Hit the rollers!

As the season advances, colder than average still becomes inexorably warmer. The persistence of subfreezing days and snow cover masks the fact that April is near. I may have only a few days to shift my training to launch the bike commuting season.

With a minor background in racing I use the term "training" a lot. Don't be put off. It's a convenient term for the physical conditioning that benefits anyone self-propelled. I don't consume the magic potions racers do, or meticulously plan my workouts to hone my physique and technique to perfection. I just throw together a few ingredients that seem to help the transitions from off-bike to on-bike. With the best of intentions it's increasingly hard to get myself to actually do any preparation. But I remember how and why I did and should.

I prefer rollers over a stationary trainer because on rollers the bike can be a bike instead of a fixture clamped in place. You don't want to lean into any imaginary corners, but you'll develop an unbelievably smooth and efficient pedal stroke. If you're maintaining strength in other ways, even a half-hour on the rollers helps a lot to keep you saddle-ready and smooth.

Getting ready to ride indoors seems like much more of a nuisance than getting ready to ride outdoors. Indoors you don't get the rewards of actual motion through the landscape. All you get is sweaty. Really sweaty. If you set up a fan to simulate the breeze over you, you have to regulate the temperature and your clothing to maintain your comfort during what is basically an uncomfortable activity. I wear as little as possible in a warm room and let the sweat fall where it may. Dry the bike off afterwards.

The fixed-gear is a great choice for roller riding because it has the fewest moving parts for you to sweat all over. It also forces you to develop smoothness over a wide range of cadence.

As previously stated, when the snow is good I will use the snow. But, inevitably, some winters have little or no snow, and all winters end. They don't start on a fixed, predictable schedule, either.

Going into winter my efforts emphasize weight-bearing locomotion. In recent winters, the weights have been 12-ounce containers of liquid and small musical instruments, but before that I would run, hike, mess around with free weights and specific exercises for strength and flexibility so I wouldn't cripple myself when whatever passed for skiing might finally arrive.

Coming out of winter, my recipe favors cycling. Shape the existing body to the bike. Ride rollers, mostly. If it's been a bad winter for exercise I'll run the stairs in my house as much as I can stand, and then ride rollers. If it's been a good winter for skiing, roller riding reshapes the pedal stroke, alerts the "saddle contact area" and begins to redistribute arm and shoulder mass I won't want or need for propelling a bike.

Time is short. I'll be happy just to go ahead and get the crotch-bruising out of the way and remind myself how to pedal smoothly. Get ready to split the car's hard shell and emerge for another season of free flight.

Off the bike

At least I got some use out of the studded tires before circumstances shut me down for a while.

For Thanksgiving I rode the rails to visit destinations along the Northeast Corridor. Hopped the Downeaster from Dover, NH, to Boston. Picked up the southbound train to Old Saybrook to visit my parents for a couple of days. Continued to Baltimore on Friday to visit the cellist in Maryland.

I considered bringing the Traveler's Check with me, but I did not think I would use it enough to make the awkward load worthwhile.

The train is good for musing. 

A snowstorm chased me out of New Hampshire. The storm dumped about a foot of wet snow on top of warm, moist ground. Power went out. My cat sitter had to burrow her way into the driveway, because I don't use a plow guy. Warm weather after the storm condensed the snow where it had been undisturbed, but plow drifts and shoveled piles turned into concrete.

Deep snow eliminates the parking for my park 'n' ride commute. Even if it hadn't, I came right back to a zoning board hearing after my first day at work. I wouldn't have had time to ride anyway.

Another snowstorm greeted me when I returned to New  Hampshire. It was no 12-incher, but it added two or three. Then another small one tossed on a few more. Drizzle saturated everything, making it sticky, heavy and slow to move. The snowblower would only eject it a few feet at best, a few inches at worst. Packed-down masses under the newly fallen stuff stopped the machine. Some of them I could hack with a metal shovel. Others I had to leave.

I cleared the mouth of the driveway and about a quarter of the total area in about the time it would take to do the entire driveway if I had been able to get rid of the Thanksgiving accumulation when it arrived, rather than a week later.

December's low sun means even a day above freezing doesn't melt a lot of snow. The ground beneath it is not frozen, but the snow is thick enough to preserve itself. It encroaches on the road. Riding becomes impractical, even though this kind of snow doesn't do much for winter alternatives.

Now that I'm back from my brief wander I can figure out the winter's routines. Got no money right now, but I've been there before. I feel pretty rich just to have a warm house, a hot shower, enough food and some interesting beverages.

