So You're Thinking About

There is a Facebook group of old riders and future riders for Bike & Build where the new riders can ask questions and get advice from those who have been around the block... er country. There is a lot of good advice in there as well as really poor advice (when there are 900 people in a group, statistically there are a few that are slower than a bike on a trainer). I try to only post when I have something to valuable to contribute. Often they end up being pretty long. Some of the same questions get asked and Facebook makes it hard to search for old discussions, so I'm starting a series on here to preserve my answers.

March Update

I hit the $550 mark last week for fundraising for Bike & Build. I have a long ways to go, but I have a few ideas still to come. Right now, I am doing a fundraiser where you guess how many toothpicks fit in my beard.  The winner will receive a Kindle Fire. My friends helped me with this before I shaved it.

The beard after one year.

Porcupine beard

It's a two step process. You can submit a guess for $1 to donatetomarcus@gmail.com, but submit the donation here: http://bikeandbuild.org/rider/6968

In other news, collegiate racing is back! At Lindsey Wilson, I got 32nd (of 52) in the road race, 5th (of 10) in the team time trial, and 15th (of 40) in the crit. I had two goals: don't get dropped on the first hill in the road race and don't get dropped in the crit. Check. Check. I'll take it for the first race weekend.

This weekend was DePauw. Big news. I got 2nd (of 46) in the road race! Near the finish I couldn't believe that not only was I in contention for the top ten, I could possibly win! We sprinted to the finish and another guy beat me by a couple feet, and I am sure I beat third place by inches. It felt really good. That is my best result in my collegiate career thus far.

After the road race with my teammates

Considering I am doing a little better this year and I am biking across the country again, I am thinking about getting a new bike. I am making myself get my thesis proposal done by spring break to get some motivation. Well, if I follow through with the buy... Right now I am able to trick my mind a bit into thinking I will. I got a lot done on Friday. :)

If I had to do it over...

What would I do differently if I did Bike & build again? What would I do the same? Some of these things are really minor details, but would be nice. I was talking to some of my teammates about this when we met up in New York over New Year's. They laughed at a few of my ideas, but I will post anyway. I know we talked about more things, but this is a start.

• Stuff sacks - keep things organized in my luggage and save space
• Location enabled for photos on my phone - I have no idea where some of the photos were taken
• Smaller camera - I took my DSLR. I just need memories for a summer like that and not the next cover of Nat'l Geo
• Better tires - I used Rubino Pros that I use for training and racing. I would want something a little more durable and would be willing to sacrifice performance.
• Camera mounts - I brought one mount for my Contour camera. I wish I had brought my other primary for rear facing shots.
• Chalking - I wish I would have chalked more. Chalking can provide a lot of encouragement to riders behind you during the day. I often would not want to get off my bike halfway up a mountain to do this, but I think my teammates deserved more than what I did.
• Pictures of the host - I don't remember a lot of the places we stayed. Last summer was kind of a blur.
• Bike fit - I would have done this before the trip. I got it done in Dallas. As you put in more miles the more things you notice that are "wrong" with the bike. Minor adjustments can make a huge difference in the comfort of your ride.

They laughed at these:

• Hose nozzle - makes washing bikes and bodies easier and uses less water
• Maybe sink hose nozzle to fill water jugs - something like this
• It was a pain to fill the 5 gallon jugs with a pitcher or pot, but then again if we had this, would we even be able to find it in the trailer?

What I really enjoyed having:

• Solar powered radio - this made lunch much more fun
• Phone tether - I could get on the internet when others couldn't
• Everything usb rechargeable - plug it in my laptop and don't have to worry about batteries
• Two way radio - these were pretty fun, but didn't have too much chance to use them
• Extra water bottles - I had four on my bike at all times. Bike & Build requires two in addition to the hydration pack. There were days when I was glad I had four when I ran out of water.
• External hard drive - grab everyone's videos at the end of the trip
• Lemon flavor packets - my mom gave me some of these when I passed through my hometown. After a while you get sick of water, and a little flavor is nice in the evenings when drink choice is limited.
• Hammock - enough said

Here's the thing. I am doing it again! Surprise!

Bike & Build by the Numbers Part III

I am breaking from my traditional monthly post, and you now get a second bonus post! Wahoo.

I thought I was done with numbers from the summer. I'm currently reading The Cyclist's Training Bible, which has given me some insight into the software I use to analyze my cycling performance. I now present my Performance Management Chart from last summer.

