Auteur: Doug Harris

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”  – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My Specialized Roubaix has two chainrings.  For those not familiar with the jargon associated with cycling, the chainrings are the large gears on the front of the bike connected to your pedals through crank arms (more jargon…).  My bike has a “big” chainring (50T) and a small chainring (34T).  Going fast on my bike has always seemed like my primary goal and the big chainring had been my friend (or enemy) in pushing my speed.  The only time I would even consider dropping to the small chainring was when I desperately needed to get up a hill that just seemed insurmountable with my big ring and big rear gear (on the rear cassette…yes more jargon…).  Recently, however, I began to play more with the small chainring and it seems like I am spending a lot more time using this than I had in my past life on the bike.  It just seems to provide a combination and gear ratio (yup…more of you know what…) that allows me to achieve a very comfortable, steady cadence and allows me to ride much more smoothly and with seemingly less effort.  It always seems to be my friend…never my enemy…  I guess I had ignored this possibility for so long that it just seemed like sort of an “ah ha” moment.

For me, the lesson seems to be that it is not always best to push so hard that you are constantly having to focus on the your ride mechanics versus the ability to settle in to a comfortable cadence that truly allows you to enjoy the ride.  I think there is a lesson here for everything that I encounter in life…just need to continue to evolve to figure out how to take advantage of it and live more of my life in the small chainring.

Life is like riding a bicycle. In order to keep your balance, you must keep moving. – Albert Einstein

The day was fast approaching where my training for the Tour de Scottsdale was hopefully going to pay off.  This was my second year for this ride and I was now a “seasoned” rider.  This year my son and nephew were also going to ride.  The long training rides were behind me and I was ready for Oct. 7th.  What could go wrong…well, just the wettest October that we have seen in a long time.  We live in the desert…nothing gets cancelled because of the weather unless you just can’t handle 122 deg (note to the Boeing Company!)…and who can’t handle that…it’s a dry heat!!  The Friday before the race rolls around and my email pops up with an unexpected message…due to road conditions, the Tour de Scottsdale has been cancelled.  What…road conditions…we don’t have real roads out here, how can that be a problem…oh, well maybe that is the problem…

So, after coming to terms with the reality of that message about keeping riders safe…bla…bla…bla…, I had to figure out what to do with all this pent up training (like I am an athlete or something….).  I decide that since the rains aren’t supposed to be back until Sunday, we should ride on Saturday.  The TdS is my traditional get ready for the Bikes Fight Poverty training season ride (if you can call two years a tradition…more of a guideline…sort of like the pirates code…).  I convince my nephew to ride on Saturday and we head out.  Well, my first mistake was trying to keep up with my nephew.  I have twenty years on him and suffice it to say that he used to be a race car driver (seriously) and pretty much has two speeds…fast…and faster…the only good thing was that my son wasn’t available as he would have left us both in the dust.  My second mistake was not eating consistently during the ride.  For any ride over two hours you really need to be careful about nutrition and keep your glucose level up.  After two hours or so you have pretty much depleted the glucose you have stored in your muscles, brain, and liver, and if you aren’t replenishing, you are destined for the dreaded bonk!!

For those of you not familiar with bonking it is when you have expended energy to the point that you become hypoglycemic and all sorts of not so nice symptoms begin to occur.  These can include muscle fatigue, foggy thinking, grumpiness (a favorite of mine), facial tingling, and tunnel vision to mention a few.  The way around this is to insure that you are eating and drinking from the very start of your ride to replenish electrolytes and glucose.  Once you get behind the power curve on these it is a steep hill to climb back out of.  Well…I have this nasty habit of forgetting to eat when I am not on a more formal, supported ride.  You couple that with trying to follow my nephew…Speed Racer…and by mile 55 I was wondering if I was going to be able to get off my bike without just coming to a stop and falling over.

I pulled in to my driveway at mile 57 (man…I really wanted to get to a metric century…but alas, it was not meant to be…) and basically leaned up against my house.  I then proceeded to attempt to “gracefully” dismount my trusty Roubaix and carefully shuffle into the garage so as not to trip on my cleats.  I made it…time to stretch…and fall down on the sofa…

So what did I learn from all of this…probably not as much as I should, but if I can just keep focused on riding my own ride and eating…even on a “fun” ride…things turn out much better…oh and going to Hot Bagel after the ride does pretty much cure everything!!!

