H.Swift

Diamond rings, fancy houses, fast cars, fresh cut flowers?

You can keep all that shiny stuff.

He brings me coffee every morning. Every single morning. Hot, strong, perfect coffee.

Even when we’re camping.

It’s the thing I miss most when I’m away. Winky-eyed and warm at 5 in the morning, the entire day stretched out like a promise. Five minutes to talk about our plans or bore each other with inadequate descriptions of the previous night’s dreams.

It’s the small things.

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Strange how things work.

I sat in front of my computer for two hours yesterday doing other things, wondering if I should post that challenge. Then I did. And then all sorts of rad stuff started happening.

First, many of you got excited. Which made me very excited. Which made me happy and motivated.

Some of you thought my Twitter feed got hacked and that made me laugh. I didn’t blame you.

Then lots of you out there in the Facebooks also got very excited and said, “I’m in! I’m doing it!” And then I felt like I had a little posse. And, man, everything felt a lot more manageable and a lot more possible.

So thanks for that.

And then I got an email. And in this email was an invitation to write a story about a thing called “Alpenbrevet”. The Alpenbrevet is a sportive in Switzerland. The objective? Ride 276km (about 175 miles) and climb 7,031 meters (about…23,000 feet) in a single day. Five cols. Five of the biggest, burliest cols you can find in the world: Grimsel (2,165m) Nufenen (2,478m) Lukmanier (1,915m) Oberalp (2,044m) and Susten (2,264m).

It’s like the length of a classic with more climbing than a grand tour queen stage.

It’s bananas.

It’s ridiculous.

And now it’s on my calendar.

It’s a nice little bit of texture to this whole adventure. And it’s a lot more real than a w/kg figure. Now it’s about survival.

Let’s do this.

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In which I wave goodbye to pork belly for a while.

Do you know how much I love pork belly? A lot. It is a lot of love. It is the same size love that I have for handmade pasta, popcorn topped with bacon (lede image) or an alcohol forward cocktail made with bourbon, absinthe and cherry heering.

So much love I have for these things. I love them too much. I love them too often. I love them too well. And it has caught up with me.

I’m back where I was three years ago and it’s time to find my fight again. But this time, I’m not doing it alone. I’m bringing Mironda, a woman I met on the InGamba women’s trip, along for the ride.

The challenge

Lose 12 pounds in 8 weeks. That’s 1.5 pounds per week. Starting today and ending July 20th. Dragging this out into the public is inspired by none other than Fatty.  In other words, this is almost a direct ripoff.

Number goals:

Mironda: 139 –> 127

Heidi: 157 –> 145

Super philosophical fluffy goals:

Create (and reinstate) habits that facilitate lifelong health. You know, so we can be all vibrant and energized and stuff.

The method

As boring as it gets – plain common sense and hard work. Mironda has her own strategy (she’s a personal trainer, so I bet she knows what she’s doing), but mine has to do with addressing some bad habits and then sticking to what I know.

MY STRATEGY

1. Five small meals a day – each includes lean protein and vegetables. Complex carbs when I need them. I’ll kick in some nice healthy fats by way of olive oil, nuts, avocados and other delicious fatty items. (This has a lot to do with the Precision Nutrition approach and, yes, that is an affiliate link. I’ve purchased most of what they sell – I recommend it because it’s based on common sense and sustainable practices.)
2. Alcohol intake limited to one day per week.
3. Keep a food diary for accountability and transparency.
4. Weigh in each morning.
5. Ride my bike as much as possible (this is standard operating procedure), lift twice a week, run twice a week.

HABITS to CREATE (AGAIN)

1. Mindful eating: No food in the kitchen, no food in front of my computer, etc. I’m absolutely terrible about multi-tasking when I eat.
2. Slow eating: Chewing more, paying more attention.

The motivation

Motivation is important – being aware of why I’m doing this will help me stay the course when things get hard.

