No, I’m not doing crank. Indeed even my crank isn’t doing crank at the moment (or ever again).
First let me say…no injuries, no accident, didn’t even fall over. Having said that, it was a bit unexpected and I’m terribly grateful it didn’t happen this weekend when I rode the 2015 JBK Haleiwa Metric Century on my Quickbeam (and had a great time as documented in another here).
Anyway, I left work yesterday, hopped on my bike to run a few errands and maybe put in an extra mile or two (and I do mean just a mile or two – but still fun, eh?)
I was at a light and when I stood and pushed off with the green light my foot sort of kept going to the ground. Luckily I didn’t fall and stopped, though it probably looked clumsy. I couldn’t figure out how I’d missed the pedal.
I hadn’t. My Sugino XD2-QB double 40/32 175mm and come undone.
I didn’t take an image in place. I got the hell off the road. 🙂
I bought the bike in December 2009 and have ridden the heck out of it. I’ve also mostly been a lot heavier than I am today (also documented in other emails around here). I’ve gone from 275 to 197, mostly since November 2014. If you do the math, the crank mostly got me at my heaviest.
If you look at the break it seems pretty clear it’d been a while coming. There are definite differences from one side of the break to the other. As I said, I’m really just grateful that it didn’t happen on the century this weekend, or in heaving traffic (could have too). It was pretty much a non-event.
For those who wonder, I have a Hunq that’ll be ridden a bit more now. If I’m annoyed with anything it’s that I just, and I mean just, ordered some new cork grips from Riv and now will have to order a new crank – twice the shipping charge. If I’d have waited a day or two on the cork grips it could all be one box. Sigh. Luxury problem.
Anyway I ride the bike almost exclusively in 40×16 mode and figure I’ll get new chainrings and a new single speed cassette – all contingent on taking the chain off and actually seeing what things look like – I might be okay.
As for the Hunq I just had a new dynohub wheel made for it and when I got home instead of playing around the with disassembly the QB I put on the new Eyc light, Top Line rear light, and wired it all up. Tomorrow I have a late ride ‘date’ and until now only the QB had that much light going for it. 🙂
My JBK Haleiwa Metric Century started, as most of things do, a couple of days before the ride. It was Friday night and I’d attended the UH Rainbow baseball game against the UCSB Gauchos. They are a really good team with a stunning pitcher, Dillon Tate. That, of course, is a digression.
The point is, when I came out of the game I discovered that my rear tire had flatted. I didn’t feel like dealing with it so I tried pumping it back up. It seemed to hold so off I went. About halfway home I had to stop and pump it up again. This wouldn’t do.
At home I checked and discovered that I only had one new inner tube left and as I didn’t want to trust a patched tube on an hundred kilometer ride I used it. I also decided that as I had a new tire available, I’d use that too. The tire I was using wasn’t completely worn out but I’d had a couple of flats in the last month or so. Good enough I thought.
On Saturday, while running my usual errands and visiting some friends at a picnic at Kaimana Beach I picked up some new tubes. Then I got thinking. Never a good thing, and bought a new 8-speed chain as well…just in case.
Before I headed out to another bas weball game, which we actually won – Go Bows! – I made some hard boiled eggs and counted my string cheese. All good.
Then it was off to the game where i mistakenly had a cup of coffee. The game was great, fun to win, and this time, even better, my bike didn’t have a flat. The new tire was working well. At home I tried to sleep.
It was the coffee. I don’t get all that nervous before a ride, though I’ll admit to some worries about making it time to get on the return bus. Let me explain. Two years ago I did this ride, some 75 pounds heavier. I had no trouble with the ride, nor did I have time worries. I was going with a friend and we took his pickup truck. We got back before the event was over, but not by much.
This year I was going alone, which as it turns out was a great move, and taking the transport bus provided by a local tour company. Actually the provided several buses.
I arrived at the bus at around 4:45 AM. I had to get up at 3:30 AM which only made having the coffee worse. I should know better, but hey, that’s the way I roll.
The bus ride was uneventful. We packed the bikes badly and in an emergency there’d have been some real problems. We solved the problem on the way back just so you know.
When I got off the bus with my bike, an exercise in applied geometry I can tell you, I needed to use the restroom…soon too. The view was one I was all too familiar with from RAGBRAI…
Soon I was finding my place in the crowd of cyclists raring to go for a ride. What else is there to do on a nice Sunday morning after all.
You meet the nicest bike while waiting too. Here’s a Bike Friday Haul-a-Day. It’s their new model of folding long tail. Really…
I would see that bike on the road several times.
And then, after a few obligatory words about being nice to each other, the folks living in the neighborhood and some thoughts on rules of the road, we were off.
