Gam Jams Reviews: Bike Computers

The only bike computer I really use is a Powertap Pro, the older wired version. It works as advertised. That's the best thing I can say about it because the ads - the reviews and everything - are full of superlatives.

Dave puts his finger on why the Powertap is nice. Other sports experience short of being a pro trainer for endurance athletes just doesn't teach you how to think about and execute training on the bike. You can get fast by riding tons, and occasionally riding very hard and then resting some... but if you have 6-8 hours per week to train, you likely won't get into really good race fitness using unstructured training. You can build a castle of sorts by just piling bricks on one another, or you can build to a plan and maybe use a lot less bricks, and perhaps wind up with a nicer building.

The Powertap, along with Tudor Bompa's work as adapted and matured in Coggan & Allen's superb Training With Power - teaches you all you need to know. Throw in the handy Training Peaks WKO+ software, and you have all you need to know to become a really good cyclist. You may never win a race but you'll be able to get fit and ride very strong. Most importantly, you'll learn how to do this riding 7-8 hours per week for a couple years.

What the Powertap provides is efficiency. At the outset - with guidance from Coggan & Allen and WKO+ - it diagnoses your strengths and weaknesses with a test for threshold power, and with the notion of critical power. It tells you when you're tired, and when you're fresh. During hard workouts, it tells you when you need to go harder, and it benchmarks your personal bests. During easy workouts, it's constantly telling you to go easier and stay below your upper limit for the day - rest after hard riding is key and it helps you rest. And, after a while, it teaches you how long you can go hard, and how much rest you need to recover, along with teaching you how fast your body tires out and recovers at any given fitness level. You will get a feel for it, and the Powertap won't be quite as necessary any more. Your legs aren't the only part of you being trained.

Best of all, the thing doesn't lie. It offers objective truth about how fit you are, how naturally talented (or untalented) you are, and what you can do.

There is a downside to it. There are days when you may want the truth, but you can't handle the truth. In races, knowing the truth can set you back; the deeper truth is sometimes you can hang on for a little bit longer or go a bit harder than you ever did in training, and you don't need to be looking at a set of numbers on the computer the way you look at a cop who pulls out just after you pass on the interstate. And yes, maybe it does suck a little bit of the fun out of riding.

But if you need to learn quickly how to train, and how to cram the most effective possible training into the shortest period of time, and to do it reasonably cost effectively, the Powertap (with supporting book and software) is the way to go. And that's the key to it - it makes your training more efficient.

But don't bother buying it if you're not going to buy Coggan & Allen, and WKO (about $112 on top of the price of the PT). Their simple book and the easy-to-use software are essential to getting the most out of your PT.

Water Bottles

Hey, did you see that Team Mapei was in the break last night? Well, actually they weren't. Nor was Garmin. Mea Culpa.

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I did my bike clothes wash tonight. After the winter and spring we had, do you know how nice it is to do a wash that has 9 bibs, 9 jerseys, 9 pairs of socks, 9 pairs of gloves and... well... that's it. The only base layer I have right now is the farmer tan where the shorts and jersey sleeves end.

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I needed a jersey for various unsanctioned mountain biking non-events that may or may not be held locally by people who may or may not organize such things. It's important not to sport the team colors, should one attend such a hypothetical event that may or may not actually exist. What kind of jersey would one need for such events, should such an event actually exist?

Why, the most comically egregious jersey one can find on a month's notice, of course.

Not that I'd wear it even if I had one, since these events are strictly hypothetical and all.

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Commuting Highlight of the Day #1. At a stoplight on a four way intersection, there are two lanes. A woman is in her car in the right lane, stopped, pointing right, signaling right. I pull up in the left lane, because I'm safe. The light turns green. I pedal out into the intersection briskly and start to move right, so the cars behind me don't run me down (because everybody in D.C. loveslovesloves their job and can't stand to be away from it for another minute). Just then, the lady peels out, zips in front of me and turns left, but gets stuck because oncoming traffic isn't as deferential as I am. I grab a big handful of brake and wait to get hit from behind. As I do, I shout, "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize the left turn signal meant you'd be turning right. She shoots me a withering look. Because, y'know, I'm the asshole who was supposed to read her mind and know that she planned to turn left all the time.

Admittedly, she had a cunning plan. It was good enough to fool me, anyhow.

