Bicycling Miscellany: Miscellany!
Over the past few months, I’ve been re-reading my back catalog of cycling magazines, pulling out points that I thought were worth remembering and/or sharing. This final post contains all the stuff that didn’t fit the other categories, like travel, humor, and so forth.
The French-speaking Caribbean island of Guadeloupe is a great spring training cycling destination.
Elite pros often say that New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington is tougher than the Alpe d’Huez. It’s 7.6 miles with 2.6 miles being dirt, and an average incline of 12 percent. Long stretches are 18 percent, and it maxes out at 22 percent. Average wind speed is 35 MPH, and for decades it was also the site of the highest wind speed ever recorded on Earth. The course record is a blistering 9.6 MPH. The road is only open to cyclists on two days each year, and many makes of cars are not allowed on the mountain at all because of known weaknesses (mostly insufficient brakes).
Due to physiological differences, women tend to have an advantage on hill climbs, due to their leg strength and lower weight. They also excel at ultra endurance events due to their larger fat stores to power long aerobic efforts. Their lower center of gravity also helps with bike handling. Men, due to their overall strength and fast-twitch muscle fibers, typically outperform women in sprints, on the flats, in time trials and sprints.
When buying a new helmet or sunglasses, always test the combination, to ensure that the helmet and sunglasses fit well together and don’t interfere with one another.
Foam plumbing insulation, which comes pre-sliced lengthwise, is the perfect material for protecting frame tubes when packing your bike.
If you commute often, don’t lug your bike locks back and forth with you. Just leave them conveniently attached to the bike rack at work.
It’s really, really bad form to wear pro or team kit if you’re not being paid to wear it. If you are stupid enough to wear team kit, you’d damned well better be able to put the hammer down, or people will look at you as a complete poser.
On any ride where time matters, be sure to keep your rest breaks as short as possible. Remember this adage: “Going is faster than stopping.”
The cyclist’s idea of a love triangle: me, my significant other, and my bike.
Remember not to violate DuPont’s Law: the cool factor of Lycra is inversely proportional to the wearer’s distance from the bike.
Those of you who use compressed CO2 cartridges to fill your tires should remember that carbon dioxide is 52 percent heavier than air. And that’s rotating weight, which is going to slow you down.