The Crazy Bet: Contest Winner

Today's stage of the Tour de France went over the same route we followed for the July 6 l'Etape du Tour—up the monster climbs of the Tourmalet and Hautacam. Needless to say, with the way those guys flew up the climbs, it didn't even look like the same course (what a revelation Christian Vande Velde was today). I feel compelled to point out, though, that the racers enjoyed much, much nicer weather than we did. The photo at right shows the scene we faced last weekend. That's the one-kilometer-to-go banner just before the finish at the summit of Hautacam, where the medical tent was full of people being treated for near-hypothermic symptoms. It was perfect.

The other photo is of me enjoying much nicer weather during la Marmotte on July 5th, as I drafted behind a motorcycle on the descent from the Galibier. Also perfect, but in a different way. You can see a full set of photos from our weekend here. They're in reverse chronological order, beginning with me asleep in the bus after Sunday’s l'Etape and ending with our arrival in France three days earlier.

Last thing: Rapha has announced the winner of the Independent Fabrication giveaway. Ireland’s Eoin Hogan will soon have his own fully custom carbon-titanium XS frameset. Hogan's guess of 19:28:42 nearly nailed my official cumulative time of 19:28:34 for the weekend (hey, it included food stops). Congrats, Eoin.

—John Bradley

Photos © Pete Drinkell 2008

The Crazy Bet: Back to Reality

First off, thanks for all the congratulatory comments and emails. They really do mean a lot.

I'm back safely in Santa Fe now and sorting through my memories of France. There aren’t a lot, at least not of actual riding. For me, getting through events like the two we did requires a detached, trancelike state. If I get lucid enough to process full thoughts, I become too aware of the pain and my body’s desire to quit. I love this. I’ve tried meditation, but I’ve only come close to a truly quiet mind while suffering on a bike.

So my memories of the rides are both random and specific: The Frenchwoman in the poncho who appeared out of the mist near the summit of the Tourmalet to shout “200 more meters to the top;” a ham-and-brie sandwich that saved me on the slopes of the Galibier; the odd golden color of one guy’s left cycling shoe (the right was probably the same color, but it hurt too much to turn my head and look); the young kids who high fived the riders going past them on l’Alpe d’Huez; pacing behind a motorcycle during la Marmotte; an Italian who looked at the Independent Fabrication I was riding and said “Nice bike. Very nice. Super,” then shot away from me like an airliner; the last kilometer of l’Etape du Tour, when I found a reserve of energy I didn’t know I possessed and flew up the final stretch of the Hautacam faster than I’ve ever climbed anything on a bike.

Rapha, the company that put this whole thing together, had a photographer shooting us from a motorcycle both days, so we should have some great shots in the next day or two. In the meantime, I have a few snapshots from la Marmotte, at the bottom of this post. If you'd like to get a sense of the conditions at l'Etape, click here and put in my bib number: 1156.

I’m still waiting to get final stats together (Rapha should have my official times and our contest winner up later this week). I lost my European plug adapter and couldn’t recharge my GPS unit for l’Etape on Sunday. On Saturday, as you can see in the image below, I logged 17,124 feet of climbing over 119 miles. The climbs are, in order, the Col du Glandon, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier, and l’Alpe d’Huez. The Galibier was by far the toughest climb I’ve ever done, so relentlessly long and steep that it made the storied Alpe d’Huez feel easier by comparison.

Both of those climbs were tougher than anything we faced during Sunday’s l’Etape du Tour. In fact, despite the bitterly cold rain and fog that saw people being treated for hypothermia-like symptoms on Sunday (la Marmotte was warm and sunny), l’Etape was by far the easier day, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 feet of climbing over just 105 miles. That’s not to say l’Etape was an easy ride. It’s just that la Marmotte is one of the toughest single days a person can spend on a bike.

I think for all of us involved in the Crazy Bet, though, the suffering really started on Thursday night. The four riders (myself plus Bill Strickland of Bicycling, Guy Andrews of Rouleur, and Simon Richardson of Cycling Weekly) plus support staff from Rapha piled into two vans for the drive to the village at the top l’Alpe d’Huez, where we would be staying. The energetic conversations in our van grew quieter the further we drove up l’Alpe, until, about halfway up, it was total silence, each of us staring out the windshield at the impossibly steep pitches in front of us and wondering just what in the hell we had signed up for.

