Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Group Rides

Group rides are kind of like bowling leagues. I remember when I was a kid, every Tuesday either my grandmother came over or another babysitter and my parents would go out together for the evening to their bowling league. I can make this comparison because occasionally, the babysitter cancelled and I would have to go with them. Of course, bowling was kind of incidental since most of the evening was about talking, eating snack bar food, laughing and gossiping. Sure, someone took score, but clearly it was a social gathering. In fact, the name of the league was The Good-timers. Oh, I am certain there was the serious bowler among them—probably a frustrated man who got irritated when a woman missed her time at the lane because she was busy finishing a story about a racy neighbor or how her son’s teacher’s skirt was too short etc. I am sure, too, that some bowlers spent an inordinate amount of time and money shopping and buying the best balls, shoes, bags etc., even reading about new technology and gloves that will help them improve their game.

To me, other than the activity being different and a moving target, group bike rides are a great comparison. Like the bowler who thinks she is one step away from pro, there are serious cyclists who grow weary of the chatting riders who slow down because conversation has become juicy. There is always a great deal of chatter, laughter, eating and, shall we say, ‘sharing’ that happens on these rides. There are the cyclists who get every new bicycle gadget as soon as its available and will talk forever about materials and apparel that they have studied in all of the scores of catalogs that are never-ending in one’s mailbox. Of course, some group rides are more serious than others, but any of them still offer a social outlet that I, for one, really look forward to.

The First-Ever, All-Woman, Girls Gone Riding Ride

Although cycling has become far more to me than just being the way I choose to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, I love being able to combine my love for riding with fundraising and my desire to introduce more women to the activity of riding. I am the team captain for a women’s team for the annual Bike MS: Round-Up Ride. This is the second year I am forming this team and I am hopeful to grow to my goal of 24 women this year. Together, we will raise money to help create a world free of MS AND havE THE TIME OF OUR LIVES THE WEEKEND OF mARCH 28-29, 2009.

Our team will be doing a couple of ‘events’ to raise money. One of the events is an ALL WOMAN Ride on Saturday, Feb. 21. The ride will begin at Safeway at Alma School and Chandler Blvd. The cost for the ride is $20 if you register before the ride and $25 if your register that day. Girls Gone Riding jerseys also will be available for purchase that day for $75.

There will be a 35-mile route and a metric century as well. Coffee and bagels will be available at the start, fully-supported rest stops and a lunch will be available at the end. Women of all ages, sizes and ability are invited to register for this fun morning. All rest stops will be staffed by men.

If you are interested in riding, contact me via email at Sheryl@girlsgoneriding.org.

I hope to make this ride an annual event that all women can look forward to.

More info to come!


Thursday, November 13, 2008

Top 10 Things Bicyclists Can Be Thankful For

If you read this post and comment below with your favorite tip (bike shops, places to ride, clothing pieces or training ride leaders) you will be entered into a drawing on Monday, November 17, for a pair of free arm warmers. Make sure to leave your name and email, even if you log in as anonymous.

I have read many books about the benefits of positive thinking—it’s a healthy perspective to have that bolsters our spirits. Yet many of us spend far too much time focusing on what is wrong with things and the balance of that time telling others all of the flaws what we have found. We can always think of things to say about how things could be better, but at least at this time of year, the holiday of Thanksgiving tends to steer us toward thinking of things to be thankful for.

With that in mind and in the spirit of the ‘season’ I thought I would list of the top ten things Bicyclists Can Be Thankful for:

10. Moisture-wicking material, especially in the colder months, to help keep us dry and comfortable.

9. The invention of the Camelback water backpack to help us stay hydrated, especially in the desert.

8. Drivers who are mindful, watchful and considerate of cyclists. They DO exist.

7. A tiny fringe benefit for bike commuters according to the recently passed ‘Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008’. A $240 annual benefit can help fund bikes, tires, lights, locks etc.!

