2011: A Statistical Review

By almost any standard, 2011 was my best-ever cycling year.  I racked up 5,113 miles, a personal record that beat the old mark of 4,800 (set in 2009).  I needed 170 rides to reach that mark, a 30.08 miles per ride average.  My old record for rides in one year was 146, also set in 2009.  Here’s the month-by-month breakdown:

0000 January
0055 February (PR)
0286 March
0465 April
0450 May
0705 June
1020 July     (PR)
0756 August   (PR)
0678 September
0532 October  (PR, tie)
0121 November
0045 December (PR)

July’s total of 1,020 miles is not just a PR for July, but also for any month, crushing the old mark of 800 miles (September 2009).  Also this year, I surpassed 30,000 lifetime miles and 1,000 lifetime rides.  “Lifetime” is everything since the beginning of 2004, my first year as a serious cyclist.

I think it’s odd that in the course of riding so many miles I did just one standard century (100 miles) and six metric centuries (100 kilometers).  The consistency with which I banged out those 30-milers is what allowed me to surpass 5,000.

Only outdoor miles count toward my totals.  Inside I spent 34 hours on the trainer.  For cross-training I spent 17 hours on the treadmill, went hiking on eight occasions, went snowshoeing twice, and did 177 upper-body strength sessions in my home gym.

Perhaps most significantly, I raced far more in 2011 than ever before.  I did my first seven cyclocross races, my first two mountain bike races, and my first sanctioned time trial (plus three unsanctioned TTs) in 2011.  That’s more racing than I did in all previous seasons combined.

Expect even more racing in 2012, but fewer miles.  I won’t rule out a PR in a cold-weather month; that’s low-hanging fruit.  I won’t rule out a PR for a single day; anything more than 113 miles would do.  But I have no interest in pursuing 5,114.  At least, not now.  Maybe when I’m too old to go fast and I’m living in a warmer climate with nothing but time on my hands …

Better Than Any Treadmill

I really was tempted to ride outside today.  We don’t usually see green grass, brilliant sunshine and temperatures in the low 40s in Wisconsin on the day after Christmas.  But a strong, cold wind convinced me to leave the bike behind and go hiking instead.  I hadn’t gone hiking in Ridge Run County Park since February, so that was my destination this afternoon.  I gave myself a 1-hour limit and a challenge to see how many times I could complete the Blue Loop.  The answer: 5 times.  The loop is 0.8 miles so that’s a brisk 4 mph on rolling and sometimes rocky terrain.  Today’s weather brought out several other hikers and a few trail runners.  I’m jealous of the runners, but I don’t think my knees and ankles would hold up for long if I were to try running on any surface.  That limitation was a big reason I got into cycling in the first place.

'Tis Expensive

Santa rocks a single-speed with an elliptical chaining.

Buying a good Christmas gift for a cyclist can be a challenge.  Even something as seemingly ordinary as a spare tube comes with perils.  Which type of valve, Presta or Schrader?  What size?  How long a valve stem?  Butyl rubber or latex?  The more I ride, the more specific my Wish List becomes.  In Monday’s mail I received a gift card for Performance Bike.  That’s eminently useful to me, easily converted into just the right bike part or article of clothing.

Several websites have published gift ideas for cyclists.  I like this one because its recommendations are so practical.  A bicycle can be your budget’s best friend, saving you thousands of dollars a year if you use it for transportation.  But if you ride for sport and/or competition, cycling can be massively expensive.  It’s not always the big ticket items that get you; little expenses really add up.  For example, this year I paid $410 just for permission to ride:

$285   race registration fees
$ 60   USA Cycling license
$ 25   state parks vehicle sticker
$ 20   state trail pass
$ 20   Washington County Bicycle Club dues

And I didn’t race as much as many of my teammates and friends.  Some of them spent more than $1,000 on registration fees.

I spent $465 this year on cycling-specific clothing, $220 on tires and tubes, $445 on other parts and bike shop services.  While riding more than 5,100 miles this year I wore out a few tires, punctured a few tubes, popped a couple of spokes and burned off a set of brake pads.  Cycling has consumables and I go through stuff.  But my budget-buster was the Diamondback Steilacoom RCX cyclocross bike—a great deal at $1,000 but still a financial stretch for me.  Add it all up and I spent more than $2,500 on cycling in 2011.

Many of this year’s purchases will continue to serve me in 2012, but I am planning for a few upgrades.  The road bike will get a new wheelset, cassette and saddle.  The cyclocross bike will get new tires before the racing season begins.  Licenses and race registrations will be a bigger expense next year as I compete more, and I will continue to upgrade my cycling wardrobe with additional Team Pedal Moraine kit from Voler.  Then there's the new mountain bike I want, a purchase decision I deferred this year.  There's always something.