My personal motivation is performance-based. When I got back from Italy I experienced a significant and notable increase in fitness (as measured in watts). Specifically, my functional threshold power increased a little more than 10%. Basically, I was able to maintain a power output for 20 minutes that I previously only had been able to hold for five or six minutes. For anyone who has any idea what I’m talking about (serious apologies to those I’m losing here), that’s a really big shift.

Being more powerful is great and I feel really good about the work I’ve put in this year to become stronger, but as soon as the road tilts uphill I’m at an immediate disadvantage. Imagine these watts without having to drag an extra 15 pounds around with me? Geez, I might have an outside shot at being respectably fast.

So, the end goal here is efficiency. And though I’m counting pounds for simplicity’s sake, the real number I am concerned about is w/kg.

Accountability

I’m doing this publicly even though the very thought of it makes me cringe. I need the accountability. I know this about myself. I want it bad enough to subject myself to this scrutiny, to ask you for your help, to lay it all out there. Riding the Tour de France last year taught me a lot about how terrifying it is to publicly declare a big challenge but it also taught me how good it feels to see it through… and how powerful the support of others can be in the process.

Also, crap, if Fatty has taught us anything at all, it’s about telling the world when you plan to eat nothing but egg whites and avocado for several months.

Mironda and I will report our progress every Monday for the next eight weeks. I’m making my food journal public. FML.(Note: That is a random calorie goal, I am not actually going to worry very much about hitting specific calorie numbers – if I’m eating the right stuff, that number will come out where it needs to be. That’s my theory anyway.)

I’ll also keep track of mine here with a sidebar widget. Jesus, I can’t believe I even just typed that. Someone shoot me.

Payout

There’s no payout. No contest. No monetary consequences or funny bet. Feeling good will undoubtedly be motivation enough but, if it’s not, there’s always public humiliation to back it up, right?

Ok… go!

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Nothing says S&M superhero quite like an oil slick bootie. Besides making me feel slightly naughty (sadly, this may be the most risqué piece of clothing I own), the rainBootie_S7 performed impressively in Portland’s persistently rainy conditions. The 434 stretch fabric is coated with a proprietary polyurethane that Assos developed specifically for this purpose: the result is an incredibly elastic final material that is also reasonably durable. The Assos website advises care when putting these on and taking them off, but I wore them through an entire Fall and Winter season and only just now discovered a small hole on the bottom. That said, I treat them with a pretty delicate hand.

Nylon reinforcement at the toe and heel further increased resistance against abrasion. The tight gripper at the top of the cuff successfully minimizes the amount of rain that drips down into your shoe and the reflective zipper locks in place at the top. While the wind and rain protection is second-to-none, these booties do not provide much by way of insulation: once the temperature dips below about 48, I switch to something a little beefier.

As with all Assos products, you’re going to pay through the nose for these, so I had to score them pretty low on value. Still, a damn sexy shoe cover that I turn to more often than I’d like to admit.

rainBootie_S7
$159.95

Performance: 8/10
Style: 9/10
Durability: 6/10
Value: 4/10

Overall: 6.5/10

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Traci took a wrong turn.

I had stopped to wait for the rest of the group. I was standing at the crossroads when she went by.

I knew she was going the wrong way, but instead of telling her, I snapped this photo.

She was too happy and it was too beautiful and I was too sun-drunk to call after her. The white roads will do this to you. Mindless elation, all cares discarded.

We caught up to her later, riding back toward us up the hill.

She was still smiling.

***

We are in the process of finalizing dates for the 2014 InGamba schedule. I have reserved some spots for my trips, so if you’d like to stay in the loop about dates, please shoot me a note.

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I can’t tell you how excited I am about this project.

I found Kathryn Bertine’s writing about her ultimately unsuccessful campaign to make the 2012 Olympic team both poignant and riveting – a true glimpse into what drives us as athletes. This documentary is important on many levels and as the conversation about equality – in cycling and in general – escalates, I think this film will add a long overdue comprehensive look at the lay of the land.

If you agree, consider supporting the production and distribution. Bertine and Kevin Tokstad completed filming on a $10,000 budget by “surviving on meals purchased at gas stations, bedbuggy motels, and the generosity of strangers”. The funding push will help finish what passion and persistence started.

