There I was, minding my own business, without a care in the world. And then it happened…

Well, to be truthful, it was at least partly my fault. Perhap I should back up a bit.

I was at home, at about 5:15, glueing gravel to my face. It was going pretty well, and as I was adding the gel blood, I knocked my helmet off, and the moss fell out of my helmet. What a mess.

Perhaps some details are in order:

1. Embedded in my chest is a 30 tooth 105-series shimano chainring. Well, part of a chainring – the rest is coming out of my helmet
2. There’s a spoke coming out next to the wound near my right eye. Another coming out of my bike shorts.
3. Wounds on my face, right arm, left wrist, and right knee.
4. Chain (shimano ultegra 10 speed)
5. Remnants of an inner tube coming out my left leg.
6. Moss in the helmet

Important safety tip: If you decide to do something like this, I suggest taping the aforementioned cycling parts to your shirt, if you’re interested in the easy way out. If, however, you wish some assistance in projecting your injured tape, adhesive tape works well.

Tonight I read a post by Eldon, where (among other things) he says that he has learned how to lose himself in his ride. I’ve experienced that a number of times – I’m just riding, still paying attention to what’s going on, but not thinking about anything.

I’ve been thinking about how that relates to the flow state when programming. In my experience, it’s a lot easier to get into the flow state when programming than it is to get into the analogous state when riding. It may have to do with the degree to which you can shut out external input. In programming, it’s pretty easy – put on some appropriate music, and lose myself in the task. On the bike, it’s often not possible, since losing oneself can have some pretty bad consequences.

Thoughts? Are the two states analogous, or are they different things entirely?

A couple of blog comments sparked the following question from Chris:

As I rode the Zoo my heart-rate hovered between 180 and 184. 184 is the absolute highest I have ever seen for me on a bike. My resting heart rate is roughly 56. Out of curiosity…. can anyone explain what it means that I have a higher resting heart rate and apparently a higher max heartrate than Eric.

That’s simple. I have achieved the morally superior lower heartrate, and it doesn’t matter how much faster you are, I’m going to be the better cyclist.

Don’t buy that? Well, it’s a simply matter of physiology. We aren’t surprised that certain people have larger hands, or heads, or ears than others, so it’s probably not a surprise that people have different sized hearts. My heart is simply bigger than yours. In fact, the stroke volume (the amount of blood pumped per beat) can vary as much as 4x between people. That’s an impressive difference, though it would admittedly be more impressive if I hadn’t pulled that “4x” number out of thin air.

I used to work out with a woman whose heart rate at comparable level of exertion would be be something 1.6 times my heart rate. I’d be hanging out at around 120, she’d be up above 190. No problem for her, but a great indication that things like “heart rate ranges” and “220 minus your age” don’t work well with the whole population, and may be pretty bad for specific individuals.

As you may already know, increase in stroke volume is one of the primary adaptations from training.

Last night, when I got home, my wife asked me if I’d read Eldon’s blog. A quick look showed that he was trash talking about today’s ride. Me, I don’t need to trash talk or work to psych anybody out, because I’m confident in my climbing skills. So confident, in fact, that I thought I was a virtual lock to make it to the top of the hill, and even pick up some time over my previous ascent.

Despite the fact that I run BicycleClimbs.com, and unlike Eldon, I’m not a particularly gifted climber. I’m learning how to suffer (more on that later), but my physique is not suited to be first up the hill.

The sport of bicycling has lot of variables. Wind and aerodynamics play a huge part, as does drafting. But when you get to the steep hills – unless you’re talented to ride up them at meaningful speeds – it’s mostly about power/weight ratio. I was thinking about this a few days ago, and dusted off some disused physics expertise.

First, we need to figure out my potential energy at the top of the hill. For that, we’ll use the following formula:

PE (Joules) = mgh

My bike and I weigh pretty close to 200 pounds (a few pounds less, but that doesn’t matter) = 200 / 2.204 kg = 91 kg. That’s the m.
Zoo hill is 1200 feet = 1200 * 12 inches = 1200 * 12 / 39.3 meters = 366 meters. That’s the h.
Finally, g stands for gravity, and for the earth, it’s 9.81 m/sec^2

So, that gives me:

PE = 91 * 9.81 * 366 = 330000 Joules (if I mess up on the significant digits, my wife will kill me.)

