05.18.2016 | 10:38 am
I have a key takeaway from the 2016 RAWROD: It doesn’t matter how beautiful something is if you don’t take the time to look at it.
And here’s another key takeaway: nothing’s so beautiful that it justifies getting your eyes and face sandblasted as you look at it.
Which is to say, for pretty much the entirety of this ride, I kept my head down and just rode. Giving about 60% of all my mental cycles over to a single thought: “I can hardly wait ’til this is over.”
But you know, that leaves 40%, and that 40% is worth mentioning.
I’d say I spent about 50% of that 40% (i.e., 20%) wondering, “Where is everyone?” We had started together, we had waited in the places where you wait, we had ridden at a reasonable pace.
And yet, we were alone. And thanks to the wind, we just couldn’t make ourselves sit there and endure the wind any longer than we had to.
Which leaves me with 20%. And 75% of that 20% (in other words, 15%) I thought about how it was pretty darned cool that we were doing this amazing ride in a beautiful place in terrible conditions.
I thought about how weird it is to choose to do something harsh and difficult, for no reason other than you had decided to do it. Or in my case, because you like being with someone who had decided to do it, and know yourself well enough that if you don’t do it, you’ll kick yourself afterward. A lot.
I thought about how it was pretty cool that even though the wind was almost always in our face, we rode side by side, so we could hold a shouted conversation. By the end of the day, we’d both have hoarse voices from spending the day yelling everything we wanted to say. Usually at least a couple of times.
And in the end, we did it.
Wasn’t it clever the way we wore our 100 Miles of Nowhere jerseys, seeing as how this route, according to my GPS is exactly 100.0 miles long — the only perfect natural century I know of or have ever ridden.
Afterward
We waited for the rest of the gang. We waited while we changed. We waited while we ate and drank.
But the wind was getting worse, and we had a storm to beat if we were getting home.
So, without seeing anyone from our group arrive, we left.
But we didn’t beat the storm. In fact, as we went over Soldier Summit, we rode through incredibly windy whiteout conditions. I slowed to thirty miles — and often slower — as I white-knuckled the steering wheel for the longest forty-five minutes I have ever driven.
I’m not a big fan of driving over mountain passes in blizzards. Especially when I’m exhausted from a long day of mountain biking for a hundred miles in a windstorm.
But we made it.
The next day, I texted Kenny: “Are you guys alive? What happened? Where were you?”
I expected a reply full of drama and adventure. What actually happened…was a little less interesting.
Basically, partway up the Mineral Bottom dirt road, they realized they had not brought their passes or money for the toll booth. Not realizing that neither were necessary on this particular day, they turned around and went back to the beginning to get their money and passes.
And that’s it. That’s the end of the story, really. And I feel like I’ve let you down here. There wasn’t a lot of drama in this story. Just a lot of wind and a group separation due to pretty mundane circumstances.
But you know what? Not every story is going to have a lot of drama, outside what happens in your head. Sometimes, just deciding to start is the story. Then deciding to keep going. And then finishing a very hard day and getting a burger afterward.
Sometimes a plain ol’ difficult ride is adventure enough.
PS: Really, I should give better detail on how things went for the rest of the group. Ryan and Jaooaooaooooeeoooeeeooo finished about an hour behind The Hammer and me. I am not certain, but don’t think they finished together. Which means those guys suffered magnificently.
As for the Kenny / Heather group, they finished too, about an hour and a half after The Hammer and I did. My guess is that Kenny had a fun day and was cheerful throughout.
Comments (11)
05.10.2016 | 1:38 am
I have some news.
Some of it is unquestionably good, and some of it is tempting to call “bad,” though I think it’s more correct to call it “instructive” or “educational.”
Which should I talk about first? Hm.
Well, I know how I think: I’d want to know how bad the “bad” part is, and would skip past the “good” part if I had to.
So let’s do the bad/instructive/educational part first.
An Apology, What I’m Doing About It, and What I’ve Learned
On March 23, I asked my readers to carry me, in the form of pre-orders, as I looked for a job and wrote a book.
This was an error.
I mistook the generosity toward charitable causes my readers have shown throughout the years as a general willingness to open their wallets for anything I asked them to, including to support me.
To date, fewer than 100 jerseys and books have been ordered.
These numbers don’t get me to a break-even point (not even close), and right now I can’t risk additional debt.
