The Big-Bearded Bicyclist

Mixed Bag: Commuting, Fitness and New Additions

Commuting

I completed my second week of commuting to and from work by bicycle on Friday. I feel good about it, even if on two days I got a ride in to work in the morning--one day the weather report called -- incorrectly, it turned out -- for heavy thunder showers, while the other day I ended up having to stay up too late the night before. Anyway, I still cycled a total distance of 293.7 km.

I noticed a few things over the past two weeks of commuting. I still got a very sore neck -- I have not yet dialled in a proper fit or acquired a new handlebar. I also got very wet on one ride, at least for the first half of it, and worse than the rain itself was the dirty water splashing up from the road. Fenders are needed to mitigate that. Also, I've gotten into a bad habit of using the arch of my foot to pedal. Re-installing toe clips, since I don't have clipless pedals and cycling shoes, should correct that. It should also give me some additional power on the hills, of which there are a plenty on my commute.

Take a look at the elevation charts. A colleague at work was asking me about my commute, remarking that the way to work must be especially difficult because of being mostly up hill. So I showed him the following elevation profiles from my commute to and from work, respectively:

As you can see, to work is mostly up hill, with some minor rewards, while back from work, though containing at least three significant ascents, is mostly and drastically down hill. From Waterdown towards Burlington, especially, drops down more than 200 meters. After seeing the elevation profiles, said colleague was even more impressed with my morning commute.

Fitness

Strangely, my weight is doing unexpected things. I usually weigh myself on Mondays. Three Mondays ago I weighed in at 177.5 lbs, two Mondays ago at 177, and then this past Monday, after my first week of commuting, at 177.5 again. It really puzzled and frustrated me. I don't know whether I simply ate that much more during that first week of commuting to offset the energy used or whether I gained the equivalent in muscle mass.

For some reason I decided to step on the scale yesterday morning, just to see where I stood. I weighed in at 173 lbs. I had a hard time believing it, so I weighed myself several times and had Jihan weigh herself too. The scale seems to be all right. Once satisfied that the scale wasn't broken and tricking me, I was quite happy about the new weight. Now I have only about 13 lbs to go to reach the goal set when I began this blog. I hope tomorrow's weight will still be the same...

Now the main thing I need to do is to add some strength training, especially to tighten up the still-too-soft-though-diminishing mid-section. Maybe some crunches are in order.

New Additions to the Bike

I had already decided to put the toe clips that came with my bike back on the pedals to force me back into using the balls of my feet to pedal and generally to more effectively use my pedalling power. I will pay specific attention to hills over the next week to see if the clips make a tangible difference. I hope they do.

I also decided to do at least one thing about rainy weather cycling -- get fenders. I went to MEC to check out their selection of fenders, spent some time online looking at and reading descriptions of various types of fenders sold there, and reading user experiences on blogs and fora. I knew I didn't want the little, dull, clip-on plastic fenders. Part of me leaned towards steel fenders, not so much for the look as for the solid construction. I also liked the look of the Soma EuroTrip Fenders. I didn't want to wait though, so I walked over to my local LBS, knowing that they had some fenders and would likely give me a decent deal and be willing to chat about options. I ended up going with black polycarbonate fenders by Sunny Wheel Industrial Co. (strangely, I can't find the ones I bought on their site).

Anyway, installing them, as I've read in numerous places, and was told by the bicycle store owner as well, was not straightforward or easy. Or, as he put it, 'it's a bitch to install'. The worst part was the front. It turns out the suspension fork on my Montague MX doesn't have eyelets on both sides. One side has two, likely designed for disc brake installation, while the other side has none. I did find a couple of mid-fork braze-ons (I think that's what they're called), the purpose of which I am unsure.

It took me a while to figure out a way to DIY it. At first I thought I might be able to use the plastic clamp from an unused headlight for an additional eyelet, but my fork is too thick. So I went to the local surplus store to look for stuff. I ended up buying a set of nuts and bolts, a set of hose clamps, and some reflector strips. Turns out, after fiddling with them at home, that the screw doesn't actually come out of the clamp altogether, thus rendering it useless for my purposes, that is to fasten the stays to it.

After some further frustration, I decided to modify the front stays so that they could be fastened to the mid-fork braze-ons. I bent them sufficiently to fit. After that, everything else flowed.

A bit more of a close-up showing the way I bent and attached the fender stays.

Here's a pic with both fenders and toe clips installed.

Now I'll have to test them out. I'm sure it will rain again this coming week. I'm interested to see how much of a difference fenders really make in the rain.

Big-Bearded Bicyclist Logo on My Banner

Earlier this month I began working on a logo design for this site to put on the banner and, at some point, on a jersey. As on my previous websites, I always create my own graphics -- I do have a bit of a design background, though much neglected, as well.

While I put up a temporary banner without a logo,  I began the design process of the logo by looking for ways to bring both cycling and long beards into a single, simple image. As mentioned on the about page, big beards are more often associated with biker culture than with cycling culture. I'm hoping to do my part to fit beards, man's natural adornment, into cycling culture -- not all cyclists are into shaving, be it of legs or faces.

