Ride Supplies: What I Carry With Me.

Most of my rides are local-ish and almost all are under two hours so I generally ride pretty light. I haven't used my Osprey Pack in a year! I've switched to water bottles which means I have to carry supplies in my seat pack or jersey pockets. I've definitely scaled it down but not without some thought.

I do have a saddle bag that holds a multi-tool, tire levers, a CO-2 pump and two cartridges. In my pockets I carry a spare tube, my cell phone, a few tissues, my house key and the following:

This disreputable little bag is an official UCI World Road Championships cell phone pouch that I picked up at a bike event swag table. I wish I'd taken more because it's the perfect size for a jersey pocket and much stronger than a Ziploc bag. Anyway, I have shoved this bag full of the little things I might need on a ride. Things like this:

- Ice3 Cooling Towelette. This came in my Cyclebox and is more about emergency poison ivy cleanup than it is about being fresh and cool. I'm really allergic so this will come in handy if I know I've accidentally brushed up against some of the terrible weed. It would also be handy on a super hot ride.

- Gu Salted Caramel. My favorite flavor!  This is the item that gets replenished pretty regularly. No bonking for me.

- SPF lip balm. I'm just a lip balm addict and it makes me happy to know I have one on me at all times.

- tiny mirror. This may seem like vanity until you get something in your eye or you lose a contact lense. Then you'll be really glad you have one.

- velcro loop. This seems weird but it comes in handy if you need to strap down a cable or..something. I don't know.

- spare cleat screw. Cleat screws fall out all the time (the world's an imperfect place) and if your cleat is loose you can't unclip. I always carry a spare.

- hair elastic. Because sometimes they blow out and then you have sweaty hair sticking out all over the place.

- Band-Aids, antiseptic towelette. Mountain biking involves falling and thorns and whatnot. Ouch.

- Park Tools Patch Kit. This also came in my Cyclebox and I love how small it is! I run tubeless so I would hopefully not need to patch a tube, but always handy.

- Spare Contact Lenses. This also goes with the tiny mirror. Every now and then I rub my eye the wrong way and out goes my contact. I am rull blind so I can't just go on my merry way with one lense. Daily disposables are pretty amazing.

- my health insurance card (not pictured.) This is just good sense for when you accidentally go off the side of the trail and plummet into a chasm of rocks and kudzu. Just saying.

Sale Report: Athleta and Nordstrom!

There's a good sale right now over at Athleta! They're giving an extra 20% off of sale stuff with code EXTRA20. Also, the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale just started and they have a lot of good fitness apparel on sale. I particularly like the (Zella “Live In” leggings.)

Here are my Athleta picks, including some sweet knee socks that would be perfect for cyclocross:

Review: Summer CycleBox.

Ooh, my summer CycleBox arrived last month and I just realized maybe I should talk about it before I've consumed everything. This was one of those boxes where, once I pulled everything out I couldn't believe it had all come out of that little box. It was a LOT of stuff:

So great! I love all the snacks and it's nice to be have a small stash of bars and gels to paw through before I go out on a ride. The Simply 7 Quinoa Chips I ate as a snack one day and they satisfied the salty/crunchy craving. I also ate the delicious Bare Naked Sea Salt Caramel Apple granola out of the package at my desk like an animal. I love snacks.

There's also a tiny reusable TheraPearl ice/heat pack in there! It'll come in super handy the next time I bash my pedal into my shin. (Ow.) It's like a little bag of peas but way better.  It's hanging in the freezer right now with the PowerIce frozen electrolyte bar that I've been saving for a post-ride treat on a ridiculously hot day.

I was also really pleased to receive a Park Tool patch kit. It's everything you need in a tiny little container and it was immediately added to my pocket emergency kit. (I'll be doing a post about that soon.)

RunnerBox also sent me an excellent koozie with a belt loop and clip, which, if I was able to run more than a mile would be very handy. So far I've used it at the beach and the pool with great success. Yay summer!

RunnerBoxes are available in three varieties - Runner, Tri and Cycle. They come every other month and cost $19.95 plus shipping. Aside from the bimonthly subscription they also offer gift boxes and right now there's a limited edition Pepper Palace Pro Cycling box! Very cool!


