The lethal combination of speed and inexperience

Think of teenage drivers…especially boys. Those of us who can remember our early days of driving probably remember the combination of lack of experience, willingness to take risks, poor judgement or generally reckless behavior.  Teen drivers are a high insurance risk due to the lack of experience, but also the tendency to speed or take chances.  While I never wrecked or totaled a car as a teen, I came close a few times, and certainly did my share of stupid behaviors on the road. Fortunately I grew out of that and started driving more predictably.

While bike racing is not driving, some of the same tendencies exist in new racers. The sport is new and exciting, you want to go fast.  And with todays Carbon frames, faster wheels, power training and online coaches, relatively inexperienced riders can go very fast.  Tools like Strava, while fun and entertaining form of social media, also engage new riders into trying to achieve power and speed.

The problem is that raw speed, without requisite skill and discipline on a bike, can lead to serious injury or even death.  Too many new riders focus on speed or power output, without learning the fundamentals of safe bike handling.  In a cat 5 road or criterium race that is a bad combination.  In that regard, Strava is a safer option, as the rider who wants to finish first can do so, alone, racing against the clock.  Riders who come into road from mountain or 'cross need to realize that road requires completely different pack skills that did not exist in their former disciplines.

Racing requires discipline and safe riding. Obviously if you are undisciplined and crash, you won't have much of a racing season. In coaching juniors, I see some of the same tendencies in juniors that you see in adult cat 5 racers. The ones who are the strongest and most competitive, with unbridled enthusiasm, are typically the ones that jump out of the pace line without warning and sprint up each rise, for a bridge or want to be the fastest down a hill.  We often had to tell these kids that the goal of the ride was not to be the fastest or the first, but to focus on their paceline skills. A successful devo ride is the one where the paceline stays together on a climb, not fragments.

A strong runner does not make a good soccer player. The potential is there, but being fast on the field is only one aspect of soccer. A developing player must do repetitive drills, and learn how to handle the ball and play in a position.  Basic safety skills, like looking over your shoulder while holding a straight line, properly taking a corner, safely accelerating and braking are all part of learning how to race.  Going through a turn alone and elbow to elbow with 50 other people are completely different.

It used to be that cat3 was considered the more dangerous category. Sure, there were crashes in 4 or 5 but those races were typically slower, the 3s race at higher speeds and in a much tighter pack. The sprints in a cat 3 race are blazing.  The problem now is you have riders with cat 3 (or in some cases cat 2) power output and speed in a beginners group.  More experienced riders know the ropes, they usually know when its safe to move into a space, and when its better for them to yield to another rider.  A good rider won't risk himself or others in the pack to go from 18th to 16th in a sprint.  If he is boxed in because the rider in front of him sat up- well that's life, he will finish and race another day.

Thinking back to some of my early training rides with a racing team in San Diego, I was 30 years old, new to the sport and certainly fast to some degree. The weekly training ride had a very fast power loop, which to some extent was all out with a sprint near the end.  One week where I was riding like a maniac at the end of the loop one of the veterans told me I needed to stop hammering so much, relax a bit, sit on a wheel and observe.  I didn't realize it, but due to my hard effort, speed and oxygen debt, I didn't take a good line on one of the curves and nearly ended up in the trees.  This is a great example of how masters in the sport can help new racers add discipline to their raw speed and make them safer riders.  Gradually, I began riding with smaller groups of cat 2/3 racers and you quickly learn the right way to ride or won't be allowed back.

Having seen some horrific crashes in cat 5, many are talking about solutions. Skills clinics are a great start, and it may even be a good idea for USA Cycling to make these a requirement before being issued a license.  New racers need to realize that they are in a learning period.  Mental errors like looking down at 30 mph, going too fast into a corner or making unsafe moves in the pack are more common. It takes time for the racing skills to become second nature.

Does Daylight Savings Time Make Sense?

Its that time of year again. Early March and we are setting our clocks ahead an hour. What is wrong with this you say? Daylight saving used to begin on the first Sunday in April and end the last Sunday in October.  It has been extended one week in the fall, which may not pose much of an issue, but it is the early start to daylight savings (basically 3 weeks earlier) that I (and others) object to.

Early March in the Northeast is still winter. Morning temperatures can be in the 20s or 30s.  The days have gotten longer since December and now we can wake to morning sunlight and warmth coming through our windows. Our bodies circadian rhythms ensure that it is easier to wake up when it is light outside.  We don't need to use as much heat (and lights) in the morning on standard time. My neighbors walk their dogs in daylight, kids are driving to high school while it is light out.  It is light out in the evening now past 6 pm- enough time to drive home while its light and maybe go for a walk outside.

