Join in the fun; The Calorie-Count Cycling Club...

Welcome to all who have an interest in anything cycling of any kind.( road, mountain, commuting, stationary, whatever).

This is the place to come to ask that question you have been wanting to ask,

or tell that story about your latest adventure riding your bike,

find out how to use cycling to get in better shape, or anything else you can think of.

So, to start, tell us, what you ride, where you ride and what type of riding you enjoy.

Come back often too check out what's going on and see what's on everyones mind or add your knowledge to the group. 

 

Jane: I am not familiar with the heart rate training book.  I have read recently that heart rate based training is going out of style.  My recommendation is that you check out the "Personal Trainer" tab on Bicycling.com.  It was a big help for me last year.  You can sign up for a year at a reduced rate or you can sign up for a 3 month minimum subscription ($30 last year) and a monthly fee ($10 last year) for each additional month.  Among the limited set of goals is 10 weeks to get ready for a century.  This works out well.  You sign up for 3 months and spend 10 of the 13 weeks on a good solid, proven training program that includes both diet and exercise.  By the end of 2 months you will realize that you have outgrown the program and you can notify them that you don't intend to continue beyond the 3 months that you have already paid for.  The only equipment that you will need is your bicycle and a cyclocomputer to track distance and speed.  If you have a HRM you can fill in average heart rate but that is optional.  No, I did not successfully complete a century last year.  I had two shots at it.  I opted for the metric century (65 miles) on the first one just to see how well I would do in the rather hill terrain around Hagerstown.  I went back to the same area a week later but my back wheel gave out before I could complete the 100 miles.  I have continued working and right now I am ready to try again.  I have looked at a lot of training programs but I like to keep my approach simple.  Basically I train the way I learned to train for track and cross country in HS and college.  I do some endurance stuff and some speed work and I almost always include some hills.  I top it off with calesthenics, weight lifting and yoga.  And I don't even do that stuff they way they tell you to do it now a days.  I am an old dog that isn't interested in learning a lot of new tricks.

Joe

Jane, awesome that you've gotten Christopher some sturdy training wheels. sounds like he now needs to learn his hand signals so he can signal you when he's slowing down or stopping. kudos to you both!

i trained with a HRM a few years ago, working also with a personal trainer to design my program. it is a great way to be sure your body is getting into the zones you need to increase speed, endurance, climbing strength, etc. having the trainer direct my program was essential to getting the fullest from the HRM, but if you're a disciplined person i'm sure you can get similar benefit from the training program in the book.

these days i rarely use my HRM, but having used it in the past, i've learned to tell when i'm in my aerobic zone (when i start pouring off sweat, that's zone 3), and anything higher feels hardcore. without it, and without the prescribed program from my trainer directing me to "spend 25 minutes at 80% max" or "find a 6 minute climb and ride it 4x in zone 3", etc. it's hard to push myself into those upper zones.

as for warming up your legs at the beginning of a ride, you sort of just have to ride through that. spin in an easy gear until your legs wake up a little & get into the groove. it's the reason the TdF riders warm up on stationary trainers before their time trials, so they don't have to overcome that initial heaviness in their legs during their timed ride.

Joe, I saw that personal trainer thing on bicycling.com and I was thinking about it. It may be worth it for me. Does the training program require that you already have a solid foundation or can you start from scratch? The thing is that I don't want to get ahead of myself. My main priority is to lose the weight first since every pound on the bike counts. I still have 30 pounds to go ( I have lost 29 already)and I am thinking that I should concentrate on that before investing in serious training. Of course I can work on speed, endurance and all the other stuff as well, but the weight has got to go first. The ultimate goal for me (and for a lot of us I think) is to do a century ride. This will probably be a couple of years down the road and I have a lot of work to do first.

carrihound, I am far from a disciplined person, lol. So I am definitely going to need someone to "kick me in the butt" sometimes. So far you guys have been my motivation. I am really up in the air about how to approach the training thing. I don't want to take the fun and joy out of riding but at the same time I do want to set goals (and reach them) for myself. I have been a couch potato all my life and I never imagined that I would be out there riding a bike (aka exercising) at least two hours per day. I am coming up on having done this for 2 months now and I am more hooked than ever.

And now for a sentimental moment! I stopped by the shop today to check on my new bike. It should be ready by tomorrow night. As I am heading home I can't help but feeling a little sad about giving up my Schwinn. I know it sounds crazy but that bike is what got me out there. It is the reason I have lost the first 29 pounds - not a Trek or a Giant, but a Target-bought cheap Schwinn. If it wasn't for that bike, I would be sitting in front of the TV watching "charmed" and eating tons of Taco Bell food. Deep down I will always have a special place in my heart for the bike that I couldn't even ride home from the store when I got it. It has definitely served me very well.

