Category: Cycling

The Illusion of Speed

I got some new shoes the other day and immediately felt faster. I wasn’t actually faster, but I felt like I was. I could think of a couple of reasons that made me feel that way.

First, I have been running in black colored shoes. I used to avoid black shoes because they had the opposite effect on me – they made me feel slow for some reason. Black just seems clunky in my head. But black goes best with my winter running gear, and I guess I just carried black shoes over into the summer. My new shoes are a light grey and when I started the run I felt like an Olympian, running with speed and grace.

The second reason is a little more obvious, they were new, felt springy, and I was bouncing along with seemingly less effort. Feeling faster from a new pair of shoes should make it easier, I suppose.

After that initial fast-feeling run, I was surprised to see that I really wasn’t any faster than most of the recent runs I had been doing.

The faster Hoka Bondi 8 on the left and my old and slow Hoka Bondi 7 on the right. Basically the same shoe.

There are other times when I felt like a piece of gear made me “feel” faster. Going from a road bike to an aero bike surely made me feel faster, and when I stay in aero I should definitely be faster. I noticed once that I was riding on the trail with my friend John, sitting upright and having a chat and traveling at the same speed, but when I went down into aero without changing my cadence, I slowly started to edge ahead.

Sticking with the bike, I added a set of FLO aero wheels to it and immediately felt fast. Aero wheels make your bike look fast standing still. They just look cool – and fast! FLO makes good wheels and the price is among the least expensive in the aero wheel market, so buying a set made me definitely feel faster and part of the cool kids club. How much faster are they? My combo set of wheels will save you maybe 6-10 minutes in an Ironman, according to the FLO wheels website. https://blog.flocycling.com/carbon-wheels/how-much-time-will-flo-wheels-save-me/ Not exactly blazing speed, but you believe it makes a difference. Still worth it, even if looking cool makes you feel faster.

I also bought an aero helmet, which I had read once that can make one faster for a lot less than a set of aero wheels. I’m wearing the dumb thing in the picture at the top of this blog. I have to admit I don’t really feel faster wearing it. I feel rather silly, actually. I will toss it on for sprints, but I’m not sure the aero advantage of it outweighs the overall protection of a regular cycling helmet in the event of a crash. My aero helmet just seems less protective. The dumb things that are on my mind while just riding and racing a bike are sometimes pretty deep.

What else can make you feel faster? A new racing kit? For sure. A new pair of socks? Yes sir. But do they actually make you faster? Well, sometimes you just got to go with what makes you feel like you are.

I’d love to hear what makes you feel faster. Add some suggestions in the comments below.

This Is My Life

I am a menace to society.  People have hatred towards me.  When people see me I honestly think that it must make their blood boil.  I’m as heinous as they come.  I should be locked up put away for my crime.  What’s my crime, you ask?  It’s because I legally ride my bike on a roadway.

After another close call with the car driving public, the thought of this is how life is for a cyclist passed through my mind.  This is my life can have different meanings, such as:

  • This is my life…  It can be positive, just like this blog in which I post things about the amazing experiences that running, triathlon, and life have provided to me.
  • This is my life…  The things I do day in and day out.  Mostly the same as everyone else, but from my perspective.
  • This is my life…  Or possibly something that occurs occasionally that can be burdensome, such as doing laundry nearly every damn day.
  • This is my life…  But my intended purpose of that statement today is that THIS IS MY LIFE YOU ARE ENDANGERING!!!  DOES A HUMAN LIFE NOT MATTER TO YOU IN YOUR FUCKING CAR AS YOU TRY TO PASS ME IN A DANGEROUS SITUATION?

I was riding my bike on a road that within less than a mile I would hope off of to catch the adjoining trail.  I just needed to be on it shortly.  But to people in cars, I might as well have purposely gone out of my way to plan my ride to coincide with their trip to Starbucks or whatever.

I get being inconvenienced.  I don’t like it either.  But I am a life out there on a bike, exposed to the world and your one-ton enclosed, all steel, with numerous safety features vehicle.  It blows my mind to think that a driver would go out of his way to avoid crashing into another vehicle, but some old guy in tight clothes on a bike is open game.  I probably wouldn’t even scratch your car as you hit me.

I wasn’t really intending to make this post an argument for sharing the road with cyclists.  I could tackle the arguments about why cyclists shouldn’t be allowed on the road, or give a counterpoint to “just because I can doesn’t mean that I should.”  I’ll save it for next time if the next time doesn’t kill me.

So as luck would have it, I have a video of this incident.   I have gotten to the point in my cyclist life that I feel it necessary to document my ride so that in the event that something happens to me, the authorities can look at the video and say “Yep, he was doing it right when he got run over.”

I was riding up some hills, the road was striped with double yellow, no-passing zone markings, and I was taking up a little more of the middle than the far right as safely possible just to give the impression that there wouldn’t be enough room to pass.  She attempted the pass anyway.  Watch the video.  Form your own opinion.  (Warning – The audio is quite loud – turn it down before hitting play.)

All I ask is that you think about that person on the bike when you drive.  They are someone’s family.  And it’s someone’s life that you put in jeopardy by not passing with caution.

This is my life.