The only way is up.

Question: What do you do when you find the steepest section of bitumen in the country?



Answer: You try and ride up it!





Details of the climb can be found here. The steepest section (shown above) is 40%!!

Hopping Rocks

The Rock Hop generally delivers good times, last year had us drifting for 6 hours in a 3 man, this year I was solo while David rocked a team with Monkey (no no, not Monkey Magic monkey).

Rob and the DirtRiders boys had made a few changes for 2009. Firstly they didn't order anywhere near as much rain as last year, and none of it fell during the race. Secondly they'd extended the course with the aid of some new trails including a section of big fat berms.



David and Monkey managed a solid 11th in pairs, and I... well despite it being a couple of days since the race I'm still trying to work through mixed feelings about the outcome. My body was holding up well, but when the freehub on my beloved wheels gave out I was left on the sidelines with 2 hours of rabbit chasing left in the race.



I have decided that it wasn't all bad. It's quite rare to chat to everyone you want to, or even get a chance to walk around the course while the riders are still flying around.



It turns out that riders find a one man mexican wave less inspiring than a two arms raised "WOO!". While this bit of information is difficult to file, it's obviously important and I know it'll come in handy one day.

Custom Bicycles - A Passionate Pursuit

The book launch for "Custom Bicycles - A Passionate Pursuit" will be held at Readings book shop, 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn at 6:30pm on Thursday June 18th. Darren, Prue and David will be there along with some of the Baum Team members (Neil has threatened to show up in a white lycra body suit) and our latest Corretto which will be reviewed in the next Ride Cycling Review.

"Custom Bicycles - A Passionate Pursuit" is a coffee table book that focuses on some of the specialist custom frame builders who from their bases around the world produce, to this day, the finest bicycles ever made. Darren was involved with the authors from the start and there is a section in the book covering Darren, Baum Cycles and our bikes.

Great book - all are welcome at the launch.

Let it flow redux

The flames that raced through Victoria have well and truly gone out, but the desire to help has still remained strong. At the time of the fires I looked at what effect donating blood (see: Let it flow) would have on my cycling, and will admit I was slightly relieved when I was told there was a waiting list to donate.

Well, the Red Cross eventually called and with major races months away I put my O+ where my mouth is and parted ways with 470mL of the red stuff. Interest in the subject of donation and performance has continued, so here is the details of my experience.



Getting the stuff out turned out to be easy, I always knew I could do that, but what next. How would my body respond and what would happen to my performance on the bike?

Let's refer back to Scott Saifer's words.

In the hours after a donation your blood volume will be low with a normal hematocrit. Lowered blood volume means impaired exercise ability because lowered blood volume means less blood returning to and filling the heart, reducing stroke volume. It also means reduced blood pressure and a tendency to be light-headed when standing up which is not great for riding a bike.

Right, so the first issue is low blood volume and pressure. I treated this like dehydration at an endurance race. Fluid, consumed regularly, in moderate doses (Half to one litre per hour) before and after the event. After spending 20 minutes relaxing, eating party pies and drinking milkshakes I was able to depart for the leisurely ride home.



Home safe and sound it was time to consider the next issue, red blood cells.

Over the next couple of days your body will replace the blood volume so the low-blood pressure period passes, but the volume is made up with plasma (blood fluid) rather than the normal mix of plasma and blood cells, so your blood will be dilute at that point. That is, you're hematocrit will be low and your performance will be anaemic even though pressure will be normal.

Low hematocrit in the days after a donation will trigger your kidneys to release erythropoetin (EPO) which in turn tells your bone marrow to crank out lots of new red cells. It takes about seven days for a new red cell to develop and be released into the blood once it starts developing, so hematocrit begins to rise again about a week after you make a donation.

Now this Scott fellow sounds like an intelligent bloke, but he didn't mention if there was any way for us to stimulate this process. The best I could come up with was sleep. If your body is in a restive state more energy can go into the reparation processes, in this case red blood cell generation. So for the next couple of days I kept my riding intensity and volume low, ate plenty of iron rich foods and tried to get a good 8 hours sleep per night.



Research on exercise says that exercise performance will be back to normal about 2-3 weeks after a donation but if you are a competitive athlete, you need to think about this a little differently. Your ability to exercise will be normal after three weeks, but you won't have been able to train normally in the intervening three weeks, so the three weeks of low hematocrit are like an illness and will require a month or more of normal exercise to fully rebuild. Full recovery also requires that you have good iron stores beforehand.

The first few days my concentration levels were down a little, but my physical abilities seemed to remain at pre donation levels. I know this because over the next two weeks I put my body through the wringer. Weights, bunch rides, hill rides, racing... you name it, my body went through it in the name of science. Each time I would be concerned that my performance would be off, and each time the body was able to generate normal outputs.

At first I speculated that my tendency towards anaerobic power, meant that my oxygen stores (reduced by the the lower quantity of oxygen carrying red blood cells) weren't as heavily impacted. This can't be true through as the length of the riding means that aerobic exercise was performed. It's possible that my body holds a larger volume of blood and thus the amount removed was a smaller % of the available supplies.

As we've already discussed Scott sounds like a smart bloke, and I'm quite positive his quoted theory is sound, but I suppose it comes down to this for me. Knowing that it hasn't given me a perceived loss to performance and knowing it could change a lot for someone else gives me little excuse not to do it again. I wonder, what's stopping you from donating?

