Retinadoc
05-29-2006, 03:16 PM
Interesting contrast between this article and Sunday's
SCIENCE DESK
Fast Pace, Hard Seat: Now That's Cycling
By GINA KOLATA (NYT) 2057 words
Published: July 6, 2004
A year ago, I got a bicycle that changed my life.
The sort of bicycling that attracts me is nothing like those leisurely rides through the countryside, a soft breeze in your face, stopping to picnic or explore a stream along the way.
Instead, it is about riding fast on a bicycle with a hard narrow seat, leaning forward or standing for a burst of power. It is about wearing special shoes that snap onto your pedals so you can pull up as well as push down, and feeling the thrill and the rush of real physical exertion.
Not all that long ago, my passion put me in a tiny minority of people who took to the road for exercise rather than leisure.
But the ranks of serious bicyclists are increasing. The sales of specialty road bicycles, the sort sold in bike shops, increased to 185,400 in 2003 from 171,600 in 2002, according to the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association, and a double-digit increase in sales is expected this year.
Some riders have been drawn by the celebrity of Lance Armstrong, the rider who has won the Tour de France five times in a row and will try to set a record with a sixth victory this month.
''Any business that is related to the cycling industry has seen what we call the Lance effect,'' said Chris Carmichael, Armstrong's coach and the founder of a company that coaches people to improve their bicycling performance.
Others are aging baby boomers who, tired of other joint-pounding activities, are ''seeking out the smooth comfort of riding on a road,'' said Marc Sani , publisher of Bike Retailer and Industry News.
They bring with them disposable income and a fondness for specialized equipment: Custom bicycles, which can cost from $3,000 to $9,000, are a fast-growing market.
In the new world of cycling, technology has transformed the experience. Lightweight bicycles are just the beginning. Riders use small computers that clip onto the handlebars, measuring cadence, gear, speed, distance and time, allowing them to monitor their efforts with exquisite precision. High-performance bicycles have gearshifts and brakes on the handlebars, and lightweight aerodynamic wheels. They also have front-wheel-gripping forks, seat posts and handlebars made of carbon fiber, which is lightweight and dampens road vibrations while allowing precise handling.
Dr. Michael Berry, a professor of health and exercise science at Wake Forest University, explained the difference between casual and serious bicycling as ''the difference between the person who goes home and says, 'O.K., we've got a few minutes before the sun goes down,' and goes out and walks around the block, and the person who goes home and puts on running shorts and running shoes and goes out for a run, goes out specifically to exercise.''
A person whose time is limited and who wants to burn the most calories should stick to running, said Dr. Berry, who was a competitive runner before taking up cycling.
But cycling calories can also add up. How many depends on wind speed and direction, the amount of uphill climbing, and riding on the tail of another rider, which can reduce energy expenditure by 30 percent.
One of the few rigorous studies of caloric output during cycling was conducted by Dr. James Hagberg, a passionate cyclist and exercise physiologist at the University of Maryland. He monitored competitive cyclists, riding on a flat road at 15 to 24 miles per hour, and used the data to establish formulas for the number of calories burned depending on speed and body weight.
For example, a 125-pound woman riding for an hour on a flat road and covering 18 miles burns 555 calories. Running for an hour, at 8 minutes a mile, she would burn a little over 600 calories. (Armstrong burns about 1,000 calories an hour in the Tour de France, going about 80 miles a day at an average of 24 m.p.h., Mr. Carmichael said.)
On the other hand, runners rarely run for an hour and bicyclists rarely ride for less than an hour. One reason cyclists can go for such long stretches is that riding rarely leads to injuries.
''Any repetitive motion can result in an overuse injury,'' Dr. Berry said. ''And obviously cycling is a repetitive motion.'' But in bicycling ''there are no sudden impact forces that the skeleton needs to absorb.''
Knee pain and sore buttocks are the bane of inexperienced cyclists, but most serious riders avoid them. Such problems arise, bicycling experts say, because people tend to make exactly the wrong decisions about the height of their bike's seat and its design.
