Chapter Forty-Five
Al's Bicycling Tips
This is another cyclists-only chapter, relating some things I’ve learned in my long career as a mediocre cyclist.
BikeForums.net: If you have any questions about biking, head over to Bikeforums.net and you’ll find the answer. If you ask for information about your bike, and post a picture of it, you’ll get answers like “That it is a Fibonacci Model 2298, built in Isolabella on March 17, 1993 by Sergio Fumagalli. There are 28 3/8” bearings in the bottom bracket, instead of the usual 26.”
Paraffin Chain Lube: On that forum and elsewhere you’ll see two opposing camps, oil lubers and paraffin lubers. I always used oil, as you can see from my chain tattoo in the “Al Gets a Tattoo” chapter. Oilers say the paraffin lubing is more work, but I wanted to see for myself. I followed instructions on the web, cleaned the old oil off a chain, let it dry out, then put it in a small slow cooker with paraffin wax from the hardware store. I found that the one lubing lasted over 1,000 miles, and I didn’t need the frequent cleaning and relubing that I’d done with oil. The chain always looked clean (that’s the most important thing, right?). No more chain tattoos on my legs. Even accounting for the initial setup, the paraffin lubing was much less work. Note that if you ride in the rain, you will have to reapply the wax more frequently.
So, the tip here is to keep an open mind about paraffin lubing.
Pump versus Carbon Dioxide Inflater: Cyclists with small pumps can be burdened with slow, tedious work when inflating a tire on the road, but can handle many flats on one ride. Owners of gas inflaters can inflate a tire in a second, but with too many flats they’ll be out of luck. I finally found the solution to this problem: carry both. I can fit a Genuine Innovations Ultraflate, and a Lezyne Tech pump in my small seat bag. The inflater is used for the first two flats, and the pump for any additional punctures. Another product I recommend is one called Quik Stik which replaces multiple tire irons.
How Much to Spend on a Bike: Many cyclists will tell you that you need to spend thousands of dollars on a bike. I got my current bike at a garage sale in 2010 for $65:
Admittedly, that was a lucky find, and I was fortunate to know about bikes and how to fix any defects I found. But with some luck and advice from BikeForums.net, you can probably save thousands by buying a used bike that was top of the line when it came out. That could help you retire early, and do more riding.
When my Specialized M2 Pro was made, in 1997, it cost over $2,000 (about $3,000 in 2014 dollars). A quality bike that is ten or more years old can still give you a great deal of pleasure. Many, like the one I bought, spend years unused in a garage.
Remember that one of your goals in cycling is to get exercise. Yes, it’s true that it’s fun to go faster or further for the same amount of effort, but unless you are racing, I recommend drawing the line at a lower price point.
Clipless Pedals Practice: When I started riding seriously, I used toe clips to keep my feet securely fastened to the pedals. Nowadays, real cyclists use shoes with a cleat on the sole that clips into a special pedal. Because toe clips are no longer necessary, these new pedals with clips are called “clipless” pedals. This is stupid, but to use a stupid expression, “it is what it is.” (The only good thing about that expression is that you can’t argue with it.)
Anyway, many cyclists, after they first switch to clipless pedals, will, at least once, fall down when coming to a stop. Their feet stay fastened to the pedals, and down they go.. This is referred to joining “Club Tombay” (from the French verb tomber, to fall). It could result in a bruised ego or a broken elbow. This happened to me twice, and then I found a way to make myself fall-proof.
Here it is: Ride to a deserted street, and start and stop over and over. The key, however, is to practice unclipping at every different possible position of the pedals. That is, unclip with your foot at the bottom, unclip with it at the 9 o’clock position, unclip when you are at the top, etc. Do all of this with your left and right feet. Not only will you cement the unclipping idea in your brain, but you will find that you can unclip quickly if you start to fall over.
Staying Warm: On my typical rides, it is freezing when I start out, and warm later on. I don’t want to carry any extra ounces of warm clothing on the latter part of the ride, so I make disposable arm warmers out of old socks. When your socks’ heels wear through, cut off the toes, and you have arm warmers for your forearms. Put them on at the start of the ride, and when it warms up, you can either dispose of them, stuff them in your jersey pocket, or hide them somewhere, and pick them up next time you’re driving through.
Aches and Pains: I used to get aches and pains from riding my bike (and also from playing the piano). These included sore neck, sore back, sore wrists, and sore shoulders. Now (at age 60), I don’t. It’s weird how much less pain I have now. This may be due to what I call the “morning sickness phenomenon,” or the pain may have been reduced by a program of regular stretching.
What is this morning sickness phenomenon I speak of? More than half of pregnant women experience “morning sickness”—nausea and vomiting that can actually happen at any time of the day. This goes beyond the nausea and vomiting caused by watching perky morning news shows on TV. There are dozens of home cures for morning sickness: go on a liquid diet, eat crackers, eat ginger, avoid sudden moves, go for a walk, eat grapefruit, scarf down cottage cheese, munch on cookies, speak in tongues, wear acupressure bands, and many more.