Disclaimer: I am a CycleBox Ambassador. I have not received compensation for my review (aside from the box) and my opinions are my own. I'd never endorse a product I didn't truly like and use!

Summer Stuff I Like.

Oh hey, it's July! I love July. I love riding on the days when everyone else is being a total whiner about how hot it is. Bring it! There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING like riding on a summer evening. It's light until 9, the cicadas are humming, everything is green and lush and warm and BEST. There's one section of trail that's a little dark and when you ride through it all the lightning bugs go crazy. Magic! Oh, and shirtless runners! That part is great too. But yeah, it's hot and there's ample poison ivy and what have you. Here are the things that are working for me in the hot months:

My helmet. It's a Catlike Kompact'O and I've had it about a year. It fits well and vents well and even has little bug netting in the front which is great for when you ride through a spiderweb because otherwise you're convinced that spider is now running around inside your helmet. (This is a bad feeling.)  My only real annoyance with this helmet is that the pads are disintegrating. I wash them pretty often because you have to (please do) and now they're completely falling apart. Why do companies not give you two sets? WHY. I can buy an aftermarket replacement set on Amazon but they're not cheap. Hmph.

Snacks. Clif Shot Margarita Bloks. Ohhh, I love these in the summer. They have salt in them which is just so nice when you're feeling kind of bonk-y and dehydrated. Perfect for a quick trail snack and super tasty. I'm also fond of Payday candy bars for longer rides. They have sugar, protein and salt and are way cheaper and tastier than Clif Bars or whatever.

My booty. Enzo’s ButtonHole Chamois Cream is what I've been using and really liking, despite the super-terrible name. It's really good stuff, no parabens and it's pleasantly minty. I'm not going to go into detail but anything that prevents saddle sores is okay by me.

The rest of me. Tecnu Poison Ivy Scrub is pretty damn good stuff. There is a lot of poison ivy on the trails I ride so I scrub down with this stuff after every ride even if I don't think I've been exposed. So far this summer I've been poison-free! I know people swear by Zanfel but that stuff is SO BLOODY EXPENSIVE and this does the exact same thing.

Hydration. I generally just drink water, but I occasionally mix up some Skratch Labs exercise drink mix. No fake sugar, no artificial ingredients or funny stuff and it tastes really good. I also love a cold can of coconut water when I get back from a summer ride. I've tried it in a bottle but warm coconut water tastes terrible.

Now you! Tell me what helps you get through rides during the summer.

I Drink The Kool-Aid.

Back in March I was so fed up. I hated my crappy gym and had stalled out with my lifting program because I knew I was doing things wrong but couldn't fix those things myself. I was sick of my spin classes and sick of waiting in line for half an hour to attend those spin classes on bikes that were half-broken anyway. I was bored with all of it.

And then a friend suggested I check out her CrossFit box.

Wait! Come back. Hear me out. 

First, I promise this isn't going to become a CrossFit-only blog. I just feel like there so much bad press out there for CF and my experience has been so damn good that I want to give the other side. I mean, there's a reason people love it and get all crazy addicted but to get a good experience you have to go to a good box and I do. 

So, with that in mind, this is why I can honestly say I love CrossFit:

1. I walk in and look at the WOD board and think to myself, "Oh, no. There's no way I can do all that." Then, I do it. Sometimes I totally rock it.

2. The hardest part of CrossFit for me is the running. I still hate running. So much. But I'm running. 

3. I was doing things wrong with my lifting and I have a very patient coach who is teaching me how to fix my weak spots. I got lots.

4. The camaraderie. It took a little getting used to because I am of the earphones 'n bitchface school of working out, but man, when you're coming in from an 800 meter sprint and you feel like the last rhino in Jumanji and everyone is cheering for you? That feels amazing. There is a lot of high-fiving. We suffer together and we collapse on the floor together and we tell each other how badass we are.  

