Love this. I’m rowing in a quad, sculling, so two oars each, no cox. I’m in seat 2, just in front of bow seat. It really is about all working together. So much of life is like that.

Thanks Natalie for sharing this with me.

“Show up at 5:30 pm and be sure to bring your wrench.” That was an email from someone I row with about getting the boats ready for transport for the regatta this weekend. My wrench? I don’t own a wrench. What kind of wrench? I actually do have a pedal wrench but that’s probably not what she means. Mild panic ensues.

I emailed back with wrench questions and got a reasonable reply.

“All rowers need to have two 7/16th wrenches for derigging. I can lend you a set.”

Note to self: buy wrenches.

I’m pretty okay with this wrench business. De-rigging boats isn’t entirely new to me. I’ve watched my partner get his laser ready for travel numerous times.

I regularly used a wrench at the velodrome when I didn’t have pedals on my track bike and I’d come with my own pedals from my road bike. Changing bike pedals is a skill worth knowing. It’s a five minute job and takes only one tool.  Read here or here for how.

I’ve also disassembled and helped reassemble my road bike for transport. Taking things apart and putting them back together again doesn’t scare me even though I’m not particularly talented at it.

I do know that many women, and some men too, find this aspect of “sports that require tools” daunting. Bike maintenance is daunting for some of us but if you own a road bike you need to know how to do some of it. You can’t go to the shop for everything.

If you didn’t grow up being taught how to take things apart and put them together again, or playing with toys that do this, it can be intimidating. My partner’s degree of comfort with this far outstrips my own. And my own skill, such as it is, largely comes from what he’s taught me.

He spent part of his childhood on a farm with a machine shop. They didn’t just fix things. Sometimes they even made their own parts to do so. He takes cars apart, ditto fridges, dishwashers, furnaces, you name it. He looks for the smallest broken piece to repair. Recently with our hot tub, “Would you believe, they wouldn’t sell me the valve. They only sell whole replacement jets but it’s just the valve that’s broken.” Next stop, ebay.

So I don’t even aspire to that level of skill and comfort with tools, though I’m happy, very happy, to have it around.

But I do like the idea of being responsible for my own things, knowing how to put wheels on my bike, swap pedals, and now how to derig and rerig a rowing shell.

Where’d the name “wenches with wrenches” come from? I first heard it as the name of women’s bike repair co-op in Toronto: *”Wenches with Wrenches is an original CBN program offering bike repairs for women by women in downtown Toronto. Launched in 2002, the objective is to make basic bicycle repair skills accessible to women who can then share their knowledge and their confidence with others in the community.”

There are also Wenches with Wrenches in rowing too.

This weekend I’ll be at the Head of the Welland Regatta. Wish us luck!

Upset that a pro life group was holding a charity event on a local running trail, a skep chicker takes action into her own hands and organized a run for choice.

“The September issue of a local running magazine ran a story promoting an anti-choice 5k happening next month on MY favorite running trail. I wouldn’t have even noticed if the event organizers had only taken out an ad, but the article appeared to endorse the event, and, coming from a journalism background, I was appalled to see it. Being staunchly pro-choice, I was deeply upset at the violation of my sacred (if you will) running space and also at my city’s hosting it.”

It’s in Plano, Texas (I had to use google maps) but we can still help out.

“Even if you’re not in the area, you can run or walk a virtual 5k with the group in solidarity. You can donate to Planned Parenthood, your local women’s health centers, or the Texas Equal Access Fund. If you’re feeling really ambitious, organize a local event with your friends! If you’re local, invite everyone you can think of!”

I’m going to run 5 km in solidarity and make a charitable donation to Planned Parenthood. Join me!

And help spread the word.

Read more: http://skepchick.org/2013/09/skepchicks-present-5k-walkrun-for-choice/

I took the bold step last week of taking my road bike into the shop to change the pedals to clipless.  I practiced clipping in and out on the trainer in the shop, but the bike mechanic who was giving me some guidance didn’t disagree when I said I thought I should walk my bike home.

Clipping in and out with your bike stationary on a trainer in the shop is one thing.  Learning to go, clip in, clip out, and stop safely is entirely another. So for everyone who says practice on the trainer in the shop or find a doorframe to hang onto and practice clipping in and out, yes. But don’t think you’re home free after that. Not by a long shot.

It’s kind of like telling someone she’s all set to go snowboarding once she can click into her bindings.  I figured out the bindings on the snowboard and still came home with bruises and whiplash after my first lesson.  If I’d fallen onto my knees one more time that day, I’d have needed to call the ski patrol to rescue me on the bunny hill.

Clipless pedals are like that.  And no, they’re actually not clipless. You clip in and out. But here’s the scoop according to this primer:

In the old days, bike pedals either were plain (with no straps to hold your foot in place) or they had toe clips & straps. The toe clip was usually steel (most are now plastic) and formed a space, or box, at the front side of the pedal that you slid your foot into. Keeping your foot there is the responsibility of either a leather or nylon mesh strap, which you can pull tight when you wanted to make sure your foot stays in place, or loosen so you can get your foot out when you stop.