6. Friendly cyclists who can change a tire in less than the 60 minutes it takes me. I can not say how many times I have been changing my tire when a tire-changing, savvy, bike-mechanic-like person stopped and threw the tube in faster than I could get the valve cover unscrewed.

5. Arizona fall cycling weather. Enough said.

4. Life-saving blinkie lights for that smoky dawn or dusky twilight safe ride.

3. Helpful bike shop staff people who will give you sound advice, treat you with dignity regardless of your cycling ability and give you tips to save money and time.

2. Training ride and group ride leaders. If you ride with a group to train or for pleasure, you know these dedicated, bike-loving people who are reliable and helpful in teaching road rules, pushing some up steep hills and cheerfully planning out a route. Hooray for these folks!

AND the number one thing Bicyclists Can Be Thankful For…

1. Quality, padded or gel chamois bike shorts!

If you read this post and comment below with your favorite tip (bike shops, places to ride, clothing pieces or training ride leaders) you will be entered into a drawing on Monday, November 17, for a pair of free arm warmers. Make sure to leave your name and email, even if you log in as anonymous.

Friday, October 24, 2008

It's October and a PERFECT Time to Ride

It’s October. It’s cool. It’s PERFECT riding weather. Gone are the days of 105 degrees, feeling like a raisin—all baked and dried out and feeling the pouring sweat at each red light. What isn’t gone, though, is the need to continue to be mindful of some safety precautions. First, while the air feels cool, the Arizona sun is still as volatile to your skin as ever. Don’t forget the sunscreen. Water is still essentially important to your body’s ability to produce. Just because the weather doesn’t feel like the Sahara desert when you ride, it doesn’t mean that water is any less important. Be sure to continue to hydrate the night before a long ride and remember to bring two quarts of water and refill when you stop. One more thing, forgive my stating the obvious, but if you were riding before work during the week at 5;30 or 6 a.m. there was plenty of sparkling sunshine to light your path. That, too, has slipped away with the mercury falling. Be sure to wear flashers behind you and a light in front of you. You may be able to see just fine, but commuters rushing to work may not. Be safe and be lighted!

After a bout of my usual fall allergy-induced case of sinus infection and bronchitis, I was worried about having lost three weeks of quality riding. It was heartbreaking to see my riding buddies take off for a weekend of the Bay To Bay Bike MS ride in southern California without me. It’s funny how sometimes, a person can’t tell how poor one feels until you start to feel well. I had no idea I was walking around with 1/10th of my breathing capacity until I downed a few doses of prednisone and could breathe more normally. I digress though, because although I feel a bit weaker, when I got back on my bike, it felt like slipping on a comfortable pair of slippers that you haven’t worn in a while. Once again, I felt I came home!

Have you noticed the sunrises lately, simply spectacular! I can’t decide which I am more in awe of, last spring’s wildflower display as seen from a bike or the fall sunrise and sunset colors from above the handlebars. It doesn’t last forever though, folks, so don’t let these amazing weather mornings pass you by. I can usually get in about 18 miles and still make it to work by 8:30, showered and commuted. Some of my favorite morning rides are:

San Juan Road at South Mountain Park. Park in the parking lot near the visitor center and ride out the end of San Juan . It’s only about 14 miles, but you get some hill work in and the reward is the view of Phoenix at the ramada at the end.

Ahwatukee/Pecos Road. Park at the Park and Ride at 40th street just north of Pecos and ride all the way to the end of Pecos Road and turn right to end in the neighborhood and turn around. Again, only about 14 miles but beautiful views and not too aggressive traffic until the ride east on Pecos .

Freestone Park in Gilbert. Park at Freestone Park and ride north on Lindsay Road . Bike lanes are present in both north and south directions.

What’s your favorite morning valley of the sun ride of 14-20 miles? Let me know and I will post here.


Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Warm Up

It doesn’t matter how ready I think I am to ride, how limber I feel, when I get on the bike to ride, I feel kind of like I am peddling uphill for the first 30 minutes, even when riding on a completely flat surface. It’s aggravating because if I am riding a short ride before work by the time I am warmed up, the ride is nearly over. It’s those days that I usually hop right on my bike within minute of dragging myself out of bed. Like most people, I am ‘fitting in’ a ride here and there because my schedule is so tight with work and family commitments. I find myself envying the few people I ride with who are retired and leisurely enjoying a bagel and coffee after a weekday morning ride. Sigh.

ANYWAY, the best way to feel your very best and to prevent soreness later is to stretch and warm up a little before a ride. Everyone has their list of things that they KNOW are good for them, yet they avoid like the plaque: green beans; eight hours of sleep; teeth cleanings every six months; and good record-keeping for tax time. When it comes to riding a bike or any kind of exercise, a brief session of stretching can mean the difference between an enjoyable experience of riding and one that causes pain from injury.

When you spend a few minutes lengthening your muscles with a few good stretches, the elasticity of the tissue that your muscles are made of and the tissue that connects your muscles to your bones, improves. Stretching is so important that studies have revealed that young athletes, those in their pre-teens, who stretched before an activity experienced far fewer incidence of osteoarthritis or the arthritis caused by overuse when in their 20s. It’s that important.

One place to find great stretching examples is www.sparkpeople.com. It’s also a great site to commune with other folks who are learning to become active, learning about foods and nutrition and ultimately weight loss and also a place to find out about how to exercise safely.

Here’s a couple of stretching examples from Sparkpeople.com along with some articles further touting the benefits of stretching.

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/stretching_quick.asp

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Girl Parts and Saddles

At first, every woman riding a bike wonders how in the world anyone could spend more than 15 minutes on a triangular, hard stub that evokes medieval thoughts of torture just by looking at it. I have to laugh when I see that there are actually different kinds of seats depending on how you expect to ride: touring; performance; recreation or all-around. I mean seriously, isn't it ALL supposed to be RECREATION!

Anyway, I digress. The worst mistake uneducated newbies do is look for the the most cushy, wide, fluffy seat. One word: FRICTION. If one expects to be on a seat for any length of time. If you are going to load up Fluffy, your Shih Tzu and ride to the candy store, by all means, rest your tush on a comfy, scalloped seat that feels like the family couch. If you are going to ride for 15 or more miles with the hope of riding around town, look for a stream-lined all purpose seat that has as little surface touching your sweet cheeks as possible. While this may seem counter-intuitive, it really isn't. Less surface to rub on your bottom means less friction which means more comfort.

Does this mean you will feel comfort the first time you ride. Mais NON! In fact, the first time you ride, your soup bones will ache after the first five miles. You will be amazed that when you stop to use the rest room, just how amazing it feels to be OFF of the seat. What's more, you will be surprised at how much it hurts when you get back on 8 minutes after the trip to the potty.

Time in the saddle will eventually lead to the ultimate: NUMBNESS. I am convinced that repeated training rides with gradually increasing distance and length of time in the saddle kills some of the nerves in your bottom. However, whatever it is that makes it possible, regularly increasing your length of rides will render your bottom conditioned for that long ride.

Some great seat options are:

Terry’s Liberator X saddle

Liberator X Gel Saddle

The key word is ‘gel’. Gel helps to absorb shock and and cushions a little without creating too much friction. Gel is also a good choice when choosing bike shorts, and riding gloves. But that’s another entry…

This saddle is $85 which is a fairly moderate cost considering you could buy Brooks for hundreds and look like you are riding a Mercedes instead of a Mustang. Terry’s website is www.terrybicycles.com.

Here’s one that’s a little less expensive, however, you are not getting the magic ‘gel’—though still a great option.

Forté Women’s Contour Saddle

This is the Forte Women’s Contour Saddle and it runs about $49.99 although at www.performancebicycles.com there are MAD sales and a club that gives you 10% back on every dollar you spend. It is $20 to join the club each year.