And You're From ... ?

 
Today I was surprised to learn that my home state, Pennsylvania, has produced more Major League Baseball players than any other state except California.  Roy Campanella, Nellie Fox, Ken Griffey Sr., Ken Griffey Jr., Dick Groat, Reggie Jackson, Tommy Lasorda, Christy Mathewson, Stan Musial, Mike Piazza and Honus Wagner all were born in the Keystone State.  So was the 1982 AL Cy Young Award winner: Pete Vuckovich of the Milwaukee Brewers.  There are hundreds more that you wouldn't recognize.

My little hometown, West Newton, has produced just one Major Leaguer.  His career wasn’t nearly as illustrious as those of the men listed above.  Jimmy Uchrinscko played just 3 games for the 1926 Washington Senators, allowing 13 hits, 8 walks and 9 earned runs in 8 innings out of the bullpen.  He struck out no one, had an ERA of 10.13, and was 0-for-2 as a hitter.  On the upside, I suppose, was his fielding prowess: he cleanly handled all 3 balls that were hit back to him.

Jimmy was born in 1900 and died in 1995.  A lot of the Pennsylvania-born players came out of the 1800s: men who lived, played, and died before there were any teams west of St. Louis.  These days the Major Leagues are dominated by players born in California, Texas and Florida.  That dominance is the product of two factors: population trends and weather.  Baseball is a game that rewards skills as much as raw athleticism, and skills develop more fully when you can play outside all year.

So, what about cycling?  It doesn’t depend on fair weather to the extent baseball does, but is there a correlation between birthplace and professional success?  This season, 10 Americans appeared in the UCI WorldTour rankings.  Here are their names and places of birth:

• Levi Leipheimer             Montana
• Chris Horner                Oregon
• Tyler Farrar                Washington
• Taylor Phinney              Colorado
• Tom Danielson               Connecticut
• George Hincapie             New York
• Andrew Talansky             Florida
• Christian Vande Velde       Illinois
• Dave Zabriskie              Utah
• Tejay Van Garderen          Washington

You could say there’s a bias toward the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest.  But, of course, birthplace and residence aren’t the same thing.  Back in Jimmy Uchrinscko’s day, people didn’t move around much.  Jimmy died just 14 miles from his birthplace and was buried at West Newton Cemetery.  Leipheimer may have been born in Montana, but he has lived in California for years.  Danielson now calls Colorado home.  Hincapie is the big man on campus in Greenville SC.  And so on.

And none of that begins to account for the American riders’ overseas homes.  Their racing schedules—dominated by events in Europe—demand that the riders base themselves in Europe for much of the year.  The Australians do the same thing.  Is Cadel Evans now an Italian and Robbie McEwen a Belgian?  You could make that argument.

I’m inclined to think that success at the top level isn’t related to birthplace or to current residence.  At least, not yet.  But the domestic road racing scene in America now is dominated by riders from Colorado, Utah and California.  Will those states become to cycling what California, Texas and Florida have become to baseball?

The Importance Of Being Idle

Today is the end of a 14-day period without any saddle time.  I needed the break.  Physically I was OK—I wasn’t really bothered by some soreness in my left Achilles tendon—but mentally I checked out of the 2011 cycling season somewhere around Nov. 16.  At that point I had surpassed my 5,000-mile goal and I had caught a little cold that ended any realistic prospect of squeezing in another cyclocross race.

During the break I received emails and Facebook updates from friends and teammates who either were still racing or were coming back from their own breaks to begin winter training programs.  I’m planning on an indoor trainer session tomorrow but that doesn’t signal the start of my own program.  I simply want to knock off a little rust and see how I feel.  On Sunday I may venture outside at mid-afternoon, but I will require sunshine, light winds and temperatures close to 40.  I’ll go for a hike if the weather proves less appealing.  I’m still in the “want to” and not the “have to” part of the off-season.

Those friends and teammates who already are into a formal training plan have racing objectives as early as April.  Not me.  I have a few competition goals in mind but my “A” races come later in the season.  At least, I think they do.  Wisport has released only a fraction of its 2012 schedule.  The Tour of America’s Dairyland has released its dates but no specifics.  WEMS, ABR and the WCA have released nothing at all.  In the absence of these details it’s tempting to think of everything prior to September as merely a prelude to cyclocross, into which I want to immerse myself.  Realistically, new goals will come into focus as the various racing bodies publish their calendars.  And the WCA’s Wisconsin Cup series—usually interesting to me only from the perspective of a fan—could tempt me in 2012 with the inclusion of more road races.