Not one of those cures has been shown to be effective, but talk to women who have been pregnant, and many will swear their remedy works miraculously. Here’s why: morning sickness usually ends around the 12th week of pregnancy, and when it stops, it stops on a dime. One day you have it, and the next you don’t.
Each woman with the condition is desperately and successively trying all the antidotes her friends have recommended. So, when the roulette wheel of queasiness stops, whatever cure she was trying that day is the miraculous winner. She’s right when she says “I ate anchovies and wood glue on a Saltine cracker, and my morning sickness went away like that (snaps fingers).” But she’s wrong in assuming that her sticks-to-the-ribs snack had anything to do with it.
What does this have to do with bike-riding pains? Well, repetitive stress pains can also come and go, and as with morning sickness, you may be fooled into thinking your supplement or routine was effective in eliminating the agony. In my case, it could be that my aches and pains just went away by themselves, around the same time I started regular stretching.
Humans very often improperly infer causation from correlation, and most scientific studies are interpreted improperly on the news. For example, studies showing a correlation between diet soda consumption and weight problems are usually reported as “Diet soda doesn't help you lose weight.” However, since those studies tell us nothing about causation, the headline could just as well read “People with weight problems tend to drink diet soda.” In other words, despite how things are reported in the media, we often can’t infer causation from correlation.
Here’s a funny story about correlation and causation. One morning my buddies and I were walking up the hill to our classes at Cornell. When we came to a set of steps, all three of us happened to bound up them quickly. Being teenagers, we thought this was absolutely hilarious, and decided that each time we came to some steps we’d rush up them. That is, we’d walk leisurely towards the stairs, but when we reached the bottom, each of us would make a mad dash up them at our absolute top speed.
Cornell’s student union is six stories tall, and extends down the hill, such that you enter at a low level, and climb many stairs to get to the main area. So, we got very good at our slapstick routine. The funny part came when a student dropped a packaged sandwich at the top of some steps just as we got to the bottom of them. The timing was perfect, giving the illusion that we really wanted his sandwich, and were rushing to snag it before he could retrieve it. He incorrectly assumed that it was the sandwich that caused us to rush towards it, and he quickly and nervously grabbed it so that we wouldn’t get it. The two events were correlated, but neither caused the other.
With that warning about causation in mind, here’s what has correlated with the dramatic decrease in my aches and pains: daily stretching.
When some friends convinced me to stretch more, I read up on it, and got some books out of the library. One of the books described exactly what exercises to do each day, how to do them, and how long to hold each stretch. However, when I multiplied the author’s prescribed stretches by the amount of time each was to be held, I realized that he was recommending six hours of stretching per day. I don’t think he ever did the math.
So here’s Al’s Rule of Stretching: It’s better to have a very short stretching routine, because otherwise, you’re not going to keep at it. My daily routine has 21 stretches in it (I’d tell you what they are, but then I’d probably go to jail for giving out medical advice). If I were to hold each of those stretches for the widely recommended 30 seconds, my routine would take over 10 minutes. I just timed myself, and I went through the routine in 2 minutes, 24 seconds. That’s about seven seconds per stretch.
Did you hear that? It’s all the stretch authorities saying “Ridiculous!” They say “You won’t get any benefit from such brief stretches!” Yeah, well I know myself, and if I had to do it 10 minutes a day, I’d certainly quit after a few months. Perhaps 10 minutes doesn’t sound like much to you, but add the 4 minutes per day you’re supposed to spend brushing your teeth, and well, you do the math. I know that when it’s bedtime, I’m barely awake, and I realize I forgot to stretch, 10 minutes isn’t going to happen.
I started stretching seriously in 2011, and this has made more of a difference in how (relatively) young I feel than anything else I’ve done. Note that I only noticed a difference after a few weeks of daily stretching. I’ve read studies that show that stretching before exercise doesn’t decrease injuries, and I believe that, but I think there’s something magical about regular, daily stretching.
I’ll mention one stretch simply because of the funny way in which it was invented. Google McKenzie Method Back Stretch, and you can read about a stretch designed to help with lower back pain. It involves lying on your stomach and raising your upper body, bending at the waist.
Apparently a physical therapist named McKenzie had a patient come in with debilitating back pain.
"Go on in," McKenzie said, "and lie on your stomach on the exam table. I'll be right in."
The therapist got distracted, and when he went in 20 minutes later, he was horrified to see that one end of the table had been left tilted up at 45 degrees. The patient was awkwardly bent backwards at the waist. McKenzie was about to apologize, when the patient said “It’s a miracle. I feel a lot better—you’re a genius!” McKenzie recovered quickly enough to say “Well, that’s enough for today, come back tomorrow for another treatment.”
So, in summary, stretching may help you reduce the aches and pains that are often associated with long-distance bike riding. And it will definitely cure your morning sickness.