Bicycling experts wince when they see novices riding on wide padded seats, assuming that a hard narrow one will lead to buttock pain. A wide seat makes the rider rock from side to side, said Rob Vandermark, the president of Seven Cycles of Watertown, Mass, who has made frames for a number of bicycling stars, including Mr. Armstrong.
''The bigger the seat, the more chafing or rubbing,'' he said.
Worse, wide seats do not support the pelvis properly, notes Tom Kellogg, a bicycle racer, custom-frame builder, and president of Spectrum Cycles in Breinigsville, Pa.
The seat, he said, should support the ischial tuberosities, the two bones at the bottom of the pelvis that bear the rider's weight.
''Cushioning does not help; the shape of the saddle does,'' he said.
Dave Levy, a custom builder, former bicycle racer and the owner of Ti Cycles in Seattle, points out that experienced bicyclists support one-third of their weight on their hands, one-third on their feet, and one-third on their buttocks.
''If you are sitting on top of a big cushy ball, there is no way to make it so that your body will support itself efficiently,'' he said.
Novices, said Dr. Hagberg, tend to ''sit straight up, with all their weight on their butt,'' and no wonder they are in pain.
Another mistake that beginners often make is to set the seat so low that their legs are scrunched or, less often, so high that the riders rocks from side to side. ''Knee problems in the making,'' the experts say.
Richard Schwinn, a custom bicycle-frame builder who happens to be a great-grandson of the founder of Schwinn bicycles, said that many people get the idea in childhood that their feet must touch the ground when they sit on a bicycle seat. But that means that the seat is so low that the cyclist's knees are under constant strain, to say nothing of making pedaling inefficient, said Mr. Schwinn, who owns Waterford Precision Cycles in Waterford, Wis..
''The saddle height that works properly is tall enough that you can't put your feet on the ground when you are sitting on the saddle,'' Mr. Schwinn said.
Some clients tell him they are terrified when he sets their seats, Mr. Schwinn said, but ''once you learn how to mount and dismount, having a saddle at the proper elevation is easy.''
For serious riders, a custom bike can enhance the experience. It turns out that ready-made bicycles are best for average-size men. They are less likely to fit women, whose legs and thighs tend to be proportionately longer. Very short and very tall women have particular problems, as do men whose arms or legs are disproportionately long or short.
I know those bicycle-fitting problems firsthand. With my ready-made bicycle, I had to stretch to reach the handlebars. After an hour or so of riding, I would get shooting pains in the back of my neck. And I could never sit in a way that allowed me to use my legs most efficiently when I climbed hills.
For the casual rider, such details are almost arcane; for the serious rider, they become crucial.
''If you get on an ill-fitting bike and ride five miles -- I've done that and still had fun,'' Mr. Schwinn said. ''If you told me to ride 20 miles, it would be a death roll. If your typical ride is 30 miles or more, relatively subtle differences can have a big impact.''
Entering the world of custom-made bikes means trusting a frame builder in an arena where builders learn their craft by apprenticeship, and by trial and error, and where there is no way of knowing if their performance claims are correct until your first ride.
Over the years, Mr. Vandermark said, frame builders develop their own systems for fitting and building a bicycle and consider them to be trade secrets. The fine details can make the difference between one that is O.K. and one that is almost magical.
To get those details right, Mr. Vandermark asks questions that seem almost whimsical, for example, ''Do you pedal when you go around a sharp curve?''
''If you pedal through corners,'' he explained, ''it affects the height of the cranks from the ground. The lower we make that, the more stable the bike will be. The higher we make it, the easier it is to pedal through corners without clipping a pedal.''
In addition, Mr. Vandermark said, a rider who pedals through sharp curves tends to be someone who is more confident and will want a stiffer frame. The advantage is better acceleration -- ''when you stand on the pedals, it responds.''
The disadvantage is that the rider feels every bump in the road.
Building a frame, custom builders say, is a matter of constant compromise. Even making a bicycle lightweight involves sacrificing other features, like stability and handling. Mr. Schwinn, a heavy man, saw those problems firsthand when he test rode a featherweight bicycle with a titanium frame. Something seemed wrong the moment he started to ride.
''I thought the pedals were going to fall off the bike,'' he said. ''It was the weirdest feeling. It turned out that it wasn't the pedals. It was the chain wheel flexing back and forth.''