The 7:00 a.m. start of la Marmotte caught me off guard. I assumed we would take it easy for a bit and let our legs warm up. But we got into a fast group and went nearly full gas for the first 30 minutes, at which point, just as my legs were waking up, we hit the Glandon. We rode together well from there to the Telegraphe, but by the time we reached the Galibier, it was clear that I was the slowest climber in our quartet. One thing I do have going for me on any ride, though, is my descending. I caught and passed all of my teammates in the first few miles of the 25-mile descent off the back of the Galibier, then drafted behind a photographer’s motorcycle and flew past dozens more riders on the approach to l’Alpe d’Huez, a climb that starts exactly 100 miles into the route and gains 3,400 feet in just nine miles. I allowed myself to stop for a short break at every fifth switchback (there are 21), which gave my teammates time to catch and pass me. We all finished fairly close together, at somewhere around 10 hours in the saddle.

I would like to say that we went back to the hotel for dinner and a soak in the hot tub, but there was no time for that. At the finish, we immediately pointed our bikes back down l’Alpe, cleaned up in a parking lot with towels and Wet Wipes, changed out of our cycling gear, and went to the airport for our two-hour flight to Pau and the start of l’Etape.

After less than five hours of sleep, I was back on my bike, bundled against the wet and cold and calculating how slowly I could ride while still making the time cut, which I did by around 90 minutes. I wasn’t out there to break any records; Sunday was just about finishing this thing. Rapha, thankfully, is a British company; in addition to making outstanding cycling apparel for warm conditions, they know how to deal with rain and cold. Given the weather, I was as comfortable as possible. And though I know this sounds masochistic, I was glad for the awful conditions. It made the whole project that much more epic and grueling and, therefore, ultimately more valuable. I’m capable of a lot more on a bike that I ever thought I was, and I’ll always have that knowledge to fall back on now—a new well I can tap the next time I think something hurts too much.

That’s all for now. Check back for photos; final thoughts on my Independent Fabrications XS, the titanium-carbon wonderbike that was a huge part of the reason I was able to get through the weekend without permanent nerve damage; and the name of the reader who gets his or her own custom XS for having correctly guessed my final (slow) time.

—John Bradley

The Crazy Bet: Success!

I did it. Two days, 240-ish miles, and somewhere approaching 30,000 feet of climbing. Final stats will have to wait until I get a chance to download the data off my Garmin. If you're one of the thousands who tried to guess my overall time in hopes of winning the new bike from Independent Fabrications, I have a rough idea of what my times were. But since we're going off official timekeeping, I'll keep them to myself. We'll wait until the events have posted their final results.

I'll write up a full post with photos, results, thoughts, etc. as soon as possible. Right now all I can say is that these rides together were the hardest thing I've ever done. Must sleep now.

-John Bradley

The Crazy Bet: The Bike

Went to bed at 10:00 last night and woke up at 4:30 this morning. Trying to slowly retool my sleep schedule so I'm not dealing with crushing jet lag for the rides this weekend. As promised, here are a couple of shots of the custom Independent Fabrications XS that I'll be riding in France. It rides as beautifully as it looks, and I'm definitely settling into a little love affair with this frame (check out the details on those lugs). If I don't do well in France, it won't be due to the equipment. Doesn't look like the weather will help, though. Rain is forecast for both days right now. Let's hope that changes.

Had a good training ride yesterday. Another round of 40/20s, this time staying between 350 and 400 watts for the 40-second efforts. Easy 90-minute spin today, then I pack up the bike and fly out to France this evening. Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed or posted comments with advice and encouragement. The knowledge that people are following along with me online should deliver just the right mix of support and potential public embarrassment to get me through all this.

 

P.S. Long story, but the rear wheel is already in France, which is why I've got the Zipp 404 in back for these photos.

—John Bradley

The Crazy Bet: First Impressions and Final Preparations

I got my new Indy Fab XS on Friday. It's the bike that I'll be taking to France. All titanium and carbon with a full SRAM Red group and Mavic R-Sys wheels. The titanium lugs and stays are painted a shimmering gold, while the carbon tubes are left bare. It's the most beautiful bike I’ve ridden. I’d show you a picture, but my wife accidentally took my camera to New York this weekend. I’ll get pics up tomorrow.

As for my initial impressions of the ride, it’s as plush as I could have hoped for. We threw it up on the scale at the shop where I had it built up, and it weighed just under 15 lbs without pedals. That will definitely help as I’m willing my way up the Alps and Pyrenees. And, if you’re wondering: yes, it’s plenty stiff. I was doing 900-watt uphill sprints yesterday without any chain rub.

