09.27.2005 | 8:39 am
Interbike—the biggest annual bike business trade show in the U.S.—is in full swing right now. I suspect that while there, the bike manufacturers will proudly display their latest 14-pound road bikes, and their latest 36-inch-travel mountain bikes. I wouldn’t be surprised if both Shimano and Campagnolo announce (coincidentally, natch) that they have innovated a new 11 cog cassette. And I would be astounded if these same two companies did not announce that this year’s cranksets are (at a minimum) 30% stiffer than last year’s models.
If I were in Las Vegas attending Interbike, I would make a special point of walking up to the bike manufacturers, giving them a firm handshake, and saying, "Well done, bike manufacturer."
And then, once I had them comfortable and feeling good about themselves, I would grab them by both shoulders and shake them soundly while I shouted, "But your stupid-light, crazy-expensive bike innovations don’t mean a thing if you haven’t mastered the very simple task of actually shipping that bike to your customers." I would be very careful to become red-faced while I said this, and I would foam at the mouth a little, too.
I Am a Patient Man
About a month ago, I got really excited about buying a track bike. I looked at what I could afford, and decided on a Bianchi Pista. I then went to my local bike shop and pulled the trigger. They said I would have the bike in a week. That was August 29. A couple days later, the bike shop guy called and said that Bianchi didn’t have the bike in the warehouse they thought they had it; it would be a couple weeks before I got the bike, instead of one.
And then nobody called ever again.
So after three (not the promised two) weeks elapsed, I called the bike shop again. He apologized, and said that Bianchi didn’t have its act together, that it turns out they didn’t have any 2005 Pistas anywhere. They’d be getting me a 2006 model instead, and it should be here at the end of the week.
And then another two weeks elapsed.
Yesterday, I called the bike shop again, and he said that this time he has a tracking number, and that the bike would arrive and be built sometime today. I have elected to not hold my breath.
But Not That Patient
Meanwhile, Bianchi is two days shy of taking an entire month to ship a bike. Let me rephrase this so as to make my astonishment and frustration clear: Bianchi, a company whose sole business is to sell bikes, has taken a month to sell me a bike. During that month, the great weather of September—during which I had planned to ride my bike—has come and gone. I’ll get it in October (if I get it at all), which is not exactly a prime outdoor velodrome riding season here in the NorthWest.
So there goes the Cyclingnews series, "Track Racing for Absolute Beginners" I was going to write. Too bad for Bianchi.
I’m pretty sure it’s not just Bianchi that’s doing this, either. If you don’t want what’s in stock at the bike shop—and if you’re looking for anything special, that’s going to be the case—you’re going to have to wait for it. And wait for it. I don’t know any other industry that keeps its most important clients dangling like this.
OK, I’m nearly done venting now. I mean it, though: Bike manufacturers, stop spending quite so much time telling us about the wonderful bikes you make, and consider thinking about how you can actually deliver them on a reasonable timeline.
[Update: 20 minutes after posting this, I got a call from the bike shop. My bike is ready to go. I should point out that I have no gripe whatsoever with the bike shop that sold me this bike — they’ve been very good to work with.]
PS: If you’ve had a good or bad experience with ordering a bike, post a comment. I’m riled up enough right now that I’m thinking of emailing a link to this post to a number of different manufacturers. They should know who’s doing well, and who’s not.
PPS: Why I am I so grouchy today?
Comments (19)
09.26.2005 | 3:17 pm
Want to be “accidentally” left off the email list the next time a ride is organized? Of course you do! Here’s how you can ensure that—no matter your riding skill—other cyclists avoid you like the plague:
- Pull “The Elden Move.” OK, let’s get this one out of the way first, since it’s apparently been named after me (in some circles). For some reason—which I cannot fathom—some riders don’t like to have the first guy to the top of the climb turn around, come down to where they’re climbing, and climb up with them. Well, humph. To those people, I defend myself by saying that I’m not doing this to show that I’m a superior climber, I’m doing it because I just don’t like hanging around forever and ever at the top of the climb, and figure I’d rather come back down part way and keep riding, even if it is at your snail-like pace. Oh, wait. Now I think I see your point.