That’s a time lapse of the first half of the ride. I use an ‘Re’ camera set to make an image every five minutes. I was surprised it all worked as I had to connect it to a battery. It seems it hadn’t charged overnight and had no juice. Luckily I had one of those batteries you can charge your phone from and yep, it worked.
The ride itself was fine. I was experimenting a bit with food for the road. Having just lost 75ish pounds by cutting carbs I couldn’t very well start eating donuts. In fact, I ate nothing before the ride. I had a two cups of coffee, one blended with a pat of butter and a tablespoon of coconut oil, and one regular, but nothing else. I had packed my eggs and string cheese, but thought I’d see how I did.
Darn it all, I was fast. Fast for me that is. I rode the first half ot the ride in 01:52:00 or so. Basically I was over 15 mph the whole way.
Wow. I’ve never ridden so fast for so long and I did it without a break on no breakfast. In fact I wasn’t even really hungry when I arrived at Swanzy Beach Park, the turnaround point.
I’d been worried about making the round trip in time to get on the bus at 1:30 PM, a six hour ride, or just right at 10 MPH which is a pretty normal time for me (that would have included a couple of breaks and a photo or two along the way – something I do enjoy). Well now I wasn’t too worried. It wasn’t even 9 AM and I was already half finished. I could take it easy on the way home.
Even though I wasn’t too hungry, I ate a couple of hard boiled eggs, had a couple of pieces of string cheese, and drank a lot of water, something I knew I needed.
Then I headed back. This time it was into the wind for the first half of the return, it had picked up a bit and was definitely slowing me down. Indeed on the return I averaged 1.9 MPH slower, though on a few legs, when I was out of the wind or it had calmed, I was almost as fast as on the first half.
Now that I look at the time delays I realize I really need to do something about the mount and my brake cables. Or maybe not…at least you can tell I was on a bike.
I did make a stop on the return. About halfway back it became evident that I had, in fact, been drinking enough water. Whew…I worry about dehydration, it can happen pretty easily out here, especially on days when there’s a cloud cover, it’s kind of cool, and you don’t think about how much is going out and how little coming in. No worries today though.
And then I was approaching Haleiwa. It was almost noon and I really, really wanted to make it in by noon. It was quarter to twelve and I didn’t think I’d make it. Then it was ten to twelve and I thought I might if traffic, which can be bad in Haleiwa cooperated; there was none. Then it was seven minutes till twelve and the road from town to Kaiaka Park was longer than I remember.
I made it. Yes indeed, with a couple of minutes to spare in fact.
Now I figured, I’d pay the price for getting back early, a 90 minute wait for the bus. I had a couple of cold drinks, ate another egg, and…well there’s a bit more to the story.
I met some great folks, had a great bus ride home, went out for coffee with a new friend, rode home and slept great. Yeah, it was a great day!
I’l be honest, while I expected there was a chance I’d get to my target weight I probably wouldn’t have said I had a lock on it. I was really just hoping I’d get near it. Well, I’m near it. 197.8! I’m past my goal!
Of course now that I’m here I’m faced with the challenge of what to do besides brag about it and become insufferable. I mean we all like to hear a success story (though, and sadly I suppose, we like failures as well), but enough is enough, right?
It would seem I have to set a new goal. Yes, I’m very pleased with ‘under 200’ but ya know…I’ve still got got a bit of a roll around the middle and my BMI isn’t yet quite in the ‘normal’ range, so…
New Target: 185
I’ve given myself till the end of June (the 25th to be exact) to get there. Why did I pick that date? That’s the day I next see my physician for a regular checkup including blood work analysis. I’m quite interested to see the numbers for cholesterol and triglycerides, my A1C sugar levels, and the rest. Mostly, and it’s not a credit to me, I want to see his face when I weigh in at 185.
This week has been a minor revelation for me as I seem to be taking it off faster than before with less trouble. I’m not really eating a lot less, but I’m eating differently.
I’ve been practicing intermittent fasting lately. I’ve done a couple of 24 hours fasts (with coffee) in the past couple of weeks and find they aren’t something I’m likely to do regularly. Basically I’ve gone without food from dinner to dinner, ending the fast with a biggish, though not huge, meal. I had no problem.
Still it’s not exactly user friendly for me as I do like a treat.
Instead I’ve gone most of this week using a six hour window for eating: still with coffee. I’ve been getting up in the morning (4:30 AM) and making my buttery good coffee (one serving). It weighs in at a couple of hundred calories of butter, coconut oil, organic coffee, and a dash of heavy whipping cream. Yes it’s got calories, mostly fat.
I do have a couple more cups of coffee in the morning, one at work when I get there (brought with me) and another I purchase around 9 AM when I take a mile walk. Neither of these have butter or coconut oi and have just a wee bit of cream. So no, I’m not completely calorie free, but there’s not much there.
