The National American Hand built Bicycle Show has truly opened my eyes. The show this past weekend was my first and absolutely will not be my last. Buying my next bike just got a whole lot more difficult! Do I go to my local bike store or do I call up a Picasso of bicycle? Regardless, the NAHBS is a life transforming experience for anyone with a passion for bicycles.

Thanks NAHBS. See you in Austin, Texas in 2011.

If you are looking to unleash some pent-up fiery amassed over the winter, Team Nature’s Path/3Sports Cyclinb Club is hosting a criterium at the Richmond International Raceway (RIR). RIR has a 3/4 mile smooth fast D shaped track and is home to two NASCAR races every year. Preregistration will close this evening (2/24) at 9pm EST.

The following is how my 24 hours went…

I arrived on-site (Bootyville) a little after 2pm to setup a pop-up tent for my group. Keeping in mind the camp group did NOT open until 2pm, I was somewhat surprised how many people were already there. Good real estate was going fast so I was glad I showed up when I did. Afterward, I went to check in at the “host” hotel, Marriott Courtyard Charlotte SouthPark. The hotel is around 3 miles away so in theory you can rde your bike to Bootyville. But I decided against the idea simply because I was not prepared to travel light…I had too much crap to transport.

I returned to Bootyville around 4 and found the place to be absolutely ALIVE with activities. There was music blasting over the loud speakers, a film and photo crew were walking around taking in the scenes and the campground was nearing capacity. Around 6pm, Spencer Lueders, founder of 24HoB, got on stage to do the event kick-off. Shortly after, the annoucer asked everyone to begin “staging” to the start/finishline. Being new to the event, I thought his watch must have been set to a different timezone; The event schedule said 7pm start, but it’s only 6pm. Needless to say, when we saundered over to the start/finish at 6:50pm, we found ourselves at the back of the bus — there were ~1200 other cyclist there hence the early staging. Not a huge issue, just meant the first few laps will be slooooow.

Before the event, I had some reservations about riding in a 3 miles loop. How many can I ride before I’m bored?! The answer, not enough. I rode 100 miles (or 33 laps) if that tells you anything.  The route is a nonstop roller coaster (see elevation) ….huge suprise, it is NOT FLAT! The inclines are not steep nor long, but will wear on you over time. Also, you will not get the same look of the course twice because of the crowds lining the streets like a giant block party (which it was the first few hours) and the different cyclists around you might require a different line each time. In addition, light condition is ever changing as the 24 hours progresses — a corner you took at speed an hour ago might be too dark to see the exit an hour later. To make things even more interesting, the organizer used social media, specifically Twitter to perfection. They continuously tweet via the #24HoB hashtag with photos, vidoes of the course and vidoes of interviews you might not see even if on-site. Excellent way to keep the momentum through the 24 hours.

Last but not the least, the support staff were incredible. Detail oriented, super friendly, always accessible and I honestly think some of them worked all 24 hours.   They had food and beverages out throughout the 24+ hours. Oh! They even had a stash of ice cream sandwiches in a hidden cooler. Definitely hit the spot at 1am! However, nothing can ever be perfect. My biggest complaint is the lack of COLD water. There were plenty of cold beverages — various flavors of powerade, flavored vitamin water, NOS (think redbull) — but all I wanted was cold water. All that sugary drinks gave me a head buzz that “crashing” was ineviatable. Crashed I did at around 2pm Saturday. The sugar crash left me completely useless.  It was somewhat appropriate since I got to Bootyville at 2pm the day before…so that was my 24 hours.  Time to go home.

Speaking of going home, on a completely unrelated topic, during my 5 hours drive home I stopped for gas in Oxford, NC off of I-85. During my brief visit at their BP gas station, I learned that a) I did not belong in that town because I was too courteous (I will leave it at that) b) Oxford, NC or may be that specific gas station is the only place I know that sells individual cigarettes individually. As in, why buy a pack when you can buy one “stick” at a time. Any who….

All in all the event was a BLAST. It was probably the most fun I’ve had at any bike event in a long long time. So much fun that my friends are talking about doing the Columbia, MD edition later in the year.

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1. There is a 1 sec +/- lag between pushing on the crank and power registering on the Garmin
2. The power readout do not fluctuate a whole lot perhaps due to the lag stated in #1.   It’s actually worked out pretty well for me;  The Ergomo was a bit quick readout on the Ergomo was quicker and thus I had hard time pacing my effort during intervals.
3. I really like how the workout (advanced interval) mode on the Garmin tells me which power zone I’m in so I wouldn’t have to think.
4. During my first workout, the power and cadence blanked out for a first seconds.  I had to stop for a second for it to pick back up.  It’s most likely a software issue.
5. FTP intervals with the combo  is, dare I say , borderline easy.  Either I’m stronger  (which I would love to think) or the combo is reading a higher number.  I will be doing some VO2AT workouts shortly which should help decide if I need to “calibrate” the readout against a CompuTrainer.