- Surge and Fade in a Paceline. . Some people don’t have the knack of riding at the speed of the group. They drop back a little—maybe fifteen feet—and then surge forward to catch up. If you are the person who is lucky enough to be behind the surge-and-fade rider, you know that it completely kills any drafting effect you get from riding in a paceline. The best thing you can hope for is an opportunity to switch the riding order up. I have ridden behind a surge-and-fader for more than an hour once. It was the most draining hour of my life.
- Be the Tipster. If you’ve been riding for a while—or perhaps you’ve read a bunch of cycling magazines and books—you no doubt have valuable advice to offer those you’re riding with. And no doubt they’ll want to hear it. All of it. To the exclusion of any other possible conversation. I remember vividly when I was new to mountain biking, there was a particular person who gave me tip after tip after tip on riding, every time we rode together. Finally, I shouted, “No more tips!” Here’s a tip for those who love to give tips: No more than three tips per ride no matter what, and a maximum average of two per ride.
- Be the Gearmeister: Almost all serious cyclists—road or mountain—have a certain amount of gear geek in them. But some people want to debate the virtues of Shimano v. Campy, or Ti v. carbon, or tube v. clincher endlessly. This is not just annoying, it’s dangerous: This kind of talk can hypnotize other riders, causing terrible accidents. Here’s a good rule of thumb, then, to help you recognize whether your chatter about gear is boring: If you’re chattering about gear, it’s boring.
- Be Consistently Late: This one probably applies mostly to riding groups of middle-aged people with jobs, kids, and lots of responsibilities: If you’re late to every group ride, it’s not funny or endearing. It’s indicative that you need some time management training, or that you’re living in Quad 4 or something like that.
- Harp at Others for Being a Little Late: Same thing applies in reverse: if you’re riding with a group of people who have jobs, kids and responsibilities, you’ve got to accept that everyone has 3-minute emergencies from time to time, and you’re just ruining the ride for yourself and others if you get in a twist about it.
- Be Stupidly Cheerful: If I’m bonked, or I think the weather’s bad, or I don’t like the ride, I expect everyone else to have the same reasonable outlook I have: that everything in the world sucks. If I’m not having fun, there’s no fun to be had. If we can agree on that, we can all get along.
- Be a Crybaby: If I’m having a great time—feeling strong, enjoying the weather, liking the course—then clearly everyone else must be having a good time. Please don’t pretend like you’re tired or hot or hungry or bonked.
- Stick to Your Training Regimen, No Matter What: I know people who only rarely ride with the group, because Chris Carmichael has given them explicit instructions on how and when they ought to ride, and those instructions don’t make provisions for actually enjoying yourself. After a while, you stop inviting those guys, because what’s the point? By the way, I have noticed, in race situations, that I pass guys in CTS jerseys much more frequently than I am passed by those guys. I’m just saying.
- Make Excuses, Before, During and After the Ride: If you’re not feeling well or you’ve had an injury, it’s OK to mention this before the ride. Once. You do not get to repeat it for the benefit of those who didn’t hear the first time, and you do not get to elaborate for those who did not really understand just how bad your case of consumption really is. Everyone has a bad riding day sometimes. We understand that. Let’s move on.
- Wear Your Badge of Honor Too Proudly: If you’ve chosen to ride a singlespeed mountain bike or fixed-gear road bike, that’s super. However, you do not get to point it out, and you do not get to use it as an excuse for doing badly on any part of the road. If someone points it out, you may acknowledge it and—if so prompted—even elaborate. But you do not get to call out your absence of derailleurs any more than someone gets to call out that they do have derailleurs. You’ve made your choice; don’t treat it like it was forced upon you.
- Be Relentlessly Apologetic: I’m guilty of this one, big time. If I’m slower than the people around me, I apologize over and over for slowing them down. I have been told to shut up. To those to whom I have apologized too often for not being able to keep up, I apologize.
- Gloat About Trivial Wins in the Distant Past: Remember that time you rode up that impossibly steep pitch in the “Toilet Bowl” move at Gooseberry Mesa, and nobody else was able to clean it? Well, the rest of us don’t, and yet we press on.
