Featured

Cycling can be Dangerous

Posted by Bryan on May 10, 2011 in Blog, Featured | 4 comments

Yesterday we got a stark reminder of how dangerous the sport of cycling can be when Wouter Weylandt was killed during Stage 3 of the Giro de Italia. It’s always a sad day when a cyclist dies regardless if it’s a pro racing a grand tour or a local rider out training or commuting. You never want to see someone lose their life doing something they love. The events of yesterday did get me thinking while I was out riding this morning as I’m sure it did a lot of you too.

Lessons We Can Learn From The Rescue Of The Chilean Miners

Posted by Bryan on Oct 14, 2010 in Blog, Featured, Motivation | 0 comments

The last couple of days I’ve been watching the dramatic rescue of the 33 Chilean miners. I’ve kept in touch with the story off-and-on since they became trapped but with their rescue over the last two days I’ve kept close tabs as they were pulled to the surface. It’s a great ending to what could have become a tragic story. It required a herculean effort by hundreds of people to pull those miners to safety. I couldn’t help but notice how the entire ordeal seemed to pull the country of Chile together and captivate the world.

How To Start Road Cycling [Again] Ebook

Posted by Bryan on Aug 20, 2010 in Blog, Cycling For Beginners, Cycling Tips, Featured | 14 comments

As I told you all several weeks ago, I was going to write an Ebook to help new cyclists, or those returning to road cycling after a long layoff, get started in this great sport. I’ve finally completed it and am ready to release it. For free.

As you can tell by the title, it isn’t for the advanced, or even intermediate, road cyclist. It’s basic from the first page and filled with knowledge and tips that I wish I had known when I returned to cycling in 2008.

Will it answer every question? No. But I think it’ll help anyone looking for help in deciding where to buy a bike, find out what to carry in a seat bag, or learn what online tools are available for road cycling.

To get How To Start Road Cycling [Again] just enter your first name and email address below to get access to the cycling tips toolbox.

Thumbnail Photoc: Explore The Bruce

Finding Measurable Improvement In Your Cycling

Posted by Bryan on Aug 16, 2010 in Blog, Cycling Tips, Featured, Motivation | 10 comments

Do you find yourself struggling to get better on the bike? Ever wonder if you’re making any progress at all? I do and I bet others do as well.

That’s why I keep a log of my training. It isn’t detailed, or even linked to a GPS enabled cyclocomputer, but it tells me what I need to know about my riding and if I’m making any progress.

For instance, I went back and looked at my rides over the past three weeks to see how my average speed was doing. I felt like I was riding faster but I wanted to see if there was any truth to my ‘feelings’. I went back through three weeks of data and found the following:

Average Speed Three Weeks Ago – 13.475 mph
Average Speed Two Weeks Ago – 13.775 mph
Average Speed 1 week ago – 13.975 mph

Those aren’t huge numbers, only a .5 mph increase, but considering my level of fitness and weight, they tell me that I’m improving. Do I feel like some of that improvement Is due to my ongoing Fit with Bicycle Lab? Yes, but I think part of it is due to my legs coming back as well.

Regardless, I wouldn’t have been able to look at this data if I wasn’t logging my rides.

Seeing empirical data showing progress is important because I don’t feel like I’m making much progress on the bike. Granted, I’ve only been riding again for a month but I feel like my gains are coming very, very slowly and I’m not making headway on my weight. At all.

Not A Great Week Last Week But Time To Get Serious

Last week wasn’t that great. I had a good ride on Monday, woke Tuesday morning with a terrible sinus headache and didn’t ride, flatted five miles into my ride on Thursday, and cut a tire/flatted on Friday. Then I didn’t ride either Saturday or Sunday due to being out of town with the family. Only 43 miles on the bike last week and none of it felt very good. And then when I weighed myself on Friday morning I found out I hadn’t lost any weight. No wonder I didn’t feel like I was performing very well. My training log is telling me a slightly different story though as my average speed is obviously getting better. I’m not where I want to be though.

Don’t get me wrong, Average Speed isn’t the only thing you should look at. It’s just all I have available due to my old cyclocomputer. Ideally, and I’ll get to this one day, we should also be looking at our heart rate and recovery times.

Since I started riding again in July, I’ve gotten 237 miles in. For the year I’ve ridden 419 miles. Certainly not huge numbers but I think I’ve gotten enough in to start riding harder. I’m not going to see significant, measurable results by riding 43 miles a week at 14 mph. I need to increase my daily mileage and start adding intervals into my rides. I’ve got to get that weight scale needle moving to the left.

Do you log your rides?

If so, do you review your data to see what progress you’re making? Leave a comment below to let me know what you’re doing.

Photoc: Jeff Werner

Do You Have A Training Mindset?