Jane

Jane, Jane, you are so dramatic.  Don't give up your Schwinn.  Throw it into your training mix every once in a while -- the extra weight will do you good.  I still ride my Aurora -- mostly for commuting but right now, with the Quest in the shop awaiting its fate, I am glad I have the Aurora as a backup.  Bicycling.Com's personal trainer is not a personal trainer per se.  It is a dumb artificial intelligence data base application.  But it works.  I agree with not overdoing it but I believe that if you had been told two months ago how much riding you would be doing by mid-July, you would have laughed out loud and said, "That's crazy."  You are probably riding more now than I was when I started the program last Summer.  I think I had a small advantage in that I had ridden longer single rides than you have to date but I am sure that my typical daily rides were shorter.  As a matter of fact, I doubt that I was riding every day before I started that program.  So I am sure that fitness isn't an issue in your case.  You may actually find that the initial workouts are a little lighter than your current regimen.  But the workouts build up and they add some variety that appears to be missing from what you do now.  Weight loss or weight management is built into the program.  The program philosophy is much like Calorie Count but the program will give you 3 things that Calorie Count doesn't.  It will give you daily and weekly targets for calories and exercise and it will adjust the targets based on your reported weight change; it will give you menus that are geared to meeting the calorie targets; and it will give you an accomplishment to shoot for.  Riding a century may not seem that important to you right now.  I believe that you will have more success in getting your weight where it should be by focusing on getting in shape to ride a century than by focusing on losing the next 30 pounds.  Anyway there is a free trial period -- why not give it a shot?

Riding a century isn't really a big goal of mine.  Maybe it should be?  I don't think it would be a huge issue... it would just be a longer ride for me and I'd take a few more breaks and not push as hard.   Maybe I'll spend a long satur day morning and attempt to ride one just to say I did it.

No riding for me tomorrow, my co-worker that i ride with broke his pinkie while out on a ride.  So I'm going to skip the regular ride yet again and save my energy for running on Friday.

Jane, definitely keep the shwinn.  It's a solid bike and it'll be there for you if you have the other bike in the shop.   Or you could always kit it out for winter riding so you don' t have to ride your more expensive bike during the salty winter months (that is, if you ride them).   Oh and hey glad the bike will be ready earlier than you originally were told.  I'm sure it's tough doing everything at a shop like that but the queue of work has to be somewhat flexable for big purchases.

Jane: I don't think that one can have too many bikes.  As Nightc1 points out, you can always use your Schwinn for other duties.  I currently have three bikes.  My road bike that I spend most of my time on this time of year, my mountain bike that I ride in the winter months, trail rides, gravel road rides, and around the neighborhood with the kids, and my old road bike that is mounted on the indoor trainer.  I have been thinking of cleaning up the trainer bike and adding a rack/basket and turning it into an errand bike as well. 

You guys are so awesome! That makes sense to keep the Schwinn as a backup or for the winter months - I have every intention of being out there, snowing or not.

jc343, good point about training for a century ride - the weight will come off in the process. I am going to do the free thing with bicycling.com right now.

So, I have been doing this 30 mile thing every day for a while. Should I add more miles or should I concentrate on speed and cadence before adding more?

My child is hooked on biking!!! After summer school today, he was begging me to go ride the bikes. Well, he learned a valuable lesson: Don't go too far - you still have to make it all the way home. He absolutely HATES sweating and after a while out there he decided to just walk. Then he was trying to get me to pull his bike together with my own (quite a sight). So I told him that tomorrow we will just practise on our street. He also crashed once but no tears or anything. Now we are both going to play couch potatoes and watch a movie.

Jane

Here's something very simple to remember:

http://www.ultracycling.com/training/enduranc e_training.html

Jane

This one tops all the vicious dogs out there. Tonight I had to take a ride to counter the darn oreo cookies I munched on. I got attacked by a groundhog!!!! Kid you not - a groundhog. It was right on the edge of the road. I didn't see that there was a baby groundhog right by it and I guess mommy groundhog was having a hormonal day because suddenly she was attached to my shoe. It all happened so fast. I was able to shake her off right away and I don't think she got hurt because she ran into the woods right away.

On tonight's ride I conquered this one road that has been a thorne in my side ever since I started riding. On top of one of the hills I started laughing out loud because I really didn't think I was going to make it, but I did. The people in a car gave me a very weird look because there I was, sweat pouring and just laughing away - they must have thought I was a real nutcase.

Jane

Jane: The training program on Bicycling.Com follows a philosophy similar to the endurance training approach on the website that you just shared with us and it will give an answer to your question "What should I do next?"  (Of course, you might want to consider joining a club so you can spend some time riding with other enthusiasts.  Socializing makes the time go faster and riding with people who are as good or better than you will help you improve.)

