratios in proper balance. (These, by the way are all highly anti-inflamatory which will help with post-training recovery). A 40:30:30 carb/protein/fat diet ratio is a good target

To be sure, training itself still requires carb intake -- "Fat burns in a flame of carbohydrates". So we're going to be taking in 200-250 calories per hour on long training days. (Note: even at moderate 15-16mph pace, we're using 600 or more calories per hour so at steady state we're getting 60% or more of our output from burning fat).

Longer Distances, Durations

While half and full iron distance races are surely long, when you look at alpine mountaineering or Ultra-running, the distances and durations are far longer with 100 mile foot races taking 24 hours or more to complete and mountaineering routes running to a week or more. Ultra distance runners, including a seemingly high proportion of the winners are eating the likes of nut-butter sandwiches, pizza and ice cream during races of 100 miles/24hours or more. Ultra-runners recommend incorporating 10% or so of their race-day calories from protein, Scott Jurek writes that while the science dictates against substantial fat intake during exercise, he finds he needs it for relief from the monotony of pure carbs.

On long training days I believe you do best to approach training with as much an eye to the next day's recovery as to today's performance. I try to get a jump-start on recovery by backing off the pace near the end of the day and starting to take in more protein and carbs.

In climbing / alpine mountaineering we find it best to start the day with someting very like a recommended pre-race breakfast, e.g. some carbs with a healthy dose of proteins and fat, after which I will typically fuel with gels for a few hours but this won't sustain for the whole day and I will switch to energy bars or a sandwich, trying to time these for easier sections of the climbing to allow for digestion. Because there's another day to follow, my nutrition plan incorporates anticipating as much recovery-nutrition into the day as possible because there's another long day to follow the one in progress.

riding skills -- no-hands ma!

2010-03-26T12:32:59Z

Riding a bike without hands on the bars is illegal so you shouldn't do it ... I say the Man can stick it, there are good reasons and times when you want to ride with hands-off the bars.

Safety-tip Don't try or practice this on a bike that's not in good alignment, in or around traffic in high winds or a crosswind, on rough road surfaces, or riding in close-quarters with a group!

Here are some reasons to ride hands-off:

Opening the hip angle and fully shifting weight to sit-bones will ease fatigue
fully straightening the spine will ease fatigue
You can add/remove gloves, open energy bars etc
You can eat/drink more comfortably
You can take in the surroundings

]]> Generally you don't want to time riding hands-off anytime you're riding into a headwind or if you're riding fast on flat terrain, exposing your entire torso to 16mph or more of wind will definitely slow you down!

The developing the ability to ride hands-off confidently and safely is just one more part of bike-handling skills. I routinely ride hands-off on rollers on my road bikes, doing so on my old triathlon bike was another story -- I could manage it but with my saddle set at the max-legal forward position (an effective seat-angle of nearly 78 degrees), balance was touchy and the position wasn't very comfortable.

As indicated above, this isn't something to learn or do on a bike whose frame isn't true or that doesn't fit you well. In a crosswind or headwind, trying to steer without hands can be suicidal -- gusts of wind like to catch the leading edge of your wheel and push the steering around, you can't compensate for this with balance.

How you steer a bicycle

The technical term for how 2 wheel vehicles steer is counter-steering. Fundamentally, how a bicycle steers requires that the weight of the bike & rider must move off the line of travel, into the the direction of the turn, how you actually accomplish this is to initially steer the bike in the opposite direction (hence counter-steer). As the track of the wheels moves away from the center of inertia, the bike and rider must lean the other way, the cyclist then corrects the steering back toward the direction of the turn and the interaction between steering direction and lean angle determines the sharpness of the turn.

Bikes are designed to have close to 'Neutral' steering-geometry, meaning that little rider input should be required to steer the bike. This also means that bikes that are well designed steer easily with the only input coming from the rider shifting weight.

Mulitsport Expo

2010-03-21T01:15:41Z

Writing to thank everyone who came to my booth to talk about bikes today. I enjoyed meeting lots of folks as well as seeing many friends and teammates.

Sincerely -- forrest

Fixed gear and singlespeed rides

2010-01-03T22:58:01Z

Reasons to fixed gear & SS, pros/cons

Fixed gear and single speed bikes have seen a big resurgence in the last 5-10 years, They're popular as simple, easy to maintain transportation and they're certainly the rides that today have the biggest 'cool factor'.

Simplicity is the biggest common element between fixed and SS bikes. Derailleur bikes need a whole lot of cleanup after riding in rain or snow, the absence of derailleurs, cassette/freewheel and associated cabling greatly simplifies maintenance.

