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Archives for July 2009

Mixing it up

07.18.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 6 Comments

As I’ve mentioned before, I used to be a runner. Actually, I was never fast enough to be called a runner — I think 10-minute miles are more in the realm of jogging.

Anyway, I gave it up a couple of years ago because my knees just couldn’t take the pounding anymore. That’s when I started biking.

Biking’s been great for me, fitness-wise. I’ve got better endurance, a lower resting heart rate, and my waist size is down two inches.

But biking has some disadvantages, too. It’s not a weight-bearing exercise, so although my thighs and calves look like those on a 20-something, my upper body looks like it belongs on a 58-year-old. Which I am.

But I stick with biking as my only real exercise. Lots of folks I know mix it up — they run, or swim, or lift weights, or do something in addition to biking.

I don’t.

None of those other activities excite me much. Weight lifting is a turn-off, swimming bores me (not that I’m much good at it anyway), and although I enjoy golf, come on, there’s no way that qualifies as exercise. By the way, I walk the entire 18 holes and carry my bag, too.

Do you supplement your biking with other forms of exercise? What do you do? Do you do more than one other activity?  What’s the mix of biking vs. that other stuff?

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Categories // fitness, Uncategorized Tags // exercise, fitness

Rollin’ With the Bobke

07.16.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 6 Comments

Jeff Hemmel was lucky enough to go on a ride recently with Tour de France commentator Bob Roll.  While we’re all in Tour mode, I thought it would be apropos (Mon Dieu, Noob!) if he told us all about it.

HemmelsRideSo anyway, the other day I was out for a ride with Bob Roll when…

Sorry. I’ll pause while you get out the broom. After all, that’s a pretty big name I just dropped. But come on, how often do you get a chance to say something like that? This is Bob Roll I’m talking about, legendary American cycling great, a guy I’ve watched on the Tour-DAY-France coverage for years, a guy who…well…who…who actually knows Lance! And not just knows him, but who actually was there when Armstrong was up in those mountains of Boone, NC pondering giving up the sport of bicycle racing, before Armstrong won all those Tour-DAY-France victories and before completely random people started wearing yellow bracelets with his message sunk into the rubber. The Bobke has played a key role in cycling history. He’s connected, an actual cycling celebrity, a charismatic, balding guy in tights.

And yeah, I was riding with him. Just my normal morning ride. Hanging out with the usual crowd.

Well okay, it wasn’t really that normal. And Bob and I aren’t really that tight. In fact, I’m not even sure I made much of an impression on him. But it was fun nonetheless, if only for the photos I sent out later to friends and family who suddenly wondered how it was I was standing with the Bobke’s arm around my shoulder, both of us clearly sweaty from the epic training ride we had just gone on together, the one where he had probably challenged me to a sprint finish and now we were just hanging out, having a few laughs, probably arguing about who was going to pick up the lunch tab, the Bobke or the Jeffke.

Yeah, that part was fun.

So how did I get this chance? One of my friends and riding buddies, Chris Lauber, saw it in the paper. (Chris is actually a pretty good story himself. Last year he turned 50, and rode 50 centuries in one year, losing a massive amount of weight in the process and whipping himself into shape. But this story is not about the Lauberke, it’s about the Bobke, so sorry Chris, your time is up.) As it turns out, an area bike shop was having a grand opening and Bob was the unlikely guest of honor. He was scheduled to do the classic meet-and-greet one evening, but for those who have jobs they can escape from on a weekday, Roll would also be doing a couple-hour ride in the morning. Who could resist?

I sense an epic coming on, so I’ll try to speed things up. We met up at the shop, posed for the group photo, and took off, a group of about 40 heading out on some pretty quiet roads south of Tampa. Chris and I both live on the beachy side of the bay and didn’t recognize any faces, so we started at the back of the pack, figuring we’d ride a nice paceline and eventually move our way up to Bob, who we assumed was somewhere at the front. I actually never saw him before we left, but I knew he was up there waiting to swap some great stories and grin that goofy grin with each and every one of us.

Or maybe not. By about 10 miles in, I still hadn’t seen the guy. A few more and I was beginning to wonder if he was even up there. Then I started to wonder if he was in fact there, but swapping those funny stories and grinning that goofy grin at some other random dude-kes instead of us. Obviously we had to take matters into our own hands, so we picked up the pace and started to move forward. We passed the guy in the vintage 7-11 kit. (Damn, why hadn’t I thought of that angle!) Elbowed our way past the guy in the Astana kit. (Dude, you work at the shop…you’ve probably already gotten the chance to talk to him for, like, an hour!) And finally, finally, we were riding right alongside Bob Roll. It would be the ultimate picture. I reached for the camera in my jersey pocket…and froze. On the one hand, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had to do it. Then a headline flashed before my eyes: “Bike Noob Takes Out Legendary Cyclist While Trying To Snap Souvenir Photo In Crowded Pack Of Riders All Trying To Convince Their Friends They Know Bob Roll.”  Slowly I slid the camera back into my pocket.