SCIENCE DESK
Fast Pace, Hard Seat: Now That's Cycling
By GINA KOLATA (NYT) 2057 words
Published: July 6, 2004
A year ago, I got a bicycle that changed my life.
The sort of bicycling that attracts me is nothing like those leisurely rides through the countryside, a soft breeze in your face, stopping to picnic or explore a stream along the way.
Instead, it is about riding fast on a bicycle with a hard narrow seat, leaning forward or standing for a burst of power. It is about wearing special shoes that snap onto your pedals so you can pull up as well as push down, and feeling the thrill and the rush of real physical exertion.
Not all that long ago, my passion put me in a tiny minority of people who took to the road for exercise rather than leisure.
But the ranks of serious bicyclists are increasing. The sales of specialty road bicycles, the sort sold in bike shops, increased to 185,400 in 2003 from 171,600 in 2002, according to the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association, and a double-digit increase in sales is expected this year.
Some riders have been drawn by the celebrity of Lance Armstrong, the rider who has won the Tour de France five times in a row and will try to set a record with a sixth victory this month.
''Any business that is related to the cycling industry has seen what we call the Lance effect,'' said Chris Carmichael, Armstrong's coach and the founder of a company that coaches people to improve their bicycling performance.
Others are aging baby boomers who, tired of other joint-pounding activities, are ''seeking out the smooth comfort of riding on a road,'' said Marc Sani , publisher of Bike Retailer and Industry News.
They bring with them disposable income and a fondness for specialized equipment: Custom bicycles, which can cost from $3,000 to $9,000, are a fast-growing market.
In the new world of cycling, technology has transformed the experience. Lightweight bicycles are just the beginning. Riders use small computers that clip onto the handlebars, measuring cadence, gear, speed, distance and time, allowing them to monitor their efforts with exquisite precision. High-performance bicycles have gearshifts and brakes on the handlebars, and lightweight aerodynamic wheels. They also have front-wheel-gripping forks, seat posts and handlebars made of carbon fiber, which is lightweight and dampens road vibrations while allowing precise handling.
Dr. Michael Berry, a professor of health and exercise science at Wake Forest University, explained the difference between casual and serious bicycling as ''the difference between the person who goes home and says, 'O.K., we've got a few minutes before the sun goes down,' and goes out and walks around the block, and the person who goes home and puts on running shorts and running shoes and goes out for a run, goes out specifically to exercise.''
A person whose time is limited and who wants to burn the most calories should stick to running, said Dr. Berry, who was a competitive runner before taking up cycling.
But cycling calories can also add up. How many depends on wind speed and direction, the amount of uphill climbing, and riding on the tail of another rider, which can reduce energy expenditure by 30 percent.
One of the few rigorous studies of caloric output during cycling was conducted by Dr. James Hagberg, a passionate cyclist and exercise physiologist at the University of Maryland. He monitored competitive cyclists, riding on a flat road at 15 to 24 miles per hour, and used the data to establish formulas for the number of calories burned depending on speed and body weight.
For example, a 125-pound woman riding for an hour on a flat road and covering 18 miles burns 555 calories. Running for an hour, at 8 minutes a mile, she would burn a little over 600 calories. (Armstrong burns about 1,000 calories an hour in the Tour de France, going about 80 miles a day at an average of 24 m.p.h., Mr. Carmichael said.)
On the other hand, runners rarely run for an hour and bicyclists rarely ride for less than an hour. One reason cyclists can go for such long stretches is that riding rarely leads to injuries.
''Any repetitive motion can result in an overuse injury,'' Dr. Berry said. ''And obviously cycling is a repetitive motion.'' But in bicycling ''there are no sudden impact forces that the skeleton needs to absorb.''
Knee pain and sore buttocks are the bane of inexperienced cyclists, but most serious riders avoid them. Such problems arise, bicycling experts say, because people tend to make exactly the wrong decisions about the height of their bike's seat and its design.
Bicycling experts wince when they see novices riding on wide padded seats, assuming that a hard narrow one will lead to buttock pain. A wide seat makes the rider rock from side to side, said Rob Vandermark, the president of Seven Cycles of Watertown, Mass, who has made frames for a number of bicycling stars, including Mr. Armstrong.