If I don't get to do something outside I guess I'll have to dust off the rollers and do some other exercisy type stuff. And there's always firewood to split.

Cross Training Sucks

With the arrival of an unusable but significant amount of snow, followed by a deep freeze, it has become Nothing Season. Roads are icy while cross-country ski trails don't have enough base depth for the groomer to till the icy coating into skiable granules. This forces the working cyclist into creative training strategies.

Because the kind of weather we're having doesn't encourage anyone to come into our shop we have long hours in which to pursue other activities. Employees and our rare visitors track in a lot of sand and salt from the parking lot and walkways, so I decided to take a few minutes to vacuum it up.

The vacuum cleaner seemed suspiciously heavy. When I extracted the bag it felt like something you could pile on top of the levee to divert flood waters. When I searched for a replacement I found an empty package. Apparently one can't just nip down to the hardware store to get new bags for this model. Even though it was obviously full to capacity I would have to use it anyway. I did extract the big hair and lint wad hanging from the inlet before placing the sand bag back into the vacuum.

When I finished the bag weighed 12 pounds. I would have thought it was heavier. The floor is somewhat cleaner. On the plus side, I burned more calories and got a bit of an upper body workout maneuvering the overweight vacuum around the sales floor.

Late last week, temperatures plunged below zero for two nights. It was so chilly in the shop that I wore my Bob Cratchit gloves while doing inventory. The heat seems to operate by its own rules. Some days are chilly, regardless of whether the day outside is particularly frigid. Other days it pays to dress in layers you can easily shed. This does not seem to correspond to solar input or the compressors operating in the basement. Sometimes the wind direction seems to make things colder, but the same wind direction does not always have the same effect.

Who really cares?

Over the holiday weekend the place was so dead I was running up and down the back stairs. Then I was walking up and down the back stairs. Then I had to stretch my legs to keep from cramping. My colleague George wants to set up a trainer we can ride when things are quiet. That's starting to sound good. Usually I listen to motivating tunes through headphones but I might work up a good spin by pretending I can get away from the "easy listening" station that gets pumped through here all the doodah day. Sirius makes the computer get stupid and the CD player is busted. We can't get really sweaty, though.

I did order another light set from Peter White. For the moment I can install it on any bike that will take the dynamo wheel I already have. Later I can build the 26" version to get the trail commuter fully operational. I'm really starting to groove heavily on the racks, lights and fenders thing. It does raise the stakes in case of theft. That bothers me as it would bother anyone who was making beater car levels of investment in what is far from a beater bike. Theft is not a huge issue around here, but I do think globally while acting locally.

My Alternative Lifestye

My friend's interest in Telemark lessons has receded. Coincidentally, I've had opportunities to scrabble around on the Nordic trails, enjoying the most complete exercise ever devised.

As great as cycling is (and it is), Nordic skiing provides one-stop shopping for full-body conditioning. With the right trail network, it also provides some excitement. You have to control your effort on climbs and control speed and direction on descent. You have to hold your line in corners and be able to adapt instantly to changes in the surface or sudden obstacles. The speed range is different, but many of the mental qualities are similar to bicycling.

I would much rather go outside and do something appropriate to the season than simulate another season's activity indoors. I just can't get jacked up for spinning classes. I've lost my drive for weight training. When I can cross-country ski I don't have to worry about anything else.

After ski season I do bring some excess arm and shoulder mass into bike season. The extra muscle is good for the needs of daily life. It only seems like a bother when I'm pedaling up a hill and I can't use those poling muscles. So I do change shape a little from season to season.

We're in a snow drought right now. We've been farming the same meager few inches for a month. Now we're getting a thaw. So I may be back on the bike for a while, if we lose what little we have. It's hard, because I can't rely on the steady schedule of the commute. So I'll be back to weights and rollers, occasional outdoor rides, hiking, and whatever else I can put together.

We can't count on winter. I've seen several years with no usable snow. I've also seen winters in which buildings collapsed under the weight of it. I've seen winters shift from one type to the other. No one seems to be able to predict it. They know why it's happening when it's actually happening, but that's about all. You must adapt to what you cannot change.

Back in the Saddle

Two days officially constitutes a trend. I've resumed exercise, with some ski-specific leg work and two sessions on the rollers.

The cellist was more consistent with exercise than I was during the December doldrums. Today she put in an hour and a half on the trainer. It's all good. I prefer to mix up the muscle groups a bit in the off season, but the trainer is convenient for her. She started sitting up to do some arm work with light weights during today's workout.

