Tri 101: Basic Bike Skills

In an effort to spend more time writing and less time scrolling through social media. I am going to try to post a Tri 101 blog post every week for the month of January, and then hopefully monthly for the rest of the year.

Admittedly, I am not the greatest cyclist around.  I rode my bike as kid to and from the pool and friends’ houses in my neighborhood, but that was all on a Walmart mountain bike in a climbing gear a lot, because I was a kid, so I didn’t know what I was doing.  It was good for me.  I think it is good for kids to go out and be active like that.  It also meant I at least knew how to ride a bike.  I did struggle a little when first getting back on a bike at nineteen, especially with the seat height required, when I previously had my seat too low. 

Before working on any skills on your bike make sure you have a good bike fit.  Some shops offer fit services, but you can also pay for a professional fit. In Nashville, I know of two people who offer bike fitting, and if you have more than one bike you can sometimes get a discount on getting multiple done at the same time. Also, maintain a good relationship with your local bike shop, because they can be  a lot of help in the future.

Basic Cycling and Pedal Stroke:  A good bike fit will have you set up so you can keep your foot flat throughout the pedal stroke and you can apply even pressure across your whole foot during the pedal stroke.  I suggest starting out practicing like a kid, which means starting in your neighborhood or somewhere with little traffic so you can make sure you are comfortable with your bike. When I first started riding at nineteen, I felt like it was a whole new thing and not just like riding a bike.  I also recommend getting comfortable with stopping. When I first started riding, I would stop while still on my saddle, which meant I was leaning to one side, and my foot was barely on the ground. You should aim to learn to stand and get off the saddle when stopping, so you will be more stable when stopped and less likely to fall or struggle getting started again like I have. As you get more comfortable, parking lots and neighborhoods are also great places to get more comfortable with more advanced skills I still do not have.

Turning:  There are two turns you will encounter the most, and then the one I hate because it can be a surprise.  A 90 degree turn, a 180 degree turn, or a hairpin turn.  The 90 is the easier of the two.  Before considering trying to take speed through your turn, focus on learning to slow down, and keep your outside foot at the bottom of your stroke as you coast through the turn, keeping your weight on the outside of the bike.  Having the weight on your outside foot helps with keeping balance, and having your inside foot up keeps it from scraping the ground. I have only encountered one hairpin turn, and I have done it many times. The first time I almost crashed, because it was my first time on the Ironman 70.3 Augusta race course, but the next times I rode it I was much more comfortable with it, although I am cautious and probably frustrated people behind me. The 180 is one I have encountered a few times, like 2013 USAT Collegiate Nationals, where there were two on the course.  I practically came to a stop going around the cone on one because it was a single lane on the road with bikes going both ways.  I can now more confidently do one, and I have had to in a time trial. Practice these so on race day if there is one it is no problem. 

Shifting:  I spent a lot of time in my granny gear (easiest on the whole bike) when I first started riding, and it took me a while to get comfortable in my big ring on my bike rides.  Getting to know your big ring (front biggest gear) is one of the most important things, because once your comfortable in it on flats, you will get stronger on hills too.

Basics:
Left is front gears (usually 2, sometimes I’ve seen 3 on some Canondales) Right is rear
Flats:  Big gear in the front, smaller gear in the back.  You know your back gear is too big if you are hearing your chain, and this can break it.
Hills:  Small in the front, big in the back.  You know your back gear is too small if you are hearing your chain.
Some rollers can be handled in your big gear, but you need to anticipate if you are going to be in your small front gear for it.

I know I am in the wrong gear when I am feeling like my heart rate is crazy high and my legs and moving really fast.  I shift into a harder gear when this happens.  I rarely have the problem of being in too difficult of a gear, but some people do, and it will make their knees hurt or their quads are becoming sore.  Shift in the back first then the front.

For hills the best approach is to try to keep your cadence up by shifting into an easier gear.  This way, when you reach the top of the hill, you can shift into a harder gear more quickly and won’t be stuck coasting from tired legs at the top.  Now, if you are trying to build power for hills, that is when it is ok to overgear some, which I am doing a lot lately.  The trainer is also good for building power. 

Drinking Water/Electrolytes:  First, you need to do this.  Second, unless you have an aero bottle and are on a tri bike, you have to take a hand off the bike.  I learned this out of necessity, and before that I literally had to stop to drink water.  You are also going to need this skill for longer races/rides when you are going to need some nutrition on the bike.  I still have to slow way down to do it, if that tells you how difficult it was for me to learn, but by slowing down I know I can keep my balance.  I highly recommend practicing taking bottles from different cages on your bike if you have more than one. Generally, on my road bike I keep my primary drink on the cage on my down tube, and a secondary on the seat tube, but on my trip bike I usually have an aero bottle and rear cages as well, so I had to learn to refill bottles too. It is always best to do this before race day.

