Three and 1/2 years ago (August 2010) I walked into Easy Street Recumbents and purchased my first trike - a Catrike Expedition.

I had not ridden a bicycle in many, many years and was just told by my doctor I was technically morbidly obese. Additionally, my knee doctor was recommending knee replacement and said that the only exercise I was allowed to do was easy bicycle riding and swimming. This was at age 52 and was definitely my wake up call for fixing my health issues.

I rode the trike for about 2,750 miles over then next several months and little by little lost 45 pounds. I started out being able to ride just about 5 minutes before being extremely out of breath and just kept after it to where now a few years later I’m a pretty decent front of the pack rider (top 10 percent).

People consider my story a success story and I get many questions of others in similar circumstances. Following are several questions I received from a friend of mine that are representative of just starting out in recumbents. I’m answering them here so that I can find it later when I get asked again.

1. How do we push to get better? Heartrate? Distance without stopping? Speed?

When starting out on a trike, and you are very over weight as I was, the main concern is your health. Get the ok from your doctor to exercise, the type of exercise and how to monitor your exercise.

That being said - when I started out I immediately purchased a heart rate monitor and watched it very carefully during my first few months of riding. I really recommend one becomes familiar with their heart rate zones and understanding their effect on the body.

My main concerns were keeping my heart rate reasonable and maximizing my calories per unit time on bike. Everyone is different but for me at the time my target heart rate was over 120 beats per minute (bpm) and under 130 bpm. In my condition at the time my legs were not very strong and it was difficult to get my heart rate up over 120. Also, because I was so out of shape once over 120 bpm my rate would quickly zoom up past 150 if I was not very careful.

Over time as my leg muscles improved, and my breathing capacity improved, it became easier to keep my heart rate in the target zone.

2. How should Susie use her electric assist? (she is able to outpace me all the time if she wants to) This question is because she wants to use less assist over time, but we don’t know how to pace the assist.

I do not have direct experience with this, but here is my recommendation.

The rides should be about enjoyment.

Susie should peddle until she becomes tired and needs a break. She should then use the electric assist to keep up with you. You should slow down and peddle slower with her when she is peddling (ie then you are resting). When she gets tired and starts using the assist is the time when you should peddle faster and really put some effort into it. Watch your heart rate though. Susie should try to ride slower with the electric assist so that she matches your speed.

3. If we ride for 8 or so miles, then stop for coffee, or a break for 15 minutes, have we reduced our training?

No. The big killer of training is not riding at all. Riding to a destination and then stopping and smelling the roses really helps with the motivation and keeps the training active. Because of my banged up leg for the last couple of weeks Robyn and I have been riding to lunch on the trikes. About 12 to 14 miles total and a really enjoyable way to exercise. Keep up the riding. You are very fortunate to have close destination for coffee.

4. I can’t seem to maintain a cadence for long periods. I get tired, so at every down slope, I coast, and then push to get back to speed and catch Susie. Susie seems to keep on cranking at 70 or so. We both are fairly good at keeping our cadence around 70, but my I get tired quickly.

This sounds about right. Cadence takes a long time to develop. I would not worry about cadence until your ride time get over two hours - that is when a high cadence helps - when the ride time is over 2 hours. You can read about the technicalities of cadence conditioning here: http://danhansenjr.com/education/2013/08/17/slow-twitch-description.html

5. When I push to gain speed or go up a big hill, I have a tendency to stop breathing normally, instead I push without breathing, then gasp for breath, push some more, and repeat. If I don’t push, I either can’t speed up, or I go up hills VERY slowly, in a very slow gear.

Welcome to my world.

There are really two questions here: 1) what is correct breathing technique, and 2) how to get faster.

Learn to breath through you mouth - you can get more air in quicker than through your nose. Time your breathing with your cadence for a while. That is, make sure you breath in during two, or three, peddle revolutions, and then breath out for the same number of revolutions. I doesn’t really matter if the number of revolutions is 2,3,4, etc. as long as you are concentrating on the coordination of breathing and peddle stroke. After several days of this it will become normal and you will not forget about breathing while peddling.

