Who is Matt Canale you ask? He is a 24 year old fine art, video production and animation extrordinaire, who hails from Fairfield, Connecticut, graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and even attended the RISD honors program in Rome. He is a sweet, soft-spoken, cool dude who now resides in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

He also happened to have biked clear across the country from Fairfield, Connecticut to Florence, Oregon. The trip took about three and half months, starting 24 June, ending 6 October 2006.

He rode a Fuji touring bike–new at the time. He can’t recall the model, but he says it’s gold and brown colored. He still rides it now around the city in springtime to get to and from work.

Matt and his two friends, Brendan and Tom, first decided to do the trip as a fun thing to do right after school. They planned for about a year, and decided to do it upon the boys’ return from Italy. When asked if he had any prior conditiong for the ride, he smiled and gently said no. He stated that they made some kind of “weak attempt”, but they figured that they would best get in shape during the trip itself. Well, that didn’t exactly work out the way he would have liked. According to Matt, the first two weeks were terribly painful, especially on his left knee. He hobbled around when walking, and it got so bad that at one point, they were only riding about 30 miles a day. He rode with toe clips, a pair of hybrid riding shoes–half hikng, half biking. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quite used to them and found that trying to pedal correctly was difficult. He said he didn’t get full rotation, and becaue of his knee, for miles at a time he would literally pedal with only one foot. The coolest thing, he said, was to actually take off the riding shoes and slip into a pair of Sambas!! He expressed that he wished he had gotten more used to the shoes beforehand. Good advice.

What kind of gear did you have? Cell phone, sleeping bag, tent, crank light flashlight (which died on him), mounted two panniers on the back wheel, a bag strapped onto the back bike rack and waterproof coverings that covered the panniers and bag. He had bike tools, a patch kit and extra inner tubes. He said he didn’t get a flat until Denver. (Lucky you!!) They rode the Rockies from Denver into Montana and then onto Oregon. It was very cold at night and they woke to frost covering the tents. He went out of his way to put extra layers on his feet at night before bed. His feet were so cold that he couldn’t even warm them for a few hours after riding in the morning. His mother worried about him during his trip, so he had to use his cell to call home every night to assure her he was fine. They got the route maps from Adventure Cycling, where he says is the best place for cross-country maps (link in header).

Looking back, what would you say was the one item that was the most important? Matt looks down for a moment, looks right back up at me and said, “A pillow!!” I laughed. He said that sleeping on some of the rougher terrain, he thanked god for that pillow. It was a roll up pillow so it could fit into a bag. The only other option for having something under your head was a rolled up pair of jeans. I winced at the thought of a hard pair of jeans under my head trying to sleep on a rock. Matt was like yeah, that’s why the pillow was awesome. Agreed.

What was your favorite state to ride across? “Virginia was pretty. Kleenex box pretty.”

He told me about riding west in the Rockies into Montana and then Oregon. He told me about being in Denver and Boulder. There were long stretches of empty space in Kansas and Wyoming. They shaved once every two weeks. They took showers at truck stops and at the few campsites that had them. However, there were many people along the way that were more than willing to offer food, shelter, showers, backyards, anything to help out. There were many nice people along the way. There were other cyclists they would run into. He mentioned that they had spent weeks on the road and not seeing any kind of diversity. They went through the Continental Divide eleven times. Some of the altitudes they rode through were very high and strained them sometimes. They found that Kansas from east to west, gradually went up in elevation about three thousand feet. But he really bonded with his two friends, and he felt it was a defining moment of his life to have finished the trip.

He also said that his girlfriend was truly instrumental in helping receive the pictures they sent to her as they went along the trip and posting them up on his website. Friends and family were able to keep up with them on the trip and see all the sites as she posted the pictures for him. She is a good lady.

What advice would you give to someone who may be considering an undertaking such as this? He says to just do it. Don’t over analyse it because you may not go through with it. He says he totally would have regret it if he hadn’t done it. How jealous am I?

