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This might be old news for some of you, but I have to post an excerpt from one of JD’s posts on Get Fit Slowly. It’s a little bit on some cycling he did over the weekend…

On Saturday, I worked in the yard and didn’t get a chance to take a spin. Today, though, Kris asked me if I could go to Trader Joe’s to pick up some bread and some parmesan cheese. “Gladly,” I said.

This time I rode through Milwaukie, up toward Sellwood, over the three bridges path, and then up 39th to Trader Joe’s. I had to dismount once (climbing from the bike path to 38th — that’s a steep incline), but otherwise muscled through.

At Trader Joe’s I also picked up a Greek salad and some ginger limeade. On my ride home, I stopped at Sellwood park for lunch. I ate olives and feta cheese and onions and peppers and lettuce (no dressing — I don’t like dressing), rosemary bread, and limeade. Those who know me well understand that the fact that I chose to eat a salad is the most amazing part of this story. I never choose to eat salads.

As I was eating, the seagulls stood nearby and begged. They wanted my bread, but I didn’t share.

The ride home — in the glorious sun — was fantastic. Again I made it up the hill on River Road without dismounting.

JD doesn’t talk about “exercise” or calories. He talks about the simple joys that arise when you choose to get on a bike instead of into a car. It illustrates that

• You can learn to like physical activity (and salads!)
• You can incorporate exercise into your daily routine
• Exercise doesn’t have to be a chore

Huge congrats to JD on making such a huge step on his path to fitness.

Link to 20 Miles on the Road to Physical Fitness

My workmates look at me like I’m psycho when they find out I’ve been cycling to work all winter. Snow, wind, rain. It doesn’t matter - I ride anyway. The secret to my winter-riding success is awesome gear. As long as I’m warm and dry, there’s little stopping me. As a bonus, cycling is a great way to beat the flu season, whose main perpetrators are busses and tubes packed full of sniffly, feverish Londoners, paving a trail of mucus on their morning commute.

Matt Haughey’s got a great article on winter gear for cycling. He’s tried and tested the gamut of warm-weather gear and outlines the results according to the body parts were warmth is more needed: head, torso, legs, hands and feet.

• Head: Matt likes Gore’s skullcap and helmet cover; I’ve been getting away with a simple fleece headband
• Torso: Gotta be wind-proof and waterproof. Matt recommends a jacket by Gore, though I swear by my Endura Phoenix Jacket (plus a fleece base layer)
• Legs: Warm tights, like these Pearl Izumi Thermafleece tights
• Hands: Pearl Izumi Thermafleece Gloves
• Feet: I just wear Gore-Tex trailing running shoes and wool socks, but I see lots of people following Matt’s advice and wearing shoe covers.

Matt’s honest about the price: winter gear isn’t cheap, but good stuff will last for years and in the long run, you’ll save money on public transportation and cold medicine.

This winter, I’ve ridden several hundred miles in weather a lot of people don’t like to drive a car in. I’m fitter, healthier, and happier and when I have a couple hours set aside for a ride, with all this gear the weather really doesn’t matter anymore. It is expensive stuff and I’d guess it’ll cost you $500 and up to get fully outfitted but the difference is dramatic and these gear choices are the only thing making comfort possible in the freezing rain.

Link to Winter riding tips for your road bike (via Lifehacker)

Image courtesy of bunello

There are bicycle commuters who cycle for the utility of riding a bike (cost, speed, exercise), and then there are bicycle commuters who live for cycling. Meet Ferdie, who’s been cycling 96 miles a day from Swansea (Wales) to his job at Tredz, a bike shop in Cardiff.

From Tredzblog:

The first thing you notice when you start chatting to him is how alert he is. Which is no suprise considering how high his concentration levels have to be for so long: “you’ve got to do the thinking for both of us” he says diplomatically when talking about his fellow road users. “Most drivers are pretty good”, but being constantly aware is probably one of the reasons why he’s suffered no accidents in three months, and only two accidents in five years of heavy road use.

Would Ferdie drive if he could?

“I’ve failed my test four times.” He responds without the slightest bit of regret. You sort of think that its fate. People like Ferdie just aren’t meant to drive.

I found this story thanks to one of our readers and thought it was awesome. It makes my 3-mile journey to work seem puny. It shows that distance need not be a deterring factor for cycle commuting (though I think most of us might find the time commitment - not to mention the wear and tear on our bodies - a little daunting; probably less of an issue for Ferdie, who’s competes in The National Point Series).

Link to Cycling to work, Tredz style

We want nothing short of a cycling transformation in London. We are announcing the biggest investment in cycling in London’s history, which will mean that thousands more Londoners can cycle in confidence, on routes that take them quickly and safely to where they want to go.
- Ken Livingston, Mayor of London

Ken Livingston has mapped out a plan that could transform London into a bike commuter’s paradise by 2010. The plan includes

• 12 bicycle ‘motorways’ that link popular residential areas to the city
• A free bike hire scheme much like the one already kicking ass in Paris
• A £25-a-day congestion charge on the highest-polluting vehicles
• An over three-fold increase in the average number of daily cycling trips (from the current 0.5 million to 1.7 million)

I’ll believe this when I see it. Still, a similar scheme “successfully” executed in Aylesbury offers some hope. But I put that word in quotes because the model seems a little “hard going” according to The Guardian. Although the cycle routes themselves are great, they don’t really link up, so pedlars find themselves at the end of the route and have no idea where to go. Still, that’s what maps are for, eh?

Link to City’s two-wheel transformation in The Guardian
Link to Aylesbury’s cycleways leave room for improvement in The Guardian

I borrowed my buddy’s bike to cycle in France and found his saddle to be remarkably comfortable throughout. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Link

Once again, thanks for all the love with the Seinfeldian Chain and see you on the flipside.

Interval training has been in the news lately, as recent research supports its role in gaining speed and burning fat.

The New York Times reports on a 2006 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology:

Eight women in their early 20s cycled for 10 sets of four minutes of hard riding, followed by two minutes of rest. Over two weeks, they completed seven interval workouts.

After interval training, the amount of fat burned in an hour of continuous moderate cycling increased by 36 percent … Cardiovascular fitness — the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to working muscles — improved by 13 percent.

It didn’t matter how fit the subjects were before. Borderline sedentary subjects and the college athletes had similar increases in fitness and fat burning.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports on a Japanese study that found that adding a break into a workout may boost fat-burning efficiency:

When men exercised for two 30-minute stretches, taking a 20-minute rest break in between, they burned more fat than when they exercised for a single 60-minute session, and then rested afterward

While the proportion of total calories burned did not differ between the two workouts, fat represented nearly 77 percent of the calories burned in the recovery period after the two-part exercise session, compared with about 56 percent of calories burned in the recovery period after the single long exercise session.

Link