The XS delivers it's biggest bang going downhill, though. The titanium is just enough to take the sting out of the chip-seal road that leads up to our local ski resort at 10,200 feet above sea level. On my first ride, I hit nearly 50 mph while descending a long section with an 8 percent grade. The best part was when I wove through a line of 11 guys on Harley Davidsons in the switchbacks near the top of the climb. By the time I reached the lead guy, the bikers I had already passed were cheering me on. Very fun.

My last weekend of training went relatively well. I had to dodge some pretty nasty lightning storms. But from Friday to Monday I got in eight hours of riding and somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 feet of climbing, all at altitude. Today is a much-needed recovery day. My coach has two relatively light 90-minute workouts planned for Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Then I’ll pack up the bike and fly out to France Wednesday evening.

Do I feel ready? Absolutely not. I’ve ridden and raced enough in my past to know that I’m way undeprepared for this. Sunday’s l’Étape du Tour shouldn't pose much of a problem (please don't let those words come back to haunt me). But the Marmotte on Saturday will be a beast. By virtue of how often I ride, the mountains that surround Santa Fe, and the fact that my house is at an altitude of 7,140 feet (close to the highest point I’ll encounter in France), I think I probably have it in me to get through the weekend. But I can’t promise that I’ll look good doing it.

—John Bradley

To go to The Crazy Bet main page, click here.

Crazy Bet: Training, Europe, and a Goodbye

Apologies for the long silence, but I have a good excuse. I was in Majorca, Spain, last week for the launch of Giant’s 2009 road-bike line. I was supposed to remain in Europe for a total of nine days, and I was planning to put up some posts while I was there. But my grandmother passed away suddenly on my third day in Majorca. I spent the next 60 hours hopping from plane to plane to get back home in time for the funeral.

So in one two-week period I got married, went on a short honeymoon, got in three good training rides, went to Spain and got in two more  rides, then flew home to say goodbye to my grandmother. It’s been insane, to say the least. I’ll try to compartmentalize and give a quick rundown.

TRAINING
I promised in my last post that I would get in some good training ahead of my trip to Spain, and I did. At left is the GPS data from my Garmin showing my training ride from June 14, when I made two trips to the base of our local ski hill. It was 8,470 feet of climbing over 58 miles.

I did a moderate three-hour ride the following day, then got introduced to a workout my coach calls 40/20s. These involve going all out for 40 seconds, recovering for 20 seconds, ramping back up to full throttle for 40 seconds, etc. In the middle of a two-hour ride before work, I had to do three sets of eight of these, keeping my power output above 350 watts for the 40-second efforts. The results from my PowerTap are in the graph at left. They hurt. Bad.

SPAIN
Majorca brought some great group rides, including a 70-miler with about 4,000 feet of climbing, mostly along or near the island’s Mediterranean coastline. (That's me in the photo at right). If you ever get a chance to ride in Majorca, take it. Simply the best road riding I’ve ever seen. Of course, it didn’t hurt that we were on Giant’s 2009 road bike line. We’ll have full reviews in the magazine in coming months. So for now I’ll just say that their new TCR Advanced SL is as fast and precise a bike as one could ask for. It had me descending at unsafe speeds on my first ride.

GRANDMA
She ran the rapids of the Colorado River twice, flew in a glider when she was nearly 70, lectured on art and archeology, and was always my biggest champion. The last time we spoke, she asked how my training was going and reminded about the risks of overtraining, then reminded me that that wasn’t an excuse to take it easy. She’ll be my extra gear in the Alps.

—John Bradley

To go to The Crazy Bet main page click here.

Crazy Bet: Oh, It's On

I rode on my wedding day last Saturday. Or, I should say, in the second-most-generous thing she did that day (after marrying me), my soon-to-be-wife let me slip away from the wedding-day insanity for a ride. Good one, too. Ninety minutes, 25 miles, 1,600 feet of climbing, and five five-minute efforts above 230 watts, with three minutes rest between each. Not the toughest ride of my life. But considering that it came on the biggest day of my life, I’ll take it.