Night: I don't know that you should ride a century.  I swore that I would never run another marathon because the training required to big an investment of time and resources and the conditioning is far more than you need for ordinary life.  Riding a century is similar.  But training for a century improves my ability to commute, which is very valuable to me.  My waist dropped from a 36 to a 34 -- this was important to me.  My blood pressure dropped back to normal -- this was very important to me.  Being able to go 65 to a 100 miles on a single ride, opens up possiblities that commuting 20 to 30 miles a day does not.  For example, I could take a tour of the North Carolina wine country with my daughter and her husband or I can take that bike tour of the Mediterranean that I have been looking forward to.  But riding a century in and of itself is a rather boring prospect.  Right now, I can ride a metric century (65 miles) the way you envision riding a century.  You are younger and stronger than I am, so maybe you can actually just go out and ride 100 miles.  But before you try make sure you have plenty of food and liquids , you will need them.

Joe, hey you're probably right that I probably shouldn't bother with the century ride.  I'm just riding for fun an exercise.  I have dropped from 38's to 36's in pants.  I may be able to drop to 34's but I can get there through various exercises (I also run and visit the gy m) and counting calories.   I don't think a 100 miles is as big a deal... maybe I'm fooling myself though.   I've been wanting to test my endurance on the bike so probably my first distance goal will be to just ride the full paved bike trail near my home.   End to end it's about 25 miles... so 50 miles round trip.  I'm sure i can do this already, just haven't made the time to go out and ride it all.   I'm pretty good about brining energy bars and stuff along for longer rides so I'm not new to the nutritional requirments.

Joe, I am definitely going to do the club thing. So far I am out there by myself and I have no idea how to ride in groups or even with one other person.

Today it is yucky out there so I just rode up to work and back.

Jane

This afternoon I was having the worst time of my life. I am in an all out war with the Ohio Department of Health and they just sent me a letter pretty much informing me that they will fight everything I am trying to accomplish. So my mood was so bad that even my son stayed away from me. Then I get the most wonderful phone call: "Jane, this is Greg from the Medina Bike Shop. Your bike is ready". I got in my car so fast that I forgot to lock the doors in the house! My plan of riding the bike on the street before going out in traffic went down the drain because there was no way I was not going to ride it to work. Oh, it was the most beautiful thing! The only sound I could hear was my breathing, that's how quiet this bike is. I can't wait to get out there tomorrow.

Now I have to spend half the night writing a letter to the department of health, telling them that they are a worthless bunch of ignorant slackers - and I have to do it in a professional way, lol.

Oh, one little problem with the bike: it picks up every single bump in the road and that is going to take some getting used to; especially when riding at night.

Jane

Jane: By all means be polite and professional.  Maintain your dignity.  Except of course when you out with your new bike then you can let that giddy little girl hang out for a while.  A new bike is like a new car -- every difference is magnified at first.  Eventually, you get accustomed to its ways and riding it become second nature.

My day wasn't as stressful as yours.  I dropped by the bike shop and had a heart to heart with the owner and the Jamis Rep.  They assured me that there was nothing wrong with the Quest's frame.  The problem they suspect is that I am riding the poor thing to death.  I need to switch from a triple to a compact double (crank, of course).  So now they are going to seek permission from Jamis to give me a new crank.  That's okay with me except that it seems like a way to fix a problem without admitting fault.

My wife didn't fare as well.  She is going to visit her sister for a couple of days.  I dropper her off at the bus around 8:00 a.m..  She called me at noon.  The police had pulled her bus off the highway because of the smoke and flames (?) coming out of the rear wheel.  She and the other passengers had to sit on the bus for a couple of hours waiting for a replacement to take them to Philadelphia.  By the time she got to Philly she had missed her connection and had to sit around the terminal for another 3 hours waiting for the next bus.  She finally got together with her sister about 11:30 last night.  That's something like 15 hours to make a 4 hour trip.  I am considering suggesting that we go by bike next time.

Geez Joe, I feel bad for your wife. I agree that biking would probably be the way to go next time.

Riding your Quest to death is something to be proud of. Is it going to cost you a fortune to get the new crank on there?

I have been able to keep my cool with the department of health but I am letting them have it. I am used to dealing with this stuff but when you see 3 years worth of work go down the drain because of one simple letter, it kind of ticks me off. My bike has been my ultimate stress releif. I can excersise away the anger and actually do some thinking while out there (which is quite an accomplishment for a blonde, lol).

I had to go buy a new water bottle and a head light for my bike. Last night when I was riding to work, my head light fell off and shattered on the road. I was, of course, stuck at work and couldn't go get another one. Oh the joy of a flash light, duct tape and twistie ties - it worked like a charm but I am not sporting that contraption for more than in an emergency situation.

