Palm Beach Bike Tours – Page 67 – Two Wheels, one GPS and a Camera

September 28, 2008

Go for The Big “O” Nov. 8-9

I picked up a flyer for what is billed as “An epic ride you don’t want to miss! The Big “O” Nov. 8-9.”

The ride is sponsored by the Florida Off-Road Cycling Enthusiasts (F.O.R.C.E.) The phone number is 561-684-8444. tom@thebicyclery.com is listed as the email contact.

I’ve been LOST for five years

I’ve been riding the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail (LOST) for going on five years now. It’s one of my favorite places. I have to confess, though, that I stay on the paved path on the top of the dike or drop down to the highways. Even though I have 32mm tires, I don’t think I want to ride the ruts and shell rock on the top of the dike.

Flyer makes it sound like fun

Come and join in on the fun! We start at the Army Corps of Engineers in Clewiston at 9 A.M. where there is safe parking. There are rest stops along the way where you will find shade, shelter and some food and drink. The rest stops are about 15-20 miles apart.

The west side of the lake is unpaved, so you will need at least a hybrid style of bike with 32mm wide tires. Most people ride mountain bikes, but it is doable on a hybrid.

The first day we go clockwise from Clewiston. We have pavement for 15 miles, then 35 miles of dirt. After about 45 miles, the Pier II resort will be a great sight. Hot showers, a pool and cold beer will be your reward. Phone number 800-874-3744. There will be a special FORCE rate of $69 for a double. Reserve your room and tell them it’s for the Big O Levee Challenge. There are resturants within walking distance from the hotel.

The second day is nearly all smooth pavement all the way with a tailwind (hopefully). Rest stops again, so enjoy.

Trailheads

You can find aerial maps with trailheads marked on them here. They won’t match up exactly with the Big O map, so you should use their map for this ride.

You’ll see plenty of wildlife.

I’ve seen gators every time I’ve been on the LOST.

The Look, Don’t Touch Rule is very much in effect.

Since I’m a road biker, like I said before, I take 78 along the west side of the lake between Moore Haven and Okeetanta. It’s been paved within the last couple of years, has wide shoulders and low traffic. It’s also not exposed to the wind like riding on the dike if you hit a killer headwind. You’re also not the highest thing around if lightning is in the area.

Matt, my son, and I rode 98 between Port Mayaca and Pahokee at the end of last year. The road was under construction then, but it wasn’t as bad as we had feared. It may be finished by now. If it is, it’ll have good shoulders. The dike was undergoing construction between that area, so I don’t know if it’ll be open even for the Big O ride.

Have fun. (I’ve passed on all the info I have about the Big O ride. If you want more detail, contact The Bicyclery.

September 27, 2008November 7, 2008

Butch Cassidy, AKA Paul Newman, Takes Final Ride

My friend Jan Norris called this morning to tell me that Paul Newman had died. “One of his most famous scenes was his bike ride in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” she reminded me.

And, indeed, it was. You can see it here. Maybe I didn’t remember the bike part as much in those days because I was concentrating on Katherine Ross.

Paul Newman did his own bicycle stunts, after his stunt man was unable to stay on the bike according to a trivia site.

The 1969 movie was the highest-grossing Western in motion picture history, claims this excellent bio on Newman.

I shot Newman at Ohio University

When I was photo editor of The Ohio University Post in Athens, Ohio, circa 1967, Paul Newman paid a visit to the campus for some reason or another.

He was mobbed. I mean rock-star mobbed. I remember taking one high-angle shot of him completely surrounded by students. When we had a chance to interview him, he seemed to be a nice guy, graciously putting up with the same questions he’d probably been asked hundreds of times before. (If I can recall which cardboard box the clips from that era are in, I’ll post some shots from the day.)

Depending on whether you believe the story or not, he briefly attended Ohio University at Athens, but was expelled for (allegedly) crashing a keg of beer into the president’s car. I like to think it was true.

