If you’re a remotely serious cyclists and you wear a helmet (which any remotely serious cyclist should), you’ve undoubtedly come-across the situation where a bug direct-injects himself into your helmet and won’t come out.   Helmets in the late 80’s and 90’s had lycra covers on them that covered the air holes and prevented this problem. However, it seems like many of the most popular helmet companies seem to not think that getting a hornet, wasp, or a mad bee in your helmet isn’t a problem.

I did some research on this last night and found that quite a few manufacturers actually make helmets with 'bug screens' in them:

1. LAS
2. Rudy Project
3. Shain
4. Spiuk
5. Uvex

Unfortunately, most of these helmets are rather expensive (most over $100) and many are difficult to purchase because they are made by small European manufacturers…. But they do exist.  Some brands, like the Shain and the LAS, have metal bug screens which sounds like a good idea to me in terms of durability of the screen.

After asking about such helmets on a cycling forum, apparently many cyclists just retro-fit their current helmets by buying a small piece of screen and taping it into their helmets or sandwiching the screen between the helmets foam and the outer shell.

After riding a Selle Italia Flight Titanium saddle for a few years, I decided that it’s not likely the seat is going to “break-in” any more and the only way I’d get my butt to stop hurting after my rides was to try something else.   I tried the SaddleCo Flow because it seemed like the perfect saddle: light, airy, and had a ‘suspension’ system kind of like my Herman Miller Aeron office chair.  In theory it was nice, but it felt like I was riding a cookie-cutter so back to the store it went.  I recently purchased a Selle Italia SLK saddle, but it went back to the store after just two rides.  It looked cool, but was just too narrow and harder than my Flight.

I finally decided to bite-the-bullet and get a Fi´zi:k Aliante that I’ve heard so many good things about.  My local bike store had some and I was really impressed… except I wasn’t impressed with the $260 price for the carbon version!  So I bought a titanium version on eBay for $150… kind of a risky investment since that is a LOT of money for a saddle I’ve never tried and couldn’t return.

No need to return this puppy… I love it!   After only one ride, it felt great (or should I say that my butt felt great!)  I’ve never had a saddle that made me happy on the first ride before.  I can’t remember ever coming back from a ride and not feeling any pain in my butt… it was almost unusual to me to be able to focus on riding and not how much my rear hurt.

What I think makes this saddle so nice, aside from its ample padding, is the carbon and Kevlar shell.  My Flight saddle had a very hard plastic shell (and so did all the other saddles I’ve owned except the Flow) which doesn’t give at all.  The Aliante’s Kevlar shell is rigid but has a little give to it which I’d assume helps absorb some of the road shock, kind of like the SaddleCo Flow saddle, only better because there are no hard plastic edges.   

For anyone who’s looking for a ‘cool looking’ saddle that doesn’t weigh much and still offers great comfort, I’d suggest giving this one a try… if you don’t mind transferring the pain in your butt to a pain in your wallet!

One of my favorite summer activities is kayaking.  Not only is it great exercise and a neat way to see nature, my wife and I seem to get a similar work-out because she is quite a bit lighter than I am, thus she uses less effort to go just as fast as I do. 

Unfortunately, I typically find that within a half-hour of kayaking, my lower back really aches.  It aches to the point that the finishing my kayak trip sometimes becomes more of a chore than a pleasure.   I found what I think could very-well be the reason for all this pain from a user named Jed on KayakForums.com:

This may not apply in your case but some people experience back pain that is caused by hyper-extension of the lower back. Tight hamstring muscles can prevent the pelvis from rotating forward far enough to allow the lower back to maintain it's natural curve. Constant extension of the lower back then leads to sometimes significant discomfort.

An easy test for this is to sit in your boat with your normal posture and try to rotate your pelvis forward as far as you can by trying to push your belly button out towards your knees. This will contract the muscles of the lower back, rotate the pelvis forward and move the whole torso forward somewhat. If the natural curve of the lower back returns when you do this, then tight hamstrings / bad posture may be the culprit.

This type of aggressive posture does more than just relieve some types of lower back pain, it also pulls the back away from the seat back / back band and allows the paddler to balance naturally with the torso slightly forward of vertical. By returning the pelvis and the lower back to a more natural posture, torso rotation is greatly enhanced which then leads to more power from your stroke.

Lastly this posture greatly enhances the paddlers ability to work the extreme ends of the boat especially the forward quadrants and nearly eliminates reliance on any type of back support. I suspect the latter is something the back band manufacturers and sellers would prefer we did not know.

As a bicyclist who has the naughty habit of not stretching before each ride, my hamstrings are typically very tight.  Reaching my toes is nearly impossible!  I’ve always told myself that I should really integrate stretching into my fitness regimen, so perhaps now is the time to start.

As a bicyclist, I probably one of the first to be interested in Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG campaign.  Ever since he won his 6^th consecutive Tour de France, it seems like everyone and anyone can be seen wearing his LIVESTRONG armbands. Most wearing the band could probably care less about biking or the Tour de France, but are likely supporting the fight against cancer for which this band symbolizes.

Will I’m all for people supporting cancer research (I have two of the bands as well), I have to wonder how many people who buy these bands actually “live strong” and how many just buy the bands in the hopes that their $1 contribution will contribute to what is someday the cure for cancer?  To me, the point of the band, beyond the $1 contribution, is to tell people, “Hey!  I’m choosing to lead a better life for myself and not just become another over-weight, lazy human!  I am going to 'live strong' by taking care of my mind and body so that it I may lead a better life.”   Obviously, Lance truly is “living strong”… his body is in better shape than probably 99.999999% of the rest of the world and that’s probably the reason why his body was able to fight off his cancer.

Improving your own health through proper diet and exercise as well as encouraging others to do the same will do more for fighting cancer than monetary contributions and yellow bands will do… yet how many people who buy these bands take a serious look at their own lifestyle and make the change to “live strong”?  As of recently, the government (well, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration) recently changed its recommendations for good health to basically stating, “eat less, exercise more.” This includes 30-minutes to an hour of exercise every day in addition to recommending that we eat a ton of fruits and vegetables, grains, etc. Typically, when the government makes a recommendation, it’s not setting a very high standard but more of a “minimum requirement”… do you get as much exercise as they recommend? Heck, I like to think I’m active and even I don’t!

The American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and the American Heart Association have teamed-up to address this problem of people simply not taking care of themselves by creating a web site called Everyday Choices.  You may have already seen their television add called “Protect Yourself” which depicts a woman who locks herself into her apartment to protect herself form intruders, only to plop-down on the couch, light-up a cigarette and eat some junk food.  (You can see this commercial and get many other useful health tips on the Everyday Choices web site.)   Unfortunately, I knew far too many people who smoke, eat a steady diet of junk food, and are nearly allergic to exercise, yet these same people often sport a yellow band on their wrist.  Isn’t something wrong with this picture?

Anyway, I know it’s hard to truly “live strong”, at least by my standards… but I’m going to keep trying.