Toe clips & straps are still the norm for nearly all bikes between $350 and $1,000. They’re very inexpensive and don’t require the use of a special shoe. But when used with conventional shoes, they tend to focus pedal forces onto a small part of the bottom of your foot, creating fatigue & pain on longer rides as your foot tries to bend itself around the pedal.

So clipless pedals are so named in contrast to the toe clip pedals:

These days you’ll hear them being called clipless pedals and clipped pedals just to confuse you even more.  Originally they were called clipless to explain how they were different from the old fashioned “toe-clips” we described above.  Hence “clipless” meant “not-toe-clips” but something new and different.  The name has stayed with us and only recently are people calling them “clip pedals” now that toe clips aren’t seen as much.

The Painful Way

Even though it seems obvious that just knowing how to clip in and out is only the beginning, I didn’t really think that through.  So I made plans to go riding with Sam and our friend, Chris, last Saturday.  Sam offered to come by first to give me a lesson about how to use the new pedals.  Great!

But then it rained.  All day.  And then the weekend got away from us. And so on Sunday I ventured out to the laneway alone, thinking “how hard can this be?”  Turns out it can be plenty hard.  Hard like the asphalt in the laneway. Hard like, ouch, if I fall on that elbow one more time. Hard like, I think I’m going to faint before I can drag myself and my bike back to the shed.

You see, I clipped the one foot in, as directed. That seemed easy enough. But then I was confused about what to do next.  As my right foot flailed unclipped in the air, desperately trying to make contact with the pedal, I forgot about the forward motion a bike requires to stay upright.  Just a couple of days before I cavalierly said to Sam that I just didn’t understand how someone could fall the opposite way, away from the unclipped foot to the clipped foot side, when they had one foot free. Why wouldn’t you just put that foot down?

Well I get it now.  So the right foot’s flailing around and then, ever so slowly, I started to fall to the left. We’re talking slow motion.  And totally helpless.  I landed on my elbow.  Then I kind of lay there for a few seconds because my bottom foot was of course still clipped in.  I lifted the bike enough to unclip, picked myself and the bike up, and went to the shed to hold onto the wall and practice clipping in and out again.

But I was stationary.  That’s easy.  Back to the laneway (or rather the driveway – I didn’t feel ready to venture off the property).  This time I managed to get going, I even stopped successfully. But then when I tried again, same thing as before. Boom. That’s when I saw stars and felt like I was going to faint.

All told I think I was out there for five minutes, maybe ten.  I’m not usually one for drama, but I did consider that the solution to all of this was just to take the bike back to the shop and have the old pedals put on again.

The Easy Way

Not one to keep these things to myself, I posted to Facebook about the pain of learning to ride with clipless pedals.

Sam responded: I can help you. You won’t fall again.

The next morning I walked my bike over to the park. This time, I wore my Joe Rocket motorcycle jacket with armor and I thought we might practice on the grass.

When Sam arrived, she said, matter-of-factly, “not on the grass.”  She had a good reason:  “You’ve got to do this at speed, and you can’t get up to speed on the grass.”

Made sense. But no one, and I mean NO ONE, was going to take my Joe Rocket armored jacket away from me.  I ventured away from the picnic table to the paved path with my bike.

On her fancy red bike, Sam showed me lesson number one:  learn to coast with one foot clipped in and to put down your dominant foot when you stop.

“There’s never a rush — la, la, la, no rush, no rush, put your foot down as you stop. If you ever fall clipped in, it should be with both feet clipped in; never with just one foot clipped in.”  From now on, I guess, since that was my downfall (so to speak) on Sunday.

I coasted along, pulled the brakes, and put my right foot down. At this point, I wasn’t clipped in at all.

Next:  learn to pedal with one foot. This is the absolute KEY skill required for clipping confidence.  With one foot clipped in, it’s easy peasy to pedal around and around and keep the bike moving.  As Sam explained, knowing this makes clipping in the second foot a leisurely thing — no rush, no rush, no rush.  You can deal with intersections and not have to panic. Just pedal through with the one foot clipped in, and then when you’re ready and at your leisure, clip in the second foot.

I positioned my clipped in foot at the top of the pedal range so I could use it to give myself forward momentum from stopping. Sam taught me that too — I used to do running starts with the unclipped foot, but the shoes make it difficult and it looks fairly, well, amateurish for want of a better word. So, foot at the top of range and I pushed down, the bike started to move, I moved that foot round and round, the other foot just kind of hung out.  La, la, la, no rush, no rush.

“Hey good,” Sam said. “You’re looking pretty balanced and confident.”

Next: clip in the second foot at speed.  Now that I could coast, pedal with one foot, knew which foot was going down when I stopped, and had my armor on just in case, clipping in the second foot just came easily. I’d already mastered the actual clipping part at the shop on the trainer.  Sam explained that if you’re having trouble finding the right spot on the pedal, just move your foot away and the pedal will fall into the right position.