We took a mini-honeymoon to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where I was hoping to get in maybe one mountain-bike ride. Unfortunately, it was snowing and raining the whole time we were there, with highs in the 30s. But, hey, it was my honeymoon. I had an amazing new wife to pamper. I also used the time off the bike to carbo load (ok, I put on three pounds). I did get in a couple of hours on a stationary bike one day, and I’ve got five full days of scheduled workouts ahead of me. On Tuesday, I head to Europe for eight days, seven of which will involve riding. So I’m cautiously optimistic.

Of course, every time I’m feeling ok about my preparation, I come across something like Robert Mackey’s blog on the "New York Times" site. He’s riding the Etape du Tour this year and chronicling his adventure for the Times. He even did a post about our Crazy Bet to ride the Etape and the Marmotte on consecutive days. So why is his blog making me feel bad? Well, his post about us was on June 4, right between his posts from June 3 and June 5, which means Robert is not only out training me—for a weekend that will involve only half as much riding as I have planned—he’s out blogging me, too. Dang.

My penance: Two trips up to the 10,350-foot base of the Santa Fe Ski Basin tomorrow. That will be 8,000 feet of climbing over about 60 miles. Five-hour endurance ride on Sunday. Easy spin on Monday, then a two-hour ride with some good interval work Tuesday morning. From my coach:

“Time for some real intensity for a change of pace (or power). Three sets of 8 X 40 seconds at 300-350 watts with 20 seconds at < 150 watts in between efforts. Rest 5-10 minutes easy between sets.”

—John Bradley

To go to The Crazy Bet homepage, click here.

Crazy Bet: Feeling Good

Training is going great. Since May 30, I've gotten in around 210 miles of structured rides on my road and mountain bikes, including 45 miles this morning before work and a solo 95-mile ride this past Saturday that, according to my Garmin Edge 705, included nearly 7,000 feet of climbing.

My coach has been having me do some short, high-intensity bursts and longer, medium-intensity intervals. But the bulk of my riding, by far, has been at speeds that I would consider almost embarrassingly slow. I'm spending most of my time between 120 and 160 watts. Neal's note to me for this morning's workout, which was a 2.5-hour ride between 120 and 160 watts, with two 20-minute holds at just under 230 watts: "l know you could go harder, but we're looking for maximum adaptation as opposed to maximum strain/stress."

Fair enough. I have to admit that, after a rough two or three weeks on the bike, I'm feeling a lot stronger the past week or so. The graph at left from TrainingPeaks shows my power, speed, cadence, and heart-rate readings for this morning's ride, though the heart data is way off. My vest (it was 45 degrees when I set out this morning) was flapping in the wind and causing errant readings. In reality, I never went above 160 and probably averaged in the 130 range.

The two other images are the raw numbers from my 95-mile ride this past Saturday and an easy 2.5-hour mountain-bike ride the following day. Neal has three more training rides planned for me between now and my wedding on Saturday (yes, Megan is incredibly understanding about my bike addiction). Then I'll be off the bike for four days as we take a mini-honeymoon—though I might hit a stationary bike or two in the hotel gym. I'll be back training in earnest next Thursday.

BTW, if anyone is interested, the folks at TrainingPeaks have a post up about my project and how I'm using my PowerTap and their website to make the most of my training. Apologies for the photo. It was the only one I could give them on short notice.

—John Bradley

To view The Crazy Bet home page, click here.

Crazy Bet: Training with Power

Luckily, I've been using a Saris PowerTap SL 2.4 and the new mountain-bike-specific SL 2.4 Disc power meters for all of my CrazyBet training. Though I haven’t had a coach for the six weeks or so that I’ve been riding in earnest, I’ve been storing the data from every ride (PowerTaps come with an easy USB cradle and free software for downloading ride data to a Mac or PC). So when I started working this week with coach Neal Henderson, he asked me to upload all of my ride data to an account he created for me on the TrainingPeaks web site.

With those numbers, Henderson was able to sit at his desk in Boulder, Colorado, analyze how hard I’ve been working and how my body has adapted to the work, then create a training plan that will make the most of the five weeks I have left until my races in France.

Why train with power? To race faster. That’s really about it. If you’re riding only for fitness, or if you don’t have any cycling goals tougher than simply finishing a century, you don't need a power meter. You don’t even need a heart-rate monitor. There are countless training plans out there based solely on time or mileage that will give you everything you need.

But if you want to race, or if you’re setting more ambitious goals—say, finishing a century in under five hours—using a power meter will get you there faster than any other tool. What a power meter does and how it does it are too complicated to explain in detail here (a good explanation exists on the Saris website). So, in my extremely glossed-over version:

If you were to plot your workouts and results on graph paper, you would get a bell curve. As your efforts increase, so do the benefits. But at a certain point, you start overtraining, and your performance drops. The key is to stay in the fat part of the bell curve, so that you’re getting the absolute most out of your training.