Road cyclists favor fixies, especially in the off season because they require the rider to work in a higher gear up hills and force them to spin faster riding down, this builds strength and smoothness at high cadence.]]> I've found that I can use my fixed ride to help with flexibility and training my body to ride in a more aggressive position. I keep the bar position a full inch lower than my other bikes, this works because I tend to use it for shorter distances. If I were doing 40 or 60 mile rides that low my back would be a pretzel -- I know this from experience, I rode my first triathlon bike setup about 2 inches too low for a month and came away from it with a strained SI (sacro-iliac) joint that resulted in 2 months of intense back pain. Riding lower significantly reduces wind/air resistance, which is the primary load on a cyclist moving anything over 12mph.

Fixed and SS bikes are significantly lighter, The various bits that make up the shifting drivetrain on a road bike add up to 4-6 lbs. You'll sure notice this difference when carrying the bike up stairs after a ride. Your cheap 80's vintage road bike weighs in at 25 lbs or more and knocking that down to 20 is quite noticeable. Alternately, if you invest in a modern frameset and components it's not at all hard to put together a single speed bike in the 15-16 lb. range.

Dangers and downsides

The first few days and weeks you ride on a fixie, you will learn that it really doesn't freewheel! I found that even riding conservatively, there were a few situations where it was very hard indeed to unlearn the coasting habit. The most dangerous and hardest to unlearn was my tendency to 'set-up' for a turn by dropping my outside leg, it was hardest to let go of in turns that I hit often in my daily riding.

Because you can't coast on a fixed gear bike, you can't lean as aggressively into turns as on a bike with a freewheel, striking a pedal on the low side in a turn will lift the rear wheel, likely resulting in a low-side crash.

If the chain derails or breaks it can lockup the rear wheel, this will probably result in a serious crash.

Loose pantlegs or shoelaces caught in the chainring of a fixed gear bike present the same hazard.

You have to be extremely careful working on fixed gear bike's drivetrain, never to catch a finger between the chain and a turning sprocket. Because there's no freewheel, the momentum of the wheel will keep it moving and you can lose a finger -- be careful of this!

Going downhill at too high a cadence can result in overuse type injuries to the knees.

On a less serious note, because mile-for-mile you turn more revolutions riding a fixed, chafing can be an issue, I've learned to apply anti-chafe even for short rides.

There are fixie / SS advocates who maintain that riding without multiple gears is more efficient generally. If you ride on challenging hills this is pure BS. Riding up a 10% grade on a fixie is going to reduce all but the very strongest riders to a cadence down in the 30s

DIY sports drinks/nutrition

2010-01-03T10:00:00Z

Rapidly available carbohydrates are a keystone of endurance training and performance. Nearly all specialty nutrition suppliers are using one or another form of sugar polymers which have the advantage over simple sugars of allowing absorption of more calories per hour than simpler sugars, while still not requiring the additional digestion time associated with starches (the most common form is malto-dextrose from brown rice syrup).

Small or single serving sports nutrition products offer athletes of all types highly convenient energy, however it comes at a price both economic and environmental. 100 calories of energy in Gel form costs about $1.00-1.50, single-serving drink mix packets run about the same and every serving includes non-recyclable packaging.

Bought in bulk, the same products come down significantly in price, Cytomax (which happens to be what I use) runs $0.42 per serving. However, if this still sounds expensive it is; brown rice syrup costs $0.25 per 100 calorie serving at Whole Foods, honey is a similar cost and plain sugar (organic) is $0.14 per 100 calories.

I train about 500 hours per year and averaging an intake of about 100 calories per hour during training, I certainly would rather be getting that fuel for less than the $500 it would cost if I used primarily single-serving sources.

Supplements, of course include more than just calories, nearly all include electrolytes, most include some vitamins and anti-oxidants. I already have sources I like for vitamins and antioxidants, however when I mix my own nutrition, I do need to add electrolytes. Of course plain salt is trivially cheap, but I prefer to get the potassium, magnesium, calcium etc that are included in something like Nuun or Hammer's Enduralytes.

So I mostly train using my own mix. I use drink mix as a base because frankly un-flavored Malto-dextrose or malt sugars are pretty seriously unpleasant. Typically I mix up 1/3 drink mix, 1/3 brown rice syrup and 1/3 sugar along with the additional electrolytes I've found I need to avoid muscle cramping. Using Hammer's Enduralytes powder is cheap enough, althogh I've also gone with table salt in a pinch. I put as many calories as I need of this mix into one bottle. A second and sometimes also a third bottle carried in a jersey pocket are filled with plain water which is more refreshing and also allows me to only need to do bottle exchanges for plain water on a race course.

