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RIDING TO BREAK THE CYCLE 2009 - Call for cyclists!

Want to make a positive impact on the world? Interested in cycling the Pacific Coast or Europe?

Join one of the two 2009 tours where teams of 25 young people between the ages of 18-30 pedal from either Vancouver, B.C. to Tijuana, Mexico OR Amsterdam, Netherlands to Istanbul, Turkey to raise funds and awareness about how microcredit can help developing world entrepreneurs lift THEMSELVES out of poverty.

"An intensely powerful experience, a sharp reminder of what this was all about, the perfect wrap-up to a challenging journey of personal growth, and something none of us will soon forget."
- Shawn Smith on the ride and visit to ADMIC, a microcredit organization in Hermosillo, Mexico

Two 2009 tours:
•    Pacific Coast Tour: beginning May 31, 7 weeks, 3000 km from Vancouver, B.C. to Tijuana, Mexico
•    Europe Tour: beginning July 1, 8 weeks, 4000 km from Amsterdam to Istanbul

Why join one of the two 2009 bike tours?
•    Learn about critical issues of global development from each other and communities along the way
•    Join a mobile community of young leaders from diverse backgrounds while building enduring friendships
•    Challenge yourself physically and mentally while cycling through incredible terrain and raising significant funds and awareness for global microcredit initiatives.
•    Check out last year’s successful Pacific Coast bike tour at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx9cxUthhCM

For more information, including the 2009 Rider Application Forms, go to: http://www.globalafc.org/projects 

Deadline for applications is Friday, January 23, 2009.

Questions? info@globalafc.org

Global Agents for Change is a BC based, youth-run, non-profit dedicated to youth engagement and creating sustainable solutions to global poverty. Global Agents for Change empower youth leaders and social entrepreneurs through education, projects, outreach and fundraising events.

A friend of mine asked me why I'm so bent on riding faster and faster and wanting to race etc.

It actually made me think and meditate on it for a while and it was intresting how many layers of answers I had to dig through until today I think I finally have the pure correct answer at the heart of the matter. So here it is

The reason why I want to race and be fast and maybe one day do something remarkable is that I want to inspire others to be their best as other great athletes have so inspired me.

I love outdoor sports, and I feel most alive, and I found that I'm not the strongest person, or the smartest person but I have found that if I work on it I usually end up being one of the fastest at endurance sports I've done. I want to do something in my life that makes people stop and go wow, a person can do that? That's crazy, and then I want them to say to themselves yeah maybe I could do that too.

So in essence all athletes are not only competing against others but really competing against what everyone thinks is humanly possible. It's all about pushing the envelope.

I get super inspired when someone pushes the envelope to a new level, and on all levels, I get as or even more inspired by people that compete and push the envelope on what's possible for people with handicaps etc. because in reality most people are not perfect and most people have things they have to overcome and deal with to reach their new levels.

So people like the kid dieing of cancer who ran a marathon everyday across Canada, or the first person to do an ironman that no legs and had prosthetic legs, or the 70 yr. completing her first ironman. Or Lance winning his 7th Tour after almost dieing from cancer. The list is so long of people who have pushed the envelope and inspired me to squeeze every last drop out of life! I want to do something great too and inspire others.

I think already this summer I've inspired a few people to get in shape, because they knew that I started off probably in worse shape then them at about 70lbs overweight and totally out of shape. I also have chronic kidney illness for the last few years that I don't really talk much about that has a major impact on my health and training and that I constantly to have to work around and accept as one of my handicaps.

Most of the people I ride with have no idea that I have an illness that has a major effect on my health, but don't mention it as I ride with one guy that has a brain tumor and seizures that causes him to fall off his bike in the middle of rides sometimes! And another guy that shouldn't even be riding after almost dieing in a car crash and still needs to get a couple vertebrae fussed. And many riders that are twice my age and I'm sure have one chronic aliment or another.

For me it's hard as my blood pressure is all over the place and somedays I feel like shit and when I ride, but after seeing what other people are dealing with, I am grateful for the health I do have.

One day I will inspire you I hope to reach new levels in your life or your riding etc. that you thought maybe weren't possible!

So I've been riding hard as usual but also trying to lose needed weight I've been working on. I was stuck for a couple weeks not losing any weight even though I was riding hard.

Losing weight basically requires you to burn more calories then you eat, easier said then done though.