Click here to view details about the project or make a donation.

“Half The Road” trailer from kevin tokstad on Vimeo.

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City bikes with friends. Brewery after brewery, pint after pint.

87 degrees and a little muggy. Portland explodes with people. In the park, white bodies sprawl across the grass, sail through the air after frisbees. Dogs and humanity. Babies and bums. Bodies moist with sweat, hearts saturated with sunshine.

At the bottle shop, a Pliny the Elder.

At the next stop, a celeste-and-gold Ducati.

At the wine shop, something French and 4 crystal wine glasses to drink it from.

Fill front baskets.

Ride home carefully.

Punch drunk on the first summer day.

I QOM’ed the joy segment. Shot film. Wanted to rotate this to the left but Sal said, “No, leave it like it is. It’s perfect.”

He’s right more often than I care to admit.

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Nate Ripperton. Known to some as “Rippers”.

Efficient, detail-oriented, clever, charming and hard-working; all the characteristics you would look for in a guide. He knows what you want before you want it, remembers how you like your bottles, drives a mean support van and tells jokes, some of which are actually funny.

Big gold heart, big blue eyes, fairly small feet.

We tested him during InGamba women’s week. We made boob jokes. Lots of them. We were crass and sarcastic. We occasionally made him blush. We demanded Cokes. We asked for gelato. We drank him under the table. We kept him up too late.

We loved the hell out of him. And now we miss him.

What makes this week magical is as much about the people as it is about the place.

Thanks for taking care of us, Rippers. Thanks for taking our shit, holding our rain bags and stealing our hearts.

I present to you a final bit of harassment: the photo series of Luis unzipping you in Castelnuovo Berardenga.

We are in the process of finalizing dates for the 2014 InGamba schedule. I have reserved some spots for my trips, so if you’d like to stay in the loop about dates, please shoot me a note.

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It all comes together in Dudda.

Five relative strangers in front of a coffee shop, grinning. Five women with five versions of the most amazing coffee you’ve ever had. Five pastries. One long climb ahead.

It’s hard to say why it happened in that moment. Maybe it was the bench, our proximity to one another – shoulder to shoulder and glistening from 2 hours pedaling uphill in the sun. Or the fact that everyone – even Raul and Nate – had worn matching InGamba kit that day. We rolled like a crew. Maybe we finally felt a little like a team.

We all had decent legs. We were happy, we were full, we were warm. Raul was singing. In the support van Luis had followed us closely up the last climb, blaring bad Euro electronic pop. It was the kind of thump-thump that could help you tap out a respectable cadence

On that bench in that sun, we laughed even more than we had all week. We spoke the InGamba dialect: a funny mix of Italian, Portuguese and English (and occasionally French or German, depending on the mix of guests). We ate pocket snacks and swiped Cokes from the van. We refilled bottles and rolled out to face the final major climb of the day, which was long but not too long and steep but not too steep.

Later there would be massages, naps, Florentine steak from the famous butcher. We would refill each other’s wine glasses without asking, having finally learned the rhythm of the dinner table together. Amidst the clatter of plates and flatware, we would talk about that coffee stop in Dudda – the one where everything was somehow just perfect, where we became friends and not just riders.

This is not a bike tour. This is an invitation to become part of something – to grow and learn and ride and connect. An invitation to a lovely little town that Joao Correia once called home (and that I also now think of as a kind of home), to pull up a chair at the table, to talk and joke and debate like family. To gesticulate wildly and flash the whites of your eyes while exclaiming, “This is the best thing EVER. I mean… EVER!”

If a little wine gets spilled in the process, all the better. Allegria, ladies. Allegria.

Grazie mille. Grazie grazie grazie.

Check out the Dudda ride (short version) on Strava.

**

We are in the process of finalizing dates for the 2014 InGamba schedule. I have reserved some spots for my trips, so if you’d like to stay in the loop about dates, please shoot me a note.

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