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Breathing In, Breathing Out

03.30.2015 by Ray Niekamp // 6 Comments

After battling bronchitis for three weeks, a tentative ride on the bike was very welcome. I didn’t go very far or very long — I just wanted to see if I was ready to come back. I think I am.

This picture is six years old, but I still look like this when I ride, with my mouth open.
This picture is six years old, but I still look like this when I ride, with my mouth open.

It didn’t take long into my ride before I became aware of something I don’t think about during my “normal” rides: breathing. My lungs have been so congested these past few weeks that I haven’t been able to take in a deep breath without bursting into a coughing fit. But this time, I could.

My throat was still a bit raw, however, so I started experimenting with my breathing technique. Normally, I breathe through my mouth, both inhaling and exhaling. But the air passing down my throat this time stung its sensitive lining, so I breathed through my nose. I can’t take in as much air that way, and going up even easy hills forced me to revert to my mouth breathing.

Then, I thought maybe I could breath in through my nose and exhale through my mouth. That seemed to work pretty well, until I realized that it was so unnatural to me, I had to concentrate on nearly every breath.

So, as I make my comeback to biking, what’s your take on breathing? Is there a right way for cyclists to do it? Or should I just baby my throat a bit until I can breathe in and out of my mouth as usual?

Does how you breathe matter?

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That Demoralizing Wind

05.06.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 10 Comments

windyI really enjoyed my ride to the air show several days ago, except for the stiff headwind I found myself fighting on the way back. I hate wind even worse than I hate hills. Actually, I don’t hate hills — I just don’t do very well with them. But the wind is another story.

Part of my problem with the wind is my size. People in my bike club, even riders much faster than me, love to draft me on group rides, because I do such a great job of shielding them from the wind. That, of course, is what causes me big problems when I’m on my own. I’m just this human sail who finds himself slowing rapidly when I’m riding into the wind.

The problem was worse on the weekend ride, because I had miscalculated and picked a route into the wind that was at least twice as long as it would have been had I just retraced the route I took on the way out. It seemed like it would never end. Other riding-related maladies popped up as well. My bum started to pain me, and I was wearing my favorite pair of shorts. I started feeling some soreness in my lower back. It wasn’t a lot of fun.

I probably did everything wrong going into the headwind. I stayed on the hoods, for starters. Everything I’ve read says you get into the drops into a headwind, to make yourself smaller and more aerodynamic. And I committed the real non-no — I shifted into an easier gear. What you’re supposed to do is shift into a harder gear to force you to pedal harder and maintain your speed.

I even let the wind get the best of me, and stopped at the side of the road for a few minutes, to eat some fig bars and drink mass quantities of water. But mainly to rest. I always feels rejuvenated when starting off after a break, but in the wind Saturday, that feeling lasted maybe a minute.

As I got nearer to the end of the ride, I encountered some rollers again. But by this time, the wind was at my back and I could pedal up them without losing much momentum. Hills are a challenge for me. Wind is a chore, an adversary, a powerful foe.

Well, there’s only one way to deal with it. I have to tackle it head on. We’re having a particularly windy spring this year, and I’ll be looking for a stiff headwind on my upcoming rides. Maybe by the end of the summer, I’ll have the same attitude toward the wind as I do toward hills: tough, but doable.

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The Warm Up

04.23.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

I went out Sunday morning with a group I’d never ridden with before. We left from Mellow Johnny’s bike shop in downtown Austin and headed south. Four of us showed up for the so-called “Mid-Century Ride,” named because you had to be at least 50 years old to take part. We four were all men, all more than 60 years old.

The ride leader took us on a circuitous route to get out of downtown. We wound our way through tight turns, almost stopping, almost putting feet down. Finally, after taking some sidewalks through a city park, we reached a north-south residential street, and could ride freely.

Except that I noticed something. Our free riding was still pretty slow riding. I understood that we had to ride slow getting out of downtown — it was just too congested with the turns and the pedestrians. But now, we were past that — and we were still averaging only a tad over 10 mph.

Oh well, I figured. These guys looked strong enough. Maybe they just didn’t want to put the hammer down. (Putting the hammer down is a relative term, when I’m involved. I often feel like I’m hammering, only to watch the other bikers disappear off into the distance.)

We got into some residential areas on the south end of the city, and I watched our average speed creep higher — all the way to 11, almost 12 mph. We were about nine miles from downtown and into a semi-suburban area when we started to pedal at a comfortable cruising speed.

Now, I’ve been criticized a time or two in my past for leading a group ride out too fast. I think it might be because of my typical solo rides during the week. I most often do a one-hour ride in my neighborhood, so I tend to stand on the pedals sooner rather than later.

We had some nice fast runs on the rest of the ride. Our average speed after 41 miles was over 14 mph. When coupled with our slow speed on the way out, it showed we were really moving later on.

“I always consider it an accomplishment when we average over 14 for a ride,” the ride leader said, once we were back at the shop.

It was a good ride. And maybe I was able to go fast and stay with them because we had taken our time warming up. I’ll have to pay closer attention to that in the future.

How about you? What’s your warmup routine? Do you pedal easy for quite a while, or do you pick up the pace soon after the start? And what’s a good warmup pace?

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