Comments (2)
09.21.2005 | 6:04 pm
I ride my bike a lot. I ride about 250 miles per week, in fact. That’s enough that I should not have to worry about weight at all. And if I ate like a normal person, I probably wouldn’t.
But I don’t eat like a normal person. My appetite is enormous, and my taste in food is lowbrow, as well as occasionally bizarre. Which means I like cheap, bad food, I like lots of it, and I like some odd combinations.
If you were me, then, here would be your favorite foods.
- Cold cereal. I am entirely serious when I say that I could happily live on nothing but cold cereal and milk. Honey Bunches of Oats. Cap’n Crunch, in all its incarnations. Honey Nut Cheerios. Count Chocula. Reeses Puffs. Fiber One (yes, really). Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
- Tortillas. As you will see below, tortillas play a prominent role in many of my other favorite foods. However, let it be said: I like tortillas just plain, too. Warm in the microwave for 20 seconds and serve with Cholula hot sauce. Yum.
- Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches. I have thought — more than once — to myself, that if I had to eat just one thing for every meal for the rest of my life, it would be peanut butter and honey sandwiches. But that’s only true if the bread is from Great Harvest. The white bread, I mean. Don’t pollute my bread with whole grains or sunflower seeds.
- Burritos: From El Azteca in Provo, UT. Specifically, the Chicken Chipotle burrito. You know, it’s very difficult to have one of your favorite foods be location-based.
- Peanut Butter, Banana, and Mayonnaise Sandwiches: Everyone wrinkles their noses at this one, and I don’t try to convince anyone to try it. My mom made these for me when I was a kid; I liked them then, I like them now. I can’t get my own kids to try them, though. I think, though, my mom used Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise. My tastes have since matured and I am confident in asserting that Miracle Whip would more appropriately be named Abomination Whip. This is good with a tortilla instead of bread, too.
- Spaghetti: I eat spaghetti at least three times per week. I make it in enormous batches. For a long time, angel hair was my favorite pasta, but I’ve been favoring bowtie pasta lately. Served with a big spoonful of cottage cheese on top, and more black pepper shaken on it than you would think healthy.
- Spaghetti Sauce Burrito: Take a tortilla, spread some spaghetti sauce on it, add several dollops of cottage cheese, microwave for 25 seconds, wrap, and try to eat without it spilling all over yourself. Really, is there anything that isn’t good with a tortilla?
- Bananas. Bananas are the fast food of the fruit and vegetable world. While most fruits have skins, bananas have packaging. They have no hard hidden objects inside you can bite into. And while they don’t have an expiration date per se printed on them, a quick glance tells you when a banana is not yet ripe, when it’s too ripe, and when it’s perfect. Bananas have a mild flavor and soft texture that make them perfect for toddlers, octogenarians, and triathletes. Bananas are good alone, good on cereal, good with ice cream, good in pie. When they get old, they’re good as a baking ingredient. Really, the only thing a banana needs to be perfect is a creamy filling. Bonus banana fact: Most people peel bananas the wrong way, starting at the stem and peeling down. If you try peeling from the other end, you’ll find two things. First, you can now use the stem as a handle. Second, it’s easier to start peeling at this end. I promise you, your life will be 3% easier if you use this technique.
- Golden Delicious Apples: Most people think of apples in a very general sense. This is wrongheaded thinking, and must stop immediately. Granny Smith apples are so hard and tart they are generally only eaten on a bet (good in apple cobbler, though). Fuji apples are nice and crisp, but have no more flavor than paper. Golden Delicious apples, however, are both golden and delicious. And while bananas have their own removable packaging, Golden Delicious apples let you eat the packaging. Just polish the apple on the leg of your pants — this is a very effective way of ridding the apple of any germs and pesticides — and enjoy.
- Scrambled Egg Burrito: I’m proud of the technique I’ve developed in making this. Spray Pam into a cereal bowl, crack a couple eggs into the bowl, pour in a tiny bit of milk, sprinkle salt and pepper in, whip with a fork, and microwave for 2 minutes (1 minute per egg). Flop onto a tortilla (of course) with a little cheese sprinkled on top, microwave for another 10 seconds, add lots of Cholula, wrap and enjoy. My 11-year-old believes this is the best food in the world.