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Commuting Highlight of the Day #2. Going up the Cap Crescent with a colleague from work, we're spinning through the rail tunnel. At the end of it, we see some teens playing with their BMX and mountain bikes. As we approach the end of the tunnel, the one kid with a mountain bike starts pushing it into the path. He plays with it and bounces it, then pulls it back. Just then a small paceline of three or four juniors - maybe it was the 12 year olds from Artemis on 24" road bikes - approach the tunnel from that end. The idiot with the bike pushes it back into the lane of traffic, and one of the juniors stacks it. He gets up, dusts himself off, has a couple words with the kid and rides off. About 5 seconds later I'm riding past the kid with the mountain bike, and he pushes it across my lane. In the command voice, I shout, "Get out of the road, Dumbass!" The kid jumps, and moves out. I felt a little bad about it, but got over that in about two seconds.

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Commuting Highlight of the Day #3. Just past the tunnel, a probably 50-something roller blader with really big white hair yells at me, "That was totally uncalled for!" "Bullshit," I said, rolling up on him. "That kid just made those other kids crash." Since I was with a professional colleague, I bit my tongue and didn't say the next words, which were, "you smelly hippie." For the second time in a day, I got the hairy look.

After that I felt less bad about shouting at the kids. They were displaying the privileged attitude I've come to expect from kids who grow up pampered, and Ol' Joe The Hippie Roller Blader is just the kind of busybody who pampers kids like that and enables them to grow up to be snotty and egocentric adults with a huge sense of entitlement.

If you see kids acting up, you have a duty as a grownup to tell them to straighten up. I wouldn't normally call a kid a dumbass, but under the circumstances, I'm confident it was an appropriate response. I've corrected other kids, from the little kid vandalizing the garden behind our townhouse development, to some kids who were bullying another kid on the Metro. No 'dumbass' there - just "I'm bigger than you... how would you like it if I picked on you the way you're picking on him?" and "What do you think your mothers would say if they could see what you were doing here?" That got them to stop, toute suite. There were maybe 60 people in that Metro car, all of them looking on and afraid to say a damn thing as the other three or four kids, maybe 14 or 15 years old, beat the hell out of a smaller kid.

There aren't enough cops and teachers around to do what all of us should be doing on a daily basis. Moreover, it's not just about you. Kids should play and have fun and maybe cross the line a little bit, but you are letting kids down if you just stand back while they go way too far, especially if you have a chance to step in and enforce community standards for behavior. Would you want somebody to correct your kid before he put another kid in the hospital, or caused a big bike crash on a multi-use trail? I sure would.

Don't be afraid to be grownups, people. If you don't take responsibility for policing up your community, nobody will.

WTF?

Did that just happen today?

Did Lance Armstrong get into a break with Cancellara and half of team Columbia and two thirds of Garmin/Slipstream just 25km from the end of today's flat-ish stage, and surge past Contador on the G.C.? Is Lance now the highest positioned G.C. threat, by 10 or 20 seconds?

Why yes, it did happen today. And while it's extremely early in the race, Lance is nicely positioned. And the rest of the peloton, by all accounts, is screamingly angry at Contador for refusing to work hard to chase his teammate Armstrong when the headwinds gusted up, and upset at Saxo Bank for shuttin' 'er down and refusing to chase yellow jersey holder Cancellara.

WTF?

Are Astana actually unified behind Lance and trying to generate The Most Epic Race Ever, by vaulting a 37 year-old who doesn't quite have the necessary legs, into the win? Did Lance maybe just stab Contador in the front when he went with an otherwise harmless break? Is this a huge marketing gambit for Livestrong, Johan Bruyneel and pro cycling? Did Columbia and Garmin/Slipstream, both stocked with North American riders and Friends of Lance, intentionally help Armstrong today in order to destroy Astana, or maybe because they know where their financial bread is buttered?

If Armstrong has even decent legs, this promises to be the most operatic TdF since LeMond/Hinault. The greatest of all operas, of course, is Wagner's Ring Cycle. Some afficionados and critics debate whether it's the winner of opera's Champion's League, favoring less epic opera, music and drama that don't wear on the listener like a steady blast from a firehose. But true fans know, the Ring is the greatest opera ever because it is the most impossible, ridiculous, insane, brutal, over-the-top piece of music ever made, coupled to a ridiculously implausible storyline that barely function as allegory, much less as real stories. It is on a scope that simply exceeds belief. It's four operas in one, spread out over four nights, with one night lasting nearly seven hours. It covers everything from creation, to the end of the world. There are dwarves and giants, love and betrayal. Swords and Valkyries. Everything.