Would you do it again? Yes.

Matt has the pictures from his trip on his own website–I posted the link in the sidebar, under the pages tab.

This is taken from today’s New York Times.

Written by Gina Kolata

The runner’s high: Every athlete has heard of it, most seem to believe in it and many say they have experienced it. But for years scientists have reserved judgment because no rigorous test confirmed its existence.

Yes, some people reported that they felt so good when they exercised that it was as if they had taken mood-altering drugs. But was that feeling real or just a delusion? And even if it was real, what was the feeling supposed to be, and what caused it?

Some who said they had experienced a runner’s high said it was uncommon. They might feel relaxed or at peace after exercising, but only occasionally did they feel euphoric. Was the calmness itself a runner’s high?

Often, those who said they experienced an intense euphoria reported that it came after an endurance event.

My friend Marian Westley said her runner’s high came at the end of a marathon, and it was paired with such volatile emotions that the sight of a puppy had the power to make her weep.

Others said they experienced a high when pushing themselves almost to the point of collapse in a short, intense effort, such as running a five-kilometer race.

But then there are those like my friend Annie Hiniker, who says that when she finishes a 5-k race, the last thing she feels is euphoric. “I feel like I want to throw up,” she said.

The runner’s-high hypothesis proposed that there were real biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. Chemicals were released that could change an athlete’s mood, and those chemicals were endorphins, the brain’s naturally occurring opiates. Running was not the only way to get the feeling; it could also occur with most intense or endurance exercise.

The problem with the hypothesis was that it was not feasible to do a spinal tap before and after someone exercised to look for a flood of endorphins in the brain. Researchers could detect endorphins in people’s blood after a run, but those endorphins were part of the body’s stress response and could not travel from the blood to the brain. They were not responsible for elevating one’s mood. So for more than 30 years, the runner’s high remained an unproved hypothesis.

But now medical technology has caught up with exercise lore. Researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect.

Leading endorphin researchers not associated with the study said they accepted its findings.

“Impressive,” said Dr. Solomon Snyder, a neuroscience professor at Johns Hopkins and a discoverer of endorphins in the 1970’s.

“I like it,” said Huda Akil, a professor of neurosciences at the University of Michigan. “This is the first time someone took this head on. It wasn’t that the idea was not the right idea. It was that the evidence was not there.”

For athletes, the study offers a sort of vindication that runner’s high is not just a New Agey excuse for their claims of feeling good after a hard workout.

For athletes and nonathletes alike, the results are opening a new chapter in exercise science. They show that it is possible to define and measure the runner’s high and that it should be possible to figure out what brings it on. They even offer hope for those who do not enjoy exercise but do it anyway. These exercisers might learn techniques to elicit a feeling that makes working out positively addictive.

The lead researcher for the new study, Dr. Henning Boecker of the University of Bonn, said he got the idea of testing the endorphin hypothesis when he realized that methods he and others were using to study pain were directly applicable.

The idea was to use PET scans combined with recently available chemicals that reveal endorphins in the brain, to compare runners’ brains before and after a long run. If the scans showed that endorphins were being produced and were attaching themselves to areas of the brain involved with mood, that would be direct evidence for the endorphin hypothesis. And if the runners, who were not told what the study was looking for, also reported mood changes whose intensity correlated with the amount of endorphins produced, that would be another clincher for the argument.

Dr. Boecker and colleagues recruited 10 distance runners and told them they were studying opioid receptors in the brain. But the runners did not realize that the investigators were studying the release of endorphins and the runner’s high. The athletes had a PET scan before and after a two-hour run. They also took a standard psychological test that indicated their mood before and after running.

The data showed that, indeed, endorphins were produced during running and were attaching themselves to areas of the brain associated with emotions, in particular the limbic and prefrontal areas.

The limbic and prefrontal areas, Dr. Boecker said, are activated when people are involved in romantic love affairs or, he said, “when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.” The greater the euphoria the runners reported, the more endorphins in their brain.

