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Archives for February 2013

Quality Time on the Bike

02.19.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

Guest poster Don Blount has been working on improving his biking.

BlountOnBiking Time on the bike.

Ask any serious cyclist how to improve and that will likely be the essence of the answer you will receive.

It makes sense, as to improve at anything you have to spend time doing it.

However, I would qualify that statement by saying that to improve as a cyclist you have to spend quality time on the bike.

I worked hard at that last year in my attempt to become a better overall rider and to become a better climber

Now I doubt I will ever be a climber others will look up to, neither my body type nor skill set is made for climbing. (That is a topic for another post.) However, given those limiters, I want to become as proficient as possible.

Although it is early in the year and I only have a bit over 500 miles through mid-February, I am in better shape now than I have been at this point during the past five years I have been riding.

I would attribute that to riding more purposefully both this year and last.

I am not regimentally structured but I make sure to work in a variety of rides – fartlek (random change of pace), intervals, long rides, tempo rides, hills and recovery rides. I even scheduled a late February metric century, something that I would have never considered in the past. But I realize that organized rides are good landmarks and motivators for me as I am less likely to lag through my training when I have a ride scheduled.

In retrospect, I do not think I was solely riding junk miles but I was not working in a manner to help myself improve. And when I saw that if I hurt more during my solo rides that I would hurt less on group rides or in the hills, then follow through became easy.

Does this mean that a rider should go out and beat him or herself up at every opportunity? Of course not. It means look at your goals and then set up your training so that you can reach them. Whether you want to be able to ride 30-flat miles (48 kilometers) in two hours or do100 miles (160 kilometers) with lots of climbing.

As you get stronger, you will enjoy hearing  someone say to you: “Wow, you are sure riding strong today.”

 

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Categories // guest post, training Tags // Blount, guest post, training

A Bike Noob Milestone

02.17.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 18 Comments

No, I didn’t set a King of the Mountain on Strava. Nor did I do a personal best for mileage in one day. What I did do was survive.

Today is the Fifth Anniversary of the Bike Noob blog.

When  I started the blog, I never thought it would last this long. Instead, I figured I’d lose interest and fold the whole thing within the first year. But, like a bad penny, I keep turning up.

It’s been a labor of love. I look forward every week to Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday evenings, which is when I write the entries. Sometimes, I sit down at the keyboard with nothing to say. I force myself to crank something out, and often, that post generates more page views and comments than others that I thought had more substance. That’s something I haven’t done well here — really understand my audience.

But I know we all share an interest in riding our bikes, so I hope we can keep up this back-and-forth for another full year. Thanks to you all.

And thanks to my guest bloggers, Jeff Hemmel and Don Blount. Each brings a distinctive point of view to their contributions, and Bike Noob is made richer for their work.

To celebrate this anniversary, I’ve decided to perk things up a bit, so I’ve added a new look to this blog. Hope you like it. I’m not a flashy guy, and it’s not a flashy look, but it’s clean and minimalist, and that fits my personality.

And now, after a 38-mile ride in some tough wind, and an emotionally draining season finale to “Downton Abbey,” it’s time to get to bed, so I can do some more riding and writing later this week.

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Categories // Blogging Tags // blog

Bikes On Stamps

02.14.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

Last weekend, I was poking around in some closets to find a missing something or other, when I came upon my stamp collection. It’s something I’ve been keeping on and off since my school boy days, but I haven’t looked at it for more than 10 years. Seeing those stamps in the album, and all the stamps lying loose in envelopes, re-triggered my interest. I’ve been slowly organizing my loose ones with an eye to getting them into the album again.

Doing that reminded me that stamp collecting is not necessarily just putting as many stamps as possible from as many countries as possible into the album. Many collectors — maybe most collectors — specialize in one way or another. Topical stamps are a popular target for collectors. Topicals, as their name implies, are stamps with pictures of a common topic, such as animals, or lighthouses…or bicycles.

It turns out a lot of stamp aficionados collect bicycles on stamps. It also turns out that a lot of countries have issued stamps featuring bikes. A few cursory visits to some well-known stamp sites turned up an interesting array of bike stamps.

Kids' bike, touring bike, racing bike, BMX.
Kids’ bike, touring bike, racing bike, BMX.

The United States issued a set of bike stamps just last year. According to the U.S. Postal Service’s blurb that accompanied release of the set,  “increasing numbers of Americans ride bikes to work or use them to run neighborhood errands. Many travel organizations offer cycling tours, from leisurely half-day jaunts to weeks-long excursions. No matter how long the ride, choosing to bike rather than to drive cuts down on traffic congestion, fuel consumption and vehicle emissions, which benefits the environment and helps improve air quality.”

The British 1978 cycling set.
The British 1978 cycling set.

The U.K. has issued its own biking sets. This one from 1978 covers much the same ground as the U.S. issue, with stamps saluting old-style bikes like the penny farthing and 1884 safety bicycle, touring bikes, modern small-wheel bikes, and racing bikes.

China too, promoted cycling on a stamp issued last year. They give a nod to both racing and everyday utility cycling.

2011-19

And even countries not normally associated with cycling have issued their own cycling-themed stamps. This 1982 version from Mongolia is part of a set of stamps.

6662395-mongolia--circa-1982-postage-stamp-shows-vintage-bicycle-circa-1982

But it’s to be expected that countries with rich cycling histories would feature their favorite two-wheeled pastime on stamps. Here’s a set from Belgium with surcharges.

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Bike-crazy Italy has issued stamps that honor top road racing cyclists. This Fausto Coppi stamp is from 1999.

coppi stamp

For a deeper look at bikes on stamps, Dan Gindling’s “Bicycle stamps: Bikes and Cycling on the World’s Postage Stamps,” was published in 1997, and is available on Amazon.

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But for me, my favorite bike stamp is one I already have in my collection. It’s a Special Delivery stamp from 1902, that was re-issued through World War I — a blue stamp with a bike messenger.

images

My Northern friends still have some time to go before the weather moderates enough for regular riding. Why not stay in touch with our sport in the meantime, by collecting bicycling stamps.

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Categories // Odds 'n ends Tags // stamps

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