Getting faster just takes time. I remember there were several hills around here were I live that I used to ride up them for 20 to 30 yards then just pull over and stop until my heart rate when down to a reasonable level.

The initial goal should be to just get up the hill no matter how long it takes. Once your legs start getting stronger you can ‘attack’ the hill and be almost completely wore out at the top. Use the following downhill to recover and try to be in an enough rested condition to attack the next hill. Unfortunately the only way to get better at hills is to ride lots of hills.

6. We both shift to maintain cadence at 70. Gone are the days of using the small and large front sprockets, except for steep hills for the small sprocket. So basically we have 10 speed trikes. Is this normal?

Yep - that is normal.

On all my trike/bikes I am basically in the front middle ring for the vast majority of the ride. I shift to the smaller front ring when on a really steep hill and I’m just barely moving up the hill (2 to 5 mph) - I could probably walk faster up some of those hills. I shift to the big ring when on a steep downhill had I have run out of gearing on the middle ring (usually around 25 mph).

I figure that on a typical ride I’m in the small front ring under 2 percent of the time and in the big ring maybe 5 percent of the time. When you need the little front ring, YOU REALLY NEED THE LITTLE FRONT RING. Sometimes instead of using the big ring I just coast and relax and enjoy the ride.

7. We are afraid of traveling on country roads. Is this just us, or with good lighting and flags, we should be able to travel roads? Cars go 70 mph, and there is a 6” paved shoulder, so we stick out into the lane by 25”. Any Ideas?

I will say this is the scariest part of riding a trike (or bike). And the bicycle forums are all over the map on this issue.

I now have a little over 10,000 (yes ten thousand) miles on back roads around Georgetown Texas and I’ll give you my thoughts and experiences.

Below is the strava heat map of roads I have ridden around my area. Light blue is least ridden, then darker blue, darker heavier blue, and then red for most ridden.

Remember these are my personal thoughts, opinions and actually experiences on Texas roads.

Flags are little more than worthless. They give you a false sense of security. I never noticed a difference in car driver patterns with, or without, the flag on the bike after thousands of miles.

Get the brightest flashing tail light you can afford. I now own three of these DiNotte tail lights:

http://www.dinottelighting.com/LED_bike_lights/300r-red-taillight-with-built-in-battery.htm

They are VERY expensive ($189 each). BUT - during the brightest summer day a driver coming up behind you will see them over a mile way. Drivers actually started moving over into the other lane once I put one of these on my trike. I now don’t ride without them on the roads. I’ve tried other rear flashing lights. They are all worthless except for the DiNotte.

The DiNotte have several flashing modes. Put the light on the ‘continuous on with intermittent flashing’ mode. That is the one drivers pay attention to the best.

During the day drivers usually see and avoid small animals in the road. They will see and avoid your trike. With the DiNotte lights, the vast majority of the time, they will completely move over into the other lane.

The one section of road that I am still really cautious of now is a tight right hand bend in the road where a field of high vegetation (corn, wheat, etc) hides the view of the trike such that a driver only has maybe a 50 to 60 yards distance to see and avoid me. In this case I really hung the side of the road, watch the mirror very closely and am prepared to bail into the weeds if necessary. This tight right hand bend scenario does not happen much around here - but I still pay attention to it.

8. How do we warm up before/during a ride? Susie stretches before, I don’t. My knees hurt for the first mile, then feel fine, my muscles burn for the first couple of miles, then feel fine. The soles of my feet hurt after 10 miles, but pulling or pointing my feet makes it better, and then it too goes away. (we are very interested in enjoying triking, but not so interested in the pain!)

I don’t warm up. Just make sure to take it really easy for the first 15 to 20 minutes. Your muscles do need to become accustomed to the exercise before really putting the strain to them.

Update

Based upon Shelly’s comments below I’m augmenting this section.

Your muscles absolutely do need to warm up and perform range of motion before serious exercising. Warming up on the bike does not stretch your muscles to the range of motion to prevent injuries later in your bicycling career.

