The Water Bottle Manifesto

10.13.2005 | 5:34 pm

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The Water Bottle Manifesto

10.13.2005 | 6:04 am

A Note from Fatty: This "Best of Fatty" post, rescued from my MSN Spaces archive, was originally posted October 13, 2005.

I have a cupboard full of water bottles. I have a couple dozen of these bottles, easily. Most of them came as freebies from events, some of them came as promotional schwag, and I’ve even bought a few of them.

I should just throw all of them out.

Freebie Water Bottles
The problem with the freebie water bottles you get whenever you do a race — or go to a charity event or attend a store opening — is simple: they suck. But they don’t just suck in one way. They suck across a multitude of dimensions. And since I’ve got myself all worked up about this, I may as well get specific:

The plastic taste: Any liquid you put in one of these cheap bottles takes on the taste of low-grade PVC. You can replace that plastic taste by putting in a sports drink, after which any liquid you put in that cheap plastic bottle will take on the taste of the aforementioned sports drink. Now, I’ve owned regular plastic cups before, so I know it’s possible to make a plastic receptacle that doesn’t infuse and dominate my water with its previous content. So why don’t the bottle makers go and reverse-engineer that top-secret plastic cup formula that’s been around since WWII and apply it to their water bottles?

The valve: While the water bottles themselves are made by stingy industrialists who evidently have never checked to see what water tastes like once it’s been in their wares, the makers of the valves are clearly former joke shop employees. When you go to pull the valve open with your teeth so you can take a drink, one of the following is guaranteed to happen:

1. The valve will not pull open, no matter how hard you tug.
2. The valve will not pull open, and when you tug good and hard, the whole lid will pop off and all the water will pour onto your face and down your jersey.
3. The valve will pull open, but when you drink, water will dribble outside the valve while you drink, making it look like you have mouth-control issues. (Please note: the fact that this is the most desirable of the three potential outcomes does not imply it is a favorable outcome.)

The size: Freebie water bottles are made just a little too narrow to fit snugly in a water bottle cage. If you are foolish enough to put one of these water bottles in your cage and go on a ride, it will rattle around until you huck it onto the side of the road in a fit of pique, or it falls out of the cage of its own accord (and, predictably, without you noticing, so that you only later find you have no water at all).

The Best Water Bottles Ever
Water bottles do not have to be lame. I have, at one time, owned a set of three water bottles I loved. Yes, “love” is the word I choose to show my regard for these water bottles. They were made by Cannondale, under the Coda brand. They were oversized, holding about 50% more water than most bottles, so you had to have a wide-open frame to hold them, but two of those bottles would take care of you for a good long ride. They didn’t taste like plastic. They had screw-top lids, so you didn’t get the nasty surprise of going for a drink and getting a faceful of water instead. They had good valves that were neither too tight, but somehow didn’t dribble, even after hundreds of trips through the dishwasher.

I lost one of those bottles somewhere; the other two I actually wore out. Yes, after using these bottles exclusively for about three years, the seams on the bottles tore and I had to chuck them. And meanwhile, Cannondale had stopped making these wonderful bottles, so now I use Specialized bottles, which are actually good in just about every respect — but I wish I could get my hands on oversized ones for the big rides.

A Plea to Event Promoters
In my typical fashion, I haven’t gone out researching to see if there are bottles out there that have a loyal following. If there are, I would happily buy them. And for the race/event promoters who give us both a cheap, useless t-shirt and a cheap, useless water bottle, here’s an idea. Instead of giving us two useless things, pool the money and give us a really good water bottle (I don’t need any more t-shirts this lifetime, thanks). If you do, I promise I will use it all the time, and my water bottle cage will become, in effect, a teeny little billboard for your event.

Wouldn’t that be super?

A Note About Water Bottle Cages
I have no similar grievance about water bottle cages, because I am perfectly happy with my Ciussi bottle cages. Whether road or mountain, these things are great.

 PS: Just in case you were wondering, the Fat Cyclist water bottles are made by Specialized. They’re good. (But I still wish they came in bigger sizes)

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Brilliant Moments in Cycling: The Surge

10.12.2005 | 7:13 pm

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The Surge

10.12.2005 | 2:14 pm

A Note from Fatty: This Best of Fat Cyclist post, rescued from my MSN Spaces archive, was originally posted October 12, 2005. It seemed strangely appropriate to move it over to my fatcyclist.com domain today.