I've been able to nearly eliminate the use of gels this way. When I go into the mountains I will go with just drink mix because I can carry it dry in a Nalgene or doubled ziploc bags and mix it as-needed. I don't like bulk gel containers in the mountains because if they leak they're incredibly hard to clean up. For long training rides, centuries or races, I mix up a concentrate as described above, but with 600-1200 calories in a single bottle, however this will ferment if you try to prepare it more than a day in advance, don't try!

Campagnolo components

2009-12-17T16:56:47Z

The dead of winter is the time that folks are thinking about a new bike for the next season. I'm dropping this entry to suggest if you are thinking about this, look at a Campagnolo groupset. It's not hard to find Shimano-vs-Campy advocacy on the 'net and if you want that, google will find it quickly, I'll try to avoid advocacy and simply relate the features and my experiences with both. Im leaving SRAM out of this article for two reasons, first, I've never ridden on SRAM, second SRAM designs their gear to be interchanged with Shimano, their cassette and chain dimensions are identical, as such I expect their maintenance requirements to be identical.

Up until 3 years ago, all of my riding was on vintage stuff, standard 3/32" chain and 6 cogs on the rear/freewheel. I rode this setup on my '83 Peugeot in my first two '06 triathlons, looking on with envy at the more modern gear that's most folks were riding. I'm still riding that bike, although it's now my second-choice commute/work bike behind the fixed gear.

In early winter of '06/7 I found a great titanium triathlon bike at an attractive price on Ebay, outfitted with 9 speed Shimano. Over the course of the next two seasons I ran up a little under 6000 miles on that bike, (along with another 2500 miles ridden on the trusty Peugeot). I liked the bar-end shifters, and was quite amazed at how well indexed shifting worked. True, it needs adjustment every so often to keep running smooth, but that's a fine trade off against having to reach down to the down tube for shifting.

Over the course of the next 2+ seasons I found I could get about 2000 miles from a chain (I check both using Park's go/nogo gauge and by measuring chain 'stretch' over a 12" length*). This is about the same life I get from 3/32" chain on my Peugeot.

In late '08 I put together a new bike, selling the tri bike (for more than I'd paid for it, always nice). I decided to go with a road bike, and commenced with research into a groupset, choosing to go with Campy in part because I've always lusted after it but also because what I read about the features sounded right on the money for what I wanted. I've now gotten in a year of riding on it.

Summary:
Because so few bike manufacturers spec Campagnolo groups on anything but the high-end bikes (Bianchi would be a rare exception), to get the long term cost advantages that campy offers, you pretty much have to select a frame and component set and build the bike or have it built, this is going to cost more up-front.

The break-even point is hit if you're going to keep a bike for 4 years or longer. Select the full article below for the details.]]> Features (note! up-shift means shifting the rear to higher *smaller* gearing):
The most obvious difference visible to the rider is the cassette-shifting mechanism. Where Shimano combines the down-shift and brake into one lever, using the small inside paddle for up-shift. Campagnolo makes the down-shift using the paddle behind the brake lever and up-shifting is done with a lever under the thumb on the inside of the mechanism.

Campagnolo's shifting mechanism has one killer feature that's not available from Shimano (nor, I believe SRAM but I've never ridden on SRAM) -- As of '09, Campy shifters (down to the Centaur group) let you jump across several gears in a single shift movement. Most Shimano's will do this when down-shifting but because they use a ratchet/escape mechanism internally, they are limited to a single gear at a time on upshifting. I LOVE this feature, I use multiple-space shifts nearly as often as I will jump a single gear. In a race this is an actual advantage, you can index up 3-4 gears for a sprint in a single move. In daily riding it's still a great convenience, say when rounding the top of a rolling hill, you can go from climbing gear to accelerate/downhill gear in a single sweep of the thumb. This is a feature that New England riders will appreciate!

The other major difference between Campy and Shimano is their approach to construction and again it's most noticeable in the shifting mechanism. Shimano's shift/brake mechanism is a sealed unit, while Campy is open and easily serviceable.

Similarly, Campagnolo continues to use cup and cone adjustable bearings in their wheel hubs, while Shimano and virtually all other makers use cartridge bearings. Campy did go to cartridge bearings in the bottom bracket which is a sensible place to do so, as BB's are harder to adjust. However, their Ultra-Torque integrated BB simply blows away the Shimano offering, the bearing design is simple, elegant and stiffer / lower friction than Shimano's (also lighter in weight if you go for the carbon fiber offerings).