All that is left is to convert that to Watts. Conveniently, 1 Watt = 1 Joule / sec. I climb the zoo in 25:30, so

Climbing Power = 330000 / 1530 = 220 Watts

There’s some additional sources of resistance, but they probably aren’t that big for the Zoo, especially at the speeds I ride.

Eldon wrote that he did the Zoo last week in about 21 minutes (lets say 21:30). That’s a ratio of 0.84 to my time. To match that, I either need to up my power output to 220 / 0.84 = 262 watts, or I need to reduce my weight by the same factor to 180 * 0.84 = 151.2. I did weigh that much in high school, but I had less upper body muscle than I do now (hard to believe, I know).

So, class, what did I prove? Well, I proved that there was no way I was going to beat Eldon. But maybe there was another way. For the climb, I wrote up a few guidelines and printed them out, along with a map. Here’s what they said:

• It’s tough to get lost. Just keep going up. When you get to the stop sign, turn left. When there’s a green gate on you’re right, you’re at the top, and it’s all downhill from there.
• On the descent, turn left at the stop sign.
• This is an unsupported ride, so if you stop, you will fall over.
• Limit your speed on the first pitch. In fact, you should probably stay behind me the whole ride, just to be safe.
• Those who reach the top may choose to coast back down to ride up with those who haven’t made it up yet. Those who haven’t made it up yet may choose to whack those who have made it with their pumps.
• The organizers request that any riders who pass out attempt to do so that their bodies will roll onto the shoulder.
• Those with something to prove should ride the inside of the hairpin. Those with a lick of sense should ride a more rational line.

I then handed Eldon a sheet and asked him to read them out loud, with the excuse that I didn’t want him to be the only guy who got to be funny.

What he didn’t know was that his sheet was special. All the other ones had an additional guideline which said:

• (This guideline isn’t on Eldon’s sheet, so don’t ruin it). $20 to the top finishing rider who beats Eldon to the top. I’m not kidding on this one – I have the cash with me.

Yes, if I can’t beat Eldon myself, perhaps I can pay somebody to do it. Eldon claims that that is evil. Hmm. What did I read yesterday? Oh, yeah, “I will pay other people to interfere with my boss’s boss“. Yeah.

So, anyway, we did the ride, and I displayed my mad climbing skillz. I bumped my average heart rate up about 5 points, and got up in a time virtually indistinguishable from last time. And I wasn’t last to the top, though I should note that of the two guys arriving after me, one started 10 minutes behind me, and the second was about 5″ taller than I am.

But I am learning to suffer better.

One of my readers suggested a group ride of the Zoo, so I’m teaming up with the Phat Psyklist to put on the:

The Double-E half-hour of Pain (You do Zoo, We do Too)

September 24th, 2:30 PM at the base of the hill. Eldon said something about cake at the summit. If you want to participate, please send email or leave a comment so we have some idea how many people are showing up.

This is not a climb to be approached lightly. Proper preparation includes a well-maintained bike, good legs, a sufficient arsenal of excuses, and willingness to explore the outer limits of performance and whining.

Notes for first time zoo climbers:

1. Start slow. Really slow. Lowest gear slow. Almost falling down slow.
2. You’ll need to maintain your pace for somewhere in the neighborhood of half an hour.
3. After about 0.8 miles, there is a hairpin turn to the right. Do not ride on the inside of the corner. The easiest way up is the outside of the turn, if traffic conditions permit (there is usually little traffic on the zoo)
4. The first mile or so to the straight section is the worst. The straight section to the stop sign is harder. And the section after you turn left is harder still.
5. The top is at the gate, and the road turns to gravel soon after that.
6. Don’t descend the same direction – head west on 60th (ie left at the stop sign coming down from the summit)
7. Ever climb Inglewood? The zoo is like riding Inglewood. In a higher gear. Four times in a row.

Sunday, I went on what will likely be my last organized ride for this year (regular readers are rejoicing right now).

Unlike some of the other rides I’ve done, this ride has a theme. As noted on the details page, this ride is based loosely on the salmon spawning cycle. You start next to Puget Sound in Myrtle Edwards Park (also hosting a “miles of fence and lots of big construction equipment” event at the same time), travel upstream to the Locks. That’s the “Chum run”, clocking in at 14 miles. Next up is the “Fit for a King” (as in “King Salmon”) loop at 33 miles, where you ride to Seward parks on Lake Washington, on to the locks, and then out to Puget sound, recreating the trip that a young salmon would take on its first journey to the sea.

