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Archives for August 2012

Discontinued Products

08.09.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

I wanted to replace my worn out Vredestein Fortezza SE tire with another exactly like it. It had exhibited excellent ride and wear characteristics during the time I owned it, but eventually it wore out — after well over 3,000 miles — and it was time to retire it.

I had bought it at a Performance store in town, so I headed over there again. But in the aisle with the tires, no Fortezza SE to be found. Performance doesn’t stock them anymore. They’ve got a higher-end Vredestein tire, the TriComp Road, at twice the price of the Fortezza SE. Okay, certainly I could find one somewhere else.

I hit the Vredestein Tire website, and navigated my way past lots of contemporary music and nifty videos to their tire listing. Sure enough, there was the TriComp — but no Fortezza SE. The TriComp looks to be a great tire, with an advertised excellent grip in both wet and dry weather, and very good puncture resistance. But I wondered what had happened to my Fortezza SE.

I gave up, and put a Continental Gatorskin on the back of my bike. I still have a Fortezza SE on the front, and it should be good for another thousand miles or two.

But have you ever noticed that whenever you find a great product, it gets dropped from the company’s product line? Runners know this. When I used to run, I found a great pair of shoes that cushioned my feet and provided excellent support at the same time. I ran in them until the black outer sole wore through. When I went to get a replacement, the line had been discontinued.

The replacement product is always touted as being an improvement, and it just might be.  But very often, it doesn’t work exactly like the item it replaced. Some runners used to buy two or more pair of a favorite shoe, knowing the model would be discontinued, and wanting to make sure they would still be able to enjoy it well into the future.

Or golf clubs. My wife started building up a collection of Ping hybrid clubs several years ago, when we were still regular players. She had two, but when she looked for two others of different lofts to round out her set, she found out that Ping had dropped the G5 line, and added a G10 or something. I was able to find the two additional G5s she needed, but I had to go on EBay to do it, and battle through a couple of different auctions, losing twice, before I was able to land the coveted clubs. What I thought was funny about that was that the G5 had replaced the G3 line just a few years before.

(“What’s the difference between the G5 and the G3?”  “Two.”)

Obviously, some of that goes on in the biking industry too. Bikes, of course, are always changing. My bike is a 2008 Specialized Allez Elite Compact, which means it came with upgraded drive train components — Tiagra front and 105 rear — over the base Allez. The current Allez is offered in six different versions, including an Elite Compact. But the current Elite Compact is different from mine. It has a 10-speed cassette instead of my nine — improvement. Both front and rear are Tiagra — slight downgrade. It also has alloy chainstays and seatpost — mine are carbon fiber. The wheels are probably better than mine. All in all, my four-year-old Allez is a good match for what’s rolling off the Specialized line now.

I know one constant in life is change. But it’s still frustrating when change makes you rethink your cycling situation and moves you in a (slightly) different direction.

Have you ever been flummoxed by the discontinuation of a cycling product you really, really liked?

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Categories // Equipment Tags // Allez, Equipment

A Drinking Problem

08.07.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 5 Comments

As a sort of follow-up to the last post about problems eating during a ride, guest poster Don Blount addresses his trouble with drink.

I am not afraid to admit that I have a drinking problem.

I have had the problem of drinking too little when I’m riding my bike. (rimshot!)

That may not seem like a significant problem to those who do not ride or who drink more than enough. But it is a huge issue for someone such as me who has suffered from hellacious, make that H-E-L-L-A-C-I-O-U-S leg cramps.

I found that I would go through about 14 ounces of fluid, about 2/3 of a 20 ounce bottle, an hour instead of the recommended 20 ounces an hour.

Given this, why not just drink more?

Three reasons: 1) I was not thirsty 2) I was not sweating much 3) It seemed that the more I drank, the more frequently I had to go to the bathroom. This was inconvenient enough on solo rides and even moreso on coed group rides.

It was not as if I was not carrying enough fluids with me as I carry one 20-ounce bottle of water and another with an electrolyte such as Nuun or Endurolyte.

But after a last round of leg cramps a few months ago that led me to borrow some electrolyte pills from a fellow rider, I just decided enough was enough and I would tackle this problem head on.

I started by making sure I had some fluids in me before leaving for a ride.

While on the bike, like Pavlov’s dog, I would work at conditioning myself to grab for a bottle at a given signal. In this case I used the lap timer on my Garmin as my signal to take a sip. When the Garmin chirped at the one-mile mark, I would take a drink.