By shifting back to DST too early: my neighbors are now walking their dogs in the dark, its cold and dark when we wake up, kids are driving to high school in the dark. Why? So we can have extra daylight from 6-7 pm? It is too cold outside to play golf or tennis now anyway. So there is no benefit of the extra daylight at that time.

Any energy saved in the evening is lost in the morning as more heat and light is needed on dark mornings.  No one has ever proved that DST saves energy for that matter.  DST is really pushed on us by sporting goods and other retailers who want you to go shopping after work and buy things. It really does not serve any other purposed.  The days naturally get longer in our latitudes as we move into spring and summer.

Lastly there is the nuisance of resetting all our clocks. Yes, my iPhone will do that on its own, but the clock in your car, the microwave and 10 other devices will need you to do it- twice a year. Its time to send DST to the dust bin, along with other ideas that no longer make sense.

Kingwood 2114

What will Kingwood township look like in 100 years? Will the rural way of life still be here? Or will Kingwood be just another sprawling suburban community with subdivisions, roads, traffic and stoplights every half mile?  It's no secret that Hunterdon County is growing. Just look at Raritan Township. When I first lived in Raritan Township in 2002, I could bicycle over much of the township. In ten short years many of the roads are too busy with cars and traffic to ride. Route 31 is congested most of the day, as is Route 202.  There are not only more people living here, people are driving more miles. Big box stores like Walmart have moved in and more will surely come.  Two of the three traffic circles are already past their usefulness.

But what is the real threat to rural living? The true threat is more development, the sell off of large tracts of lands and farms and build out of more homes.  It is the large farms that maintain this area's rural character and low population density.  There are many horse farms in Hunterdon, hay farms, farms growing corn and beans. There is even Leon's sod farm. Agriculture is big part of the way of life here. But what is the future of agriculture in New Jersey, with a changing climate and uncertain economy? Farms cannot operate indefinitely at a loss, extremes of weather such as drought or flooding, hotter summers may push local farms into oblivion.  Small farms have disappeared throughout much of New Jersey. I grew up near Montvale, which at one time had farmland. Now it has corporate headquarters.

Part of what can prevent the growth and sprawl is our leaders. It is critical that township and county leaders take action to maintain the rural character of Hunterdon.  Strong support for land conservation, green acres and farmland preservation will ensure that Hunterdon does not have runaway growth.  Runaway development is often driven by money and greed. I saw it firsthand in San Diego, where in the space of 10 years, thousands of acres of wild land were bulldozed. In Hunterdon a development of 20 houses is a big deal, in San Diego developments could be 3,000 homes!  The local governments were taken over by real estate developers and planners. They had huge war chests of money for their political campaigns and lawyers to fight off environmental impact studies. In some cases coastal sage habitat was bulldozed in the middle of the night, before anyone could claim there were endangered species there.  It was a corrupt process in that the local leaders owned a piece of the real estate action, made themselves and their partners wealthy but ruined the long-term quality of life in the area.

The key to Hunterdon's future is the survival of the farms and farmland. So buy locally grown produce, beef, eggs, dairy and poultry if you can. Have your kids take lessons at a horse farm, or board your horse. Tell your friends to buy hay in Hunterdon. Tell local leaders to hold the line on property taxes so farmers can afford to keep farming. Pay attention to issues that matter to farmers, because if the farms stop operating, they will be sold off, broken up into smaller lots and built out.

Ten Reasons why kids don't ride bikes anymore

Are Skiing and Winter Sports doomed?

Having just returned from a 5-day ski trip that 25 years ago certainly would have provided 5-days of snow filled skiing, with good base depth and cold weather, Winter- or the lack thereof- was on my mind.  While early December was cold, a warm weather system drove temperatures in Vermont into the 50s and we suffered through 2.5 days of rain that basically wiped out skiing at Mad River Glen.

With no natural snow to ski on, we were relegated to skiing on manmade snow at Sugarbush.  Because Sugarbush had been blowing snow since November, they had enough base depth to survive the warm weather and rain.  There is no doubt now that climate change is upon us, most experts agree. Even if we can't agree what the cause is (I'll save that point for later), the trend is clear. Melting glaciers, shrinking polar ice, increased temperatures. The season of winter is becoming shorter, starting later and ending earlier.  The amount of snowfall and snowpack is dropping.