We may be looking at the sporting version of the Ring Cycle this year in the Tour.

I had been a bit blase about this Tour. The Giro was superb and a fully satisfying piece of work, the quintessential Racer's Race, as it always is. Then all the usual scandals and pre-race announcements of dope test results had me feeling a bit lukewarm about the whole TdF deal. But I'm seeing a storyline developing that could really catch fire here - Lance and assorted Americans and Friends of Lance work together (surreptitiously) to get Lance a win. That would ensure another cycling and racing boomlet. We'd all be happy and making money...

But how did this little move up the G.C. happen for Armstrong? As Lance put it when discussing today's break,

"It wasn't that they didn't take advantage. It was just that they weren't there," said Armstrong. "When you see what the wind is doing and you have a turn coming up, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you have to go to the front."

Lance just happened to be there with all of Columbia, led by his old Lieutenant Hincapie, Garmin / Slipstream, DS'ed by his old pal Vaughters, and Cancellara - but no other GC threats. Maybe it was just a twist of fate that Lance was in the right place at the right time with his old buddies, and none of his threatening teammates like Levi or Alberto - just the redoubtable Popo and his buddy, Haimar Zubeldia.

[Update: Garmin wasn't in the break.] [Note to self: lay off celebratory tequila/oxycontin cocktails.]

For his part, Cancellara knows he won't hold the maillot jaune very long, but he and Saxo Bank would undoubtedly rather put Sastre up against a weaker-than-before Lance along with demoralized domestique Contador, than have to face motivated Contador and grudging super domestique Lance.

Isn't that all just a totally remarkable coincidence how that happened today? It's the kind of coincidence you find... in an utterly implausible opera storyline.

I've observed that Lance's assault on Contador started in the pre-race interviews of the first real race of the season, La Primavera. He's like a pirhana, if a pirhana was smart enough and patient enough to play chess by mail while computing differential equations. I know now that Lance may talk a good game about being a soul racer, but he's actually in it to win it, and he is going to press his small advantage over Contador until he is once again the unquestioned king of the team, and captain of the peloton - or he'll die trying. No two ways about it. Love him or hate the guy - and I'm on the Manichean fence about his character and whether to 'like like' him - he's a magnificent SOB.

Brace yourselves. There's a good chance the next 18 days will be 6 hours of opera a day. The frickin' Ring Cycle.

Let's just call it the Chainring Cycle.

I like the sound of that.

Surviving the Group Ride

Every so often, a rider may find him or herself a bit out of shape to hang with the usual group ride. For some of us, that so often comes a lot more often than we'd like.

Then it's double servings of humble pie. Your legs get blown out. You get dropped on the hills. You get shat out the back of the paceline like a double helping of salmonella-tainted Chicken Vindaloo. You are humiliated, ashamed, left gasping for air and coddling what's left of your scorched pride and punctured ego. And that's just in the first three miles.

I've been reminded of this situation recently. I've been slowly ramping up the efforts following my foot operation. This last week was the first week I've actually met my training goals, knocking out around 200 miles of zone 1/2 spinning. The foot's fine, thanks; feels like a very bad bruise now, which sounds awful but it's way better than feeling like a badly broken first metatarsal, which is how it felt just a couple weeks ago. But even the mildest group rides are still very tough at times.

Yep, it's the Rolling Group Ride Death Syndrome that I've got, and I have it bad right now.

There are only three ways around The Syndrome.

First, you can simply skip the group rides until you're in shape enough to hang. This produces a snake-eating-its-tail problem. If you don't hit the group rides, you won't get fit enough to hang on the group rides; and if you hang on the group rides and get dropped it will be really hard to get fit enough to hang on the group rides. If you're going to do this... well, I don't know what to say. It's like one of those time travel paradoxes. I just don't know how you solve it.