- Mayonnaise: I may as well admit it: I love mayonnaise. It’s good on everything, and not half bad by itself. I apologize to everyone I just creeped out.
Special Instructions on Eating Like the Fat Cyclist After a Really Big Ride
Eat everything, in any combination. Do not worry about taste. Just fill the void.
Comments (29)
09.16.2005 | 7:19 am
When I’m in an endurance race, I’m constantly doing math. How much more time do I have if I want to finish in my goal time? How far do I have to go? How fast do I need to be going to complete that distance? I swear, I have been on some of the most beautiful trails, looking over some of the most incredible vistas in the world, yet finished the ride with my odometer as the prevailing image in my mind.
Hey, when you’re racing, you’ve got to keep track of how fast you’re going.
Except, apparently, you don’t.
Sage Advice
Back in August, the day before the Leadville 100, Kenny, Chucky, Bry and I were sitting together in the afternoon sun, talking about the next day’s race. Kenny usually finishes in well under nine hours, Chucky is a semi-pro racer, and Bry had been training hard, hoping that on this try (his fourth, I think), he’d break nine hours.
Naturally enough, Bry wanted some advice from the fast guys.
"What do you have targeted for your split times?" asked Bry, who is, by the way, a veteran of the Kona Ironman.
"I don’t have any," said Chucky.
"I don’t check my splits," said Kenny.
Bry was amazed. So, in truth, was I. "How do you know whether you’re on target to finish at your goal time?" Bry asked.
"I don’t have a goal time," Chucky replied. "I just go out riding as hard as I can for as long as I can. If that means I win, cool. If that means I finish fifth, cool."
"I don’t even wear a watch or ride with a bike computer during races," Kenny added. "Just give it everything you’ve got."
But…But…
Bry said what I was thinking: "But what if you miss your goal time by just a couple minutes? Won’t you wish you had brought a watch?"
Chucky answered with what I see as the crux of the matter: "Look, a watch will never make you race faster. It can only slow you down. If you’ve got a watch and see you’re dropping behind your target, you accelerate for a minute and fry yourself. Then you lose more time than you would have in the first place. Just race as hard as you think you can all the time, and you’ll get the best time you can get. If you think you could go faster to pick up a couple minutes at the end of a race, you should do it whether it gets you in under nine hours or not."
Aftermath
Bry rode with a watch and a bike computer the next day anyway, and he did in fact finish in under nine hours. Chucky, meanwhile, finished fourth overall, moving up four places in the final 20 miles because he stayed on his bike where everyone else got off to push. Kenny finished in 8:08.
I still rode with a bike computer that day, too. It’s hard to let go of the mindset that if you know how fast you’re going, you can go a little faster. But part of me sees a beautiful logic in just pouring everything I’ve got into a race, without knowing the numbers — and then just dealing with the result.
The other part of me, of course, says, "Yeah, but what if you do that and get a 9:01 next year? You’d kill yourself."
PS: Kenny cleared up a point that merits promotion from comment to postscript. if that’s a promotion. Anyway, Kenny said:
"my point was and still is: that when you ride with a clock you demoralize your self emotionally. Let’s say you’re ahead of schedule and you decide to ease up a bit. That’s going to slow you down. If you’re behind schedule, is knowing it going to speed you up? If it does, you weren’t going fast enough in the first place. I have ridden with a clock and missed my goal. 3/4’s into the race I was having this battle inside my head wether I should go hard and try to make my goal or ease up and stop the pain. By not knowing your time or if your making your splits, you just go as hard as you can for as long as you can. You’ll always do your best on that day. Some days your best will be fast. Some days not so fast."
Kenny’s like Yoda. But really fast on a bike. And not as short. And he doesn’t have that annoying 2nd-half of predicate/object/subject/first-half of predicate syntax thing going on. But he is sage, like Yoda. And he’s bald, too.
PPS: Has anyone else ever got really annoyed watching Yoda, thinking, "his sentence forms are uniformly bad (ie always wrong in the same way). Fifteen minutes with a competent English teacher ought to take care of that problem. Except he’s been around for a mazillion years, so by now someone’s bound to have explained his problem to him. Which means he’s unable to fix the problem (making him a dim bulb indeed) or he’s unwilling to fix the problem, making him willfully annoying."