“Some people have these really extreme experiences with very long or intensive training,” said Dr. Boecker, a casual runner and cyclist, who said he feels completely relaxed and his head is clearer after a run.

That was also what happened to the study subjects, he said: “You could really see the difference after two hours of running. You could see it in their faces.”

In a follow-up study, Dr. Boecker is investigating if running affects pain perception. “There are studies that showed enhanced pain tolerance in runners,” he said. “You have to give higher pain stimuli before they say, ‘O.K., this hurts.’ ”

And, he said, there are stories of runners who had stress fractures, even heart attacks, and kept on running.

Dr. Boecker and his colleagues have recruited 20 marathon runners and a similar number of nonathletes and are studying the perception of pain after a run, and whether there are related changes in brain scans. He is also having the subjects walk to see whether the effects, if any, are because of the intensity of the exercise.

The nonathletes can help investigators assess whether untrained people experience the same effects. Maybe one reason some people love intense exercise and others do not is that some respond with a runner’s high or changed pain perception.

Annie might question that. She loves to run, but wonders why. But her husband tells her that the look on her face when she is running is just blissful. So maybe even she gets a runner’s high.

So I was riding hard on my way home from work. The traffic after five o’clock is always a nightmare and I won’t even get into how people drive me nuts clogging up intersections trying and failing to get across lights faster. Anyway, I was coming up behind a line of cars waiting behind a red light. As usual, I attack this by just cutting to the left, riding along the double yellow line to keep going. As usual, the driver was not paying attention to anything around him and for whatever bizarre reason starts to move to the left. “Idiot.” I thought as I veered even more to the left which, as you know, means that I’m going further into the oncoming traffic. As luck would have it, a bus is now coming upon me as I’m veering into it’s path, and for whatever bizarre reason decides to turn the wheel to it’s left. Which means that it is leaning towards me now. So here I am, in a split second being closed in by a brainless cab driver and a daft bus driver. I kept rolling through thinking that it was cool. However the rear-view mirror of the cab also cut into the diminishing space I had to roll through. Throw in high speed winds and I came out of this by a hair’s breadth, as I had to lean to avoid the bus and did this rubber woman thing to not catch my shoulder on the bus. I made it through OK, but flying from the rush.

This is taken from the Mayo Clinic website (awesome medical site, better than WebMD in my opinion):

Fall and winter SAD (winter depression)
Symptoms of winter-onset seasonal affective disorder include:
Depression
Hopelessness
Anxiety
Loss of energy
Social withdrawal
Oversleeping
Loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed
Appetite changes, especially a craving for foods high in carbohydrates
Weight gain
Difficulty concentrating and processing information

Spring and summer SAD (summer depression)
Symptoms of summer-onset seasonal affective disorder include:
Anxiety
Insomnia
Irritability
Agitation
Weight loss
Poor appetite
Increased sex drive

Reverse SAD
In rare cases, people with seasonal affective disorder don’t have depression-like symptoms. Instead, they have symptoms of mania or hypomania, a less intense form of mania, during the summer. This is sometimes called reverse SAD.
Symptoms of reverse SAD include:
Persistently elevated mood
Increased social activity
Hyperactivity
Unbridled enthusiasm out of proportion to the situation

I suffer from SAD. Very greatly so in fact. I suffer from the winter depression. I like to get info out about all kinds of things, so I posted the symptoms of the other kinds of SAD. However, I personally experience the winter blues. This year was especially bad for me because on top of the SAD, I was dealing with the aftermath of a devastating break-up with a long-time boyfriend. I knew going into the fall season that I was doomed to experience my hell all over again this year (February being an especially horrific month fo me). However, I am not sure if anyone else experiences this, but I tend to forget just how bad it gets for me each year. As the season turns from summer to fall, I think that I’m going to be a little blue and I just have to wait it out. No. I fool myself every time.

