07.28.2011 | 11:44 am
Cast your mind back. Way back. Think about PowerBars. No, not the 12 different kinds of PowerBars you can buy today (ProteinPlus, ProteinPlus Reduced Sugar, ProteinPlus Reduced Sugar With Extra Calcium, ProteinPlus Reduced Sugar With Extra Calcium and Caffeine and Just a Hint of Cheez Wiz, among others).
The original PowerBar. The PowerBar that required a full-body workout to tear a piece off, and resulted in aching jaw muscles if you tried to chew it. The PowerBar that you could use, in a pinch, to repair a broken bike frame.
I don’t know if those kind of PowerBars were where energy food started, but they’re the first energy food I remember.
Then Clif Bars came along, and I was hugely relieved, because here was something I could stuff in a jersey pocket, but which didn’t — and I am not exaggerating here — hurt to eat.
And then PowerBar came out with PowerGel: 100 calories you could choke down nearly instantly, provided you didn’t mind consuming something with the consistency of toothpaste and the sweetness of concentrated stevia.
At which point Clif came out with the original Clif Shot, which came in what looked like toothpaste tubes and came in several flavors, all of which tasted exactly like molasses straight from the bottle.
Epiphany
Those were the dark years. But they were necessary; you’ve got to start at a trailhead if you’re going to go down a trail.
And somewhere on that trail, maybe someone had a crucial epiphany: It doesn’t matter how many nutrients an energy food has if, while riding, the thought of eating said energy food triggers your gag reflex.
Or maybe the epiphany was more succinct: People like food that tastes good.
And that’s where Honey Stinger — a little energy food company in Steamboat Springs, CO — comes in.
And I shall now spend the rest of the post talking about how much I love — yes, love — what they make.
Full Disclosure
OK, actually, before I talk about how much I love Honey Stinger, I’d better do the full disclosure thing: Honey Stinger sends me food for free.
However, this full disclosure should come with an explanation.
Honey Stinger sends me food for free because I contacted them and told them how much I love them and that more than anything else in the world, I would love to have an ongoing supply of Honey Stinger food, both for myself and to hand out to other riders, acting as a kind of “First Hit’s Free” kind of sales guy for them.
In other words, I’m not shamelessly plugging Honey Stinger because they give me free stuff. Rather, Honey Stinger gives me free stuff because I begged them to and happen to be an award-winning superstar cycling ultra-megablogger.
Or more to the point: I’m not selling out; I was already sold.
OK, Now On With the Honey Stinger Love Fest
The most important thing you can do today is to find where you can buy Honey Stinger Waffles (you can also get them online), then pick some up, and then go out on a ride and try one.
And it’s very important you try it while you are on a ride or you will mistakenly think you have just had a really delicious treat, and that — hey, why not? — you’ll have another. And so forth, until you’ve eaten all of them.
So you’ve been warned.
Here’s what Honey Stinger Waffles have got going for them:
- They taste good. Seriously, like eat-them-recreationally good. Not as in “This is OK for on a bike but I wouldn’t eat it otherwise” good.
- Texture-licious. Crisp waffle on the outside. Honey on the inside. Yum.
- They are flat. There’s something to be said for energy food that goes into the back of your jersey without bulging it out. Stylie.
- They actually give you energy. I’ve been eating these while riding and they work. The Hammer and The IT Guy and Kenny and Heather have all been riding using these too. All agree: these are the real deal. Sadly for me, since everyone’s been snarfing my Honey Stinger Waffles, my supply has run low much sooner than I told the Honey Stinger guys it would, and now I’m going to have to give them a call and ask for more about a month early.
Are the Vanilla or Honey Waffles better? I don’t know. I like both the same. Which is a lot. In fact I’ll say this very quotable thing which I’m sure the Honey Stinger people will find eminently suitable for their marketing materials:
At 160 calories-worth of deliciousness, Honey Stinger Waffles are the best energy food in the whole world.
Elden “Fatty” Nelson
Award-Winning Blogger
www.fatcyclist.com
I like the Honey Stinger Waffles so much, I am now going to spontaneously write a free-verse ode to them:
O Waffle!
Honey Stinger Waffle!
I look at you from afar
Across the room
I would eat you
Right here
Right now
‘Cept I have promised myself
That I would forebear
And not snitch
And otherwise try to be good
So that I do not run out of you
Before my next bike ride.