I am a clumsy oaf who can only barely manage to make a bike do the most mundane things: go straight, turn, go faster, go slower, stop. I was reminded of this recently (um, today) when I sat up to ride no-handed on my fixed gear bike, and immediately started veering hard to the right. I just — but only just — managed to put my hands down in time and avoid dropping into a ravine.

Really, this was lucky. It served as a reminder: I am not the guy who can do tricks on a bike. I am not the guy who can pull pranks. I am not the guy who impresses the neighbor kids by riding a wheelie down the street or sitting backward on the handlebars and riding the bike facing the wrong direction.

Because when I show off on a bike, bad things happen.

The Surge
The most powerful example of my oafishness happened three years ago, the day before the Leadville 100. Kenny, Mark, Serena, Bry and I were out on a short ride, just to keep loose. We were joking around, doing 5-second sprints, trying to ride our bikes up stairs, and just having a good time in general — enjoying the nervous energy that comes before a big ride.

Caught up in the moment, I forgot that I am incapable of doing anything clever on a bike, and decided to try a prank that Kenny had played on me once: pass someone on the left, and as you go by, grab their bike lever to slow them down. Finish off by pushing off on your victim’s handlebar to give you an additional surge of speed.

When Kenny had done it to me, it had worked beautifully. He brought me to a near standstill, and shot on ahead of me 30 feet or more before I was able to get back up to speed.

So, thinking how funny I would be, I passed Bry on his left, grabbed his brake lever, and pushed off, yelling “Surge!”

To say it didn’t go off very well would be an understatement. A vast understatement.

I had grabbed Bry’s brake too hard; I didn’t just slow him down, I put him into a nose-wheelie. And my push-off was way too enthusiastic. It didn’t so much as push me forward as crank Bry’s handlebar hard to the left.

The result was as predictable as it was embarrassing: Bry’s handlebar hooked up nicely with my seatpost. Everyone gasped as Bry tumbled down to the left, landing squarely on top of me. I landed half on the pavement, half splayed on my bike.

It took half an hour and a borrowed pair of the Jaws of Life to untangle us.

Later, the scrapes and bruises from the fall would hurt like crazy. At the moment, though, the only thing I could feel was intense humiliation. I had just caused a good friend of mine to wreck the day before a race he had been training for for an entire year. Probably ruined his bike, too.

Whew
As it turned out, Bry hadn’t been hurt much at all. He had landed on something soft: me. His bike had some scratches, but nothing severe. I’m lucky; Bry’s an easy-going guy and he didn’t get anywhere near as mad at me as he should have.

However, every time we ride together now, Bry shies away from me if I get too close. “Please, Fatty,” he begs, “Don’t try The Surge.”

Don’t worry, Bry. I won’t try that kind of thing ever again, or at least not until the next time I forget that I’m a spaz.

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Respect for the Bonk

10.12.2005 | 7:13 am

A Note from Fatty: This "Best of Fatty" post, rescued from my MSN Spaces archive, was originally posted October 12, 2005.

Last Saturday, when I did the Issaquah Alps, it didn’t occur to me that the hardest climb of the day would come after the event was over. I had used all my food and all my energy in finishing the ride itself, and hadn’t left anything in reserve for the eight-mile ride home.

The extent of my mistake, of course, didn’t occur to me until I reached the base of SE 43^rd Way. This is a fairly moderate climb, one that I do without any difficulty a couple times per week as part of my commute.

As I started to climb, though, I realized: I was cooked. My clock was cleaned. I was out of gas. I had cracked.

I had, in short, bonked.

Now, I don’t know if anyone who doesn’t do endurance sports really knows what a true bonk feels like. It’s actually kind of interesting. First of all, you have only the slightest amount of power. You can turn the cranks over, but just barely. Next, you stop caring. You know that you must look ridiculous, riding your bike at three miles per hour (yes, really), but you just don’t have the energy to care about appearances. You completely lack the ability to rally — it doesn’t matter how bracing a pep talk your friends give you, you aren’t going to be able to buck up and go faster. In a really good bonk, I’ve experienced a disconnectedness between my mind and body: this can’t be my body inching along, right? Surely, if this were my body, I’d be able to tell my legs to go faster. Sometimes — not always — I’ll feel cold.

All of these sensations, though, are pretty much secondary to the main emotion: misery. It’s a self-pitying, helpless, weak, beyond-tiredness, beyond-hunger, beyond-thirsty, miserable misery.

And the thing is, as far as bonks go, the one I had last Saturday was pretty minor. I had, after all, a mobile phone; I could quit any moment and call for help. And I knew I wasn’t far from home; Once I got to the top of the hill, I knew I’d be fine.

