January 9, 2020
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Elizabeth Wicks Turns 75 and Rides 7500 miles in 2019!
By Coach John Hughes
Coach Hughes: I’ve been friends with Elizabeth Wicks for several decades and have coached her for many ultracycling 12- and 24-hour races. She turned 75 in 2019 and we agreed on a goal of completing at least 75 rides of at least 75 miles. Read more.
More Quick Links Tips
by Jim Langley
There were so many great tips in the comments about last week’s Tech Talk on using chain quick links, we’re sharing some of the best ones here with some photos. And, offering another tip for quick links I think you’ll be able to put to good use. Read more.
Death of a Bike Shop
by Stan Purdum
For the last four years, I’ve been a part-time volunteer mechanic and staffer at a nonprofit bicycle shop called The Bicycle Exchange (BEX) in Plainfield, New Jersey. It’s been an interesting and educational experience, and I’ve written about it before in Road Bike Rider (see “Wrenching at the BEX Pays Myriad Dividends”). Read more.
Sponsor: Performance Alpaca Cycling Socks by Fo//ow Ho//ow
Follow Hollow socks outperform competitors largely due to their 80% baby alpaca proprietary blend thread. Check out the RoadBikeRider.com review by Sheri here. After a very successful Kickstarter launch, these socks are in stock and available to order right now directly from the company. Why not add some to your sock drawer? Find out more.
Cycling Friends Look Out for Each Other
One great benefit of being a dedicated cyclist is the friendships that come with it.
Cycling attracts people from all walks of life, all income groups and from totally diverse backgrounds. The thread that binds us is the machine we so dearly love — and the adventures we share while riding it. Read more.
Anti-Aging 12 Ways You Can Slow the Aging Process
Anti-Aging: 12 Ways You Can Slow the Aging Process, by Coach John Hughes, explains the physiological changes that take place as you age, how to assess your current fitness and the training principles that apply to older roadies. It includes how to get the most out of your endurance rides. It has sample training plans to increase your annual riding miles and to build up to rides of 25-, 50-, 100- and 200-mile rides. Anti-Aging explains the importance of intensity training, how to do intensity and different intensity workouts. The chapter on strength training has 28 exercises for lower body, upper body and core strength illustrated with photos. The eight essential stretches are illustrated with photos.
The book describes the increasing importance of recovery as you get older, the most important things you can do to improve your recovery and how to avoid overtraining. It concludes with a chapter on motivation. Anti-Aging gives you the tools you need to slow the inevitable decline in your health and fitness.
Avoid Saddle Cysts with These Tips
There’s almost nothing as painful as dealing with saddle sores as a cyclist. They really hurt. If you try to just suffer through the pain and hope they’ll go away on their own, you can end up with much bigger problems. Don’t ignore them, because a sore can get worse and turn into a hard, persistent lump called a cyst which can sometimes even require surgery for removal. Read more.
Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM Cycling Computer Review
by Sheri Rosenbaum
When Wahoo Fitness sent me an ELEMNT ROAM to test/review I was curious how it would stack up to Garmin. I’m a long time Garmin user both for watches (Forerunner) and cycling computers (Edge). The ELEMNT ROAM was surprisingly quick and easy to set up desired data fields, pair sensors on multiple bikes and sync with third-party apps like Strava. Using the Wahoo ELEMNT Companion app on my smartphone, I just followed the prompts and in no time, I was done. If you are still using a flip phone this could be a problem. Read more.
Challenging Your Brain During Exercise May Help to Prevent Dementia
Scientific American has a fascinating new article that explains why you should exercise your brain while you exercise your body. Almost 50 percent of North Americans over 85 and 13 percent of those over 65 suffer from loss of brain function called dementia. We know that you lose brain cells as you age, and scientists used to think that you could not make new brain cells. However, aging causes memory loss by reducing blood flow and nourishment to brain cells. Read more.
Question of the Week
Ever had a saddle sore?
More Cycling Stuff to Read
Bicycle Retailer: Direct to Consumer Bike Companies and Local Bike Shops
VeloNews: What’s the Lifespan of Carbon Fiber Bike Wheels?
YouTube: When Danny MacAskill Goes to the Gym, It Gets Pretty Crazy
Outside: How to Stick to a New Training Plan
Rene Herse: It’s a Myth That 700c Wheels Are Faster Than Smaller Wheels like 650b
End Notes
I think that Jan Heine at Rene Herse Cycles has probably had the biggest impact over the last decade on my thoughts of what a road bike should be. His newest post mentioned above about 700c wheels is just the latest example. And for once, I was barely ahead of something he wrote about. I’ve been riding 650b Thesis wheels with Rene Herse 48 mm tires on my Giant Revolt gravel bike for months now. Even though the tires are incredibly wide and look almost like mountain bike tires, they really do roll as fast as 25 mm or 28 mm tires. But they have the added benefit of better handling from the additional rubber on the road, and increased comfort from the additional air volume. The tires have also served me well on gravel, where the width more than makes up for the lack of knobbies.
I’ve started to shop for my next “all-road” style bike that is going to become my main road bike. I really believe that it’s finally possible and reasonable to find a single bike that I’ll be able to ride on the road for everything short of crit racing or time trials that I can also use to race gravel with and do the occasional cyclocross race for fun. I think fast, wide tires and frames that accept them are the greatest practical advancement in road biking in the last couple of decades, even over electronic shifting.
I’m very interested to learn what “all road” bike you decide on for on the road everything and to race gravel. I’m thinking of the same animal, but haven’t reached a conclusion yet. Please keep us posted on your re-search and discovery. I think it would be a great topic for a continuous article on what you try and reasons for moving on until you find the holy grail. BTW- how do you like the Giant Revolt?
First, love this newsletter. Also considering a Giant Revolt. Specs are hard to beat at the price point. Also, as an older cyclist I look for a high stack on the frame. That way I or we can save our necks from an acute angle. Ride lots.