5. As part of my Kool-Aid I did the Whole Life Challenge. (Read: no booze, no wheat, no dairy, no soy, no sugar, no fun.) Cleaning up my diet is something I'd needed to do for a while and I felt so much better because of it, both mentally and physically. Did you know that when you can't eat your feelings you have to, like, deal with them? Ugh, right? But it's been good and I really needed the reset. 

I am making this sound super fun, huh? But it's given me such a boost and forced me WAY out of my comfort zone and I've learned a ton. I've learned that I can do 75 wall balls and walk away from it. I can do squats with wobbly weights hanging off the bar:

Heh.

I can also do regular squats, never fear:

I can do thrusters and burpees and pull-ups with a big rubber band. I can do so much more than I thought possible and it's just getting better. All that said, my bike is in the shop and if I don't get it back soon I am going to lose my MIND. 

Review: Spring CycleBox

It's Cyclebox time! Always a fun surprise when my box arrives and this was a GOOD one:

So much great stuff. I was immediately into the snacks (because...snacks) and the Bumblebar was eaten almost immediately. I saved the IPS Egg White Ch(ips) for an afternoon work snack and was really surprised at how satisfyingly crunchy and tasty they were. The Body Armor sports drink was particularly nice because it's made of real ingredients, including coconut water, and nothing artificial. The rest will be definitely be used on a ride (looking at you, chocolate espresso Pocket Fuel) and I'm really interested to try the Fruigees 24 Carrot Orange squeeze pack in place of a gel, as real food is always a better option for me when possible.

Another great Cyclebox full of items that are interesting, new to me and carefully chosen for athletes!  Here's the info:

RunnerBoxes are available in three varieties - Runner, Tri and Cycle. They come every other month and cost $19.95 plus shipping. Aside from the bimonthly subscription they also offer gift boxes and right now there's a limited edition Mother's Day box. Very cool.

Lady Business.

I'm sure you're dying to know what I've been doing with my time, right? Of course! So, spring finally arrived and I've been riding my mountain bike as often as possible. Yay! But, as usually happens in the spring, my ass is suffering for it. Boo. My current saddle is a Terry FLX which I like okay, but it's not perfect. I'd previously been using a Terry Butterfly which is very comfortable (and very unattractive) but was almost...too padded. I like to be able to slide my weight around easy in the saddle and I felt like the Butterfly slowed me down a bit.

I'm unknowable.

Previous to that I'd been using the very popular WTB Deva saddle but it was complete torture on my mountain bike. Just horrible. However, it was expensive (and I'm stubborn) so I tried it on my cross bike and it's perfectly fine and I raced a whole season on it with no problem. This makes ZERO sense but I'm not going to question these things. Saddles choice is extremely personal and what can you do.

Moving on, I have a confession to make. When Giant came out a few years ago with a women-specific line of really nice mountain bikes, I was unimpressed. Not because the bikes weren't nice (they are) but because they were given ridiculous names like "Lust" and "Obsess." The men's bikes are called "Anthem" and "Trance." Why do the lady bikes get the sexualized names? It bugged me. A lot. And, while I love that Liv Giant bikes are completely designed by women, why did they have to do this to them?

That is a...busy bike. It's purple! It's bright blue! It's got a funky print design! It's lady-friendly! The Lust is a seriously nice bike and if I am going to lay out that kind of cash I want a bike that looks f'ing cool. This does not look cool, it looks like an Easter basket. I'm sorry, it does. 

HOWEVER, I hadn't actually ridden it, so I went to a Giant Demo last weekend and tried out the Lust Advanced 0 and holy shit, that thing floats over rocks. It was SO much fun to ride. I'd forgotten what a nice full-suspension set up felt like (and of course I was riding the super-high-end version with carbon rims, so.) I stand corrected, Liv Giant. I'm sorry for making fun of you. 

Obviously I don't have 8K to drop on a bike but if I did, I'd be tempted. Except, I still can't deal with that color scheme and I wouldn't want to spend crazy money on a bike that wasn't easy on the eyes. Why can't they just make one in black? (<-- please apply this to everything. Thank you.) It's probably a good thing I don't like the colorway or I'd be busy selling off all my possessions to buy one. So, I guess I should thank Giant for not bankrupting me. I guess.