Alas!
I remain tempted!
And find myself making
Rationalizations and justifications
And well, you know, maybe it’s a good idea
To carbo-load a little
Before I go out riding
In a couple hours
O Waffle,
Honey Stinger Waffle
You were just as delicious
As I remember
And maybe I will have just one more.
Thank you.
Honey Stinger Energy Chews
First off, major props must be given to Clif for inventing (as far as I know; I don’t actually do research or anything) energy chews in the first place. For years, Shot Bloks have been my go-to energy source for long bike rides.
But not anymore.
Honey Stinger Energy Chews are easier to chew, taste better, and are easier to get from the package into your mouth than Shot Bloks.
The Honey Stinger Energy Chews are, in fact, the thing that got me interested in other Honey Stinger stuff in the first place.
They open easily — just tear the package open in one tug with your teeth — and then squeeze the package so that the chews slide into your mouth.
A crude — but easy to learn and master — technique to be sure. But on-bike eating has never been a proper affair.
They’re delicious and soft — they go down quickly and easily, so you can get back to mouth-breathing ASAP.
These come in lots of flavors: Pink Lemonade, Lime-Ade, Fruit Smoothie, Cherry Blossom, Pomegranate Passion Fruit, and Orange Blossom.
My favorite flavor is Orange Blossom. Honestly, I don’t know what the “blossom” part of the name is about, and have to say I avoided these for a while because I thought they would taste like a flower. In reality, they taste like Orange Crush. As they should.
The Hammer’s favorite flavor is Lime-Ade. I suspect this is because she is a caffeine freak.
Protein Bars
I’ve really ramped up my protein intake in the past couple of months, and I’m finding that I’m down in weight and riding stronger than I ever have. I dropped fourteen pounds between the beginning of May and the beginning of June. Well, the Honey Stinger Peanut Butta Pro Protein Bar was an important part of that. Specifically, it’s loaded with protein and it tastes pretty much like a giant Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
I eat one of these (when I don’t have time or access for the egg whites and avocados) and I stop being hungry.
For smaller snacks, I’ve been eating the Dark Chocolate Mint Almond Protein Bar — if you like mint-chocolate (and I do), you will love it.
Energy Bars and Gels
I know that Honey Stinger actually got their start with honey-based Energy Gels, but you know what? That’s the one thing of theirs I just have not been able to get into. Is that ironic? I don’t know.
Anyway, my ambivalence toward Honey Stinger Gels has to do with a couple of things:
- Honey-ness: These really are pretty much honey, with a little bit of flavoring (except the “Gold” flavor, which is just straight-up honey-flavor). It’s too strong/sweet for me. So sweet they feel like they’re burning the back of my throat. If you love the taste of honey, you’ll be fine with Honey Stinger gels. Otherwise, maybe buy one and try it on a ride before you buy a whole box of them.
- Stickiness: Since these are honey, they’re sticky like honey. Which means that if you don’t execute a perfect open-eat-dispose sequence, you’re going to get honey on your gloves or mouth or in your jersey. So far, I have never executed a perfect open-eat-dispose sequence.
As to the Honey Stinger Energy Bars, well — they’re really good. But they have the “Great defeating the Good” problem: any time I could have one of the bars, I’d rather have one of the Waffles, or a packet of Energy Chews.
And in fact, I believe I will.
Again.
Comments (70)
07.26.2011 | 11:19 am
A Note from Fatty: In the sporadically occasional “The Fat Cyclist Explains” series, I — the Fat Cyclist — explain things. Including, apparently, what seems to be a fairly self-explanatory series name.
One of the very best things about being a beloved Internet cycling celebrity is the fact that, merely by writing about bicycles on a frequent basis, I have become an authoritative expert on everything even tangentially related to bikes. For example, I’m very qualified to tell you what kind of bike you should buy next. I’m perfectly capable of giving you sound advice on bike maintenance and repair, even though I personally take my bikes into the shop for both.
And as a person who constantly battles weight issues, I’m exactly the right person you should go to for nutrition advice.
Thus, today’s question, submitted by me using the pseudonym “Duane,” is as appropriate as it is timely.
Dear Fatty,
I’ve noticed that a lot of cycling computers, GPSs, and ride-tracking applications give you information on how many calories you burned during a given workout. Can you use that data to calculate how much weight loss you should expect?