“We don’t need to do what we think we need to do,” Henderson told me when I asked just how hard he was going to be working me over the coming weeks. “The psychology of that is important. People try to do more than they can. You want to set your workouts so that you’re getting the maximum benefits.”

To do that you need an objective measure of effort and performance. Time doesn’t work, because, for example, one hour on a flat road isn’t the same as one hour in the mountains. The same principles make distance an imperfect measure of training load. Heart rate is better and is still used by high-level athletes. But things like temperature, mood, caffeine, or even what you ate for breakfast can alter your heart rate. Also, it takes your heart a few seconds to reflect what you’re body is actually doing. Step on the pedals for a brief sprint exercise, and your heart might not speed up until after you’re already finished.

Power doesn’t lie. It’s a direct measure of the energy you are transferring to the pedals (PowerTaps are built into the hub of your rear wheel, with the data displayed on a small handlebar-mounted computer). That’s not to say that 300 watts on a bad day won’t hurt more than 300 watts on a good day. But regardless of how it feels, your power readout will tell you exactly how much work you’re doing.

Ideally, I would have done a full field test for Henderson to establish my threshold number (the highest power output I can sustain for one hour). But, as I explained on Tuesday, my test was a bit of a disaster. So, based on my six weeks of data, Henderson has estimated my threshold at 225 to 230 watts. For comparison, elite pros my size (5’11 and 152 lbs.) will hit somewhere close to 400.

Regardless of what your threshold number is, though, once you’ve got it, setting training zones and staying in the fat part of the bell curve is fairly simple. Henderson uses six training zones, listed here in ascending order of difficulty, with my target power numbers.

Active Recovery <120
Endurance 120-160
Tempo 161-204
Threshold 205-225
VO2max 226-250
Anaerobic Capacity 251-300

As a rider’s season progresses, the percentage of his training time that he’ll spend in each of these zones will vary. But, according to Henderson, even elite endurance athletes will spend no more than around 20 percent of their weekly workouts at or above threshold. Any more than that, and they risk overtraining. The bulk of training time is in the endurance and temp ranges, with brief, structured efforts at or above threshold to force the body to do heavier workloads while giving it time to recover and adapt. What will this mean for me? Here are my Friday and Saturday workouts this week, from Henderson:

FRIDAY
90 Minutes
Ride mostly at OD effort - 60-75% of LT power, and HR in Zone 2 (OD).  Include 3-5 X 10 minutes of Zone 3 (EN) effort at 80-85% of LT power.  Recover completely between intervals. This is one interval workout that isn''t going to hurt.

Notes: Mostly between 120-160 watts, but include 3-4 X 10 minutes at 200 watts with 2-5 minutes < 150 watts between.

SATURDAY
Six Hours
Warmup with 30+ minutes of easy riding.  Ride a steady climb (30-60 minutes) between Endurance and Tempo HR...power at 90-95% of LT power.  Keep cadence up around 80-95 RPM.  Finish with easy downhill spin.  Optional: add 3-6 X 10-second downhill sprints at 120+ RPM.

Notes: Big day! Warm-up on the flats first...keeping power < 160 watts for the first hour. Then, accumulate up to 1 hour of time at around 200 watts (180-220). Make a conscious effort to stay under 225 watts during the tempo climbing. Also, accumulate about 1 hour of climbing at 160-180 watts (EN effort). Be sure to stay hydrated and fueled (take in 200-300 kcal per hour).

To go to The Crazy Bet main page, click here.

—John Bradley

Crazy Bet: Slight Panic

The past two weeks have not been good ones. Travel for work, dodgy weather, and wedding planning have combined to eat into my bike time.

More worrisome, I still haven’t started any formal workouts. Physiologist Allen Lim,who agreed to coach me through this project, is just too swamped with his duties as the trainer for Team Slipstream. He’s overseeing workouts for the nearly 30 members of the team while also accompanying Slipstream’s nine-man squad at the current Giro d’Italia. After not hearing from Lim for four weeks—and with only six weeks left until my races in France—I got in touch last week with Neal Henderson, Sport Science Manager at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine.

