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Bum cream

03.22.2008 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

The question arises periodically, on Bike Forums, in my club’s Yahoo! group, and just in chats among fellow bikers: Do you use chamois cream?

This is goo you rub into the chamois of your riding shorts or tights. The chamois (SHAM-ee) is the pad that cushions your tender bits against the rub of the saddle. It used to be leather, but is now made of synthetic fabric, but still retains the old name. Some people like to smear a liberal dose of the cream directly on themselves, as well.

The big names are Assos cream and Chamois Butt’r. We’ve had a couple of jars of Assos cream, and like it. There are drawbacks to the Assos product, though. One is that it uses menthol. Once you come into contact with it, your bottom will tingle for awhile until your attention turns to the road. The other is price. It’s $17 a jar! You go through it pretty fast. I stopped buying it for that reason.

Chamois Butt’r comes in a sort of squeeze tube. It’s not mentholated. Price runs about $14-15. This is what we’re using now, but we’re still experimenting. So far, I’m happy with this product.

Performance Bike has its own name brand of chamois cream, as does its corporate cousin, Nashbar. The Performance cream goes for $8.99, Nashbar’s $7.99. Then there’s Body Glide, Queen Helene’s Cocoa butter, and even Vaseline.

creams.jpg

We’ve got some of the Performance stuff, which seems a bit thinner than the Chamois Butt’r. Seems to work fine, though. Haven’t tried the rest yet.

Is chamois cream really necessary? I used to diligently apply it before every ride — even short 6-8 mile jaunts in the morning before work. I’ve come to believe it’s not needed on those short rides. Now, I won’t use it unless I know I’ll be out for more than an hour. I’m aware of plenty of riders who don’t use it at all.

Some sensible advice I’ve seen recently is to pay attention to the fit of your saddle, the fit of your shorts, the quality of your chamois — and maybe on long rides to hit the restroom of a convenience store along the way and wash yourself off. Then, you might not need to mess with creams at all.

Thoughts, anyone?

 

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Categories // Accessories

Riding or training?

03.20.2008 by Ray Niekamp // 10 Comments

I suppose we all want to get better as cyclists. What “better” amounts to will be different for each of us. We could get faster, of course, or improve our endurance. We could become more skilled at biking maneuvers such as drafting, riding in a paceline, riding in traffic, etc.

I’d like to get better at all of these things. It doesn’t have to happen right away, but over time, I’d like to see some improvement. And I know how to improve: set a goal, figure out what steps to take to reach that goal, and take those steps.

Problem is, I haven’t committed to improvement. I ride. If my speed averages a little more than my last ride, that’s enough improvement for me. If I ride a little farther than I have been lately, that’s improvement, too.

I’ve got several books with sample training schedules, where the distance and effort are ramped up over a period of several weeks. I know that if I were to pick one of those schedules, or develop my own along those lines, I’d show improvement. But I haven’t.

Biking is still a recreational pastime for me. I really enjoy hopping on the bike and heading out for a bracing hour-long ride. I’m still new enough at it that regularly riding will get me headed in the athletic and fitness direction I want to go.

So I’m going to hold off on a scheduled training regimen for now. As the weather becomes milder and the days become longer, I’ll be able to ride more often. Maybe then I’ll be at the point where I’m setting biking goals, and start to train seriously to attain those goals.

When looking over my riding stats for yesterday’s post, I noticed that I am getting better. My average speed has gone up. My average ride is a little bit longer. That’s all I need. For now.

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Categories // training

Logging mileage

03.19.2008 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

How far did I go today?  After several longish rides last summer (longish meaning about six miles or so), the question became more important for me to answer.  Not for any pressing need, but just to satisfy my own curiosity.

In the course of mining the web for anything bike related, I came across Bike Journal.  It’s a place to log your rides online.  You can enter the ride date, distance, ride time, average speed, ride type (flat, hills, etc.), and bike.  Those are the six default columns for data.  If you buy a premium membership for $20 a year, you get many more columns, and the ability to customize the look of your journal.  You can also take a look at others’ journals and see what their riding is like.

Bike Journal has built up quite a biking community in the years it’s been in operation.  It was just this month that the owner of Bike Journal cut back the number of data columns you get for free, and pushed harder for premium memberships.

I had been logging my rides on an Excel spreadsheet as well, and customized it to match what my Bike Journal data looked like.   I added columns for maximum speed, my weight(!), and a  description of the ride.  I keep monthly totals and year to date totals.

So, how am I doing?  Well, that’s why I keep these stats — I’m trying to find out.  My average monthly mileage is somewhere between 100-125.  In the five months of 2007 for which I kept records, my total mileage was 567.2.  Average speed: 13.9.  It’s a baseline to build from.

If I keep to my current average, I’ll rack up about 1200 miles this year.  Not much, compared to an older friend of mine, who did 2200 miles last year.

However, I don’t feel compelled to pile on the miles to match his number.  I’ll try to build throughout the spring and summer, but mainly to get ready for organized rides.  And to try to get a handle on my weight, which is around 214 these days.  I’d love to get it below 200.

I can see a time when logging my rides will seem like a silly thing to do, but that’s probably a couple of years away.  In the meantime, I just realized by reviewing my stats that I’m behind my normal monthly pace.  I have to get out and ride some more.

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Categories // Records & stats

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