This is of particular issue at Western resorts, and was featured in a recent article in Powder magazine about "why snowmaking won't save us…"  The large Western resorts like Vail and Snowbird are huge amounts of terrain compared to smaller eastern ski areas. Snow making there is not feasible due to the high cost, limited water supply and regulatory restrictions. The article predicted that by the year 2100, that most of the Western USA ski resorts will be closed due to lack of snowpack. Those that remain will only have snow at their highest elevations.  In the east, only 4 of the largest ski resorts will remain. This is a scary thought..in just over 80 years, the sport of skiing and mountain snow sports could vanish. If climate change accelerates it could be even sooner.

I am seeing it in my own lifetime. Growing up in lower New York State we routinely had long, cold snowy winters. I have photos of snowbanks in our driveway that were 6 feet tall.  Small eastern ski resorts operated for many years without snowmaking systems.  While they were dependent on mother nature for snow, the snow was routinely reliable. Then beginning in the late 1970s there seemed to be fewer cold winters, more warm weather and rain. Today, there are few, if any eastern ski areas that operate without snowmaking.   Certainly the small, family oriented mountains cannot depend on natural snow in New Jersey in Pennsylvania.  At one time there were hundreds of smaller ski hills that dotted the landscape.  But due to the high cost of snowmaking infrastructure and operation, it does not work well on a small scale. So we are left with only two ski areas in NJ and a handful of larger mountains in the Poconos.  Snowmaking has even found its way to the Northernmost reaches of Vermont.

Snowmaking was once a way to extend the ski season. It could start earlier and end later with man made snow. But now, without it, some winters there would be no ski season at all. Mad River Glen, which lacks extensive snowmaking opened on December 15th with 40 of its 45 trails. But that opening only lasted 5 days, through Friday Dec. 20th.  By the time the warm weather/rain event was done, the only terrain available was one smaller trail fed by man-made snow.  It is likely there will be more snow in January, and they will reopen all 45 trails. But this is becoming all too familiar a pattern. A later start, a melt-down and then reopening in Mid-January. The ski season which used to extend into April, is now often done by March 20th.  Ski areas make nearly half their revenue on Christmas week. It is a huge blow to not have snow on the trails. It is a big expense to have to blow snow at times when 25 years ago the areas could rely on natural snow fall.

So yes, the future of skiing and outdoor winter sports is certainly looking grim, for our children and grandchildren.

Why are my feet cold? And what can I do to keep them warm?

Gaerne Winter Road shoes

Now that winter is really upon us, I've started hearing a lot of chatter about cold toes and feet. If you want to keep riding outside through the winter weather, having a strategy to maintain warm hands and feet is essential. Freezing cold fingers and toes can quickly ruin or cut short an outdoor ride. The risk of frost bite is real!  

To achieve warm feet, it helps to have an understanding of why your feet are cold. For the most part cold feet are due to the following factors:

1. Poor circulation
2. Wrong footwear and/or socks
3. Moisture
4. Heat transfer, convection and conduction.

Lets look at these in order. 

