Time for a new workout

I took the old geared MTB out for a spin over the weekend for the first time in ages and I didn't like it. For some reason it feels clunky & cumbersome and seems to suck energy out of me & lack efficiency compared to the single speed. In theory, gears should make things easier but in practice I'm much slower and it seems much harder work.

I thought about it and while some of the effect I'm feeling comes back to the suspension taking some of the energy out of my pedaling, the alloy frame having a "dull" feel compared to the steel 29er and I'm not used to the slightly different balance & geometry of the old gearie, but the main reason I think is that to get the most out of a geared bike you really have to spin, spin, spin!

And that's the problem. I just don't like spinning. I know it's supposed to be better aerobically but I find the opposite. It just wears me out faster. My heart rate maxes out, I'm quickly out of breath and my legs go lactic much faster. Plus I get crippling pains in the arches of my feet after 10 minutes or so.

If I stick back around 80 rpm and get out of the saddle and grind the hills I can last for hours, and that's why I like the single speed offroad. (Onroad is a different story though and I'm fast finding that gears are much better there. SSing on the road has me sitting on ridiculous RPMs on the flats and I only last about 10 minutes before my feet are in agony).

Then as I was reading some over 40 transformation stories on bodybuilding.com for motivation, I noticed that the guys that looked the most impressive all had arms 18" or above. I remembered that about 10 years ago (before I entered my depressed and obese phase) I too had arms about that size and could also bench 170kgs on a good day. At the moment my arms are around 16" and I'm lucky if I can bench 120 kgs.

I started thinking about how I achieved it back then and why I wasn't getting similar results with my current training program which is a variation of the Body for Life program with lots of pump sets & short rest breaks. Then it dawned on me. I'm mostly fast twitch muscle fibres which are good for explosive efforts but really crap for long duration, lighter stuff. Just as I've found on the bike, I respond best to slow, short, gut-busting, heavy loads. High repetition, pump type exercises don't really do much except tire me out. I'm a sprinter, not a marathon runner.

So it's time to go old school.

I'll work a basic 2 day split for upper body on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday. (I don't train legs regularly in the gym because they're already humongous from the cycling and good genes).

Day 1 is pushing (Chest, shoulders & triceps)
Day 2 is pulling (Back, biceps & abs)

2 exercises per body part
3 - 4 sets per exercise consisting of one warmup set with a light to moderate weight followed by 2 heavy sets of 2 - 6 reps to absolute failure.

Because I work the same bodyparts twice in a week I'll mix up the second session with different exercises for that body part.

Cycling wise I'll fit in whatever I'm in the mood for which will mostly be 30-60 mins most week days with a couple of longer rides on the weekends. If I start feeling a bit worn out I'll throw a rest day or two in.

Goal: 18" arms, 140kg bench & a serious decrease in bodyfat.

A better mountain bike

When I'm out on the trails a lot of people ask me about my bike. Do the bigger 29" wheels really make that much difference? How do I manage without gears? How do I manage without suspension?

They seem to think I'm trying to make some kind of statement or getting on a "bandwagon", and while I'm fine with the idea of the bike having a certain "coolness factor", I actually made the choice more for practical reasons.

When I first started mountain biking I bought a fairly entry level, alloy framed, 24 speed, hard tail Giant (which I still ride occasionally). It featured a Dart 1 front fork which is supposed to have 80mm travel but with my weight on it is more like 30mm. The only adjustment is preload but having tried it at both extremes I can't notice any real difference. I think it really needs a stiffer spring for me but it still does a reasonable job of taking out a lot of the harshness of the bumps.

It was a great bike to start out on but after about 18 months of riding I'd broken & replaced almost everything on it at least once, including the frame. Dirt, water and lots of bumps take a serious toll on moving metal parts. Stuff just doesn't seem to last long. I'd replace the chain, chainrings and cassette only to start experiencing chainsuck again in less than a month. I was well and truly over it so I started wondering about a better compromise.

It was around that time that I saw my first single speed 29er in the flesh, and I also broke the frame on my Giant so I needed another bike.

I was struck at first by the clean look without the derailleurs and cables and the general stance of the bike. I was also impressed by the cost saving by not having gears and expensive suspension so I thought it was definitely worth a closer look.

I learned that 29" wheels:

• have a longer contact patch than 26" wheels so they have more traction
• the larger diameter wheels roll over obstacles easier
• the longer spokes flex more, taking more shock out of bumps
• the larger tyres have more air volume which takes more shock out of bumps

I also learned that:

• steel frames & forks have a springier feel than alloy so they take more shock out of bumps
• steel has a higher tensile strength than alloy
• steel has a much longer fatigue life than alloy

I also noticed that in the places I ride I spend more than 90% of my time in the same 3 gears (middle ring and 3rd - 5th cog on the back).

Putting all that together I considered that with a steel framed 29er I could pretty much get away without gears or suspension and in practice it works as well as I hoped. Yes, I have to walk up the occasional hill and I might occasionally run out of legs on a long, decending fireroad but I generally don't have trouble staying with a group (being overweight slows me down far more than the bike does), I never get chainsuck and I don't have expensive suspension and gearsets that need constant maintenance and repairs.

For the day to day training rides of 1 - 2 hours I can't think of a better bike.

However, I'm thinking of something (when funds allow) a bit softer for hillier areas, bigger drops & jumps, all day riding and possibly entering an endurance event like the annual 24hr Insomnia (when fitness allows). I can't decide at this stage whether I just grab an over the counter 5" dual suspension rig like the Giant Trance X series, or I stick with the steel 29er theme and customise it with a quality Reba or Fox fork and a Rohloff hub.

At around $2000.00 just for the Rohloff, the over-the-counter duallie's looking pretty good but when I think about how fast I'm going to wear out a standard derailleur setup and that damn chainsuck, maybe the extra dollars for the Rohloff is the cheapest option in the long run...

Stop motion with wolf and pig