So I've been trying some new things that have worked in the past for me to help me shed the pounds like

1. Running before eating breakfast, to help fire up the metabolism in the mornning and also to burn more calories from fat in the morning since your body doesn't have any fuel in the stomach or blood stream.

2. Working on my landscaping projects. I usually get so into it that I work almost all day without eating much and this really helps dig into my fat reserves.

3. Eating smaller meals but more through the day.

4. Not eating tons of food after a hard ride thinking I've now earned the right to eat a thanksgiving dinner hahaa.

5. Avoiding high glycemia index foods late at night, like sugary foods, or white flour etc.


One thing I've noticed is that yes I'm losing weight, but since I'm running a negative caloric diet in an effort to lose weight my cycling performance and recovery time is being effected. One trick I'm trying is to be negative with calories, but around the time of your hard training sessions having some pre, event, and post nutrition to fuel the ride, but I'm finding this helps, but not like just eating 3-4 substantial meals a day and making sure my gloyocgen stores are topped off.

I can tell that my speed, strength, leg power is directly effected by running a negative caloric diet, but that is to be expected.

So my conclusion is that, optimal weight loss and training for weight loss and optimal training for performance DO NOT go together. And this is logical when you think about it, but sometimes it's nice just to reiterate it and get it down in writing to be conscious of it so that you're not disappointed with your performance when you're really doing everything you can to lose weight or the opposite feeling disappointed that you're not losing weight when your properly fueling yourself for hard training weeks or months.

I still have a bunch of weight to lose to get down to my ideal weight so I'm not going to worry much about performance until I get there as I know that in the next few months I'll only be frustrated if I focus on performance. My goal now is to continue to ride through the winter on lots of easy and moderate rides, with an occasional fast ride.

So after much research and inner reflection, meditation, intuitive hunches, signs from above etc. I decided that it's only logical that a taller rider would best fit a longer length crank which would be relatively proportional to their leg length. Any other argument against it wasn't logical to me.

Saying that a tall rider should ride a 175mm or even 180mm length crank that in reality isn't long enough, is like saying that a 5' 9" tall rider with a 30" inseam that normally rides a 172mm or 175mm cranks comfortably should instead ride a 150mm length crank, to get the most power out of their riding and a better more ideal fit.

For the record I'm 6' 2" with about a 34.5" inseam, and my weight is usually anywhere from 190-230lbs. I'm not your typical sized rider, have been riding off an on for 20 years, road, MTB, touring etc.

So I purchased a custom length crank at 190mm, according to some calculations by long crank length proponents I could have even fit a 195mm, but I was concerned about chainstay, BB height, and toe/front tire clearance and thought better to lean on the short side with with my off the shelf commercial frame, in the future I might get a custom frame built to fit a 195-200mm crank, but we'll see.

So here are my positive observations so far after riding the last two days on them. The only negative then I can think of is that my legs muscles and nerves have to get accustomed to turning a larger circle that I should have been turning all along. And that I'm so happy with my new cranks that I have buy another set for my MTB bike! hahaa


1. The cranks are heavy, but I don't mind because relative to my size 200+lbs it doesn't matter, the stiffness is more important I think, and these cranks are as stiff as they come.

2. I really like the 190mm I think this was a successful experiment

3. I put a set of FSA 50/34 chain rings on, ramped and pinned, they work great

8. I have no problem with rear chainstay or rear derailleur clearance.
9. No problems with front tire clearance
10. No problems with corning clearance that I've noticed yet.
11. I had to drop my seat about 15mm, which makes the whole bike feel different as my center of gravity is lower, but this actually feels good I think, I didn't like that I was so high in the air pushing little cranks not using my legs all the way. So between my new lower center of gravity, and my wider foot stance in both directions I feel more stable and more part of the bike like a shorter rider does getting on a typical sized bike with typical length cranks I bet.
12. I can feel that my leg muscles and nerves will need a couple weeks to become fully adjusted to the new crank length, but already from riding 1 hour I can see I have much better pedal stroke, much better power, and I'm actually able to spin better with more power and and higher RPM. I have no problem riding 90-100+RPM with 190mm cranks, in fact it feels much more natural and I'm using my full leg muscle and full potential. I already am seeing 1-3MPH AVG speed increase with similar effort.
13. I can accelerate easier now
14. When I get out of the pedals and accelerate or power over short hills I feel like my bike is responding much better and I'm not wasting energy trying to build speed.
15. There is less pressure on my knees, even when I pedal at a harder slower RPM, I often have slight knee soreness after hard rides through the hills as I have to apply so much more force with 175mm cranks.