A friend of mine is interested in learning Telemark turns to enhance his exploratory skiing. We plan to go to a small lift-served area for some practice in the next few weeks, so I started doing some of the exercises I devised years ago when I spent a lot of time practicing at lift-served areas. Telemark turns have a unique way of ripping hamstrings. Better to rip those in advance, in the comfort of your home, than out on a windswept hill.

Rather than perform the pedal stroke under load all year, on a trainer and on the road, I build or maintain muscle in the off season with Nordic skiing, hiking and squats (or Telemark dips). As part of the same session, I ride the rollers to make sure I stay smooth. It also helps loosen up my legs after the grunt work, before stretching. In a good ski season I will quite likely drop the rollers until March. In a bad ski season I might not only keep up the rollers, but also start to ride outdoors. I hate to start that too early when the weather could close in. Then the bike conditioning fades again as my activities shift to match weather conditions.

If I hit a bad spell for outdoor fun I still try to manage jail cell workouts, running the stairs in my house (steep, two sets), duck-walking in Telemark stance, door-frame pullups, stretching and light weights. It's often hard to stay interested. I have to remind myself how much better it feels to get it done. A little is better than nothing.

Right now I look forward to helping my friend learn the Tele turn more quickly, with fewer injuries, than I did. I haven't been on the lifts in ten years or more. I hope I remember what to do with a wide, groomed slope. My gear is hopelessly out of date, but I like it. I have no desire for monster boots and skis the size of surfboards. I really enjoyed the art of maneuvering a skinny ski.

I've got about a week to torture my thighs back into that kind of shape. Then there's the rest of the winter.

Your Beauty Sleep

The way I feel in the morning reminds me that rest is a vital part of the training cycle.

Transportation and commuting cyclists might think they're exempt from training schedules. In cooperative terrain, over fairly short distances, that's probably true. But as you age you will notice slopes and distances you formerly considered trivial. If you ride a longer average daily distance over bigger hills you can easily fall into a destructive pattern in which you ride at moderately high intensity all the time.

Traffic cycling often feels like a race. Dense traffic feels like a criterium, but even on the open road I find that motorists seem more respectful if I maintain a good cadence and appear strong. That doesn't mean charging every hill in the big ring. That takes a lot out of you and still looks feebly slow to the pilot of a ridiculously over-powered motor vehicle. Just maintain good pressure on the pedals and keep your head up. Day after day, mile after mile, that's enough to sap you by the end of the week if you don't stretch and rest when you get home.

The effect comes on gradually. You might hammer through your thirties and most of your forties on caffeine and over the counter pain meds (or worse), but at some point you will have to accommodate the realities of physiology.

Racers face this fact early in their careers or they have no career. To race successfully, even as field fodder, you can't beat the crap out of yourself all the time and expect to have any pop on race day. My own results were mediocre, but I learned that principle from a member of the US Olympic cycling team for 1980. A few of us in Annapolis were fortunate to ride with Thomas Prehn when he lived there. He taught us right away to avoid the "half fast" pace that breaks you down without the benefit of a well-defined difference between effort and rest.

Unfortunately, the half fast pace can afflict many commuters trying to keep their schedule. On my commute I face the same hills over the same 14.3 miles. Leaving my rural neighborhood I share the road with people who act like they just got home from NASCAR fantasy camp, on a somewhat hilly two-lane road. Three miles of that leads to state highways for about seven miles before density begins to pick up again going into Wolfeboro. The road narrows sharply as the traffic packs into one of three primary feeder routes into town. It's a small town, but it strangles a couple of numbered highways, so traffic in or out of town mixes with frustrated drivers just passing through. It's a place to keep your elbows out and your attitude up.

Going home I add some distance to avoid some tight spots. The longest route makes about a 34-mile day with a really stiff climb on the way home. That route is quite restful, because the nasty climb is on a dirt road through the woods, but it's still a tad over 17 miles with a lot of climbing after a long day on my feet at work.

Standing up for hours after sprinting to work fills my legs with the chemicals of fatigue. I have to carve out a few minutes here and there to stretch a little during the day.

Interestingly, riding the fixed gear bike a couple of days a week seems to help loosen things up. Maybe the fact that it forces the legs to move constantly helps flush out the muscles on the downhills rather than letting them sit idle as they would while coasting on a freewheel bike. Even so, after yesterday's sprint on the rain bike and last night's long zoning board meeting my legs feel like they've been pummeled. Today needs to be a rest day. Ideally I will hit the rollers and then stretch after I get home tonight. Either that or pop 12 ounces of carbohydrate beverage and hit the couch. As long as I elevate my legs it counts as part of training.

Brand X will kill you, too.

