Viva la France!

Back to now-not-so-recent trip, here is Romney's account of France. Tres magnifique!

Assault of Western Europe, Part IV: The French Revolution

It's a long report, with heaps of pics. Enjoy!

In spite of their reputation for rudeness, I've always enjoyed the French people and their county. Very much so. This trip was being hosted by Americans. Namely, my friends Bruce and Alisa, whom I knew from my climbing days and, also, from hangin' out at the art studio they opened just down the street from where I lived in LA. Like me, they were climbers turned cyclists. Like me, the loved the French lifestyle.

Bruce and Alisa were on taking a year off work and living in France. Actually, they still are. They have a blog that's worth checking out, if just to make you jealous:

Our Juicy Life

After a few years of riding and racing I began climbing again. This hadn't yet happened with Bruce or Alisa and it just seemed wrong given there were living amongst some of the most beautiful limestone walls in the world. One of the coolest things we did was to get Bruce back on a rope. He was a super strong climber, as well as a climbing instructor, back in the day. It was fun watching him, not only get psyched himself, but how his instructor-ness came back also. I think he taught Lisa more in a couple of days out than I have in a year.
bruce, attempting a F7b on his second climbing day in a decade. rad.
Actually, everything we did was super cool. The trip was amazing. It's always hard to leave Europe and this time was no different. It was probably harder than ever. On our last days we were looking at bed and breakfasts. I hope they buy one because I can't wait to go back.
our hosts and les artists at the incredible museum of the absurd.

Best Urban Ride in the US

Yesterday I used our still-spring-like conditions to put the finishing touches on Ronde van Salt Lake City. It’s got to be the best urban ride in the US. Seriously. Okay, so I always say that everything I'm currently doing is the best thing ever. But... seriously. I’m going to organize a group ride in the coming month or so and add coordinates on the web. Everyone should do it. No, really, seriously.

It’s called the Ronde because it’s my version of the Tour of Flanders (or Ronde van Vlaanderen). To mimic the ride (race course that’s marked for the public who ride it regularly), I tried to include all of the elements that make that course so amazing. This includes:

Great scenery
Very few traffic stops
Small winding roads with character
Lots of famous landmarks en route
Great places to eat en route
All of the famous “bergs” in an area (short steep climbs)
Sections of cobblestones
slc pave

It took me a while, and a fair amount of exploring, to concoct this. But there are very few sections of the entire ride when I’m not looking around and thinking about how cool it is. It’s hard, but not impossible for a weekend warrior. And it’s laid out in a way where those wanting to abridge the challenge can skip hard climbs or sections of “SLC pave”.

I’ll post the exact course later, along with a date for a group ride (which will be a Sunday in the next 6 weeks or so). For now, here is the general scope.

Probably 75 miles.
16 bergs, the longest of which is less than two miles and many are very short.
10 sections of SLC pave, the longest of which is less than two miles and many are very short.
20 or so bridge crossings, most of which are short (over the Jordan River), but all are made of “wooden cobbles”.

It passes by many of SLC’s famous landmarks, including great views of every canyon from City Creek to Little Cottonwood, a bunch of mtn bike and hiking trailheads, a few climbing areas, The Jordan River Parkway and most of its parks, most affluent neighborhoods, the hip neighborhoods, the burbs, the hood, downtown, every major sports venue, the U of U, a quarry (you have to ride through a quarry for full Utah experience), and, of course, the crazy downtown LDS complex.

atypical views for an urban ride

The first 40 miles or so are mainly flat, at which point you’re only about 15 miles from where we’ll start. This makes it a pretty doable ride for most people. Over the next 40 or so you hit most of the climbs and all of the pave. It’s brutal. Over the last 20 or so miles it’s almost never flat. If it were a race, any attack here could succeed as there’s never a point where a group would have a huge advantage for long. During this last section there is only one stop light to deal with, and probably only 20 or so over the entire ride.
cobble sector 8

I picked some of the steepest roads in town, including Zane, K Street, and I Street, but the climbs were chosen more for aesthetics then pure difficulty. One of the coolest climbs winds steeply through a cemetery, another is closed to cars, covered by trees and next to a river. Many crest the benches and offer incredible views. On almost every climb and every cobble section asked myself “how could this be any better?”

