Good read about how roads are paid for and how riding bikes is actually a great way to ease the funding gap.
Category Archives: Bike
Riding on the Roads
I know this weekend was just glorious, and we had a huge turnout for the ride. It was a great ride, despite a couple of little situations that cropped up, and the post ride vitriol we discovered on Facebook. What I want to take a few minutes to talk about is something that plagues the sport of cycling.
The culture of fear.
We as cyclists perpetuate a problem, and because of it, we have a tendency to dwell on some dark subjects. I am going to talk about it for a bit. If you don’t care, tune this out and move on. Some of this is not going to be particularly nice.
So, about the culture of fear. What is the first thing that happens when a cyclist gets threatened, put at risk, injured or killed? The incident goes viral through the communities and cyclists lash out. That angry response emotion is incredibly destructive to the lasting impression we leave on the communities that we live and ride in. We really need to control that part of it, but I fully recognize how tough that is.
But, that is not even the reason I am posting this.
The bigger issue is how these viral stories harm the collective psyche of the cycling community. We are all hyper aware of the risks of cycling, and many of us ride in fear of the traffic around us because of it. That is a huge problem. Being a afraid of the cars around us often leads to decisions in the name of courtesy and being safe, that create additional risks. But it is also creating an us versus them mentality that is, quite frankly dangerous. What we need to get to is not fear, but respect. We need to respect the damage a car can inflict, but not ride in fear of it.
As most of you know, I’ve been riding for a long time. I am not sure I’ve actually quantified it in public. I’ve been riding ( out on the roads ) in and around Atlanta for a little over 28 years. In that time, I have had hundreds of a thousands more positive interactions with cars than negative. It is human nature to hold onto the negative, but the important thing to remember is that these are less than 1%. Just like we get upset that drivers call out the bad behavior of a small percentage of cyclists, we have to remember that the same holds true for the drivers.
In that 28 years I have logged over 100k miles on the road. In that time, I have had two accidents caused by a car ( glass bottle thrown at me from a moving car, t-boned a frito-lay truck that pulled out in front of me ). I have had 2 love taps where I got brushed by a mirror. A fair numbers of ‘honks’, ‘yells’ and ‘jeers’. Those last ones, used to get me wound up, but today I treat them for what they are, fear of a spandex clad butt that looks better than theirs, and some killer legs, and an indication that they saw me, for which I am grateful. The driver that doesn’t honk, yell or jeer poses a greater risk, because they may not have seen me.
Needless to say, I have a healthy respect for the cars around me, but I really don’t fear them. I understand the basic truth: Drivers are every bit as uncomfortable around us as we are of them. The don’t know the laws, they don’t want to hurt us, but they don’t want to risk themselves, or slow down and be inconvenienced.
That said, as a cyclist, I know there are things that we all need to focus on in our road riding.
Move Predictably
In large part this means moving in straight lines. Weaving is bad, and most crashes involving passing cyclists involve the combination of a car passing too close, and the cyclist weaving into the path of the car. There are many causes for this, like moving out of the travel line as a courtesy and running out of shoulder/bike lane/turn lane and abruptly returning to the lane, door zones, potholes, road trash, or even just a brain fart in bike handing.
Be Visible
Interestingly, high visibility clothing hasn’t proven to be all that effective when you are not actively moving to be visible. Unfortunately, the onus of being visible does fall on us. Much like motorcycles, we need drivers to look twice. Like motorcycles, we know they don’t. That means that we have to be aware of sight lines, and when we know that visibility is compromised, we have to take steps to ameliorate that. Moving into the lane, waving, using lights, etc.
Be Friendly
I cannot stress this enough. Perception, as they say, is a bitch. As is karma. Wave, smile, thank drivers for doing the right thing with a thumbs up, a tip of the cap, whatever works for you, but for god’s sake, be friendly. Hostility only breeds more hostility. Deflate situations with a smile and wave. Somebody startles you out of your skin by laying on the horn right behind you? wave, give em a thumbs up and thanks for seeing you. Do not flip them off, do not stoop to their level. Karma will win in the end.
Own Our Actions
Look, at the end of the day, we are a minority on the roads. We have to own that, and when one of us screws up and places others at risk, it is on us to own it. IT is also on us to be inclusive. This is not some exclusive club. When we have these encounters and rants, the best response we can take is not to be belligerent, but instead to offer to own the actions and include the upset party. In the case that prompted this, I have reached out privately and offered to bring the original poster out for a ride with the group some time. I will provide a bike for her to ride, and the instruction to get her out there so that she can understand. The ONLY real tool to make people understand is for them to experience it, and we cannot make that happen through angry responses.