New this year is the “Copper River Special” (named after seafood company in Alaska). This loop takes you around to West Seattle to Alki point, which is important to the salmon because it’s 11 miles in length (fun history fact – the Denny party landed at Alki Point in West Seattle in 1851. Arthur Denny, in a move to make his mark on the city, later named one of Seattle’s most prominent hills after himself. Disgruntled townfolk had it removed, and Arthur went on to found a hugely successfully 24-hour dining chain).

The copper river loop started at 44 miles on the website, morphed to 50 miles on the maps, and turned out to be 53 miles covering some of the worst pavement to be found in Seattle.

After winding along the picturesque Seattle waterfront parallel to the picturesque Alaskan Way viaduct (*that’s* why it’s “Copper river”!) (acting as a semi-permanent eyesore along Seattle’s waterfront), we headed across the bridge to West Seattle. I hooked up with a racer and his ex-racer friend (both wearing local team colors) for the trip around Alki, which was fast, bumpy, and a bit wimpy. We then headed back to downtown, up the hill, through the I-90 bike tunnel , and then down to Seward Park, the first food stop.

Following the “spawning cycle” theme, I had worked really hard getting from Puget Sound to Lake Washington, and then died after getting there. Unsure whether salmon get dehydrated, I decided to cover that front “just in case”.

In a rare nod to non-motorized transportation, the city of Seattle closes portions of Lake Washington Blvd for Bicycle Saturday and Sundays. Flat road, great scenery, no cars.

After skirting around Capital Hill (known for… well, you can search yourself if you want to know what it’s known for), the ride joined the Burke-Gilman trail, and led to Gas Works Parks, which has peerless views of downtown Seattle (over Lake Union), and some big ole’ rusty industrial equipment left over from when it’s use as a coal gassification plant.

At this point, things get a little hazy, but I managed to make it to the next food stop at the aforementioned Locks. I had reached the “just get this done” phase, and after a short rest, I headed out and up the steepest hills of the ride into Discovery park. There used to be a Navy base there, and it’s very eerie to ride through overgrown roads and tall fields of grass, with the occaisional perfectly painted and maintained structure in the middle of a field. Weird.

After finding our way out (markings were a bit vague), we headed on Magnolia Blvd, and then back along the trail to the starting point.

And therein lies the rub. To avoid the killer climb, the 14 mile loop goes the other direction on that same route, which means you have a mix of fast and slow riders going one direction and slow to very slow riders going the other direction. At one point there’s a small curved bridge. There were people walking their bikes, so I followed a slow group on the left, which ran into a group of walkers coming the other way and walkers trying to remount at the top. I decided to add to the confusion by getting off balance and falling off my bike, which sort of punctuated the experience. In my mind, it’s unacceptable for Cascade to let that sort of thing happen – if you’re going to use that route, you have to have people on both side make sure everybody dismounts for that bridge.

After my horizontal excursion, I headed back to the park for the end of the ride.

Rant #2 – why is finish line food so bad for you? I mean, I don’t mind a little indulgence, but when the only thing you can get is a burger on a white bread bun or some suspicious salmon (ah, the salmon theme again), it’s not the best of all worlds.

Recommended? Well, I don’t know. It’s bumpy, could be windy, and you have lots of inexperienced cyclists to watch out for (worse than Flying Wheels).

Author’s Note: I’ve provided some links to help make my case, but I suggest you read through without them first…

It wasn’t at all like Archimedes – it didn’t happen all at once. It started with a gnawing at the back of the skull, an itch that you can’t scratch, and then as the days pass, it worms its way into your conscious mind.

Through a quirk of chance, we’d crossed paths before. That time he was hustling to get a new magazine going, something devoted to “the latest thing“. My contacts told me that he’d made some dough running that scam in the past, but this one didn’t pan out. He melted away, and I forgot about him for a few years.

Then one day, I came across his name again. I had to give him credit this time. Blogs had been hot for years, and with the Texans’s seventh win, cycling was in the news. Put those two together, and you’ve got a hook. Add a bit of human interest, and it’s foolproof, especially when you have a friend who specializes in anatomical prosthetics.

I’ve got to admit that his writing’s good. Great, even. Some might say he has a gift for comedy. He had me fooled, and he could have gotten away with it for a long time, but he’d gotten what he wanted, and made it to the top. And, like some many of his ilk, he got careless.