16. My feet would often will get hot spots, my feet feel better as the pressure is less now.

17. I can spin better actually with the longer cranks, even though everyone says short cranks are better for spinning, I feel like an airplane propeller with my 190mm cranks I love them! I can not only just spin, but more importantly spin with real POWER.

18. I can accelerate and sprint faster, I can convert more of my leg strength into power because spinning is feels much better to me know with the longer cranks.

19. My pedal stroke and form is much improved from the longer crank

20. I can use my hip flexor i.e pulling muscles on the upstroke when pedaling much more effectively now as I have now 1" more total length to pull up on my pedal stroke

21. I can maintain my momentum over small hills much better, it's like I have another gear now I didn't have before. I don't slow down like I did before when hitting inclines. Before if I hit even small hills my speed would drop dramatically, my spinning had no power behind it, all I could do is crank really hard in a low RPM and sit back on the saddle to keep my speed up.

22. I'm actually thinking I could handle and might like even longer cranks 195-200mm perhaps

23. I'll probably get a pair of these cranks for my MTB also in the triple crank format

24. I much prefer the classic square tapper BB Vs the new external BB designs, the BB is much smoother and stronger then the new external BB. Every other ride I would have to tighten the crank arms on the external BB. And I don't like the exposed tiny little bearings that external BB's use, I think that external BB are a gimick. What they need to do is take the best of both and combine them, if that's possible.

- Internet rumors on forums and even "professional" blogs etc. of knee pain and flexibility issues etc. I've found at least for me to be totally incorrect as I suspected.

- I did drop my seat down as I expected I would have to do, but I also think I'm going to need to slide my seat forward slighting, and I'm pretty sure I need to drop my bars down by taking out some spacers etc.

25. Overall I will stay this experiment is a great success, I will know for sure in a few weeks of riding and my body adjusting and getting the full power out of the new longer cranks. But just from riding the last couple days I can say that I already notice a very big improvement to my riding, nothing like getting free power and speed, comfort etc. out of thin air! And as I get leaner and in better shape I will be able to tap even more power out of my body with these cranks.

Many people like myself enjoy group rides, but it can also interfere with structured training and lead to over training or some cases under training, depending on your level of fitness and the group you ride with.

Here's some different ideas and tips to use to manage intensity during group rides. Usually distance or duration isn't the issue, but that might be too, you'll just need to make a call before hand if you think the ride is going to be too long for you.

To reduce intensity

1. Usually in group rides, climbing on hills and break aways or friendly competition is where you end up amping up the intensity more then you may want. So you'll just need to discipline yourself to not respond to attacks on days where you're trying to ride easy.

2. Draft off other riders and stay away from the front, hang in the back, when a climb approaches move towards the front so that you can take your time climbing and let the other rides pass you as they climb faster, so hopefully your either at the back of the pack, or not too far behind that you can't catch back up on the downhill or flat after.

3. Climb within yourself, avoid going anaerobic on the hills, pick a gear you're comfortable with and can spin aerobically up the hill, most likely you'll be able to regroup at the top of the hill.

4. If the group is really riding fast and hammering that day, you may just want to drop out and ride by yourself at your own pace. There's no sense pushing hard on one of your light days as this can throw off your whole weeks riding schedule and make you unnecessarily tired and not make you faster.


How to increase intensity on group rides. This usually is much easier to do then to reduce intensity.

1. Ride in the front so that you have to break the wind and aren't drafting off other riders.

2. Drift from the front to the back and then sprint back up to the front.

3. Ride back down a hill and repeat it while the slower riders are still climbing.

4. Attack and challenge the other riders in your group on climbs and flats etc. Lead a break away

5. Either ride at a high or low RPM to work on either pedal stroke and cardio, or strength and power.

6. Stay in the big ring the whole time

7. Carry extra weight on the bike, like water, or touring bags loaded with extra water or gear, or rear bike rack, first aid kit.

I started thinking last night how strange it is that my climbing ability on the road bike vs. the MTB bike seems so different, I can't keep up on the hills on the road bike with the same people I MTB ride with and am able to keep up with normally?

