Last week I had to give three media interviews on the same day for work. The first early morning appearance went fine, but I stuttered during the second one. For a moment I couldn’t figure out how to end a sentence. I’ve done this long enough to know that in such situations it’s best to pretend nothing happened and start a new sentence. If you don’t find a way to move on, your thoughts will continue to tumble endlessly, over and over each other, in a pointless cycle that trips you up.

Lunchtime fell between the second and third interviews, so I hopped on the new mountain bike and rode to clear the brain clog. For about 30 minutes, my state of awareness was super-charged. You can’t ride mountain bike trails with a disengaged mind, at least not when you’re a beginner, because you’re going to hit something nasty. Rapid synaptic firing is the order of the moment:

Tree root coming up fast. Yeah, attack it. Hell, there’s a bigger one on the other side. Be aggressive, you can do it. Okay, that’s done. Uh-oh, rock. KILLER ROCK! Hard turn. Tree. No, two trees close together. Too close for the handlebars. Laugh. Hop off the bike and jog.

And that’s the internal yelping for only about five seconds. Imagine what it’s like over the course of a half-hour. This is your brain on mountain biking: a kick ass, red hot, hard firing engine.

The cerebral cortex atrophies just as surely as muscles without exercise. There is strong evidence to indicate physical exertion can stave off a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s. According to the director of Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s Research Center, “Regular physical exercise is probably the best means we have of preventing Alzheimer’s disease today, better than medications, better than intellectual activity, better than supplements and diet.” It’s stunning how many diseases and conditions can be improved or controlled by exercise, yet only a small percentage of the population engages in it. There’s no question that exercise is saving my body, my sanity, and my mind. So maybe I don’t need to choose that retirement apartment just yet.

Oh, and that third interview of the day? Nailed it.

The reason I visit a podiatrist is that I have punished my feet rather too much over the years. As podiatry explains it, the padding on the balls of our feet loses its cushioning qualities with age. This exposes the nerve endings to the percussion of walking or bicycling and can cause considerable pain on impact. And that is why my feet feel like they’re on fire during a long day on the bike.

I used to think the pain had other causes. Fellow sufferers on bike forums suggested switching to bike sandals (tried it) or buying different pedals (tried that, too). No one thought to recommend a podiatrist. That’s probably because we associate health problems with weakness and failure. Hypochondriacs–not bicyclists–visit specialists.  Bicyclists tough it out.

Arch pads inside the bike shoes. It's time to replace the pads. Or the shoes.

It was Michael Sylvester who first suggested a podiatrist at my Sweetpea fitting. I later asked my physician for a referral, and the first humbling visit followed soon after. It was eye-opening and revolutionary in way I hadn’t expected. Until I saw a specialist, I didn’t realize how much my feet hurt every day. I was in discomfort walking down the hall at work, standing at the kitchen sink, even sitting at a desk. Naively, I thought the prescription for change would be specific to the bike, but that first conversation involved a long list of don’ts affecting everyday life:

No heels,
No flip flops,
No sandals,
No walking barefooted around the house,
Ever again.

Wisely, the podiatrist did not try to talk me out of bicycling. Instead, she focused on minimizing the pain through changes in foot care. No more cheap shoes. The focus would be on quality rather than quantity. She handed me a list of sanctioned (and expensive) footwear brands, and said to buy a couple pairs twice a year and throw them away at the end of each season. Oh my God, it was my husband’s dream come true–a closet with just two pairs of shoes.

Heel insert mounted to the underside of the insole.

After she had addressed what to do off the bike, the podiatrist turned to my time on it. She insisted on platform pedals–no egg beaters that concentrate pressure from the downward stroke onto the weakening fleshy pad of the foot. The bike shoe had to be as wide as possible, with plenty of room in the toe box and a really stiff sole (I now wear Specialized BG mountain bike shoes). Over several subsequent fittings, she created custom orthotics to support my arches and lessen the impact on the ball. To counteract pronation, she added pads beneath the insoles. The pads must be replaced every 1,000 miles of riding, and the shoes replaced once a year.

