Nutmeg Creation Tour Notes

by Matt
Looking at a 170 mile loop, some riders think, “I’ve got to be able to ride…what? 40 miles a day. I’ve never done that in my life!”

And you won’t do it now, either, if your idea of training is to engage in a single 40-mile ride.

Oddly enough (I love that little clause!), the overall goal for this kind of riding doesn’t start with training your legs. It starts with training your bottom.

Yes, the buttocks, the seat-you-came-in-on … that’s the place to start. You need to acclimate yourself to sitting on your bicycle for long periods of time.

Delicate [t]issues
Legs can be conditioned relatively quickly — even the most dedicated “couch potato” still has to get from place to place (and the three-minute dash between classes in which most of you engage eight times a day helps, too!).

The butt is another matter. The human body is optimized for getting around on its own, and for resting on its haunches when it doesn’t have to do the transport work. Using both to locomote isn’t exactly natural to us.

I’ll talk in another article about the right saddle, but for now let’s just say that the wrong saddle can put pressure on all the wrong places. More importantly, even the best saddle in the world takes time to get used to.

My suggestion is that, once your bicycle is properly adjusted, you find a stretch of road near your home with known distances. Try a three-mile ride, then a six-mile ride, and work your way up to ten miles. Do that three times a week until you’re comfortable in the saddle.

Then work your way up to twenty.

Don’t overdo it at first, and don’t slack off, either. If you’re not a regular rider now, those first couple of rides will result in sore tissues.

It’s the repeated rides that will help you acclimate to long rides in the saddle, avoid soreness, and build your comfort level to a point where you’ll enjoy the journey.

How firm a foundation…

by Matt
We put the Deans’ Letter together on Monday; we expect it will be going out this week from Silver Lake. (That’s along with the Directors’ Letter and info guide, of course!)

We have been doing this since 1998, and it was interesting to see how our equipment list has evolved. The biggest change, of course, is when we converted from a two-week trip to a one-week trip…we no longer plan a laundry stop. (Our two-week trip included a layover in Maine where we did a laundromat run, and one of our church stops gave us a gracious offer of laundry for anyone who needed it!)

The requirements are otherwise about the same: bring what you need, don’t bring too much, and make sure you have a good roadworthy bike, a helmet, and water bottles.

I’ll talk about some of those things in upcoming posts.

Okay, we’re jumping over the cliff:

Technorati Profile

(Seriously, thank you.)

by Matt
We’re going for a week…but what about the longer trips?

Here’s a post with “10 bicycle touring tips gleaned from [a] cross country trip”. Gene Bisbee shares wisdom that is relevant to every trip of more than one day, even though it was won through his experience on a trip 22 years ago. (Yes, I was bicycling then, and yes, I know most of you weren’t born then. )

Read it here

What would I commend to you? Carry some way of documenting what we’ll be doing — camera, notebook, pen, whatever. Make whatever you carry sparse and lightweight. Stay hydrated. Learn something about how to fix the basics on your bike.

by Matt
Short and simple: the way to start training for the ride is to start riding.

Most of us are not used to riding for its own sake, its own pleasure. We think we have to be going somewhere, or to have a particular training goal.

But long(er)-distance bicycling is about getting on your bike and going. Not fast, not flashy. Just going.

If you get on your bicycle and do a five mile ride (gasp! five miles?), you’re on your way.

by Matt
This discussion blog is for the Nutmeg Creation Tour…starting with the 2006 tour.

I’m Matt, one of the Co-Deans of NCT and co-founder with Alison of “One Lap Around New England,” also known as OneLANE. We are avid bicyclists, but we don’t do simple bike tours. We do what we call Rolling Community Adventures.

We will share an adventure with you this summer from July 9 through 15 as we roll through 170 miles of north-western and -central Connecticut. Most of us will want to get ready for that through training, tuning up bicycles, and so on.

But, it’s a Rolling COMMUNITY Adventure: that means taking time to get to know each other, to ask questions, and build a great group.

Our watchword for NCT is “No One Gets Left Behind.” That starts by knowing who we are.

Please start the discussion by introducing yourself, saying “hey” to other people through comments, and exploring the site. We are adding information about equipment and routes to the general OneLANE/NCT Web site; you can contribute through discussions in the categories “Community,” “Equipment,” “Route,” or “Training” on this blog. (If you don’t see the right category for your question, let me know!)

Keep on spinnin’,

–Matt