In the drive-train proper is the least visible but perhaps most significant difference. Shimano uses significantly thinner teeth in their chainrings and cogs. This makes Campy's rear cassette a good bit heavier than Shimano/SRAM, but they more than make up for that weight difference with all of the other components being lighter.

Costs and Maintenance
Each way has it's strengths and weaknesses. Shimano's shift lever mechanism is sealed from the elements and doesn't need any service. The obvious corollary is that it *can't* be serviced, you can't even send these back to the factory for fixing. If something breaks inside you have to replace it wholesale (and outside of the 2 year warranty that's gonna be pricey). Campagnolo levers don't need rebuild very often, however they should probably be lubricated every 1-2 years, and might want a rebuild every 4-8 years.

If you upgrade frames you might well choose to move your groupset over onto the new frame. At this point in time, framesets continue to evolve and improve faster than component technology, so while most good quality frames bought in the last 5 years will certainly last you 10 or more if you want, there might be some solid motivation to upgrade.

Supposing a re-build every 4 years at $90 per pair (or free if this is the kind of work you like to do while watching a movie), you could keep the same set of levers in good working condition for a minimum of 10 years (and so far, Campy does still supply parts for shifters that old). Shimano levers by all accounts don't last that long.

I can't swear to the longevity of Campy's new crank/bottom bracket with external bearing setup because it's only been out for 3 years but the construction looks solid to me so we'll see. What their design does bring to the table is a stiff and low-interference crank that Shimano does not offer.

But what has simply AMAZED me is the low wear rate of the campy chain. In 2000 miles of riding, the chain wear is under .06%, on Shimano / Sram 9 speed chains at the same mileage and using the same ways to clean and lube the chain, every chain I've used has been worn to the 'generally accepted' limit of .5%. That's nearly 10 times lower chain wear/stretch. The apparent reason for this is that in going to 10 speeds, Campy made their chain side-plates thinner, rather than the sprockets. This means that the bearing surface dimensions inside the chain are significantly larger, which is probably the reason for the lower wear. I also expect the cassettes and chainrings to last longer than the Shimano offerings, again because they're a good bit wider. Also, Campy sells a far wider range of individual cassette-cogs so that you can replace a single cog, rather than replacing the entire cassette. As far as I've been able to see Shimano only makes some of the smallest cogs available as singles -- admittedly these are the most likely to wear out fast but that depends on your riding style.

Tradeoffs / Downsides
After tires, the chain and cassette are the parts of the bike that are replaced most often, making these last longer is a big cost and maintenance savings, of course as with any design choice it's not without some downside. You really want to use only a Campy chain on a Campy drivetrain, Wipperman and KMC make chains that can be used on Campagnolo sprockets and Simano/SRAM chains definitely don't work well. This in turn means that you can't take advantage of SRAM's fast-link, Campy chain must be riveted and can't easily be removed, e.g. for cleaning. However, chain's don't need to be removed to keep them clean and most people prefer not to. Also, in 10 speed, SRAM's fast-link isn't designed to be dismantled anyway (you can do it with a little ingenuity). I have read that the KMC and Wipperman fastlinks can be used on original Campagnolo chain so those are viable options for maintenance.

Across the board, much to my surprise, Campagnolo groups cost less than Shimano groups of a comparable weight. However, there's a catch. Shimano simply own's 95% or so of the market for road components. If you're going to buy a bike, few bikes are offered at all with Campagnolo components and even fewer in the more affordable Centaur / Veloce price ranges. So if the only bikes you can actually buy with Campy are in the $9000 and up price range, Campy components are in effect not available.

Sadly the only alternative is to spec a frame, spec campy group and put it together yourself or have the shop do so (which they certainly will but the cost of those components are going to come out to significantly more money than the comparable bike that you'd buy from Specialized, Trek, Cannondale ... equipped with components that Shimano significantly discounts when those companies come to them ordering by the hundreds or thousands.

Over the long haul, I think putting the bike together from components will be cost competitive, but only if you plan to keep the bike in question for long enough to accrue the savings.

The last major difference between these makers are the ergonomics. If the Shimano (or SRAM) levers fit your hand better then that's the best reason to buy them, same thing goes for the differences in shifting mechanism, if you like Shimano's lever design or SRAM's double-tap then those are very likely the best groups to ride on.

Hydration and electrolytes

2009-12-14T21:35:41Z

I find it hard to dial in the right amount of electrolytes when training. The first time I became aware that there was a problem was in the '07 Mooseman Olympic when I was beginning to experience cramping in my calves and quads by the end of the bike leg and after finishing the run, my hamstrings got into the act also so that for an hour or so my legs were trying to cramp in both directions at once -- not good.