It’s been an adjustment, but the payoff has been real. My feet feel better than they have in a long time, both on and off the bike. I still have foot pain, but it occurs farther into the ride and doesn’t tend to last as long nor be as severe. I still walk around the house barefooted sometimes, but being pain-free much of the time has made me notice discomfort when it occurs, and I look for the built-up shoes before my feet hit the floor most mornings. If you’re a cyclist having problems that can’t be resolved by switching shoes or pedals, perhaps you should consult a podiatrist. Though it pains me to admit it.

“I’ve already ridden a Wahoo but it didn’t suit me,” I told him.  “Can I try your Felt hardtail 29er?”

“Treks are the best mountain bikes on the market,” he replied, his hands jabbing authoritatively in the space between us.  It was as though I hadn’t spoken at all.  ”You just need a good fit, and I’m the person to do it,” he continued.  “People have come all the way from New York to be fit by me.”  No kidding, man.  Were they your relatives?

He talked and for the next 15 minutes I was forced to listen, mainly about how Treks had the best geometry due to the Gary Fisher legacy.  Whenever he stopped for breaths I would ask about test riding the Felt, and eventually the lecture stopped long enough for him to bring out the bike.  I rode out of the shop into a mild sunny day, relieved that I was no longer being preached at.

I didn’t buy the Felt.  When we got into the car afterwards, Mr. Spoked and I dissected the clerk’s sales technique.  It probably works on the 90% of customers who know little about bicycling and only want a machine for light exercise.  But I had been reading forums and studying websites for over a month.  I knew I wanted a hardtail 29er and needed to test ride different models to find the best one for me.  I’ve been through a custom fit and understand how micro-differences in frame geometry result in macro-differences in comfort.  All I want is to be taken seriously.  “That guy’s problem is that he talks too much and doesn’t listen,” said Mr. Spoked.  In other words, his social skills stink.

Technical skills are mandatory in mountain biking.

And that brings me to the technical skills part of this post.  The day after Christmas I bought a Specialized Rockhopper Comp 29er, not from the Wichita shop but from Capp’s here in Topeka.  Chris Armstrong sold it to me, and he’s got great social skills–the kind of salesman who listens to you and wants you to ask questions. Mountain biking is my 2012 challenge.  I’ve been on three rides this week and am stunned by how much I have to learn. Technical skills, indeed.  It’s going to be an interesting year.

I don’t have a lot to say about the event except that someone’s got to come in last, and today that someone was me. I really didn’t expect to place, being new to racing. My goals were twofold: 1) to finish, and 2) to ride at least two laps.  I achieved both. Towards the end, I added 3) don’t get lapped by the leaders.  I achieved that goal, too, but just barely. Their hot breath was on my heels at the finish.

Sweetpea at the bottom of the Mound of Mercy.

No ride is uneventful. The next-to-last racer was still within reach when I fell trying to get back on the bike at the top of the Mound of Mercy. The mind was willing but the legs had had enough and wouldn’t clear the seat while trying to re-mount. I went down. The spectators were great, though.  One who knew it was my first race said, “First fall. First of many!” That remark put it into perspective. Clearly he knew what it was like to fall (and fall often) in front of spectators. I got back on the bike and rode my heart out. To last place. But with three goals achieved. Four, if you count riding the race at all.

Our student intern this past summer at work had a passion for running.  Despite her athleticism, she had suffered debilitating back pain through much of her teens and 20s.  Then she moved to Kansas for graduate school and visited a sports medicine practitioner in Topeka.  It was in that office she made a life-changing and surprising discovery–she’d been breathing wrong.

How is that possible, you ask?  After all, breathing is easy.  It’s a metaphor for everything that is effortless and unconscious.  Breathing is as easy as, well, breathing.  Except that a lot of us–women especially–are doing it all wrong.

Victoria Mary of Teck, chest breather

Apparently we women tend to be chest breathers.  For us, taking a deep breath involves raising the rib cage and shoulders while pulling in the abdomen. This is grossly inefficient, causing shallow breaths with inadequate  oxygen intake. As our intern discovered, chest breathing also puts inordinate stress on the skeletal structure and can cause back pain as well as a whole host of other problems.

