Bones

The news that Lance Armstrong broke his shin running the New York marathon should give cyclists pause. The link between osteoporosis and cycling is well known. And when an athlete at Lance's level breaks a leg bone through repetitive stress, the lesson's severity likely doesn't quite apply to those of us more toward the median of cycling accomplishment. But there are things to be remembered and learned from this precipitating event.

Lance was hyper-trained, and his bones are more porous likely for two main reasons: he had an incredibly low body mass index (there is a correlation between low BMI and osteoporosis, but see my post on BMI for some reflections on the problems with that measure), and a lack of weight-bearing exercise. He then turned to running, and trained at a fairly high level to participate in an endurance run. It was akin to spending years as a professional deep sea diver and then scaling Everest a year after quitting the sea. The body was bound to complain.

There's a fair amount of lore about what causes osteoporosis in your average person. The most common misconception is that drinking soda is a cause, with the theory being that the phosphoric acid in most colas leeches calcium from the bones and weakens them. However, research has shown that this is probably exactly wrong -- high intake of phosphoric acid may actually strengthen bones. This is actually a classic "correlation, not causation" case of confusion. Phosphoric acid is in colas, and people who drink colas have been found to have weaker bones. However, this is because they are drinking sodas instead of milk, and displacing so much calcium from your diet will lead to weaker bones. Correlation, not causation.

But the link between a lack of weight-bearing exercise and osteoporosis is clear. The jarring and shaking of pounding the pavement stimulates osteoclasts, the precursors of bone, leading to more bone formation. Go long enough with suppressed osteoclast stimulation, the natural processing of calcium and reabsorption of bone outstrips its replacement, and you get Swiss cheese at the microscopic level. Soon enough, the holes combine and, snap, you can have what is termed a "fragility fracture."

Walk, jump, dance, run, climb stairs, and do plyometrics. Jar those bones, shake those osteoclasts, and activate those bones. Then, give them what they need to grow and rebuild: eat the cheese and yogurt, drink that skim milk. Or the next break you have may not be a lucky break.

Cheating

The layers of idealism, politics, science, phobia, and greed that combine to form cycling's doping problem deserve to be taken apart. For me, the impetus to finally attempt this is the Landis Tour de France doping situation, which I think is clearly a French conspiracy -- after seven years of Lance dominance, the French partisans were fed up, couldn't quite sully the name of Armstrong with even post-career scandalization, and decided to frame a successful active American racer and deprive him of his rightful win in the 2006 race. And they knew all they needed was a semi-serious accusation that would resonate in the press. Since they couldn't win legitimately, they cheated.

For the 2006 race, I really started paying attention when they hit the mountains. The course was such that the mountains were going to be decisive. Watching Landis on the day he cracked, I remember thinking, "That's one smart cyclist. He's realized that he can't win today, so he's going to preserve himself by crawling up the last climbs so he can bounce back with extra energy tomorrow. He's even willing to suffer the humiliation of this grandmotherly pace in order to execute sound strategy!"

Of course, the next day, Landis scorched the field and surged back into the lead. And then the framing began.

This particular frame was made from existing materials. First, cycling is the most monitored sport outside of weightlifting for banned substances. Baseball and football fans are living in a fool's paradise of ignorance -- many of their players are playing juiced all the time -- but those sports have decided to put in the most rudimentary and beatable testing schemes imaginable, yet they still catch juicers, if that's any indication of how widespread the practice is in those sports. The hypocrisy within the sports world is already severe when it comes to the notion of ingesting or injecting performance-enhancing substances. Cycling's idealism about doping is perhaps admirable, but also perhaps foolish. Idealism can be either.

Another raw material used to make the frame is drug phobia. Athletes can specifically gain advantages through altitude training (which boosts their red blood cell counts pretty much as EPO can); through carefully managed, professional nutritional programs that shed pounds; and through massage, jacuzzis, and other recovery strategies. None of these is banned. Each can enhance performance. But, heaven forbid you drink too much caffeine or take anything else that's deemed a drug. You can use money (to support travel to and living at altitude), staff (get the best masseurs and physiologists), and chefs to gain advantages, but not a drug.