So, over the next few days I’ll be sending out refunds for all orders and donations I’ve received associated with this book and associated gear.
I especially apologize to those of you who took a leap of faith in donating or in placing an order on the books. As a thank you for this, when this book is complete, I will send you e-book copies, no charge.
I still will write this book, but I’ll do it when I am under less pressure.
And I’ve learned a valuable lesson: I am not a charity, and I am not Kickstarter. If I have a product to sell (like jerseys) I need to give you a timeframe of when you’ll get it. If I have a book to sell, I need to have it written before I ask you to buy it. And I shouldn’t ask you to give me anything until and unless I’ve earned it. That won’t happen again.
The Good News
Back in March, I asked my readers to let me know if you were aware of a job that fits my talents, and I linked to my LinkedIn page and a copy of my resume.
I also, of course, began using traditional networking methods (friends, former co-workers, LinkedIn) to look for a job.
I was surprised — and incredibly happy — to find that all four of the best opportunities came to me via the nearly 1,000 times my resume was downloaded by Friends of Fatty (the fourth came from a friend who referred me to a very good local company).
In the end, it was in fact through a Friend of Fatty that I found Altify, where I started as a full-time employee yesterday, with responsibilities for community and social media.
It’s an awesome fit with a great company; I’m really excited to work here. New beginnings are intense, but this place has a great feel to it. (Plus they all treat me like the royalty I am.)
I can’t say how often I’m going to be able to post here for a while, but please definitely keep checking back. I’m not done with this blog yet.
Comments (57)
05.9.2016 | 3:24 pm
I’m really pleased to announce this new episode of the FattyCast. In it, I talk with Betsy Andreu about pasta recipes, her hip replacement, the threshold of sincerity in apologies, how strange it is to juggle the responsibilities of being a mom and a whistleblower, why she hasn’t written a book, and yeah… a little bit about Lance Armstrong.
It’s a focused, intense, and fun conversation. You should definitely give it a listen. Which you can do by subscribing to the FattyCast on iTunes, on my FattyCast site, by downloading directly, or in the handy little player below:
Thoughts About the Show
From the outset, let me say this: I really enjoyed my conversation with Betsy. While she and I have exchanged email a few times, this was the first time I’ve ever actually talked with her. I hope to talk with her again.
Second, I think it’s really easy to get caught up with anger anytime anything Lance Armstrong-related comes up. For example, when this episode got automatically posted on Facebook over the weekend, one person expressed disappointment in me, saying “When you change sides, you really change sides.” Meaning, I suppose, that it was a betrayal of either Armstrong or LiveStrong for me to ever talk with Betsy.
Another person — someone who needled me pretty aggressively back before Armstrong admitted to cheating — made it very clear he still has a problem with me, writing, “Zzzzzz…you can’t force me to listen to that guy.”
And even Betsy, in sharing the podcast on Facebook, described me as a “former adversary.” Which made me a little sad; I had never thought of myself as her adversary. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned her in this blog.
I guess these are all legitimate perspectives. Talking with someone like Betsy might feel like betrayal to you if you feel like I owe Armstrong loyalty.
Giving Armstrong the benefit of the doubt back before he confessed might seem like absurd naïvete. I confess: I tend toward being naïve.
And while I never said anything against Betsy, I also never had her back; maybe that does make me a former adversary.
In any case, I believed and acted how I believed and acted, and I affected people how I affected them. I never meant (nor mean) to hurt anyone, but apologize to those I hurt without meaning to.
All that said, I reiterate: this is a really good episode, and you should listen to it.
Comments (13)
05.5.2016 | 1:43 pm
A Note from Fatty: If you haven’t signed up for the Cannondale CAAD12 Disc Dura Ace Road Bike giveaway sponsored by my friends at The Feed, you need to. Now. It takes less than a minute to do, costs nothing, and someone’s going to win that bike. Why not give yourself a shot at it?
Race in the Basement
I had been dreading this moment. And yet, I had also been so excited for this moment. I had put off this moment, partly because of sickness, but mostly because I didn’t want to know.
And yet, I so wanted to know.
I am talking, of course, about the TrainerRoad 20 Minute Test, and — much more specifically — that as part of beginning the TrainerRoad Sustained Power Build training plan, I needed to do this 20 Minute Test…which, oddly enough, takes an hour.
