My Road To Iceman

    Here it comes! In just five days 30 Days Of Biking starts. The concept is simple. Sign up at the website and then ride your bike every day in April. It doesn’t matter how long or how far you ride, what matters is that you ride every day. It’s fun and is even more fun when your friends sign up.

    Last year was the second year and my first year trying it. I have to admit that I didn’t make it every single day. I will however make it this year and you can help me. How can you help me you ask yourself. It’s easy sign up and post your rides, share them with me on Facebook, Twitter, or Strava. Come on y’all let’s do this!

    So I have been threatening this blog post for a good 8 days. I have been so busy that it had to be pushed back until I could make proper time to write about this. 

    If you have followed my blog for any amount of time. It is no secret that I have struggled with my weight for most of my life and I have been battling extra hard for the past 18 months. It has been a tough battle with many ups and many downs. But I will not quit until I win.

    I have tried all kinds of different diets. I have counted calories, I have tried low carb, paleo, and at one point I halfheartedly tried a vegetarian diet with the plan of transitioning to a vegan diet.

    On February 23rd, 2012 I got serious and started a vegan diet.  So far so good. The weight is coming off slowly but surely. In December I hit a pretty rough stumbling block and gained back a pretty substantial amount of weight between Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. Well now I am within five pounds of my lowest weight before Iceman. I credit a low fat whole foods vegan diet as being the key to my recent success.  Even after a few medical issues that have kept me from the gym and off of my bike for longer than I wanted to be.

    One thing that you may not know about me is that I am a type 2 diabetic. Even riding and frequent cardio work outs combined with oral medications my blood glucose levels were starting to rise. I was completely sure that insulin was just around the corner. This really scared me, because who really want to inject themselves with a hormone three times a day if they could help it. No way did I want to be attached to a syringe.

    Enter the movie “Forks Over Knives”  . This movie along with the books Eat To Live by Joel Fuhrman and Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell Esslestyn were pivotal in my switch to a serious vegan diet. Those and a concise, no bullshit straight to the point email from a cyclist that has lost three times as much weight as I need to. He went as far as to sign it with “You can thank me later”.  Here is this dude who is living proof laying it down, how could I not try? 

    Here I am three weeks later and eight pounds lighter, and loving the diet still. The weight loss isn’t the big deal for this post, it’s a big deal but not the most important issue. What really matters here in this post is my glucose numbers. As I stated earlier my glucose levels were not being controlled very well. I am not going to go into specific numbers but my morning numbers were high. Almost immediately I started to see them dropping. The drops were slow but they were dropping and dropping  steadily. Now three weeks into it, my morning numbers are below 120 and some of my daytime numbers are below 100. Normal glucose levels!! A bit on the high side, but these numbers that demonstrate control over my glucose levels is being achieved.

    I call bullshit on carbs being bad. So take that put it in your paleo pipe and smoke it. I am far from being a dietitian or a nutritionist, but following a whole foods plant based diet has taken me from the edge of being insulin dependent to once again moving in the right direction. The trick is avoiding overly processed foods and sticking to whole grains, fresh and raw vegetables, and avoiding added oils and too much saturated fat. 

     After all of this time, it feels great to have found the key, for me. Sticking to this way of eating has been incredibly simple. I think that they key to my success has been taking an “all or nothing” approach. Personally I cannot handle moderation when it comes to food, I guess that knowing is half the battle. To quote the best PSA’s ever, Go Joe! I’ve pretty much proven this to myself over and over again. It has been said that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I am at 22 and really don’t have any cravings for dairy or meat. The two books that I mentioned earlier are jam packed with delicious recipes, and I have only tried a fraction. I cannot tell you how great that it feels to be on the right track. This has been a terrific learning experience. I have messed up plenty and I am sure that I will mess up again. But if you aren’t messing up you probably aren’t learning! 

    And since this blog is mostly supposed to be about bikes. Here is a pic of my steel voodoo bike that is subbing for a road bike until I find the right one. Oh and I got the new issue of Paved today!! I can’t wait to tear into it!