It could be better. It could have real cobbles. It could have Belgian food. But they don’t have our scenery, so it stacks up. Because this course doesn’t go into the mountains it’ll be best as a spring ride. Fall will probably come with too much puncture potential (stickers and such). Summer, when I’m doing it this year, can be brutally hot. So this modern classic will officially begin next spring, though I’m giving it a test run soon. And everyone should come. Seriously.
section of single track that's better on a road bike than a hippie bike. seriously.

Work

I made a little video of the type of things that go into a first ascent. Generally you do all of your cleaning hanging from a rope. This presents its own set of challenges but at least you don’t have to dig stuff out of the ground.

The work you do on first ascents can be grueling. We generally never climb on work days because we're completely exhausted. In fact, we used to schedule work phases into our training. Nothing burns calories like building new lines on an overhanging wall. It’s like combining aerialist training with construction work. It can also be a little dangerous as you’re often wielding heavy machinery. We used to lament that we should be paid for public service. Climbing activists generally have little in the way of funds but spend countless hours doing what is considered highly skilled labor for free.

My friend Micah was in town this week so it became a transitional block as I showed him around the local crags. This worked out well as my tendonitis has really calmed down. I think I’m ready for the next phase of hard training. This I’m going to need. Badly. The above little work session added about 10 reasonably hard moves to my project. And it’s not like it wasn’t going to push my boundaries already.

Open Discussion on Health Care

At dinner last night with my wife and one of her co-workers we were discussing the declining state of health in our society. There is no longer any question that most of this is due to poor health habits. We eat bad food, we eat too much of it, and we don’t exercise enough. The result is that type 2 diabetes and other related lifestyle-induced diseases are the fastest growing illnesses in the world.

I’m in favor of a national health care system of some sort. Dave’s main problem with this is covering people who don’t bother to try and keep themselves healthy. On this point, I concur, but I pointed out that we do this now. While we don’t have an actual health care plan we do have a national system. In this system anyone can use an emergency room. So now our ERs are filled with people who have minor ailments, which interfere with those who need emergency treatment.

While the above paragraph somewhat summarized to talking point of the left and right on health care, the actually issue lies elsewhere. The solution is health practice. As a nation we could easily afford to take care of those who are sick and injuries if we could get rid of the problems associated with poor eating habits and lack of exercise. We’ve done it in the past, with both alcohol and tobacco, when we realized the national impact it was having. It’s high time we begin doing the same thing with other lifestyle behaviors that are costing society.

I’m not going to cite any numbers or details yet. These are just my opening thoughts. I’d like to start formulating a plan. If we can formulate a compelling argument we can use to three or so million of us associated with Beachbody to make ourselves heard on a national level.

Part I of the plan: Food labeling

We need to make the next step in food labeling. Our current macro-nutrient profiles can hide how our foods are often devoid of phytonutrients. What we need is to have every packaged food to be given a grade by the FDA: A – F.

Then, like using Michi’s Ladder, you’d be encouraged to eat higher grade foods. Of course we’d have corporate lobbying and disputed grades but, for the most part, good foods would still be obvious. For example, maybe a good potato chip would get a C while a bad one got an F, but no potato chip could ever get better than a C because no matter how you look at it these have no place in your diet other than as an indulgence. Ditto for ice cream and most desserts. All fruits and veggies would be A or B. No sense splitting hairs here. We’ll want to do this as consumers but veggies from nutrient depleted soil are still better than the best French fry.

Next, the government only allows food stamps to pay for A and B grade foods. If we don’t allow them to be used for beer and smokes, how can we allow them to be used for Coke and Cheetoes, which are arguably worse for you? There is no way a person on assisted living should be able to be obese. Yet this demographic is now highly obese and putting a huge strain on our health care system because of it.