As always, thank you for writing the best blog that has ever been created in the history of the universe,
Duane
Wow, imaginary person I’m calling “Duane,” thanks for your question! You can in fact use the “calories burned” report from your GPS / bike computer / iPhone app / whatever to accurately project your change in weight. Just remember, there are 3500 calories in a pound, so you just have to do the math.
Sadly, however, that math is not quite as simple as you might think.
The Law of Extremely Diminishing Returns
Suppose you just went on a really long mountain bike ride: 76.5 miles, with more than 10,000 feet of climbing. Your GPS might tell you that you’ve expended 4,472 calories.
So you should have lost 1.28 pounds, right?
Wrong.
Unfortunately, no exercise computer takes into account several critical factors in calculating your calorie expenditure.
Critical Factor 1. Cumulative Time Spent Biking Over The Years
The most important thing your calorie-computing software overlooks is the fact that as you become a more experienced cyclist, you also become a more efficient cyclist. Which is to say that when you first begin cycling, you actually burn way more calories in a workout than the bike computer gives you credit for.
Unfortunately, as you ride more, you’re going to start riding better. You’re going to turn the cranks smoother (smootherly?), more efficiently. You’re going to stop bobbing your head and thrashing your body around during the climbs. Unless you’re Thomas Voeckler, of course.
You’re going to, in essence, go further with less effort.
The following highly-scientific and professionaly-produced chart illustrates this effect by plotting how many calories you can expect to spend when riding 100 miles on your bike, once you factor riding experience in.
As you can plainly see, by the time you have been riding 12 years, you can expect to expend a scant quarter of the number of calories as you did when you first started riding.
This is, at least in part, why you hear about cyclists going on longer and longer rides as they become more experienced. They have to, just to expend the same number of calories they used to when they went on much shorter rides.
But there’s a vicious cycle at work here. Or a slipper slope. I’m not sure which. Maybe it’s a slippery slope that eventually curves back on itself, becoming a vicious cycle.
Anyway.
The problem — which is either a slippery slope or a vicious cycle — is that as you ride more in order to burn more calories, you gain experience and efficiency, thus making it so that you need to ride yet even still more in order to burn the same number of calories.
And the problem gets worse.
As, over the years, you continue to ride, you burn fewer and fewer calories, until you reach what as known as the Paradoxical Cycling Calorie Cataclysm Threshold (PCCCT, pronounced “pkkkhht”), as shown below:
For those who are not quite certain, what you suspect is in fact the case: somewhere around your fourteenth year of riding, you stop burning calories when riding, and begin creating them. In defiance of what scientists know so far about physics, you start creating matter by expending energy.
At which point, the more you ride, the more weight you gain. Unfortunately, the converse — that if you ride less, you start losing weight or at least don’t accrue weight as fast — is not true.
Which is a shame.
Critical Factor 2. The Food Factor
The second factor calorie-counting software doesn’t take into account is the fact that as you ride and (hopefully) burn calories, something mysterious is going to happen to you:
You are going to get hungry.
When this happens, you must choose one of two options:
- Ignore the hunger, causing it to grow exponentially.
- Eat something.
If you choose option 2, you will invariable consume an amount approximately equal to the number of calories you have burned, causing the balance of the universe to be restored, and also causing you to not lose any weight.
If, however, you choose option 1, you will discover that eventually you will be unable to resist the hunger and will eat everything in your fridge, as well as — if you have a key to their house — in your neighbor’s fridge. At which point you will have incurred a calorie surplus equivalent, roughly, to 2.5x the number of calories you have consumed.
But you’ll be eating that during your post-workout high-metabolic recovery window, so those calories won’t really count.
Just kidding! They count even more than normal calories, actually. Because they’re guilty, no self-control calories.
Critical Factor 3. Problematic Calculations
The final factor you need to account for when looking at the number of calories software projects you have expended has to do with the “Fuzzy Logic” algorithms the software uses in its calculations.
What does this mean? Well, in order to give you a real-world assessment of your workout, the software takes your weight, the distance you traveled, the amount of climbing and descending you did, the ambient temperature, the phase of the moon, and several other factors into consideration.
This is when “fuzzy logic” comes into play, which means the software ignores all that data and picks a random number between one and ten thousand, which it then reports to you as the number of calories you have expended.
