To Protect And To Shred

The City of West Bend publishes an update every Friday that it delivers by email to interested citizens like me. You can sign up for it at this link. It contains information on a wide variety of subjects. In today's edition there was even a bit about mountain biking ...

Rock on!

Out Of Office

Three weeks ago, when I was preparing for my latest trip to Pennsylvania and didn’t want any new complications, my primary laptop freaked out. I’m talking about the laptop I use for my job, so it has to work properly at all times. I was prepared to buy a new laptop off the shelf if I couldn’t apply a fix; there would not have been enough time for a custom order. And fortunately I found that fix. The best explanation of the problem seemed to be that some of my old software was incompatible with the new operating system, Windows 11. By installing a fresh instance of Windows, I was able to get a stable laptop again.

An old version of Microsoft Office is the most likely culprit here. I continue to run it on one of my other laptops, but I will not reinstall it on the primary machine. And this decision has led to a change in my fitness tracking.

On September 1, 2003, I began using an Excel spreadsheet to track my cycling, walking, and strength training efforts. Over many years, it grew to include body weight, body mass index, resting heart rate, blood pressure, and other metrics for health and fitness. In many ways, it grew to be needlessly complex. And now I have abandoned it. Final entry: April 18, 2025.

Sure, I could continue to use a nearly 30-year-old version of Excel on an older laptop, but I was almost happy for an excuse to stop. This year I added a couple of new tools for health and fitness metrics. Combined with the tools I already had, they make me more reliant than ever on Garmin Connect. Someday that could be a bad thing–Garmin has had a couple of noteworthy service interruptions in recent years–but for now I am very satisfied with the new tools.

Just what are those new tools? I mentioned them last July, and earlier this year I took the plunge: I now have Garmin’s scale and blood pressure monitor. They weren’t cheap and it might be hard to argue that they offer more accurate data than the devices they replaced, but their WiFi connectivity and their native compatibility with Garmin Connect were impossible for me to resist. When I take a reading, it shows up instantly on the website, and my Garmin cycling computer and my Garmin sports watch always know my current weight. I may have bought only convenience, but I’m OK with that. I like having everything in one place with no duplication of effort in data entry. And ease of use makes me more likely to be consistent with data collection, which I could not claim to be before.

Back To Baggies (Sometimes)

My first cycling shorts were baggies. Those were the days of riding around town just for a little exercise. I didn’t even think of myself as a cyclist yet; I simply wanted a chamois to provide more comfort than I could get from casual cargo shorts.

Then came my first road bike, and with it came my first Lycra cycling shorts. A little while later, I discovered the benefits of bibs. And bibs will remain my shorts of choice when I’m on the open road, but I’m going back to baggies for some of my easier rides around town or on recreation trails.

I found a killer deal on Endura’s Hummvee II baggies last month. They performed well on today’s maiden voyage, an easy 10 miles. I’m in eastern Pennsylvania once again, visiting my mother and planning to do some longer rec trail rides in this area.

Going back to baggies is something of a psychology hack. I have been one of those guys whose “easy” rides have suffered from intensity creep. Zone 2 isn’t supposed to drift into Zone 3, as mine almost inevitably do. When I do base training on a rec trail this year, I’m going to leave the skin-tight team kit at home. Wearing baggies will signal to my sometimes too competitive brain that such rides are meant to be completed with less intensity. And I’m not just hacking myself; I’m hacking you too. When you see me in baggies, you’ll know I’m out for some fat-burning, mitochondria-building Zone 2 time.