He also was supposed to have roomed in Scott Quadrangle, my dorm, but he couldn’t remember which room when I asked him.

He came to Lake Worth in 1984 to film Harry and Son

I can remember showing up on the Harry & Son set, not to take pictures, but to ask the movie crew if they could switch to a different two-way radio frequency because it was interfering with The Palm Beach Post’s radio system.

Newspapers and movie crews were both assigned a group of frequencies in the 173 MHz range. Movie companies would frequently rent their radios from a Ft. Lauderdale company and pick a channel at random. In this case, they grabbed 173.275, which we used.

They were nice enough to switch when I pointed it out.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

The closing lines to B.J. Thomas’ version of the song in this clip are a bit syrupy, but they ain’t a bad epitaph:

But there’s one thing I know
The blues he sends to meet me won’t defeat me
It won’t be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep falling on my head

But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turnin’ red
Crying’s not for me
Cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’
Because I’m free
Nothing’s worrying me.

September 26, 2008September 27, 2008

A Palm Beach Ride To Take With a Grain of Salt

It was time for a quick ride to the Palm Beach Inlet Friday afternoon. The temps weren’t too high and the wind was only about 7 mph out of the east. It was a perfect day to poke along shooting pictures for a future piece on Palm Beach’s Lake Trail.

Earlier in the day, I saw a Coastal Flood Warning show up on Weatherbug. I figured it was due to Tropical Storm Kyle kicking up the waves along the East Coast.

Debris on the trail

On the northbound leg, I saw debris on the trail that indicated that the water must have been high at some point. The trail borders the Intracoastal Waterway.

When I got to the Lake Worth Inlet at the north end of Palm Beach, the tide was rising higher than usual. The water was almost touching the bottom of the dock.

Now there’s water in the way

On the way back home, I came to a low spot and saw that there was about half an inch of water over the trail. Since the Intracoastal Waterway is brackish water, particularly when the tide is coming in, I slowed way down. Salt water is something you don’t want to have splashing all over your aluminum rims and frame.
LBS owner Wayne (remember Wayne?) took me to task one day for not carefully wiping my bike down after riding A1A along the ocean. He pointed out that my spokes and bars were rusting from the salt spray.

Stuff they don’t tell snow birds

When we first moved down here from the Rust Belt, I told someone that my car would probably last forever since I wouldn’t be driving through salt put on the roads to melt ice and snow. That was before I learned that they may not salt the roads like up north, but that the whole atmosphere down here is full of salt.

A company car owned by one of our execs was due for replacement and it was put up for sale. I knew he didn’t drive much and that he was very conservative, so I asked him if it would be a good deal. “I live in an oceanfront condo,” he said. “You don’t want that car. It’s just eaten up with rust from the constant exposure to salt air.”

When we rode from Key Largo to Key West, we struck up a conversation with a waitress who said she used to ride “up north,” but that you “couldn’t keep a bike down here.”

“Why? Is it because they get stolen?”

“No, its because they rust away. EVERYTHING down here rusts: your refrigerator, all of your applicances. Anything that’s made of metal rusts.”

Water was deeper by Dunbar

When I got to the intersection of Dunbar and Lake Trail, water was a couple of inches deep over the bike path. I got off and carried my bike over to dry pavement. That’s one of the advantages of biking in Shimano sandals. It doesn’t hurt if it rains or you have to wade water.

When I looked a hundred feet to the south, it was obvious that I was going to have to abandon the trail and take to the surface streets. The water ahead looked like it was a foot or two deep.

Shallow water is OK, but no telling what’s in deep water

I got to thinking about the Silver King sculpture I had passed at the Four Arts Museum at the start of the ride.

This is Florida. No telling what might be lurking just under the surface of that water.