Many of us who fancy ourselves competitive cyclist/athletics would set goals at the beginning of every season to have something to shoot for.  Most goals are obtainable while some are simply beyond stretch limits.   For example, for my first race season a few years ago, I wrote down “Top 10 in the BAR” as a goal.  In reality I should have aimed for 10 points instead – for your information, I got 3 points that season.  Another goal I set every year but yet to achieve is to loss 10 pounds to increase that good old power to weight ratio.  Another trait of most competitive (aka geeky) cyclist is we are always on the lookout to “buy” advantages such as carbon aero wheels, aero bikes, recovery nutrition, compression sucks, etc.  So why should weight lost be any different?

Since I am a big fan of Hammer Nutrition, I decided to give Appestat a try.  According to Hammer, Appestat has the following benefits:

• Appestat can suppress appetite without stimulants.
• Appestat helps increase fat metabolism.
• Appestat can reduce potential for carbohydrate-to-fat conversion.
• Gluten Free

The first bullet point was easy to prove while the rest might just have to take their words for it. 

I am not going to lie to you, the first few days on the stuff was a bit rough.  I didn’t feel like eating much despite the fact my stomach hurt constantly presumably from hunger.  It was quite strange.  At first I thought it was a placebo effect – I spent $30 on a bottle so it must work right?  (Read on for the answer)

The first week (out of the three weeks cycle) I just felt weak on and off the bike.  It made sense because through logging my caloric intake using thedailyplate.com, on average, I was only consuming < 1600 calories per day when I normally would take in 2100 – 2600 calories. 

By the second week, I was mentally and physically prepared to eat less.  It was around that time I started seeing weight lost.   Very exiting!  I wanted to experiment a bit with taking 1 vs. 2 capsules per meal to see what it might do. To me (your mileage might vary) the effect with 1 capsule was very subtle while 2 capsules along with a small meal kept me full for hours.  With that knowledge in hand along with a recommendation by Hammer, I started taking 1 cap at lunch to get a bit more calories for the day and 2 caps for dinner.  With that protocol, I had absolutely no desire to snack a night which has always been a weakness of mine.

By the end of the third week, I had lost a total of 6lbs.  A little faster than I prefer but I will take it.   However, towards the end of the 3 weeks cycle, I felt like my body was becoming “immune” to the pills.  I wanted to eat more and more.  In addition, the first few days I was off the pills (sounded like something a woman would say) all I wanted to do was stuff my face no matter with sweets.  So I surmised the pills were indeed able to suppress my appetite. 

Having said all of the above, your results might vary but I think it’s definitely worth a try.  I will begin a 2^nd round shortly to hopefully reach my “fighting” weight in time for my first race of the season. 

Please feel free to drop me a comment if you have any questions or would like to share your own experiences with Hammer Appestat.

Honestly, I don’t think Ergomo is/was a bad product. Its only fault perhaps is the tricky installation;   It is a sensitive piece of equipment that must be installed as prescript.  Many mechanics, Home or even LBS, are just not prepared for that.  I am willing to bet many problems stemmed from bad installation.  

So, if you are thinking about training with power for cheap, look up Ergomo on eBay.  You can get a complete setup for under $1,000.  

What getting next you asked?  Being a geek, I’m naturally always looking for new gadgets.  So I will be getting a Garmin 705 Edge + Quarq setup soon.  I shall call it Quarmin.  Stay tune for a review.

I recently received an “Athlete Education Series” flyer from Hammer Nutrition on their product Appestat.  In it, it outlined 17 simple steps for effective weight loss.  While most of them made a lot of sense, borderline common sense at that, one in particular caught my attention and piqued my curiosity. 

For #3, it said a person should consume 0.5 – 0.6 ounces of fluids (ideally water) and to choose either steamed distilled or bottled water that is “chlorine and fluoride free.”

I can kind of guess the rationale behind “chlorine and fluoride free” – you are not going to drink from the swimming pool and shouldn’t swallow toothpaste (although one of my niece thinks Colgate is a treat) — but steamed distilled?  So I emailed Hammer and got the following lengthy and comprehensive respond from Steve Born.  I am very impressed by their willingness to answer questions with depth and makes it a no brainer to user their products on and off the bike.