Here’s what I posted on Twitter an hour or so before I went down into my basement to do the test
Why was I so nervous? Why was I so conflicted? Because this workout gives you a very accurate measurement of how strong you are. If you commit to going as hard as you can, it delivers an extraoridinary amount of pain, followed by an extremely honest, numerical assessment of how many watts, on average, you should be able to generate in an hour. Your “Functional Threshold Power (FTP) number.”
My most recent FTP test was a couple months ago, and resulted in a score of 269. Which is not bad. But I had been sick when it was time to do this test a month ago, and so I hadn’t.
And now, well I was curious: was I getting stronger? Weaker? Staying the same?
“Oh please,” I prayed to St. Merckx, the patron saint of quadriceps, “Don’t let me wind up with a result that’s weaker.”
I loaded the workout, fully aware of how odd it was to have a case of the butterflies in anticipation of doing a solo workout, in the basement, on my Wahoo Kickr trainer.
The screenshot of the profile tells you everything you need to know about what this workout does to you. A half-hour warmup slowly ramps up your effort, gives you a few short, hard efforts, a practice five minutes above your previous FTP effort.
And then, for twenty minutes, you go. Just as hard as you can.
Which is a very interesting thing to try to do.
Because going at your absolute limit for twenty minutes isn’t the same as going at your one-minute absolute limit. One minute means I’m going at a dead sprint and it’s the end of the world and I’m throwing up and oh mercy I’m starting to black out and how did a minute turn into three thousand years and oh I thought I was going to die and I guess I’m not but yes I guess I really did throw up on myself.
And it’s not like going at your nine-hour absolute limit, where basically you’re just riding just two notches into your discomfort level, and never letting yourself slip into the “one notch of discomfort” zone.
A twenty minute effort leaves room for uncertainty: Could I possibly go just a little harder right this second? And of course the answer is “Yes, but if I do I may completely collapse and be unable to continue for another seventeen minutes.“
And on any given day, you can go to the TrainerRoad 20 Minute Test page and see how that test has defeated people. Some go too hard at the beginning, and melt down as they get to the real part of the test:
Some bonk, recover as best as they can, and struggle on valiantly:
And some people…well, some people do it more or less perfectly, keeping their effort smooth and consistent through the whole thing:
As for me, well…I was somewhere in between. Here’s my whole thing:
And here’s the closeup of the real star of the test: the twenty minute block:
That jagged yellow line represents my mental state incredibly well. I began overconfident, thinking I could keep my power at or above 350 for the whole time.
This was as stupid as it was wrong.
Before long, I revised my estimate to thinking I could keep my wattage above 320. And then 300.
To my credit, I never revised my intent below 300. But sometimes, if I let my attention stray even briefly, my power would dip down, and I’d have to wind myself back up again.
Each time it hurt. And you can see from the jagged yellow line that it was a constant battle.
But — and I’m proud of this — I did not give up.
“Go. come on. Go. You’re dropping again. GO! OK, you’re back up to where you should…no, you’ve dropped again. GO!”
Like that. For twenty minutes.
Furthermore, I even managed to, for the last few minutes, give it everything I’ve got to climb up to the 320 zone.
The moment that twenty-minute test ended and the ten minutes of cool down began, I felt a gratitude and exhaustion I have experienced only at race finish lines, and even then only rarely.
But even as I cooled down, I wondered how I had done.
Here’ how:
Was I proud? Well, of course I was proud. Still am. So proud I’m writing this incredibly vain post about it.
Proud enough that I texted the above screengrab to my wife, to friends, tweeted it to the universe, and even sent it to Jonathan at TrainerRoad.
He said it was a solid effort, but that if I don’t go so hard at the beginning, instead keeping my effort smooth throughout, I might be able to average a better overall number.
He texted me this helpful graphic to demonstrate:
So I still have room for improvement. Still, I did manage new personal bests with this workout, shown with the cute little ribbon icons:
Although, the assertion that I went through 753 calories is suspect:
To be fair to TrainerRoad, this is not their fault. They can’t possibly know that my metabolism defies physics and that I actually gained weight as I did the test.
So: 289 FTP for Fatty. The highest I’ve ever measured it. Not bad for a guy who turns fifty next month.
I’m beginning to believe there may be something to this whole “structured workout” thing. Weird.