It’s very useful data, and I recommend you trust it explicitly.
PS: Hey, we’ve got artwork ready to go for the Grand Slam for Zambia: 1000 Bikes, 1000 Lives Changed project. Check it out:
You’ve got to admit: this would be a pretty awesome sticker to have on your bike, and it can be yours if you buy a bike for a kid in Zambia, changing her life in a huge, awesome way. Read here for details of what Johan Bruyneel and I are doing and what you can win, and then go here to enter the contest.
Comments (45)
07.24.2011 | 9:36 pm
I’ve never liked the term “Endurance Race.” I mean, you endure lectures from your boss. You endure piano recitals. You endure watching flat stages on the Tour de France (though I sincerely appreciate ASO’s work at livening those stages up this year by placing invisible obstructions along the course, causing massive crashes to break up the otherwise unendurable monotony).
But long biking races? Well, sure, there are moments when I’m enduring, by which I mean “continuing as if I want to ride, even a big chunk of me would rather stop.”
But mostly, I don’t endure the Leadville 100, or I wouldn’t keep signing up for it (this year will be my 15th consecutive time). I wouldn’t have raced the Kokopelli. I wouldn’t do eight-hour training rides most weekends during the summer.
So here’s the problem: this term “endurance racing” takes an amazing, demanding, beautiful event…and then labels it with its least attractive attribute. I mean, using this technique, Soccer would be called, “Fans Murder Each Other-Ball.” Baseball would be called, “Hardly Anything Ever Happens-Ball.” Running Would be called “Ruining Your Joints.”
Why not call long-distance racing “Seeing a Big Chunk of the World Racing?” Or “Exhibiting Unusual Amounts of Stamina and Cheerful Determination Racing?” Because it’s not really just about enduring. (And don’t go trying to tell me that someone’s already solved this problem by inventing the word “randonneuring,” because that’s just a French word for “riding around with a lot of luggage and pretending you’re not lost.”)
Or at least, that was my perspective until last Saturday.
A Fateful Decision
The IT Guy — The Hammer’s 21-year-old son — has been riding with The Hammer and me a lot lately. That’s because he’s signed up to race the Leadville 100 this August. His first big endurance race.
Last week, for example, he rode Camel Pass. And here he is with The Hammer the weekend before last as we did a mini version of a local epic road ride affectionately known as The Gauntlet (The mini version has “only 78.6 miles / 10,800 feet of climbing; the ultimate version has 96.5 miles / 20,000 feet of climbing).
So, you know, he’s been doing a little bit of riding. We have high hopes for him finishing at Leadville.
And with just a few weeks ’til the Leadville 100, we decided it was time to take him out to do a mountain bike ride that really simulated what he’d be experiencing in Leadville: the Pole Line to Guardsman to Corner Canyon loop.
The Hammer and I had ridden it once before, on July 4. It’s a beautiful ride.
Yes, we have views like this from a lot of the rides that start and end at our house. Envy us.
Anyway, the ride’s physically demanding, but not technical. Like Leadville.
There’d be multiple sustained climbs — about 13,800′ worth of climbing throughout the day.
Not too different from Leadville.
And, importantly, there’s one particular beast of a climb — Guardsman Pass — that gets in your head the same way Leadville’s Columbine Mine climb does. Nearly 4000 feet of climbing in under nine miles will do that to you.
Especially that one little section that’s at a 23% grade.
Differences Make a Difference
But The Hammer and I didn’t bring The IT Guy on this ride to shake his confidence. The fact of the matter is, The IT Guy is riding strong; we figured he was ready for this challenge.
But some things had changed since the last time The Hammer and I had done this ride. First, it had gotten warm. Here’s a self-portrait near the summit of Guardsman Pass on July 4:
Now, I didn’t take any photos when we took The IT Guy on this ride just 20 days later, but you’ll have to take my word for it: there is no longer any snow. Because whereas the first time The Hammer and I did this ride the high temperature was 80.6(F), last Saturday it got a little bit warmer.
OK, it got to 109.4(F). But it was a dry heat, and it’s not like we were toiling up a 15% grade on mountain bikes at the time. OK, maybe it was a little like that.