Second, you could turn into an utter wheelsucking jerk - the King of Sitting In. Now nobody minds it when a buddy sits in for a ride, or even a few. The problem for me right now, is that your July is my January. I'm knocking of base miles. I'm doing this partly because I want to train right for cross season (guess I'm aiming for a November peak...) and partly because I have no choice right now, having alternated month long train/rest periods for the first half of the year. This is a good approach if you always want to buy your own beer, never get invited to parties, and want to be the butt of jokes behind people's backs.

Third, you can figure out how to use social ju jitsu to control whatever pack you happen to be riding with.

That's my approach. Social ju jitsu. Here's a handy list of phrases to put you on the psychological attack and help you control the pace of any group ride you're on (aka the "you suckers should never take what I say seriously... seriously" list).

1. Hey, so-and-so is a NooB to the ride/cycling/life. Take it easy on him today, alright? It's bad form to drop NooBs. So slow it up.

2. Who's up for the easy coffee run today? I could sure use a couple shots of espresso myself. I think they have good muffins there too.

3. Take it easy. I'm having wicked trouble shifting. I think my derailer is about to go. I'd hate to break it this far out.

4. You've had a pretty epic week. Shouldn't you be spinning recovery today?

5. I have to take it easy. I'm trying to do an early season base peak Bompa taper. So I need to ride slow but if you aren't down with that, I totally get it.

6. I had foot surgery a month ago and can't push hard. So I'm riding base or at most tempo for a while. Seriously. It's true.

Any one of these phrases should suffice to slow down whatever group ride you're on. Some work by making the group feel a sense of responsibility for noobies and injured people. Some prey on ego - any comment praising somebody for their epic week of riding is sure to butter them up for the suggestion to take it easy. Some prey on the roadie's insatiable fascination with shiny things, and coffee, like the derailer and coffee run excuses. But the most important feature of all these psychological approaches is that you believe them.

Seriously. You have to believe them. Or at least convince people you believe them.

Now you may think that this has nothing to do with racing, but you couldn't be further from the truth. Your newfound skills at deception and rationalization (self-deception most of all) will put you in good stead. If you're in the break and can't pull through, you will know that you have it within you to tell a craven lie, to fake weakness and to avoid working until just past the 200m mark. If the pack is getting frisky, you will have the ability to lob in a suggestion to get some hated bastard to attack off the front - after which you will be able to convince the other front-markers to let him dangle for a while, and they will all slow up if you're convincing enough. And if it looks like you're about to get dropped, you'll know how to make plaintive clicks and sobbing noises, which will definitely distract your rivals long enough that you can recover and catch a handy wheel.

See? And you thought this was going to be about how to avoid doing work when you're riding. In fact, it's doing quite the opposite. You're working hard - it's just that they don't make an SRM to measure the kind of effort you're putting out.

Get 'em Started Young

I wonder if this is what Stevil's mom fed him in lieu of formula.


It would explain a lot.

Gam Jams Reviews: On the Bike Nutrition - Assorted

On-the-bike nutrition is a tough call. It's a very personal thing, and even with one person your tastes change over time, or even over the duration of a ride. I've found a handful of things that are just plain money though, and I'd like to share them with you. Maybe you try them and they work like they do for me, maybe not. I'll just throw the ideas out there for you to think about. I'm including several because there's no one mystery product - most people probably need a few different products in combination, particularly if they ride longer than two hours. Yeah, you may love Gu. But tell me how you like that stuff after 10 hours of popping one every 15 minutes. So here's the menu that rolls in my jersey pockets.

Drinks
I'm an Accellerade person for the most part, but rarely bring it for rides lasting up to 90 minutes. For rides up to 3-4 hours, it's money. There's a lot of protein in Accellerade, and I'm a protein-fueled carnivore, so it works fine for me. Them who like it loves it; them what don't hates it. The downside is that it gets fizzy and almost fermented tasting in really hot weather. And the protein bits goop up water bottles severely. It definitely powers me better than the straight carbo drinks, however, so the hassle is worth it. But if the ride is going for over 3 hours, out to 12... Hammer drinks are the only way to go. Heed is adequate to really good in the situations where I'd use Accellerade. For long long rides, Perpetuum is the schizzle. The weird thing about Hammer drinks is that they are almost sickly sweet tasting - not high powered white sugar sweet, but this almost syrupy sweetness. I can barely drink the stuff pre-ride, or early in a short ride. It's awful! But the longer the ride goes, the more desparately beaten my body feels, the easier it goes down. When I'm really hurting, I can guzzle gallons of the stuff without getting The Bloat. Unlike boutique flavored stuff like cinammon apple gels, Hammer products seem to be what your body craves, rather than what your palate craves. Ultimately, your screaming leg muscles shout way louder than your tongue and will win the argument over what to drink. I find I can only drink the sweeter, carby-er drinks in cold weather.