Until then I'd been hydrating with alternating bottles of Cytomax™ and water, which gave me about all the carbohydrate I could absorb, I'd experience some issues with cramps in training but written it off to muscle fatigue. After the painful post-mooseman experience I started adding more electrolytes to the mix and found that my problems with cramping had passed.

This fall I had a routine physical and checked in with my doctor about my tendency to experience passing out when I stand up during periods when I'm training hardest. I've always written it off to my relatively low blood pressure and heart rate. The doc suspected insufficient hydration / blood volume but we ruled that out because I routinely check my weight after training to ensure that I'm hydrating well enough. What she suggested is that I'm down on electrolytes. Since then I've further upped the amount of salt I take in when training and I think I can say that this is addressing the problem ... a happy thing as needing to be frequently cautious about the simple act of standing up gets tiresome.

How to manage hydration requirements

The first thing is to measure your sweat rate, this will vary depending on exertion levels and the weather conditions you're training in, so do check in a variety of circumstances. It's a simple thing, just get on the scale before you head out and then again when you're done.
([start weight]+[water intake]-[finish weight])/[time training] = sweat rate.
I lose something north of 3lbs per hour of water when going hard in high temperatures, given that, it probably shouldn't have taken me so long to figure out that while I was hydrating fine, I was losing more salt than I was replacing.

live and learn :-)

Training / nutrition / recovery tips

2009-12-14T18:09:31Z

Usually I talk about bike repair and safety here but this week I'm thinking about training, so here goes.

I think all endurance athletes fully understand the need to fuel with preferably organic, high-nutrient foods, lean proteins, highly-colored veggies etc. We also understand the need for active recovery to build the muscles that we're developing in training.

One of the keys to repairing the damage done in training and accelerating recovery is ensuring that your body has a healthy supply of antioxidants. Endurance training creates significant stress on the body in the form of free radicals, which are damaging to cellular membranes, antioxidants are responsible for cleaning up these free radicals.

See the full article for ways to get antioxidant's in your regular diet as well as ideas on supplements ->>]]> Antioxidant basics

While training generally improves health and strengthens the body's immune response, as we approach some point of 'too much' training load the immune response is impaired. This is the first step in what's commonly called 'overreaching'. Overreaching can result in reduced performance, staleness, loss of motivation and minor illness (colds etc). Taken a step farther, chronic overreaching becomes 'overtraining' If an athlete goes too far into overtraining s/he may need to take off months to recover, overtraining has been tied to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

As I stated at the start, the first keys to staying healthy while training hard are proper recovery and good nutrition. How best to obtain these keys is different for every athlete, e.g. whether you are on a vegetarian or vegan diet. Different people find different specific training and recovery methods that work best for them.

I know of two ways to improve your antioxidant levels. The first is to be taking in foods or supplements that hare high in antioxidants. Blueberries seem to be one of the best sources (and frozen wild/orgainc blueberries are affordable year round and make great smoothies!). Many lean meats and most dark-colored vegetables are also high in antioxidants. The second way is to stimulate the body's ability to produce it's own, this can be achieved with phytoestrogens which are available in cashews and other nuts and soy products such as tempeh or tofu and in poultry.

Supplements

No amount of supplements will offer as much help as the right amount of basic fitness and healthy diet. This said, I've found that recovery is faster and I feel better when I add both some basic vitamin supplements and some specific antioxidants.

The thing that seems to work best for me is NAC, aka N-acetyl-L-cysteine, it's a precursor to the antioxidant Glutathione. The most cost effective form I've found for NAC is from Jarrow. I train on a budget and the extremely expensive antioxidant formulas don't seem to offer much bang for your buck.

Always YMMV and do go look on google which will point you to lots of good articles on Cysteine -- the best I've found is at univ. of Maryland.

Cheap (i.e. FREE!) / organic hand cleaner

2009-11-23T15:42:01Z

Anyone who works on bikes that are ridden regularly is familiar with dirty hands. Whether you're simply cleaning your bike(s) or fixing, adjusting and maintaining or doing full overhauls, unless you wear gloves (not a cheap solution) your hands will come up at the end of the work with a level of embedded grime / grease that's seriously hard to remove with just soap and water.

My solution is to scrub with used coffee grounds -- Read the full article for details ->> ]]> The traditional shop hand cleanup (at least in the 60s/70s) was with 'Boraxo&tm;', a mix of pumice, and ordinary soap. Good stuff and the abrasive pumice does a good job of removing embedded grit, however I always found it not so great for removing engine or bicycle grime and it tends to be pretty drying due to removal of skin oils.