So I am posting this just to share, but also to note that I have noticed my ride getting strong again as the days get longer and the weather warms up. It was very strange. I thought that I was lagging on my bike due to the overeating from the depression. And of course, drinking more than usual. But that is not the case. I can literally feel the daylight energize me, breathing life into my body, propelling me up the hills I dread so much. Today, I felt ALIVE again. I came out of the darkness.

I am sure there are other folks out there too that suffer from SAD as I do. I wanted to share my story with those that may not realise that they may be suffering from it. Perhaps, there are some people that just think that the cold or the dark impedes their ride. I thought so too, but I have had some startling epiphanies this year and one of them was my SAD was affecting my ride. It became even more clear to me today when I rode as normal to work and I just felt as good as I did last summer. I didn’t even realise that the depression could affect my riding!!

But anyway, now that it is spring, let’s all ride!!

This is the text string between a friend of mine and me today….

Matt: Did you sign up for the 5 Boro?

Me: Not sure if I will…will decide by this weekend…

Matt: We have a big group. You are more than welcome to join. This year’s focus is going to be solely about boozing.

Can life be any sweeter??

So now that it is springtime again, I guess I have to get some new gear. I’d like another new tech-top, I already have the gloves I need (Pearl Izumi), I have shorts and a cycling tank. But I think I’d like to get a new jersey. Nothing with any logos on it. I’d really like to get the Brooklyn jersey, but it is so played out now. I have to find something else that I will like for the season and beyond. Oh yes, I even have a jacket for spring, complete with the three pockets on the back. I don’t really ever put anything in the pickets though because I ride with a backpack all the time. I have a Camelback that I’ve had for the past few years and it’s cool in that it it small enough to sit on the back comfortably (without the water pack) but still can hold all the crap I seem to lug around all the time. I just recently bought a new bag, called Hard Wear and I really like it. The biggest selling point of it for me was the fact that it has a compartment to hold my laptop. And it doesn’t feel like I have this lumbering bag on my back either. I am very picky about that actually. Years ago I had another great backpack by Black Diamond, which is mostly for hiking and mountain climbing, but hey, sports are sports. Kelty is also a great company for backpacks. I have a huge Kelty pack for when I travel–you know, the mountain backpack. Anyway, the Hard Wear also has a sweet compartment that is fleece lined and super soft to hold sunglasses. Word!! Also has lots of other compartments to organize all my crap. And I really do carry around a lot of crap when I ride. My friends make fun of me and say that if it all went down today, I’d be prepared for the apocalypse. And they are right.

I have been considering getting toe clips too lately, but the jury is not back on that one. I have a real fear of being strapped to my bike to the point of not being able to free my feet in time to catch myself when falling. I wear strapless stirrups now and have not freed a foot and fell on that side….embarrassingly. However, I think that the tendinitis I developed last year in my Achilles tendon came from not situating my foot properly on the pedal, and I felt my other one starting to give out as well. That’s when I thought that maybe the toe clips would keep me from ruining my Achilles tendons. The shoes are pretty cool, but the mechanics of the clip kind of elude me. I don’t know, maybe I’m just picky about my first choice stirrups. The ones I have are plastic and they just go right over the toe with no straps. At one point I fell and broke the right pedal and rode a few days with just the left stirrup and thought that I may stick with just the one stirrup, as I am right handed and always drop the right foot when I come to a stop. But then I changed my mid and fixed the pedal and I am back on two stirrups.

I am going to start doing my research and find the best of the best in terms of usability for the toe clips and report right back here what I find.

This weekend I am hoping against all hope that it is really nice out. I feel like taking a ride, taking some pictures to post and meeting some of the fellow road bikers.

Oh joy-SPRING!!

I have noticed the past two days more cyclists on the road. Cheers to you all!! I am hoping that as it gets warmer, more and more folks will get out on their bikes and ride to get around. Especially with the price increase on transit fares. I see no reason to pay money to get around when I can do it for free. Why put expensive gas in the car to get around on the weekend if you don’t have to carry anything?