It's a lot, so let me break it down.

TSB = training stress balance :: form
CTL = chronic training load :: fitness
ATL = acute training load :: fatigue

ATL shows my training stress and how hard I worked in the short term. When CTL rises, my fitness is improving. TSB shows "restedness." A score above zero means I am "on form" or well rested. As you can see, I only reached that twice. The first time was after a week in New Orleans, and I am not sure how I recovered for the second. That day off was in the Grand Canyon, and I didn't do too much there as it was raining (and hailing) and I was a little under the weather.

I was tired for much of Bike & Build, and now I know why. Well, I guess anyone with half a brain could have told me why. They would have said, "You're biking across the country! Of course, you're tired!" I tagged the build days and days off and there is a strong correlation of restedness after those according to the graph. For fun I also labeled some of the hard days, which is along the ATL line. I will have to compare this to my regular racing season. It may be that I will only be on form a couple times during a season, and it's perfectly normal. I will continue reading the book and find out.

Interestingly, I started Bike & Build near my most tired state. I had just completed Cover Indiana (360 miles), and I was sick. Not the best way to start. If I had to do it over again, I would make it a point to come well rested. More on B&B do-overs next time.

Also, I felt most burnt out during the two times I was most rested. Weird, right? Moral of the story: stay tired enough so you don't realize you're tired?

SUS Does New York

Me and 17 of my best friends met up in NYC for New Years. I don't know if we were able to pull that off during the summer when we visited places. It was quite the reunion having two-thirds of us in one place. We hadn't skipped a beat. It felt just like summer just a wee bit colder. I think about these people every day (literally [read: litruhlee]) and it was wonderful to catch up.

We went to Central Park for the new year and watched the fireworks. I did the whole Times Square deal in 2001 so it was good to back with good company. We we went ice skating, out to eat, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge among other things.

Unfortunately, many of us became sick. It was a real SUSpool er... cesspool at Jay's apartment. I felt like I got hit by a bus - lots of body aches and a fever, but Jay and his family are great hosts and took care of us. All in all an awesome time.

4th of July Bike & Build Style

 

I got a couple requests for how I set up my bike for the 4th of July. But before I go any further, I must state that I do not recommend riding a bike with a flag. Let me repeat that. I do not recommend riding a bicycle with a giant 5' x 8' sail. I got blown off the road and into the ditch after crossing into the lane of oncoming traffic. I was fortunate, and there were no cars around. It was rather windy that day: 10 mph mean wind speed, 30 mph sustained winds, and over 50 mph gusts, so you would probably be just fine on a calm day. All that being said, will I try it again? Yes. Will I try a bigger flag? Absolutely.

The wind was not fun sometimes.

I first had this idea when I saw the brochure for Bike & Build. "Wow, bike across the country for charity and be patriotic at the same time!" I wanted to do the entire distance with my flag but soon decided this was not a good idea. It would be difficult to keep the flag clean and off the ground, so I decided one day would be feasible. I had my brother mail me my flag during the summer. I had used it before on a few occasions:

I bought the parts in Amarillo, TX, at Home Depot on June 25 on our day off. I had no idea whether it would work or not or if I would even have the tools to work on it. Thankfully, our host on July 3 had tools. I stayed up late and put it together. I didn't have a vice or some other niceties, but it worked. I used two round electrical plate covers and a flag mounting bracket along with a couple bolts and pipe insulation. I used round covers so I wouldn't cut up the back of my leg when stretching on the bike. Make sure you don't come into contact with it while pedaling; it will be really annoying. The pipe insulation was only to prevent scratches (not that my frame doesn't already have its fair share). I drilled holes for four bolts, but I was only able to get two in since they weren't aligned quite right, and well, the seat stays are in the way. I used a one inch 10' PVC pipe for the pole. It didn't quite fit the mount, so I had to shave it down a little with a file. I used PVC as opposed to other material for its light weight, and I also hoped that the flexibility of the PVC would allow more time for me to react to any wind gusts. The flag was attached to the pole with eyelet screws and key chain rings. For additional stability I used some accessory cord and attached it to my handlebars to the top of the pole. Check out the pictures and let me know if you have any questions:

The gap at the rear of my saddle allowed for an additional contact
point and the most upright position of the pole possible.

I made it 102 miles before a storm rolled in. I tried to ride when the front came through, but my front wheel was coming off the ground. I took the flag off and had a nice lightning rod for the last 11 miles. It was made of PVC, but it was unnerving, nonetheless. 113ish miles were completed five months ago, but I was a little worried the day had taken a toll on my bike and bent my seat stays out of alignment. I finally took my setup off when I got home, and everything seemed fine.

