Back in the Saddle

“The backside of heroism is often rather sad.”
Ursula K. McGuin, ‘Sur’

I’m back on the bike once more after an annoying chest ailment that made it difficult to exercise. I should be philosophical about illnesses. I get very few of them and there is not a lot of personal choice when something does come along; you just have to go with it. We get our bodies for free - at the start anyway, not counting any cosmetic or prosthetic enhancements along the way – so we can’t really complain too much when they don’t always behave exactly as we expect. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein and the Law of Identity, a cold is a cold is a cold.

All the same I’m frustrated that I haven’t done nearly the preparation I wanted to for my upcoming century-and-a-half in Death Valley next week. However I am not above lowering my expectations, to use a somewhat bipolar metaphor. My true aim is to enjoy the day, even if it takes all day.

I am trying a new type of saddle, the ISM Adamo Racing. Actually it is my wife’s saddle – she shares my Cervélo R3 with me – and because I was too lazy to swap saddles every time I wanted to work out on the trainer, I have gotten used to the ISM over the past three months. Bonded with it you might say. So although it isn’t new to me as a person, I have never used it in an actual long distance cycling event before. If I end up pedaling the last 50 miles standing up I will, as Edison put it, know one more thing that doesn’t work.

No matter how hardy or experienced a cyclist you are, you have to admit that there are many more comfortable positions for the human body than sitting astride a bicycle for hours. On end (as it were). If it were a pleasurable way to sit, then Barca Loungers would be shaped like bicycles. Some people profess not to notice any saddle discomfort after six hours in one, but these people are lying. Among online bicycling forums you will find as many discussion threads about finding a comfortable saddle as you will about any piece of equipment. Let’s face it: we are all of us – male and female – pretty vulnerable around that area of the anatomy.

What to do? Well there are a few motherhood issues such as proper bike fit and decent shorts. In addition to height, it helps to pay special attention to the way the saddle is tipped fore and aft. A little adjustment can make a big difference. I have found that my discomfort in the saddle is inversely related to the amount of time I spend out of that saddle. In other words if I am riding a very hilly course, I hardly notice my saddle at all. Therefore one of my remedies is to make sure I stand up every once in a while even if I am on a dead flat course. A little relief goes a long way because I recover quite quickly once the pressure is off; I used this technique in Ironman Florida several years ago and felt great the whole way.

So my Ideal Saddle Modification partner and I will try out the not-always-smooth road surfaces in Death Valley. Hopefully we will still be speaking to one another at the end of the ride.

A Winter Stale

Hiver, vous n’êtes q’un vilain.

(Old French Folk Song)

Talk of your cold: through the parka’s fold

It stabbed like a driven nail.

The Cremation of Sam McGee

Robert W. Service

Goodbye and good riddance to a very cold, dark, dreary month. Hello to another one. The temperature today was minus 18 Celsius and a snowstorm is planned for tomorrow. The climate in my part of the world is unpredictable during the wintertime: we can have mountains of snow or no snow; deep freeze temperatures or clammy thaws. It is never comfortable. This year we are enjoying what some would call a ‘real winter’, with below normal temperatures and lots of snow. I wonder sometimes at the motivation of those who came here first, and stayed.

I have in the past ridden my bike to work during the winter months, but no more. The combination of utter darkness plus car windshields gummed up with salt and sludge makes me feel invisible on the roads. And it is slippery out there. What few bike lanes we have here are not plowed; in fact the snow from the street itself is plowed onto the bike lanes. I used to tempt both gravity and ice, but their collusion with the visually-impaired car drivers creates an axis of evil that defeats me. In short, I am frightened to ride my bicycle in the city in the winter. I’ll remount in March when Daylight Savings resumes and the roads clear, at which time I might have a chance of making it alive through the streets of this sadly bicycle-averse city.

The winter conditions present a challenge to anyone who is trying to train for a cycling event such as the Death Valley Spring Century. Where would I be without Coach Troy Jacobson and his Spinervals DVDs? Think what you like about Coach Troy’s approach, I am a fan. He gets me spinning on my trainer, gets my heart rate up, works my legs and pushes me to do more than I would just pedalling away in front of Jeopardy every night. Spinervals workouts are not a complete solution, but they contribute strongly to my survival as an athlete at this time of year.

For good measure I managed to contract a personal cold as well, which hit me mid-month. It lingers - as they do - with the nagging vestiges of a cough. I felt the best course was to lie low while I was sick and not to irritate my battered lungs with gulps of furnace-dried air. As a result, training has come to a standstill over the past ten days; with the Death Valley event less than a month away, I need to get back on the bike. I want to get back on the bike; I miss it like anything.

But it’ll be the trainer and rollers I’m afraid, until I get away to Furnace Creek.

Return to Death Valley

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans”

Woody Allen

A plan is the stairway between your vision and your goal. Each step brings you closer.

For me the past year has been one of plans, mostly interrupted or unfulfilled. Even a planned trip to see a movie the other night was cut short when everything – right down to Yogi Bear – was sold out.

Our family’s most recent plan, to visit New York City this Christmas, was foiled by that most capricious of spellbinders, the weather. The entire Eastern Seaboard was shut down by a spectacular snowstorm. The only way to have gotten into Manhattan would have been to ski in.

But plans continue to well up in my restless and ever-optimistic mind. My indoor training for my planned 2011 events is going beautifully. I have added a little speedwork to my running and I am amazed at how easily my body is adapting. It makes me think of how lazy I must have been for the past twenty-five years.

So that I do not blow my feet out before March by overtraining for my planned spring marathon, I have found another project to keep me focused: I’ve entered the Death Valley Century, the California bike event that I did back in the fall of 2008. There is also a spring version on February 26th, so I signed up. They offer distances of 100, 150 and 200 miles and I opted for the middle one, since 100 miles will not challenge me and 200 miles will seem too much like work at this point in my season. Also the double century requires night time riding, and after my experiences in RAW last June, cycling through the desert night just wouldn’t seem the same without the Scissor Sisters blasting through my walkie-talkie.

The Death Valley Spring Century will give me a non-running event to train for over the winter months plus a chance to take my terrific Cervélo R3 out on the road before getting into the triathlon season. Although the event is not specifically a race and most of the course is new to me, I would like to finish the 150 miles in under 11 hours. Unlike my marathon goals, this one is currently attainable. Yes, riding my bike through the desert does seem to be my idea of an ideal holiday, but I agree that it might not be everyone's.

To me, planning means looking forward, and I am looking forward to getting back to Death Valley. It is an extraordinary part of the world.