Fortunately for me, Henderson agreed to take me on and help me make the most of my remaining time. Unfortunately, I’m just not feeling great on the bike right now. The week after my May 10-11 rides in Austin, I went for one easy spin, then tackled the Santa Fe Century on May 18. My plan to add 30 miles and another 4,000 feet of climbing to the end of the ride fell apart when I hit the wall at around mile 84 (of the 106-mile route). After averaging 21 miles per hour for the first four hours, I took an hour and 45 minutes to cover the final 20 miles (in my defense, they were windy and mostly uphill).

I went for a couple of moderate rides over the weekend, then headed out to do a field test so Henderson could get an idea of where I’m at. The test involved a 30-minute warmup and a few drills, then all-out efforts of five seconds, five minutes, 20 minutes, and one minute. But I was literally getting blown off the bike by 40 mph crosswinds. Frustrated, I quit the test halfway through the 20-minute segment. It’s tough to find a rhythm when you’re just trying to stay upright.

For now we’ll work with numbers that I have from a previous test (252 watts for 20 minutes), and I’ll try to retake the field test sometime this week. In the meantime, aside from my wedding weekend, I am committing to a monk-like existence for the next six weeks. Work, food, sleep, and training. I’ll be grabbing any fitness improvements that are available to me during that period. There’s still time to get back on track.

—John Bradley

To go to The Crazy Bet homepage click here.

Crazy Bet: Weather Woes and a Century

Temperatures have dropped back into the 30s at Outside's headquarters in Santa Fe, with heavy rain and even snow in the mountains. I have no interest in riding in these conditions in mid May. So, sadly, it looks like I'll be breaking out the indoor trainer for the next couple of days. Luckily, the next movie in my Netflix queue was "Shaun of the Dead." I think I can ride to that.

It looks like we'll be clear and back into the 70s for this weekend's Santa Fe Century. I'm hoping to finish in good enough shape to add a ride up to the base of our local ski resort at the end. So after the 105 miles and 4,000-plus feet of climbing, there will be a 15-mile, 3,000-plus climb to an elevation of 10,000 feet. If any readers are doing the century and are interested in riding along with me (yes, I will draft off of you), I'm planning on rolling out from the start exactly at 7:00 a.m.

—John Bradley

To go to The Crazy Bet homepage and enter to win the contest click here.

Crazy Bet: Training with Lance

A change of scenery for my training rides this weekend. I was in Austin, Texas, for the grand opening of Lance Armstrong’s new bike shop, Mellow Johnny’s. (Watch video of the opening and my interview with Armstrong. Apologies for the sound quality, but we had to do the interview in the echo-y shop basement to get away from the crowds.)

If you’re not up on your Lance lore, “Mellow Johnny” is a nickname that came about when Armstrong’s Texan friends started playing around with maillot jaune (French for “yellow jersey”). There’s also an in-house coffee shop called Juan Pelota—“Juan” as in “one” and "Pelota" as in Spanish for “ball.”

To celebrate opening day on May 10, about 25 of us went for a four-hour spin east of Austin. The terrain wasn’t particularly challenging—and Lance didn’t come along, so neither was the riding—but the 96 degree temps and swampy Texas humidity caught me a bit off guard. Our group included Bart Knaggs, Lance’s business manager and co-owner of the shop; Sam Whittingham, a Canadian bike builder and cyclist who holds the human-powered world records for top speed (81 mph) and distance covered in one hour (52 miles); Michael Ward, the guitarist for new Outside columnist Ben Harper and the man behind the popular children’s cycling project “Mike and the Bike,” and several members of Team Six, a racing squad sponsored in part by Mellow Johnny’s.

The following day, about 20 of us headed out to Lance’s ranch to mountain bike on a new five-mile singletrack loop he’s had built on his property in the hill country just west of Austin. The trails include short technical sections, wide-open speed sections, berms, and jumps that weave through the cedar, scrub, and limestone on Armstrong's 450-ish acres. Lance scorched everyone for two quick laps, then excused himself from the recovery barbecue on his patio so he could meet his mom for a Mother’s Day brunch.

Armstrong and Knaggs describe Mellow Johnny’s as a work in progress. But it’s obvious even at this early stage that the shop is something different for the cycling community. In place of the surly mechanics and staff that can make bike shops so intimidating for even seasoned riders, Mellow Johnny’s has an open, welcoming feel highlighted by a bar and stools that surround the mechanic’s workstation. Customers can grab a cappuccino and pastry at Juan Pelota, then sit at the bar and get maintenance advice or just watch and learn.

