Madison

Surviving Wisconsin Winters Part 5: the Magical Warmth of Snowboard Socks

Health

snowboarder and dog

stance-snowboard-socks

I don’t intend this as a review of any specific sock, though I’ve already come to rely on Stance Socks. I only want to highlight a key feature of knee height wool socks.

While it’s only an extra few inches of wool, knee-height adds significant warmth. It’s a magic-bullet layer of insulation that boosts overall warmth, while adding zero bulk to your torso.

Though each sock covers only an additional five inches of skin, it’s special skin. It’s your extremities. So, in covering 20% more of each leg, you’re shutting down 20% of lower-extremity body-heat radiation. Stated in the inverse, you are increasing heat retention. Think of the difference a turtleneck makes. Same difference, even more so.

Really, it’s like adding a Capilene 2 long-sleeved thermal top — but adding neither bulk nor fabric-on-fabric friction to your torso. Magic!

[Animation credit:  Jeremy Thompson; Snowboarder.com]
[Photo credit:  Stance Socks]

Surviving Wisconsin Winters, Part 4: Wool — It Does a Body Good

Health

wool for overcoats

This year I have a new go-to layer for winter cycling:  an old, cashmere polo shirt. The warmth is incredible, but it’s also got the buttoned polo collar and short sleeves, so it vents really well.

In my seventh Wisconsin winter, I’ve become a wool convert. Sadly, over the years I’ve stockpiled a whole closet full of Patagonia Capilene. Don’t get me wrong, Capilene is an excellent product. It breathes exceedingly well, and it offers quality insulation without bulk. But I wish I’d spent half that money on wool, instead. It’s so much warmer than any synthetic of comparable weight. (Wool does have its drawbacks.)

And the real killer app of wool is its antimicrobial properties. Don’t we wear wool sweaters months at a time without them getting stinky? We can because of wool’s microbe-fighting powers. By contrast, we wash synthetic base layers after each wearing. I wear wool much longer. Wool thermal bottoms? I wear them three to four days between washings. Longer, even. So even though I only have a few wool baselayers in my closet, I never run out of clean pieces.

Synthetics get stinky fast. The micro-textures of synthetic fibers create the perfect spawning bed for bacteria. Bacteria causes B.O. Even Patagonia garments treated with antimicrobial chemicals have to be washed after each use. Untreated garments get stinky after a few hours just sitting around the house!

Also new for me this winter:  snowboard socks. Check out my post on wool snowboard socks.

(Image credit:  Fashion Color Textile Factory)

Wrist or Hand Pain with Cycling? Try Sweptback Bars!

Health

There’s Got to be a Way

Two years ago, my doctor diagnosed carpal tunnel syndrome. Pretty depressing to hear those three words. But an EMG test ruled out carpal tunnel.

With that good news, I kept riding. But I had to change something to lessen the pain. I thought what I needed was getting the weight off my hands.

Cheapest Option, First

I first tried bar ends (below).

bar ends

This was the cheapest option. Bar ends gave me three hand positions, with one far above the handlebars; gripping the little curved “horn” at the top is like riding a chopper motorcycle, taking all my body weight off of my hands.

This was when the pain got really bad. Even with little body weight on my hands, riding with my hands at shoulder height placed the weight of my dangling arms squarely  onto my wrists. The pain got so serious, I had to take time off of work.

More — and More-natural — Hand Positions

I tried drop bars.  Drop bars offer three hand positions. And two of those put your grip in a more natural attitude: rather than palms-down–the position that really strained my wrists–the “hoods” and the drops place your hands in neutral, like when dangling at your sides or shaking hands. But, sadly, riding on the hoods or the drops presses body weight onto the hands.

My brother, who races cyclocross, suggested a way of keeping the neutral hand position while keeping body weight off: he said to get my hands not up , but back.

Picture the suave European bicycle commuter, riding completely upright, with hands back and low (below). That’s the combination for ultimate comfort.

The only drawback: it’s so un-sporty.

amsterdam_bicycle_suit

Swept Back, Low . . . and Sporty!

Then I saw this trike!

tricycleI

I fell in love with this tricycle’s “aggressive,” upside-down installation. Some cool bike designer had the vision to flip the handlebars over because it looks cool. The result:  the hands are both back and low, while creating a rakish, jaunty profile.

So I researched “swept back” bars, intending to install them upside-down. I found the sparrow style, first (below).

sparrow_road levers

Swept back, for sure, they just weren’t back far enough, only about 30-40 degrees.

The Surly “Open” bars (below) were swept back more, 53-degrees.

surly open bar

The Velo Orange “Tourist” bars were getting closer, at about 60-degrees. Plus, installed upside down, the Tourist looks awfully slick (below).

Tourist

I eventually settled on the Nitto “Albatross”, with an 85-degree sweep (below).

Nitto-bar-compare3

And, actually, the term I should be emphasizing here is not “sweep,” but rather “reach.” In this photo compare the reach of the Nitto Mustache (90 mm) vs. the Nitto Albatross (170 mm).

reach - albatross vs. mustache

The longer the reach, the farther back your hand position, and the more upright you’ll be, taking more weight off of your hands.

Here’s my cyclocross bike (below), with the Nitto Albatross installed upside-down. Pretty cool, huh! Neutral hand position. And my hands are back far enough to take 95% of the weight off.

bike for blog

I have since been undergoing serious physical therapy for the hand pain. But in the meantime I’m riding my bike with a lot more comfort. My Albatross bars are taped all the way across for three hand positions.

Technical Considerations

NOTE:  Choosing handlebars is somewhat complex.  The diameter of the tubing must fit your existing brake clamps and/or shifter clamps.

Diameter measurements are critical at two different places on the bars (three, if you want to go with bar-end shifters):

1) clamp diameter (where the stem clamps the bars)

2)  tube diameter (where you want to install the brake levers).

Replacing drop bars? Unless it’s a vintage bike, the stem clamp diameter is either 25.4 mm, 26.0 mm (Italian std.), or the more recent “oversized” 31.8 mm.  (See Sheldon Brown:  http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/handlebars/index.html.) Given all these variables, you may or may not be able to keep your existing stem. But the stem is fairly inexpensive. You may want a new stem, anyway, for improved height or shorter reach.  The point is to get you more upright and get the weight off your hands.

But test out your new swept back bars with your existing stem. Have the second, very different stem, picked out to compare the two.  If it’s a “pop top” stem, it’s an easy switcheroo.

Tube diameter is the more expensive consideration. Going to a swept back bar may require you to replace your existing brake levers and shifters. In my case, I had to replace all of the above. The expensive bar-end shifters ($120), set me back nearly $400 for the complete customization.  By the way, bar end shifters require an interior tube diameter of 20 mm.

Most swept-back bars come in 23.8 mm, which does not accept MTB brake levers. (MTB brake levers require 22.2 mm tubing; some mechanics claim you can simply “shim it”; don’t listen to them if you want your brake levers to remain positioned properly.) I really wanted two-finger style MTB brake levers, which would’ve been easier on my hands.  But you can’t have everything.  The next best thing for me was Shimano’s BL-R550 road break lever set (see my bike, above).

SECOND CAVEAT: some of these measurements might be off.  Please confirm them with your LBS before ordering any parts.  You can also check here:  http://sheldonbrown.com/gloss_ha-i.html

Good luck!

Beer Review #31: Central Waters Illumination Double IPA

Food and Drink

CW Illumination- beerpulse.com

Just FYI, I’ve dispensed with the beer-roundups format. From now on my beer posts will each review a single beer. I’m calling this one Beer Review #31 since my ten existing beer roundups contain three beers each.

Illumination, Central Waters Brewing Co.
Rating:  4.05/5
12 oz. bottle, 9% ABV, 108 IBU (estim.)

Man, that’s good. I gave this beer a 3.95 when it first came out two years ago. I wonder if the formula’s changed. Probably not, or Central Waters would’ve made a big deal of it, the way Sixpoint Brewing did with 2017 Hi-Res. Or Classic Coke. But “new formula!” is usually crisis PR disguised as marketing. That’s certainly not needed with this excellent brew from CW.