September 25, 2008September 27, 2008

Scott’s Tour de Adversity in Pursuit of IronMan

Scott took up biking in May. He’s a runner. He’s working toward the Miami half IronMan in November. After riding a solid but basic Specialized road bike for a few months, he was ready to upgrade. Below is his account of last weekend’s ride on his loaner tri-bike. —Matt

My ride actually started yesterday at about 1pm. That is when I was at the local bike shop to pick up and borrow the owner’s son’s time trial bike (aka Tri-Bike) that he is going to sell me. While there, he took the wheels off, because apparently they cost more than my Jeep. No, not more than my Jeep’s wheels — the entire Jeep.

Always Pack Your Own Parachute

Anyway, while he was putting on the other wheels the conversation went down like this:

Owner: Hey Wrench, I grabbed some tubes from under the bench. Are they the good ones or the bad ones?

Wrench: I think the good ones are in the front and the bad ones are in the back. Where did you grab them from?

Owner: I think I grabbed them from the front but I’m not sure…

At that moment, I thought, ‘Danger, Danger’. Do I ask him to double check the tubes? I mean, he’s letting me borrow a $3,000 bike for free. Who am I to complain?

Water? Too Heavy. Who Needs It?

Fast forward to today at 12:30. I leave my house with no water bottle (no cages on the time trial bike) and no computer to provide a metric to compare the road bike to the tri bike. About 6 miles into the ride, the front tire is dead. I spend 15 minutes changing the tire out. At least now I know I can do it if I’m in a race… Get back on the bike and about one mile later the back tire is flat. I’m out of tubes and CO2. I tried using the hand pump but the tire was not holding the air…

So, about four miles from the local bike shop, I started walking. In my Shimano ‘duck shoes’. A fellow biker stops to help. Turns out it’s my friend Chris from the Palm Beach Road Runners. He offers his tube and CO2 but I’ve decided at this point to go back to the local bike shop so I thank him and keep walking. He also gave me some good advice about foam rollers (he’s a doctor) and didn’t charge me a co pay. What a great guy!

Thank You Jupiter Police Department

About 200 yards from when Chris leaves I flag down a Jupiter Police officer. He can’t help because his trunk is full of guns or something so he calls a fellow officer who has a bike rack on his Police SUV and this officer saves the day. He drove me to the local bike shop (the air conditioned air was awesome) and we shared some bike stories.

In and out with two fully-inflated, non-leaking tubes. Yeah!

Fast to Faster: It Is About the Bike

So about the time trial bike… I freakin love it! I guess it’s the geometry. It kind of feels like you are in a very aggressive position. Almost as if you are going to fall over the handlebars. It uses a completely different set of leg muscles. I felt as though I was really pushing and driving down on the pedals compared to the road bike.

At any rate, my legs felt awesome and I felt (although I can’t compare since I had no computer) as though I was going much faster. And much smoother. No parts of my body went numb, either… The shifters are right at the thumbs and they move up and down, so the shifting is really easy and smooth. The shifter, that changes the ring you are on, is a resistance shifter and is WAY better than what I’ve got on the road bike. For me, that is. It only has two chain rings but I never needed the highest or the lowest. It was a very nice ride considering the circumstances. I have a new love for this type of ride. Completely different experience and one that I prefer over the road bike.

I’ll have to check with some Tri peeps to see if it is a good idea to change this close to the MiamiMan. Since it is different muscles and I’ve spent the last six months building the ones that I won’t be using anymore, I wonder if it is a good idea… If it won’t completely screw up my training, I will own a Tri bike within the next couple weeks… :-)

All in all, I went from my house to Coral Cove Park and back in 3.5 hours. With two flats and a ride in a police car, that’s not too bad…

As sweet as the Felt sounds, I’m a big fan of Scott’s second choice. It even has his name already written on the frame…

Are you selling your triathlon bike and want to pitch it to Scott? Know anything about the Felt? Like another brand or style better? Got any ideas how to go faster? Let us know in the comments below. —Matt

September 22, 2008February 9, 2009

SportLegs: Ride Further More Comfortably

Summary: Buy SportLegs to go further more comfortably.