The insidious reason why is because their diets are mainly made up of cheap processed food. There is no logic to why processed foods should be cheaper than those that take no processing until you understand how large scale food companies operate. Most “convenient foods” are made up of many bi-products from corn and soy production. These ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup, soy lecithin, etc, etc, should be waste products but we’ve clever found ways to not only use them in our foods, but make entire foods out of them. Oh, the wonders of what chemical flavoring agents can do with what is essentially trash.

Most of this doesn’t have much nutrient merit so we fortify with just enough cheap vitamins and stuff to label it food. Obviously, this gook will be lacking some of nature’s subtleties but, hey, if it’s crunchy, tasty, and fills us up who’s to question it? Maybe the FDA can step in here and do some good.

We may be eliminating health class in school, or having our nutrition taught to us by the soda companies, but it’s not going to take an educated person to understand that if their cupboards are filled with D and F labeled foods that they probably could eat a little better. I think this one step would end up saving our country billions of dollars in health care costs. And it’s just step one. Next time I’ll present my exercise ideas.

Monkey Feet

Since I'm not doing any reviews on my own yet, here's a link to something that looks pretty cool:

Vibram Five Finger Shoes

I'm intrigued enough to give these a look. A lot of this barefoot simulation that's a new trend in footwear definitely has some merit. I've been using Nike Free's and Newton running shoes since December. Since I've been injured I haven't given them what I feel is a proper test. But will do soon enough. So this is part one of the barefoot trend in footwear.

Hell Of The North

For part III of our European adventure, as well as a much higher quality version of this video, head over to Romney's Blog:

Assault on Western Europe: Part III: The Hell of the North

If you like cycling, you've probably read many accounts of Paris-Roubaix. But you probably haven't read a tourist's account of the race, which Lisa has summed up with her usual style.

Back in the states, I'm still exploring roads, bike paths, steep streets, and other more eccentric places to ride your bike for my upcoming Ronde van Salt Lake City. Took Trent our for some exploration yesterday where we got a couple of "I've never seen a road bike out here" comments. Trent says the ride is going to be stellar. I concur.

Getting Worse To Get Better

Finished my virtual Giro yesterday near the back of the pack. I’d say it was expected but think my lack of winter conditioning made it even worse than expected. I’m tired, of course, but also a weaker climber than when it began.

Training doesn’t yield improvements all the time. Sometimes you’ve got to lose fitness in one area in order to gain fitness overall. This month’s concentration on base conditioning and volume has reduced my absolute strength. It’s frustrating, but necessary. For one, my overall goals include long hard days and require a strong aerobic system. Also, my focus on climbing exclusively had resulted in a tendonitis flare-up, which also needed (and needs) to be addressed.

At the beginning of the virtual Giro I’d hoped to be able to have long climbing days. I had one, but as my tendon issue wasn’t getting better I needed to axe these, as well as the pull-ups, in order to focus on rehab. I did manage about 10 times as much riding and running as I’d done all year. I’m still pathetic in both of those areas, compared to where I’ve been the last decade or so, but starting to come around.

Dr. Fred Hatfield said, “Power and endurance, ne’er the twain shall meet.” My ultimate goals require both, so I want him to be wrong. But he’s right in that you can’t train both simultaneously. At least not effectively. So for phase two of my 90-day program I’ll be heading back into the gym to regain my climbing strength, while maintaining the aerobic gains I made in May, which will actually improve these areas because as I recover I’ll get stronger. And my virtual Giro beatdown has the old body screaming for recovery.

pic: I live in a beautiful place. Here's the view from part of my latest concoction, The Tour of Salt Lake, an urban ride that mimicks the Tour of Flanders. With 16 of SLC's steepest bergs, lots of miles, dirt, and SLC pave, this, too, will require improvements in both power and endurance.