Of course this time could vary by as much as a minute or two depending on where and how fast I was riding. Early on it seemed terribly inconvenient but I forced myself to follow through.

A mile goes by – grab the bottle and sip. Another mile – when it seemed like I had just put the bottle away – grab it again and sip. Initially the miles seemed to come up far too quickly but slowly, and I do mean slowly, I found myself drinking regularly even without the Garmin reminder. An hour would pass and I would have one bottle down and had started working on another.

On really hot days I would go through 20 ounces before the hour mark. My new problem became calculating where I could refill my bottles on longer rides and choking down the inflated price of Gatorade or Powerade at convenience stores.

I have not had any cramping problems since I began this program. I have not even had to stop more often to do No. 1. Perhaps my body conditioned itself. More than likely it shows how much I really needed those additional fluids. Overall, at least for me, it illustrates the important role hydration plays in cycling.

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Categories // guest post Tags // Blount, hydration, sports drink

Ever Had Trouble Eating on a Ride?

08.05.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 11 Comments

I was looking forward to the club ride this morning. We were going to head out on Fitzhugh Road, which goes through rolling Texas Hill Country landscape southwest of Austin. The club has several different lengths for this out-and-back route, so the rider can tailor it to his or her own abilities.

Today, I planned to go beyond the usual B ride turnaround point, and go another seven miles to the A turnaround. That would give me a 46-mile round trip instead of 30. I was amused to see that a few of our group decided to start at 7:30, instead of our usual 8:15 a.m. start time, to beat the heat and add some additional distance for a 60-mile round trip.

I have a love-hate relationship with Fitzhugh. It’s a fairly scenic ride, and the rolling hills can be a challenge. But I’m often well behind the group even before we get to Fitzhugh, about nine miles west of our starting point. It’s common for me to ride Fitzhugh all by myself, with the  main group well ahead and out of sight.

Some riders stopped at a convenience store at the beginning of Fitzhugh, to top off their water bottles. While the day promised to be another hot one, it wasn’t terrible yet, and a light breeze cooled my sweaty skin. I passed up the store, and pedaled on alone.

But a few miles down the road, I could hear some chatter behind me. The half dozen riders who had stopped caught up to me and passed me. One of the problems I have when riding alone is a tendency to ride easy. I saw that I could push myself a little more, and stayed with the group for several miles.

At the turnaround, I arrived by myself again, but found the rest of the crowd still there, grabbing what little shade could be found. I drank deeply from my bottle, and fished some fig bars out of my back pocket. Fig bars are a common snack at breaks, and I like them better than the energy bars. I had three small bars with me, and figured I had time to eat them all to recharge myself for the ride back.

But as I chewed the first bar, I realized that I wasn’t going to eat all three. Heck, I was having trouble getting one down. I chewed and chewed. I didn’t want to munch on solid food. I would have preferred some kind of energy drink, but all I had with me today was plain old water.

Since I was the last one to the turnaround, I got the shortest rest period before we started back. I was still chewing the one fig bar as people put their helmets back on and took one last swig from their bottles. By now, the fig bar was a gooey blob in my mouth, and I couldn’t seem to get it to go down the pipe. Finally I did, and set out on the return leg several hundred yards behind the others.

At the convenience store at the head of Fitzhugh, I caught up to everyone again — just as they were leaving. I refilled my bottles and sat down in the shade to have another fig bar. Same thing. It was like chewing on taffy. I had trouble getting it to go down. I’m sure it held me up and kept me from leaving soon after the rest of the riders, but I had to choke the food down and wash it down before I felt ready to leave.

The day was hot, but not remarkably so in this hot summer. I was bushed from pushing myself up the rollers, and my right thigh was showing signs of potential cramping. So the conditions were testing me, but they weren’t anything I haven’t experienced before — just as recently as the day before.

Somehow, the combination of the heat, the sweat, and the fatigue all combine to prevent me from enjoying food during rides. As I write this, the third fig bar is sitting on the kitchen counter, still in its baggie. I’ll probably snack on it later tonight. Obviously, I’ll have to come up with something else to eat on long, hot rides. I’ve used energy gels in the past, and for the most part, don’t care for them. The candy-like gel blocks work okay, and Gatorade has just introduced their own version that is easier to chew than others. I might have to stock up on those.

It’s a shame, though, because I much prefer “real” food when riding to those scientifically mixed concoctions. But I’m open to suggestions. What kinds of foods do you like to eat during a longer summer ride, and have you ever experienced the same difficulty swallowing food as I do?

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Categories // food Tags // food

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