I shared an early attempt on a beard community forum to get some feedback. The feedback was helpful -- supportive, practical and humorous. One member pointed out how the two components of my original attempt, the big beard and the bicycle, did not mesh. The bicycle was somewhat simple, though not highly stylized, while the beard was too realistic. Another member came up with a very funny design of his own, posted below with his permission.

After leaving the process for a couple of weeks, being extremely busy and overworked at work, I decided to give it another shot last night. I ended up staying up somewhat late working on the logo, using the open source GIMP Image Editor. I really, really like the program. Anyone possessing basic Photoshop skills is able to use this free tool rather quickly. Anyway, I ended up using a more stylized cycling image and redesigned the beard to be similarly simple, stylized and abstract.  

Jihan was already asleep by the time I completed the logo last night, so I had to wait until this morning to show it to her. She really liked the new logo, but had some issues with the banner. She provided some useful feedback and I kept tinkering for a bit, finally coming up with a banner that we both liked and on which the background image -- usually scenes from the road on cycling trips -- can be easily updated. The logo and title can also be easily repositioned. That's the magic of layers. 

I think, while sufficiently geeky, this logo works well on the banner and may actually work quite well on a future custom-designed jersey as well.

Does This Jersey Make Me Look Fat?

Ever since all the weight gain during my teacher's college and brief teaching days, reaching at my worst 197 lbs, I've learned to dress in a way that minimizes the appearance of being overweight. According to BMI charts, for my height and frame, I was shocked to find out, 197 lbs is borderline obese. After I left teaching and made a radical shift in another direction, beginning during my in-between-jobs phase, I tried to get my weight back under control by doing lots of walking, push-ups and crunches, and a bit of urban cycling on my old Raleigh Tarantula. I managed to lose about 20 lbs by the time I began working again, but the work I went into, first being on the road a great deal and then working in an office, did not make keeping the weight down easy.

I tried to make the time to do some exercise during my time on the road--I purchased my Montague MX full-size folding bike at that time--but made more progress after I settled into a support role in the office. I pretty much kept it up also when I was promoted to an administrative position. I never got back down to a normal weight range, however, and once I got promoted to a management role, there was additional workload and stress to keep me from looking after my health and fitness. Over the last couple of years then, I've fluctuated with the seasons--during the warm months I'd get into an exercise routine and make some progress, weight and fitness-wise, but then over the winter months end up losing most of those gains. The only thing that kept me from gaining everything back, and then some, was our mutual love for nature walks. Even throughout winter, including in snow storms, we'd make time for a couple of decent walks a week.

The recent economic downturn resulting in leaner staffing, downloading of ever more work and, most recently, pay cuts, brought things to a point where I decided that I needed to find an outlet to not only keep work stresses from taking over my off-time, but also to get back in shape. I tried jogging a little bit and found that the impact was just too much for one of my knees, injured as a teenager and never properly fixed, so I got back to cycling again. And now I'm becoming obsessed with it. I just love it!

To make longer rides more comfortable, I finally managed to scrape together enough cash to purchase a fairly basic set of padded cycling shorts and a short-sleeved European-fit jersey. They do make long rides much more comfortable, but I've found them to make sprinting better too. No longer do underwear seams embed themselves into my skin, nor do cotton t-shirts get drenched in sweat and stick uncomfortably to my body. I have better movement and stay drier. And I love the 3 pockets on the back of the jersey to stash my keys, ID and an energy bar or piece of fruit too. 

The problem, in answer to the question the title poses, is that the jersey, form-fitting as it is, shows off my, um, padding around the waist. Here are a couple of pictures, at risk of embarrassing myself a little (sorry, the image quality isn't the best, and you're not getting larger versions either :-{)}}). I'm hoping a little embarrassment will keep me working hard. Also, it will look pretty good when I put 'post' pictures up in a month or two after more fitness gains.

I think I'll start doing some upper body work again as well. I don't intend to bulk up at all, but I would like to firm up, putting a little muscle over my belly in place of the fat. A little six-pack never hurt anyone...

As for working harder, the route I did yesterday, up the escarpment and back, I did again today. Twice. And in between I cycled to a store in town. Altogether I covered about 45 km, 40 of them at a nice, brisk pace, half uphill and half down.

Because of both logistics with Jihan getting to and from her post-op physiotherapy, increased for the next 2 or 3 weeks, and to be able to scrape some money together for further bike customization, I will probably start commuting to work by bike. It is out of town, about 35 km, and part of it is quite uphill, so I may get a ride at least up the hill in the morning so I don't have to get up at 0430 to make it to work in time. I made it from work to home last summer in 1 3/4 hours, but to work, because of the incline, it may well take a full 2 hrs, if not a bit more. And I have to start work at 0700. Getting a ride part of the way will still save me a fair bit of fuel money, allow Jihan to have the car during the day, and get me a good deal of daily exercise. If I did the whole thing, back and forth, I'd do about 70 km daily.