Rolling Food
Clif bars are sort of the standard go-to option here, and if the ride is a couple or three hours I may eat two of them. They have around 230 calories, and if you wash one down over an hour with a bottle of sports drink, you'll be at around 400 calories, which is pretty close to what most people's stomachs can digest in the space of an hour. The downside with Clif bars is that even the best tasting ones (e.g. Blueberry Crisp) still have a grainy texture that is hard to chew when you're hurting or breathing hard, and the texture is like they mixed the hulls of soybeans into it, which is really rough on the stomach after a few hours. Let's just say that they help clear the, um, pipes. I've been experimenting with other stuff and have stumbled into Odwalla bars and Luna bars. Both are wicked yummy, soft (hence easily chewed and gulped when you're hurting) and both come with either bits of tasty fruit and nuts, or nice yogurt glazes. Unlike Clif bars, which take a gulp of water to wash down, these go down without having to do the chew-drink-chew-drink routine. And they seem easy on the stomach. Which is nice. I used to think that you should try to really balance what you were eating but now I'm starting to think that for most rides it's more important to just get a mix of complex carbs and some protein in, and the more important thing is finding something you can eat, and which will go down and rest comfortably in your gut.

Break Food
For really long rides I'll eat just about anything. Seriously - whatever you can eat after 7-8 hours on the bike must be damn good stuff, because I get sick of everything else. Two foods are really key to my refueling on long rides - turkey sandwiches and dry roasted, full-salt peanuts. The peanuts have a ton of healthy fats, which are slow burning. They also replenish sodium which, if you're a sweathog like me, drips off you in great big chunks. When you're a bit short on salts, your body will crave them, and though it sounds like it would be hard to eat peanuts on a break or while rolling, they actually go down real easily. As for the turkey sandwiches - a nice turkey sandwich with swiss or provolone on a roll or some nice bread, maybe with a couple thick slices of tomato and some salt and pepper just tastes awesome to me. You'll notice it has a big whack of protein and fat - the slow burning stuff - and a fair bit of carbs. The lycopene in the tomato is supposed to do something good for you - I don't know what it is but I suspect it refuels your inner Italian. Italians eat tomatoes, and they ride well, so we all should eat tomatoes, right? I've also refueled successfully with a big greasy salty cheeseburger and berry pie. Like I said, whatever goes down easy. The turkey sandwich is what I'm talking about when I say it's individual. I don't get tired of eating them mid-race or on a randonee or charity century, and at an event like Baker's dozen, they fueled me pretty nicely. They weren't enough by themselves, but they formed the backbone of a decent nutritional strategy. (It wasn't nutrition that did me in at Baker's...) Other surprisingly nice break foods include chilled melon, and dill pickles. I had some pickles at Baker's and everybody who tried one reported a quick pickup afterwards. It's funny. Pre-Gatorade, coaches used to make athletes working out in hot weather drink pickle juice. Maybe those old boys knew a thing or two. Plus an ice cold dill on a hot day scratches the cool stuff itch at the same time it meets the sodium need.

Bailout Foods
Emergency foods are something we all need from time to time. About every two or three months, I'll have a ride where I get into a bit of trouble. When that happens, I need fuel fast. The bonk is rapidly approaching, and things will go bad if I don't get it together quickly. If it's not in your pockets, help is available at the nearest convenience store, thankfully. Good bike-friendly bailout foods include Gu or better yet Hammer Gel, of course. Like Bounty paper towels, they're the quicker picker upper.

If you have to hit the Sheetz, a nice fat muffin may help. A 16 ounce bottle of milk is an awesome bailout drink too - tons of calories, fast absorbtion because it's liquid, and a bit of fat so you feel good for quite a while and there's no blood sugar rush with its commensurate crash.