Donating of yourself (literally) is a noble gesture, but if you're unconvinced, then just do it for the free party pies! :)

Crazy like a fox!

Sometimes things just don't go your way. I have a friend who contracted swine flu right before his season's goal race. It's unfortunate, but factors outside your control can have an enormous impact on a race. Then there are the things that you should be able to control, but for some reason or other didn't.

The GMBC Crazy 6; I'd planned to start slow and ride myself into the race, a good sensible plan that worked to my strengths. It appears one of my strengths is not checking my equipment properly before a race.

My slow start became a very slow start, when after the first lap emergency maintenance was required. While this put the kibosh on my goals it also took away all expectations I had, leaving me with a peaceful mind, free of all the doubts and fears that go along with a goal for a race.

The course was much the same as the Fire Relief 6 hour and included an ascent of Rockwell Run, up and over to the Junction Track, down Cressy Climb and finally round the Quarry Pit. Translated, this equates to pain, giggles, giggles, giggles. A 1:3 pain to giggles ratio is always going to make for fun times. :)



Since my last visit Cressy Climb has evolved, the rock garden has been extended and large jumps and drops have sprouted into existence. The descent was still fast, a few moments off the brakes, pumping the rollers and berms and you'd far exceed any level of comfort you care hold near and dear. Turn after turn of well built berms begged for you to lean harder, to go faster, to test the very limit of your tyres. Do just that and the reward was terror, the reward was adrenalin, the reward was a grin that took forever to wipe off your face.



Lap after lap I slowly clawed my way back through the field, constantly on the look out for a smoother line, a better way, a faster way. Solo racing becomes about the small things, riding that turn better, using less energy to get over that log, banking over that rock better than last lap.

I'd calculated that I'd manage 12 laps, but with time running down my 11th would have to be fast to manage it. I had no idea where I was coming, but I wanted that 12th lap more than anything! Each climb demanded an out of the saddle effort. Legs tired from 6 hours of riding protested about the demand for more power. Corners were ridden with more speed than before, on lines memorised from laps gone by.



Trees snatch at my arms trying to pull me down, rocks looked to bounce my tyres off course, but their determination paled compared to mine. I checked my watch, it was going to be close!

With seconds to spare I crossed the line, or so I thought. Official race time showed I was too late, a mere 20 seconds were between me and the elusive 12th lap. The officials wouldn't consider changing my lap time, even after I offered bribes of beer, chocolate or inner tubes! Next time I'm going to have find that 20 seconds on my own, I'm going to go looking for it on the way down Cressy. :)

The dichotomy of autumn

The beeping before 6am is your alarm, struggling to wake you into the darkness and cold of a autumn morning, you ask yourself if it's worth it.

Your bike is adorned with lights against the darkness, your body clothed in layers against the cold, the question echoes through your mind "is it worth it?"

As you work your way through the quiet suburbs, the sun starts to lighten the sky, but the temperature refuses to rise. Onwards you ride, into the hills, the cold numbing your face into a mask.

Mist occupies the valleys, icy dew clings to the grass blades, you work your way into the first feature climb of the day accompanied by only the sound of your own breathing.



The solitude, the peace, the clarity of purpose. The cold morning delivers you stunning beauty and it comes you like a revelation. It's worth it.

The small bakery in the little town draws you onwards, over the roads wet from the low hung clouds. Your mind now clear of it's doubts you relax and joke with your companions and dream about coffee.

It's definitely worth it, and in your heart you knew it all along. It's always worth it.

Calculating Optimal Sock Length Ratios

If you talk to Darren he'll be happy to debate crank lengths and saddle set backs. He can reference a whole swag of published articles, anecdotal evidence and proven theory, all based around making you faster.

I also want you to be faster, but feel there is an issue that modern cycling media has ignored. Sock Length (yes it deserves double capitalisation) can be the factor that makes or breaks an race, it really is that important.

Many European Pros would have you believe that the only important factor in determining the right sock for you is colour, they must be white. Don't be fooled, these athletes are trying to protect their secret weapon, quite frankly they don't want you to know the secrets of Optimal Sock Length.

So here we are, minds open, eager to weigh up the pros and ams, and really get to the bottom of this important issue.

So we all know that socks can and will make you faster. Many novice cyclists opt for ankle socks, I know I did, and as a consequence was quite slow. Many top level riders are sporting 3-5 inch sock cuffs and could tear the legs off a thoroughbred horse. This leads us to speculate, does more length equate to more speed? Well this question has been answered for us.



The answer is no, many mountain bikers and generally crazed cyclists have tested this theory for us, and the evidence is over whelming. There is a point where as Sock Length increases, performance decreases. This leads us to the realisation that there is an optimal length sock, but is it a one size fits all situation or does the individual nature of our legs dictate different (pedal) strokes for different folks?

Through extensive experimentation I have calculated that my own optimal sock length is a 5" cuff. Now my shin bone is 20" long (ankle to knee), the simplicity of this ratio (4:1) leads me to believe it is a divine ratio for calculating optimal sock length.

More research on this magical 4:1 ratio is needed, so try it out yourself and let us know your findings.