wind hungry

I left on my usual lunch break walk Monday afternoon planning on crafting a lame excuse for a small break. It would go something like this: "Hey guys, sorry work/life has been hectic. I may not post anything this week but I'll be back soon!" I was thinking about how exactly to word this cheerful, open-ended, white lie, because neither life nor work has been hectic. I've just been having trouble crawling out of some life stuff - bike included - and it's all been starting to feel like quicksand.

It's been unseasonably cold out, and Monday was windy enough to have me walking a little sideways. The insides of my ears started to hurt as the crosswind turned into an enthusiastic headwind. I wasn't expecting it, and it shoved the air I was trying to breathe out back down my throat. The suffocating pressure felt like an appropriate analogy to my current life situation: functioning on a day-to-day basis has started to feel like riding into a considerable, seemingly-never-ending headwind on extremely weak [non-Dutch] legs.
In the context of the bike, it's familiar and sometimes inevitable. Shit happens, and sometimes it comes in the form of currents of air that like to mess with your front wheel, your inertia, or both. There is a stretch of windy, gusty days every year in the spring here; early enough in the year that there are cobwebs and dust bunnies still lingering in my legs from long, steady efforts all winter, but late enough that I'm practically begging weather.com to ride outside. The timing is always perfect, because I'm never ready. And so I spend a few weekends pedaling against a wall of air, sometimes doing the walk of shame while trying not to get my steel bike ripped out of my hands and down into the Tama River. It's frustratingly unpleasant and if I'm hungry enough, can shove me into an abyss of hopeless helplessness. If I'm honest, it's never not scared me.

Pushing my cold hands deeper into my pockets, I'd turned my head to try to breathe last Monday, glad that I wasn't trying to ride outside that day. As chance would have it, I was next to a small Japanese cafe I'd taken Alex and Tim to last February. It had been windy, then, too, and we'd found good ramen after riding around the Imperial Palace. Tim - like all cross addicts - skipped around sidewalks and curbs on his Super X, Alex was relaxed and steady, I'd tried to keep up without blowing up.
"I hate wind," I'd cringed to Tim.
"Bend your elbows," he'd said, "lean into it. And keep pedaling. If you coast, you're fucked."
I filed that into the mental "practical things to know about cycling" folder and pulled it out a month later when the wind predictably picked up again. It worked, and like most good advice, it's seeped into other moments, like when I feel the need to mash down on the life panic/pause button...for about five weeks...to get fat and feel really sorry for myself. I remembered, then that while slamming yourself into a brick wall won't always be productive, easing up too much on the pedals - like I've been doing - can be just as silly. In the end, it just makes it that much harder to get back on the bike.

That realization of what I've been doing [or, more accurately, not doing] hasn't gotten me tearing up the sides of mountains on one gear, setting PRs or otherwise accomplishing anything other than sitting in my trainer [and finally completing a workout, to the virtual cheers of my coach]. I've already broken my promise to cry less, but I haven't self-medicated with chocolate in three [!!!] whole days. It's not much so far, but I'm trying not to coast. I'm calling it "active recovery" - of the mental and physical kind - with fingers crossed that a Type A personality and the demotivatingly boring hell that is easy spinning will get me a little closer to hungry.

travel lust and the biknd helium

Like most young, single professionals with just enough money to spare if you’re okay with eating eggs and canned sardines every day, I’ve fallen pretty hard for travel. That itch to fly to faraway places, to breathe new air, and be herded along to world heritage sites with crowds of Chinese tourists. It seems to be a common thing for most half-interesting people; perhaps the product of unconsciously wanting to escape the dry, fluorescent lighting of corporate environments that are the just the right touch of too warm or too cold to keep you consciously uncomfortable. It’s such an easy expense to justify – the opportunity to explore a new culture and locale! The self-exploratory experiences! The beautiful things to see and people to meet! – that no one ever questions whether you simply want to escape the reality of your current, very real life. Instead people tend to express their approval at travel plans, bestowing you extra points on the life scale if “travel” also includes “helping the less fortunate” or “spectating something humanitarian.”