Sunday, September 7, 2008

A Yummy Recipe

If you get fed up (literally!) with gooey, chewy, taffy, gritty, energy foods while you ride, try making this yourself. It’s fruity and compact. You can get all of the ingredients at any grocery store, but Trader Joe’s is a great (CHEAP) source for these nuts and fruits. Try making these balls ahead and putting two into sandwich bags in the freezer. If you pull two out before you ride, they are ready and thawed after about 30 minutes of riding. They aren’t much to look at (So don’t look at ‘em, just pop ‘em into your mouth!) but they are tasty. They last in the fridge for about a week.

Each ball supplies about 50 calories, some protein from the nuts, lots of fiber and good complex carbohydrates from the dried fruit. Also, dried fruit is a good source of potassium. Enjoy!

1 cup roasted pistachios

1 cup dried cherries

½ cup dried apricots

½ cup golden raisins

½ cup pitted dates

1 Tbsp. orange juice

Chop pistachios in the food processor until finely-chopped but not powdery. Divide in half and separate into two bowls. Set aside.

Put the cherries, apricots, raisins and dates in the food processor with the orange juice and process. Add to half of the pistachio nuts. Roll into 24 balls and when finished roll the balls into the other nuts. YUM.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Eating and bicycling--Eating WHILE exercising? What?!?!?!

All of my life, all I can ever remember hearing is how important exercise is for healthy weight loss. Although I have spent the better part of my life trying to figure out the balance of eating and weight loss I have spent 30+ years failing to figure in exercise. Why? Well, because for one, I hated it and for two, I was not athletic so I sucked at just about everything except bowling. Yes, bowling. But so I finally figure out that exercise is not only a good idea, it's a great part of life when you find something you like doing. Still, I never considered EATING a part of exercising and in my case, exercising means for the most part, riding bikes.

But it is. It's an essential part of not only being healthy while you exercise hard and long, it's also essential to being able to stay in the game until the end. If you ride and ignore eating, eventually, it will catch up with you and you will bonk. If you have never bonked, I don't recommend it. Bonking is when you body reaches a point where all of the glucose and/or fluids stored in your muscles, is depleted. That glucose is fuel your body has ready so that when you move through your day, you can walk up the steps, load and unload laundry, do the yard work you have been putting off or play with your kids or grandkids on the family room floor. Usually, a normal person does not have to perform more than 60 minutes of big muscle work in a normal day. This is why you don't hear of housewives falling over and 'bonking' in their laundry rooms or in the garden. But, when a person exerts his or herself for more than 60 minutes between meals, that glucose is used up.

So, say you have eaten breakfast. You get on your bike for a 35-mile ride. If you are riding at 16 miles an hour, and you are lucky enough to have a great route that doesn't stop at pesky traffic lights every mile or so, you ride for an hour and you still have about an hour left to complete your ride. If you fail to eat anything, chances are sometime in that second hour, you are going to start feeling a little nauseated. You may start sweating and feeling kind of dizzy. When this happened to me the first time, it was about 15 miles into my first 40-mile ride. I thought it was the heat so I kept pushing and before long, I felt like the angel of death was near. I felt like vomiting and my sight kept growing dark. I finally had to stop or risk passing out on my bike. Luckily, I had not even entertained the thought of clipping in. Once I steadied myself to the point that I felt I could continue to remain conscious, I searched for my cell phone and was planning to call someone, ANYONE to come and pick me and my bike up. The ride leader gave me nutrition at that point and asked me what I had eaten that morning. When I answered 'nothing' everyone gasped around me. NOTHING? Are you mad? After a Cliff bar and some watered down Gatorade, I regained my wits, if not my dignity and was able to finish the ride.