If Yoda and I ever meet, I predict we will exchange harsh words. But my sentences will be easier to understand, and I won’t sound like a really old Kermit the Frog.
Comments (16)
09.15.2005 | 6:47 am
This Best of Fat Cyclist post — rescued from my MSN Spaces Fat Cyclist archive — originally published September 15, 2005.
It occurs to me that I have been spending far, far too much time in this blog on the "Cyclist" part of "Fat Cyclist." So, today, I’d like to present what has been determined by Renowned Scientists and Certified Dessert Experts around the globe as the Best Cake in the World.
It is a Chocolate-Chip-Oatmeal cake. It is not a fluffy, airy cake that collapses away to oxygen and a whiff of chocolate when you put it in your mouth. No. It is a substantial cake, something you could make a meal of. The oatmeal keeps it dense and moist, and the chocolate keeps it chocolatey.
Do not put frosting on this cake. Frosting is what most cakes need to hide the fact that they are dry, over-airy, and flavorless.
I promise you, if you make this cake, you eat will three pieces before nightfall. You will gain three pounds before dawn. And you will look for reasons to make this cake again soon. You will make this cake whenever you are asked to bring a dessert over to a picnic, and you will be invited to an increasing number of picnics when people learn that you will bring this cake.
Your enemies will approach you to resolve your differences, just so they can have some of this cake.
I will, by coincidence, be making this cake later this afternoon for my wife, for it is her birthday. I will also give her an iPod, onto which I will copy our entire library of music — importing this library into iTunes has been a tedious labor, and ordinarily my wife would appreciate the work that has gone into it. But when she sees that I have made this cake, I expect she will toss the iPod — now forgotten — into a box and will throw her arms around me, grateful that I have gone to the effort of making her The Best Cake in the World.
I only hope that I have not undersold this cake.
Recipe for the Best Cake in the World
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cup boiling water — do not put your fingers in this water, for it is hot!
- 1 cup oatmeal — regular oatmeal, not instant, you cretin.
- 1 c. brown sugar — how come it tastes so good?
- 1 c. white sugar — I have no clever comment to add to this ingredient, unless you consider this comment clever.
- 1 stick butter — No, don’t use margarine. Use butter. Margarine is gross.
- 1 tsp baking soda — I tried brushing my teeth with baking soda. Once.
- 1/2 tsp salt — Or go crazy and put in a whole teaspoonful.
- 1 3/4 cup flour — Warning: flour may contain wheat products.
- 2 eggs — From a chicken; ostrich eggs are too big, and taste nasty.
- 1 pkg milk chocolate chips, or semi-sweet if you think you are too good for regular milk chocolate chips.
Instructions
Pour the boiling water over the oatmeal and stir. It’s best if the aforementioned pouring of boiling water over said oatmeal occurs in a bowl. Stir and let set for 10 minutes. Put the butter in about 5 minutes into this ten minutes, so it can melt.
Meanwhile…
Stir together in a different bowl:
Once the 10 minutes has elapsed…
Stir the brown sugar and white sugar into the oatmeal mixture.
Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then stir the eggs into the oatmeal mixture.
Mix the flour mixture into the oatmeal mixture. You should now have one mixture. If you have more than one mixture, you need to reevaluate some life choices you made in your childhood.
Stir half the chocolate chips into this mixture. Do not snitch more than 5% of the chocolate chips as you do this.
Grease and flour (or, in my house, just spray with Pam) a 9 x 13 pan. Note that this is an update. Originally I said that "you should use a 9 x 9 pan. Or an 8 x 10 pan. Or a 40 x 2 pan. Something that comes out to about 80 square inches." I was guessing. I was wrong. I regret the error. I have other regrets as well, but another time, another time.
Pour the cake batter in, then sprinkle the other half of the bag of chocolate chips on top.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, or until the center of the cake is not a gooey mess. Let cool at least a little bit or the molten chocolate will burn the living daylights out of the roof of your mouth.
Serve warm, or at room temperature if you must. With vanilla ice cream if at all possible.
Eat.
Rejoice.
Comments (40)
« Previous Entries
