HIGH ENERGY MOTIVATION. GET OUT AND RIDE!

Shifting: A Lost Art. part 1

    Most people don’t shift enough, which leads to premature   drivetrain wear, sore knees (or worse) and one tired rider. Here’s how to shift a bicycle: Think of yourself as the bike’s engine. Like an auto engine, you’re most efficient pedaling at a certain rate, usually from 70 to 90 pedal revolutions per minute. To maintain this efficiency, shift every time you feel your pedaling rate (called cadence) slow or speed up. Following this rule, on a rolling course, you’ll be shifting almost constantly to maintain that steady cadence. But at ride’s end, you’ll be fresh while a ride partner who shifts less will be spent.

How do you know what gear to select? First, don’t get confused by the many choices, and don’t worry about harming the bike by shifting it “wrong” — you can’t hurt it as long as you slightly ease the pedal pressure when shifting (you must pedal to shift). And understand that the correct gear is any gear that allows you to pedal comfortably at the moment. There’s no right or wrong gear and there’s no proper sequence to follow. You just shift when your body tells you it’s time for a change. Just compare to the RPM's on a car.

Shifting the right lever one click makes it slightly easier or harder to pedal. Think of this lever as a way to fine-tune the effort required to pedal. As you pick up speed on a slight downhill for example, you’d click the lever once or twice to shift into a better gear for the speed. Shifting the left lever makes large differences in pedal effort. Think of this lever as a way to make it considerably easier or harder to pedal. Dropping into a valley for instance, you’ll want an easy gear to get back out. But, you’ll probably be in a hard gear because you were just riding downhill. To make the pedaling easy immediately, shift the left lever to move the chain onto a smaller chainring providing much easier pedaling.

If you’re at all nervous about shifting, practice. A good way to do this is to shift the bike when it’s supported on a stand. You might place the bike on a trunk-style bike rack or in a repair stand, hang the nose of the seat on a low branch, or ask a friend to hold the bike off the ground by the seat. Once the bike is supported, use one hand to pedal and the other to shift while watching the chain move over the cogs and chainrings. With a few sweeps of the levers, you’ll get a clear understanding of what’s going on back there and should feel more comfortable about shifting a lot while riding.

ENJOY!

ONE OF THE BEST MTB RIDING VIDEOS. Awesome scenes and magnificent edit work. You guys make me fall in love with mtb again and again. SET ME ON FIRE!

Bikes stimulates creativity and possibilities.

On the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif. there’s a strange kind of meeting space: a seven person bicycle.
“Imagine one person facing forward and then the other six people around a circle,” explains Google’s Brendon Harrington. “And the way the bike is manufactured and constructed everyone can actually peddle each other all contributing to propel the bike forward. But since they’re facing each other, they can chat with each other, they can share ideas, they can have a team meeting if they’d like.”

Pandora, in Oakland, organizes employee bike rides. Foursquare encourages employees to bike to meetings. Etsy’s got an in-house bike mechanic.
That’s pretty much the way it is in the tech sector these days: companies are in a race to outdo each other on bike-friendliness.
“Biking has become the mode of choice for the educated high-tech worker,” says Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at NYU. ”The modern office today is not really jsut a work place. It’s a play place.  If you go to Mozilla they have pool tables.”
At Foursquare’s new offices in SoHo, New York (conveniently located on a major East-West bike lane) — there’s a ping pong table and a dart board.
Biking is so-ingrained in the paradigm, that when I asked Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley whether he thought his brand new bike-rack would help attract talent, he didn’t understand the question. “It was not an option to be in a building where people would have to leave their bikes outside,” Crowley told me.
For him, and other tech CEO’s, NOT having a place to store bikes in the office would be like building a suburban campus without a parking lot.
“We talk about Foursquare as being — as creating software that helps people change the way they experience or use cities. I think bikes do the same thing.”

How alcohol affects your body and exercise.

Alcohol in your system is detrimental to any kind of fitness activity (except maybe on the dance floor). Here's how booze wreaks havoc on your regimen.

