Bikedoku: A New Winter Sport

She text messaged me from the saddle and told me she completed a Sudoku puzzle while riding her bike on the trainer.  Seriously.  What's next?  Sudoku on the toilet?  My wife said it made her dizzy.  To avoid the spins while spinning and solving the puzzle, she had to put the book down, think about a solution to a square, then pick the book back up and fill in her answer.  For the record, in case my wife is the million dollar inventor of a new sport, Bikedoku was invented in my garage on Sunday, January 2^nd, 2011.  I've already applied for a patent for a carbon fiber seat tube bottle cage pencil holder.  If she ever decides to get rollers, I'm taking out a life insurance policy.  

Either my garage must be incredibly boring to a woman, or the stimulus our bodies receive while riding an actual bike actually outside is unbelievably incredible.  It can't be my garage, no woman can resist my man-cave.  Along with a bible sized Sudoku puzzle book, she had the TV tuned to Universal Sports coverage of World Cup downhill skiing, her Blackberry and an I-pod at the ready…all this for an hour on the trainer.  Is riding a bike outside with a group like solving a puzzle with music blaring, while checking Facebook updates as skiers swoosh down the Alps at 60mph in front of our eyes?

Apparently so. 

3rd Wheel: Calculating How To Win Sprint Points

No wonder we crave it.  Cycling is a sensory smorgasbord.  Wind bites your face.  From behind, someone shouts car back.  Woosh!  Pee Ewww.  It’s a garbage truck.  The spray of a puddle splash paints your shins.  You glance down at your heart rate, still 80%.  Oh how cute.  Look, it’s an Alpaca farm.  Better slow for the covered bridge ahead.  Your fingers grab the cold brake levers.  You reach back and pull a strawberry-banana Gu from your jersey pocket.  A dog defends his territory running along the roadside fence. 

That stuff happens on every single ride.  Hundreds of sights, sounds, smells, flavors, and textures envelope your route. 

Getting My Fix For The Rumble of Gravel

When I think about it, I wonder if we choose rides based on their sensory attributes.  Your tired legs might crave an easy bike path ride, but I think your mind might be asking for something flat feeling, the tunnel-like feel of the tree canopy, the sound of the river on your right.  You say you’d rather ride in Northern Kentucky than Ohio today.  Maybe your body is craving the butterflies in the stomach feel of roller coaster hills, the sound of a horse whinny, and a ridgeline view.

It’s been a long time since her last race or big group ride.  Maybe doing Sudoku on the trainer while texting and watching World Cup Skiing isn’t any crazier than calculating the time gap to your teammate in the breakaway and the number of miles to the finish line while you’re in the peloton inches from a wheel in front of you, with your heart rate at 85%, rolling at 24mph, as somebody shouts “left side” as you struggle to grab the wheel of a rival team member zipping up the left trying to make the bridge.  

In case you miss racing...here's a taste of Bikedoku.

Gee Your Chamois Smells Terrific

There’s mountain biking on a Colorado morning enveloped in the aroma of a dewey pine forest.  Then there’s a coffee ride downtown behind a truck belching black diesel exhaust.  There’s the aromatic scent of riding a park bike path through a grove of lilac bushes.  Then there’s being behind the retired local bike nut that can’t bring himself to wash let alone throw his reeking Mapai kit away.  There’s good manure, when riding past posh Lexington, Kentucky horse farms.  There’s bad manure, Eastern Kentucky chicken farms.  One of my favorite rides rolls past the Precinct Steakhouse in the beginning and finishes with fresh chocolate chip cookies at the Kellogg factory in Fairfax.  At a cyclocross race back in '03 some racers jumped the gun mistaking a rider's pre-race hearty beefy toot for the starters pistol.  From florescent green algae covered frog ponds to cemented urban rivers, many rides are defined by their nose.   Love ‘em, hate ‘em, smile or cry burning tears, they’re part of the experience.

Usually its nature, or the city or “that guy” that’s the source of the olfactory experience, until this past Thursday’s ride, where the smell emanated from moi.  No, I was not wearing a funkified freak show decade’s old Mapai kit.  However, someone had the gall to ask me, “What detergent do you use?”  At first I felt a moment of hesitation.  I quick sniffed my pits.  Was it a leading question, leading to, “do you even use detergent?”  I braced for the worst and dusted my thoughts for a comeback or at least an excuse.  Before I could respond gracefully, she added, “No.  I mean your kit smells nice.  What detergent do you use?” 

I was floored.  I’ve been asked about embrocation, training techniques, favorite routes, bar tape and the best place to pee on this stretch of road.  You name it.  This was the first time someone enquired about laundry detergent and the fine fragrance of my fanny, halfway through a ride I might add.  My riding friends from Cincinnati’s hometown Proctor and Gamble will be pleased to know we use new Tide Sport with Febreze, or maybe it's Tide Febreze Sport.  Well after further research, the Tide website calls it "NEW Tide plus Febreze Freshness Sport Liquid Laundry Detergent."  It boasts that, "Tide plus Febreze Freshness SPORT is specially formulated to fight tough sports stains like grass, dirt, clay, and blood."  No mention of roink reek or taint rot on the label, but apparently it works on bike shorts too.  After I caught my breath from reading the brand name, I saw it has a picture of a great smelling pretty woman jogger on the label.  You can tell she smells wonderful because her shirt is green and it appears she's running on a cloud, which we all know is the worlds best smelling environment for working out in the world.  It's a heck of a lot less expensive than Sportwash and single stinky gentlemen take note, it’s obviously a hit with the ladies.