During the '80s 'waterless' hand cleaners came along and have become far and away the more popular solution. I've never been all that fond of these, they work by using an oil based approach, oil dissolves oils well and they are very effective at removing grime. However, the waterless cleaner itself is nearly impossible to remove with soap and I have never been fond of the chemical smell that remained after, or the feeling of the residue.

My solution for the last year has been to re-use my espresso grounds. Grounds from drip process coffee works fine also, although the finer grind of espresso works best.

The oil from the coffee beans works well for dissolving grease and oil and the coarse nature of the coffee grind is nearly as good an abrasive as the pumice in Boraxo&tm; To use it, take a couple of tablespoons or espresso-puck of used coffee grounds, rub them into your hands, adding some water from the faucet to help lubricate the process.

On rinsing off the grounds, you should see most of the grime removed from your hands. If I've been working on a particularly dirty project, I will need a second application. Now wash with ordinary hand soap of your choice. Some of the oils from the coffee will probably be left behind but I don't mind those.

Of course if you're not so big on the scent of coffee, this may not be a great solution for you!

Tires: products and techniques to avoid & fix flats

2009-11-15T13:15:52Z

For many riders, flat tires are high on the list of repair problems, usually running second to drive train maintenance. Here are some tips on flat prevention and fast flat-fixing. A flat while riding is never fun, a flat while braking hard or in a turn can result in a dangerous accident!

The easy stuff, avoid 'em, sweep 'em off, inflation

Broken glass is the cause of most of the flats I've experienced, when riding, look ahead for glass in the road and if possible (i.e. be sure there's no cars-back) try to avoid riding through it. When you see you've ridden through some glass, you can reach down with your (gloved) hand and sweep the wheel, just touch the surface while continuing to ride for a couple of seconds, this will dislodge most glass shards, avoiding the flat. It's possible to reach down to the rear wheel between the seat stays and seat tube, but I prefer to unclip and sweep the rear tire with my shoe, either way sweeping the rear tire MUST be reserved for a straight secton of road. If you are going to do the rear with your hand, my friend Ulandt pointed out the correct way to do this:

I.e. HOW NOT TO MANGLE YOUR HAND
Hook your thumb firmly into the seat-stay above the brake bolt and then *LIGHTLY* touch the moving wheel surface to sweep off glass .. again, you're wearing gloves when trying this right?

For what to do back home and products to help minimize occurrence of flats and repair them quicker, see the rest of the article ->>]]> Every week or two, I look over my tire surfaces for embedded debris and remove it, if there are significant cuts I will fill them with dabs of glue -- "Barge Cement" and "Shoe Goo" both work well.

Correct tire inflation is also important, see Sheldon Brown for rough idea of correct inflation starting point. On 25MM or smaller tires I would never ride at under 90 psi. I will sometimes slightly lower inflation pressures for wet conditions or if I know I will be riding on irregular surfaces, but inflating on the low side risks pinch-flats and more importantly rim damage. Replacing rims is both costly and time-consuming so I prefer to err on the side of higher pressures.

Tires and other products to avoid punctures

For a training tire, Bontrager has been making a 'Hard Case' clincher for a long time, I used to ride on them and don't remember ever flatting one. They're not cheap, you can get a Conti GP4000 for $56 at the LBS while the race x lite version of the hardcase (kevlar bead/folding) goes at $50 or the slightly heavier wire-bead version for $40.

The Conti probably will not last as long -- it's a full up competitive race tire, I don't think their vectran breaker costs anything in handling but most riders won't get more than 2000 miles before the tire wears out .. well I don't, which was also my experience with Vittoria EVO.

There are two places where the Hardcase doesn't measure up, the kevlar and wire-beaded versions weigh in at 260 / 330 grams respectively. That compares to 200-220 grams for most makers race tires, including Contis with the Vectran.

The second major difference is the Bontrager tire's handling isn't even vaguely up to snuff but I think that's more because of the compound, which is much harder and less sticky. I wouldn't trust them for hard cornering. On the upside, they reportedly will go 4-5000 miles or more. That's attractive but I'm too addicted to the handling performance of Conti/vittoria rubber.

For the last 3 years I rode principally on Vittoria EVO tires and wasn't very impressed with their ability to withstand flats, I typically have gotten one glass / debris induced flat every 2-400 miles of riding. This said, I'm a good / difficult test case, weighing in at 220, I'm loading my rear wheel with more weight than most riders split across both wheels, ergo: I am driving glass splinters into the tire with more force than most riders will.