Not much to talk about but the perfect playlist for roller riding. I'm sure everyone has their contenders. There's a ton of music out there.

A little at a time I am compiling a scientific collection of single-artist and mix tapes to provide tempos for varied intensity workouts. Since this is but one of many unimportant projects, it could easily never be finished or even progress beyond this point.

Back in the ancient past, when Phil Collins had hair, Brand X produced music described, for want of a better term, as jazz-fusion. For the cyclist they offer cadences that may be overtly fast or concealed. In what seems like a slow tune, a complex underbeat flickers like the mouth parts of a crustacean that otherwise appears sluggish or at rest. Frequently the tunes offer layered beats that give the rider options to pursue an interval workout in the fast layers and rest in the slower ones.

Brand X music can drive some people right out of the room. I like the stuff and it can even drive me out of the room. Everything's cruising along melodically when suddenly you notice that they've really cranked up the jangle factor. It's still melodic and musically tight, just as soothing as a smoke alarm. That can be good when you want to get hyped up for a puking ultra-spin. Pretend you're trying to get out of the room.

Can we call them albums anymore? The albums Unorthodox Behavior and Livestock are more tuneful than offerings like Moroccan Roll and Masques. Since most lyrics annoy me, I haven't spent a lot of time with anything they did with identifiable words. Any of their albums (discs, whatever) may harbor something useful. I just haven't bothered to mine them and put them together yet. As I said, it's not that compellingly important.

Right now I'm looking out at a rerun of February. Snow sifts down from a mat of gray. Directionless light casts a shadowless glare over the fields outside. In whatever the weather brings, I hope to be able to go for a scamper on the skis after work. It could be cold, driving rain.

Beaten to death with a vibraphone

With no time to go outside, despite the sunny day and fresh powder snow, I cut 40 minutes into the schedule to ride the rollers again.

Balancing as if magically, a ride on rollers has the element of the unexpected to help defeat the monotony of mere trainer riding. While it would not have been my first choice for a day like today, it was better than nothing to try to stimulate blood flow to the brain.

My cassette collection dwindles as the dried-out tapes disintegrate in various ways, so I have fewer options to stick in the old Walkman hanging above the rollers in the basement. I chose a selection from Tim Weisberg.

Scornfully dismissed as "dentist office music" by one young listener, this album does sound light, fluffy and unchallenging. However, when you try to pedal at its speed you find that the heartless bastards are affably dragging you up to 150 rpm or more with their mellow jazz combo.

Judging by the photos on the jacket and liner of "Night Rider" and "Listen to the City," Weisberg was a cyclist in the 1970s. Wasn't everyone?

Time to dredge out some old vinyl and remake my best riding tapes, as well as collecting good cadences from all eras in whatever media I find them. I'd rather play outside, but it's nice to have options for when I can't.

April Showers

When April showers come your way

They bring the snow you'll see 'til May.

We got a solid twelve inches of April showers Wednesday into Thursday. Then the temperature dropped into the twenties overnight, so the snowbanks stayed in the road and black and gray ice made the lanes more treacherous. I could try to ride in that, but I didn't.

Tonight is even colder, but we did have a little thawing today. If I feel bold, I might give it a shot tomorrow. The forecast holds no really warm weather for the next week.

The refreeze set up the crust, and the old snow had mostly melted away, so it does not open up back-country ski possibilities, either. It just delays the next season's fun.

I could scrape the storage wax off my skate skis...

Tonight I rode my new Minoura rollers for the first time. I retired the rusty Roll Tracs. They sagged. At speed they vibrated so badly they threw the drive belt off. But the new ones intimidated me for the first few minutes. I don't know if the actual roller drums are narrower, but the frame around them is, making it look like I have much less margin for error. The drums roll smoothly, which should be better, but they seemed to magnify my own errors until I'd stayed on long enough to get my chops back.

Rollers have apparently become hip again. I've seen two models with added stability enhancers that claim to let you relax and ride in a more "natural" (read "sloppy") fashion.

Yes, at high cadences you can bounce and wobble. That's the point. Learn not to bounce and wobble on the rollers and you will gain incredible balance and confidence on the road. You can learn not to bounce or wobble on rollers with stabilizers, but then you won't need the stabilizers. Why not work on smooth form from the start? Push your cadence up until you get rough, then back off.

Place the rollers next to a solid piece of furniture so you have something to grab. It's also a handy place to set water, a towel, and other items.

Connoisseur of Surrogate Simulations

Excuse me for being a trainer snob, but the Elite Parabolic Roller defeats one major point of riding free-standing on open rollers rather than propped up on a trainer.