Pursuing 5,000 miles sometimes turned cycling into a job, and just as I enjoy vacation days free from any responsibility to my employer, so too am I enjoying this time off the bike.  For the rest of the month I will continue with weightlifting, cross-training activities like hiking, and only occasional rides on the trainer or outdoors, weather-permitting.

In January I will recommit to the rigors of a formal plan.  I will be in Atlanta for three weeks on a special work assignment, and I will have my bike and my trainer with me.  I’m really counting on that time.  At the end of each workday I will be free from all other commitments and distractions.  My weeknights will be filled with trainer rides and trips to the company’s impressive fitness center; my weekends will be spent outdoors, building base miles in 50-degree weather.  Equally important, I will have complete control of my diet, which at home is too frequently compromised by a surfeit of irresistible junk food.  There’s no reason I shouldn’t come home in great shape.

Toy Story

When I was a kid, the weeks leading up to Christmas truly were the most wonderful time of the year.  I loved toys.  Hot Wheels were a big favorite during my elementary school days.  At less than $1 apiece they were the go-to toy for every boy in town, a more-than-suitable stocking stuffer or birthday present.  And like baseball cards, Hot Wheels were eminently portable and formed something of an unofficial currency.  I was more interested in racing my cars than in trading them, though, and that was a bit of a problem.  Drag racing was easy to simulate thanks to gravity, but approximating Formula 1 or NASCAR was nearly impossible.  There were a couple of race sets that attempted to solve the problem with hand-operated levers or battery-powered pinch wheels that would propel the cars around the circuit, but they didn’t work as well as their commercials would have had us believe.

For me, hope arrived in the incredible array of toys available from the Sears & Roebuck catalog: slot cars.  Once I knew they existed, there was no going back to Hot Wheels.  Sure, I dabbled briefly with the rechargeable Sizzlers line—I owed the Hot Wheels brand that much for the years of joy it had given me—but soon AFX slot cars dominated my Wish List.  I quickly moved on to the more expensive but faster G-Plus series and built a massive racetrack.  From the ages of 11-15, slot car racing was a big part of my life.  Then my family moved to a new house.  The racetrack had to be broken down and packed away.  A few years ago I fired up the cars once again—not just out of nostalgia, but also to see whether my son would like them.  His reaction was lukewarm.  Everything went back into storage.

It’s fun to reminisce, but I’m not tempted to set up the slot car track yet again.  Cycling is my sporting passion now.  So it was with surprise and then disappointment that I came across this unholy marriage of the two:

If the box hasn’t already convinced you of the complete absence of fun to be derived from the toy within, then check out the accompanying video.

Nice sidehacks.

I admit I don’t understand the many different flavors of velodrome racing.  Perhaps the Scalextric version provides for a reasonable pursuit, I don’t know.  Certainly, no one is going to model a miniature Graeme Obree and play with this thing for an entire hour.  And at £50—almost $80—this is an expensive toy!  With its 2012 London Olympics tie-in, maybe the idea was to create a toy for the British executive set: something whimsical and collectible but not really intended to be used.  If it had been up to me this toy never would have seen the light of day.  My idea?  Victoria Pendleton inflatable doll.  At just £16 the stores would be, uh, blowing them out.  But do mind our return policy, gov’nor, as there isn’t much of a used market.

Iron, Man!

Every year at about this time I fall in love with the home gym again.  I lift weights throughout the year but it’s different once winter arrives.  It’s better.  During the warm weather months—and especially during the softball season—I lift weights to maintain upper body strength and to prevent injury.  Necessary, but dull.  During the winter I mix new exercises into my strength training sessions and I periodically adjust resistance and repetitions.  It’s great to see the results as I add more weight to the bars.

This week I put pushups back into the routine for Mondays and Thursdays, plus I added deadlifts to my Tuesday and Friday program.  Deadlifts are new to me and I think they will be a great addition.  They work so many different muscles that they may be the single-best exercise for overall strength.  I needed something to work the legs, glutes, core and back, and deadlifts do all of that and more.

So, on Mondays and Thursdays I target the chest, biceps, triceps and lats, and on Tuesdays and Fridays I work the legs, glutes, core, back and shoulders.  I move quickly from one exercise to the next, so there’s an aerobic benefit too.  Each session takes about 30 minutes.  On most days, I lift before I eat during a 1-hour lunch break.  That leaves my evenings free for indoor bike trainer workouts … but I’m not ready to throw myself into those just yet.

Last November and December I was doing stair climbing workouts at my office.  I liked the idea of a workout with some impact to stimulate bone cell growth.  Hiking, snowshoeing and the occasional treadmill walk will have to fill that role this winter.

The overall plan is no different: add strength but don’t add bulk.  Here at the end of November I am 5 pounds lighter than I was last year.  That’s a good start.

