The Atheist Training Bible for Old Bicycle Racers, Chapter 6: Troubleshooting
February 5, 2014 § 23 Comments
Thanks to your first full month on the Wanky Training Plan ™ you’re now enjoying something you’ve not felt in years: A significant boost in cash from not having to rush out and purchase some new lopsided chainring, a new arterial wall thickness meter, or a 3-year contract with a personal leg-lenghtening coach.
But before we go into a detailed examination of which beers to purchase with your excess income, it’s time to troubleshoot. Although a large part of the WTP involves learning new pathologies, an equally important part is unlearning old ones. So let’s take a minute to review some common mistakes that you’re making, and how to quickly (and cheaply) correct them.
- Data proliferation: Watts, heart rate, drag coefficient, Strava, w/kg, kilojoules burned, VAM, Bam, Thank you Ma’am … ditch all that crap. There are only two numbers that matter: Your weight, your speed. The first one can be calculated before and after bedtime with a $19.99 bathroom scales. The second one can be measured with a wristwatch. Take all your other fancy measuring devices and put them in a safe place at the bottom of the ocean. “No way!” I can hear you screaming. “I gotta know my per-leg wattage and my VAM and my … ” Look, silly. It took mankind thirty thousand years to invent a clock that could keep time. Once they did, people could sail around the fuggin’ world and wind up exactly where they started. Are you telling me that you’re doing something more gnarly and significant than sailing around the world in a wooden bark through hurricanes, 80-foot seas, and several uncharted continents? Right. So shut up, buy a Timex, and get cracking. It was good enough for Magellan, it’s good enough for you.
- Wardrobe malfunctioning: The WTP ™ has helped you get off the training regimen that was designed for Mark Cavendish, and onto one that was designed for Alan Hale, Jr. Now we need to reduce the single biggest impediment to getting quality time on the bike. Yes, I’m talking about the hours you spend trying on different kits at home trying to figure out which one will be most suitable for the following day. Sausage, this means you. Prez, this absolutely means you. Take that favorite jersey from your first century with the yellow and green and mauve lightning bolts and hammers and unicorns, and everything of its ilk (Liz Kurtz isn’t the only one who can say “ilk”), and burn them or give them to aspiring cyclists who you want to laugh at behind their back. Narrow it down to one version of a team or club or anonymous kit, two helmets, two pairs of shoes, and the hardest of all (for Prez), only one sock color combo.
- Diet planning: The best reason not to diet is because it’s no fun. Plus, it makes you grumpy, and there is no diet ever that said “You will perform best with bread, butter, and beer.” Except for Wanky’s plan, of course, which you’re already on. So forget about calories, fat content, and properly balancing nutrients. When the California megadrought kicks in three months from now, we’ll all be lucky to have enough water to cook the gruel we’re given at food relief lines. In other words, eat up.
- Cheapassing on your bike fit: Okay, I’ve cadged this from Outside Magazine, but it’s the one piece of advice that, although completely spurious, is still more reliable and cost effective than buying another case of pixie dust. It matters how you sit on your saddle and how your feet push on the pedals. Proper seating may or may not make you faster, but if you get a good fit, which will cost you a bunch of money, you will end up on a saddle with a full cut-out and positioning that sends rivers of warm, pulsing, fresh, bright red, oxygenated blood to your genitals. Do I have to draw you a picture as to why that’s good?
- Lying to your significant other: This is the single biggest impediment to taking it to the next level on the WTP ™. If you have to keep a secret bank account, secret credit cards, ship stuff to your office address, lie about what you’re doing on the weekend, lie about when you’re coming back, lie about your private coaching, lie about the reasons you can’t have sex, lie about how much stuff costs, and lie about how much fun you’re having on date night, it’s time for some Wanky Reality Therapy ™. This, however, is part of a separate package, so you’ll only get the first part of it: Quit fucking lying. If he/she/it can’t handle the fact that being a pro masters wanker is more important than marriage, children, financial stability, mental health, or gainful employment, it’s time to cut bait and throw your line into a different stream. Wanky One-Stop Family Law Services ™ are available for a low, low monthly fee, although not as low as the monthly blog subscription fee, which is pretty darned low.