My problem is I like riding more than stretching.

I will put together a short (less than 5 minute) stretching routine over the next couple of weeks and post it on this blog.

9. What is an obtainable goal for triking? My goal for the summer has been 20 miles in 2 hours. (we are far from this, but we are just starting). If we have no goal, other than keep cadence at 70, enjoy our time together, and simply spend time triking, is that enough, and to heck with my original idea of a goal?

Ten miles per hour for two hours in a row seems very aggressive for your first summer of triking.

My goals initially were to keep my heart rate above 120 for at least a 50 minute duration on the ride. This usually meant a ride of at least an hour and a half. The first 20 minutes warming up, then the next 50 minutes trying to keep my heart rate over 120, and then a 10 to 20 minute cool down. I did this for several months. On weekends I would ride longer at an easier pace.

The speed will come by itself later as your legs get stronger and you lose weight.

Just finished my first ride on the F-40 in over two weeks. Looks like the leg is healed and good to go!

Overcast day with a slightly gusting wind. I have not ridden the F-40 for over two weeks so I spent a lot of time riding the brakes to keep the speed under 30 mph. Still, it was a fast ride for me.

I’ve spent the last couple of days working on the F-40 in preparation for the ‘24 Hours in the Canyon’ race. Put a water bottle on to hold my homemade sports drink. Sports drink works like a champ! A couple of swigs every hour and you’re good.

Mounted two rear facing DiNotte red flashing lights. One on to begin with - when it runs out of battery turn the other one on.

Finally fixed my tire flatting issues. I’m going to keep the marathon supremes on just so that I don’t have to fuss with flats for a while.

The other day I busted my Camelbak unbottle so I dragged out a really older version of the unbottle. I like it better than the newer versions.

What a beautiful ride today at the Tour de Vineyard in Florence Texas!

This ride had the best ratio of recumbents per 100 cyclists of any ride I’ve been to in central Texas. Of course, the majority of the bents were from my house.

Robyn on the green Catrike Expedition, Liz on the red Catrike Expedition and myself on the Bacchetta TiAero where three of the five bents there. Brian Buckmaster on his ICE Vortex trike and the same guy from last year on his Velokraft VK2 from New Mexico rounded out the five bents at the ride.

The turnout was a lot less than last year with maybe 100 riders total.

The day was gorgeous! Started out in the mid-60s and gradually rose to the mid-70s during the ride. Very few clouds to begin with and then slightly cloudy at the end to take the edge off the direct sun.

Here are Robyn, Liz and Brian at the beginning of the ride. For some reason they put the starting mileage signs up backwards. Robyn and Liz doing the 15 mile route very quickly moved to the back of the line before the ride started. Nothing like getting run over at the start of the race by the super fast high mileage riders.

Here is a picture of the start. Several of the people remember me from the prior years - evidently all recumbents look alike and even though my bike was different this year they ‘remembered’ me from last year and the year before.

A lot of questions about recumbents. People are really interested in the comfort aspect.

The wild flowers were out in force. This particular field stood out due to the vast size and amount of bluebonnets!

Robyn and I wore our Team Vite jerseys we picked up in Florida earlier this year.

The first part of the ride was fast, fast, fast. The first 6 miles I was directly behind the pace police car with my TiAero, the Velokraft VK2 and two other upright bikes. We pretty much left everyone in our dust.

About the 6 mile mark not only was I getting a little winded I was also worried about how I was blowing my pre-ride strategy of taking it easy on my bum right leg - which is still healing from the ride two weeks ago.

Well the leg felt great! But I still backed off the pace some and then stuck to the pre-ride plan of doing the easy 30 mile route.

I ended up with 30.6 miles at 15.9 mph. That TiAero is a really smooth, comfortable ride. A lot of people talking big expectations at the beginning of the ride (me included) - but I finished first on the 30 mile route - mainly because all the really fast riders did the 55 mile route.