After work, around 2 – 3 PM I’ve been taking a longer bike ride home, perhaps 8 to 10 miles. When I get home it’s time for a bit to eat. Lately this has been an hard boiled egg, a bit of cheese, a few olives, and if I feel especially hungry, a cup of Greek yogurt. Generally I don’t have all of these.
That’s about 3 PM or 4PM. As I generally have stuff to do in the evening, often involving friends, I can be found out and about, often eating together. This week has been heavy on the Whole Foods salad bar where last night to my chagrin, I found that my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I’d made a salad that was just a bit too big; mostly dark greens, kale, mesclun (yum), and so forth, a couple of hard boiled eggs, an ounce of tombo (tuna), some kim chee (hot pickled cabbage or whatevah), and a dab of this and that.
Then I really don’t eat again till I get home and maybe, but not for sure, have another cup of Greek yogurt fixed up as dessert.
I haven’t had any trouble eating this way this week. I’m not totally rigorous about it, that is to say, I’m not clocking it to the minute. As I said, I’m working with a 6 hour window and if it becomes a 6.5 hour window no big deal.
I’m very interested to see what the affect of all this is on my bicycling in the JBK Haleiwa Metric Century this weekend. A few weeks ago I did about 150 miles of cycling on my Hunqapillar but was loaded down with camping gear. This time I’ll be on my Quickbeam and carrying very little. I did this two years ago on that bike and had a great time but really had to push myself to keep up the same speed as a friend. He won’t be with me this year, but I do have a record of that time and am wondering if I’ll beat it.
Keep in mind, all this weight loss hasn’t really made me a faster rider. It has made riding a lot easier in that I need fewer breaks and can climb hills more easily, but speed is something you need to practice and I’m really motivated along those lines. I’m a distance guy, not a speed guy – though I’ll admit that improving my speed a bit wouldn’t be a bad thing.
That’s enough for the moment, thanks for listening.
Aloha.
Hopefully I’ll be doing this ride later this year when I visit DC. I’m really looking forward to the ride and will be saying a lot more about it in the future, after the JBK Haleiwa Metric Century this weekend when I can think about future rides.
Here’s a Google Earth plugin fly-by view of whole ride!
Here on Oahu it’s once again time for our annual JBL Metric Century. This is a really lovely ride along the north and windward shores of the island. I’ve done this a couple of times before, once even encouraging RBW members to vote on which bike I should use (my Quickbeam won).
Last year I couldn’t do it as I was having a hip replacement (left hip) the next day. For those who don’t know, the replacement was very successful and I was back on a real bike in six weeks (doc said no earlier though PT was done on a stationary bike).
I’m not a huge organized ride fan as I prefer to ride either alone or with a couple of friends but this ride covers my favorite part of the island. In fact I did a lot of this road two weeks ago when I went on a 2 night camping trip two weeks ago.
I’ll be back on my QB this year. There are no real hills on this ride and I’ve done it before on the QB (actually this is my preferred bike for this sort of thing – I use the Hunq when camping with gear).
Here’s a pic of my bike when I did it last in 2013…
I’m also interested to see how well I do at my new, lighter weight. This is another more or less recent change. With the bad hip I’d really gotten heavy and at the time of my operation was a heft 271. Yesterday I weighed myself at 199.7. Yes, EBDJ played a big part. And I’m still headed down. Most of this weight has come off since November of last year. I took off only a few pounds between April and November of last year, trying to do it by restricting calories and exercise. Fail.
This was after doing the EBDJ Thursday challenge which let me have a two hour window for eating solid food yesterday. I ate and ate well, but it was during a compressed amount of time.
I didn’t have a bad time of it because last week I’d actually done a 24 hour fast with no trouble so I knew what to expect. The only hard part, at least for me, is no late night snack. I like a week nosh before I sleep and, well, I couldn’t go to be at 7:30 PM, my evening had just started.
So things continue to go well. Indeed today I discovered how to make a form of bread in the microwave that I can actually eat. Of course it doesn’t use grain flour, it uses coconut flour. The recipe called for almond flour but I couldn’t find any this afternoon, I could find coconut flour and sure enough, it works fine. Here’s the original recipe, substitute things as you see fit. There’s another one here I’m going to try as well.
There’s a lot more I could say, but hey, it’s all out there.
Aloha
Today I weighed myself in at 207. That’s a new low, even for me. Okay, truly it isn’t. I was 207 once before. Indeed a decade or so ago I weighed that as I was moving up the scale as it were.
Spending a lot of time weighing oneself probably isn’t a good idea. In the past I more or less avoided ever weighing myself, just getting the figures when I went to the doctor. But now, when I’m actively trying to lose some weight, I guess I’ve gotten caught up in the deal.