The Reader

Jason depicted with non-ANSI/Snell approved helmet

You know me as a cyclist whose love for the sport sometimes borders on monomania.  You may not know that I am also a reader.  I began a reading program, of sorts, at the beginning of 1997, so I’m nearing the end of my 15th year.  Initially I challenged myself to read at least one book per month.  To go from zero to 12 books a year sounded like a big commitment, but I enjoyed reading so much that I quickly got ahead of schedule.  Currently I’m reading the ancient Greek legend of Jason and the Argonauts.  It will be the 323rd book I have read, and that works out to more than 21 books per year.

Now, I should note that in 1997 I was not yet a father and I didn’t own a home or a bicycle.  I was married, had a full-time job and played a little softball, but I had tons of time to fill and books were a great choice.  My reading pace has slowed in recent years as other responsibilities and interests have demanded more time.  In those early years I read a lot of science fiction and a lot of “English class” books that I had failed to appreciate or had entirely missed during my formal education.

The inevitable happened in April 2005: I read my first cycling book.  It was called Fitness Through Cycling and I honestly can’t remember anything from it.  I followed that with LeMond: The Incredible Comeback of an American Hero.  In 2006 I read my first piece of cycling-themed fiction: The Memory of Running, by Ron McLarty.  Then came French Revolutions and Lance Armstrong and the 1999 Tour de France, each of which—I feel sure—also contains a fair amount of fiction of a different sort.  For Christmas I received The Rider, by Tim Krabbe.  It’s an excellent look at the mindset of a road racer.  I also received Bob Roll’s Bobke II, which is a lot of fun.  Then I read Michael Barry’s Inside the Postal Bus, which came off as an attempt to capitalize on Armstrong’s fame.  In 2009 I read Blazing Saddles: The Cruel and Unusual History of the Tour de France, by Rick Yancey—entertaining stuff, and still my most-recent cycling book.

Since 2009 I have gone back to my old habit of filling in the holes of English classes past: Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and so on.  But as Christmas approaches I’m counting on Santa to deliver Team 7-Eleven, by Geoff Drake.  Released earlier this year, it’s an in-depth look at the first American team to challenge the European cycling establishment.  That’s a piece of cycling history I don’t know very well.  Must get through Jason and the Argonauts soon to ensure I can unwrap my new book on Christmas and begin reading it immediately.

Jason, by the way, is on a quest for the Golden Fleece.  I suspect he’s going to find it hanging with the skinsuits in Mario Cipollini’s closet.

Ill-Timed

On Wednesday I could feel a cold coming on so I skipped my trainer workout.  Yesterday and earlier today I suffered from nasal congestion, a scratchy throat, dull body aches and a general malaise.  This evening I’m starting to feel better, but the timing of this setback was terrible.  I’m definitely not going to race in the state cyclocross championships on Sunday.  Since my last race on Nov. 5, I’ve ridden only 32 miles outdoors and only twice on the indoor trainer.  By Sunday I may have few remaining cold symptoms, but I wouldn’t be fit enough to race well and I believe I would risk a relapse into sickness, perhaps of longer duration and greater severity.

Racing in the state championships would have been a fitting end to my cycling season, regardless of the outcome, if I had been healthy.  As things stand, I feel like there’s unfinished business.  Is that silly?  I went into the cyclocross season with no expectation of doing so many races or of competing this late in the year.  Now I’m looking at Wizard Cross in Madison on Dec. 4 and I’m thinking, Maybe if the weather isn’t too bad …

I’m also thinking about the 2012 edition of Cheesehead Roubaix.  Today I mapped out the first of many possibilities for the route, using Lakeland School in the Town of Saukville as the start/finish.  We nearly ran out of parking this year at Goeden County Park, so for 2012 the start/finish likely will change even if most of the route stays the same.  The unpaved roads are the attraction, and there are only so many ways to connect them in a sensible route that doesn’t double back onto itself.  Don’t expect a final route announcement for a couple of months at least.  I have more possibilities to explore.

My Lady’s Malady And Me

My wife Maria caught a nasty little cold last weekend and stayed home from work on Monday and Tuesday.  Today she went back to work and she seems to be getting better.  But now I’m worried about myself.  For me, a “sick” day is when I feel too crappy to work out.  I haven’t had one since October 2009.  A cold would take me out of the state cyclocross championships on Sunday.  I’m definitely fighting something at the moment.  I’m not yet in its grip and I may stay ahead of it.  Yesterday it was great to ride in the sunshine for an hour on my lunch break.  Today I planned to spend an hour on the indoor trainer, but now I’m going to rest instead.  One thing is certain: I won’t preregister for the race.  The deadline is tomorrow and even if I’m feeling OK there’s no guarantee that I won’t be a mess by Sunday.  Wait and see.