After the ride we sat out on the veranda sipping wine, having a light lunch, and just enjoying the day! This is why I really like this ride! After Brian finished the 55 mile route he joined us gabbing for a little while.

Another ride on the Catrike Expedition today. Pushed it to medium level. The right leg is finally ok. Tomorrow it is back to the two wheelers!

18.2 miles at 14.8 mph (with the high drag flag waving).

Great day to ride. Leg was still a little stiff and sore so I took the Catrike Expedition today.

Georgetown lake water level looks back to pretty much normal.

View from the top of the Dam.

The Blue Hole park. Now to lunch with Robyn and another ‘Recovery Drink’.

Six weeks until the ‘24 Hours in the Canyon’ race.

This blog contains things I need to accomplish before the race.

Currently this blog entry is not organized very well - over time I will turn it into a comprehensive list of things I’ve had to do to prepare for the 24 hour race.

Training

I need to gradually build up my on bike time so that I can ride 8+ hours without any problems.

Practice riding at night with new lights.

Get Nike shoes from closet and practice wearing for walk up hill.

Train with new sports mix.

Practice the granny gear on a really steep hill - maybe to go Eagles Nest hill.

Night Lighting

What a difficult subject. My last experience at 24 Hours in the Canyon showed how inexperienced I was with night lighting. Just like any other aspect of bicycling you need to try different things out before the race to find what works and what does not.

The problem is getting a big enough light to ride at 35 mph to see far enough ahead while still having enough battery life to have the light on for 8 hours.

Equipment

Transition to iPhone for bicycle computer.

Reflective vest for bike w/ mesh pockets for food. (or side pockets)

Adjust shoes for toe-in. (done)

Fix the mounting of the heads-up display and windshield. (done)

Bike Changes

Reflective tape for front fairing. Reflective cloth for rear spandex fairing.

Oil chain. (done)

Mount tail lights (need bracket).

Adjust the rear brake to have less pull in.

Build tailbox from coroplast and anchor with tie-wraps and seal with ducktape.

Mount water bottles on F-40 for sports drink mix.

Change to Kojaks with Stan’s No-Flats

Checklists

Ordering

• Another 400R tail light from DiNotte (done)
• Lupine Headlight and Helmet lights.
• Sports Mix (done)
• 3M Yellow Reflective Tape (done)
• Speedplay zero grease gun (done)

Checklist for pre-travel preparations.

– placeholder

Create list of things to carry on bike for first 100 mile loop.

• sun screen
• light weight Nike running shoes
• iPhone
• two large Ankr batteries

Checklist for on-bike Hydration and Nutrition

• GU Roctane Gels (6)
• Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Homemade sports drink mix (enough for 8 hours)
• Cliff bars (6)
• 50 oz Camelbak

Checklist for the on-bike toolkit.

• Air pump
• CO2 cartridge (2) w/dispenser
• Enough tools to tighten faring
• 2 front tubes
• 2 rear tubes
• 1 boot
• tire irons (2)
• patch kit

Ride Clothes - During the day it is very hot.

• Nike running shorts
• Nike running shirt
• Bike socks (4 pairs)

Ride Clothes - At night it is cold

• long sleeve yellow hi-vis shirt
• normal running shorts
• biking cap for under my helmet

Due to my severe leg cramps I’m going to try making my own nutrition sports mix.

Got this receipe off the internet:

Hey hobkirk, maybe I can help give you a place to start from...

I did five double centuries last year and am mid way through an SR (200K, 300K, 400K and 600K) this year on my own maltodextrin mix. I've never had any stomach problems or bonks while using this mix. The ingredients and proportions are similar to Perprtuem. I chose this mix based on my experiences with Hammer Nutrition products. I liked the products but with the hours I was putting in on the bike I couldn't handle the cost any more. Fuller details on the science behind the mix can be found here.

I order 50 pound bags of malto from here for just $50. 
I order bulk 150 Serving Endurolyte powder from Hammer Nutrition.
And I use Soy Protein 95 from my local GNC shop.