I would be lying if I said I didn’t love the romance of the idea of eternal [albeit, underfunded] travel. But I would also be lying if I said the idea of living out of a suitcase for months on end was appealing or otherwise seemed tolerable. Instability and unpredictability are concepts I am familiar with, but only as facets of my personality. I still struggle with situations in which they manifest outside my psyche. I’ve gotten better [I keep an umbrella at work, now], but it's been a process.
And yet I arrived at JFK airport last month with a suitcase and my bike, throwing caution to the wind and TSA the opportunity to fuck my paint job, again.

When good things happen to me when I least expect them to, I'm inclined to believe that tempting fate and acting like an asshole will actually yield results. Come at me, TSA, I mentally taunted while I checked in my bike, damage my paint again so I can kill you. My mouth was frothing in premature anger at the thought. But thousands of miles, a taxi ride and four flights of stairs later, I unzipped my Biknd Helium case to find my bike, safe, sound, and unscathed.

True, the condition of my bike is more likely due to the bike case than anything involving my questionably aggressive attitude towards airlines and transport security. An expense I managed to make room for a few weeks before I left for New York, the Biknd Helium case has turned into that friend who insists, "just one shot, I'm buying, anything you want," and suddenly you're stumbling around Harvard Square so drunk you don't even know how drunk you are until you get pulled over by the cops on the way home. It whispers that you should never be without a bike, wherever you go, and since it holds two sets of wheels, a wheelset purchase would be optimal, or, more accurately, necessary. In other words, it's an enabler.

But it's also like the kind of enabling friend who has your back, will make sure you're always safe, and stays surprisingly mobile when fully loaded. It took me 25 minutes to pack up my bike the first time, including the time spent Youtubing videos of how to take off my rear derailleur, and it rolled smoothly from my apartment to the taxi to check-in. The fork locks into the frame, the bottom bracket sits on a foam cushion, and the inflatable bags on each side provide substantial cushioning. There's no need to bubble wrap your frame or swaddle it in your sweaters. You'll take some risks, sure [doesn't fun always include that, though?] but you'll know that, barring some disaster, you and your bike will get to Paris, Marrakesh, Tokyo, New York City or wherever in one, pristine piece.
My Biknd Helium case is currently sitting quietly in a corner of my apartment, waiting to be pulled out, packed up, and rolled through an airport headed for exotic or familiar destinations. But like any true and good enabler, it goads me to do random searches for flights to all the places I've wanted to go and isn't beneath judging me for wanting to save up/stop my bank account from bleeding to death for a little while longer.
"Come onnnnn," it pretends to plead, "let's just gooooo. There are places to see, mountain passes to climb, cafes to ride to! The travel constipation will be totally worth it!"

And I think, as my hair trigger finger scrolls through flights to Budapest, Istanbul, and Reykjavik, yeah, yeah, you're right. It totally would.

october selection

All the treats from last month...
- I've never been into wooden bikes, but a Tokyo shipwright making pretty bikes? I like this man's versatility. [via T Magazine]

- "Ride with people who are excited, happy" and lots more food for thought in this interview by Velonews with Tim Johnson.

- The Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld.com Team has a video out, with more coming soon! It's really well done. Go watch.

- And because I could happily live in Lululemon for the rest of my life, even if I'm not an indoor spinner [if only these Ride Inside Crop pants had some super invisible low profile chamois...]

- And if yoga pants don't turn you on, this should:

On to November...!

becoming a bikerider

A couple of years ago, I had my first - and hopefully, last - whirlwind romance. It was one of those bad choices you regret making later, and try to justify to yourself by blaming an ego that had gotten owned by a recent break up, right around the time Mr. Whirlwind-So-Not-Right came spinning along. It only lasted a few months, during which I saved a pile of money with plans to visit him for an unreasonably long period of time. Our plans of happily ever after fell through after a few weeks of daily vapid fights that included [hilarious in hindsight] accusations of gold-digger-ism [me: "but...you make $30k..."], and claims that I'd gone to law school to find a rich husband [me: "...but...but then why would I take two bar exams...?"].
That February, when I was supposed to be in love and stateside, I was in Tokyo, scrolling through Twitter. I met Tim Johnson and Chandler a couple of weeks later, and things haven't been quite the same, since.