I'm scratching my head trying to figure it out. My guess is that from looking at my bike training log I keep I can see that even though we've been doing a lot of road riding recently, in reality I've only really ridden a road bike total about 20x times total EVER!

I think I'm now starting to appreciate the fact that a different set of muscles come into play on the road that aren't used any where as much in MTB.
I would guess that in MTB riding the hams and gluts and calves are used only about 25% as much as on the road bike, that of course depending much on the type of riding position, and riding style and type of MTB bike you ride.

It's kind of funny that I just assumed that riding a road bike is using the same muscles as the MTB bike, and that I

1. Did my first group road ride a day after buying my road bike, thinking my MTB riding of the last 2 months would give me a secure base.

2. 5 days after buying my road bike I did my first triathlon, and couldn't understand why my hams and gluts where ungodly tight and sore even though I tapered for a couple days before the race off the road bike. In hind sight I think that's so funny, that I thought I could tapper off a road bike which I've only ridden a couple times to "prepare" for my first tri lol?

3. I did my first metric century on my 12th ride on my road bike

4. I did my first +century ride 140 miles on my road bike 2 weeks after buying it.

5. I've been riding with my local group on the road bike constantly since I got my bike and my hams and gluts and hip flexors are sore and stiff often.

I haven't really ever ridden road except one season I had hybrid touring bike many moons ago back in high school. So I suspect that the muscles in the back on my legs the hams, gluts etc. which have been constantly sore since I started riding the road bike are not yet developed as my quads. I have 3x months of base miles on my mountain bike this year so my quads are disproportionately in much better shape them the road riding muscles in the back of my legs.

I have noticed the muscles in the back on my legs for the first time in my riding career are getting strong, toned and defined, where hundreds of miles on the MTB bike never did that to my legs. Road riding is a much different riding position and riding pedal stroke, more of your leg is used.

I can also see that riding on the road is helping my MTB riding as the road doesn't beat you up like MTB riding, you can squeeze in more miles, you can climb hills and focus almost 100% on pushing your physical limits to the next level as there are no rocks or logs or loose dirt stopping you from pushing yourself. It's harder to isolate the physical aspects of training on the mountain bike, esp. in the east coast where the trails are often very rugged, roots, rocks etc.

My conclusion is

1. Since my road riding muscles are not up to par as my MTB riding muscles, I need to spend more time on the road bike vs. the MTB until they are equally as developed as my quads. Even though we're heading into the fall and off season for road riding and my riding partners are going to be doing more MTB riding, I think I'm going to have to tuff it out and ride on the road through the fall and winter, at least for the fall so I have a good 3 x months on my road muscles before I go back to cross training on the MTB.

2. Getting a road fixed gear bike for the winter makes even more sense now, I suspect riding a fixed gear bike will be more comfortable when it's cold out as you ride slower and your legs are always moving even on flats and downhills, this should keep me warmer and avoid chills when freewheeling. Also the fixie will help me develop my rear leg muscles even more, my road pedal stroke will improve, the nerve adaptation and muscle memory and form will also improve more on the fixed bike as well I'm guessing.

3. I can still do 1 x ride a week on the MTB since it's so much fun until spring.

4. I should not be disappointed at all with my current lack of road riding strength or climbing ability as that should be catching up in the next few months to my MTB climbing ability. I just need to be patient and give my body time to adapt to the road bike.

5. If you ride both MTB and road, you should be spending more time on the road bike as that develops both the front and rear muscles of your legs.

6. I should not be throwing in swimming or running right now until my road riding muscles are adapted. I didn't realize my body was doing so much adapting lately and to throw in yet another new training stressor would be too much right now. All I need to do for the next few months is ride road until my hams and gluts are not hurting anymore and are much stronger and are use to the new movement. Once I feel strong on the road then I can start adding in swimming and running.

7. It might make sense to do a little extra work on the hams, gluts, calves, by doing some weight lifting and or riding with hands in the drops more, or dropping my handle bar stem down more, taking out some spacers.

We had a good group ride today, and I can tell I'm getting stronger every week and I'm able to hang with the faster riders in our group for the most part except the longer hills I fade out in the middle sometimes. But what I'm noticing now is that I'm getting beat to the peak of the hills or end of a sprint pull because of not having that sprint strength. I could see doing a long hard race and being out front and then losing multiple places in the last 100 yards because I didn't have that over drive some of these guys have.

