Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2024 i Bicycling

“AREN’T YOU A LITTLE OLD TO RIDE BIKES?” I could hear my ex’s eyeballs rolling in her head from across the hospital exam room as the words rolled past the lips of the emergency room nurse. And I promptly delivered a barbed reply to the question. That was not my first trip to the ER for a cycling-related injury, and it wouldn’t be my last. Over the years, during other hospital, urgent care, and office visits, several medical professionals similarly queried me about my riding and proclivity toward falling off bikes. My response was always at the ready: No, I was not too old for bikes. Bicycles are my passion and my career. Crashes and injuries are a by product of my riding. Last November—20-something years removed from hearing those words…

COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE AN INTERESTING bunch: They live multiple lives, catapulting between mornings of eager pre-professionalism and evenings of boundless debauchery. Their daily motions, unkempt and childlike as they may be, are a natural consequence of one’s budding independence, and while some may view their lifestyle as immature, their dedication to balancing work and play is unmatched. They can make memories and find comfort with whatever tiny moments surround them, be they discounted pizza nights or aimless Saturdays spent on a rooftop. And with much of that same pep and craftiness, they can put on a hell of a bike race. Collegiate bike races, much like dorm rooms or dining halls, have no frills. They often take place on quiet country roads in the middle of nowhere, many are timed with…

MAKE GOOD BIB CHOICES. Look for high-quality, dense, and compressive Lycra. It will prevent the chamois from migrating to where it can’t do its job. Pads come in different thicknesses and materials. Endura’s Pro SL bib shorts, for example, use silicone in certain areas of the pad; Endura claims the material won’t “bottom out” like foam. Always air-dry your shorts. Heat damages Lycra and other stretchy materials, and closes the cells on chamois foam, making them less cushiony. RETHINK CHAMOIS CREAM. “If you need it for every ride, something’s wrong,” says expert fitter Andrew Pruitt. You should only need it for the longest or roughest outings. Many creams are water-soluble and can break down with sweat, so for multiday rides, Pruitt suggests mixing petroleum jelly with a triple-antibiotic ointment at…

CYCLING HAS A UNIQUE RELATIONSHIP WITH road signs. In a car, these signs often feel utilitarian. But signs have always felt special to me when I’m on a bike. Sometimes, signs mark the end point of a climb or a specific route, and sometimes they simply tell you that you are on a special piece of road. If you go to ride the cobbled bergs of Flanders or the sectors of Roubaix, there will be signs pointing them out to you. The most famous cycling road signs, in my opinion, are the plaques that mark the summit of alpine climbs. These plaques usually feature the elevation at which they are erected and, more often than not, are covered with stickers that cyclists from all over the world leave behind. These markers…

RECENTLY I WENT FOR A CLIMB IN PUERTO Rico’s El Yunque National Forest. When I do a long climb like this, it turns into an imaginary epic of fantastic tales—an internal battle, really. This one became “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin on the way up, followed by a hellish, hot fast quick descent to Lynyrd Skynard’s “Free Bird.” I think only another cyclist could understand what I mean. The climb is never easy. While the approach is sweet, the mountain’s secret holds ramps, kickers, and all-out false turns that lead you to new heights. With an optimistic light beaming through a sky broken by jungle, I pedal into a new adventure, as the river that lines the road bids farewell. Leaving that long curious road along the river, I…

CREDENTIALS A background in biomechanics or physiology, or certification through a program like Trek’s Precision Fit, Specialized’s Retul, or the International Bike Fitting Institute, indicates that a fitter has invested in their knowledge base. REPUTATION Certification alone doesn’t guarantee a great fitter. Andrew Pruitt, EdD, advises asking other riders in your community or members of a local cycling club or team for recommendations. APPROACH A good fitter asks for details about your riding history and the problems you’ve been experiencing, takes a systematic approach to their recommendations, and can tell you why one saddle may be better for you than the other.…

IT’S JUST BEFORE DAWN in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, situated along the Great Rift Valley in the southwest of the country—one of the most iconic wildlife safari destinations on earth. As wild animals begin to awaken in their grassy nooks across the bush, more than a hundred cyclists have been up for hours in preparation for Stage 2 of the Migration Gravel Race (MGR). Over four days in June, competitors from East Africa and the rest of the world ride 416 miles over more than 26,000 feet of elevation across fickle terrain. Along the way, they will negotiate flooded paths, demanding mountainous climbs, and roving roadblocks in the form of goats and cattle. In the muted plum-colored light, the camp is humming with activity: riders filling water packs, checking tire pressures,…