17 weeks until our Bikes Fight Poverty ride.  Check out my campaign page at the link below –

Doug and Lisa Harris – 2019 Bikes Fight Poverty

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

I visited my cardiologist Tuesday.  I have noticed that as I have moved past 60 (did I say that out loud…), I no longer visit doctors…I visit specialists.  Cardiologist, Neurologists, Orthopedists…even my “regular doctor” is an Internist and don’t even mention the special gift that passing fifty gives you…the ever impending colonoscopy (yes, I need to schedule one before the end of the year…another specialist).   I guess that is what happens when you need to try to keep your body’s systems humming along, despite having abused them with poor eating, lack of exercise, lack of sleep and just general neglect.  Sort of the same look your pool gets when you say…I can check the chemicals next week!

My Cardiologist is a really smart guy at Mayo Clinic.  The whole Mayo Clinic experience is worth a post in itself, but suffice it to say that he knows what he is talking about and gets right to the point.  It occurred to me during my visit that his real goal is to reduce my risk of a cardiac event…sort of extend my life curve.  My Dad had a bypass in his 50’s and my family history is not really very supportive here, so I like the idea of “extending the curve.”  As an engineer, I really like things that are graphical.  It just seems easier to explain things when you are looking at a graph.  Just ask my kids or wife as I say…”here, let me explain that to you with a graph”…the eye rolling will now commence.  On my ride Tuesday, I starting thinking about the whole concept of “extending the curve.”  One of those little tricks to keep your mind off your numb fingers or pain in the…saddle…

At this point in life, the expectation that I am going to significantly alter the height of that curve and become a star triathlete or change the world through some disruptive, mind altering invention would probably be an indication of some psychological disorder that would require yet another specialist. So what does that mean?  In mulling this over as my legs were spinning my pedals, it really seemed that it is more about what’s under the curve than extending the curve.  What type of experiences, friendships, family, faith, and service to others fill that space under the curve.  Extending the curve is truly a gift to allow you to continue to fill the area under the curve with value.  In the end, it is really about the quality of the content under the curve and not so much extending the curve…

Get a bicycle.  You will not regret it, if you live – Mark Twain

I am not a morning person.  I have no problem staying up late, but my morning routine involves the ability to hit the snooze or tell Google to wake me “later” virtually without waking up…that is, unless I am going riding.  I am still not crazy about getting up early, but the thought of getting on my bike, is the push I need to roll out and hit the streets on my Roubaix.

It is two weeks till the TdS and that means I have pretty much hit the peak of my training plan.  Sunday’s morning ride was 67 miles.  It actually seemed a bit cool (what??) at 5:00 am before the sun hit the horizon.  For this length of a ride, I try to make sure I pace myself and pay attention to hydration and eating.  I usually try to “zone out” and get in a rhythm on the bike, but what usually happens is that you start thinking about little aches and pains and then begin go wonder…what is going to hurt today?  Will my hands get numb…will I get hotspots on my foot…will my arms get sore…will my butt start to hurt?  It seems to be a somewhat self full-filling so it is really important to try to focus outside the bike and hour body.  When I can do that…the ride just seems to fly by.  It is also much easier to ride in a group…as long as you are matched with riders of similar or slightly better ability.  The group truly seems to support a higher performance level and an ability to complete rides much more effectively.  Our ride last year to Rocky Point for 1Mission is a great example.  I would not have made it up the Ajo hill…into the wind…without the support of my group.  Cycling seems to be both an individual and group endeavor.  Sometimes is is difficult to separate the two, but the physical and psychological impact of riding with a group can not be overstated.

Completed the 67 miles today solo without incident (no flats!!!).  Rolling into my rest day tomorrow and then back on the training plan on Tuesday to continue to taper down to the fitness level and recovery level I will need for the ride on Oct. 7th.  Stay tuned…