So I think I need to work on my sprinting ability, as I'll need this too if there are short jumps or attacks, there's nothing worse then getting dropped to where you have to break wind by yourself and you're struggling to catch back up with the pack. It's much easier to just be able to sprint a little and stay on their wheels if you can.

So I'm noticing that anytime I have multiple recovery days in a row where I take the whole day off and don't do any training that I feel bad, and when I go ride again I feel rusty on the bike.

I think the key is that I need to reeve the motor a little and keep the engine warm even on "recovery" days. A short 30-45 minute ride where I get my heart rate up a little and keep everything moving.

I'm going to try some different active recovery techniques and see which one works best for me.

1. Walking
2. Easy bike ride
3. Swimming
4. Yoga
5. sleep as much as possible
6. Nutrition

So the last couple of days I slept and ate as much as possible, I think that helped a lot in recovering faster and restoring glycogen levels. I figured that if your body does a lot of repairing etc. when you sleep then taking a bunch of power naps etc on recovery days should speed up recovery. I think it works, luckily I have a job where I can set my hours and take naps when I feel the need, I think that helps me a great deal.

I've noticed too that my recovery time is getting better that I only need 1-2 days to recover almost completely between rides now, where it would take me 3-4 days before I'd feel ok to ride again.

It's so easy for larger athlete like myself to worry too much about body weight esp. when comparing yourself to other lighter athletes. I'm training hard and my body is getting stronger and I'm getting faster and feeling good, that should be the thing I measure more then anything. I'm sure that my weight will drop down eventually to what was my previous fastest weight was. But I'm learning the hard way that you'll drive yourself crazy if you prioritize weight control too much. Instead I need to look at more important factors such as performance etc.

I've been doing lots of hill climbing and fast paced riding and intervals the last month or so and I can tell I'm putting muscle on in my legs and it's making me actually put weight on even though I'm losing fat, all which are exactly what I want, it's just crazy how I could ride so much and not see my weight drop. I have a feeling once my legs are done adding muscle weight on, my body weight will start dropping quickly as the last bit of excess body fat I need to loose will be incinerated by continuing to train hard and having more muscle on my body which will require more calories to maintain which means a faster metabolism.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not obsessed with not having any body fat, actually the opposite I think a little bit of fat on your body is natural, and healthy and supports peak performance, and a healthy immune system. But you have to understand I'm still probably at least 30lbs over weight still. I started training again this year after having sat around and let myself go for the last 4 years, busy with growing my business etc. I started training again this year I could barely ride my bike around the block and I was 60lbs overweight. So I'm totally happy with my quick progress and just need to remind myself I'm coming from a state of being very out of shape and over weight and I need to have patience.

I've been experimenting with my diet and training last week, and I think I've figured out the hard way that not eating enough when training intensively is a bad combination.

I'm trying to get down to my ideal weight and was stuck at my current weight for the last couple weeks, so I thought I'd try doing a morning swim before breakfast. The only problem was that I was swimming very hard for 1-2 miles and using up every last bit of glycogen stored in my body and then not catching back up during the day to meet my needs.

After a week of this it left me totally weak and tired out on my Saturday ride. Esp since I rode with the A group today that leaves at 7am, which was too early for me to eat breakfast. So it was a double whammy today and I was left limping back on the 2nd half of the ride. I did have some on bike nutrition but it didn't help, it just kept my bonk from getting worse.

Oh well you never learn if you don't make mistakes. So my plan now to do things different, either swim slower in these pre-breakfast swim sessions to where I'm going slow and using fat as fuel vs. stored glycogen and not training myself into the ground. Or if I'm going to do my fast all out swims in the morning do it after breakfast so that I'm not incinerating myself to the point where I can't eat enough in a day to catch back up.

Also I'm going to time my diet around which phase of training I'm in, so on weeks where it's an accumlation week where I'm constantly fatigued, I will eat until my heart content esp. of complex carbs etc. and sugars during and immeditaly after sessions. Then on easier rest weeks I'll cut back on caloies a bit and focus on smaller high quality meals with no sugars and less carbs.

So the more intense the training the more complex and simple carbs you need to fuel your hard efforts, and on recovery weeks you can slow the diet down so you don't put on any unnessary body fat.