Clipping out just requires a little twist of the heel to the side.  She had me practice moving forward, clipping in, clipping out, and stopping.  We went around and around a little portion of the path like that for about 15 maybe 20 minutes.  And I had it.  No falls, nothing.

Sam rode off to work. I practiced around the park a few more times.  Clipping in, clipping out, stopping, going. I actually had the hang of it.

And then I ventured out to the road and rode my road bike all the way home! Clipped. I stopped at an intersection without incident. Resumed the way Sam taught me, and conquered the laneway, whose asphalt my elbow is unlikely to encounter again.

One lesson from Sam and I can ride with clipless pedals!  Thank you, Sam!

And I can tell you this: it’s a LOT easier than learning to snow board.  I may have a few bruises, but no whiplash.

Let’s go for some autumn rides next month!

Happy birthday to me!  We are now both halfway to our “fittest by fifty” date. Even since I last took stock in the late spring, my goals have changed. Even though I realize that birthdays are actually just arbitrary markers (like–I’m just a day older than I was yesterday, as is the case EVERY day!), as my birthday approaches I always feel a bit reflective and a bit funky and out of sorts.

I don’t really mind getting older, but it does kind of put things into perspective.  I may be reclaiming some of that childhood feeling with the new bike, but let’s be honest: youth is never again to be mine.

Still, I feel like I’ve done some amazing things this year, things I never thought I’d do–things like triathlons, running races, and a road bike with clipless pedals.

Unbelievably awesome things like MAKING PEACE WITH FOOD!  Let’s hear it for intuitive eating!  It’s really something that I have not bailed on that, running back to the false sense of security that a new, restrictive diet used to bring.

Without going into tedious detail, my highlights from the past year are:

• Joining the Y and starting swimming again!
• Making and keeping my commitment to follow the guidance of Nia Shanks and her Beautiful Badass training program. Yep. I bought the manual, read it, chose a plan, and I’m seeing the results.
• Talking Tara into being my workout buddy at the Y.  We’re seriously working hard together and I can tell you, you don’t dare stand up your friend at 6:30 a.m.  It’s just not okay.
• The Kincardine Women’s Triathlon, even though it turned into a duathlon. See the race review here.  Great friends and good fun!
• The Lakeside Triathlon a couple of weeks ago. Race report here.
• Okay, just generally discovering triathlon. In my last stock-taking I said I wanted to do a half marathon by the time I turn fifty. But you know what? I no longer want to do that. I can get all the challenges of endurance sports in the multi-sport model of triathlon. I would much rather swim, bike and run an Olympic distance triathlon than run a half marathon. Like, no contest.
• Running with a group on Thursday evenings (sometimes). It was great to try something different.
• Buying my new road bike!  Bike shopping experience report here.
• Letting go of my parking pass and making a commitment to ride or walk to work. So far, so good.
• Getting into the rhythm of intuitive eating.
• Tossing the scale and rejecting the bod pod.
• The blog. I love it!  I love doing this with Sam, and I’m thrilled with our regular commenters and our guest bloggers.

What I’m working on:

• Getting rid of the thought that I may run, but I can’t be fast.  I had an epiphany yesterday that this thought has held me back from even attempting to be faster.  Maybe, just maybe, I can actually achieve changes in this area.
• Scheduling. I sometimes feel as if I’m doing one thing too many, but I don’t want to take anything out of my schedule.  Every week I’m doing what I can to fit in: 3 yoga classes, 3 runs, 2 weight training sessions, 2 swims, daily bike rides for commuting (and now I want to add longer rides). And I have a fairly demanding full time job. And a partner whom I like to see (and vice versa).
• I’ve made peace with food, but not so much with my body.  But that’s starting to feel “tired,” so maybe, just maybe, it’s easing up and will just go away the way the way the food thing did.
• Learning to ride with the clipless pedals. It’s coming and I’ll post about it on Thursday.  Yes, I have a few bruises, but if I’d started with the lesson from Sam instead of trying it alone I’d have none.

My “fittest by fifty” goal is this:

• Sprint distance triathlon in the spring, Olympic distance in the late summer or early fall.

I’ve signed up for swim training starting next week and will add some other group triathlon training in January.

Why just the one goal? I want to keep things simple. And anyway, training for triathlon is pretty diverse, and has the running, swimming, and biking built into it.  Resistance training is a must for maintaining muscle strength. Yoga is my goal-less practice that keeps me grounded, strong, and flexible.

The whole fittest by fifty project is always evolving, but that’s part of it too. We don’t have to fix things in stone (if we did, I’d be training for half marathons instead of triathlon!).

I have few other aspirations, like going on some longer bike rides with Sam and her biking friends (possibly even being part of the Gran Fondo Niagara group she’s trying to get together for next September if it doesn’t conflict with my triathlon).

I’m feeling pretty good about it all today.  For a woman who is pushing fifty, I could be doing a lot worse.  But I went to yoga this morning, will be riding my bike to and from work today, and plan to meet friends for dinner tonight at my favorite vegan restaurant.

And I ordered a whole triple chocolate vegan cake for dessert! And yes, I’m sharing.