A Quick Aside
Have you noticed that about 35% of all photos of people on the Internet are self portraits with one shoulder in the foreground as they try to point the camera at themselves? The thing about those photos is, they all look a lot alike. Specifically, a head and shoulders shot of a smiling person, getting in the way of the subject matter the smiling person wanted a photo of. For example, here’s a picture of me when I was visiting my sisters in Brooklyn:
And here’s a shot of me on a beach in Hawaii:
Oh, and me visiting the Late Cretaceous period:
And here’s me hanging out with NYC Carlos at the Davis LiveStrong Challenge a couple weeks ago:
I tell you what: I need to start varying my smile in these self-portraits a little bit. Also, I seem to have sprouted an extra ear in that last photo. I’ll have to see the doctor about that.
OK. Where was I? Oh yeah. The IT Guy. Differences. Impending doom.
The Other Differences
So it was hot. Fine. The other thing that had changed quite a bit in the past few weeks is that the mosquitoes are hungry now. And so are the deer flies, which are just as annoying as mosquitoes. On the bright side, though, a deer fly bite hurts only 280% as much as a mosquito bite.
They’d leave you alone, mostly, as long as you kept riding. Stop for even a second, though, and they would commence to seeing how much of you they could eat before you swatted at them.
Finally, I’m pretty sure this might have been — by a fair margin — objectively the hardest, climbiest ride the IT Guy had ever been on.
The IT Guy Puts the Endure in Endurance
The IT Guy had not had a great day to start with. For one thing, he’s not an early riser type, and we had set a start time of 5:45am, in order to beat the heat as much as possible. Next, a deer had committed suicide by jumping into The IT Guy’s truck’s grill as he drove to The Hammer’s and my house.
Then, just a couple hours into the ride, a squirrel had tried to cut off its own tail by jumping into The IT Guy’s spinning spokes.
He (The IT Guy, not the squirrel) was exhausted. His feet hurt. It was outrageously hot, even high up in the mountains. He had run out of water (and was too proud to ask for some, in spite of the fact that I still had half a camelbak of water, a full bottle of CarboRocket, and a full bottle of Mountain Dew with me).
But really, it was the insects that pushed him over the edge.
“This is the stupidest, worst, $%&^!ing ride in the whole world!” said The IT Guy. “I don’t want to $%^%#@@ing ride this @#$^#%$ing bike any more!”
I looked at The Hammer. Was The IT Guy kidding around? I hadn’t ever seen this side of him. The fact is, The IT Guy could just as easily have the nickname, “The Guy Who Is Always Nice to Everyone and Is Constantly Doing Everything for Everyone.”
But that would be kind of a long nickname.
The Hammer shook her head. The IT Guy was not kidding around.
He wanted to bail out. He wanted to quit.
A Mother’s Love
As a guy, I tend to not get involved in other guys’ decisions. It’s the guys’ way: Hey, I’m out here having fun; if you’re not having fun, go somewhere that’s more fun for you.
The Hammer, on the other hand, is The IT Guy’s mother. “You are not going home,” she said. “You are finishing this ride.”
The IT Guy did not want to finish the ride.
“You are finishing the ride,” said The Hammer, with the full force of a woman whose nickname is “The Hammer.”
I stood by, enjoying watching one incredibly strong, willful person contending with her incredibly strong, willful progeny.
Eventually, he conceded to the following extent. “I’ll keep going, but not if you keep waiting for me.”
“Deal,” I said, before The Hammer could say anything.
As we rode ahead, The Hammer looked at me and I said, “Don’t worry, we aren’t going to leave him.”
Sometimes Endurance Riding is Enduring the Ride
The IT Guy finished the ride. He didn’t enjoy it. He didn’t go fast. Sometimes he walked. But he finished it.
Which was a good reminder to me.
The fact is, I have been riding a long time (since before The IT Guy was old enough to ride a bike), and right now I’m in maybe the best biking shape I have ever been in. 100 mile rides — road or mountain bike — are currently not a big deal. So it’s been a while since we’ve experienced what The IT Guy experienced last Saturday.
I had forgotten that there’s something incredibly satisfying in hitting a wall, then hauling yourself over it. Pretty, no. Satisfying, yes.
It was nice to be reminded that “endurance” rides can — and maybe even should — be about enduring.
