Single Speeds are Awesome. Don't Buy One.

I was out on a four-hour ride Saturday, enjoying the heck out of riding my single-speed in the 50x14 gear.  Single-speeds are great because they force you to crush your legs to climb any hill.  Train on one routinely and your cycling abilities will skyrocket.

But, the truth is I wasn't on my single-speed.  I don't even own a single-speed (anymore).  And you don't have to, either. 

All you need is a regular road bike and the discipline to stay in one gear.  Save your money from buying a whole other bike.  All you need is discipline, and discipline is free.

The problem is, discipline can be the hardest thing to get.  Here's how you can receive some - Bike single speed for the first half hour of your bike ride.  Next ride, do a full hour.  Keep moving up until you can do your whole long ride in a big fat gear.

Again, the dividends from riding single-speed are huge.  You don't have to do it every ride.  Just once a week for some variation on your regular routine.

Enjoy!

Lance's Bike Stolen and then Recovered

Looks like the Trek paint and fab shop had fun with the recent setback - Lance's bike getting stolen right from under security's nose a few days ago.  The big question was, "What the heck will he ride for the second time trial of the Tour of California?"  Seems like Trek found another ride and had it painted up just in case.

Lance is currently in 4th place.  Check out the race live during race hours HERE or watch highlights HERE.

Zentri Shirts Now Available!

Want to let others know you are part of a triathlon cult?  What better way than to sport a Zentri T-shirt!  We now have a shop online where you can get shirts made of a variety of cool materials like bamboo, tech fabric, and more.  No heavy cotton here, folks!  Make sure you click the front and back views to see what's printed on both sides.

Got any design ideas?  Let me know and I can add them to the lot.

The Zen of HR

I was just replying to a client about how to use a HR monitor and thought it would make for a useful blog post.  I know there's lots more to HR than just this, but I've found it to be good guidelines to most people.

Using a HRM (heart rate monitor) is like looking in a funny mirror. It's a reflection of work, but not a true estimate of the work itself. (Zen's finger pointing at the moon kind of stuff.). It's a measure of your body's reaction to work.

Ok, so knowing this, a HRM is actually useful. The wrong thing to do is to force yourself to work out and follow the HRM like a religion. People get in a nasty habit of saying, "I'm going to run and stay at 135 bpm no matter what!" That's bad. You're body's reaction to that workout can vary wildly on lots of factors, most of which I'll describe in a bit.

What's good is knowing that "Easy" is around 135 bpm (for you) and looking at your HRM on occasion to confirm that you are around and about that number. This takes quite a bit of working out to get a feel of what HR "Easy" and "Hard" should feel like and discover your normally corresponding HR values. This is called "perceived exertion" or "PE".

Now, when you go out for an easy run and your HR is strangely high, this could mean that you're just plain fatigued and need a rest day. If you go out for a hard run and your HR is strangely low and you don't feel right, that means that you are bonking or dehydrated. See? You don't use your HRM to dictate your workout. You simply use it to tell you if things are right or wrong. You should already have a plan for your workout as far as how hard to go using PE.

I would enjoy more input on this.  Simple methods and ideas are best.

Workoutlog.com Adds Uploading from Files

All I can say is, "It's about time!"  One of the best workout logging programs out there has needed this for a long time.  Now let's see support for Suunto and Polar!

Supported Devices:
Forerunner 201, 205, 301, 305, 405; Edge 205, 305, 605, 705
Browsers:
Firefox 2.0+, IE 7.0+ (sorry, the Garmin software does not work with Safari...not our fault!)