But the ultimate bailout food is a 16 or 20 ounce Coke, full sugar, full caffeine. I've found that if the reaper is approaching and I'm teetering on the edge of the abyss, milk and Hammer gel are willing to extend a helping hand to help me walk back from the edge but Hi-Test Coke swoops in, picks me up, and puts me right back on the road. The only downside to the Coke is it comes with a blood sugar rush and crash. A Coke buys you maybe 40 minutes or an hour to get your nutritional act together. If it's going to take a while to get home, you'd best eat something substantial after you down the Coke, or with it; otherwise the bonk will be back with vengeance.

The Main Thing
The main thing about on-the-bike nutrition though, is to do as LeMond says, eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty. In other words, don't get in a hole. Comrade Scott Gibbons reminded me of this earlier in the year; he said he'd had a bad 12 hour race last year because "once you get in a hole nutritionally, you just can't dig yourself out." Find some stuff you can eat and drink and not get sick or bloated on, then down 400 calories of it per hour with 16-24 ounces of fluid, right? That'll do the trick, even if it's Milk Bonez and near beer.

Sports Chauvinism

I recently helped a colleague start commuting regularly to work. He’s one of several people at work I’ve turned on to the joys of riding a bike every day. I offered some gear advice, helped him the first few times with routes, warned him about some of the usual hassles – Volvos with diplomatic plates, for instance – and how to integrate riding into working (hint: keep your suits at work and find a reliable Korean dry cleaner/tailor). We have a good cackle at the end of our rides toward home. Yes, the stress from some insane situations at work just melts away. Yes, we have more energy. Yes, we’re nicer and more present for our families and less distracted by other hassles. And yes, we’re healthier. What I said about riding was all true, he told me today. And I agreed.

In short, I’ve sold a few people on riding the bike, and they’ve gotten hooked. How does that happen? I don’t know, exactly. But I’ll tell you how it doesn’t happen.

Over the weekend, I was listening to ESPN radio. They were having a good chuckle at the improbable U.S. run at the Confederation Cup, an off-year version of the World Cup. The U.S. did pretty well and the host made the mistake of asking what it would take for soccer to cross over into the mainstream and hit it big – NFL big – in the United States.

In retaliation, soccer fans unloaded on him. About half were simply pleased to death that the U.S. did well in the Confederations Cup.

The other half enjoyed their 15 seconds of fame explaining, via text, email and phone call, that the U.S. is a stupid bad place because we are all fat and stupid and out of step with the rest of the world and like the NFL and we’re unsophisticated and maybe this will straighten us out and don’t make me take a breath because I’m on a rant here and America just blows compared to the soccer friendly countries and we have a new president who should help and why doesn’t ESPN knock hockey off the network (they did) and football (yeah right) and what the hell is wrong with them don’t they know it’s the biggest game in the world and…

This is simple sports chauvinism and it's stupid if you’re trying to win fans to your sport.

In fact, it does the opposite of winning fans to your sport. It alienates people from it.

On the merits of the claims of the rabid fans, I have news for you people. Soccer is the sport of the lumpenproles in most of the world. They don’t fancy themselves sophisticates who get it when all round them just don’t see their tortured genius. They don't fancy themselves much of anything, to tell the truth. They're mostly busy just trying to get along. If you are short on teeth, shirts, shoes and sobriety, and you live in a place which consumes less per capita per annum than the typical Real Hollywood Wives Personal Assistant does in the course of a morning, then soccer is likely your sport.

Excuse me, soccer fanatics. I meant, Foooot… ah-Bowl fahns. Because if you don’t say it right, that is like a semi-literate Honduran on a German team being interviewed in English by a Russian announcer at a friendly match in Turkey, it means you just don’t get the Foooot…ah-Bowl mystique. If you have tribal or religious or centuries-old political rivalries and The Officials no longer let you practice the blood feud, soccer is likely your sport. Birmingham City v. Wolverhampton, anyone? What, British racist skinheads not your fancy? Then would you care for a sophisticated serving of Catania-Palermo, with a side dish of Lazio-Livorno, washed down with a neat little shot of Celtic-Rangers?

But this is all irrelevant. I’m not trying to run down soccer, which I like alright, but to run down sports chauvinism generally. Yeah, it’s wonderful that soccer is popular in Europe and South America and in third grade classes alike. That doesn’t mean it’s right for everybody. If majority rule was the determinant of excellence, we’d all be striving to eat rice for every meal, we’d wear bluejeans everywhere (including at our own funerals) and we’d be stuck listening to Menudo. Or maybe Rush Limbaugh, who just might have the top talk political talk show worldwide.