He even admitted it in his blog, when he wrote, “There is no single entry in this blog that is entirely honest.”

But I don’t think he’s going to come clean, and since I have eyewitness proof, I think I’m going to have to force his hand.

Some are fat. Some are cyclists. But like that story of so many years ago, I’ll have to be the small child here, and be the first to point out the truth.

The Fat Cyclist has insufficient weight. 167.2 pounds does not a compelling story make.

A few weeks ago, Bret, one of my PM friends (well, I call people like Bret friends since they’re people that tolerate my presence), told me he was looking at my bicycle climb site and and saw a climb named “The Zoo”. One day, he said, “I think I’d like to climb the zoo – let’s set up a time and go up it together”.

I should perhaps step back a bit and explain a bit. The Fat Cyclist has written at length (and at more length) about how to size up cycling competition. While such guides are useful if one wants to avoid human interaction, if the rider in question lives on the Eastside of Seattle, you can get all the information you need with a single question:

“Have you ever done the Zoo?”

There are three answers you get:

• What’s the zoo?
  This rider really isn’t worth your time. Even if they can drop you on the flats, they haven’t suffered sufficiently, and therefore any of their achievements can never rise to your level.
• No
  This rider is no competition to you. No matter what happens on the ride, you have tried and triumphed, and therefore possess an inner strength that they are lacking. This is great consolation when they ride away from you on their big chainring.
• Yes. It’s pretty steep.
  Beware this rider. Not only have they tried and triumphed, they are playing mind games with you. The zoo is “pretty steep” in the same sense that on Oxy-Acetylene torch is “pretty hot”, or Everest is “pretty tall”.

Cyclists have this weird thing about shared suffering. Hard climbs are always better when somebody else is suffering along with you, and if you can sucker in an unsuspecting rider who doesn’t really know what they’re in for, all the better.

So I was happy to set up a time to ride the Zoo with Bret. Happy… No, that’s not it, what’s that word again? Ah, that’s it. Disturbed. I was disturbed about it. But there’s nothing to be done about it – if you’ve ridden the zoo, you can’t wimp out when somebody else wants to try it.

The weather this morning was perfect. About 60 degrees, and sunny. On the ride there, I toyed briefly with saying that it had been a little cold when I rode up it early this morning, but I decided that that would be too cruel. Okay, that’s not really truthful. I just didn’t think I could pull it off.

The ride was about as good my first trip up it last year. In other words, 25 minutes of suffering, but not as bad as before. Bret suffered well and made it to the top, all 1200 feet of it.

Oh, and we had a surprise companion with us. More on that later…

A post over at the Fat Cyclist (entitled “I Fear My Bathroom Scale“) got me thinking.

I first started cycling seriously a few years ago, when 9 months of being a PM and not working out had added about 20 pounds on my frame. The weight came off fairly easily, but I was hungry a fair bit, and it took me quite a while to come up with a nutrition plan that worked, both when I’m training hard and when I’m not.

The basic problem is that if you are a recreational athlete, you need two different diet approaches. Both have the aim of keeping your blood sugar at a consistent level, but the way that you do that during (and after) exercise is very different from how you do it the rest of the time. You also need to realize that an approach that works for mostly sedentary people may be the wrong thing for you as an athlete, with Atkins being the prototypical example of this.

There are two good books that I know that can help a lot. The first is Chris Carmichael’s “Food for Fitness“. Chris’ hypothesis is that you should match what you eat to the period of training that you’re in. That conceptually makes a lot of sense if you’re on a fairly serious training regimen, but it probably over the top for many recreational athletes. That doesn’t mean that this book isn’t valuable, however – it has a lot of great basic nutritional information and covers fairly well how your diet needs are different than those of the sedentary part of the population.

The second book is “The South Beach Diet”. In general, most diet books aren’t very useful, but there’s a lot of good science – and clinical research – behind the South Beach approach. To sum up, each fewer processed foods, more natural foods, and you’ll keep your blood sugar more constant, and therefore not be hungry all the time. I know several people who have lost good amounts of weight while not spending a lot of time hungry. There are some sacrifices here – I don’t eat as much pasta as I used to, nor rice, and when I do, they’re the whole-wheat varieties. Same with bread. But it’s something that’s sustainable.