When I was still riding on Vittoria tires I did come up with some mediating tools for the high flat-rate. The best has been a liner called 'spinskins' by a local company, Warwick Mills. I rode these for a total of 3000 miles on the Peugeot, under the Vittoria EVO clinchers without a single puncture. Pretty darn good and I've had at least two deep cuts in the tires that would have surely gone through to the tube without the liners; based on prior experience there were undoubtedly more small punctures that also would have caused flats. Unfortunately these liners, while very light, come with a couple of downsides: 1. They're a PITA to install, do-able but not exactly fun. 2. They have to be maintained at a very high inflation pressure or the liner will cut the tube, they've gotten a bad rap for this, perhaps deservedly, tho most cyclists ride at too-low tire pressure.

[EDIT] I've just retired my last Vittoria clincher, protected by Spinskins. The tire had about 2k miles on it and on inspection there were no fewer than 6 holes through tread and belt that would have resulted in flats.

My current record for Spinskins is 4000+ tire-miles, 0 flats. For a light rolling weight flat breaker/protection these are far and a way the best thing I've seen. This said, they have the maintenance penalty noted above but it's at least a penalty that can be paid one time at tire-mounting, rather than on the road, holding up the group while I change out a punctured tube.

So, going forward, my fixied/SS will be shod with cheaper rubber rather than the $50 - a - pop Conti GP4000 and I'll be using the spinskins under those cheap tires for flat prevention. I'll keep using the Contis on the venerable Peugeot, I like their handling! If anyone needs help with setting up Spinskins, give me a shout, it's not too difficult after the first go, and remember if you do use them you MUST keep the tires inflated at / near max.

Net-Net, I had a good experience with the Spinskins but I'm far happier with the Conti offerings. I've looked at other liner products "Slime" and others, and felt they were too heavy to consider.

In a race, The best tool I can recommend for dealing with a flat is Vittoria's Pit-Stop inflator product. While it's intended for use with tubular tires, there's no reason not to appy it to clinchers as well. I like to carry a can for races and any ride longer than 40 miles.

Pit-Stop will fill a tire, fixing most punctures as well as inflating your tire to 100 PSI(it won't bridge a tear of 1/8" length or more but that sort of tear requires you go in and re-enforce the tire body with a folded dollar anyhow) . At a cost of $10 per canister I consider this pricey but I've also been able to get 2 repairs per canister (with an hand-pump or CO2 to bring pressure up to spec). Even allowing for using my cheap-ass 1/2 can + pump, this is going to knock 2 minutes off the repair time for the fastest mechanic and more like 5-10 minutes for the rest of us mortals. The canister weighs less than a clincher-tube, it's only downside in my mind is that it's too large to fit into an under-seat tool bag.

So far I've fixed 6 flats with this at 100% success rate and only had one long-tear flat that it wouldn't fix (didn't try). I still carry spare tube /' tire as appropriate, and will usually opt for swapping tubes 'cause it's cheaper, but there are days when schedule or race-time take priority.

Happy riding!

Getting the most from your drivetrain parts ($)

2009-11-13T19:37:09Z

While maintaining a bike's drive train isn't difficult from a technical standpoint, it's where the most maintenance effort is spent. Tires probably run higher in material costs, but the drive train - the chain in particular - needs frequent cleaning and chains (at least Shimano/SRAM) need to be replaced about every 2000 miles. (In my experience, Campy drive components wear far more slowly, not surprising, as Campy uses wider sprockets and chain bearing-surfaces.)

I've developed a way to at least minimize the cost of replacing worn drive train parts, as well as feel good about staying 'green'. Manufacturing bike parts uses energy and resources and the longer you make them last, the lower your cycling will be. (to be clear, I'm not alone in coming up with this idea, I've found several websites and one chain manufacturer (KMC) who have noted this method)

Summary: you can extend the life of both chains and front/rear sprockets by up to 50% by cycling through a few different chains over the life of a cassette / chainrings, see the full article for details:

]]> How it's done

The power a cyclist generates is of course all transmitted to the wheels starting at the pedals -> through the crank and bottom bracket bearings -> the front chainring sprocket -> the chain -> and finally through the cassette sprocket to the wheel and the ground.

The chain and sprockets, being exposed to the elements are subject to significant wear all due to road grit contaminating the lubricants (a similar chain drive running in a clean environment at the same loads would last 20,000 miles or more). As-is, chains typically last ~2000 miles, cassette cogs perhaps 4000, chainrings can be expected to last 8000 miles or more.

The chain wears fastest and the form of that wear is that the pitch (distance between the chain-rollers increases). If the chain is allowed to wear beyond about 1% increase in its pitch, the rate of wear of the chainrings and rear cogs is greatly increased.