According to a product information blurb on Cycles BiKyle,"Riding on rollers has never been so easy! Rollers improve conditioning and riding technique because the bicycle moves freely under the rider. The unique shape of the Elite Parabolic rollers give you more control making it much easier to learn. For the more experienced roller-rider, the Parabolic rollers require less concentration so you can just relax and ride!"

The flared ends of the rollers will guide a straying wheel back toward the center. This makes smoothness optional instead of desperately necessary. True, one should learn to relax and ride. In fact, you will be supremely relaxed, once you have mastered the smooth, circular pedal stroke and wobble-free upper body you need to stay up on traditional rollers.

One of my favorite games on the old "rollers of death" is to ride near one end. Then slide across to the other end. Flared ends will reduce the playing field and change the possible hazard. With flat ends on the rollers, a straying tire will drop into the gap and stop. Then, to paraphrase Jimi Hendrix, "excuse me while I kiss the floor." With flared ends, a gentle swerve will probably be met with a gentle correction. Sounds like an ad for a mild laxative. A sharper swerve could well result in a harsher laxative effect, as the bike high-sides over that lip. I haven't ridden the Elites, so I don't know where these thresholds might actually occur. I can tell from the promotional copy and by looking that the safety flange will take the edge off a beginner's anxiety and permit a higher degree of sloth from someone experienced.

Roller riding is an art. How can you live on the edge if the edge is fenced off?

Roller Boogie

I need new rollers. The ones I have give a ride like a washboard road and spit the drive belt off every five or ten minutes. They don't owe me a thing, since I got them free about 20 years ago.

Can't afford the sexy Kreitlers. Don't need or want a resistance device. I can get plenty of resistance from real life. The rollers are for smoothness and saddle time.

Once you master the basic balance and round pedal stroke needed to stay up unsupported on rollers you can begin to play games. See how fast you can spin before you self-destruct. Try some ultra-spin intervals.

One website says "your bike can list and veer just like it does on the road." That's pretty funny. It's much more abrupt and deadly than on the road. You can twitch the bike right out from under yourself in an instant. But after a while you will be able to sit up, ride no hands, maybe even scratch where it itches without slicing sideways into the nerarest piece of furniture. Then you will be tempted to try slow riding.

This really works best with a fixed gear, because you can change speed in mid pedal stroke without your brakes. The wheels respond instantly, and it's the wheels that keep you up. So slow down. Slow down more. See if you can actually come to a complete stop. Then go! You can't do a track stand on rollers.

One friend told me he knew someone who could ride backwards on the rollers. I don't know if he meant pedaling a fixed gear backwards, or putting the bike on the rollers with the rear wheel where the front goes and vice-versa, or actually sitting on the handlebars, facing the rear of the machine. Any of these would be impressive. All seem fairly pointless, so I've never been inclined to try.

Bobby Phillips, a racer out of Baltimore, could supposedly ride up to the rollers, bunny-hop onto them, ride for a while, bunny hop off and ride away. Bobby was wonderfully smooth out on the real road (and still is, as far as I know), so I don't doubt it. That's more flash than most of us need, but feel free to take any of this as far as you like.

Wind Trainer Winter

Looks like a wind trainer winter this year.

Actually, I don’t have a wind trainer. I have a Nordic Track and a rusty old set of rollers. But Wind Trainer Winter describes the season most cyclists and cross-country skiers endure for at least part of the early winter, when dry land training doesn’t work, because the land is no longer dry, and the snow isn’t deep enough to allow real skiing.

In one of life’s little twists, even though I work in the cross-country ski business and have been able to enjoy quite a bit of groomed-trail skiing over the past few years, I don’t expect to do any this winter. Come to find out that neck and shoulder pain I’ve been experiencing is the result of being stabbed repeatedly in the back by people I work with at my winter job. I’ll be devoting my time to other people’s winter fun and falling back on a bit of tactical Buddhism to manage the loss of an activity I deeply enjoy. Sometimes you just have to suck it up. Didn’t Buddha say that?

The Nordic Track provides good all-around conditioning, though it does nothing for fine-tuned classical form. It will at least keep me from turning into a complete doughboy before spring allows me to venture out on the bike regularly. I will also be ready to trudge through the puckerbrush on my wide exploring skis, if snow conditions allow.

The rusty old rollers are great for loosening up sore muscles, tuning up the cardiovascular system and making sure the bike saddle doesn’t become a complete stranger. In an active Nordic ski season, it’s too easy to neglect saddle time until the painful reacquaintance some time in March.