Very Useful, Important, and Marketable Facts Learned from the FatCyclist.Com Reader Survey

04.2.2013 | 11:44 am

It was Sunday evening. The day before April Fool’s day. The twins were putting food coloring in the milk and rigging tripwires to spill confetti in every bedroom in the house (yes, really, in both cases).

Meanwhile, I had just one fairly weak idea: I was going to do a “Note from Fatty” prefacing a post saying that in order to monetize my blog, I was going to need to step up the number of ads — and then put dozens and dozens of ads scraped from other sites right in the middle of the post. One after every couple lines. All of them just leading to Bike Snob NYC’s oft-used Just Kidding image.

And then, late in the evening, I got an invoice in the email from SurveyMonkey, which I had subscribed to in order to help the twins collect data for their science experiment a couple of months ago, then neglected to unsubscribe from.

A light went on. “I’ll conduct a marketing survey for my readers,” I thought, “and just ask whatever pops into my head.”

It never even occurred to me that the results of that survey might actually be interesting. 

And yet, they are. With just under 1,000 responses (the limit above which I would have had to begin paying $0.15 per additional response), I have a distressingly accurate picture of who you people are now, and the manner in which you are likely to answer very strange questions.

For your edification, I would like to present the highlights of this data.

Who You Are

First of all, almost exactly a quarter of you self-identify as female.

The rest of you are something else, though I have yet to distill all that data into anything meaningful. A sample of responses, however, include:

• 1 single-cell amoeba
• 2 hermaphrodites
• 1 person clarifying “After a vasectomy and too much time in the saddle I’m only 50% male”
• 7 claiming to be various Star Trek species (Klingon, Vulcan, Romulan)
• 1 who reproduces “via binary fission”

Which means, to my delight, that I (age 46.75) am older than the majority of you. Also, I like the fact that 51 of you skipped this question. 

To my delight, readers of FatCyclist.com seem to be a very prosperous group:

I’m really pleased at the fact that more than 75% of you make more than $100,000 per year. If I were an advertiser, I would totally pay attention to this metric and start advertising to this very prosperous readership right away, and I also wouldn’t look too closely at the options presented in this question.

Wanting to get a sense of the things my readers would spend a large amount of money on, I asked, “What would you do if you had a million dollars?” 

Of course, this is a reference from the Barenaked Ladies song, “If I Had a Million Dollars.” But I was surprised at some of the results, shown here sorted by their popularity. Specifically, more of you would buy a monkey than art. Your least-likely purchase is John Merrick’s remains. To which I must respond: How do you think that makes John Merrick’s remains feel?

Bicycle-Oriented Spending Habits

One question on your mind is surely, “Do FatCyclist.com readers ride their bikes a lot?” Sadly, I never got around to asking that question.

However, I did ask how many bicycles you’re likely to own.

So, if you’re being honest — and on April Fool’s Day, why wouldn’t you be? — more than half of you own between 3 and 9 bikes. Which makes me really happy, because that means I own more bikes than most of you.

What’s startling in that breakdown is what kind of bikes you’re likely to own: 

Mongoose edged out Huffy, though Huffy started the day with a lead. I suspect that this is due to the fact that Huffy riders have an earlier bedtime.

Bikes, of course, are only a small portion of the things FatCyclist.com readers spend money on, as the below graph clearly demonstrates.

This indicates a number of very important things:

• A lot of you are very likely to buy tubes, pastries, and post-ride beverages. Especially pastries and beverages.
• Quite a few of us buy jerseys that fit too tight.
• Charts can be super-duper confusing if you want them to be. 

Also, this question was a deal-breaker for a lot of readers. Roughly 25% of you said to yourselves, “OK, I get the joke, time to move on,” and bailed out at this question, rather than continue slogging on.Which is too bad, because this is where the survey started getting good. 

No, just kidding. It just kept getting more ridiculous. 

 

You may wonder why I included the question, “How many days in a typical week do you wear false eyelashes or extensions.” The answer is simple: I put this in because it was a sample question in the survey software, and I found it intriguing.

And now that I asked, I’m caught between interested and surprised; I find it kind of weird that so many of you — like, more than half of you — are pretty much always wearing false eyelashes. 

And I didn’t even know there were such things as eyelash extensions.

From there, naturally, we clearly needed to find out more about your makeup-wearing tendencies. Specifically, I was interested in how cyclists’ likelihood to get tattoos relates to the rapidly-expanding tattoo-obscuring makeup market:

The market for tattoo-covering makeup market is evidently enormous amongst my readers, which raises the question of why you’re all getting tattoos in the first place, and probably infers that you frequently make poor decisions after a night on the town.

