The Fit Nation

https://ift.tt/GtfPS7W I have finally gotten my recumbent back on the road in electric-assist mode. This turned out to be quite an odyssey. I pursued two parallel approaches. First I tried to fix the wheel with broken spokes It turns out you can get custom spoke lengths online so I got replacements in 228 mm. Then I swapped out the five broken spokes with new ones, and tried to tighten them by feel so they matched their neighbors.The wheel appeared pretty true so I took it for a ride to try it out. It was badly out of round, meaning there was a very noticeable up and down motion of the front wheel. So I took the wheel into my local bike shop. They were unable to fix it because they found there was a permanent bend to the rim causing a flat spot. Remember that I had first discovered 5 broken spokes at once. Whatever I did, like hit a really bad pothole, that popped the 5 spokes must have also bent the rim. Mine wasn’t quite this bad. https://wheelbuilder.co.za/broken-spokes/ So th...

https://ift.tt/cZR152G I got some good rides in early last week. I especially enjoyed our challenging group ride on Tuesday up in the hills East of Gilroy. This doesn’t have any really long climbs, just lots of them. I was getting tied towards the end, with electric assist (on my upright). So I was impressed by those without assist who toughed it out. I learned an amusing new term for bikes without assist- “acoustic bikes”. Later in the week, around Thursday, I started feeling a little under the weather. It is hard to tell if this is just allergies this time of year but then I started also getting the symptom of chills and night and then a slight fever, so I’m assuming it’s a cold. By yesterday I was feeling a bit better so hopefully I’m kicking it. So for a few days up till yesterday I just did easy local rides. I also do Yoga and stretching at night for relaxation and I keep that up unless I get really ill. I’ll resume longer and harder riding along with strength training soon. Setb...

https://ift.tt/qlhCReD On Friday I was out for a long ride on my recumbent and I happened to look down at my front wheel and noticed a broken spoke. The wheel appeared in good enough shape, not too badly “out of true”, and was still ride-able. So I headed home and switched bikes, completing the ride on my upright. I later took a good look at the wheel and found it actually had 5 broken spokes. All broke at the J-bend where the spoke comes out of the hub. I was surprised because I’d never broken more than one spoke before and also usually there is an audible ping. This is my front wheel with the electric motor, so the spokes are subjected to torque from the motor as well as impact, e.g. from potholes. It had performed just fine for well over a year so I assume I must have hit something fairly big recently. I ordered replacement spokes on Amazon, being pleased to find out they come in custom lengths so I could order the right size. I’ll fix the wheel when they come in and get it back on ...

https://ift.tt/Jdt08Iz I am back to being able to do longer rides as long as long as I don’t overdo the intensity. I think what went wrong that led to my recent sciatica flare-up was that I had combined long rides with hard riding, including sprints and intervals on the same day. Now I’m keeping the pace “brisk but comfortable” for the longer rides, and only doing more intense riding on shorter rides. So far so good! I went for over three hours relatively easy paced last Saturday and yesterday and it felt great. Yesterday was my group ride, we went around Chesbro and Uvas reservoirs West of Morgan Hill. This involved some steep climbs, but I was able to control the effort with electric assist on my recumbent. Recently I’ve been keeping to shorter rides on my upright but I think my back is recovered enough to go further on that bike also. It was cloudy and a bit cold the first part of yesterday’s ride but the sun came out to stay when we were taking a break at Uvas reservoir.

https://ift.tt/tTQ7IJr http://www.amazon.com/books I just read the book Ultra-processed People , by Chris van Tulleken, about the large amount of highly processed food in our modern diets, which I recommend. I’d always known about obvious kinds of processing like turning wheat into white flour by removing the germ and bran and then grinding up the rest. But the author is further emphasizing things in our food that sound more like they came out of a test tube than a garden, like xanthan gum or monoglycerides. Highly processed food has three main effects, the first is the removal of nutritious components like wheat germ, the second is “predigestion”, for example grinding up fruit in a smoothie which breaks down the cell walls. The third is the additives. I’ve always thought the first two were the more important, which is why brown rice is preferred over white or an apple over apple juice. But the author gives convincing evidence that the additives are not good for us either. He also...

https://ift.tt/f7d6AxM The inflammation that has flared up my sciatica seems to be clearing up. The discomfort is no longer interfering with sleep at night, and I am carefully ramping my training back up, so far with no ill-effects. On Wednesday I was able to ride for an hour and even threw in some shorter intervals and some on-bike strength training. I was prepared to back off if there had been any pain referring down my left leg from the sciatica, but fortunately didn’t have to. On Thursday I was able to resume my upper-body strength training which was also well tolerated. Yesterday I went on an enjoyable brisk 90 minute ride. Now I just have to continue improving but watch out for the temptation to go too hard which could lead to a backslide. Beautiful Green hills East of Morgan Hill on Wednesday Looking Northwest from Watsonville road Thursday View Towards El Toro from Coyote Creek Trail yesterday

https://ift.tt/EDRezJq I was feeling great last week doing some long brisk rides. But after a particularly hard ride last Wednesday, my sciatica flared up again badly, this time on the left side. For a couple of days it kept me awake act night because I could not find a sleeping position without severe pain radiating down the left leg. Fortunately after a couple of days of resting and no riding, it calmed down enough so since last Saturday onward I could sleep. On Saturday I did some easy arm cycling, and from then till now I’ve been able to do easy riding for 30 minutes, without any pain referring down the leg. So I think the inflammation is going down and the sciatic nerve is not being compressed much. I am also doing all the PT I know to open up the area. Over the next few days I’ll continue to slowly and easily ramp up my riding as tolerated. I know the drill from past experience, it can take up to two weeks of taking it easy for this to clear up. This episode was well timed becaus...