Beating the Solar System...Daylight Training Time

Where’s my other wool sock?  I think your shoe covers are in the garage.  Where’s the charger for my light?  Our cycling world is upside down.  With the time change, unless you can find your blinky light in the blue storage bin, the kibosh has been put on our evening rides.  You can’t slog your carcass out of bed.   The time it takes to put on your shoe covers and layers makes you reconsider if it’s even worth spending all the time to get dressed for a one hour morning ride before work.  According to TimeAndDate.com, sunrise and sunset in Cincinnati is at 7:16am and 5:28pm respectively.  According to you, this sucks donkey dongs. 

Here’s how I’ve been beating the system…the solar system. 

In these dark days, I have 5 workouts that I mix up to make the most of cold weather weekday riding.  The longest is about an hour, the shortest is over in less than 30 minutes.  Add a warm up and cool down for a sub 2 hour well rounded ride.  Do ‘em fast and hard and you can burn up to 800 calories an hour.  Better yet, any of these workouts can be pulled off before or after work and probably without having to ride more than 5-6 miles away.  You might find yourself wondering why you used to do 3 hour rides after work, at least until the first 60 degree day in March.

THE SUFFERING SIX

Find a 6-8 minute hill or loop of singletrack, something you can churn out an 85% steady effort in.  I prefer the hill over flat road, because most flat roads are teeming with rush hour traffic at 7:30am or 6pm on a weeknight.  Get to the park or a posh hillside neighborhood.  The only traffic you’ll find there is residential.  If it’s a park, the only traffic will be the divorcees hooking up for a secret rendezvous of open mouth kisses.  It’s late in the season; you don’t need to do 10 hills.  5-6 times up will do.  Coast or soft pedal your way down for a 4 minute rest.  6 times up a 7 minute hill is 42 minutes of nut bustin’ fun.  Your cross race is 45 minutes.  Ah ha!  Bikefucious say, “You’re welcome.”

THE VICIOUS VISTAS

Find a 3-4 minute steep hill.  In Cincinnati there’s no shortage of these, some neighborhoods like Mt. Adams and Mt. Lookout offer a number of routes you can mix up and never leave the same square mile area.  A side payoff, especially in the Queen City, is the incredible vistas of the city and the river at night.  Sprint as hard as you can till you practically die, settle in and suffer it out at the hardest effort you can carry to the top.  Do 8-10 times.  Catch your breath before heading back down the hill.  Again, ten times up a 3 and a half minute hill is 35 minutes.  Imagine being able to attack and stick it 10 times in your next cross race.

THE EVIL BITCHES

These are the shortest and most horrible intervals.  Some call ‘em “on and offs.”  On one of the 4 minute hills from your Vicious Vistas route, you do three hill repeats.  Yep.  Just 3 times up.  No problem, right?  Nuh, uh.  These will make you tap out like getting gut punched repeatedly by a UFC champion.  Good thing you’ll be done in like 20 minutes.  I do them on the switchbacked hill to the Eden Park overlook.  It’s nice to have a pay off vista when you double over at the top.  On each time up you’ll go all out donkey wheezing snot driveling hard for 30 seconds, recover for 30 seconds and then repeat 4 times up the hill.  If your hill is short, double back down when you recover.  You’ll want to die.  You may puke.  Rest 5 minutes between each.  When you’re done, go for a little half hour cool down noodle.  Think of the cyclocross course.  There are not many sections that ever last for 30 seconds of all out effort.  You just did that a dozen times.  You’ll find you can answer and initiate violent repeated attacks like you’re an insanely evil serial killer.

Yoga in Ault Park courtesy Revolution Fitness

YOGAMALOGA

This year I replaced my old core routine of crunches, pushups, and stair running with yoga.  It’s a perfect stretching and fairly easy core and balance workout that you can pull off on Thursday or Friday afterwork.  Most classes cost $10, provide everything you’ll need and last an hour.  It’s like getting a massage and a core workout all in one.  Hard enough to get something out of it, easy enough that you wont be hurting on Sunday.  Hot room yoga is like stretching in a warm shower after a chilly ride.  Use your massage stick when you get done.  Plus you’ll find Namaste peace and confidence in those stressful cross racing situations where you have to choose between two scary ways through a frozen creek, around 3 slippery off camber corners and up a steep hill in the course of 20 seconds with 5 guys on your wheel.

URBAN CROSS

Take the cross bike out on a local patch of neighborhood trails.  I’ve lived in Madison and Milwaukee Wisconsin, Chicago, Northern Kentucky and now Cincinnati.  Every neighborhood has a patch work of trails and usually a park nearby.  Many times you can link a few sections together with short jaunts on the road.  Every creek or river has trails on both sides.  Every city park has a little trail somewhere.  I'll ride my neighborhood and shoulder my bike up Cincinnati's public steps.  You’ll keep your CX skills honed and not have to put your bike on the car for a dark, lonely ride in the woods being afraid of the boogey man which usually turns out to be a deer.

Fisher Price Bike Recall Causes Total Tizzy at Aussie Jr. Trike World Championships

(Nose Hit News Service-Melboune Austrailia)  Five year old female Junior Recumbent Trike World Champion hopeful, Joelle Bikerski is pissed.  She crossed her arms, furrowed her brow and insisted she’s actually five and a half.  This week Fisher Price, her lightweight high end bike sponsor, recalled the exact bike she planned to ride at this weekend’s World Championships in Australia.  Just days before the big race, she and the other superstars of aerospace thermoplastic tricycle racing in the 4-6 year old category, such as Fabiene Cancellero and Georgette Hincappy, are left scrambling to find another bike their parents will let them ride. 