That’s it for today, campers. Let’s get out there and tweezle! It’s an easy week, remember?
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Cycling in the South Bay 
Excellent Gilligan’s Island reference!
Thanks!
Magellan wore a Timex? Thank you Wanky. I have unwittingly schedule a trip during tweezle week, dang it. ENJOY
He didn’t?
Course he did. Cortez had a Rolex…
Lemme get this straight? No matching helmets with kit color, no matching gloves with shoes, and no matching sunglass nose pieces with socks? What happened to our 28th Amendment rights of “freedom of kit?” Huh Wanky? I thought this was ‘MERICA!!! Have you really been off riding solo spin rides or have you secretly been orchestrating the Sochi Olympics?!? Prez, don’t ever relinquish the yellow Assos socks! EVER!!!!!!!!!! I’m going to have to slip into my Normatec recovery boots now to calm myself.
No, you got it all wrong. Everything has to match, but only one ensemble. You can’t have multiple ensembles. By the way, some dude came up today and began telling me excitedly about this great ride he’s heard about up in LA, and about some dude who posts these amazing videos on Vimeo. I name dropped and he thinks I’m Dog. Sausage, time to go Hollywood. Or rather, Hollywood-er.
Sausage…this is coming from a guy that ZERO Fashion sense and that is in constant change of his physical appearance in search of an ideal physical and sightly Wanky identity. No matter what kit Wanky puts on, team kit or other, he still looks like a bearded praymantis with T-Rex arms with baggys socks. He’s hopeless when it comes to fashion…but that’s Wanky and that’s why we love him so. Poor insect has yet to win a crit race and probably never will and will always reside as a fashionless Cat 3 rider for the rest of his life. But that’s okay…there are a lot of riders that will always be trapped in that world. Blame it on crits! 🙂
Damn straight! And if wearing pink and white ladies kit is wrong, I don’t want to be right!
I see a great love story here, something along the lines of “Perezio and Sausagette.” Give me a couple of days to work on it. Basic plot is that these two star-crossed cross-dressers teamed up to make a video about a bike race against the wishes of their spouses. When their tryst was discovered, their wives demanded they thin their collection of 4,592 different cycling outfits. Sausagette was forced to auction off a barely used ‘cross bike, and Perezio had to sell a Cannondale, which he cleverly avoided doing by pricing it at new-retail despite its 12,000 miles and 345 crashes. Anyway (this is where the plot hasn’t been worked out), the two lovers planned to elope to the San Fernando Valley, where these types of movies are more socially acceptable, but at the last minute …
What do you think?
Couldn’t have said it better myself!!
Or as the ex Darling Wife said in the shaming voice: “All you want to do is hang out with your friends and have fun.” And to which the only reply possible: “Yes, if you are the alternative.” Oops.
A less awful response, but one with equally divorcetastic consequences, would simply have been, “Yes.”
Doesn’t everyone want to hang out with their friends and have fun? Just need to do that as well as (not instead of) hanging out and having fun with your family. And find a way that people will pay you more for something than that thing costs you…..
I am a huge fan of your training advice. Sometime in the future, I may even consider using some of it.
As long as you don’t go beyond considering it, you’re golden!
Another fab post, including the comments which are as entertaining as the post (do they get royalties?) Absolutely can’t wait for the ending of “Perezio and Sausagette. Please finish the script and make the Movie!
If Seth finishes the script, then I’ll handle the cinematography. Joe Yule to design the movie posters, Leibert to produce costumes and SBBaby Seal in charge of green screen and special effects.
PS If certain Republican congressmen can’t handle a few seconds of a gay couple with their adoptive daughter in a Super Bowl Coca-Cola ad, I can’t wait to see their reaction to “Perezio and Sausagette,” especially when the title characters show up to the set every day with freshly shaved legs and never more clothing than a thin layer of spandex.
Hot!
I’m still concerned about the rating.
Man, if it gets any better I may have to subscribe twice!
That will depend on the outcome of “Perezio and Sausagette.”
I’ll not forget that loop around PV during which you described the five point power meter you use. :-}
Oh, crap.