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    Okay so that big big update that I promised kinda got washed away by some pressing issues. It’s going to be a day or two longer. Sorry to those of you that checked back expecting a bit more than those two videos. Everything is fine on my end I just had some unexpected business. 

    I am working diligently on this. Thanks for your patience and support.

                                                                            Chuck 

Big Big Update coming within 48 hours! Until then watch these.

I wish that I could ride like a girl.

    In roughly ten and a half hours I will be registered for my second Iceman Cometh race! I am also into my eighth day of a plant based diet and feeling fantastic. 

    The bad news is that a suspected asthma attack landed me in the ER last Saturday. I am doing much better but am a little bit nervous about doing too much riding right now in the colder weather. I haven’t really had any problems in the past week, just a little mental reservation about going out and kicking some ass on my bike. This problem should be a thing of the past come this November.

      This past year has brought much change and I am still moving in the right direction.  My friend Monica sent me two really great books in the mail to push me along and keep me inspired. They are Skinny Bastard by Rory Freedman, and Kim Barnouin, and Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Diet. 

     I jumped straight into Skinny Bastard. It is written in a no nonsense tone with a bit of naughty language thrown in to give this book character. Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy diet looks like it is going to be a fun fact filled read. I have watched her videos on Youtube and find her to be entertaining and knowledgeable(okay and she is really cute). I’ve also been using my new cook book Forks Over Knives, The How To  Companion.  There are several great recipes in here as well. I am working on a Paleo Vs. Plant based article for further down the line. I’ve tried them both, and so far the plant based is leaving me feeling much better and I have dropped some more weight. I am just about ten pounds away from my lowest weight last October. It is way past time to make that 42 number on the front page of this website start to climb again. 

    Today I also added another weapon to my arsenal. After much searching I found a Health Master Blender on Craigslist. Yes the Health Master that Montel Williams pitches on late night T.V. Initially I was a bit nervous about buying on of these, but decided to take the plunge, if not only for the fact that a Vita Mix Blender is about 450 bucks and good luck finding one used. The Health Master got some real stinky reviews but I think that I lucked out and got a decent one. So far today I have been drinking the heck out green juice today! Kale, tomatoes, and garlic was pretty tasty and so was the spinach apple and celery. 

    In just seven more days I will be tearing it up at Ray’s MTB again. We were supposed to go today, but ended up pushing the date back one week. So stoked and ready to ride there again!   

I haven’t said this in a while, But SEE YOU AT ICEMAN!!!!

But I am super tired, so here are some bullets points that I will be expanding on soon.

* I am currently redesigning the whole myroadtoiceman site and consolodating it with riddenwords.com. This includes moving to a real server and having an editor to proof read my mess.

* As of 2/22/2012 I have committed to a Vegan Diet for at least 40 days.

* Yesterday I picked up my Team Hot Dog Kit and met three of my team mates in real    life for the first time!

* I am three months away from my first century ride

* The registration for Iceman Cometh 2012 is 6 days away!

I am gonna be busy, but life is looking fantastic!

    In one week and five days I am venturing back to Ray’s MTB! I expect to to be a lot less rusty!

    In other news. I am kinda getting tired of Mountain Bike Action’s need to have a 26er Vs. 29er shoot out every other month. It get’s kind of old. At this point I am not really sure that there will be a “standard” wheel size. I have them both and enjoy them equally. But seriously at the local trail I am so much quicker on my 26er and I do have a bit of a time taking the tight turns on my 29er. Conversely, my 29er performed incredibly at the 2011 Iceman and at the Island lake Recreation Area. Who knows? Maybe the 650b will make the other tire sizes a thing of the past.

    The one thing that I know in my heart to be true is that no matter what size wheel is on my bike, as long as I am moving along and having fun, it is the perfect sized wheel for the moment. 