Comments (18)
04.18.2016 | 2:29 pm
If you ride bikes and you’re on Facebook, you’ve almost certainly seen this sponsored post (or one very much like it):
The SpeedX Leopard is the most-funded bike campaign on Kickstarter, surpassing its goal of $50,000 within two hours of launching. With three days left in the campaign, this very affordable, nice-looking, carbon fiber road bike with a built in GPS and cadence sensor is a rounding error away from two million dollars in pledges.
It’s a huge success story…and it’s also a symptom of a big problem (and not just in the bike industry): circumventing the trusted, knowledgeable salesperson, in order to get a lower price.
It’s not worth it.
The Dangers of Bargain Hunting
I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about the pros and cons of the SpeedX Leopard here (although in the most recent episode of The Paceline [Download or find on iTunes], we get into that a little bit).
The fact is, for certain people, the Leopard may in fact be a really good option.
But there are a lot of people for whom this bike isn’t right, too.
Which leads to the $1400 – $2500 question: which are you?
A lot of people don’t know the answer to that question…and when knowledgeable people are left out of the purchase in the name of low price, buyers aren’t going to find out until too late whether they’ve made a bad call.
Without a knowledgeable salesperson they trust, a lot of people won’t realize this cool-looking, high-tech bike they’re excited about is actually non-adjustable in some important ways, does not fit, handles poorly, is very heavy for a road bike, and has seriously suspect wheels.
They’re not going to find out, ’til too late, that for them this record-breaking Kickstarter-funded bike is not such a great deal after all.
Of Bikes and Enterprises
I’ve been reading a study published by Altify talking about the relationship between sellers and buyers, based on a survey it conducted with a combination of 1200+ people. The results are meant to be used at an enterprise level, but the truth is they actually provide some important insights for anyone, at any level — including people who are buying or selling bikes, online or in stores.
One thing that really caught my eye: buyers don’t think salespeople matter all that much. Fewer than half think salespeople are “very important” or “critical.”
I can understand why, I suppose. We’ve gotten used to being self-service in a lot of our purchase decisions. And the Amazon.com-itization of the world is fine…up until you start making complex buying decisions. Like in a sophisticated software solution to be deployed across your enterprise.
Or for buying a bike.
Knowledge and Trust Matter
Once you get past the point of comfort with your own expertise, you need a trusted, knowledgeable person to guide you through complicated purchases.
Both of those words — trusted and knowledgeable — are critical, no matter whether you’re talking about big business or buying from a bike shops. The Altify study emphasizes:
If there is one message that you take away from this study it should be that you have to take care of your customers.
An incredible 80% of customers say that previous history is the top factor in determining where they go to buy.
That, of course, is only true if that “previous history” is a good experience — where a salesperson doesn’t just relay information that could just as easily be found with a quick web search, but instead understands the customer well enough to not just make a goode-enough transaction, but to help the customer make a better purchase than they would have on their own.
This doesn’t happen as often as salespeople might think, unfortunately; about half think they almost always add value, while buyers are more likely to say “rarely” or “sometimes.”
Yes, I know: this study is focused on business sales, not bikes. But the critical point stands, regardless: people need help to make difficult purchases, but “help” needs to be more than just conveying information.
It Goes Both Ways
Whether talking about bike shops or large enterprises, it’s pretty obvious that the seller needs the buyer. But I think it’s equally clear that buyers need good, real-world salespeople for complicated purchases.
We need people we can trust, people who know not just the facts, but what matters to us. People who are going to bring us back to the shop for service and for group rides…and for the next time we want a bike. People who know enough to say, “Sure, a built-in GPS and carbon wheels for a $2500 bike sounds good, but what if that GPS fails? And do you want to trust no-name rims to not delaminate at 40mph?”
So there’s a call to action on both sides of the fence for my readers.
First, for my friends at bike shops: Center everything you do around your customers; earn repeat business from your customers by being trustworthy, knowledgeable, and rewarding your best salespeople for great work. Find out from your customers whether your salespeople are providing value. As the Altify study shows, this may not be obvious to the salespeople themselves.
Second, for my friends who are bike shop customers: Reward shops with great salespeople with your repeat business. Recommend them to friends. And understand that a bike is not a simple online purchase, because you certainly can’t have it properly fit, serviced or upgraded online.
In short: remember: Good salespeople aren’t just a value-add; may be what stands between you and a disastrous decision.
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