Mike's Bike Blog

Since we can't make it to Utah to partake in Fatty's Triathalon this coming Saturday (6/21) we should hold our own event. We need 3 events to make it a Triathalon and to keep it with the Fat Cyclist name we'll have to have an eating event. I liked his original idea of a road leg followed up by a mountain leg and then brats. I'm open to other alternative legs for the 2nd leg, anybody got ideas? For the eating we can either all pitch in and BBQ something (pot luck style) or there might be a few good BBQ places around.

One thing I do know the entry fee is at least purchasing 1 raffle ticket in Fatty's giveaway. The grand prize is a brand new Ibis SilkSL road bike! I know it's short notice, but we could have a fun "social" here in Austin and support the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

On Friday I had my bike fit with Alexis Sheehy at Bicycle Sport Shop. We started with a basic fit and if we needed to do a 3D fit we would cross that bridge when we came to it. She started off by getting my bike background and the type of riding I'm doing.

After plopping my bike on the trainer and spinning along she broke out the plumb. There wasn't any glaring problems with my fit. She did lower my seat a little bit and moved my seat back a little as well. Nothing too drastic. Her biggest recommendation was different pedals as well as working on my flexibility. I should work on the flexibility in my hamstrings and hip flexor.

I've been riding basic SPD pedals. The SPD pedals don't have much of a platform for your foot and with the lack of a platform my foot was not being supported properly. The thinking is the smaller pedals are forcing me to use more of an effort to stabilize my foot and thus putting stress on my knees. She put on Shimano 105 pedals and had me try them. On the trainer they felt decent. She suggested I give them a try over the weekend.

Friday evening I did a short 10 miles to test my knee and the pedals. Both were great. My knee didn't hurt at all and the pedals felt great. I could definitely feel the power transfer difference. When I kicked through or pulled through on my stroke it felt like I had more response.My next test ride was Saturday morning. I did 40 miles in Cedar Park on Parmer and 620. My goal for this ride was not speed, but to keep my cadence at 95+. For the entire ride I didn't shift to my big ring. I did average 96 rpms for the 2:21:55 ride. The pedals were great, I just might keep them. I'll poke around and compare the 105's to others. It seems the top of the line Dura Ace pedals are about the same, just lighter, not sure if it warrants the extra bucks.

Now for the bad news, my knee didn't hurt outright, I think I stopped before it went over the threshold of a minor annoyance to pain. As I was riding down 620 I could feel it fatiguing and knew if I kept it up that it would start to hurt. It's kind of hard to explain, it didn't hurt, but I could feel it. It was the prepain feeling and if I would have pushed more power it would have started to hurt.

Monday June 16 famed cycling director of US Postal, Discovery Team and currently Astana Johan Bruyneel will be at Mellow Johnny's to share his story and philosophy in his new book "We Might as Well Win".  Space and inventory is limited so get to the shop early. Book signing is from 5pm to 7pm.

I went in to see my doctor this afternoon to look at my knee. She wants me to take the rest of the week off the bike and see how it feels next week. If I have pain next week than she thinks seeing a Physical Therapist (PT) is in order. I laid out my plan for working my knee out, with resuming weights and she thought that was a good idea starting next week. She didn't object to me skating though.

I went out for a skate tonight, 4.77 miles worth of skating. It's not bike speeds, but I averaged 10.29 mph, my max speed was 21.74 mph.  I know some of you might be wondering how I got those numbers. I took an extra Delphi cycling computer I had laying around and hooked the speedometer magnet to the spokes of the wheels and the sensor on the chassis. Knowing my skate wheels are 72mm I was able to compute the wheel size and enter that into the computer. Now I need to figure out a way to measure my stride strokes which would be akin to cadence. 

Just kidding, I have a Garmin Forerunnuner which straps to my wrist, so it gets data from GPS. 

I was talking with Lauri an accomplished adventure racer/cyclist, telling her of my knee problems. When I mentioned the pain walking up the stairs after a ride of 2000+ feet of climbing she thought she knew what it might be. She has gone through something similar during the Texas 500 relays. She sent me a link on Cyclists Knee Injuries and it does describe what I'm going through.

There are many causes that can lead to this, poor quadriceps function, vastus-medialis insufficiency, subtalar-joint pronation, poor muscle flexibility, abnormal lower-limb biomechanics, incorrect bicycle and equipment settings (saddle height, cleat position, cleat type and shoe type), abnormal fore-foot and rear-foot alignment, leg-length discrepancies, and varus or valgus knee malalignments. Out of that list there's only a few that I know what they mean and can pronounce.In my case I'm not sure exactly what the exact culprit is, it could be any combination of the causes. One thing I do need to do is get to the bottom of it and fix the underlying cause as best I can as no matter how much I rehab it and get it better if the cause is still there it will never go away it will only postpone the pain.My gut feeling is that it's a combination of the quadriceps muscle weakness, flexibility, bike/cleat fit. Since spring I've tapered off my weight training from 3 days down to 2 days. Truth be told I've missed more weight training sessions than I've probably made. Since bulking up isn't my focus I haven't felt bad about missing a weight training workout. I had been doing more on the bike muscular workouts like single leg pull thrus. However, my knee strength is not balanced, I think without doing leg press, leg curls and squats (I do sumo squats, I don't have a squat rack or a spotter) I've started to lose muscle and could be causing some side to side movement.Besides lifting weights I also plan to do some cross training. I think it's time I break out the slide board and inline skates. I'll also hit the ice for some ice hockey. This will also help as I've been asked to play in a hockey tournament July 4th in College Station, TX.

I'm also going to get a bike fit to make sure everything is fitting properly from saddle height to cleat positioning. I'm not sure what direction to go on this one. Given the nature of my past sports injuries, how messed up my feet are I'm not sure if a traditional bike fit would cover everything. Or if I need the new fancy 3D fitting. My thought is that having the computer data that can show any abnormalities in my pedal stroke or wiggle and wobble in my joints would be detected and hopefully corrected or compensated. However, since I've never had a traditional bike fit by a trained professional maybe they can offer the same level of service at half the cost. Locally, Bicycle Sport Shop offers a 3D fitting.