In closing I want to remind everyone of some simple things to remember. The most dangerous thing the average American does in a day is get into a car, nothing else is even close. It is 100x more dangerous than riding a bike on the roads, and yet when asked, the perception is reversed. Bike lanes are not the answer either by the way. Ask yourself, does a bike lane differ from a sidewalk? where are the risks for sidewalks? intersections where cars are crossing them. Deadly is what they are.
Ultimately, cycling is not inherently more dangerous than walking, and despite having the best road conditions in the world, America is the most dangerous country in the world for bicycles. Why? high percentage of sport/recreational usage, a lack of infrastructure, and our car culture. We aren’t going to solve these problems by attacking people for not liking us being out there and putting them into a defensive lock down.
Bicycle Advocacy
Engaging an audience that is predisposed against cyclists is hard. Very hard. Unfortunately, it is also something that we have to do on a regular basis as advocates. I am not a great person to win an argument, because I get too passionate about the subjects, but if there is one thing I have learned, it is that engaging the anti-bike crowd into an honest conversation follows a predictable process.
- Humanize yourself by finding a connection to the audience, be it one or a crowd.
- Own a negative about cycling.
- Establish a common ground, preferably a fear.
- Articulate the merits of your position from and education standpoint, keeping it personal to your shared experience.
- Rinse and repeat.
You will never change a mind in a single encounter. It takes time, and repetitive erosion of the resistance to the subject in order to truly bring change in an opinion, but it you stick with it, you can eventually change minds.
This pretty much sums it up. Running Shoes and workout gear too..
Talking Power
With the start of training season, that means it is time to set base lines. Or more specifically, time to test current fitness levels in order to set training zones and target where I need to improve. Last night was the first of those tests, the infamous bike FTP test. The FTP, or Functional Threshold Power is a number that, in theory at least, an athlete can maintain for an hour without going into the zones where your muscle begin to accumulate lactate.
As a triathlete, I target about 80% of that FTP number as my average power output for a long course race. For sprint courses, I’ll go at or above 100% of that number, because it’s “only” a 5k run off the bike :), but I never claimed that I race sprints “smart”.
For this year, I decided to use Zwift’s workout mode to test it, and to run a comparison with both power meters running at the same time. They produced similar numbers, so for the future, I will likely rely on the trainer numbers, which with Zwift came out very close to what was expected.
The number for the test came up at 237 watts as my FTP, which is fine, but invariably, people get an FTP and immediately want to start comparing their numbers to mine. Don’t do it, it is a comparison that means absolutely nothing, because watts produced is only a small part of the picture. IF you must compare something, the number you would want to compare is watts per kilogram, because that is a far more accurate indicator of strength.
Looking at it that way, I am an almost 200b male (195 lbs. November and December were not good months for my weight). Converted to kilograms, that is about 88.5kg. 237 watts divided by 88.5 kilograms, gives you a number that has some meaning, roughly 2.7 watts/kg. To put that into some perspective, Andrew Coggan put together a chart of how W/kg numbers compare, and it is largely accepted as the baseline. 
Looking at that chart, what you will quickly see is that my numbers puts me firmly into the “Fair” grouping.
If I want to improve that number I need to improve my W/kg. That becomes an interesting balance of work. Let’s say I want to climb into that “Moderate” group. That would require an increase to a 3.25 W/kg. In order to get there without changing my weight, I would need to pick up an additional 50 watts. Those kinds of gains are unreasonable in a single season, so that really is not a realistic goal. Looking at weight though, could that help?
If you figure 1 kilogram is 2.2 pounds, then getting back to my race weight from the end of last summer of 180 lbs, would put me at 81.7 kg. Now all of the sudden a 3.25 W/kg is an FTP of 266 watts, only a 30 point jump, which is still a massive uptick for someone with a decent base of fitness, but 20 points is probably in reach, which would be roughly 3.1 W/kg, or right at the bridge between Fair and Moderate. Considering my size and age, that is probably nearing the upper limits of where pure power training will get me.
Everything else becomes about riding the bike, learning to use the terrain to my advantage, good aero and body positions and proper nutrition, because at the end of the day, you cannot overpower bad form, bad nutrition or poor bike skills out not he course.
This season, I will be posting my progress on my improvements, and talking about some of the tools, because the biggest lesson I took away from last year was that triathlon success, be it finishing, hitting a time goal, or a podium is all built on the training.