Seven months later, I did go to Boston and NYC. I brought that pile of saved up, fuck you, break up money with me, and sunk it into a compact Quarq CinQo with 165mm Rotor cranks. A good friend introduced me to a guy, too, and we've been going strong for the past year. I call those two the best investments I've ever made.
Oh, and his name? Mike Sherry. Of Bikeriders. Or, as I like to boast, The Guy that Picked Up My FTP and Pulled It Up 15%. And, also, The Guy that Puts Up with My BS and Meltdowns. But more simply, just "Coach."

I finally got to meet Mike, in person, while I was in NYC [the introduction was remote and we've been working together via e-mails and TrainingPeaks since last year], in the new Bikeriders space. It's not finished yet, but it looks pretty baller. Oh, and did I mention they have a Bikeriders-branded Sprinter?
I'm not only gushing praises because Mike bought me coffee or sat me down to talk about my training. The latter actually made me slightly uncomfortable, like in the way talking to my gynecologist can be a little weird. Except this felt more intimate. I don't care about my cervix as much as I do my w/kg ratio, and this guy knows everything.

By everything, I mean every pedal-stroke, heart beat, and gradient climbed. My shitty rides, my good ones, and how to make me my legs cry. It's almost unnerving how my scheduled workouts will hit the exact watt range to have me toeing the line but never quite going over it. How I'll wobble to work, but still recover for whatever's scheduled the next day.
Weak legs aside, it's been a somewhat uncomfortable ride for another reason. As a commitment-phobe prone to bolting at the first sign of interest lasting longer than 48 hours, Mike's near-clairvoyance can be unsettling. There is blind faith and trust implicit in any relationship with a stranger, but this becomes more acute when that stranger is labeled a coach, and morphs into someone who encourages testing your pain threshold and oxygen deprivation limits on a near-daily basis. It gets creepier when you take into consideration the fact that I'm paying him to do this to me. And that I totally enjoy it.

Despite my masochist tendencies, the enjoyment I derive from training isn't due to Mike yelling at me or otherwise advising me to shut up and deal with it. He's never done either, opting instead to listen patiently to my occasional psychotic meltdowns and complaints via email. I like the daily pushing and pulling of my limits, and the pain that can linger through the workday not only because it gets me riding regularly and holds me accountable to someone, but because it's effecient, effective, and easy. All I have to do is follow Mike's instructions, upload my power file, and let him deal with whatever's going on with my legs, lungs and heart. Meanwhile, I selfishly get to put a check mark next to the most important thing on my to do list ["ride"], do feel like I'm doing some diet damage control, and get on with my day. Which is to say that I'm paying for his time, but I'm also paying to free up a lot of mine.
It's been a win-win situation so far, even with my lack of wins/racing/accomplishments. I came back to Tokyo to find a week's worth of training rides planned out on my TrainingPeaks account, and had to smile. As much as I loved the easy cruising around Prospect Park, it was time to get back to work. I turned on my fan, clipped in, and warmed up for the kind of whirlwind fun that's totally worth repeating.

trading watts for brownies at tu-lu's gluten-free bakery

I'll tell you a little secret: back in 2006, when my dismal state of semi-employment was pointing, uncomfortably, to the necessity of going to graduate school, I briefly fantasized about going to cooking school. I'd been baking a lot at the time, and not in a cutesy, housewife-y kind of way. I was the weekend warrior baker equivalent of those heavyset dudes that build whole houses in their spare time. I sneered at pre-flattened sheets of butter sold for folding into croissant dough, and went to work doing it the old-school way with a knife, a block of butter, waxed paper, and a rolling pin. I obsessed over the crumb of my various sourdough loaves, and remember the day I nailed down that distinctive, gel-like interior. Dry yeast lost its sparkle after I discovered its sponge-y, fleshy, fresh counterpart. I was like Edward Scissorhands, but with flour-covered dough-cutters.
But since stable employment seemed like something I should be looking into, I went to law school instead [yes, LOL]. While my career might not currently be amounting to 400 hours of billables per month, I'm sort of glad the whole professional baker thing didn't work out. Because around the time I developed a peanut allergy a year or so ago [I was pretty sure my gastronomic world ended that day], wheat started to make me sick, too. R.I.P. PB&Js.

