I Love Bicycling is a website that is geared towards cycling for beginners with road cycling tips, training articles, nutrition tips, weight loss, how to’s and bike repair articles.
Some of the most common overuse injuries involve a cyclist’s hands and wrists. Cycling gloves can alleviate a lot of the shock-related pain associated with riding, but there are instances in which cycling gloves provide little or no protection. Below, we’ve compiled a list of common causes of bike-related hand pain, as well as some possible solutions. [Read more…]
Bonking is one of the worst feelings you can have on two wheels. If you have ever bonked on a ride you will know what I am talking about, a complete collapse of your mind, body and soul. One minute you are smiling, flying along and the next minute you can barely stop the drool from coming out of your mouth, never mind trying to turn over the pedal crank!
Bonking is when your glycogen stores have been depleted in your liver and muscles to dangerously low levels. You know when you have bonked because of the unmistakeable fatigue that comes over you.
Bonking on the bike, also known as “hitting the wall” in running, is simply when you are completely and utterly exhausted. You have no more energy left in the tank. The glucose levels in your blood is abnormally low so parts of you start to systematically shutdown.
Your legs and your brain both require glucose in order to operate, but your brain takes priority. In the beginning, your legs lose considerable power and it becomes increasingly difficult to continue pedaling, but as you continue to ride then your brain function also starts to deteriorate. So not only are you ridiculously weak, but you may turn to the dark side and become irritable, emotional and even hostile.
Dead Legs – your legs just will not go even though the rest of your body is keen.
Complete Meltdown – a complete body shutdown. Nothing is working! A great combination of nutrition errors, dehydration, poor training and overexertion combined into one.
Avoiding bonking in theory is simple – eat enough carbohydrates to convert into glucose to fill your glycogen stores. The problem is that you can only process 60g to 90g of carbohydrates an hour as discussed in what to eat on a long bike ride . So no matter how much you eat you can only convert so much of it to usable energy. Eating too much is a whole other can of worms… So if you are eating the correct amount then it will come down to monitoring intensity and making sure you are not exceeding your limit and staying properly hydrated.
The time to avoid bonking in a race really begins long before, in your training, and continues through the implementation of a pre-race plan of food and race nutrition, hydration and pacing.
Bonking can hit you like a ton of bricks with no warning, but sometimes (especially if you have had extensive first hand experience with bonking) you can start to see the signs of the bonk coming on. Riding starts to get much more difficult, you start losing focus or getting hangry (hungry & angry).
Immediately decrease intensity, start to eat simple carbohydrates and try to rehydrate – drinking sports drink takes care of both of those at once.
If you are deep in to a bonk consider getting picked up or dropping out of the current event especially if it is not an important one. Recovery time is exponentially longer the harder you try to push through. If you are stubborn and want to finish – get off the bike, take in some carbohydrates and continue when you are no longer dizzy, disoriented and have sufficient energy.
If you catch yourself early enough then you may be able to continue riding slowly as you take in some simple carbs, often this can save a race.
Bonking is actually a way of protecting the body from further damage, if you will not look out for your body properly, it will! Do yourself a favour and don’t let it get to that point.
Have you ever bonked? Share your insight or stories below.
Because bicycling requires repeated use of the knee joint, many question the sport’s role in knee-related pain and injury. Like any athlete, cyclists are susceptible to overuse injuries. But is their choice of sport increasing their vulnerability and making them more prone to knee damage? [Read more…]
Stretching exercises are important for any type of athlete, but have an even more exaggerated effect for cyclists. Because you’re repeating the same movements over and over, day after day, your muscles become accustomed to a smaller range of motion than they should be.
Cycling without stretching actually causes your muscles to shrink over time. The change in length of your muscle fibers causes slight posture changes in multiple areas, which can add up to a significant alteration of posture over time and lead to injury.
The most common areas of tightening and muscle shortness for cyclists are the hip flexors, hamstrings, and quads. Here are some great stretching exercises that will help cyclists overcome this. [Read more…]
It’s great to be enthusiastic about cycling! When you love something you don’t just want to do it often, you want to do it well. It’s common for an athlete to push him or herself, trying to outdo their own record for mileage and/or speed. But it’s possible to push too hard. [Read more…]
The first thing you want to do is wash the wound out as well as you can – unless you managed to fall on hardwood floors (velodrome?), you are going to have a ton of grit and dirt embedded in there. This needs to come out. A lot of people are tempted to use alcohol or hydrogen peroxide to ‘disinfect’ the wound. DON’T!!! These substances will damage your exposed tissue, potentially increasing the likelihood of scarring, and delaying recovery. Warm water and a mild soap, and/or a saline solution are all you need. Try to get as much of the dirt out as possible, but don’t scrub too hard and inflame the area. A small squirt bottle can be really handy here.
Now that you have a relatively clean area to work with, it is time to disinfect the wound. Depending on how much things are hurting at this point, I will use a couple different methods. If the pain is really bad, I have a antiseptic spray that contains lidocaine (a numbing agent) that works so well I think it might be some sort of witch magic. After spraying it on and letting it dry off a bit, I will cover the affected area with a triple antibiotic ointment like Neosporin. If you can find the stuff that also has ‘pain relief’ get it – it’s not lidocaine, but it will help. You want to have a thin film of the ointment covering the area – don’t gob the stuff on!
Hopefully by now, things are hurting a little less, and you can think about dressing the wound. This was where I made my biggest mistake on my first crash – I used regular dressings, and didn’t change them soon enough. By the time I got around to switching my bandages a day later, my skin had started growing back into the bandage, and I ended up spending two hours soaking in the bathtub, slowly ripping my own skin off as I peeled the bandages off. So beware!!!
In general, you should always keep the wounds covered – if your raw skin gets too much sun it will scar for sure and letting them scab over will leave you with a couple of weeks (or more) of very stiff, painful, awkward moving about. By keeping the wounds covered, you allow the new skin to form underneath, and when it has completely closed up, you can take the bandages off and be just about good as new! There are a couple of options for dressings. If you are super fancy, you can use what are called semi-occlusive dressings – these allow the wound to breathe while still sealing fluids inside and other contaminants outside. All of the professional racing teams use these – the best brand is probably BIOCLUSIVE. The downside is that they are pretty pricey – depending on what size you need, up to $5 per patch.
My low-tech alternative to these was a combination of the non-stick gauze pads you can find at any drug store and vaseline. I found that the non-stick pads alone weren’t quite non-sticky enough, but with a thin layer of vaseline on them, they worked perfectly! I used mesh wrap to hold them on. You will have to change these a bit more frequently than the Bioclusive dressings (once a day, versus once every few days) but if you can’t find the fancy stuff, these are a great second option.
Now you should be well on your way to a successful recovery! Change your dressings frequently, and don’t try to do too much too soon, and you will be back riding in no time. After the aforementioned crash and skin peeling incident, I was back racing (still slightly bandaged up, albeit) in two weeks.
There are many benefits to both cycling and running and they can often be used together when you train. However, if you’re going to pick between running and biking there are several reasons why biking is the better choice. Here’s a couple of facts why cycling is better than running. [Read more…]
Unfortunately, I have had a lot of experience with knee problems. What is even worse is that most of the knee injuries I had could have been prevented if I knew what I know now.
Even though cycling is prescribed for so many different injuries as a rehabilitation process due to its low impact nature, it is a very repetitive motion and so overuse injuries can occur. On average a cyclist will pedal 5000 strokes an hour, that is 1 million pedal strokes every 200 hours! Per knee!
If something is out of line, you are likely going to feel it after 1 million pedal strokes… if not before. Make sure you are set up properly.