“I don’t want to bust a nut on that piece of crap,” exclaimed another 5 year old sponsored athlete who stuck his thumb in his mouth and violently shook his head from side to side refusing to be identified.  Australian Police put up barricades and traffic control devices around the local Toys-R-Aussie to keep parents from throwing a complete hissy fit over the recall.  “She’s five years old and at the prime of her career,” exclaimed one outraged parent slash coach slash diaper changer.  “Next year she’ll be over the hill like Brett Favre and Lance Armstrong.”

The sound of pouting, kicking and screaming could be heard all around the athlete’s village.  At press time World Championship organizers were busy trying to make nice-nice with free ice cream and book an emergency concert by rock band The Wiggles.

For more on the recall, click here for CNN article.

How Not To: Bring A Cell Phone On A Group Ride

“Peanut butter Jelly…Peanut butter Jelly…Do the Peanut Butter Jelly with a Baseball Bat!” My cell phone rang. I forgot to put it on vibrate before the ride. It was 10am. I was on the rivet, just about to be schooled on Steep Creek Road, as the name implies, a climb in Northern Kentucky. Again it rang. “Peanut butter Jelly…Peanut butter Jelly…do the Peanut Butter Jelly with a Baseball Bat,” sang from my jersey pocket. I had to answer, if only to spare my Sunday Iffy Ride companions from my Family Guy ringtone (play video above to hear what I'm talking about.)

First off. Apologies all around. It gets under my skin when people on a group ride don’t put their phones on vibrate. It really digs deep when people answer cell phones while riding on a group ride. I did both on Sunday, twice. Sorry guys.

Me: Hello? (huff…puff)

JJ: Joe? It’s Jon Jon. (a young coworker working on the weekend)

Me: What’s (huff) up?

JJ: Are you riding your bike or something?

Me: Yeah. (huff) I’m on a hill (huff) in Northern Kentucky.

JJ: Ha! Sorry man. I can’t find that sponsor file.

Me: I (huff) emailed it to ya. (huff) Check your (huff) work email.

JJ: Oh yeah. Cool. I’ll get it there. Thanks.

Me: No prob. See ya later.

That’s precisely the reason I put my phone on vibrate when riding. First off, you save your riding partners from your personal annoying ring tone. Secondly, if you have a stock ring tone, you save everyone else from thinking that their phone is ringing and taking their hands off their bars to check thier pockets. Thirdly, it gives you an opportunity to check your phone at the top of hills or at the next stop. Fourth, you can avoid work calls on the weekend. Lastly, you wont ever be put in the position of being in the middle of a hill, having to answer your phone to spare your riding partners and then forget to put your phone on vibrate so it wont happen again.

“Peanut butter Jelly…Peanut butter Jelly…do the Peanut Butter Jelly with a Baseball Bat,” jammed out from my jersey again. "Son of a…," I thought. But, it still made me laugh. You guessed it, I was on climb number two of the day, again about to be gapped and nearly wheezing like a donkey.

Me: (5 seconds of wind noise and fumbling) Hello? (huff/wind noise)

Char: Joe Joe! It’s Charlie! You riding?!

Me: Yeah. (huff) On the Iffy Ride. (huff)

Char: Oh! I was just calling to see if you wanted to ride, but you’re already riding, that’s funny.

Me: Yeah. (huff)

Char: Okay. Have a good ride.

Me: Thanks. (huff) See you (huff) later.

Char: Later.

Some people, like two friends that are pilots, are on call. You are forgiven. It’s commendable to try to eek in a ride when ya can. Besides, people on call usually are pretty good about letting the others know that they are on call and may have to bail mid-ride. If you need to answer the phone and possibly bail mid ride to make a buck more power to ya. Folks expecting big news, like your baby is being born…I guess that’s a decent excuse to answer the phone while riding. However, no matter the occasion, for the sake of your riding pals, when you put your phone in your jersey pocket, put it on vibrate.

“Peanut butter Jelly…Peanut butter Jelly…do the Peanut Butter Jelly with a Baseball Bat!” Oh you got to be f-ing kidding me!

Dear: Waders, Cage Fighters, Hunters, Bull Riders and Hockey Fans

We got ‘er done! Versus is on Time Warner Cable in Cincinnati (Channel 162.) I watched the Giro Di Lombardia around Italy’s Lake Como yesterday, or as Bobke calls it “Lumbar-dee-ah.” I don’t remember getting a letter announcing the “new channel.” I had all but given up, but on one of my errant remote control expeditions through the channels this past Wednesday, I discovered Versus on TWC. I’ve been calling customer service and asking TWC marketing people about it since we moved to Ohio last fall. However, not once did it cross my mind to band together with people who enjoy fishing, extreme cage fighting, guns, bull riding and hockey to get ‘er done.

We’re the Village People of sports. Maybe that’s what it took. The cyclist, the hunter, the fishing enthusiast, the octagon fighter, the bull rider and the hockey fan singing “V-E-R-S-U-S” in unison like “Y-M-C-A.” We macho macho people have to stick together. If you let our woosie Lycra slide, we’ll look the other way at the five minute sweaty shirtless face-in-the-crotch hombre on hombre submission holds. All kidding aside, when you see cycling’s best battle at freeway speeds on the cobblestones of Belgium when there’s still snow on the ground, you’ll see that cycling takes the patience of a fisherman, the balance of a bull rider, the tactfulness and grit of a hunter, the teamwork of the Red Wings, and the brutal quickness and endurance of cage fighting. Now I’m starting to figure out why all these different sports share the same channel. So, thanks for threatening to high stick, hook and pump lead into the behind of TWC Cincinnati for eight seconds until they finally tapped out, bonked and gave us our Versus.

TWC Cincinnati Channel Lineup with Versus (Channel 162)
Link to post a “Thank You” to TWC Cincinnati