If you are just starting out, take some time and learn these things, and it will hopefully pay off by helping you improve at a much faster rate than I did where I was just figuring things out in my own time.

Tools Every Cyclist Should Own

I was at work the other day at the bike shop and a customer was asking about what tools he needed to be able to do some minor repairs at home, and specifically if we had Park Tool, because he used Park Tool tools in the past working on other things, because of their quality. I will be one to admit, when I first got a multi-tool to keep in my seat bag, I didn’t know what half the tools were. I also did not know until many years later I had a chain tool included in that.

The tools you need can be split into two basic categories. The first being tools you would need when out on the road. The second is tools you may need to do some repairs at home. An important thing to keep in mind when picking out tools is that bicycle bolts are all measured metrically, so you run the risk of stripping bolts if you attempt to use non-metric tools. I am going to start with the on-the-go tools and move into the home mechanic tools from there.

Tire Levers
This may seem a little obvious, but I had someone in recently who had always been able to pull their tires off with their hands, which is something a lot of us can do depending on the tire. When he got a new tire though and then had a flat tube, he couldn’t get the tire off. When it comes to tire levers I recommend having two, but only using one if you have to. I keep two with each of my flat kits, but try to just use one unless the tire is particularly tight. I also am biased to some narrow tire levers Trek used to make, but they don’t have them anymore, so I will recommend the narrow Park Tool levers or Pedro’s levers in their place.

Multi-Tool
There are a lot of options for multi-tools out there, and the vast majority of people only need a simple one. A multi-tool with just a set of hex wrenches including a 4, 5, and 6 mm should cover just about any bolt. If you are running the newer higher end derailleurs, then I also recommend a 2 mm, which will work for B-tension, limits, and front derailleur angles. This would also be where it would be useful to have a Phillips head screwdriver, but if you are not experienced with limit screws, I do not recommend messing with them for the first time out on the road. For mountain biking some people may also carry a multi-tool with a chain tool. This will allow them to remove a broken link and install a missing link if their chain breaks out on the trails.

For some bikes I do recommend some different styles of multi-tools. Depending on where some seat post bolts are on certain bikes (looking at Giant and Liv bikes I work on), certain wrenches will work better to keep from stripping the bolt. I have a mini ratchet tool I got from Giant that is perfect for this, because it does not get in the way, has all the wrenches I could need, and fits in a small carrier. I highly recommend it to anyone with a bike with this issue instead of pulling out the torque wrench every time (as long as you have gotten really good at hand tightening and won’t over or under torque the bolt). The picture at the beginning of this post is the Giant tool I am talking about. We originally received some from Liv and doubted they would be useful, until we began using them on our rental bikes every time we send them out.

Allen Key Set
Moving away from roadside repairs, I recommend having a second set or sets of hex wrenches at home. I keep a set of L-shaped wrenches and a 3-way wrench at home for convenience and ease of use. While the multi-tool may have the wrenches you need, some of the bolts on bikes are more difficult to get to, making a rounded end of the wrench useful, and a 3-way wrench has the most common sizes, and is one of the most comfortable wrenches to use.

A Pedal Wrench
An important note on this one is to know what kind of pedals you have and what kind of wrench you need. Most basic pedals and a lot of the Shimano lipless pedals use a 15 mm open wrench to remove. Other pedals, including all Look pedals, require an 8 mm hex wrench to remove. There are also some oddball pedals like some Bontrager flat pedals that require a 6 mm hex wrench. Owning a pedal wrench (and knowing the left pedal is reverse threaded) will allow you to avoid the trip to the bike shop every time you need to swap pedals or if you are traveling and taking your bike or taking your pedals to rent a bike. If you use Speedplay pedals, they are some of the most difficult to remove and I recommend getting the Park Tool PW-4 Professional Mechanic Pedal Wrench, because you can find better leverage using it, but most other pedals that require an open wrench are easily removed with the PW-5 shown above.

A Mechanic Stand
If you intend to do a significant amount of work on your bike yourself, first I recommend still taking it by the bike shop for major issues if you are unsure of fixing them, but second I do recommend a good quality stand. This will allow you to have the bike in a fixed position, so you can make necessary adjustments and see the results.

The Phil Cookie: Ask a Pro Book and Cookie Review

I mentioned previously I read Phil Gaimon’s book Pro Cycling on $10 a Day: From Fat Kid to Euro Pro, so when I needed something to read when relaxing without classes for a month, I looked for another light read. I did not plan on finishing the book in a day, but I did, so I needed a new activity. Then I saw the cookie recipe in the back of the book.