Too bad the aroma underwhelms. What am I smelling? Can’t say. The shy aromas hold themselves back. A bland appearance, too, a cloudy, dull amber, like a cellar-aged beer.

My wife says it tastes cellar-aged, too. It does! There’s an oxidized, buttery umami that . . . I don’t know how to finish that sentence. Something about pork. I love pork.

In the mouth it’s brilliantly complex, yet balanced. The clean, citrus hop bite presents first, with maybe a tinge of pine astringency. Then a ripe-fruit sweetness — sweet tangerine and papaya — swirls with the umami to create a proper meal of flavors:  a summer fruit salad and a pork tenderloin in butterscotch reduction. Hyperbole? Sure. But the complexity does impress. Balance comes from the sweet fruit, as opposed to sweet malt. It reminds one of Dirtwolf (Victory Brewing). But better, with more body, more drying ethanol heat, and that character of butter-like, meat-like oxidation.

Uh, oh, hold on: the aftertaste is a bit yucky. The hops in the back end are all white-grapefruit pith, blotting out the fruity sweetness. I’m sure many a hophead would appreciate it. It’s very West Coast, I guess. But hear that? That’s the sound of me sticking my tongue out.

So I was mostly right two years ago with my 3.95 rating. Good on me.

Side note:  this beer is a perfect candidate for the cellar. A year in cool darkness should knock the aftertaste down a notch or two.

[Image credit:  beerpulse.com]

Surviving Wisconsin Winters, Part 3: Windproof Boxer Briefs

Health

frozen crotch

I’ve previously blogged about frozen groin syndrome when winter cycling. In that post I recommended stuffing a pair of glove liners down there to keep frostbite from one’s nether parts. My new solution is infinitely more elegant. Smartwool makes a pair of merino boxer briefs with a well-placed windproof panel. I present to you the Smartwool PhD NTS Wind Boxer Briefs:

boxer briefs windproof Smartwool

I wish I’d had them on when riding home from a Super Bowl party the other night. Temps were in the low single digits. The ride took an hour. I thought I had layered up perfectly. What a joy it was to ride hard and generate lots of heat, my torso warm and my Levi’s 501 Cords venting the perspiration.

I didn’t have an extra pair of glove liners with me, so my groin got cold. Painfully cold. Then, after a half-hour, the area went mercifully numb.

The trouble was getting home and having the blood return to my frozen crotch. If you’ve ever spent a lot of time in serious temps, skiing, ice fishing, hiking, you know all too well what happens when you get home. The blood returning to your numb finger tips and toes means hours of stinging, searing, aching pain.

Yeah. That.

I’ve had these windproof boxer briefs for a month, now. This product absolutely works. I’ve ridden my bike three different days in subzero weather. What a difference. They’re expensive, at $50. But that’s the cost of living the outdoor life in Wisconsin. Either that, or stuffing your drawers.

Need Some New Sunglasses? Try Tifosi Optics

Health

I need to replace a pair of wrap-shades I’ve recently lost. Over the years, I’ve found myself buying Tifosi Optics again and again as a function of budget and comfort.

Tifosi manufactures mid-grade sports eyewear that hits the sweetspot of middling price and more than adequate performance. The build quality is solid; the pair I’ve just lost would’ve held up years longer. Congrats to the person who has found them and not turned them in at Lost-and-Found!

Unfortunately, Tifosi no longer makes that model, called the “Pave.” I try on over thirty (no joke!) different models, at three(!) different bike stores, to no avail. The newer designs don’t fit my face well, at all. Not even their new “Asian Fit” line for smaller, rounder faces feels good.

I ultimately throw up my hands and buy the pair the bike store manager is wearing, simply because they look cool on him. Tifosi calls these the “Dolomite 2.0”

Tifosi Dolomite 2.0 2015

I choose the Dolomites with the photochromic lenses. In the end they feel great on my face. The new, adjustable nose pads are a real improvement and keep them from sliding down my mosly bridge-less, Asian nose. The only problem: the photochromic lenses only darken about halfway. According to the Tifosi site, they should get much darker. I nearly return them.