A bonk underscored by lack of options, though, is something special. It’s something to behold if you’re with the guy who’s bonking, and something you never forget if you’re the guy who bonked.

Here are a few of my favorite — if you can call them that — bonks.

Rocky at the Kokopelli
The first time Rocky and I tried the Kokopelli Trail, I believe it was the longest ride either of us had ever attempted. Also, neither of us had ever been on that trail and were just following the map and signposts.

We were, in short, all kinds of stupid.

Early in the day we missed a turn — the only non-obvious turn in the whole route, really — and didn’t realize our mistake until it made more sense to continue than to turn around. This added several miles of deep sand to our ride, as well as a few miles of paved climbing.

And it was hot outside. Right around 100 degrees.

And Rocky’s a sweater (by which I mean he sweats a lot, not that he’s a woolen pullover you wear when it’s nippy outside). It’s his most obvious trait, really. By the time we got to within ten miles of where we’d be getting supplies, Rocky had gone through all his food, all his water, and some of my water.

Rocky bonked. Hard. He got clammy, his voice slurred, he could no longer ride his bike. Luckily, we spied a ranch and made our way toward it, taking little baby steps because that was truly all Rocky had in him.

Once at the ranch, Rocky drank all the water he could and we left. We passed an irrigation ditch; Rocky stripped and layed down in it about ten minutes.

Yeah, it sounds like heat exhaustion, but it was a heat-exhaustion-induced bonk.

Brad at the Kokopelli

Brad does not look like someone who would bonk. Ever. This is because Brad is, to all appearances, the perfect specimen of a man. He bikes, he runs, he does Muay Thai, he eats very much fish.

And yet, a couple of years ago, Brad bonked hard.

A good-sized group of us were doing the Kokopelli Trail — many years had elapsed, and I now had considerable endurance riding experience — and Brad was, as usual, riding off the front. Or at least he was riding up in front until over the course of just a few minutes, he imploded and became a husk of a man. I don’t know why it happened, I don’t think he knows why. But Brad was fully bonked. Everyone in the group slowed way down — you don’t want to leave a bonked rider out in the desert on his own — but Brad still kept dropping behind. He hung his head, he wouldn’t talk, a lot of the time he didn’t even seem to hear us.

The thing is, Brad didn’t have an option about whether to keep going. We were out in the middle of nowhere, and he had to somehow turn the cranks for 30 miles before we next met up with the sag wagon. I’m pretty sure Brad started crying when he finally saw the car and knew he could quit.

Why did Brad bonk? It’s hard to say. Maybe it’s because he didn’t have an ounce of fat on his body, so had no reserves. Maybe it’s because he had been training more for shorter races, and the long ride went beyond what he was ready for. Maybe he was just too darn handsome to be riding with the rest of us.

Fatty at Leadville
Three years ago, I was about as fit as I’ve ever been. I was fit, light, and had been training like crazy. I thought I had a good chance at finishing under nine hours in the Leadville 100. And for the first 65 miles, my split times seemed to show that I was going to do it.

But then, two-thirds of the way through the race, I just couldn’t drink Gatorade anymore. The taste of it sickened me. And that’s too bad, because Gatorade was all I had to drink.

Before long, I would gag whenever I tried to take a drink. And then, right around mile 78, I lost all power. I rode slowly, frustrated that people were passing me so fast, yet completely unable to do anything about it. I pulled over to the side of the road and vomited. I felt better and was able to ride again — for about two minutes. Then I was weaker than ever. Worse, the final 25 miles of the Leadville 100 have two big climbs.

I had plenty of food, plenty to drink, but every time I tried to eat or drink, the gag reflex kicked in. My world became very small: just me, the bike, and the next turn of the crank (or the next step, since there were big stretches I could not ride).

Eventually, it occurred to me that if I took small sips, maybe I could get something down. It worked. Eventually, I could ride again, and even finished with a respectable time — although not the sub-9 I was hoping for.

The thought of Gatorade still creeps me out, though. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to drink it again.

Bonk Recovery
If there’s a silver lining to the bonk, it’s the feeling of recovering from a bonk. Eating everything in sight, as if it were a contest, as if you have a capacity for an infinite amount of food, as if every kind of food really does go with every other kind of food (ketchup and whipped cream on rye? Excellent!)

And then laying down, knowing that you really are as tired as you can possibly be. And that you survived a bonk.

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