This book is a compilation of Phil Gaimon’s Ask a Pro columns from Velonews with the occasional additional witty comment you would expect at this point if you are familiar with his work. I enjoyed Pro Cycling on $10 a Day, so I knew I would probably enjoy Ask a Pro, and I was not disappointed. It is rare I laugh out loud at a book, and this was one of them.

The book is split into multiple parts, based on Phil’s journey as a pro, and you can see how some of the answers seem to change throughout the book. Another thing is that some questions may get answered twice, because the answer changed, the same way cycling has changed over the years, just like how now aero bikes are for a lot more than time trials. His answers are honest, sometimes sarcastic, and on occasion point out how ridiculous some of the questions people constantly ask him tend to be when looked at from his perspective.

At the end of the book, he includes the recipe for the Phil Cookie, which includes, peanut butter, peanuts, chocolate chips, pretzels, and homemade peanut brittle. Just reading the ingredients I knew I needed to make this cookie. I also really like cookies and am always hungry right now from beginning to get my training on track for some possible 2020 racing.

I went to the grocery store, bought all of the ingredients, made a huge mess of my kitchen, and learned a few things about baking cookies. Number one was that a stand mixer is a great addition to any kitchen. I went ahead and used mine for all of my mixing for this recipe and highly recommend it. Number two is that this recipe makes twelve big cookies, meaning I had to run three batches in my single oven. If you have two ovens it will be a lot faster. Number four, peanut brittle is actually super easy to make.

After all of my struggles with spilling flour all over the kitchen when trying to sift and then pour my dry ingredients into my mixer I managed to burn my fingers a few times on the oven when adding toppings to the cookies, but the final product was worth it. The cookies are chewy in the middle, and crisp on the outside, with a texture kind of like a peanut butter cookie. They are also extremely rich, and I could only eat half of one, so I am also sending some to Ohio to my family with my dad this weekend, and I am thinking about bringing some to a group ride one night to share.

Trek's New Helmet Technology: Part I

As many people anxiously awaited Trek’s announcement of how they were going to change cycling on March 19, I found out on the 16 from my B2B site at work. Can I say I was just a little disappointed it wasn’t a graphene Domane? Absolutely. Can I say I am disappointed in the announcement as a whole? No.

Trek has a major point that the biggest recent change in helmets has been MIPS, which is a slip liner designed to absorb energy from an angular impact, since the material of the helmet only absorbs energy from a direct impact. Their goal with the development of the new WaveCel technology is to have one material that is going to do both. It protects from both angular and direct impacts without the need of MIPS.

Now, before I become a Trek ad, I will point out that obviously not everyone has the money for a WaveCel helmet, and I am not going into the technology, because you can read that from Trek. The XXX and Blaze, their road and mountain bike helmets, are priced at $300, while the Specter and Charge, their all around and commuter helmets, are priced at $150. I get plenty of customers who prefer to spend $40, no matter what I pitch about the benefits of a higher priced helmet, and I understand not everyone wants to spend $100+, so what I hope to see in the future is Trek allowing this technology to trickle down into their other helmets so everyone can benefit from the added safety.

It is no longer just weight and MIPS making the difference. Instead we can honestly say that yes, based on studies this helmet is safer. Trek has definitely put money into making sure people are safe on the road. Their lineup of daytime running lights and focus on placing attention grabbing colors where people are most likely to see them on your body pairs nicely with the launch of this new helmet.

Do I think this was a little overhyped? Maybe. I think that is more just me wishing for a graphene Domane right now. I am going to be purchasing one of the helmets. Specifically, I will be purchasing the Specter.

Why the Specter and not XXX? For one, I would love to get the limited edition XXX, and I can afford it with my employee discount, but I have a really nice Bell helmet with MIPS that I love, and I don’t know if I will love the fit of a Bontrager helmet. I also would like to match my cyclocross bike in the fall and the bright pink will look amazing with it. Finally, it is cheaper, and I would like to give honest feedback of a middle of the road product, because based on my newest cycling shoes, people can tell I am a gear snob.

in addition to my purchase, I am going to be giving an honest full review of the Specter, comparing it to my Bell Z20 and Giro Cinder to give a better idea of fit with a blog post and video to go along with it.

Top 5 Cycling & Training Books I've Read

I like reading books, but mainly when they have to do with cycling or triathlon. Lately, I have been picking up a book at night to read instead of watching something on TV or playing on my phone, because it is supposed to help you fall asleep. Sometimes I like to read inspirational stories, other times I like to just read about someone’s journey, and other times I like to read about training.