And this is not for reasons of safety. Look how long it took cycling organizations to make helmets mandatory. If safety were a priority in pro cycling, then descents would be less dramatic (lower speeds, fewer hairpin turns, more concern about skirting cliffs), sprints would be forbidden, and races over cobbles wouldn't exist. Safety is something sponsors and organizers worry about occasionally. And drug safety is addressable even if drugs were allowed.

If the notion is to eliminate one-sided advantages, then training programs, nutrition, and masseurs would be equalized. If the problem were safety, then the demonstrated dangers of descents, sprints, and cobbles should be addressed. So, the drug issue is not about unfair advantages, safety, or the ideal of the untainted athlete (is a pampered athlete who trains at altitude and sleeps at sea level untainted?). It is about drug phobia. In cycling, the drug phobia can be used to smear people without adequate evidence. Just the allegation carries such taint that it effectively cancels out performance.

We live in a culture that is hypocritical about drugs -- we are appalled that competitive athletes might take substances to recover faster, breath easier, or compete more effectively (forgetting that they are running these risks for millions of dollars), but give us our caffeine, cold medicine, Viagra, and bogus nutritional supplements when very little is at stake -- well, we have stressful lives and are fighting to stay young. But let's make sure our athletes are pure, as ideals. We'll be the reality, they will be the idealizations. We can't let them manage risk on their own when it comes to things they put in their bodies, but we can let them deal with the risks on the road at high speeds, despite the fatalities that occur each year.

The frame around Landis needed this high level of drug phobia to work, because the circumstances and science don't hold up on their own. Not only were multiple procedural steps missed in the test, with not even the correct rider number assigned to samples at key transitions, but the communications from the authorities involved had "frame up" written all over them (it was like a bad murder mystery, in which the killer gives himself away by stating something only the killer could have known). However, facts, forensics, and science have an uphill battle against drug phobia brandished by witch hunters, nationalists, and a corrupt lab.

Plainly, slathering yourself with testosterone cream one evening is not going to create the kind of performance that Landis gave that day. Let's be realistic. Testosterone cream doesn't work that way. In fact, testosterone doesn't work that way. What does work that way is this: a super-fit rider preserves his strength on brutal climbs the day before, nurses the sting of humiliation overnight, and transforms that sting through recovery into an inspired ride. That is the formula for a spectacular rebound performance. That is what enhances great athletes.

The Landis affair is a travesty. The French partisans combined nationalism, drug phobia, and pseudoscience in an effort to drive a great American champion from the podium, or at least taint his win severely. Landis was framed. Fans and cyclists deserve better. Our experience as fans and the reputation of cycling has been cheated by misplaced idealism, drug phobia, or the misconduct of authorities.

Freezer Burn

Temperatures have just dropped down into the teens for lows, and the sun cannot pierce the opaline skies most mornings. Winter riding has started again, and the sensations forgotten in the intervening months have been reaffirmed -- painfully cold fingers, frigid feet, the icy nose, a frozen mouth, and a chapped face. Most importantly, these first few rides in the subfreezing weather have revived another set of memories -- that cold weather makes breathing and pedaling more difficult.

Air actually becomes thicker and heavier in cold weather. It is, after all, its new proximity to stasis that creates cold. Water is more condensed in cold air, air that is not as available to the lungs immediately as warm air. This makes breathing on colder rides a bit more of an effort. In addition, the energy needed to continually warm the cold air leads to extra depletion, not to mention the most obvious side-effect, the increased production of mucous to compensate for the cold.

Evaporation in the cold can be deceptive, and it's easy to think you don't need a bottle of energy drink along. After all, how much sweating will you do in 20F weather? But the extra evaporation from your lungs in the cold air, along with the mucous production, can combine to deplete as much water as a heavy sweat, especially when you realize that you are also sweating, but at a lower level and with less of a sensation of sweatiness.