So, for me, I’m “South Beach” on most days, trying to eat things that will give me sustained energy. That often means eating a little more fat that you would on low-fat diets, which is a good thing in my book. There are a bunch of “south beach” brand foods in the supermarket, but the ones I’ve tried have been pretty poor, so I’d suggest staying with the natural food.

I then modify on days when I work out. During workouts, my goal is to get enough glucose into my system on a consistent basis so I can burn fat efficiently. For me, this means a snack about an hour before (banana or clif bar, something like that), then Accelerade to drink now and then plus something else to munch on during stops (sometimes Clif bars, sometimes newtons). If I get it right, I’ll have a nice constant stream of glucose so that I can get most of my energy from my fat stores. If I do this right, I don’t get that “I’ve got to eat and eat and eat” feeling that Mr. Fat Cyclist (can I can you “Fat”?) speaks about in his post.

On the first day of RSVP, I rode about 6 hours on Accelerade, a couple of clif bars, some beef jerky (sodium), and a few other assorted nibbles. That’s not a lot of food, which means the bulk of my energy came from my fat stores. That’s good – not only does it help with weight loss, it means that I can have plenty of energy without trying to each a lot, which is bad – you can only expect to get a limited number of calories from eating without getting too much food in your stomach.

I should also probably note that you may need to back off a bit if you’re in a sport for weight loss. The goal is to get your fat-burning metabolism working well and to use that for the bulk of your ride – that means you need to spend most of your time in a comfortable aerobic range. If you can find a good group ride that isn’t too gonzo for your fitness level, you can stay comfortably aerobic on the flats and then push yourself (if you want) on the hills. If you push too hard, you won’t establish the aerobic engine that you need. Carmichael talks about this in “The ultimate ride“, also a good book.

Oh, and I use my scale, but mostly to weight myself before and after workouts to see how I’m doing on hydration.

I joined somewhere around 900 other riders on RSVP this past weekend, for my second time in as many years, and I’m now recuperating in sunny Walnut Creek, CA.

I had intended to write a general ride report, something like, I did last year. Though restricting myself to topics that people find interesting has never been one of my guidelines in writing blog entries – a fact that should be painfully obvious thus far – I’ve decided not to tell you that I had one flat, and consumed 132 oz of Blueberry Accelerade. Nor will I tell you my maximum heart rate (163), the total number of miles (around 195), or other minutiae.

Instead, I’m not going to write that at all. In fact, I started doing a “trip report lite” (30% less boring), but just deleted 250 words of it.

Instead, I’d like to talk about nicknames.

The first – and arguably lamest  – example really wasn’t a nickname, but a description. “Yellow Jersey Women” describes a women who I pulled through one unexpectedly windy section of the first day, but who disappeared before we could learn her way. Yellow Jersey (not her real name) also rode with us the second day and was a nice addition to the group on the second day, when she held up her end by riding in another yellow jersey, though there was an unconfirmed report of an early morning sighting of a white jersey. Tamara was a good addition to the group.

The second was coming up with a nickname for Jeff, which was an undertaking of the utmost importance. I tried out “Georgie” a few times on Saturday morning. Jeff was at the front, doing his best imitation of George Hincapie, spending extended time at the front of the group, while I did my best imitation of a tour team leader – hanging back and not doing any work. “Georgie” stuck okay until we made a stop at a store near Lynden to get some hot food. Jeff stopped for some mac & cheese, decided to add a piece of chicken, and then walked out of the store with an entire roast chicken. So, “Chicken boy” was awarded, though I’m unsure if it will remain sticky over time. Jeff confounded the whole thing by wearing his “Sponge Bob” jersey the second day, which provided some unfortunate competition with “chicken boy” (hmm. Perhaps “Mr. Chicken” or even “Señor Pollo” would be better…), and was certainly a crowd favorite.

There was no obvious choice for Gustavo on the first day. “Guy who can outride me pretty much anywhere” was a bit ungainly, and “somewhat unattentive son-in-law”, while a fair description, lacked the necessary panache. Gustavo solved things the second day by showing up in white calf-height socks, and “sock boy” was awarded at the appropriate time. Through a rather bizarre juxtaposition of the addition of another Microsoft rider, a discussion of the difficiencies of nutrition bars, a 15-minute ferry wait, a felicitously positioned pickup-load of potatoes, and a lack of free time on Jeff and my part to form a band using a specific name, he was temporarily awarded the appelation “groin potatoes”, which is one of the least sticky nicknames I’ve heard of.