''The bigger the seat, the more chafing or rubbing,'' he said.
Worse, wide seats do not support the pelvis properly, notes Tom Kellogg, a bicycle racer, custom-frame builder, and president of Spectrum Cycles in Breinigsville, Pa.
The seat, he said, should support the ischial tuberosities, the two bones at the bottom of the pelvis that bear the rider's weight.
''Cushioning does not help; the shape of the saddle does,'' he said.
Dave Levy, a custom builder, former bicycle racer and the owner of Ti Cycles in Seattle, points out that experienced bicyclists support one-third of their weight on their hands, one-third on their feet, and one-third on their buttocks.
''If you are sitting on top of a big cushy ball, there is no way to make it so that your body will support itself efficiently,'' he said.
Novices, said Dr. Hagberg, tend to ''sit straight up, with all their weight on their butt,'' and no wonder they are in pain.
Another mistake that beginners often make is to set the seat so low that their legs are scrunched or, less often, so high that the riders rocks from side to side. ''Knee problems in the making,'' the experts say.
Richard Schwinn, a custom bicycle-frame builder who happens to be a great-grandson of the founder of Schwinn bicycles, said that many people get the idea in childhood that their feet must touch the ground when they sit on a bicycle seat. But that means that the seat is so low that the cyclist's knees are under constant strain, to say nothing of making pedaling inefficient, said Mr. Schwinn, who owns Waterford Precision Cycles in Waterford, Wis..
''The saddle height that works properly is tall enough that you can't put your feet on the ground when you are sitting on the saddle,'' Mr. Schwinn said.
Some clients tell him they are terrified when he sets their seats, Mr. Schwinn said, but ''once you learn how to mount and dismount, having a saddle at the proper elevation is easy.''
For serious riders, a custom bike can enhance the experience. It turns out that ready-made bicycles are best for average-size men. They are less likely to fit women, whose legs and thighs tend to be proportionately longer. Very short and very tall women have particular problems, as do men whose arms or legs are disproportionately long or short.
I know those bicycle-fitting problems firsthand. With my ready-made bicycle, I had to stretch to reach the handlebars. After an hour or so of riding, I would get shooting pains in the back of my neck. And I could never sit in a way that allowed me to use my legs most efficiently when I climbed hills.
For the casual rider, such details are almost arcane; for the serious rider, they become crucial.
''If you get on an ill-fitting bike and ride five miles -- I've done that and still had fun,'' Mr. Schwinn said. ''If you told me to ride 20 miles, it would be a death roll. If your typical ride is 30 miles or more, relatively subtle differences can have a big impact.''
Entering the world of custom-made bikes means trusting a frame builder in an arena where builders learn their craft by apprenticeship, and by trial and error, and where there is no way of knowing if their performance claims are correct until your first ride.
Over the years, Mr. Vandermark said, frame builders develop their own systems for fitting and building a bicycle and consider them to be trade secrets. The fine details can make the difference between one that is O.K. and one that is almost magical.
To get those details right, Mr. Vandermark asks questions that seem almost whimsical, for example, ''Do you pedal when you go around a sharp curve?''
''If you pedal through corners,'' he explained, ''it affects the height of the cranks from the ground. The lower we make that, the more stable the bike will be. The higher we make it, the easier it is to pedal through corners without clipping a pedal.''
In addition, Mr. Vandermark said, a rider who pedals through sharp curves tends to be someone who is more confident and will want a stiffer frame. The advantage is better acceleration -- ''when you stand on the pedals, it responds.''
The disadvantage is that the rider feels every bump in the road.
Building a frame, custom builders say, is a matter of constant compromise. Even making a bicycle lightweight involves sacrificing other features, like stability and handling. Mr. Schwinn, a heavy man, saw those problems firsthand when he test rode a featherweight bicycle with a titanium frame. Something seemed wrong the moment he started to ride.
''I thought the pedals were going to fall off the bike,'' he said. ''It was the weirdest feeling. It turned out that it wasn't the pedals. It was the chain wheel flexing back and forth.''