Besides, my buddy Chris had taken the inside line and now he was the one swapping stories. And well, they were better than mine. Chris (so close to Bob they were practically sweating on each other in the June heat): “Hey Bob, I’m a former big-time professional photographer, and I shot photos of you back in the 7-11 days when you came through Boston.” Me (desperately trying to lean around Chris and sweating on, well, nobody who mattered): “Bob, Bob, I…I…I spent Christmas near Boone last year!”

Before I knew it, the moment had passed, and I dropped back, letting someone else have their shot at that sprint finish, those laughs, that argued-over lunch tab. Sure, I had a second chance back at the shop, and yeah, it lasted a little longer this time around. Bob and I actually talked briefly about Boone, the Florida heat and humidity (I don’t think he’s a fan), and he autographed a couple Tour podium hats.

Then I thrust my camera in Chris’s hand and said, “Quick, get a picture!”

Jeffke&BobLater I realized that the Bobke had actually put his arm around my shoulders, grinned that goofy grin, maybe even sweated a little on me.

I never did see him for lunch, though. Maybe he misunderstood the name of the restaurant…

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Categories // guest post Tags // guest post, Hemmel

Helmets — not as safe as they’re cracked up to be?

07.14.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 18 Comments

The most interesting comment to come in after the “Most Common Noob Mistakes” post was one by Dr. Richard Keatinge, a general practitioner from Wales, in the United Kingdom. Although failing to wear a helmet was fourth on our little informal list, Dr. Keatinge says helmets don’t do the job they’re supposed to do. He is a member of the editorial board of the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation, an organization whose purpose is “to undertake, encourage, and spread the scientific study of the use of bicycle helmets, in the context of risk compensation and sustainable transport.” It appears to be a largely European group. I’ll let Dr. Keatinge take it from here, then add some thoughts of my own.

—

FurioThe trouble with bike helmets is that the figures don’t show that they work – helmet laws have stopped a lot of people cycling and have done nothing for head injury rates, see Robinson DL. No clear evidence from countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets. BMJ 2006;332: 722-5. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a. (Robinson’s work is the best scientifically because she uses the best scientific methods, all available control groups and so on.) It appears that helmets break easily, but don’t absorb the impact, see the engineers quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet. A broken helmet has simply failed, and the widespread anecdotes on the theme of “a helmet saved my life” seem to owe more to wishful thinking than to science. As for “a car ran over my head”, see the pro-helmet site http://www.helmets.org/smush.htm; if a car goes over your head, I’m sorry to say you won’t be sitting up and praising your helmet. The only known connection is that helmets have strangled a few young children who were wearing helmets while playing off their bicycles.

I no longer wear a helmet and haven’t pressed them on my children. I do check that their brakes work, their saddles are the right height, their lights are bright at night, and that they have a good idea of the rules of the road.

At my moderately advanced age it’s far too dangerous not to cycle – regular cycling, Danish style, not too far, not too fast, nearly halves the death rate, see http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/160/11/1621 All-Cause Mortality Associated With Physical Activity During Leisure Time, Work, Sports, and Cycling to Work. Andersen et al, Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:1621-1628. Bicycling is good for health, but helmets don’t seem to be.

—

Dr. Keatinge makes an interesting case, and supports his claims with scientific evidence. I’ve seen arguments like this in the past. Even the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute agrees that there are conflicting results to scientific studies on bicycle helmet effectiveness.

The “smush” test Dr. Keatinge links to is hyperbole; no one claims that a helmet will keep your head from being crushed if a car rolls over it. What a helmet is supposed to do, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is “reduce force to the rider’s head when the helmet hits a hard surface.”

The CPSC standard is the one in use in the United States. Testers put a helmet on a headform and drop it a distance of two meters onto an anvil. That’s about the distance a bike rider would fall from a seated position on a bike, and a speed of about 14 miles per hour. A helmet must register less than 300 g’s to pass.

Let’s say you’re traveling at more than 14 mph, as blogger GT in LA was last week. He touched the wheel of the bike ahead of him, and went down hard. His bike slowed instantly, and his head’s speed when he hit the ground was probably less than 20 mph, and maybe less than 14 mph.

Although GT was banged up pretty badly, he had no head injuries. Take a look at the damage his helmet sustained. GT’s experience is anecdotal evidence, and not part of a scientific study, so I’ll cite this one: the Thompson, Rivara, and Thompson article in the New England Journal of Medicine from 1989 that showed riders wearing helmets had an 85 percent reduction in risk of head injury, and an 88 percent reduction in risk of brain injury (Dr. Keatinge’s organization takes issue with these findings).

I’ve fallen three times in the last nine months. No serious injuries, but all three crashes were my fault. That’s a pretty good indicator that I’m likely to fall again. A helmet won’t save me from my own stupidity, carelessness, or inattention while riding, but it will improve the odds that my noggin won’t be damaged if I do go down.

Riding “not too far, not too fast” might be good for overall health, but we’re bike riders, and I for one am going to strap on my $35 CPSC-certified helmet and keep riding.

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Categories // Safety

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