By “sick,” I mostly mean “looking like I’m 6 months pregnant” [hence taking some risks while in Paris, because, hi, Paris]. I don’t have celiac disease, but the discomfort can be incapacitating, to the point where I’ve turned back from rides in pain. Corn started to do the same thing, except it felt like I’d swallowed razor blades as well [R.I.P. Mexican food]. Did I mention I’m lactose intolerant, too? [My Mom: do you want to get pizza with us today? Me: …What am I going to do? Lick the sauce?]
With the lack of gluten-free alternatives here in Japan, I kissed everything resembling bread, goodbye. I’m mostly powered by rice, now; it works, but it can get boring. I mean, sometimes a girl just needs a fucking brownie. Like, one that won’t make her completely sick.
Which is my long-winded way of explaining why I ended up at Tu-Lu’s Gluten-Free Bakery while in NYC. And by “ended up,” I mean I went there three times in less than five days and completely did not care if I was recognized by the guy behind the counter who sold me some phenomenal sunflower seed bread [it’s pricey, but you get a huge loaf], cupcakes, brownies, muffins, and coffee cake. I wanted to buy the entire case and take it back with me to Tokyo. The stuff there is seriously so good, I got creeped out and scared.

“It tastes…real,” I said to Brett, my dairy-based-frosting-consuming, non-gluten-intolerant, gastronomic partner in crime, after my first tentative forkful of an adorable red velvet cupcake. “What if it makes me sick?” I tried to whisper, with my mouth full.
I killed the rest of that cupcake, but braced myself for the bloating and grossness. I waited and waited and waited…and then forgot all about it. Nothing happened. I’d eaten a cupcake – one that was really fricking good, and didn't feel like a stupid compromise – and I didn’t have to spend the next 24 hours bundled up in blankets and sequestered in pain, moaning like a maimed moose.

A couple of days later, there was coffee with a warmed-up hunk of Tu-Lu’s bundt cake and a carrot morning muffin [for the record, as much as I would have liked to, those were shared and not solely consumed by yours truly]. They were amazing. There was none of that dry, grittiness or the dense, heaviness of some gluten-free baked goods. I had toast – toast that didn’t taste like a slab of dry starch! – with my eggs for breakfast. I savored forkfuls of soft, pliant coffee cake while cradling hot coffee. “I’m totally getting fat,” I said to Brett, “wanna go to Tu-Lu’s?”

On the plane back to Tokyo, I realized how much I’d taken for granted when I made the mistake of trying to bite into a prepackaged gluten-free cookie. It shattered into a million crumbs in my hand and all over the front of my shirt. It was a friendly reminder that when Tu-Lu’s isn’t involved, explaining the optimal way of eating a gluten-free cookie can sound like instructions on deepthroating: “try to shove this entire thing into your mouth before it explodes into cookie dust, and if by chance you succeed, then have fun trying to swallow.” Except, you know, if we’re talking cookies, you don’t even get slut points for the, um, consumption.
Apparently, you can, however, earn some fat kid points. My pants have been feeling a touch tighter since leaving New York [and no, I’m not referring to my perma-boner for Tu-Lu’s…], evidence that I totally did it right. I could say the clichéd “I’m so glad I don’t live in New York because I’ll be here all the time and I’ll get fat” thing that seems to be included in every positive Yelp review. I’m not sure if I could ever possibly believe, that; don't tell my coach, but I'd consider trading a few watts for Tu-Lu's.
Tu-Lu’s Gluten-Free Bakery 338 East 11th Street (Between 1st and 2nd)