Rides also get shorter in the flash-freeze. There is the first psychological barrier to get over (damn, it's COLD out there!), and if the wind is also blowing, you may just choose the indoor trainer and a grainy old Spinervals instead. But the extra effort, dicey roads, unpleasant sensations (cold feet are among my least favorite things), and limited daylight combine to truncate rides. And the intensity is harder to maintain, even on shorter rides, as cold keeps your own molecular activity on the slower side.

Yet, there is a burn to a winter ride, and the feeling afterward can be sensational. In addition to the pleasant feeling of being outside, in the weak sunlight and biting air, there is the fact that, happily, all this culminates in a hot post-ride shower, after which toes are pink and warm again, fingers move effortlessly, and speech is once again fully articulated. Savoring the reassuring pain of frozen fingers and toes straining back to temperature is what the wrap-up is all about. Then, warm, fit, and relaxed, you glide back into the day, and realize that you have been fully a part of two worlds -- the frozen natural world, and the world of manufactured warmth humans huddle inside these dark months. And, soon, you're ready to go again . . .

The Paceline

Watching professional cycling races on television a few years ago, before plunging back into cycling, I was astounded at the power and speeds generated by pacelines. The ease with which riders cranked up to and sustained such velocities was seemingly unattainable. I'd never experienced the feeling, having ridden mostly solo in college and afterwards, or enjoying single-track during a few years of mountain biking before getting married.

After about two years of riding at this point in my life, I had been in a few pacelines, but nothing very well organized. Either the line would fragment soon after forming, or the pace would be too unpredictable for the coordinated power to emerge.

Then, in the early part of a local century ride a few years ago, I found myself in the midst of a strong paceline, one with an unspoken and broadly shared sense of how to do it. The weather was sunny and temperate, and people pulled for about 5 minutes each before rotating off to the back. Everyone took turns, and murmured "nice pull" as riders drifted back to nestle in for a draft. Soon, I glanced down at my cyclometer, and noticed we were effortlessly gliding along at 26-27 mph. The century was over with before I knew it, and I arrived back home well ahead of schedule, to the consternation of my neighborhood cycling buddies. They couldn't believe I'd ridden the whole event, showered, eaten, and driven home well before the afternoon had hit its stride.

Well, I was hooked on that experience, and of course began seeking it out. It was occasionally frustrating. Again and again, pacelines would start to form, only to be thwarted by a lack of coordination among the riders, a route interrupted too frequently by intersecting car traffic, or hills that would shatter the group. But, the pacelines did start to happen more and more often.

The next paceline I caught was the next spring, at an early-season century, and it emerged as we left the start line. For about 25 miles, the line snaked through the route at high speeds. The time flew by, the chatter was fun, and everyone was doing their job. Then, we caught and absorbed another group that looked coordinated and speedy, but turned out to consist of two strong riders who shared pulls and a set of wheelsuckers. The group was wedged apart when the wheelsuckers came to dominate the back half and we hit the hills. Luckily, I was toward the front and pressed on, but our ranks were depleted, and the rest of the ride to the first water stop was a bit more ragged than it should have been.

Since then, pacelines have become commonplace. In fact, I rarely ride an event without one for the majority of the ride. After feeling not only the clear aerodynamic benefits that allow you to conserve your strength and energy, but also the thrill when the group collectively cranks it up, I rarely allow myself to be caught without one.

A recent double-century was an event in which I was caught out, however, and I clearly saw the other side of the coin. Riding into headwinds for hours on end solo was exhausting. And, the clearest lesson is that that lonely no-man's land outside a paceline is self-reinforcing -- you get too tired to catch a passing line of fresher riders, so remain stuck in a netherworld of solo riding, never able to recover enough to link up with a swifter paceline.

With this bitter experience in my mind, I was reassured when recently, out on a solo ride, I was able to hook up with a few riders finishing their ride on a common local route. I knew one of the riders, so we fell into talking, and then instinctively formed a paceline and worked it efficiently. It was what friendliness is all about -- working in coordination to cut the headwinds for your pals, taking turns, doing your part. And for cyclists, the paceline captures the essence of the sport, and why it touches on some of the larger lessons of living a good life.