1. The Triathlete’s Training Bible - Joe Friel
   This one has a lot of science in it, and I enjoy it for that reason. I am always trying to learn more about how and when I should train and recover. I recommend this especially if you are training for something and coaching yourself, because it can provide a wealth of information. There is also a version specifically designed for cyclists, and I recommend that one as well.

2. How Bad do you want it? - Matt Fitzgerald
   I bought this book before Ironman Louisville in 2016 in order to help myself mentally prepare by reading stories from top athletes. The one that stuck with me the most in this book was Siri Lindley’s chapter, and I took that with me into my race. I highly recommend it, because it offers something for people like me who have trouble with the mental side of training.

3. Pro Cycling on $10 a Day - Phil Gaimon
   If you are looking for something funny, enticing, and all around entertaining, this is my top recommendation. I started it and read probably 75% of it in one day. It starts with when Phil first started cycling and chronicles his journey in the world of pro cycling and the struggles that came with it, while not focusing too much on how he was not making enough money and living on people’s couches at times.

4. Surfacing - Siri Lindley
   Like I mentioned before, I was really interested by Siri Lindley’s story in one of the other books, so I went out and bought her book when it came out, and I was not disappointed. I read the entire book in one flight from Nashville to San Diego shortly after Ironman Louisville in 2016. I found her journey from beginner to world champion triathlete to be very intriguing, especially seeing the way she trained progress throughout the book.

5. Bike Snob Abroad - BikeSnobNYC
   This is one of my current coffee table books, and a little different from the others, because it is looking at cycling from a different lens than that of a pro cyclist or triathlete, and more from the perspective of an ordinary cyclist exploring how the norms in one country differ from the norms of another when it comes to cycling. I like it, because it is one of those books where I can read a short section, and then step away and come back much later and still enjoy it without feeling like I missed something.

Training in Nashville

I work in a bike shop and we get questions all the time about where people should go to train, so I thought I would create a post with just that. Here is your guide to training in Nashville.

Centennial Sportsplex

Swim

Pool Swimming. Do you like a cold pool or a warm pool?
If the answer is cold, my recommendation is the Centennial Sportsplex on West End. This is also a good option if you are staying downtown. It is a Olympic size pool, set up short course most of the year, except during the summer. They have anywhere between two and seven lap lanes available and the pool is open 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. If you prefer a structured workout, I work for Nashville Aquatic Club as a masters coach and highly recommend you look into joining us for a workout.
If the answer is warm, the local YMCA’s are a great option, if they have enough lanes. They have between three and six lap lanes, depending on the Y. I recommend Maryland Farms in Brentwood at 6:30 p.m., because it is normally quiet then, and it is open until 9:45 p.m. if you are a night owl.
An option in the middle would be also in Brentwood, the Indoor Sports Complex, which is an Olympic size pool with four to eight lap lanes available and is not too warm or too cold.

Open Water. I recommend going with the Nashville Aquatic Club group out to Percy Priest Lake. You can go to the public areas on your own, but some have heavy boat traffic, which is why I recommend a group in a cove.

Natchez Trace Bridge

Bike

If you are downtown, your closest option will be Shelby Bottoms Greenway, from there you can get on roads and follow the Music City Bikeway, which goes all the way to Belle Meade or follow the Music City Bikeway the other way on Shelby Bottoms to the Stones River Greenway, ending at the Percy Priest Dam.

If you are on the west side of town, I recommend either finding the greenways in Percy Warner and Edwin Warner Parks or coming out to where I like to ride on routes near the Natchez Trace. I can provide Strava links to routes or map some, but my favorite is to ride out the Natachez Trace from Highway 100, headed south. You get off at the Lieper’s Fork exit and stop by either Red Bird Coffee or Puckett’s Grocery for a minute and then take back roads back through Franklin. There are a few options for the route back, and I can provide the exact route if someone is interested. It has a lot of rolling hills, but only one significant climb up the trace entrance.

Belle Meade Boulevard

Run

If you want to get out of the city, any of the greenways I recommend for biking are also good for running. Aside from that, I also recommend Belle Meade Boulevard as a good option for running. It connects to an entrance to Percy Warner Park, and is about five miles total if you go out and back. It is a rolling route, and very shaded in the early morning hours, but it will get extremely hot in the afternoons.

There is also a path in Brentwood starting by the Brentwood Library on Concord Road that is very flat if you prefer a flat route, and another path I like in Franklin. This one starts at the soccer fields at the Franklin Recreation Center and goes along the river, through a neighborhood and into downtown Franklin where you can continue onto a new extension I have not run or on to the sidewalks in Franklin.

Those are all of my best suggestions for where to train. I have lived in Nashville since 1996 and once in a while am still finding new places to go run or ride, so I will definitely try to share those with pictures as I stumble upon them.