Expanding Upon Spandex Theory
Not too long ago, a friend linked a brilliant blog post called (“The Spandex Theory”)[http://ernestgagnon.blogspot.com/2015/01/fall-2013-updated-spandexplanation-my.html]. If you haven’t read it already, you really ought to take the time to do so. I admit that when I first read through it, I thought it was a great human interest story, but the idea behind his Spandex Theory didn’t sit very well with me, probably not for the reasons you would think.
So first let us discuss the theory itself. It takes him a couple of rambling paragrapsh to get to the point defining what the theory is, but the crux of it comes from the following:
While wearing spandex on my bike, I started to love myself and fix my self. It also helps me deal with my depression because spandex is honest. It makes me honest with myself and with others. This is why I think the cycling world is so open; when people can accept themselves for who they are they can also accept others and help them to be their self. You can’t help others if you can’t accept and help your self. You make the spandex what it is, not the other way around.
Taking from that, I get this this:
Spandex Theory
The act of wearing spandex in public removes layers of protection and exposes a level of physical honesty that is reflected in the mental and emotional state of the wearer.
On the surface, it sounds good. So why did it not sit well with me? Because when I looked at it, I did not like something I saw in myself. It exposed an aspect of my behavior that I don’t particular care for, and in typical fashion the gut reaction was to dismiss the theory because I didn’t like what it showed. Fortunately, it sat there in the back of the brain and percolated over a couple of weeks, and eventually I circled back to it, and concluded that not only is there remarkable merit to the theory, but when you really get down to it, you also start to see some really deep truths tucked away in to the idea and concept.
What did I not like that made me dismiss this? Turns out, I am a judgemental ass. Probably not in the way you think though. Turns out, it’s not the spandex that makes me judge you, but it may be the choice of the spandex that triggers something in me. Show up in pro gear on a pro bike, and you better have the skills to ride at a pro level. When you fail at basic riding skills, decked out in pro gear, there is a really good chance I may judge you to be a pretentious ass. That judgement may be true, but it is not my place to make that jugement. This really hit home for me this year. I showed up to a group ride that I had not ridden before. It was early in the season and I knew the ride was tri bike friendly, so I grabbed the tri bike, and whatever kit was at the top of the drawer. It happened to be one of race kits, and when I started prep for the ride, one of the other riders walked over and asked if I was aware that this was not a fast ride. I knew, I wasn’t out for a fast ride, just a casual spin with some other people. The route was one I wanted to hit, because on the tri bike, it would present some good work at low speeds, and it was a chance to get to know more of the community in the area.
The question though, made me ask myself what triggered it. It wasn’t until I was out an spinning along that it gelled. I looked “Pro”. I was rocking a team tri kit, on a bike that looked to someone not deeply in to the triathlon bike world like a very high end bike ( it is and it isn’t. high end frame, mid-level components, low end wheels ). Early on, I would have made the same snap judgement, and I would have been wrong. It turned out to be a great ride, and an even better community of cyclists, and I blended right into the group, despite my tendancy to ride off the back of groups because I am basically a mother hen in a group, nobody gets left behind or isolated.
As the season went on, I kept circling back to this idea that cycling is the way it is because of the spandex effect, and that outsiders that judge cycling so harshly do so, also because of the spandex effect. The more I watched, the more I started to believe, and I started to see another dynamic that just fascinates me.
It Is Not The Activity
At first, I really wanted to ascribe the behavior to the bonding that people with a shared activity do. We all ride bikes, so that is the common ground. Runners have these bonds too right? Swimmers? Team Sports? Interestingly, not so much. In fact many of the communities for these activities are quite the opposite. If you look at cycling itself, you find that it can be quite the same, with some petty nastiness going on between the spandex wearers and the non. The mountain bike cyclists and road cyclists have some long standing issues, and not surprisingly, spandex is one of them.
Though I have cycled for a long time, I am actually fairly new to running, and very new to triathlon. I have only been running for about 4 years now. Runners, particularly male runners, are not spandex wearers. Even amongst female runners, there seems to be two distinct groups, the spandex wearers that run in spandex shorts and sports bras and the non-spandex wearers that seem to operate under the belief that only the hyper-fit rock hard bodies can wear spandex and the sports bra. When you get to know a lot of runners, you quickly learn that the line is not about the body, but the mind. It is a confidence thing, which circles back to the spandex theory.
But then came triathlon, and the wake up call that is the triathlon age group community.