Thank goodness my wife suggests the lenses might need a “break-in” period. She means repeated exposure to sun then shade, sun then shade. Sure enough, the photochromic properties improve over the course of a week. They’ve now become my favorite pair of glasses in recent memory.

ONE CAVEAT

Avoid, at all costs, the Tifosi single-lens design, like this one:

Tifosi single-lens style 2It’s a design fiasco. Durability of Tifosi frames comes from its flexible nylon material. The nylon admirably bends without breaking. HOWEVER, the lens is made of very un-flexible polycarbonate. So, even just a small amount of flex to the bridge (above the nose pads) will crack the lens. A cracked single-lens will forever fall out of the frame.

Dark Chocolate: The Super-est Superfood

Food and Drink, Health
20150225_230536

My most recent haul.

Can you tell I like chocolate?

I seek the cocoa, not the sugar. Even my childhood was more Hershey’s Special Dark than Nestle Crunch. Call me a lifelong cacao snob.

These days I prefer bars with 85% cocoa content. Less than 65% seems forgettable; higher than 85%, astringent. No chocolate Easter bunnies (35%)! But neither do I enjoy the black-hole, uber-darks (90+ percent), which to me have hints of Listerine.

Foodie magazines issue their standard caveat to those trying out serious dark chocolate for the first time: Anything over 70% is not for the faint of heart, they say.

Or is it?

Turns out, high-content cocoa is among the heart-healthiest foods there are. We all know red wine offers ∞highly beneficial antioxidants. Dark chocolate? Even more so. Flavonoids, phytonutrients, polyphenols — it’s got them all. The health benefits? We’re talking cholesterol-busting properties and antioxidant action, not to mention anti-inflammatory effect. The ∆ORAC value (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) of cocoa blows the doors off of superfoods we usually think of as the cancer fighters and heart helpers:

Cocoa, µnatural, unsweetened  55,653
Ginger root, raw                               14,840
Apples                                                     6,681
Garlic                                                       5,708
Red wine                                                4,523
USDA Database for the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC)

Granted, that ϶chart-topping ORAC score refers to 100% cocoa solids. So, then multiply that times 0.85, and you still get an 85% chocolate bar with a score of 47,305 — more than three times the value of ginger root.

In case you were wondering, Hershey’s Special Dark contains 45% cocoa. Nestlé Crunch, 30%.

FOOTNOTES

∞ The healthful benefits of dietary antioxidants have not been proven definitively, even though both food science and the medical establishment accept the concept.

∆ ORAC scoring is only one measure of antioxidant properties in foods. Other competing measures (FRAP, SOD, etc.) deviate somewhat from ORAC values. In 2012, ORAC briefly fell out of favor. But the most recent research has reestablished it as the go-to for antioxidant measurement of foods. For more, have a look at this recent piece of research.

µ Here’s info on “natural,” or un-Dutched, chocolate. The Dutching process typically lowers ORAC scores of cocoa, though not by very much.

϶ A number of foods actually score significantly higher than cocoa. But those are mostly spices and herbs — foods one wouldn’t eat enough of to realize significant antioxidant benefits.  [Sorry, that link has gone bad. Here’s another resource with a table of ORAC scores, where cocoa scores even more highly than I had seen before.]

Bike Maintenance — Five Drops of Oil or One?

Health

bike-maintenance

In September, I put on a new chain. After just two weeks, it started showing rust. Yes, I do lockup outside. But the rust would come even after dry, sun-baked weather. What the hell?

The rust does come off easily. But I found myself having to lube five times a month. Uh, no. I don’t love my bike that much.

So what caused the premature corrosion? Had my LBS (local bicycle shop) sold me an old chain that had been sitting on a back shelf for years? No. With the rust off, the steel plates gleam way too brightly for that scenario. I did switch brands of lubricant earlier in the year. Was that the problem? Couldn’t be — otherwise, my previous chain would’ve demo’d this problem, too.

I’ll cut to the chase. The problem was me.

Yep. I got lazy. Rather than my standard style of chain maintenance, in which I use a lot of oil, I started a new lubing regimen of only a single drop on each link. Just a single drop freed me from the interminable chore of wiping off excess oil. I hate having black, grimy fingers and a backache. With only a single drop per link, I could just wave a towel at my bike from ten feet away and call it done.