    So last Monday my wife (Shelly) said to me, “I have Thursday off, maybe we could go to that skate shop in Cleveland, and then we could go to Ray’s MTB and then eat at Melt.” Without delay I eagerly agreed to her idea. We are not by nature early risers, so when we hashed out the plans, me getting up at 7:30 in the am was kind of a stretch but I agreed to do it. Our goal was to leave by 9:00 am and get to the Skater’s Edge at 11:00am. When Thursday morning came I was surprised when I had the car all loaded up and ready to roll by 8:30. This was especially impressive because I packed 4 bikes into and on my Dodge Caliber. 

     Some of you are probably wondering, “Why four bikes?” Well here is why. I had been to Ray’s twice before and both times I took my 26inch Specialized Rock Hopper Pro. The second trip my derailer screwed up about 20 minutes into the ride so I rented a Trek Mullet. Since I upgraded to a 29er last year I packed up my VooDoo 26er as a back up just in case. Shelly is really devoted to her 24 inch BMX cruiser that I bought her over a decade ago, but last year I bought her a SE Racing Stout which is a SS 29er. She has been really apprehensive about changing over to mountain bikes. Seriously she keeps up with mountain bikers at Island Lake Rec area on her BMX bike. This year she will have a 26er to ride that I am putting together from spare parts. If she so desires she will then get a new one, but honestly I think that she wants to do the Iceman on her BMX bike next year.

    We had to run two errand first then we were able to hit the road. We were out by 9:45, which was 45 minutes later than we had planned but an hour earlier than I honestly expected. 

    The ride to Cleveland is buh-buh-buh BORING! We finally got there though and finished with Shelly’s skate stuff. Then we headed to Ray’s MTB. Which is the coolest place in the world. If you have never been there take a gander at their website and watch some of the videos. We paid our fees, I bought platform pedals, and put them on, then we were off. In my excitement I really didn’t warm up and I headed straight for the green XC course. This was a pretty bad move on a few different levels. I should have eased in slowly and warmed up in the novice room and then ridden in the sport room for a while. Exercise bikes and measly six mile rides can’t really keep you in the riding shape that you are used to in the summer time. So I kinda got my ass handed to me a little bit. No worries though. We went to the novice room and then moved on to the sport room. 

     We were zooming around all over the place just having fun. Who did I see there but Mr. Ray Petro himself. What a heck of a nice guy. I have to admit that I am a bit jealous that I didn’t come up with the idea first. I am super stoked for him though. The guy obviously loves biking and can ride all day to his hearts content. On top of that he wasn’t too busy to stop and talk for a few minutes. It’s pretty inspirational to see some who has “made it” stay grounded like that.

     The atmosphere at Ray’s is KILLER. Every time that I have went there I have made new friends. Everyone is really supportive and there is no smack talking or finger pointing. People are there to ride, and riding is all that matters here. Now speaking of riding. I mentioned earlier about taking my 26er for back up. I never did get it out of my car because I really wanted to focus on bike handing skills. The only place where I really felt hindered by the 29 inch wheels was in the rollers. At first I was a bit perplexed by bermed turns, but I figured out that I really had to throw myself into them, so much so that I was pushing my comfort level leaning into the turns. Eventually I got to the point where I was feeling better taking different lines into the berms. I never quite got the hang of the rollers though.

       As surprised at this as I was. I was having some issues with riding some of the obstacles and dropping into. Over the past year I had become pretty brave and shed fear of most trails and what not. I chickened out on a six foot high roll in. I don’t know what my issue was. I just froze at the top of it. I need to break that fear next time. It wasn’t the greatest feeling.

     We rode there for five hours and much fun was had. So much fun that I didn’t even bother to video anything. My GoPro stayed in my backpack the whole day. I am sorry to disappoint, but that day was a day for riding and not for blogging. When I left, I left a better rider. I left missing riding outdoor trails, and I left thankful that a guy in Cleveland had the vision and drive to do something this awesome. 

Tomorrow morning I have my first cross fit training session, and Thursday I am going to Ray’s MTB in Cleveland. It’s gonna be a great weekend! Keep your eyes peeled for updates and videos!

I know that it’s kind of redundant and boring watching a fat gut go around in circles. I am just posting these as a reference point  for my next trip. I also have that awesome Go Pro camera now, so I hope to make some more interesting clips.