The wear mode of the sprockets, both front and rear is different, the pitch does not increase and in fact slightly decreases, but the primary wear is causing the shape of the sprocket teeth to change and as the teeth wear, the load of driving the bike forward is spread across a smaller number of links. If you run a new, unworn chain over moderately worn sprockets, the chain will wear faster than it would do otherwise. As the sprockets wear further (especially the smaller cogs on the cassette), a new chain placed onto a somewhat more worn cassette is going to shift poorly, because a 'hook' has been formed into the cog's teeth and the chain will get caught for a moment. Finally, when a cog becomes fully worn-out, the chain will skip under heavy load because the teeth have worn a slope (removing the hook in stage 2) and the chain can pull past the teeth.

Here's how I've managed my drive components for the last two years:

I run chain "A" to 1/2% increase in pitch. For me that's about 1000 miles, or half of my normal chain life. At that point I mount new chain "B", run it for 1000, then put back 'A' which I will run until it approaches the wear limit of 1%, then put back 'B' and likewise run it to 1% elongation. A more-optimal but far more labor-intensive method would be to buy 4 chains up front with a new set of chainrings & cassette, then cycle A, B, C, D each to 500 miles, then to 1000 miles, etc. This way, the wear-pattern is similar across the whole life of the sprocket and a set of chainrings would probably last 8000 or more miles rather than 4000 or less.

The reason I don't go this way is twofold, I don't want to spend $200 on chains up-front, and I don't want to unmount/remount chains every month, 2-3 swaps per season is enough!

Using the 1/2% change interval, my front sprockets were well. within acceptable wear at 5000 miles of use and there was no perceptible wear in the cassette cogs.

I sold that bike at 5000 miles ridden, but with the current ride I'm going to use a similar approach and expect to wear out 2-3 chains before changing chainrings at 6000 miles, I'll save those chains, and after running another 6k miles, chances are good that the cassette cogs will be showing some significant wear, At that point I can continue running the worn chains on worn sprockets and cassette, expecting to get a total of 16,000 miles (about 4 years riding for me).

Total expected cost for 16000 miles of riding (Ultegra pricing, DA would be pricier)

"Normal" drive train maintenance parts costs:

$400 8 chains $380 4 pairs chain rings $220 2 cassettes

$1000 total

'modified maintenance':

$250 5 chains $190 2 pairs chain rings $110 1 cassette

$550 total

That's only saving about $110/year (assuming you ride 4k miles per year), not a whole lot .. over the same time you're probably going to spend $1000 on tires, 300 on replacing worn rims, 120 on brake pads and probably another 100 on shift/brake cables and guides. So maybe 20% savings on parts costs.

$450 saved in 4 years is a couple of years worth of tire replacements, Of course if you're paying someone else to do the work, then the labor costs suggest you have to go the 'regular' route.

helmet safety

2009-11-10T20:47:57Z

All too often I see people riding with the helmet straps hanging loose an inch or more below their chin. THIS IS SERIOUSLY UNSAFE! That loose a chin-strap can allow your helmet to come clean off in a crash, likely losing all of it's protection.

Beyond not being loose, helmet straps should be tight enough to keep the helmet stable in a crash with significant impact. I keep my strap reasonably tight but last March when I crashed in a criterium race, it was a shade looser than usual which allowed the helmet to rotate down over my forehead on impact which, in turn crushed my glasses lens against and into the left eye/socket Pretty bad news, it has permanently affected my vision (changed my astigmatism by about .5 diopter).

To clarify, by 'a shade loose' I don't mean that the strap was hanging visibly loose, just that it was not set as recommended (only 2 fingers should fit comfortably under the chin).

See the two links below for proper helmet adjustment, adjusting the 'triangles' formed by the straps correctly to fit your head is key as is being sure that the head-circle band is snug ---

nhtsa.gov
helmets.org

Helmets today are designed to slide on pavement, older designs tended to catch, resulting in neck injuries/strains, but making the most of the new designs still requires correct adjustment. I find I have to re-tension the chin strap every hour or so of riding to accommodate slippage, as always, ymmv.

I'm sure this seems anal, but having lost a good bit of my visual acuity permanently was an unfortunate price to pay for my unusual failure to adjust correctly ... this said, I probably should have been riding in sports glasses that day, rather than wire-frame glasses also.

Ride safe!

Announcing

2009-10-08T04:38:28Z

In addition to opening as a new bike-repair business, I will be:

Offering discounts to any and all club-members in the area

Providing whatever tips I can on cycling and bike maintenance

Offering to pass on what little I know to my customers