Digging deeper, I asked you, “Considering that makeup companies, tattoo artists, tattoo removal companies, and attorneys all advertise heavily on the internet, please describe your favorite place to ride a bike.” Some of your common responses included the following:

• Inner city roads near tattoo parlors
• To my attorney’s office after getting a tattoo
• Places where M-dot tattoos are made. Those guys ride slow and are easily dropped
• Through a makeup factory on the way to getting a tattoo
• Outside
• On the Internet

I was amazed at how often “outside” appeared, though I probably shouldn’t have been. And I was really amazed at how often “on the internet” appeared, because that makes no sense whatsoever.

Your Ideal Bike

The single largest revelation in the survey results was that there is complete unanimity on how much money should be spent on a bike, and what color it should be. Observe: 

Survey participants were also allowed to enter a color of their own choosing, so long as the length of the color was three characters or less. To my surprise and delight, almost all readers selected red. Though quite a few managed to type “blue,” which means the survey-taking tool wasn’t paying very close attention.

Cycling Lifestyle Blog Reading Habits

As a blogger who is aware that other bike blogs exist, I was interested in your perception of other “popular” cycling blogs. The responses were startling:

Wow. If I were these guys, I’d be concerned.

Why, then, is my own blog so popular and successful and award-winning? Your answers were as kind as they were accurate:

• Bribery
• Pity
• Shameless begging / self-promotion
• None of the rest of them need the reassurance awards bring
• Easy access to fat, balding, shirtless men

Innovative Food Consumption Habits

How do FatCyclist.Com readers eat? Pretty much how you’d expect:

Honestly, I’m a little bit disappointed that there wasn’t more blue in the above chart. But I’m even more disappointed in the reactions I got to the question “Why do you suppose so few people have discovered that peanut butter on a slice of cheddar is DELICIOUS?”

Clearly, prior to taking this survey, a large majority of you had never tried this most delicate of delicacies, while comments on this question were a mix of encouraging and extremely discouraging.

• My life has just changed
• Its weird how much we have in common
• Ugh, because it is gross
• Because it is bizarre

Sad. But not as sad as the way I felt at seeing this: 

I’m sorry, but the correct answer is okra. By a lot. 

Final Questions

To gauge the wisdom of my readers, I asked a few questions that required deep thinking. 

What does it mean that 85% of the respondents choose “True?” I don’t know. But I choose to interpret it as a good thing.

Next, I assessed the endurance of my readership, asking them how many more questions they thought were coming down the pike, versus how many they could tolerate. The results were telling:

And finally, I assessed my readers assessment of the survey itself, within the survey. 

As a followup, I asked for suggestions for better joke ideas for next year. Responses included:

• Sagan pinching a koala (and many other variations of Peter Sagan either pinching or getting pinched)
• A survey with actual funny questions
• Anything (This was the second-most-common suggestion, which means that according to many people, I somehow managed to pick the very least funny of all possible jokes to play, which is an accomplishment of its own, I suppose)
• Potty humor
• Something with ferrets (This reminds me of one of the funniest, best-written things I’ve ever read)
• A fork in the eye
• The weight loss video, backwards. (I almost did this, but didn’t want to go to the effort of changing the dates on all the pictures)

Of all replies to the question, “What would be a funnier joke,” however, one was by far and away the most common. And that was: “Your face.”

Which means, I believe, that a lot of my readers are in the fourth grade. 

Still, 364 days early, I’m happy to oblige:

You’re welcome.

Comments (42)

I Need Your Help: Please Take the FatCyclist.Com Reader Demographics Survey

04.1.2013 | 8:08 am

It’s no secret that I’ve been having financial difficulties as of late. And while I’ve had varying levels of success with different projects, none of them have come close to getting me back on solid ground, budget-wise.

I therefore feel it’s time I do something I probably should have done some time ago: monetize this blog. 

No, don’t worry, I’m not asking you to pay money to read it, although if you’d like to make a donation, you’ll notice the new “PayPal Donate” here. Whatever you can give will be appreciated. 

But that’s not what I really wanted to ask you to do today. What I need you to do is take a few minutes and complete this survey. [UPDATE: The surgery is now full and no longer taking entries. So there.] It’ll be easy, private, and it will help me to have a better understanding of who reads this blog, why, and what your interests are.

So please, take a couple of minutes and click here to take the survey now. [UPDATE: Like I said, never mind about doing the survey. It's all full now. Thanks and stuff.]