By the way, did Dan get lost somewhere on a bike ride. Haven't seen him on here for a while.

Jane

Hi Guys, been lazy and little busy, so haven't posted.  I have been keeping up at work but I'm not allowed to reply there and the evenings have been hectic.  As a matter of fact I'm running out the door right now.

I'll try to get back latter, just wanted you to know I'm still alive.

Have to tell you about my run in with a state trooper today, let's just say because you wear a uniform doesn't mean you know anything.

DAN

Well here's what happened, Me and my daughter (16) desided to ride to a local donut shop in a nearby city (about 10 miles) it reguires us to ride on some rather busy streets, so I told her to lead and i would follow (this way I could watch traffic)

On one particular street we approached a bend in the road (about 90 degree left, double yellow line, no berm, and narrow) I was about 1foot to her left. A car came up behind and beeped at us, I could tell it was a cop by the horn, I stayed where I was and the guy passed us on the curve (oh it's a blind curve no less) so after he passed I pointed down at the double yellow line and shrugged my shoulders as if to say "what gives" well he immediatly turned on his lights and pulled over,

As I rode up I asked him why he passed us and then he told us we where blocking traffic so he was going to cite us, so I asked again why he passed in a no passing zone and told him that I was allowed by law to be where I was to protect myself and my daughter, of course he disagreed (BTW he never did explain his endangering us by passing), he said I was reguired to ride on the right berm and I told him he was incorrect, that we only had to ride as far right as was safe and practical, and that that section of road was neither safe nor practical and I was only protecting us, he said this time he would let it go but that if we rode more to the right trakkic could pass safely, I told him that that wasn't true and had been near missed several times by people trying to squeeze by when I did that.

I knew I was going to lose so I stopped arguing with him, figured if I keep it up he'd cite us for sure, My daughter thinks he backed down because he knew I was right. Who knows, but he drove away.

So I come home and look up the state laws and he was dead wrong, here is what it says 4511.25 slow moving vehicles must remain far enough right to allow others to pass if passing is safe and reasonable.  Also operators of slow moving vehicles are not required to compromise their safety in order to allow a faster vehicle to pass.

in another section of the law 4511.31 it states,  faster vehicles may pass as long as the faster vehicle is capapble of passing without exceeding the speed limit and as long as there is sufficient space in which to do so.  He had neither, and had a motorcylce been coming the other way he would have hit them!!

So jane you are not the only one with a patrolmen to look out for now!

More later, DAN

Dan, Jane: I know it sucks when a police officer does something bad particularly when the officer is obnoxious about it.  I have my share of war stories.  But I also have a son who is a police officer and he makes me very proud.  I just wish he would get more sleep.  It is a tough life.  Training, court appearances and things like that come out of his own personal time.  His partner is a Belgian Maloix (?) trained to look for bombs -- well sniff them out.  When there is a bomb scare at one of the airports in the D.C. area, there is a good chance that my son and his partner will go in looking for the bomb or checking out the suspicious package.  A few years ago, shortly after 9/11, an American Airlines flight was forced to land at Dulles right after taking off from Reagan National beause of bomb scare.  The FBI took control, moved everybody off of the plane and sent my son and his partner in to look for the bomb.  So I don't know exactly what that officer was doing all day but I am pretty sure that his run in with you and your daughter was only a small part of what he did.

Joe

Dan, I am thinking that printing out that part of the law and carrying it on the bike might be a good idea. I have tried to get as close to the side of the street as possible only to almost crash because my right pedal scraped the curb up to the sidewalk. I think I am going to test the cops. We have a group of police officers eating at Arby's all the time. They are really nice so I am going to ask them about it to see if they know.

Joe, I admire your son for the work that he does. It is a tough job and so very unappreciated (not to mention that cops are hated by a lot of people just because they are doing their job). Most of them really are nice, but once in a while you run into someone with an ego the size of this country. I had a highway patrol officer pull me over 3 weeks after I got my brand new car. He claimed that my tags was expired. I asked him very nicely to please check that again. He literally screamed at me "are you calling me a liar". Finally he walked to the back of my car to check. Then he told me to leave. Didn't apologize or anything. He scared the living daylights out of me when he turned on his lights and sirens when pulling me over.

Bottom line is that nobody - not even the police - are used to dealing with bicycles on the road. To most cars we are nothing but a pain in the rear end and an interruption in their busy schedules.

I made it home tonight from work in 20 minutes. Normally it takes me 35. Have I mentioned how much I love my new bike, lol. Tomorrow I am shooting for 50 miles.

Jane

Jane, nice to hear your enjoying that new bike!!  Have fun on your ride, we are off to a medival festival today so probablly no ride today, and wouldn't you know it it is a beautiful day too.

DAN