Comments (56)
07.18.2011 | 11:02 am
A “This Would Be A Nice Selection of Fat Cyclist Stuff” Note from Fatty: Did you know that the Fat Cyclist Gear pre-order ends tomorrow? No? Well, it does. And you still haven’t ordered anything (unless you have). I suspect that this is because you are overwhelmed by the shear number of cool things there are to order.
So I’m going to help you, by telling you the three things you should get, even if you don’t get anything else. Because you will be very glad you did (yes, of course you can get other things too; I will not hold that against you).
- Jersey (Women’s sizing available too): This is perhaps the classiest jersey you will ever own. Even the fact that it has my logo across the front and back can’t stop its sheer awesome classiness.
- Bibs (Women’s sizing available too): These bibs will go great with all your jerseys, not just your Fat Cyclist jersey. And they say “Team Fatty” on your butt, exactly where it should be
- Socks: These socks are my favorite. I wear them all the time (I’ve run two marathons in them), not just for riding. They’re very lightweight wool, very comfortable, and make excellent puppets, in a pinch. Seriously, they’re good for both cool and warm weather.
- Bottle: I’m moving to a new style of bottle — Specialized Purist Watergate — this year because it’s genuinely the best bottle I’ve ever used. And I’m offering it at the cheapest price you will find it. And with the most awesome design. Seriously, you should get a bunch of these; you will not want to use any other bottle once you try these.
A “Hey, I’m Totally Photogenic” Note from Fatty: My post today is of course about the Tour de Donut, but a local paper — the Daily Herald — also covered the race, including a couple of photos of Kenny and me. Here’s my favorite:
Be sure to check out the story here, especially the photographs.
The Night Before
Friday night. Me. Staring at the ceiling. Unable to sleep. I had a race the next morning — the first (and let’s face it, probably only) race I was to be the title sponsor of: The FatCyclist.com Tour de Donut.
I had a serious dilemma, and that dilemma came in the form of a vivid recollection from the previous year when I had done this race.
In 2010, I had eaten thirteen donuts, which had gotten me on the podium for my age group. But it had also made me feel absolutely lousy for the rest of the day.
I didn’t want to feel that sick again. But I also didn’t want to turn in a sub-par performance at the race.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep. Still undecided on my strategy for the race.
Before the Race
The Hammer and I woke up at 5:15am, as usual. But not just to do this race. See, The Hammer also has a good memory, and did not want to force down a bunch of donuts again. Instead, she planned to take it easy around the course, riding with the twins.
Which meant The Hammer needed a workout prior to the race.
So we did an 8.3-mile trail run — including 1235 feet of climbing — just a couple hours before the Tour de Donut.
This has nothing to do with the race, by the way. I’m just kind of in the mood to brag about having done a longish run before doing a bike race.
Wait, I probably should have put “bike race” in quotes.
Anyway, The Hammer and I got back, gathered the twins and their new mountain bikes, and headed out.
Here, I was told I needed to say a few words to the crowd:
That’s Race Director Rod Martin to the right. Clearly, he is riveted by my speech.
I think I mostly talked about how the proceeds from this event are going to some really great causes, including a new blanket warmer for the Huntsman Cancer Institutue Center in the local hospital — a simple, practical thing that would give some comfort to people as they got chemo treatments.
Then we lined up.
Left to right in the Team Fatty kit: Kenny, me, The IT Guy, Heather.
I don’t think Heather and the IT Guy are taking this race very seriously.
Further back in the line, The Hammer got a shot of the twins in their first race starting line.
The twins don’t look particularly concerned.
Then, moments before the race began, I finally settled on my race strategy.
I looked over at Kenny and said, “Let’s go hard.”
When Non-Serious People Take a Non-Serious Race Seriously
The gun went off and Kenny and I took off. Since we were about five rows back, it took a little bit of snaking around people before we got close to the front.
And then I saw the guy I was sure was going to pull us the rest of the race: a guy with calves as big as my quads.
“Let’s tuck in behind this guy,” I said to Kenny.
We — along with a couple of other guys near the front — settled in as the Sir Calves-a-Lot pulled with the strength of ten men.
Then, maybe 200 yards later, Sir Calves-a-Lot stopped pedaling, pulled over to the left, and just coasted.
Evidently, he was done.
I shrugged and swerved around the other two guys who were drafting behind the man who I just renamed “He With the Ineffectually Large Calves.”
And just like that, a third into the first lap of the race, Kenny and I were in front of everyone.