The lines the shop carries also point more toward general cycling culture than race culture. To be sure, racers will find more than enough high-end bling to keep them happy. All the brands that Lance was associated with during his race career—Trek, Giro, Nike, and Oakley—are well represented, along with stuff from brands like Seven, Zipp, and De Rosa. But there’s also a huge selection of retro-wool apparel from Rapha, commuter bikes from Swobo, messenger bags from Chrome, cycling books, jeans and t-shirts, custom bike parts, and even showers, lockers, and bike storage for commuters.

Armstrong’s yellow jerseys and many of the bikes he rode to glory during his career hang throughout the 9,000-square-foot shop, museum style. But they share equal space with custom low-rider cruisers, art bikes, and a $15,000 retro Naked bike that Armstrong bought from Whittingham earlier this year (reportedly the first bike Armstrong has actually paid for since he was a kid).

Austin’s never been the most bike-friendly town around. This is Texas, after all—narrow shoulders, heavy traffic, and a lot of trucks. But if anyone’s got the force of personality to change that, it’s Lance Armstrong. And his shop is a huge step in that direction.

—John Bradley

For more on my preparation for the two toughest amateur bike races in France, visit the Crazy Bet home page.

The Crazy Bet: Clinical Bike Fitting

If I hadn't gone to see bike-fit guru Andy Pruitt, PhD, this past January, I'm not sure how much longer I could have continued cycling. Pruitt, founder of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, literally wrote the book on bike fitting. He’s also an accomplished racer—a two-time world champion in disabled cycling (he’s a below-the-knee amputee on his right side) who achieved elite Category 2 status against able-bodied cyclists. I’ve crossed paths with him at a few cycling-industry events over the years, and he’s suggested some minor position tweaks. But it wasn’t until he got me to his lab in Boulder, Colorado, that we realized what a biomechanical disaster I really am.

Since about the age of 30 (I’m 37), I’ve had a dull pain in my left knee that has grown more pronounced each year. Increasingly, it has forced me to cut my bike rides short. I’ve also had lower-back pain, though I’ve generally been able to ride through that. I attributed all of this to injury buildup—I suffered a partial tear of the MCL in my left knee once, and I’ve also broken both ankles and a wrist and had arthroscopic surgery on a shoulder.

But Pruitt discovered that my knee pain was largely due to the fact that my right leg is a full centimeter shorter than my left. X-rays we took at his lab showed my hips tilting down drastically to the right, with my spine twisting to compensate. (The image at right shows me standing up straight.) Pruitt also found that my toes point further out than normal and that I have a more pronounced varus tilt than average (hang your legs off the edge of a table and note how the outside of your foot drops down lower than the inside; that’s varus tilt).

Basically, my feet were too flat on the pedals and pointing too close to straight forward, which forced my knees to roll in and twist laterally. And by settling on a saddle height that felt most comfortable (or, rather, least painful), I was actually sitting too low for my left leg and too high for my right. My left knee was suffering from a lifetime of being over-torqued.

“The knee is usually the victim,” Pruitt told me. “The hips and ankles are the culprits.” Then he changed cycling for me. He put shims inside my shoe and under my cleats, to compensate for my varus tilt, and turned the cleats so that my toes pointed out as much as possible. This would keep my feet in their natural position throughout the pedal stroke, thus reducing knee strain.

Pruitt then moved my left cleat all the way back, which meant that my foot would be farther forward on the pedal, effectively shortening my leg, since it would now have to extend farther at the bottom of the pedal stroke. He also added three millimeters’ worth of risers under the cleat on my right shoe, effectively lengthening that leg. Combined with the cleat shift on my left shoe, this would roughly equal my legs out. Finally, Pruitt shortened my stem, giving me a more upright (less racer-like) position, which cyclists eventually have to move into in middle age. (Sigh.) All of this took about 10 minutes. (Download bradley-email012108-1.doc )

A big part of getting a medical bike fit is video analysis. Pruitt and BCSM biomechanics technician Sean Madsen set my bike up on a stationary trainer surrounded by an array of video cameras. Madsen attached infrared markers to specific points on my body (hips, knees, ankles, heels, etc.), which the motion-analysis software would use to track my movement in three dimensions. Videos shot before and after my position changes showed immediate improvement. (Download john_bradley.pdf) I looked more comfortable on the bike, and the motion analysis showed my knees tracking in a much straighter line. I didn’t suddenly have the pedaling grace of 2008 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, but at least I looked at home in the saddle. “The goal is to make the bike fit the rider,” Pruitt said. “Not the other way around.”

