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What’s In Your Water Bottle?

08.13.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 15 Comments

Electrolyte_drinksOne of our newer club members revived a time-honored thread that occurs each year during the hot summer months. She bonked badly about a month ago, and was wondering: What are you putting in your water bottle on hot summer rides?

She uses Nuun. Apparently, she’s happy with it, but was wondering what other alternatives there might be.

Some chatter within the club turned up a few ideas. One member said she just makes sure her water bottles are frozen the night before a ride, and carries as much as she can — which works out to two 24-oz. bottles.

Others go half and half — one bottle with water only, and the other a mixture of water and some kind of electrolyte replenisher, such as Nuun, or diluted Gatorade.

Myself, I freeze water bottles the night before a ride too, and use the half and half method. I also favor Nuun. But I’m only concerned about an electrolyte replenisher if I know the ride will run much longer than an hour. My usual 90-minute or less rides during the week are just fine with water only.

Our club president uses one bottle of plain water, and adds a scoop of Gatorade and a scoop of Endurolyte to the second. When that runs out, he’ll find a store that sells Mexican Coke — the kind sweetened with sugar, and not high fructose corn syrup.

Others carry some Endurolytes or E-tabs, or such in a plastic bag.

What I’m not seeing is heavy use of Cytomax or Hammer products.

What do you normally take on a ride to prevent the bonk?

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Categories // Heat Tags // bonk, electrolytes, sports drink, water

Herding Cats

08.11.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

Our club president was out of town this weekend, mixing business and pleasure (he brought his bike on a business trip so he could sneak in some rides in the San Francisco area).

That left a big hole in our club organization. You see, he’s the guy who plans the routes for our club rides on Sundays. He urged someone — anyone — to come up with a plan for rides while he was gone.

So, the messages started flying on our club’s Yahoo group, which is where we do all our communicating.

Shane:  “Pepe hates Fitzhugh and I hate riding in the city so it looks like we might end up doing some different rides. That’s all good too though, options make life interesting right? Leaving at the usual time for a 57mile round trip and probably somewhere in the region of 3800-4000 ft of elevation.”

That drew almost immediate reaction. Jim was concerned about a potentially dangerous stretch of road:

“The Slaughter to Nutty Brown stretch of 1826 suggested is 5 miles and probably the most dangerous section in most people’s opinion (no shoulder, steep rollers, and heavier traffic than Fitzhugh).”

Clark suggested we depart from our normal routine and drive to a starting point some 10 miles west of our neighborhood. He pointed out a variety of scenic, low-traffic roads we could choose from.

But the afore-mentioned Pepe didn’t want to drive to a ride. To his credit, he came up with two options, one of 49 miles, and a shorter one of 34 miles.

Jerry said he had to be somewhere about an hour’s drive from town by 1 p.m., so couldn’t do the 50 milers that had been suggested. He came up with a plan of his own — one that we’ve done before and is about 32 miles. It has some potentially hazardous stretches, and some challenging rollers.

Frank, Yasmin, and Maggie — who all are B riders (Frank’s really an A, but it hasn’t sunk in yet) — declared themselves in for Jerry’s route.

But Shane, who was first to come up with a route plan, was getting frustrated by all the different options:

“I have now used every damn course creator I know of so if this doesn’t work, just assume we are doing Fitzhugh Road with an added loop on the way back. No 1826, no 290 – so NO WHINING!!!! Only whining allowed is my whining as I suffer up the little hills on the ride on Sunday.”

And Janice decided to add her two cents’ worth:

“I feel left out of the clusterfreak of the Sunday ride ‘planning,’ so I too will propose a ride.  My ride will start sometime between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.  The location of the start will be announced 2 seconds before the start, and the route will be depicted on an encrypted map which will be distributed after the ride.  I can tell you that the ride will travel on the left lane of Interstate 35 for several miles (only because it is probably the only road more dangerous than 1826).   A preride breakfast of baked potatoes will be available Easter egg style – you will have to find the potatoes hidden around the ride start.  This is not the worst ride posted, so I would anticipate a big turnout.”

In the end, we had three groups for the Sunday ride. One did Shane’s long route, another group started out with them, but shortened the distance considerably, and I joined Maggie and Brian for a B ride on another route that had never even come up for discussion on the online group.

As it turned out, we had three excellent rides.

And Joe, the club president, who was watching all of this online from his California base, was so pleased with the way things turned out, he has relinquished ride planning and is leaving it all up to us.

 

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Categories // clubs Tags // clubs, Rides

A Biking Change of Pace

08.08.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 7 Comments

Last week, my road bike was out of commission while my cassette woes were being attended to. That left me without a ride on Sunday morning, which is my main ride of the week. What to do?

Aha! Hanging in the garage, seldom used, is a 10-year-old mountain bike. My wife gave it to me for a birthday present, and I never really took to it. At one point, I thought I might turn it into a utility bike and use it for running errands and such. It’s gotten vary limited use in that regard, although I have mounted a rear rack to it and put on skinnier slick tires to replace the knobbies.

The Trek 4900 hardtail.
The Trek 4900 hardtail.

I decided I’d give it a try. I hadn’t really ridden the thing on the roads for a couple of years. I pumped up the tires and hopped on.

Nothing adventurous — I just wanted to get some time in the saddle. I rode a mish-mash of neighborhood routes, and covered 14.5 miles in a little over an hour.

So how was it? Better than I remembered, actually. Oh, there are things I still don’t like about it: My hands hurt after a relatively short while because there isn’t the variety of hand positions that I have on my road bike. However, that also might be a fit issue. I never took advantage of the simple fitting the bike shop does, because back when I got the bike, I didn’t know anything about biking, and didn’t think being fitted to the bike was all that important.

I’m also not crazy about the front suspension. Obviously, if I used the bike as intended — off road — they would be most welcome. But riding on suburban streets, they’re completely unnecessary. I just can’t get used to the diving sensation that occurs when I make a stop.

On the plus side, it’s a good workout. I worked harder than I would, and at a slower speed,  than I would to ride the road bike the same distance. When it was over, I felt really good.

So, I think I might be taking it out again. I doubt I’ll ever get into mountain biking in a serious way, but as a change of pace, it’s worthwhile. Close by, we have some nice county parks with bike trails. Nothing technical, but the steed would be in a more appropriate environment when it rides there. I might have to break out the knobbies again.

I imagine many, if not most, Bike Noob readers have mountain bikes of their own. How much do you ride them compared to your road bikes? Do they serve as fill-in duty like mine, do you run errands in them, or do you bash round singletrack? Let me know.

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Categories // Bikes Tags // mountain bike

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