You want to live in a world like that? I don’t. (No offense meant, Rush. Please don’t have me killed by Mr. Snerdly).

Arguing lifestyle/cultural supremacy as a selling point for your way of life is like telling people who hate spinach to eat spinach, and then telling them they’ll go to hell if they don’t convince themselves they love it. (Note to Self: Contact American Spinach Counsel and remind them not to do this). Ultimately, it’s a way to inculcate hatred of spinach in people who otherwise wouldn’t be enemies. The people you turn off – the people you convert to the spinach- (or soccer-) hating cause will tell others at the water cooler that the thing you are passionate about sucks. There’s nothing wrong with soccer fans worldwide. But understand that the superiority that the soccer fanatics are trying to push on us – the Euro- or MesoAmerican soccer culture that is supposedly superior to NHL or NFL or MLB fan-dom, involves getting wicked hammered; for many it involves rioting or streetfights based on blind rivalry and stupid grudges; and it involves causing the noses of the middle-to-upper classes in their respective countries to curl up in disgust.

Yes, that’s right, you heard it here first: soccer is not the darling of the elite in most of the countries cited; it’s their NASCAR, but without sweet V-8 iron, peaceful crowds, and most of all without NASCAR’s amazingly upscale fan demographics.

The attempt to shame people into loving a sport is always stupid and lame.

Thing is, people like what they will like. You don't sell a sport by attacking people who like other sports.

You probably know where this is going now.

I sometimes hear cyclists arguing for cycling by saying we'd be smarter and thinner and prettier and more in step with the rest of the world if we rode bikes a lot more. Racing would be more popular if Americans were just better people. If only there was more television coverage, everybody would love it. (Because if 6 hours of coverage of a flat stage of the TdF isn’t enough to turn people on to the sport, I don’t know what is…)

Do we know what pro bike racing really is?

American neo-pros are always shocked to have to go into a smoky bar and get their race number from some drunk old Belgian guy who is hammering gin and eating Frites with greasy fingers. We’re always shocked to hear about riders doing desperate things to compete and win. The pain of the riders sounds terrifying. A lot of the teams are run by sharp dealers. Supposedly premier races are run by shoddy promoters and sketchy sanctioning bodies. We’re appalled by all this. When a rider can’t handle fame and fortune and becomes a junkie, we act like it’s shocking that they didn’t handle their success well. It’s as if we expected something a lot better.

It’s like we’re the cycling counterparts of the evil half of the American soccer fans. Like we’re proselytizing for an idealized version of a sport that doesn’t actually exist, where the racers are all clean and articulate and faster than average, and all the other riders are cute Copenhagen girls on the just the perfect city bike. But this is our upscale image of the sport and the vehicle. Upscale foreign soccer, clean always exciting upscale bicycling... don't exist. Ultimately, it's just kicking a damn ball around or riding a damn bike, either of which is a great thing, but it's as simple and common as sneezing or walking.

Consider the possibility that maybe we’re cycling chauvinists, and that maybe cycling will sell itself in this country as it sells itself, no faster. Be open to making new converts, but don’t try to force people into it, and don’t lecture them about how dumb they are if they don’t ride. Particularly don’t lecture them about their inferiority to the Chinese, the Dutch, Africans. It doesn’t work, and believe me, if you talk to a Chinese or African cyclist, what they really want is to save up for a car. The Dutch… well… they sell a lot of dope in Amsterdam, I guess.

So what works to sell cycling, and our sport of racing? Well, Lance brought a lot of people into cycling, so did higher gas prices. The next great American cyclist - and there are some in the pipeline like (maybe) Tyler Farrar - may bring more people to racing. This is all good. The current boomlet is nice, maybe if we do some bike advocacy to make the world friendlier for riders, maybe if we talk up the sport in a positive way when asked, ask the boss for showers at work for commuters, maybe if we schedule a viewing party – for the last 90 minutes of a great TdF stage – we can win some converts.

But we shouldn’t start from the premise that there’s something wrong with people who just don’t get it. Yeah, our sport is the greatest sport there is – for us. Other people maybe just haven’t seen the light yet. If we want to win converts to the sport, it’s our job to show our light to them – not to curse them out for standing in the darkness.