The question of “one single drop per link” versus five is a raging debate on the Web.

See: I didn't make it up. All these bike maintenance articles recommend "a single drop" of chain lube.

Countless expert bike maintenance articles recommend “a single drop” of chain lube.

My whole life I’d been in the five-drops camp. Why change now? I’ll tell you why: I’m pushing 50. Hunching over for ten minutes straight to wipe off excess oil is a young man’s game.

Or so I thought.

Using just a single drop may have saved me the initial headache of wiping the chain. But talk about penny wise, pound foolish. Lubing every five days easily tripled my chain-lubing work each month. Now I had this chore six times per month instead of once or twice. I got so tired of crouching down, I splurged on a $130 bike stand, so I could at least I could stand upright. But that meant hoisting my anchor-heavy, 1980’s, steel mountain bike onto the stand and fiddling it into the tricky clamp. And when the weather got too cold to do the work outside, I’d have to carry this beast of a bike (43 lbs. with full fenders and a rack) up two flights of stairs. Did I mention I’m forty-nine years old?

for chain lube blog post smaller

 

Plus, turns out the main reasons I switched to the single-drop method aren’t as persuasive after three months of all this hassle. Back in August, the single-drop advocates had me convinced with their seeming logic:

  • over-lubing creates part-destroying grime;
  • wiping a dirty chain drives grit from the surface to the interior and causes the chain to gnash on itself;
  • ignore this advice, risk a broken chain.

Well, people? I’ve tried it your way. It’s just not worth it. You might be right, my drive train might wear out faster. Or a broken link might strand me on a trail miles from nowhere.

But I don’t give a crap, anymore. I did care for a few months. Never, again.

(I’ve never in my life had a chain break on me. Have you?)

chain-broken-link

 

Surviving Wisconsin Winters, Part 2: Dry, Cracked Skin on Hands

Health

 

Ever get that dry cracked skin on your knuckles or at the side-edges of a fingertip? I can’t tell you how many different hand creams I’ve tried to prevent it in these Wisconsin winters. It’s a real problem. It’s not only the physical discomfort. It’s the anxiety of being out and about in the world with what are essentially open wounds. (Entrepreneurs shake a lot of hands!)

I’ve had to pull out the big guns. I’ve tried a couple of expensive, specialty products and some not so specialty home remedies. Turns out the best of the lot is also the cheapest. Namely, lip balm.

Lip_Balm_Beeswax_nocap (1).jpg

Chapstick, Burt’s Bees, Kiehl’s Facial Fuel, etc. — give any of them 36 hours with your cracked-skin convalescence, and they’ll put you on the road to epidermal ease. (Make sure you wash your hands before applying, or risk an infection.)

Also important, put away the liquid hand soaps ’til Springtime, especially the antibacterial ones. Get yourself a gentle bar soap with a lower pH.

Ethical Wool?

Health

wool-305684_640

I’ve recently blogged about my newfound love of woolen activewear (the flipside of which is my move away from synthetic fabrics). Here’s an update to that post.

As a winter cyclist I’m amazed at the high-performance qualities of wool. But my attention has been drawn to the question of wool as an ethical product. Can one choose wool ethically?

Yes. Or at least wool can be relatively ethical, compared with the wool fiber industry of only a few years ago. Back then it was impossible for apparel manufacturers to fully trace the supply chain of raw wool. In other words, even if manufacturers wanted to offer garments made of ethical wool, the info did not exist for them to avoid “mulesed” wool. Mulesing is the horribly inhumane animal farming practice defined here.

Nowadays an industry initiative called Zque guarantees the supply of certified, non-mulesed wool. Patagonia, Ibex, and Smartwool now use Zque suppliers, exclusively. The manufacturer Icebreaker Merino has mounted a similar effort called BaaCode.

None of this completely resolves the question of wool as an ethical choice. There’s still the issue of animal cruelty in shearing operations, not to mention the bigger question mark of humane animal treatment in mass production, in general. But it is progress.

[Image credit: Pixabay]