The real test, of course, would come on the road. I’m happy to report that there was no break-in period with the new position—it worked immediately. I’m up to about 12 hours a week on the bike, and I haven’t experienced a single moment of knee pain in the four months since my fit session. I’m also putting out more power at lower heart rates for longer periods.

By Pruitt’s own admission, I’m a rare case. He said probably worst five percent. For most people, a fit session from trained bike-shop staff will be enough. But if that doesn’t have you feeling more comfortable, a full clinical bike fit just might save the sport for you. It did for me. Cost for a full medical fit at BCSM is $450 to $550. Full price list here.

—John Bradley

P.S. This weekend’s training rides will happen in Austin, Texas, where I’ll be attending the grand opening of Lance Armstrong’s new bike shop, Mellow Johnny's. Check back next week for a full report.

Sign up to win a $6,000 road-bike frameset here.

The Crazy Bet: First Race of the Season

My mountain-bike race did not go so well this weekend. I overslept and had to cram breakfast just an hour before the start of the race. Also didn’t have time to warm up. So I started with a too-full stomach and cold legs.

The race, called La Tierra Torture, started with a half-mile climb on a dirt road. From there, almost all of the 10-mile course (we raced two laps) was singletrack, with few opportunities for passing. So the start was a lung-busting sprint to get to the singletrack in good position. I came off the starting stretch 4th in my class (men’s 30-39) and held that place for about 20 minutes, until I nearly puked at the top of a sustained climb. I had to back off the gas to regain my composure. My stomach settled down, but my legs went to rubber. I blew up.

The next 90 minutes were just about hanging on and limiting the damage. I finished 15th out of 30 in my class. My new mountain-bike-specific PowerTap said I averaged 157 watts for the nearly two hours I was on course. Given that I usually average in the 180s on three-hour-plus training rides, it wasn’t hard to see that I had hugely underperformed. That’s the magic of training with power meters; there’s no hiding from the numbers.

There’s also no hiding from the fact that I’m a long way from being able to get through my weekend in France with any sort of style. My race this past weekend included 2,200 feet of climbing, or about 1/7 of what I’ll have to do each day in France. This week I’ll start my climbing training in earnest.

Watch later this week for a post about the January bike-fitting session that saved cycling for me.

Register here to win a custom $6,000 custom frameset.

 

—John Bradley

The Crazy Bet

Thirty thousand feet. The number haunts me. I have accepted a dare from the cycling-apparel company Rapha to go to France this July to do two bike races—on consecutive days—that will involve 30,000 feet of climbing. I'm pretty sure that's more climbing than I've ever done in two weeks, let alone one weekend. And I ride a lot.

Here's another measure: The easier of the two races will be the Etape du Tour, which follows the same route as Stage 10 of this year's Tour de France. It will involve about 100 miles and some 13,000 feet of climbing in the Pyrenees, over the legendary Tourmalet and Hautacam climbs. The previous day, I'll be in the Alps, racing in La Marmotte and trying to get myself up about 17,000 feet of climbing, over the Croix de Fer, Galibier, and the mythical Alpe d'Huez.

Yes, I'm training my ass off. Literally. At last check I'd lost six pounds, down to 149. That's the same I weighed when I graduated high school 19 years ago. Luckily for me, Outside is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at an altitude of 7,000 feet and right at the base of some 12,000-foot peaks. It's an ideal training ground: mountainous, at high altitude, and close enough that I can easily ride before work or during lunch hours.

I've begun working with Allen Lim, PhD., trainer for Slipstream/Chipotle, the American pro cycling team that just earned its first invitation to the Tour de France. I'll be blogging here regularly about my training, races, nutrition, and gear—and by the way, how I'm balancing all this with my June 7 wedding.

On the gear front, I've already been measured for a custom Independent Fabrications XS. And Rapha and IF have agreed to give one away to whomever comes closest to guessing my total time for the two days (even more pressure for me not to quit). You can enter here.

I'll also be uploading the training data from my PowerTap 2.4 power meter and the route profiles from my Garmin Edge 705 GPS unit, so everyone can see exactly how much I'm suffering and where.

Check back next week to see how I did in this weekend's La Tierra Torture mountain-bike race. (I'm guessing poorly).

—John Bradley