My recipe for a four hour bottle:

2.5 cups of maltodextrin (1200 calories)
3/4 scoop GNC soy protein (I found chocolate to work well in all temps) (100 calories)
4 scoops of Endurolyte powder (or empty four capsules if that's all you have)

The powder fills up a regular water bottle 3/4 of the way but the first bit of water you add dissolves it all. The first time you do it you'll swear that there is too much powder to dissolve.

I've experimented with various sources for the soy. GNC soy was the only soy powder that I found that fully and easily dissolved. For rides shorter than four hours I have left out the soy. It is bland but still palatable. Personally I don't take any fuel for rides 2 hours or less, and a full malto mix for longer rides just because it tastes a bit better with the chocolate soy.

I start with a full bottle and then I put powder for 4 hours each into more baggies depending on the length of my ride. The thin sandwich zip locks baggies work great. Just bite the corner off the bag and you have a built in funnel. Put your pile of full baggies in a gallon size heavy duty zip loc bag because you don't want that powder leaking all over everything. I can comfortably carry two four hour baggies in one jersey pocket. For longer rides I have a Caradice bag I'll mount I put them in that.

That gives me about 325 calories per hour. You'll need to experiment with what works for you. I suggest starting with 2 cups of malto instead of 2.5 and seeing how that works. That would yield 265 calories per hour. I recently added the extra 1/2 cup and that seems to be better for me. (5'10, 180 lb, 49 years old, 200K in the middle of the pack type of rider)

I drink 1/4 of a bottle of the mix every hour on the hour along with 1/3 to 1/2 bottle of water. Without the water the osmolality of the malto is too high for the stomach to efficiently absorb it. You'll get that lead-weight-in-the tummy feel then. Since my Rando bike has three bottle cages (1 for malto and 2 for water) I can usually go three to four hours between stops.

On some of my Death Valley rides I experimented with adding a pinch of sea salt but now I just carry Endurolyte capsules and pop a few of those every few hours. I'm still tweaking that.

I've never much experimented with mixing this concoction with other "real" foods on a ride. I don't ride for gastronomical reasons. Taking fueling off the table as a concern on really long rides is more important to me than variety. YMMV.

Ordered all the stuff today. Should be trying it out this weekend.

I’ll probably be drinking more water than suggested though.

http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/browseproducts/Maltodextrin-50-LB.html

http://www.hammernutrition.com/products/endurolytes.elt.html?navcat=fuels-energy-drinks

http://www.gnc.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3696745

Update April 17th, 2014

Well I finally got all the stuff in to make the sports drink.

Tell you what - 50 pounds of maltodextrin is a big bag o’stuff.

If you put all the ingredients into a 24 oz bicycle water bottle there is hardly any room left for water.

I filled the bottle with very hot tap water but much of the maltodextrin would not dissolve and it was just a clumpy mess.

I emptied the bottle into a pot had had to almost bring the mixture to a boil, while constantly stirring, before the everything finally dissolved.

Pored the mixture back into the water bottle and put into the fridge for overnight cooling.

Tasted a little - seems pretty good.

The cramping at the Liberty Hill Spokes ’n Spurs ride was worse than I thought.

Leg bruise finally came to the surface on Sunday from Saturday’s cramp fest two miles from the end of the Liberty Hill Spokes ’n Spurs bicycle ride. Darn, no wonder it hurt like mad.

I’ve been laid up for a week now recovering. Easy stretching, gentle massage and a couple of slow easy rides on the trike. One 10 minute ride on the TiAero last Thursday to make sure I did not pull any muscle.

Another easy trike ride on Saturday.

Now it is time to start training in earnest for some big rides coming up in the next few weeks.

Can you spot the lonely recumbent at the start of the Libery Hill Spokes ’n Spurs? The only other recumbent at the ride (Robyn’s trike) is behind the camera.

The Libery Hill Spokes ’n Spurs ride had about 600 riders. Only two recumbents.