The toll on my body was worse.
Other riders got slightly different stats, but you get the idea.
For more summer stats, check out this post.

I forgot to mention the reactions of drivers on the road. This was not something I expected or thought of, but made a great memory. Over 100 drivers gave friendly honks, fist pumps, and waves. I counted. :) Keep in mind much of the ride was in the middle of nowhere (see next photo). A couple drivers even made me pull over and take a picture. It made 4th of July feel like it should even away from home. Perhaps better.

I also added a tie down between the seat post and the pole.
The second point of contact adds a lot of stability.

A couple other items to note. Advantage: increased visibility. Disadvantage: due to the hydration pack, you can't sit up. It makes changing hand positions quite difficult. I stayed on the hoods most of the day and paid for it for months.

So if you build this, do so in a safe environment. Get some riding in with the wind and get plenty of experience with it before you take it to other places. Do good; don't die.

3 Months Later

3 months. Incredible. I imagine shortly I will be talking about this in terms of years. I still miss it as hard as some days were. I miss the people. The journey and adventures. The group suffering. It made us become close quickly. But now we are spread across the country (and around the world), and I feel like I lost some of my closest friends, but that's not true. Kristina reminded me the dynamic has only changed, but I've been thinking the hardest part of Bike & Build is no longer doing Bike & Build. So many things remind me of it. Home by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros is playing on my Pandora station right now. Ugh. I went back to sleeping on my therm-a-rest. My bed was uncomfortable so I did what I knew from this summer. Two months later, I am still sleeping solid. There is usually something major every week that reminds me of summer.

The Bike & Build blues can get you down, but there are bigger and better things. It was the most absurd time of my life, so it's hard to imagine what will top it. Natalie, one of the program directors, rode with us the first and last few days of the trip. She gave a short speech about four miles before we reached the Pacific. I don't remember what all was said, but she told us to not let our summer be it for us. Rather, go on and do big things. Jay ate his first PB&J right there.

I am trying to figure out what that means for me. My professor posed a strange but interesting question to me last week. "Do you want to help one person, or do you want to help millions?" He says he can give any of his students a proven method to become a millionaire/billionaire, but I ask myself, "Is money the answer?" Investing time in people does a lot of good things. Maybe there's a balance. I digress.

I made a video. Natalie is the last rider you see. That would have been day 2 or 3 in Florida.

I did P90X starting back in January, so I have some of my body measurements to compare to after Bike & Build. Full disclosure: I only completed 45 days of P90X. I just retook some of the measurements tonight to compare. I've cycled only about 250 miles since August 3 (yikes!). My chest and hips are about the same. I gained an inch on my waist. I actually lost an inch on my thighs, but they are certainly stronger and more defined. I lost half an inch on my right bicep and a full inch on my left. My weight immediately before and after Bike & Build was about the same. That was one of my biggest concerns, truthfully.

My biggest concern I didn't have was highway riding. I kept all my cue sheets from this summer and was curious as to how many miles we rode on them. This was my biggest (perhaps, unfounded) expectation that was not met. I thought we'd be mostly on country roads. To be fair, many of the highways were low traffic and had decent shoulders. However, some were downright terrifying (particularly in New Mexico) when you look up and realize the speed limit is 75 or there are literally a dozen crosses on the side of the road showing where a drunk driving collision occurred. Many times the highway was the only available road. Same story for the interstates (it's legal for bicycles in some states).

We rode 1505.2 miles (36.59%) on US highways, and 137.3 miles (3.34%) on interstates. I actually felt a lot safer on the interstates than most of the highways -- ten foot shoulder and rumble strips make for a nice barrier between you and the cars. I write this not to scare anyone away from biking across the country, but to set up a proper expectation.

Additionally, if you're looking to do Bike & Build, the route on bikeandbuild.org may change a few times. SUS changed three times by our first biking day with the following mileages: 3921, 3988, 3993. Now the web site sits SUS at 4035. It probably won't change too much as long as we left a good impression on all those who hosted us this last summer.

$1413.22 is the updated cost of my summer = $17.66/day. And the reason I remember visiting DQ and McDonald's more than my receipts is because we got so much donated.

Fun fact: I used over 40 ounces of sunblock last summer. 3 applications per day of SPF 50 looks like this: