Umair Yasin

I gave some advice about this in a previous post , but that was four years ago and there are some updates, especially about choosing the right bike. There’s been a lot of innovation and growth in the bike industry, so an update is in order. Traffic Fear :-A major barrier for most people to biking outside is fear of motor vehicle traffic. Understandably so, it’s not comforting to share the road with heavy fast-moving vehicles. If we can’t overcome this barrier, we may as well stick to talking about indoor cycling. But there are ways to get past it: People feel much safer on paths separated from traffic. If you’re fortunate enough to have those in your area, but don’t have a good route to get to them, you can always chuck your bike in the trunk or on a rack and drive to the start. I had friends who love to ride on our Coyote Creek trail but did not feel safe on the street so would just drive to the start of the trail. That’s a great way to start out. They’ve since moved further north,...

  Staying active is the most important aspect of living a healthy life. The idea of going to the gym can be really daunting for people taking their physical fitness seriously for the first time. Luckily, you can get an excellent workout without leaving the house. There are thousands of informative videos that can help you get the best workout possible. These are the four YouTube fitness accounts every beginner needs to follow.   Fitness Blender Fitness Blender is a fitness account that focuses exclusively on workouts. You will not find any crazy gimmicks or anything else that distracts from the exercise. This makes it ideal for beginners. You will be able to see exactly how each move of the workout is performed properly. Short videos are available lasting only five minutes, but you will also be able to find intense workouts lasting up to 45 minutes.   Walk at Home If you are just starting to work out after years of neglecting your body, then you will need to take ...

On Thursday I week ago, I did what I want to become my long, easy ride each week. This is to ramp up my time on the bike for the century in October. I rode for four hours and 37 minutes, at what seemed like an easy pace on the bike. No muscle aching so it was an aerobic pace, and relaxed pace, no labored breathing. But after about the half hour mark my heart rate started creeping up, into the 130s and later the 140s. Since I felt great, I decided to press on and just go by perceived level of exertion, which I tried to keep easy. Here is the result: My average speed was 13.2 and my average heart rate 136 (max 151) for the main four hour part of the ride. The other 37 minutes were a warmup and cooldown that I did not track. I must admit that I was shooting for an average speed of 13 mph. This would make for a century under 8 hours, and hopefully I could speed that up in the next couple of weeks. Keeping track of speed made me, at least unconsciously, push the pace. As it turns out, t...

I’ve always loved this poem, an ode to non-comformity, by the Scottish author Jenny Joseph : Warning When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick flowers in other people’s gardens And learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat And eat three pounds of sausages at a go Or only bread and pickle for a week And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry And pay our rent and not swear in the street And set a good example for the children. We must have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I...

I recently passed the four year anniversary of my heart valve surgery. Since I also had exercise-induced AFIB in the weeks before the surgery, I also got the Maze procedure, which meant this was not minimally invasive, instead I got a median sternotomy. But my surgeon, Dr. Vincent Gaudiani, did an excellent job. The details of that are all described here . The major side effect I had in the first few months post-op was pericarditis, or an inflamed pericardium (the lining surrounding the heart). At first this caused water around the lungs (pleural effusion) which made breathing more difficult. That was cleared up after a few weeks by a stout dose of furosemide (also known by the brand name Lasix). But I had an ongoing issue of an abnormally high resting heart rate, which took almost a year to completely go away. Now, four years on, I am completely asymptomatic. I just did a major round of tests with my cardiologist that confirmed I no longer have AFIB, and also do not have clogged c...

The Motivational Benefits of a Hairy Personal Trainer- I Loved It! thesecretblind Looking to start a new fitness regime or enhance the one you are current following? Look no further than Munch, the hairy Personal Trainer. Here is a testimonial from one of his previous clients. ” I started working out with Munch around 5 years ago and since then I have never been the same. My fitness regime had become a little stale so I thought I would take the lead from an expert squirrel chaser, ball retriever, Doglympian swimmer and earth moving sprinter. My experience with him has been a little…… interesting. We began with some routines at the gym as he could enter any gym wearing his Guide Dog Harness (his part time  job on the side). I began on the bike and he avoided chasing the non existent wheels which was a positive. His appalled expression on his face at my attempt on the cross trainer shamed me… View original post 515 more words from BionicOldGuy https://ift.tt/3B2...

I mentioned recently that I signed up for the Sacramento century in October, so it is time to ramp up my mileage. Today my group was doing a 27 mile ride in the hill East of Gilroy, starting at the Mendoza Ranch entrance to Harvey Bear park, which they drove to. I decided to start early and ride their instead, so that bumped my mileage up to 50, which took four hours. This was a lot more climbing than I’ve been used to, but fortunately I have and 11×42 cassette on my Sirrus bike now, which helps with the steep stuff. It felt great, and I wasn’t too tired after. Parking lot at Mendoza ranch just before 10 AM, fog not burned off yet. I’m glad to have our natural air conditioner back, we’ve been having high temperatures but today didn’t go over 80 F (26.7 C). On the way up Canada Road (Spanish pronunciation Can-yada, I don’t know how to show the accent). Wildfires raged through here in summer 2020 but it has recovered nicely At the top of the hill on Canada. You can see the fo...

www.Amazon.com/books I just finished the book The Heart Attack That Saved My Life . The author was happily married with a son, but had settled into a sedentary life with unhealthy eating habits. A serious heart attack was his wake-up call- at age 39. He learned healthier eating during his rehab. And he slowly got active, starting with walking and later switching to biking. After a gradual initiation he eventually got quite serious about it, and ended up doing many challenging rides over the years including mountainous hundred mile rides (centuries). The most impressive was when he did one of these, with multiple difficult climbs, on a single speed bike. Almost 20 years later he unfortunately had another serious hard attack. The “ widowmaker “, or left anterior descending coronary artery, had become blocked by a blood clot. This artery got its name because it can often lead to fatal heart attacks when blocked. He does admit in the chapter describing this second heart attack that h...

I was contacted by makers of the Diversiflex resistance band product to review their product. As with all my reviews, I have not received any compensation from them. https://www.diversiflex.co.uk/ As I’ve discussed previously , I am an enthusiastic user of resistance bands. They are a great way to get a good strength-training workout with lightweight and compact equipment. What sets Diversiflex apart is getting a very complete set, with a total resistance of 90 Kg (200 lbs.), as well as a set of attachments for various surfaces to allow you to do a variety of workout stations. The total price is 90 GBP or about $125 at current exchange rates. It also comes with a wheel for abdominal training, a floor mat, handles, wrist attachments, and a bar to stand on for exercises like overhead presses, and a storage bag. There are 3 different sets to choose from, depending on what you want to attach to (one for wooden, e.g. studs in your garage, one for other wall types, and one that does not...

The title of this post prompts the question: why would you want to do that? Discomfort occurs in life whether we want to or not, and we can expect at least some chronic aches and pains with aging. Training to handle discomfort during exercise is a way to become more able to “grin and bear it”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon This was discussed in a fascinating article “ You Can Teach Yourself to Suffer Better ” in Alex Hutchinson’s Sweat Science column for Outside Magazine. It discuss research on participants in the several ultramarathon challenges, taking place in remote places like the Atacama, Gobi, and Namibian deserts [1]. Lead author Kevin Alschuler, a psychologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and his colleagues interviewed the runners, searching for effective vs. “malaptive” coping strategies. Things that work well include reframing the pain as a challenge, refusing to let it bother them, or simply ignoring it, Unhelpful mental attitudes i...

Today was my longest ride to date on the recumbent, about 3 hours. I rode out to Hellyer Park and back on the Coyote Creek Trail. On a flat route like this it is even faster than my upright. It is nice to be able to go this far and more in perfect comfort. I can do 3 hours plus on my upright if I throw in some “butt sparing” standing breaks, but it gets uncomfortable towards the end. Objective was to keep avg. heart rate a bit below 120 which is an “aerobic” pace for me. Mission accomplished I circumnavigated Cottonwood Lake at Hellyer. The Canadian geese were quite indignant when I came through. This was just under 38 miles. At this pace a century ride would take about 7 hours, which is perfectly reasonable. Now to pick out a relatively flat century in this area to train for. The “I Care Classic”, put on by local Lion’s clubs for charity, is a good choice next May. I’ll plan on that, but would also like to do one sooner so I signed up for the SAC Century challenge in Sacramento...

http://www.Amazon.com/books I just read this fascinating book by Hannah Ross about the history of woman and bicycling. I had known some tidbits about how bicycling had helped in the early days of the Women’s liberation and suffrage movements, including this famous quote from Susan B Anthony : “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood”. But I learned a lot more details in this book. Bicycling helped usher in the “rational dress” movement, where Women were no longer expected to appear in public with voluminous petticoats, long skirts, and corsets that made it hard to breath. These were dangerous on bicycles, for example skirts can cause accidents by wrapping around cranks. More practical clothing gave women more freedom of movement. It is hard...

www.Amazon.com/books This is the title of an interesting book by Paul Cavell, about continuing to ride well and stay healthy as we grow older. Paul has the interesting perspective about being a professional bike fitter- riders, often pretty talented ones, go to him to have their bike setup tuned in just right for performance and comfort, and sometimes to work around injuries or other limitations. Many of his clients are getting up there in years. Paul is pretty convinced that doing the amount of exercise typically recommended for health, like 150 minutes a week, would be great for most people. But what about those of us who continue to want to “push the envelope” by challenging ourselves more. How can we do that and still have it contribute to good health? Some of the advice is general enough for all aging athletes, while some is specific to cyclists. Cross-training by doing other sports that complements the muscles in cycling is highly recommended. It is pretty well known that c...

  If you’re used to living a sedentary lifestyle, becoming more active may be more difficult to do than you realize. Instead of procrastinating or letting other parts of your life interfere with your plans, it can help to develop a workout strategy. These tips can help.   Schedule a Specific Time Whether you already live a busy lifestyle or you just procrastinate too often, scheduling specific times for your workouts can help you follow through with your plans. Your workout should be scheduled for the same time every day to help you create a normal routine. Additionally, you should add it to your appointment book or calendar to ensure you will have the time to exercise.   Don’t Push It It’s important to start out small and work your way up to more ambitious workouts for a couple of reasons. First, you could end up injuring yourself, and that will keep you from working out in the future. Additionally, trying to meet goals that you’re incapable of realistically achie...

I went for my regular Tuesday ride with my group today but brought the recumbent instead. I knew today’s ride didn’t have too many tough hills so I figured I could keep up. We rode up into the hills West of Morgan Hill, then looped over to the Coyote Creek trail, which we took to the Coyote Creek Golf Course where we had lunch, then back to Morgan Hill from there, just under three hours total. The ‘bent was able to keep up easily on the flats, and was faster on the downhills. As expected, it as slower on the uphills. So overall I was a little ahead of “mid-pack”. Not bad for this first outing. We had a great day for it, the temperature was pleasant until the last bit home after lunch when it was just starting to get hot. My wierd bike parked behind some of the “normal” bikes at the golf course patio. Nice views across the valley to the Santa Cruz mountains from BionicOldGuy https://ift.tt/3jfDyla via IFTTT

  Built from a modest online bookstore, Amazon became the best-known online shopping site in history. Jeff Bezos turned his brainchild into a company with over a million employees and annual sales of $126 billion. As the CEO of Amazon, Bezos has remained its public face and guided the company through occasional failures and immeasurable success. His resignation announcement surprised many and left countless shoppers and others to wonder to expect from a Bezos-free Amazon.   Absence Planned Thoroughly Not just anyone can step easily into the position of CEO at a corporation earning billions. The man selected to take over the job, Andy Jassy, has 24-years of experience with Amazon and was groomed for the position. Bezos has stated his intention to stay involved with the company and to remain as executive chair. The change was not an overnight decision. The company will continue to adapt to changing times and experts believe it will most likely continue with business as usu...

Back about 15 years ago my go-to bike was a recumbent. I found one (a “Rans Rocket”) that was really comfortable and rode it a lot for a few years. The main advantage of a recumbent is they can be much more comfortable than a conventional, or “upright” bike. More advanced versions of them with very laid back seats can be more aerodynamic, and therefore faster, and least on not too hilly roads. A disadvantage is that they can be more difficult to climb steeper hills on. After a few years the speed bug got to me and I sold my rocket for a higher performance model (a “Bacchetta Strada”). I buzzed around on that for a few more years, and did some time trials with it. But I was never as comfortable on it as on my rocket. When I discovered standing up to pedal on an upright, I thought that was comfortable enough and I no longer needed the recumbent , so I sold it. But for the last couple of years I’ve been missing the relaxing feeling of a nice long cruise on a recumbent. This feeling was a...