Sports Supplements are Snake Oil

Unless a substance is banned by Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), cycling’s governing body, the substance is probably not worth using. If a pill you purchased at the local running or cycling shop actually made a measureable improvement in performance, why wouldn’t it be banned?

Over the years, I have read a lot claims from supplement manufactures and they all seem like total fantasy. I’m a skeptic to say the least. It wasn’t until last year that I came to believe that Gatorade instead of simple water might be helpful on longer (over 30 mile) rides. To this day, I feel like an idiot for taking a generic multivitamin every day.

Anonymous Baggy of Pills

A Monday morning in August, I arrived at work to find a small baggy of non-descript pills on my desk. They only note attached was ‘sportlegs.com’. They were from Scott.

Scott is our resident marathon man and overall athletic overachiever. He is a runner who has completed a number of marathons. In May he bought a bike and since then he has pounded away more miles more quickly than any of the Palm Beach Bike Tours staff. Since July, he has done two triathlons and has a half-Ironman scheduled for November.

We hate Scott.

In any case, when Scott drops something on my desk, I don’t immediately laugh in his face.

Scott’s testimonial was simple: a few of his triathelete friends recommended SportLegs so he tried them. After running eight miles on Sunday, he felt as though he could run another eight miles. That evening and the next day, he felt great and didn’t cramp up. Coming with Scott’s seal of approval, I gave them a try.

SportLegs Test Ride

I picked my 30-mile Saturday ride as the test. Having done it just about every Saturday since May, I have a good idea about how long it takes and how I feel afterwards.

First, let me tell you what SportLegs isn’t. It is not a performance enhancing substance. I wasn’t any faster because I popped four SportLegs pills before the ride. My turns at the front may have been a little longer but at no point did I feel as though I wanted to pick up the pace. (We generally cruise at 18-21 miles an hour.)

On the other hand, I felt as though I was coasting the first 20 miles. My cadence was hovering near 100 RPM instead of my usual 85-90 RPM. Turning the pedals felt effortless. At the end of the ride, I wished I had time to loop back and do it again. At no point did my legs give me the little twinges that indicate pain or cramps to come.

Correlation doesn’t prove causality, of course.

My effortless 30-mile test was on an exceptionally nice day — 78 degrees instead of the usual 91 degrees. Still, the results were good enough to give SportLegs another shot. The second test would be on my own dime.

Speaking of my own dime: Ouch! A 120-capsule bottle of SportLegs costs about $25. You take one capsule per 50 pounds of body weight per two- to three-hour period. The $25 buy-in was difficult to swallow for a still-unproven product. But, I went ahead with the purchase. (Doing the math in my head, each pill is about 20 cents. For me, $1 a dose, give or take.)

What is This Stuff?

SportLegs: Vitamin D, Calcium, Magnesium and Lactate.

Apparently, the magic is the ‘lactate’. Other supplements use lactose. What does that mean? I have no clue. The SportLegs web site has a chemistry lesson which I’m not even going to pretend to understand.

Test Two: Hilly Memphis MS-150

I foolishly signed up to do an MS-150 in Memphis this year with my Uncle Mark and the Bad Dog cyclists with whom he rides. Living in Florida, I never see hills. Memphis to the Mississippi river and back has a lot of hills. The Bad Dogs know hills. I was pretty sure I’d need a banned substance or two to keep up with them. Alas, all I had was SportLegs and a pocket full of Espresso Love GU Energy Gel.

Surprisingly, I did very well on the ride.

On my flat as a pancake 30-mile local loop, I generally average 18-19 miles an hour. For Saturday’s 77.5 miles of rolling hills and 20 mph sustained winds (thank you Hurricane Ike), I averaged 16.1 miles an hour. To lose just two miles an hour in the hills and over a distance more than twice as long is really good.

Best of all, I wasn’t beat when I got to the finish line. My legs didn’t cramp either on the ride or afterwards. Unlike previous long rides, I didn’t wake up in the night with cramping legs. The next morning, I felt great. Continue reading “SportLegs: Ride Further More Comfortably”