–

Hi Ed -

Thanks for your email and excellent question. We have a couple different articles on our web site that discuss the benefits of distilled water:

*** “Distilled Water Enhances Mineral Absorption” by: Dr. Bill Misner (http://www.hammernutrition.com/za/HNT?PAGE=ARTICLE&ARTICLE.ID=785)

*** “Cellular Growth Response to Pure and Impure Water” by: Dr. Bill Misner (http://www.hammernutrition.com/za/HNT?PAGE=ARTICLE&ARTICLE.ID=784)

*** “Hard Water Versus Health” by: Dr. Bill Misner (http://www.hammernutrition.com/za/HNT?PAGE=ARTICLE&ARTICLE.ID=786)

We also have two books available on our web site – “Water, The Shocking Truth” and “Pure Water Now” that discuss the benefits of drinking distilled water. (http://www.hammernutrition.com/za/HNT?PAGE=PRODUCT_CATEGORY&CAT=BOOKS&OMI=10063,10047&AMI=10063)

Also, in Dr. Michael Colgan’s book “Optimum Sports Nutrition” [1993, Advanced Research Press], which I believe Dr. Misner refers to in one of his articles, he devotes an entire chapter to water quality (“A Hairy Bag of Water”). The chapter is too long for me to type all the information in there, but if you get a chance to read this book – even if you read this one chapter (it’s Chapter 2) in a bookstore – I think it’ll really be an eye-opener… I know it was for me. There is a sentence or two in the chapter that I want to share with you. Colgan writes, “Bottled distilled waters are the only clean bottled source. Virtually everything is removed from the water by steam distillation. Seven brands we have tested run from 2-12 ppm contaminants. That’s about as clean as you can get.”

As far as flouridated water is concerned, this is a hotly debated topic for sure. I’d like to refer to something company owner Brian Frank wrote on our Endurance List forum… “Luckily in Montana they are not fluoridating the water, yet.  Of course there’s a big push to get it done, but in the mean time the schools, both public and private, offer free ADA sponsored “swish-swash” programs so our child be be given stead doses of poison until the necessary laws are in place to put it in our water supply.  After listening to the sales pitch from well meaning school administrators, we sign a form to have our children abstain from the program. This is what we know:  most of northern and western Europe have now banned the use of fluoride in water supplies.  US statistics show rises in tooth decay and cancer after fluoride is introduced into the  water supply.  The evidence is overwhelming, so why is the US still  moving towards 100% fluorination of our water supply?

In his book, “The Body Heals” (2003, The Bridge Medical Publishing), William B. Farril, MD discusses flouride/flourine quite a bit (far too much to cut and paste here). A couple bits of text that I found quite enlightening…

“The second way that oxidizing agents (rust promoters) injure nerve cells occurs after the radical has hogged an electron. For example, the second mechanism occurs after the electron hog like oxygen and flourine have already stolen an electron from somewhere else. Scientists denote this state by acknowledging a negative charge to the elements. Oxygen in this state is called oxide. Flourine in this state is called flouride. Even after their radical form has hogged an additional electron, they then still tend to bind to a positively charged body structures. When these hogs bind in this manner they alter the molecules properties and shape. The flouride and oxygen ion can do this. One needs oxygen for life and therefore curtailment here is only possible by limiting intake of the salts of oxygen and in attempting to breathe air that has less oxidizing properties (commonly called clean air). Flourine is the same as flouride except this designates that it already has hogged an electron on its own. Already mentioned was the popular example of flouride binding the tooth enamel and bone readily. What is not being said is that it becomes harder but often these tissues become more brittle as well. Brittleness is another example of the rusting process (aging process). Flouride and oxygen within one’s brain are a concern.”

“Lastly, before leaving the toxin discussion, the owner is asked to remain mindful of ingested substances that have the ability to cross the blood brain barrier and move on into one’s brain. Once they are inside they breakdown into elements like flourine (flouride usually in the body). Too many elements like flourine place a particular strain on keeping adequate antioxidants around. Less antioxidants increase the rate of repair or replacement of brain molecular parts.”

As much as possible I have been drinking distilled water for nearly a decade and, given the choice, that would be all I drink, primarily for the purity of  the water but also because it tastes so good (honest!)

I hope this helps answer your questions to your satisfaction.

Sincerely-

Steve

************************

Steve Born
Senior Technical Advisor
Event Sponsorship Coordinator
www.hammernutrition.com
800.336.1977

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In this case, there might be “junk under the trunk”.

The picture is a new saddle from Selle San Marco.

Look at the size of the cutout on this saddle, a small school bus can fall through it. Some people swear by saddles with a cut out to relieve “pressure”. I find them flat out uncomfortable — imagine the feeling of having “stuff” trying to squeeze into the cut out. Pinch-a-rific.

I am A fat cyclist, that’s right, I said it. Of course, not to be confused with THE Fat Cyclist.

I’ve always thought that I am genetically sub-par; My VO2Max is equivalent to that of a couch-potato and I can’t build a six-pack even at my skinniest. However, I do believe I’ve finally found the answer that will propel chub-rocks to the front of the peleton. The answer is simple — dimples.

Frankly, I can’t believe it has taken this long for me to correlate dimples with us husky-folks. They’ve been putting dimples on everything from golf balls, to carbon wheels, to TT gloves and now to helmets. Meanwhile, we chunkies have had “dimples” all along which according to research “are said to capture a small layer of air, thus promoting better laminar air flow, making it faster aerodynamically.”

Hey Pearl Izumi, if you are reading this, can you please make me a skin suit with the butt-area cut out (think chaps). If nothing else, it will serve as a deterrent for anyone to chase me down and sit on my wheel.