“Let’s work together,” I said. And we set about being the fastest guys there were in a race nobody cares about going fast in.
We took short, intense pulls, building a larger and larger gap.
Moment of Terror
And then, partway into that first lap, I almost died.
For real.
Kenny and I were hauling. I was pulling. We were coming to a left-hand turn in a four-way intersection.
I was very nearly into the turn when I saw it: a minivan coming from our left side, going through and not slowing down. As far as it was concerned, it had no reason to; it had the right of way, we had the stop sign.
Kenny yelled. I grabbed two handsful of brake. I saw the terrified face of the driver of the van as he went by, missing me by a foot or so.
“I thought you were dead,” said Kenny.
“Me too,” I said, and Kenny took his next turn pulling.
The Donut Strategy
Kenny and I pulled into the donut eating station. Since we were first, we had our pick of where to stop. We pulled all the way forward and dug in.
I did not know how many donuts I wanted to eat. Last year, I had eaten eight the first go-round. I knew I didn’t want to eat that many this time.
Kenny kept a close eye on me, matching me, donut for donut.
After four — yes, just four! — Kenny said, “Let’s roll.”
I knew I could have easily eaten another two donuts without any discomfort whatsoever, but I was having a ball tearing up the course with Kenny and didn’t want to give that up just to beat him by eating more donuts.
So off we went. We had a couple of people to re-catch who had eaten either very few or no donuts at all.
We had high confidence we would be able to do so.
Elsewhere on Team Fatty
If a race is supposed to be silly, the most ridiculous thing you can do is take it seriously. Which means, I think, that Kenny and I were the most ridiculous people on the course.
Luckily, not every rider on Team Fatty was being as foolish as Kenny and I.
Take, for example, KanyonKris and his wife Jolene. They had borrowed my tandem for the day, decorated innertubes as donuts, and were riding in seriously awesome style:
They then made valiant attempts at eating donuts:
Honestly, though, look at them. People must see them wearing FatCyclist jerseys and get so confused.
Meanwhile, The IT Guy and Heather rode — and ate — together, reprising their highly effective working-together strategy from the Rockwell Relay.
You’re not going to win if you aren’t shoving donuts into your face at top speed, you know.
I dunno. It doesn’t really look like he’s enjoying eating that to me.
The Hammer noted that after eating seven donuts, “Heather looked totally green.”
It is not known at this time whether The IT Guy mooned Heather during this race.
The Twins Rip Up The Course
And what about the twins? They were having a great time riding with The Hammer.
Riding bikes and eating all the donuts they wanted — could there be a better day?
Of course, the twins also learned a valuable lesson: donuts are great…until they’re not.
eating four? Maybe not such a good idea.
And Now, Back to Kenny’s and My Race
Kenny and I hammered through the second lap, quickly reclaiming our position near the front of the field.
We ate four donuts again. Rod — the race director — stopped by as we did and rolled his eyes. “You’re not even trying” he exclaimed.
So we ate another, bringing our total to nine. Meanwhile, The Hammer came by (she and the twins did a shortened version of the race) and told me, “Don’t you expect a single moment of sympathy if you make yourself sick on donuts today!”
Very well. Nine seemed like a good place to stop.
Kenny and I got back into our rhythm, taking short turns pulling on our third — and final — lap.
We powered up to the finish line, me in front, ready to claim my first place position — at least for time; I expected that I had not eaten enough donuts to claim the overall victory.
I put my head down, giving it all I had, ready to sprint.
But there, blocking my line to the finish line, was a monster SUV.
I sat up and slowed down ’til I could get by. Kenny did too, and we crossed together. A guy we had passed a couple minutes ago, however, snaked by, claiming first-to-finish honors.
Dude had only eaten two donuts, though.
Pffff.
Awards
Heather’s 7-donut binge paid off: she took second in the women’s division:
They had me stand in the podium picture for all the awards. Which may in fact have been the most ridiculous part of a thoroughly ridiculous day.
Kenny and I got up on the podium for our age group (35-54), thinking we had taken 2nd and 3rd place, with a finishing time of 56:29 and an adjusted time of 29:29.
There’s an injustice, here, though. Shane Morris got overlooked somehow — he was the real 2nd place winner. So Kenny and I claim co-third place, since our times were identical (I’m the one who kept the trophy, though).