1. Slower Recovery
Hard workouts drain the glycogen stores (carbs stored in the liver and muscles) and leave your muscle tissue in need of repair. "Pouring alcohol into your system as soon as you finish stalls the recovery process," says Tavis Piattoly, R.D. High levels of alcohol displace the carbs, leaving your stores still 50 percent lower than normal even eight hours later, according to one study. Sip or snack on a combo of muscle-repairing protein and carbs (think low-fat chocolate milk or peanut butter on whole-wheat crackers) before tipping back.

2. Packed-On Fat
When booze is on board, your body, besides having to deal with the surplus of calories, prioritizes metabolizing the alcohol over burning fat and carbs. Alcohol also breaks down amino acids and stores them as fat. "For some reason this process is most pronounced in the thighs and glutes," says Piattoly. "Excessive alcohol consumption really chews up muscle in those areas." It also increases levels of cortisol (a stress hormone), which further encourages fat storage, particularly in your midsection.

3. Disrupted Sleep
Boozing also blows your muscle recovery and performance by sapping your sleep. In a study of 93 men and women, researchers found that alcohol decreased sleep duration and increased wakefulness (particularly in the second half of the night), especially in women, whose sleep time was decreased by more than 30 minutes over the night. "Disrupting the sleep cycle can reduce your human growth hormone output—which builds muscle—by as much as 70 percent," says Piattoly.

4. Depleted Water and Nutrients
Alcohol irritates the stomach lining, which can reduce your capacity to absorb nutrients (the reason you have an upset stomach after a few too many), says Brian R. Christie, Ph.D.—not to mention that alcohol makes you pee. For every gram of ethanol you suck down, you pump out 10 milliliters of urine (that's about 9.5 ounces for two beers). As little as 2 percent dehydration hurts endurance performance. And by the way, you can't rehydrate with a dehydrating drink (e.g., beer).

Orlando Urban Assault Ride "The East Ride"

Orlando is well know for the Mouse and its parks, but for the cyclist this group is always on time.
For many years twice a week this group get together and take the town. Done at night and on MTB's, the Urban Assault as they call it, has become the latest trend with the 9 to 5 professionals with a healthy attitude and a young spirit. Imagine those old days riding along the neighborhood with the buddies when you were 12!

Here is the info:

 Mix of road riding & mountain biking in an urban & residential setting. The route is random with some urban obstacles (eg. curbs, staircases, medians, etc.) Ride is roughly 2hrs long and averages about 25 miles. Speed varies throughout the ride but overall average is around 16-18mph. We will ride thru (not all in one night) Casselberry, Winter Park, Winter Springs, Longwood, Maitland. Suburbia is more cyclist friendly and most of the streets/roads have bike lanes. But we have plenty of residential roads and trails to zig zag around. **WEATHER PERMITTING!!**This is a no-drop ride - nobody gets left behind. Lights and helmet are required. We meet in the parking lot next to the Buffalo Wild Wings at 7:00. We roll out around 7:05. Ride ends at the starting point. The BWW restaurant/ bar with outdoor seating for food, drink. Hope to see you there.

The Health Benefits of Cycling

       7 Health Benefits of Cycling


Bicycling, along with being the most efficient mode of human locomotion, is also one of the best all-around activities for improving our health. From head to toes, cycling’s health benefits are hard to beat.

1. Cycling is good for your heart: Cycling is associated with improved cardiovascular fitness, as well as a decrease in the risk of coronary heart disease.

2. Cycling is good for your muscles: Riding a bike is great for toning and building your muscles, especially in the lower half of the body – your calves, your thighs, and your rear end. It’s also a great low-impact mode of exercise for those with joint conditions or injuries to the legs or hips, which might keep them from being active.

3. Cycling is good for your waistline: You can burn a lot of calories while biking, especially when you cycle faster than a leisurely pace, and cycling has been associated with helping to keep weight gain down. And cycling has the added benefit of ramping up your metabolism, even after the ride is over.

4. Cycling is good for your lifespan: Bicycling is a great way to increase your longevity, as cycling regularly has been associated with increased ‘life-years’, even when adjusted for risks of injury through cycling.

5. Cycling is good for your coordination: Moving both feet around in circles while steering with both your hands and your body’s own weight is good practice for your coordination skills.

6. Cycling is good for your mental health: Riding a bike has been linked to improved mental health.

7. Cycling is good for your immune system: Cycling can strengthen your immune system, and could protect against certain kinds of cancers.