Also cheers to the longer daylight hours, so that now I can see the ginormous potholes coming from a mile away….

The 5 Boro Bike Tour is coming up!! Sunday 4 May 2008!!

Seems like yesterday I just did it. That was last year, also in May, and that was the second one I did. That last time around I did it with a group of people and had a great time. I was part of a group of about five (me included) and my ex and I broke away from the other three and tore it up. I was on Jake (my cyclocross), and he served me very well. I was able to handle all the hills, dips and potholes much better than on my old road racer (which I rode the first time a few years before that). I felt like Superwoman. My ex, who rides not anywhere nearly as much as I do, had his new Bianchi cyclocross and he actually did very well too. Besides, he’s a man and just a tad stronger than me, so we stayed with each other during the ride. And our paces were kind of in line with each other, which worked out perfectly for the both of us.

I strongly suggest riding any tour with as many friends that you can wrangle up, but make sure at least one other person is at your same pace, just to keep away the boredom and keep you jazzed about the ride.

Oh, and just to throw this in (just to show you HOW hardcore I really am), the first time I rode, I was with a then boyfriend. I rode the entire course having an asthma attack!! One of the reasons why I broke up with that guy was the fact that he didn’t seem to care that I was having an asthma attack and he kept leaving me alone to ride on long stretches of the course. But I digress. I just wanted to let the world know that I finished a 40 mile bike ride unable to properly breathe the entire time!! Oh yes, I AM a bicyclist!!!!!!! I cannot be stopped….

I have to say the course they have for the ride is pretty challenging for anyone at any level. It is also very interesting how they cordon off sections of the BQE and FDR for us to ride. Albeit awesome to ride on a road that only cars have the priveledge to roll over, it is also insane in that you don’t realise until you are on a bike on these two roads just how messed up they are with the potholes. Unbelieveable. I’d like to have Bloomberg ride on a tandem attached to Jake and me, ride over the BQE and FDR and THEN have him tell me how effective 311 is at fixing reported potholes…

Also, the tour is just that: a tour. If you want it to be. There are always the Supermen and Superwomen who blow through it in like 20 minutes just for practice. OK, you know I jest about the 20 minutes, but I am always impressed to see the racers sharpen their teeth on this course. I am a fan of the gear they wear–you know, the jerseys with all the logos of their sponsors (some are jerseys you can buy in a bike shop with logos on them), the crazy shorts and toe clips, the odometers, the space-alien helmets and sunglasses…. truly a spectacle, even for a seasoned rider like me. I used to race (road) years ago, and wore all the gear, but decided it wasn’t for me. It took a few years to find my niche, but found that I liked city riding more than road racing. And tours such as the 5 Boro offer not only a cross between the racers and the casual tour-monsters, but for me, riding in my own city at my own pace….it brings a tear to my eye just writing about it!!

I haven’t decided yet if I will ride this year. I need to make a few calls–and soon–to see if anyone I know is game. As cool as I am with getting around the city by myself, I don’t really want to do the 5 Boro by myself. It really is better shared with friends. Although, don’t get me wrong, you can MAKE new friends there too!! Everyone is an enthusiast and it’s very comforting to be around your own bretheren. But I guess this year being that I am still single (BOO!!) and kind of not wanting to make an appearance out by myself like that (yes I know, stupid, STUPID), I may just let this one go by.

But it’s OK though. Spring, then Summer are on the horizon. There is plenty more to get involved with….

Then get yourself a cyclocross bike. A good one. Tough, durable, light, fast and all around kick ass gearing.

Then get your self into a city, preferably a big one, lots of traffic during the day and night. Get on your bike and ride in the city streets. Show those taxi drivers who’s boss. Be careful of the city bus drivers–they don’t give a crap about who they run over or what property they damage. Make sure to always stay on the bus’ left side so when the driver decides to actually use the rear view mirror, they will see you. Slip in between cars when they are locked at lights.