Thank you,

Comments (55)

Three Months of Weight Loss in Less Than Three Minutes

03.29.2013 | 12:49 pm

The main point of today’s post is that I’ve made a video with a time-lapse of my weight loss efforts. Frankly, it’s pretty freaky and disturbing and you may not want to watch it unless you can stand the thought of two-plus minutes of me morphing from a chunky middle-aged balding guy into a somewhat less-chunky middle-aged balding guy.

If you think you can deal with that, read on.

First though, for those of you who haven’t been following along as I’ve tried to lose 25 pounds during the first three months of this year, here’s the quick version.

1. Adam Schwarz, A complete stranger — but reader of this blog — happened to be the same height and weight as me, and who also wanted to lose the same amount in the same period of time, had a contest with me. The details are here.
2. I’ve kept track of my weight loss journey over at Beeminder, and in the sidebar of my blog.
3. Both Adam and I succeeded in hitting our goals early, so we both win the rather nice reward of being much much lighter than before and ready to kick some butt during the upcoming race season. I’ve already set some PRs and netted a couple KOMs I’ve been after forever over at Strava.

But enough jibber jabber. Here’s the video for you to watch…if you dare.

Comments (49)

How to Lose 25 Pounds While Seeming Like a Complete Freak and Alienating Everyone Around You, Part 1

03.25.2013 | 1:18 pm

I’d like to tell you a story today. While it’s not a story that is quite over, it seems to be going well for the protagonist. 

But it’s also a cautionary tale.

You see, after a pretty successful race season last summer, I stopped racing. And more or less stopped training, too. But I kept eating as if I were still going full tilt.

By January of this year, I was up to 183 pounds. I took this picture, which I am now showing to you, with apologies.

Then, I started a contest with Adam Schwarz, who had the terrific misfortune of being the same height and weight as me, as well as having a goal of losing the same amount of weight as I.

You can read the details of the contest here, but basically, we each have ’til 3/30 to reach 158 pounds — a 25-pound loss in 90 days. If one of us fails, he has to buy the other a pair of Assos shorts. 

To keep ourselves accountable, we would tweet our weight loss progress daily (I have also kept track of my progress in the sidebar of my blog, as well as on Beeminder).

Wherein I Learn The Axioms of Dieting

There’s nothing quite like a diet to completely focus your attention, at all times, on food. As I took off the pounds — and as I would sometimes stall out and start putting the pounds back on — I began learning the following truths about dieting:

• The scale rules your life. I am currently weighing myself every day. I do this because if I weigh myself only weekly, I am vigilant about my diet only when the next weigh-in approaches, and say to myself immediately after a weigh-in, “Well, now I have a little time to goof off before buckling down and getting serious about food again.” When I weigh myself every day, I never get to say that.
• If you don’t want to weigh yourself, you absolutely must weigh yourself. Some days, I wake up thinking, “I just don’t want to weigh myself today.” On those days, it’s absolutely critical that I weigh myself. Because if I don’t want to weigh myself, it’s because I know I’ve done something that is going to show up on the scale. Which is to say, I’ve never led an error-free day on my diet and then not wanted to weigh myself. When I have screwed up, diet-wise, however, I rarely want to see what the consequences look like, because I generally have a pretty good idea that they won’t be good. And only by stepping on the scale and seeing the “effect” part of the whole cause-and-effect of cheating on your diet have I started to get better at not cheating. Or at least at not cheating as severely and often.
• Scales are evil. Sometimes you’re doing everything right and you still don’t lose much weight. Or any weight. Or sometimes you even gain weight. This is because bathroom scales are evil, spiteful, hateful things that don’t take your feelings into account at all. That said, I’ve found that scales don’t hold a grudge forever. If I continue to hold my line, diet-wise, the scale will eventually — begrudgingly — yield up some positive results.
• Your weight doesn’t always tell you how well you’re doing. No matter how hard you exercise, sometimes you don’t lose weight. And I’ve found in fact that sometimes if you exercise hard enough, your weight will spike sharply upward for the next few days. This is because of inflammation and water retention after a hard workout, and it will slope off after a couple days, revealing how much you’ve actually lost while it looked like you were gaining.
• Backsliding isn’t worth it. I’ve discovered that when I abandon my diet for a day and eat whatever I want, it takes about four days for me to claw my way back to where I was before I lost control. That’s a lot of time and effort spent on getting to where I was…instead of on moving forward.
• Backsliding is occasionally totally worth it. Nobody’s perfect. Once in a while I discombobulate and eat everything in the fridge, and then I go to the neighbor’s house and eat everything in their fridge too. And then I apologize and give them some money and advise them to improve the security of their premises. But here’s the thing: as I am eating, I know I’m screwing up and sabotaging myself, and I don’t care. I just want to eat. No, “want” is the wrong word. When I lose my dieting willpower, I lose it entirely. I don’t want to eat, I simply am eating. I must eat. There is nothing in the world but eating. Eventually I come back to my senses, and then assess the damage I have done, both to myself and to those around me (“Sorry I ate your hand”).
• If you ever meet an expert, you will find you are dieting wrong. A couple of days ago, I tweeted what I considered (and continue to consider) to be a self evident truth: “There’s nothing quite as effective as a diet for making all your waking thoughts center around food.” Immediately a number of Very Smart Experts on diet jumped in, telling me what a bad job I must be doing on my diet. But you know what? Those people don’t know the way my mind works, they don’t know the way I publicly hold my feet to the fire in order to keep myself honest, they don’t know me. And they don’t know you, either. Experts generally love to share their expertise. But that doesn’t mean they are right. 
• Your diet is super-interesting…to you. And you only. I wasn’t kidding when I said that my diet has consumed all my thinking. And I am afraid that I have subjected The Hammer to relentless speculation on my weight loss so far, why the working parts of my diet work, why the non-working parts have failed, my current trajectory of weight loss, colorful and protracted descriptions of my hunger, and much much more. Lucky her! Except I’ve noticed that her eyes have started glossing over when I talk about my diet chronicles. Which is…always