Posted by Bryan on Aug 9, 2010 in Blog, Cycling and Weight Loss Report, Featured, Motivation | 12 comments

If you’re like me, when you think of ‘training’, as it relates to sports, or cycling, you immediately conjure images of athletes training for sporting events such as the Tour de France, Ironman Kona, or the Olympics. Isn’t that what training is all about? Getting the skills, experience, and conditioning in so that you can compete, or perform, at a higher level? Yes, but I think the word ‘training’ can apply to more than just professional cyclists and athletes.

Photo credit: Team Traveller

I’m not just talking about my fellow cyclists who are riding centuries every other week, climbing 8000 feet a weekend, or racing at the amateur level. I’m talking about people out there, like me, who have weight to lose. It takes a lot of effort and commitment in order to lose that weight. Or to get into better shape. Or to finish that century in under six hours. I’m not saying we’re going to compete in the 2011 Quiznos Pro Challenge but can we take a page from the pros and adopt their mentality and work ethic? I say yes.

Being In Training Means A 24/7 Commitment

Too many of us, myself included, think of our cycling as a 1-2 hour per day commitment and we can get what we need out of it. We spin our miles before work, at lunch, or in the evening. We catch a group ride on the weekend to get a few more miles in. But are we actually pushing ourselves to do our best by only devoting a fraction of the day to our training? Hardly.

There are some of you out there who don’t need that 24/7 training commitment. You’re at the weight you need to be, you’ve accomplished what you set out to do, and you’re continuing to ride because you love it. I get that. I’m talking to the people out there who have huge goals to meet and think they can get by with only putting in the miles. People like me.

In order to meet the goals we need to accomplish it’s going to take more than simply cycling for 8 hours a week. What about the other 160 hours? For that matter, those 8 hours on the bike, are we really utilizing them the way we should be in order to meet our goals? Think about that.

Photo Credit: Let Ideas Complete

Training On The Bike

For most of us, cycling is the easy part. We make time to get our rides in and that’s it. We work up a sweat, put in the miles, and call it done until the next ride. If we’re trying to meet a goal that won’t be enough. We need to ride with a purpose. Each ride needs to serve a purpose whether it’s hill repeats, intervals, or tempo riding. We need to have a training plan for our time on the bike.

Training Off The Bike

When we’re off the bike, we still need a training plan. Just because we aren’t riding doesn’t mean we aren’t still in training. Right? Remember those other 160 hours in the week? How are you utilizing them as training to reach your goals? How can those other 160 hours be used?

8 hours of sleep a night.
Making sure you’re hydrating properly post-ride, during the day, and pre-ride.
Eating right. So easily said but so hard to do.
Tracking your progress.
Getting some form of exercise besides cycling.
Core exercises.
Stretching.

So, what am I really talking about here?

We all come to a point where we need to decide that what we want is really what we want. And be willing to make the sacrifices in order to get what we want. Whether it’s moving up from Cat 5 to Cat 4, losing 20, 50, or even a 100 pounds. Whatever our goal is, we need to be committed to it and training for it. 24/7.

Thumbnail Photo Credit: Tomas Fano

Starting Road Cycling After Watching The Tour de France

Posted by Bryan on Jul 26, 2010 in Blog, Featured | 5 comments

The test of endurance that is the Tour de France (TdF) captivates the entirety of the cycling world every July. As road cyclists, it inspires us to want to do better. To get out and ride. To push our limits of physical endurance.

Cyclists aren’t the only group of people that are moved by the sprint finishes and mountain stages. Many people who watch it cycled early in life but gave it up for one reason or another. Their passion for cycling never left but watching the TdF re-kindled it and they look to start road cycling again. Others have never ridden road bikes before but are inspired by the beauty of the sport. They’re inspired to get fit, lean, and healthy. Finally there are those that fit into both of those groups (like myself).

For these people looking to return or start road cycling, what do they do? They almost always turn to the Internet and begin searching for how to start road cycling or search for what equipment they need to start cycling. There are many other questions they ask but they all point towards the same thing – the seeking of knowledge about how to start (or re-start) road cycling.

I’ve written posts in the past about things you need to start cycling and things you don’t need. I want to give these new, or returning, cyclists a more concise guide to help them get started.

I’m Writing An E-Book

That’s right, I’m writing an e-book that will provide them a collection of information and tips that will make it easier to return to the great sport of cycling. The e-book will be free so it’ll cost them (and you) nothing. I’ve already started work on it and hope to have it done in a couple of weeks. As I get closer to finishing it I’ll set a release date and make it available.

Connect With Biking To Live On Facebook, Twitter, and DailyMile

I’ve made attempts of integrating Facebook and Twitter to BTL in the past but never had a solution I was happy with. This weekend I fixed that and you can see the result at the top of the sidebar in the ‘Connect With BTL’ section. There you can click through to the Biking To Live Fan Page on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and add me as a friend on DailyMile. I encourage you to do so in order to get the latest updates and allow you and I to support each other in our cycling. I’d much appreciate a ‘Like’ on the Facebook Fan Page.