You know what’s sad, though? It’s the “If only” factor. If Kenny and I had eaten just one more donut each, that would have dropped our time by enough to place us in co-first place (assuming we each ate that hypothetical donut in less than 21 seconds, which we hypothetically for sure would have done).
That’s the way the Tour de Donut goes, though — you walk a fine line between how many you can eat and how many you should eat.
And since I felt fine the rest of the day, I’m claiming victory.
(Next year, though: 10 donuts.)
Comments (36)
07.14.2011 | 10:14 am
A Note from Fatty : This is Michael Harper. He wants to lose a bunch of weight, and he needs our help. He wants to be selected in Kansas City Fitness Magazine’s Weight loss challenge, but he needs to get a whole boatload of Facebook “Likes” in order to do it. So here’s what you need to do.
1. Go to the Kansas City Fitness Magazine on Facebook and click the Like button.
2. Go to Michael’s entry for the contest on Facebook and click the Like button.
That’s not too hard, right? And I’m sure Michael thanks you from the very depths of his heart.
An Open Challenge to Every Cyclist in the World
Dear Really Fast Cyclist Person,
I’m sure you’re a very fast cyclist. Probably even faster than I am. But I’m nevertheless quite certain that I could kick your butt in a race this Saturday.
As long as the race in question is this year’s FatCyclist.com Tour de Donut.
Yeah, that’s right, fast guy. I’m the title sponsor of a race. You think you can beat me at my own freakin’ race?
Come on, fast guy. I’m calling you out. Show me what you’ve got. Come on over and see if you have what it takes to beat a middle-aged, paunchy cyclist with little or no race experience.
Be sure to bring along a ten-gallon drum of humility, by the way. You’re going to need it. After all, you’ll be racing against one of last year’s podium finishers of this event (me). Here I am with the winner of the event:
Please bear in mind that this was before I was experienced at this race. This time, I’m going to totally own this thing.
How the Race Works
So, fast guy, I don’t want you to go making excuses about not being prepared because you didn’t know how this race works, so I’m going to explain the rules (you can get a more thorough explanation here).
You will ride three laps around a seven-mile course. After the first and second laps, you will eat as many donuts as you think you can handle. And — this part’s important, so pay attention — for each donut you eat, three minutes will be subtracted off your total time.
That’s right, fast guy. Three whole minutes. Per donut. So it’s possible — in fact, it’s been done — to finish the race with a negative amount of time racing.
So, fast guy, you’ve got to ask yourselves some very serious, hard questions:
- How fast can you ride 21 miles?
- How many donuts do you think I can eat?
- Do you honestly think you can ride faster than I can eat? I mean, honestly?
Why I’m The Title Sponsor of This Race
There are two very good reasons why I am sponsoring this race.
The first one is that the sponsorship money I have agreed to put up (which I am going to have to raise, so expect news of a unique contest I am developing very soon) goes toward a very simple, meaningful objective: to buy a blanket warmer for the Huntsman Cancer Institute Cancer Center in American Fork, UT. Those of you who have had cancer know that a little bit of comfort during treatment can make a big difference. This is where Susan went for chemo, and I like the idea of making others who go there for treatment a little more comfortable.
The second one is because I can think of no better-suited race for me to sponsor than the Utah Tour de Donut.
Come Race With Me
So, fast guy — why don’t you register for the race? You’ll be doing something good. And you’ll get a lot of donuts out of it. And you’ll get to say that you raced against — and let’s face it, probably lost against — me.
Here. Just to give you an incentive, I’m going to give you a code for 15% off the registration cost. When you register, use the promo code fatcyclistdonuts2011.
Come on, fast guy. Come race me at the FatCyclist.com Tour de Donut.
If you’re not afraid.
Kind Regards,
The Fat Cyclist
PS: Live too far to race, but want to donate or buy a Tour de Donut jersey? You can do that. Just click here.
PPS: Just so you don’t forget, the Fat Cyclist 2012 collection is now on pre-order. Read here for details, and click here to go order stuff. For example, I highly recommend getting yourself a nice Tech-T, like this one:
I wear the 2011 version all the time. Awesome for MTB riding, not to mention running. And trampoline-jumping. And carousing. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is the most ideal carousing-oriented Tech-T you could ever possibly buy. So do.
Comments (40)
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