These days I own a wifi connected scale which records my weight and shows me a graph of the data.
It’s not easy to tell from the non-interactive graph, but a month ago I was 214. Essentially I lost 7 pounds in a month. That’s a bit over a pound a week which is pretty much my goal.
Speaking of goals, where do I plan on ending up? Two hundred even was my original goal and at my present rate I’ll be there at the end of April. Good deal. But I’m thinking of going a wee bit further and shooting for 185. That seems doable by sometime in June which coincides with my next physician’s appointment. Won’t he be surprised?
As I recall from my January appointment, he asked, “How’d you do it?” I explained what I was doing and he said, “Great. I wish all my patients listened to me.”
I’m not sure I listened to him specifically, but his was one voice among many saying much the same thing.
What I’m learning from all these voices isn’t so much that weight loss is the goal, but rather that taking control of ones own health is. And you know, that’s what this feels like. I’ve started asserting some control, of my weight, my exercise (more about that coming up), and my diet. Good deal.
BTW – I’m reading The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz. It’s a book about…yes…fat. It’s gotten great reviews, as well as some scathing ones. Basically it’s an inquiry into how we eat today and how we got that way. It’s pretty interesting. I’m not an expert so I can’t judge the scholarship, but I’m enjoying the read. Actually I should say, listen as I’m doing the audio version. I just got started, so perhaps I’ll talk more about later.
Aloha!
In the past year, since my hip replacement, I’ve started taking my general health a bit more seriously. I’m 57 and decided it would be good to hit 60 (assuming I do) in as good a shape as it is possible. I’m not fanatic about it, but hey, it’s a decent goal.
To that end I decided I’d try losing a little weight. To my chagrin at the time of my operation I was up to 270. Granted I’m 6’1″, but that’s not good.
Now I was fairly active before my operation, riding my bicycle up to about a week before surgery at which time it became just too painful to mount and dismount. Oddly I could ride just fine thank you, but I could no longer get on and off the bike. Hips are odd.
I figured I’d just cut back a bit on food and maybe up the riding a little once I’d recovered and the weight would start coming off. It did. Very, very slowly. By the end of September I was down to 254. I’d taken off 16 pounds over 6 months. Not great, not bad mind you, but certainly not great.
Today I’m 209. That’s another 45 pounds over the next 5.5 months. That’s a little better and quite a jump per month, from 2.33 pounds per month to 8 pounds per month. What the heck did I do?
Well there in lies a tale. Basically I started eating fat. Lot’s of good fats, not the hydrogenated kind but your basic natural fat; eggs, cheese, meats, macadamia nuts, greek yogurt, so forth and so on. In addition I cut way, way back on carbs. In other words, no rice, no bread, no potatos, no sweets (sort of). But I do get to eat bacon!
Rather than go on and on about this, just go check out Eat Bacon, Don’t Jog, the website and book, that’ll get you going.
Let’s just say I’m the thinnest I’ve been in a long time and my bicycle riding has improved a lot…a whole lot. Well I’m not carrying a five year old around my middle anymore; that’s gotta help.
Anyway, here’s my breakfast and lunch for today…
Eggs for breakfast, sardines and avocado for lunch. Yum.
So how can I say I’m not losing weight? I’m not. I know where it all went.
“Tip, tip, tip.” A drip. Was that water dripping? I open my eyes. Darkness. Jesus. I close my eyes and open them again. No help. Then I notice the sound again. “Tip, tip, tip.” It was to my left. I reach out. Nothing. Was I sleeping. Do you know if you are dreaming when you are dreaming?
I sit up. This wasn’t a dream. I wasn’t sleeping. Where the hell was I? “Tip, tip, tip.” There, the noise again, still on my left.
I swing my legs off the? Off the what? What am I on? It feels like a table. A doctor’s examining table? A hard bed?
My feet touch the concrete floor or is it tile? It’s hard and smooth and cool. Why can’t I see anything. Jesus. This isn’t good. Where am I? Why can’t I see?
I stand.
“Tip, tip, tip.” The noise is still there, more insistent now. I turn slowly, my eyes wide open. I think they are wide open. They feel, I don’t know, they feel what?. Why can’t I see?
There’s something on my arm, my right arm. It’s in my right arm. Oh Jesus. I sit back down. I touch my arm again with my left hand. It’s a tube. It’s an intravenous tube. I can feel where it’s taped. I touch my face. There are bandages. Oh God, am I blind? Where am I? What happened?
I sit back on the bed. I listen. It’s not a drip. It’s a monitor. It’s beeping. Why am I here?
“Hello!” I say, “hello?” Fuck.
No answer. I don’t hear anything but the beep. That’s what it is, a beep. A soft beep, not a drip. “Beep, beep, beep.”