Age groupers come in every shape, color, size and skill level. They all train for this crazy support, and you know what? the age group community is beyond welcoming. Judgement is left on the outside, and supportive is the only thing brought in. Yeah, on the race course, they race hard while still finding time to encourage others along the way, but before the start, and at the finish line? It is game on for some hard core support and cheering.
The runs over the last 4 years where the the runners gather up in the start corral, chat a bit about past races and food, and then when the gun goes off, shove to the front and off they go. At the finish, most of the runners get thier freebie, and many only hang around if they have a shot at an award, otherwise they are done and gone in their cars within minutes of finishing.
I can’t tell you how many bike races I’ve done over the years where the athletes show up, spin on trainers or rollers with headphones on pre-race, gather in the start and then go full gas until the finish line, throwing elbows if needed to get there. They’ll hang around at the finish line, but there isn’t much cheering going on. There will however be drinks and foof afterward for the friends that knew each other pre-race day. The thing is, not many cyclists race, but a huge number do organized events like Grand Fondo’s and Century Rides, and these are where the real spandex theory starts to show.
The more I looked, the more I concluded that he is on the right track.
But what really cemented the idea, and warranted the expansion of it for me? the realization that I know literally hundreds of triathletes, and cyclists around the area. People that I can identify from a hundred yards away out on the bike or run. Out of those hundreds, the number that I could identify from 5 feet away in street clothes probably numbers in a number I could count on my fingers, perhaps with the assistance of a couple of toes, and that stems from the other side effect of the spandex effect.
Once you shed the layers of disclosure, you create communities, clubs and active groups, clubs and those groups become very welcoming, and that is what led me to conclude that the spandex effect is real. Locally, we have a couple of medium sized running clubs, that will typically have 4-10 runners show up to a given week. Within the same community, I can name 6 different cycle clubs with upwards of 20 active riders at every event, and they just keep growing.
So here is my addition to the Spandex Theory.
The level in inclusivity of a group is directly proportional to the amount of spandex being worn during group activities.
I have an additional addendum though.
The same effect does not apply to a remove of clothing. Quite simply put, nudity increases sezual tensions that are usually erased in the cycling communities, not because they don’t exist, but because the “creeps” of both genders that make it uncomfortable are weeded out pretty quickly.
As anyone that has ridden with the OGRE’s will already know, we do advocate the use of helmets, particular on the roads in a ‘sport’ or ‘recreational’ usage, but we fully agree that mandatory helmet laws for all bike usage, including path, and transportation uses are counter productive to expanding bicycle growth and usage, as well as having no discernible statistical value in reducing head trauma occurrences. Yes a helmet can reduce the amount of damage in an accident, but the use of a helmet also increases the risks cyclists (and drivers) take while wearing them.
Either way, read the article. Good food for thought.
No OGREs Riding tonight
Just a PSA, tonights ride from EH at 630 will be without any OGREs. Unfortunately, OGRE Dru is trapped at work and will be unable to lead the ride tonight.
Shh, don’t tell…
But yes, I know the EH rides are done for the season, but I’m not ready to hit the trainer yet. So EH route, 630, from the usual departure zone. Bring your lights, you will need them.
IM Chattanooga Bike Course Video
Last weekend, a few of us took Sunday morning to cruise up the Chattanooga to give the Choo bike course one last roll before race day in three weeks. Since we were there, and there just happened to be a GoPro Hero4 that was begging to be tested out on OGRE Dru’s trusty ride, we decided it would be a good opportunity to record the ride route for the folks that might want to see the course before race day but simply would not be able to. The HD version is 18gb, so needless to say, it is not available online at the moment. However, we have put a version of the video on our new Youtube Channel so that it is ready for viewing for anyone.
Fair warning, the video is a little jumpy. We learned a few things on this process. First, a tall mount on aero bars is really sensitive to every little bounce and jiggle, so we are working out a design for a better mount set up for future ride courses. In editing, we also discovered that this is a huge amount of footage, with over 4 hours of raw footage. In another decision, this video carries a low volume audio from the bike itself, but there is no music to distract.
Watch the bottom of the screen, we have tried to note major hazards and landmarks along the ride.
Finally, we originally considered selling this work, but at the end of the day, we just don’t feel the stability and image quality of this video warrants a purchase. Instead, what we are going with is a Tip Jar. If you find the video useful, hit the PayPal link and leave a donation. What will these donations be used for? primarily equipment and race fees, but there might be a small usage that applies towards a group meal after IM Chattanooga.