The Most Important Axioms of Dieting

You know what, though? That’s all the small stuff. Here are the real things I’ve learned. The things I’m hoping I can use to actually keep most of this weight off.

1. Your diet probably works. My diet — lots of protein and fat via egg whites and avocados — is strange, but it works great for me. I don’t get tired of it, I’m very healthy, and it’s easy. But other diets would work, too. Really, any reasonably well-thought-out regimen would probably work…if you stick to it. It’s when you start slacking on diets that you stop losing weight. 
2. When you screw up, don’t abandon the day. Sometimes you’re going to mess up. Fine, whatever. Just get back to it. Limit the damage of the day instead of saying, “I’ll start fresh tomorrow.” 
3. When your diet isn’t working, there’s a reason. Sometimes you’re just going to plateau for a few days, sometimes your weight is going to spike because of inflammation, and sometimes your diet might stop working because you’ve stopped doing it right. This happened to me at one point during this diet. I had gone from occasionally putting yolks in my eggs to always putting yolks in my eggs. And more cheese. And I was snarfing a spoonful of peanut butter — which was supposed to be my safety net for when I was going to otherwise completely lose it — several times per day. Astonishingly (not), I was no longer losing weight. When I cut the yolks and peanut butter out — that is, when I started following the original rules of the diet — I started losing again.

But staying on your diet is easy — relatively — when you’re at home. When you’re traveling or stuck at a conference or a week-long meeting, it’s not so easy. 

Last week, though, I managed to drop two pounds in six days while traveling. Which is what I’ll talk about in my next post.

Warning: It’s not pretty.

Comments (34)

Fatty Vs The Hammer: A Thought Experiment

03.20.2013 | 6:34 am

The Hammer and I are almost ridiculously happy together. We love planning things out together. And talking with each other. And training together. 

We even love going to races together. 

But when we go to races, we’re never racing against each other. Partially because that’s just not what married couples do. 

But what if we…you know…did?

I’m not saying we would ever go and actually just race against each other to see whom of us is faster. Because of marital harmony and stuff, as heretofore mentioned. But also because there aren’t many races where it would be a legitimate competition.

Like in the race we did last weekend, for example. If I’d have run a half marathon, The Hammer would have beaten me by a huge margin. Similarly, in bike races, I’m a little faster than she — although her recent Leadville 100 finishing times are faster than all but four of my finishing times.

But what if we were to do a race where the bike portion and the run portion were balanced out, and maybe a randomizing third event (like maybe a swim?) neither of us is good at were thrown in? 

And suppose, unlike when we last tried doing a long-distance triathalon, we were both really fit and fast?

And further suppose, unlike when we last tried doing a long-distance triathalon, we agreed that if and when The Hammer caught me on the run, she would just keep on going to see how much faster she is than I?

And even further suppose that unlike in a full Ironman, we were to do a half Ironman, thereby taking away the (some might say) out-of-proportion advantage given to cyclists?

Between The Hammer and me, who would win?

You must admit, it’s an interesting thought experiment. You know, the kind of thought experiment a loving couple might discuss, just for fun. And perhaps it might even become the prevalent topic of conversation between that loving couple. And it’s even conceivable that the loving couple might engage in quite spirited debate on this topic.

But, you know, it’s not something we would actually do.