Keep nutrition handy for rides or exercise sessions longer than 45 minutes. Protein and healthy carbs are good in the form of peanut butter and whole wheat bread; honey; trail mix; dried fruit and nuts or bananas. Or, if you would rather have something ready-made, there are many commercial bars that are great and compact. Many swear by the slimy, flavored gel energy pouches such as Gu; Power Bar Gel, Hammar Gel or Carb Boom. I was introduced to my first slimy gel when I was having leg cramps during my first Bike MS bike ride. I was told that this was the best way to relieve those cramps. I squeezed the first Power Bar Gel into my mouth and truly, whether it was coincidence or not, within minutes, the cramps subsided and I was able to continue on my way. I have used them on countless occasions since for the same thing and also for quick energy when the rest stop was not a long one. The best advice I have read is to eat something, anything, every hour whether you are hungry or not. Drinking fluids is a given...that's another posting all together.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Hills

They are the bane of every new rider. Although Arizona is flat in many, many places, there are still areas where hills jut out of the sides of mountains, taunting many and even tempting some. When I first started riding, I didn’t know the elevations or even the paths of most of the rides I went on. The unknown was my worst enemy because what could be awaiting us at the turn of any road played with my mind. I would start fretting the potential hill before I even knew if there was one. Once I decided I would not fret these hills, once I knew the routes we were riding on and was not surprised by hills and once I realized each hill I climbed made me stronger and built my stamina, I not only stopped hating hills, I learned to embrace them.

One of the most common mistakes new riders make is starting a hill in the wrong gear. If you begin a hill while on the small ring in the front, regardless if you have a two-ring or three-ring bike, and are already in the largest gear in the back, you are essentially beginning your work with an empty toolbox. When approaching a hill of some significance, it makes sense to get into the hardest gear you can tolerate while maintaining a decent cadence. This way, as you begin the ascent, you have some gears to help you as you make the climb. You can avoid the strenuous mashing and panic.

Also, take notice where you are positioned on your seat when you begin climbing. You may have slid all the way to the front of your seat. There’s nothing wrong with riding from that position, but it makes your calves do most of the work. A tip that helps give leverage to the work your legs are doing is to push your bottom as far back on the seat as you can comfortably go. This leverage will help the large muscles in your thighs do more of the work.

Standing, while climbing, is a great way to get up the hill. As a beginner though, depending on the strength of your legs, one should start rising from the seat for short intervals at first. Try to set a goal by starting to stand at one point, committing to remaining standing until reaching a certain landmark such as a telephone pole before sitting. It took me months before I had the strength to stand for any length of time. The first time I managed to stand for the length of short, but steep hill. I remember awakening to what felt like someone had tied bags of cement around my thighs while I was sleeping. Luckily, that didn’t last very long and it reminds me of the old advice for ridding oneself from hangovers: taking some hair of the dog that bit you. In other words, the best solution for that weighty stiffness is, what else, but a ride! Yes, believe it or not, a short ride is the best remedy for the stiffness that comes from using muscles that have been on hiatus.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Purpose of this blog



I have decided to write a blog about riding and women because I believe there are other women like me who have watched the mashing, whisking cyclists around me thinking I could enjoy exercise if I could just get on a bike. In the last two years since first deciding to ride, I have experienced so much joy and pain, exultant and humiliation, pride and fear. I have learned so much from so many in that time and although I did find enlightenment on websites, many times I had to dig for it.

The thing is, I don't want other women to have to dig for information. I want them to have as few barriers to riding as possible. I am sure I will not address everything, but hopefully, my words will occasionally help someone, somewhere enjoy riding more and get out more.

I suppose I want to be an evangelist for women riding, a Johnny Appleseed so to speak. I know there are others out there like me who really enjoy seeing others grab that golden ring of joy after the first long ride or that first climb up a monster hill--all without feeling like you need an ambulance afterwards. I want to find them. I want them to find me and others who share that quest.

If you would like information about something in particular, I encourage you to comment or email me and through my network of riding buddies, perhaps I know someone who has dealt with that or who has information about that. Together we can find the answers, as well as one key to better health, better experiences in the saddle and greater friendships along the way.

What are you waiting for? Come out and join us...