Why do women breathe this way? Consider this historic photo of wasp-waisted royalty.  For many, many generations we strangled our diaphragms with corsets, making it patently impossible to breathe properly. When fashion finally moved beyond foundation undergarments,  we continued to torture ourselves by sucking in our stomachs to look thinner.  It’s a wonder there are any successful female athletes.

It’s been several months since I learned about proper breathing, also known as diaphragmatic breathing. That doesn’t mean I’ve mastered it, only that I’ve been practicing.  It involves lying on the floor and taking deep breaths that lower your diaphragm (and expand your abdomen) while keeping your shoulders and chest very still.  See Livestrong’s website for a useful how-to page. It looks so easy, and it is, when you’re at rest.  It’s another matter entirely when you’re riding cyclocross, but I’ll keep working at bucking the metaphor. Some day it’ll be as easy as breathing.

Pedal assist tandem in Rome's Villa Borghese gardens

Earlier this summer I promised a report on bicycling in Rome.  Because Italian drivers scared the living daylights out of me as a pedestrian, cyclist, and human, we did not actually ride on the streets.  Instead, we rented a tandem in the Villa Borghese gardens.  At almost 150 acres, it’s the city’s second largest park and can hold a lot of people and bicycles.

When we walked up to the bike rental stall near the garden’s entrance, we saw that only pedal-assist tandems were available.  They didn’t look like bicycles at all, but rather golf carts.  After a little grumbling, Mr. Spoked plunked down some Euros and we watched a worker hammer away at a loose wheel lying in the dirt next to our assigned cart.  It did not inspire confidence.  Finally the wheel was fitted onto the empty axle, and we got control of the cart for the next 60 minutes.

Like many roadies, I approach the notion of pedal-assist with reluctance.  The idea of an easy ride is antithetical if you’re someone who rides for exercise.  But it’s not such a bad idea if you’re in it to save the planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially if you don’t want to get sweaty on the way to work.

Last May I had a chance to ride one of Trek’s new electric assist models, and I have to admit it changed my mind.  Not enough to buy one, mind you, but I did admire the machine.  It was at a spring rodeo held by Capp’s Bike Shop here in Topeka.  Owner Jerry Armstrong convinced several of us working the event to take a test spin.  I watched riders take off with a skeptical look and come back with a grin.  Finally it was my turn.  The bike was heavy–really heavy in comparison to Sweetpea–weighed down by a large rear hub motor.  But that didn’t matter in the slightest, because even a light pedal stroke paid off in a big way.  I found myself pedaling just one stroke at a time and then coasting to feel that remarkable surge of power.  Jerry called me over, head shaking, and told me I needed to pedal non-stop to put the Trek through its paces.  He pointed in the direction of a short but steep hill at the other end of the lot, and told me to see how fast I could go.  So I pedaled as hard as I would’ve on the Sweetpea until the machine breached the top of the hill.  How cow, the cycle computer registered 40 mph.  My face had the same big grin as everyone else’s when I got back to the storefront.

Passengers didn't pedal because there was no point

The Trek had left such a good impression that I was kind of excited to be riding another pedal assist in Italy months later.  The Italians call the machine a “riscio,” or rickshaw.  We saw them zipping around the grounds with tourists behind the wheel, but it was strange to watch passengers resting their feet on the frames rather than pedal.  I thought they were lazy until I rode the riscio as Mr. Spoked’s passenger.

Unlike a true tandem bicycle in which the stoker actually helps out the captain, on the riscios the stoker was completely pointless.  No matter how hard I worked, the pedals wouldn’t engage.  Mr. Spoked didn’t notice because he was too busy complaining about the operation of the riscio.  The pedal assist engaged with a vengeance on the downhills but felt puny on the uphills.  It was so completely counterintuitive, we wondered why the machines had any pedal assist features at all.  Unlike the Trek which allows the operator to regulate the intensity of engagement via a dial, the riscio was a fixie and always wrong.  And finally, the Trek’s drive engaged smoothly, while the riscio bucked and jumped as though it was operated by a teenage driver mastering a stickshift.