• Poor circulation.  Some people just don't have good circulation to their extremities. These people will be the first ones to say their hands or feet are cold. When temperatures drop your body thermoregulates by sending more blood flow to its core. Protection of vital organs comes before extremities.  Ever read "To Build a Fire" by Jack London?  The hunter knew that he might lose parts of his foot or toes to frostbite, but that he could live if he could make into camp.  One strategy to keep your hands and feet warm then is to make sure your core is warm. This means eating enough fuel before and during the ride, hydrating well to ensure good blood pressure and circulation and dressing properly so that your core stays warm. If your core is heated well, your body's thermoregulation systems will continue sending blood flow to the surface and extremities. When it goes below 35 degrees, I recommend a long sleeve base layer, a fleece long sleeve jersey and winter jacket. For the lower body, I've worn fleece bib knickers with a layer of winter tights on top. And long ski socks. 
• Wrong footwear. Your standard bike shoes are designed primarily for summer riding. In fact their design includes mesh and venting to let out heat and moisture. This is great for warm weather riding, but it will work against you in cold weather. As temperature drops into the 50s you can add toe covers, which work well, as temps hit 40 you may need a full bootie. The other problem with your summer bike shoes is that they are designed to be worn with a thin summer sock and be snug on your feet. If you now try wearing them with thick winter socks, you may find that your shoes are tight and that will restrict circulation in your feet.  All booties have a cut out on the bottom for the cleat and cold air will come in through the opening.  If you plan on doing a lot of winter riding, I would recommend a winter shoe.  The advantage of a winter shoe is that (a) it is insulated, (b) it does not have venting like a summer shoe and (c) it is build wider and roomier, to accommodate thicker socks without restricting your circulation.  The better winter shoes use Windtek fabric on the exterior, are water and windproof and have thermal insulation built in. If you buy a pair, they will last 5-10 years because you will only use them a few months out of the year. They come in road or MTB versions.  You will never again have to fuss with putting booties on.
• Moisture is often overlooked, but feet do sweat and get damp. If you wear booties, you will see the moisture when you get home and take off the booties. This is water vapor that leaves your feet and condenses upon meeting the cold air outside. The key here is the right kind of sock. Cotton socks are the worst, the absorb moisture and will be very cold when wet. Wool is the best, it will retain its insulating property even when wet. Some people like silk sock liners, which will carry moisture away from your feet to the outer sock. 
• Heat transfer.  Your feet are producing heat, but that is balanced with heat loss. The colder it is outside and the more frontal wind, the faster the heat loss.  Heat will be conducted away from your foot through direct contact with the sock and inside of the shoe. One of the keys here is to have warm air spaces in your shoe (i.e. shoes not too tight), because air is not a good conductor of heat, you will reduce heat loss if your shoe is more loose and has enough room around the toes.  Convective heat loss will be very high on a cold windy day and the only real solution is enough insulation and windproof fabrics.

What about supplemental heating? If you've tried all of the above and still have cold feet, you may want to try supplemental heating in your shoes. This can either be a chemical warmer (hot packs) or a battery operated footbed.  The chemical warmers are sold at Home Depot and Outfitter stores. You can attach the toe warmers to your sock or insole and I've found that these will produce heat for 3-4 hours. Some people put them on top of their toes, I've always thought that they work better under the toe.  There are also heated foot insoles available, one is the Thermacell, which cost around $100 and use a lithium ion battery built into the footbed. Some reviewers liked these, others said they didn't heat well. The Hotronics system used in ski boots is probably the best. If you already have Hotronics in your ski boots, you can buy another set of heating elements and footbeds for about $40. You can use your existing battery packs, although you will need another set of clips. Aside from looking silly having the Li-ion batteries attached to the back of your winter shoes, you will have adjustable heating that will definitely keep your toes warm even on the coldest of days.

Can exercise help a cold?

It's 12 noon and I'm feeling rotten…head hurts, stuffed up, pressure inside my ears. A head cold? Feeling kind of tired and blah, I debated whether to flop on the couch for a nap. But the sun is shining and I spent all day at my desk on Monday on my job search.  Perhaps there would be solace in a bike ride.

I quickly mapped out a route on ridewithgps.com, uploaded it to my Garmin Edge and kitted up. With 50 degree sunny weather, I needed only bib shorts and leg warmers and a base and long sleeve jersey.  I left the house around 12:45, with a nice little tailwind helping me. After the initial 20 min warmup, I started feeling OK.  The pounding head was gone, sinus passages cleared somewhat. I began ramping up the speed.  Unencumbered by heavy winter shoes and clothing, buoyed by the warmer, less dense air and enlightened by the sun I felt like I was riding in a dream.  I was. Between 10am and 2 pm out here in Hunterdon county (aka cow land) you can ride for miles and maybe see two cars. Wonderful!

So can cycling or moderate exercise help a cold? Absolutely, according to Dr. Edward Laskowski (Mayo Clinic). "Mild to moderate physical activity is usually OK if you have a garden-variety cold and no fever. Exercise may even help you feel better by opening your nasal passages and temporarily relieving nasal congestion."  How true!   After an hour on the bike, I'd forgotten all about my earlier symptoms. They were gone.  Regular exercise can boost your immune system, release endorphins that will make you feel better and less "blah" and increase circulation to tissues.  Our bodies were designed to be in a state of motion and sitting at a desk for hours and hours is a completely unnatural act.

I bombed down Cherryville Hollow through the bare trees onto a sweet flat section in Hamden along the Raritan River.  A few miles away I'd pass through Clinton, a coffee boost and slice of pumpkin bread would make this trip even more worthwhile.

Sometimes, when you least think you can exercise, just go out there and do it. You might be surprised at the results.