Why It’s a Bad Idea to Have Connected Friends

So, having had a number of spirited conversations with The Hammer, I took it upon myself to check and see if it was too late to register for the inaugural St. George Half Ironman (it used to be an Ironman but was generally acknowledged to be too difficult of a course, which makes both The Hammer and me feel kind of awesome that we both did it).

Not that I was going to register us for it if registration were still open. I was merely curious.

Imagine my relief to find it was sold out. “Oh well, that’s that,” I thought.

And then — for no reason at all — I emailed my friend Yuri Hauswald, who just happens to be the Brand Specialist for GU Energy Labs, which just happens to be a sponsor of the St. George Half Ironman. (Check out the inspiring thing Yuri is doing right this second: working with a blind super-athlete as a team in a six-hour enduro in New Zealand)

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in having The Hammer and me race as part of Team Gu in the St. George Half Ironman, right?” I asked, expecting a quick and decisive “No.”

“Magic will be happening in less than an hour,” replied Yuri. And he was right. Before I could come up with a plausible excuse, The Hammer and I were registered.

(And also, two giant boxes full of Gu products arrived, which the two of us have begun training with. More on those soon.)

Suddenly, the hypothetical was real. The Hammer and I are racing in a Half Ironman. 

Against each other.

Here’s my (absolutely and completely impartial) analysis of what the day will bring. 

The Swim

The morning starts with a — and I just checked this to make sure of the distance — 1.2 mile swim. This is the part that both The Hammer and I dread the very most. Neither of us is a trained, strong swimmer.

That said, this leg of the race is incredibly strategic.

First of all, we don’t start at the same time. Thanks to the fact that we are of different genders and have a last name that starts with “N” we start six minutes apart:

Of course, this race is timed by chip, so theoretically it doesn’t matter who starts when.

In reality, though, by having The Hammer six minutes ahead of me when the race starts, I have an excellent carrot. If I can manage to pull up even to her and say “Hi honey!” we both know that I am in fact actually saying, “I’m six minutes ahead of you now.”

In the past, there’s been a reasonably good chance that I would catch The Hammer before the swim leg even finished; thanks to the miracle of a wetsuit and stronger arms I’ve been able to compensate for my total lack of form and haul myself through the water more quickly through the water.

But The Hammer’s been in the pool several times per week this past winter, training using the much-acclaimedTotal Immersion swim method. She’s fixed some important problems with her technique and I now fear that my brute force advantage has been nullified.

Meanwhile, for your information, I have not been in the pool even one single time. I should probably fix that.

The Bike

The Hammer and I have identical bikes we’ll be riding for this race: the Specialized Shiv. We both have been training using these bikes, and while neither of us could be called an expert on them, we’ve both gotten better. 

In terms of raw power, I have the advantage, and that matters in time trials. But on a hilly course, power-to-weight ratios come into play. And this is definitely a hilly course — 2552 feet of climbing over 56 miles:

Both The Hammer and I are good climbers. But — and I say this in a reasonable facsimile of humility — I am a better climber. 

It’s almost certain that I will put some time on The Hammer during the bike leg of this race. The question is, will I put enough time on her? Because following the ride comes…

The Run

The central question in the “Fatty Vs The Hammer” race is, “how much time will Fatty lose to The Hammer in the run?” The easy answer is, “A lot,” but that’s not very specific.

The Hammer is in fantastic running condition right now — she’s light and she’s training for an upcoming marathon and she just ran a personal best for the course in last week’s half-marathon.

She’s faster on a flat course, and she’s much faster on the climbs. And this course is climby:

She is going to crush me on this leg. As in, it’s entirely possible she’ll be two minutes per mile faster than I am. And maybe more if I am reduced to walking the climbs, which is likely.

Which means that even if I manage to put half an hour on The Hammer in the rest of the race, she could beat me at the line.

And the thing is, this is an out-and-back course, so at some point we’ll see each other and then she’ll know exactly what the gap between us is…and what it will take to close that gap.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but The Hammer is somewhat competitive. If at the point she sees me there’s even a remote chance that she could catch me, she will catch me.

And then she will blow me a kiss and keep on going.

Your Thoughts

Personally, I think there’s a 52% chance that I will be the victor in this contest, provided I manage to not go so hard on the bike that I have entirely discombobulated by the time I have to start running.

But I’ve been part of a relay team in a half iron-distance race before, and I was pretty much unable to even walk after the ride. I can easily imagine being in a similar state in this race. In which case The Hammer may win simply by being able to complete.

That said, I am a somewhat competitive person myself and do not intend for that to happen.

Please, by all means, please feel to speculate yourself on what the outcome of this race will be. 

Hey, it’s just a friendly thought experiment. Right?

Comments (79)