Husband grimmaced behind the riscio's wheel

We rode around the garden a few times with our hearts in our throats, wondering how to shout “Save yourselves!” in Italian to oblivious pedestrians.  Finally, our hour was up.  We were kind of relieved.  Sure we’d seen all the park’s beautiful statuary and tasteful landscaping, but we hadn’t really had a good time.  Mr. Spoked remains skeptical about pedal assist in general, but I have to say I’d ride the Trek again, any time, any place.

My friends are new to cyclocross, so we’ve been taking it a little easy.  They weren’t able to make it tonight, so I rode the course alone (except for another cyclist and a few dog walkers and runners).  I rode the entire circuit very hard once without stopping, then–gasping for breath–paused at the top of every other hill to take photos.  This looks impressive from afar because you can’t hear my heavy breathing nor see my hands shaking while trying to hold the camera still.  Luckily, it was a beautiful evening and there was plenty to photograph.  I wasn’t able to capture the fall colors–my camera’s not that good–but the sunset was magnificent.  A hot air balloon punctuated the sky at one point, giving another reason to pause.  I wished my friends could have been there to share it.  Maybe next time.

Last night we joined a sellout crowd at the Topeka Community Cycle Project for the Dinner & Bikes Tour sponsored by cycling activists Elly Blue, Joe Biel, and Joshua Ploeg.  Elly talked about bicycling economy, Joe showed several film shorts about Portland, Oregon’s road to becoming a Bike Friendly city, and Joshua served us a tasty vegan dinner.  The place was packed.  I wondered how such an event could have happened in the old days.  A quiet little venture like TCCP wouldn’t have been noticed outside Topeka for years, if ever.  Maybe word-of-mouth would have traveled to Portland eventually, but it would have taken an awfully long time.  Now any  of us can create a website/blog/Facebook page and gain attention in a fairly short period of time.  It’s community built at the speed of light.  You could argue that it’s not as deep or lasting as in the old days, but it’s still community.

Looking around the room last night I saw a number of familiar faces, but also many I didn’t know.  We strangers were bound together by cycling, either because we bicycled ourselves or because we knew and loved someone who does.  The three people in charge of the evening had never met us, but new bonds had forged before the night ended.  Afterwards, Mr. Spoked and I bicycled on the streets of Topeka, our headlamps lighting the way.  We checked on our new acquaintances online when we got home.  Community:  it’s not the same as it ever was, but it’s alive in so many ways.

On today’s crisp, late summer morning, I rolled the bike down to the curb and looked up at pink clouds floating in a vivid blue pre-dawn sky.  An urban rooster crowed in the neighborhood as I pedaled west.  The clouds slowly lost their pink hue, then turned a glowing white at sunrise.  The treetops were touched with gold as I cycled through the city park, and I knew I’d have to ride fast to make it to my favorite spot before the mist burned away.  It was still there when I stopped for a photo.  Just a half-mile later, little wisps of steam rose above a pond where a man stood fishing by the shoreline.  Geese flying overhead formed a “V” pointing south. I coasted the final mile–all of it downhill–singing “Maggie May” in a happy, off-key voice.

A coworker announced in the lunchroom at noon today, “We really should be outside.  It’s so beautiful out there.”  I smiled in agreement, but was thinking about the best part of the day hours earlier.  Yes, we really should be outside.  On our bikes.  In the early morning.

The devil at Rabbit Ears pass

It continued intermittently for another eight hours until we stopped at Dillon, Colorado, for gas at around 3 a.m. (4 o’clock our time).  We unfolded our bodies from their cramped positions inside the car and took in big breaths of pine-scented mountain air. Nowhere else in the world smells as good as the Rockies.  Only one more hour to go. Thank goodness we were foolish enough to forget that people our age need sleep.  Let the festivities begin!

For the next three days we followed Stages 4, 5, and 6 of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado.  After a few hours’ sleep the first night (morning, really), we caught the start of Stage 4 in Avon.  The following day, we drove to the top of Rabbit Ears pass outside Steamboat Springs to see the King of the Mountain jersey captured by Walter Fernando Pedraza Morales with his extra-large Columbian lungs.  And on Sunday we joined tens of thousands of fans in downtown Denver for the deafening final laps.

There was no whining on the long ride back home, only talk of next year.  What a weekend.