See how fast you get to your destination when you are not in a car, but rather can breeze inbetween them as they sit on their horns and scratch their heads.

Be weary of the folks who turn one way and are looking the opposite way. Oh they don’t even realise you’re there until you bang on the car, but then they get mad because you hit their car. Nevermind they were making either an illegal or just god awful turn. Be careful for motorcycles. They can pop out of nowhere and ruin your day. The double parkers who then open their doors into traffic? Puh-shaw!! Yell at them all you want, cuss even. Because they are morons.

A real wake me up is a sideswipe by a cab or idiot driver who just doesn’t care to share the street with a bicyclist. This is where you assert yourself. Ride like you are a CAR. Show no fear. You must be comfortable being inbetween cars and trucks or busses and vans or cabs and limos. All of which have drivers paying attention to everything else besides the road, least of all you.

Nighttime? Like crack if you are really into the challenge!!

First rule of the road: don’t ever depend on others for your own personal safety. Only YOU are responsible for yourself. Don’t expect the drivers on the road to look out for you because they simply won’t. Road rage is an indication of that. You must be hyper alert and have razor sharp reflexes. Even the pedestrians present a challenge as they like to stand way out on the corners and you may even have to weave inbetween them when making a turn. Watch out for ladies with big bags, they can snag you.
The downhill is your friend. Always pedal on downhills, thus exerting your authority even more to the cars around you. They actually show a little respect if you keep up with them sometimes. Only sometimes though. Cabs don’t like to be lapped by bikes. And they are vindictive. They will fuck with you at every chance they get.

Ah yes. Believe me when I tell you that I get high every chance I get to ride into Manhattan. Brooklyn is cool, it has hills and winding streets and is very roomy. But Manhattan is my drug. I become more focused on my bike than any other aspect of my life. I feel no pain on my bike. And that is the best drug there is. And guess what? Not ONE pharmaceutical company can sell that to you……

I mentioned in the previous post a local bike shop near me in DUMBO called Recycle A Bicycle. It is way more than just a bike repair shop. They actually recycle old bicycles, repair old or new ones, and the very interesting thing about this worthy organization is that they mentor young kids and teach them all about bicycles and repairing them. The mechanics in the DUMBO location are friendly and very Brooklyn chic. Thus they get the mention as one of the bike stores I regularly visit. Please check out their website.

I noticed lately riding on moderate flats and downhills that I was not getting any resistance when I shifted down on the back anymore.

Funny, my first thought was, “Wow, I’m not getting any resistance. I think I might need to change the sprockets to something smaller. I must be getting in better shape!!” Man how the ego can play tricks on you sometimes.

After tuning more into the problem, I realised that I wasn’t going down to the last two smallest sprockets on the back. At this point, if I want to tear downhill, I have to stop and manually shift the chain myself, then get back on and go. Bummer, especially if getting chain oil and dirt on your hands and clothes is not too appealing. And yes, it still gets all over me when I wear my gloves. And then of course, it doesn’t always wash off immediately–double bummer.

After making a stop over to my local bike shop in DUMBO called “Recycle A Bicycle” on Pearl Street, one of the mechanics took one look at my gear mechanism and told me about the derailleur hanger. I had not known about it before, but I quickly learned that it is the metal piece hanging off the right side of the back end of the frame. It is the lowest part of the back of the derailleur and it controls how the chain shifts from one sprocket to the other. What’s keeping me from shifting all the way down is the fact that the derailleur hanger is bent inward toward the frame. So I essentially have in a way, cut off the room for the shifter to get the chain down to the two smallest sprockets.

Flash back now to the myriad times I lifted up my bike to get into a door and banged the back end. Or how many times I kept going into the elevator in my building and catching that hanger on the closing elevator door. I knew it couldn’t have been good, but I just thought I was just hitting the frame itself, not the hanger. So a new lesson learned: Don’t hit the bike on anything period.

Also I guess it goes without saying that falling off the bike doesn’t do much good for it (or yourself, or your knees) either.