One of the first things that should be looked at is the overall bike fit. If you are able to afford a professional bike fitting I highly recommend it, not only will it save your knees but it will put you in the most comfortable and powerful cycling position. Some key areas are as follows:
Your cleat position and amount of cleat float have a lot to do with knee injuries. For a proper cleat position read my previous post by clicking here.
Cleat float refers to your ability to move your foot side to side while still clipped in. Suggested ranges are from 5 – 13 degrees of rotation. Many people tighten the pedal as tight as humanly possible so that they do not loose any power; however, in most cases, this does not allow your knee to track in its most natural line. It also prevents your foot from being in its most natural position. If this is you try loosening your cleats.
If your saddle is too high you may develop knee pain in the back of the knee, if it is too low the knee pain will be at the front of the knee.
A quick check on proper saddle height can be done by measuring your inseam while barefoot, with your feet shoulder width apart. (Floor to crotch) Multiply this result by 0.883. This height should approximate your saddle height from the middle of the bottom bracket axle to the top of the saddle. (Measurement taken along the seat tube).
This is just an approximate height, adjust it according to your riding style i.e. if you point your toes excessively then the seat height should be slightly higher.
Get on a stationary trainer and rotate the cranks to the 3 and 9 o’clock position. Have someone grab a plumb line and measure from your forward tibial turberosity (the bony bump below the knee cap) to the pedal axel. Move your seat position fore or aft until the tibial tuberosity is in line with the pedal axel.
On a triathlon specific bike your knee will actually be a bit more forward than this.
Make sure you have good pedaling technique bicycling and do not allow your knees to push outwards or pull inwards.
When spring arrives it is nearly impossible for me to contain myself in any of these three categories… Hence all my knee injuries. Instead of cutting back when spring arrives I have beat indoor trainer boredom and prepped myself for the spring!
A general rule of thumb in cycling is not to increase these categories by more than 10% a week.
If I start to feel knee pain now, I am confident it is not my bike fit so I decrease these categories slightly (too much, too hard, too soon) and I actually switch to mountain biking more. Strangely enough, mountain biking hurts less because I am constantly changing my position, where as in road biking I am generally always in the same position doing the same repetitive motion.
Less likely to be the source of your knee pain cycling, but why risk it? Plus a great preventative measure.
Let your joints, tendons and muscles warm up before committing to a hammerfest right out of the gate. Much more on this in a previous post called Cycling warm up benefits.
Especially on hills try to keep your cadence up, if your cadence slows then stand up out of the saddle to continue. Standing while climbing will be less strenuous on your knees if the grade is too steep to spin.
What is worse than cycling in the cold? Being cold and cycling in the cold! I wear some nice tights or bib tights, and if it gets really cold I actually wear the tights under some pants (Get it at your Local bike shop because you want to try it on first). I do not need any more excuses to not brave the cold. Dress properly and it can still be very enjoyable.
I am hesitant to post this as I know people get shims in their shoes unnecessarily all the time.
A quick test is it to lie on floor and make a 90 degree angle with your knees while your feet are flat against the wall. If one knee sticks out more (away from the wall) then that tibia is longer. If one knee is higher up the wall (further from the ground) then the femur of the respective leg is longer. This is a quick test and is a starting point to investigate further. X-rays would be more reliable.
For most of us the left leg can be shorter one day and then the right leg shorter the next. Lie with your back on the ground and have someone pull your legs out… are they even? Good! You probably do not need shims you just need to stretch it out and have someone pull on your legs once in a while. More on this later.
A post ride massage on a foam roller was what saved my knees in the end. I had VERY tight IT bands and now I just spend a few minutes after a few hour ride on a roller and I am good to go. Read post ride massage – selfie for more information.
Knee pain cycling can change your world very quickly. My issue was always that I was doing too much, too soon and not allowing my body to recover. Listen to your body, it is designed to let you know something is wrong before it is a chronic problem. Act sooner rather than later. Ease up on your training and seriously consider your bike fit.