Here in the picture I’m talking to a couple on a Co-Motion tandem. They had S & S couplers on the tandem so that it can be taken apart for traveling on airlines. They have been all over the world traveling and riding their tandem. France, Italy, etc. I asked them if they where going to be at the GASP ride beginning of May and they said they were going to be in Little Rock AR for a big tandem rally - somewhere close to 100 tandems.

They said last week they were at the Salado ride (Salado Smoke’n Spokes) and there was a guy, totally wrapped up in a recumbent, to where the only thing you could see was his head sticking out the top. They said he was fast and that they paced him for about 25 miles and then he just took off like the turbo kicked in and they never saw him again.

I said - hey, that was me! I remember riding with you guys for a long ways until we turned into a pretty good headwind and then everyone else slowed down pretty significantly.

Fourteen miles for Robyn on the Expedition and 43.5 miles for me on the Bacchetta Ti-Aero. Here we are at the 8:30am start looking pretty chipper. The post ride picture for me is probably not very consumable.

The ride was gorgeous! The wild flowers were blooming all over. It was a little overcast for most of the morning but never rained. The route wound through the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.

A lot more climbing than I thought there would be - and definitely a lot more climbing than I’m currently used to.

Bacchetta TiAero

This was only my second ride (ever) on the Bacchetta TiAero. It is a really nice, solid, bike. Light weight and mechanically simple (compared to my other recumbents) I’ll probably use this as my travel bike.

The front of the TiAero has a Schlumpf high-speed-drive on the front. I don’t even use the front derailleur. (I guess one day I should try the front derailleur to make sure it actually works?)

With the Schlumpf high-speed-drive you just tap the center pin with your heal on one side and now you have a whole new higher gear range. Tap the other side with your heel and you are back to the lower range gears.

Ride Strategy

Well I’m definitely having some issues. Because the bike is new to me, I started at the very back of the first pack. It took me about 10 minutes of riding to become accustomed to the feel of the bike and then I was able to ‘put the hammer down’. Unfortunately, because of all the climbing I burned out pretty quickly. I caught the tandem by the second second rest stop, but by the third rest stop (mile marker 22) I was already pretty burned out. I decided to change from the 62.6 mile route to the 44 mile route and after stretching some at the 22 mile rest stop I immediately started heading back on the 44 mile route.

It was tough heading back. Headwind most of the way and my legs semi-cramping for a long ways. I easy peddled as much as possible and walked a couple of step hills. Finally, two miles from the finish my right leg totally cramped up. I did manage to get unclipped just before it happened but could not get off the bike. I must have sat there on the bike with my right leg sticking straight out for about ten minutes before I could message the leg enough to loosen it such that I could get off the bike without falling over. I walked off the cramp in around 300 yards and then got back on the bike and easy peddled the last two miles of the ride.

Bike Fit

I think the cramping issues are caused by being overweight (again) and bike fit. I’m going to have to work on both.

Next Week

I’m probably going to do the Prude Ranch ride on the F-40 in west Texas with Carl Murdock. Should be a blast - A 36 miles one way ride downhill about 2,000 feet. Carl says on the F-40 we should be averaging 30+ mph the whole way.

A fit guy on a time trial bike with a rear disc wheel put the hurt on me today.

Twenty miles into the ride I’m coming back to the Williams / Ronald Reagan Blvd intersection when I see him round the corner coming from Georgetown and turning to head south on Ronald Reagan. He must have seen me because he immediately takes off peddling like mad and the bike rocking back and forth from him powering quickly up to speed.

I was going to turn back to Georgetown to finish my ride, but instead I take the bait and continue straight on RR to try and catch him.

Well it was not happening today. The wind was 18 gusting to 23 directly crosswind to the road. Everytime I got over 25 the wind would blow me all over the place with the gusting and large construction trucks passing. I kept riding the brakes to stay under 22 to 23 mph and the timetrial guy just slowly walks away from me. Bummer, after about 2 miles of almost keeping up with him I give up and head back to Georgetown.

34.7 miles @ 17.4 mph and lots of wind practice with the F-40.

No way I could have ridden in this wind without the coroplast mod I did last week.