Random Christmas Presents: Frey's Nuggets of Knowledge

Here's my early Christmas present to you, my loyal readers. I have some random nuggets of knowledge that'll surely tickle your curiosity bone.

1) Phil Liggett sometimes describes a lithe, climbing cyclist as 'dancing on the pedals'. This is when the little cyclist in standing, bouncing back and forth on the pedals as he cruises up a difficult climb.

Riding on the powercranks makes you dance on the pedals. Since you can only put your bodyweight onto one pedal at a time, you have to dance back and forth between the pedals. The cranks don't so much teach you to pull up on the unweighted leg as they do teach you to unweight that leg while simultaneously pushing with the other leg. This is a much more complicated motion than it sounds: unweighting one leg while pedaling with the other. Powercranks teach you how to dance on the pedals very quickly, however, because if you don't dance, you don't go anywhere.

You dance on the cranks whether you're sitting or standing. I've always noticed that tour de france riders do a lot of rocking back and forth on the bike when they're climbing. With the cranks, I do a lot of rockin' too.

2) Never judge a trainee by the cover. I was at the gym today, and this old, out of shape, fat, bald dude was getting trained by this retarded, bosu-ball using trainer. The trainer was having this poor old guy do all kinds of moves that you'd see if SHAPE magazine, using neon 2 lb. weights, and murdering the correct form of every exercise. Nothing new here. However, the trainer had the old dude do squats toward the end of the workout, and this old dude dropped into PERFECT squat form. I have really never see anyone beside me squat with good form in a commercial gym, but this old guy nailed it.

3) A training update from the powercranks. Friday: 46 miles. Sunday: 61 miles. Monday: 65 miles. I think I've learned how to use them.

4) Here's some pictures to prove that I rode 120 miles over two days on the cranks:

Here's my sun-burnt, dirt caked face on Monday, after all the riding. Notice the sunglasses tan right across the middle of my face. And, look even more closely, and you'll see a serious case of helmet-hair.

This picture is painful to look at. See, my butt wasn't really in shape for all this riding. An abrasion right between my legs, between my weiner and my butt started to bleed at the end of the ride on Monday. Yeah, it hurt, especially when you mix that blood with salty sweat.

5) Here's a recipe for a really cheap, and maximally effective training drink.

40g NOW CarboGain Pure Maltodextrin
40g NOW Dextrose
20g Optimum Nutrition Natural Whey ('cause the bird don't do atrificial sweetners, remember?)
1/4 cup pickle juice
A few cups of water
Sprinkle of AlsoSalt Salt Substitute (potassium source)

Mix them all together, then dilute equally into 3 bike water bottles.

6) Hi, my name is Frey, and I am a raisin addict. I am hooked on raisin oatmeal. Here's my recipe:

80g steel cut oats
2 cups water
Sprinkle of salt
1 apple
2/3 cups raisins

Cook oats overnight in a slow cooker with water and salt. In the morning, finely chop the apple, and drop the raisins and apple into the slow cooked oats. Slow cook them for another 30 minutes while you poop and shower. Then, eat.

7) In an old cycling sock, put a spare tube, a spare CO2, and a spare CO2 shooter. Carry this old sock in a pocket of your cycling jersey, and carry it in addition to the spares you undoubtedly have in you seat bag. Having the spare spare in your cycling jersey lets you give a hand to a stranded cyclist. If you see someone stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire and no tubes, you have everything you need to help them out right there in your jersey pocket. Or, if one of your riding buddies flats and uses their only spare tube in the repair ('cause your friends are idiots and don't carry atleast two spare tubes), you can give them this sock to carry with them for the rest of their ride.