PARIS-ROUBAIX IS AN EVENT STEEPED IN CYCLING HISTORY, LORE, AND TRADITION. HELD ANNUALLY IN APRIL, OFTEN ON EASTER SUNDAY, IT’S THE second-oldest men’s one-day race on the professional calendar, with the first edition running in 1896. (The women’s edition began 125 years later, in 2021.) The race presents a unique, almost mythical, challenge for the racers that contest it each spring. And it’s also a notoriously brutal test for cycling equipment. Starting in Compiègne for the men and Denain for the women, with both races finishing on the velodrome in Roubaix, Paris-Roubaix’s challenge—and the biggest draw for cycling fans—is the cobblestone roads of northern France. Some of these roads (or sectors) have been made famous by the race, including Trouée d’Arenberg, traditionally considered the first decisive point in the men’s race.…

IT’S SPRING AND YOU’VE WOKEN UP TO A beautifully crisp day to go on a bike ride. You sip a cup of coffee as you get your gravel bike ready, and before you leave the house, you do what you always do. You mouth the words written on a Post-it note stuck on your kitchen fridge: “What adventures lie ahead?” It is still early morning, and the trails are quiet and the greenery lush as you head into the mountains. You’ve been climbing for a while now, but there is only a little more to go, so you put your head down and keep grinding. All of a sudden, you start to feel light. I’m in better shape than I thought, you tell yourself. You continue to feel lighter, almost weightless,…

“That’s what deconditioning looks like,” I said out loud to no one as I looked at the heart-rate reading on my phone and gasped for breath. “This shouldn’t be that hard.” My lungs burned. I physically couldn’t consume enough air. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. I had been pedaling for 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes pedaling a bike for the first time in way more than that many months. On a trainer, no less. “This shouldn’t be this hard,” I said. It was a challenge not to quit in that moment. It would have been so much easier to quit in that moment. That moment sucked. In that moment, I realized just how much of my fitness had leaked away over a year that had somehow stretched into almost two…

FIND THE RIGHT PRACTITIONER. ➔ Gynecologists and plastic surgeons can perform surgery on the labia, but plastic surgeon Heather Furnas, MD, recommends looking for doctors who are certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgeons and have been trained in female genital plastic surgery specifically. Ideally, look for a doctor with experience in majoraplasty. ASK FOR BEFORE-AND-AFTER PHOTOS OF THE SURGEON’S WORK. ➔ Make sure the labia majora look normal and the minor doesn’t look amputated, says Furnas. “Sometimes photos will just show the ‘clamshell’ look after surgery,” she says. “You want to see what the labia minora actually look like, not just the closed labia majora.” PRIORITIZE PROVIDER OVER PAYMENT METHOD. ➔ While certain labiaplasty methods (e.g., clamping the tissue, cutting it, and then oversewing) are more likely to…

Some bicycle components, tools, and accessories—by design, luck, or a bit of both—become icons of performance, reliability, and permanence in cycling. And with the constant churn of newer, better, lighter, or more aero in bicycle tech, these iconic products rarely get an opportunity to bask in the limelight. Cycling is small things coming together to make bigger things. A few riders become a group, and a few groups become a peloton. The bicycle is a collection of individual parts turned into the fabulous machine we ride. We can take for granted that it is not one story but thousands of small stories. Every part of the bicycle has its own story. Every ball in a bearing, each fastener or seal, the rail of a saddle, the forged curves of a…

THIS OR THAT Waxed Chain Chain Lube White Shoes Black Shoes Classics Grand Tours Water Drink Mix1 Wout2 MVDP Morning Ride Afternoon Ride Tubes Tubeless Junk Food3 Gels Mechanical4 Electric Short, Hard Efforts Long, Steady Efforts Saddle Bag Pockets5 GPS Wing It Training Racing6 Gels Bars7 Retro Modern8 Haribo Snickers Dogs Cats Mountains9 Crosswinds Torque to Spec Tighten by Feel Fix It Yourself Take It to a Shop Let Me Explain (1) I usually do both: one bottle full of Skratch and one of water. (2) Gotta go with Wout. I feel like we both look like we are in serious pain when we race. MVDP looks too relaxed. (3) Gas! Station! Food! (4) Mechanical, 100 percent. I used to own a Di2 bike, and the amount of rides that thing died on…