New beers, recovery, and a crazy health problem

My last post was a race report about the 12 hour race I did about a week ago. I'm happy to report that my recovery is going nicely, and I'm pretty much back to normal. Hands were the slowest to recover and I have full strength back in them but on a mountain bike ride Friday night they got a tad sore, but nothing terrible. I didn't really do anything special to help myself recover, I tried to eat better and outside of commuting I really didn't ride anywhere, so I think that helped. Something that certainly did not help my recovery is how I spent my Tueday; dealing with benign positional vertigo.

Woke up on Tuesday morning feeling groggier than usual and slightly dizzy, in a few minutes this turned itself into "OMFG standing is a hard, I'm gonna puke!" level dizziness. So after puking my guts out and wondering what the hell was wrong with me, I figured I'd eaten something bad and I'd just go back to bed for a while and worry about work and whatnot once I woke back up, this was a bad move. Literally 5 seconds after laying down, my head was spinning so hard it felt like my whole room was in a blender. I sprinted the few steps to the bathroom and again puked so hard I thought my bellybutton was going to touch my spine. At this point I knew something was seriously amiss I tried to plan my next move. Having no idea why I felt this was I was pretty freaked out, but knew I was "okay" sitting still and even standing, but laying down or cocking my head to the side caused horribly vomit inducing dizziness. So, I determined that the urgent care place was where I needed to go, so I called the only person I knew in town that wouldn't already be at work, my boss. In fairness, it was a little after 9 am, and he lives about 3 blocks from me, so he was a good choice even if I'd had a few more options, which I did not. Anyway, filling out paperwork is kind of a bitch while somewhat dizzy, at least sitting and standing weren't too horrible, some wobbly moments, but reclining or fully laying down was brutal. Once the doctor saw me, it took him about two minutes to diagnose it and sent me to the pharmacy to get an over the counter anti motion sickness drug. Weee. I spent the rest of the day napping and trying to watch tivo'd cycling while in a sitting position on the couch. I'm fine now(I think), but the problems could come back at virtually time with no warning or obvious cause. Great.

Once I got to feeling better, I resumed my usually habit of trying new and/or fancy beers. Here are a few:

Shipyard's fall offering, Smashed Pumpkin.

I generally am not a huge fan of pumpkin beers, most have minimal pumpkin flavor and focus on the spices you'd use in a pumpkin pie. While I like many fruit beers and many spiced beers, most pumpkin beers I've had fall flat, this is no exception. There's a ton of pie spices in this beer with a whisper of actual pumpkin flavor. Shipyard has even less pumpkin in this beer than most other breweries, which is kind of a let down. I think with a somewhat different base beer, and maybe dropping the pumpkin all together, Shipyard has a sweet-ish and spicy christmas/holiday beer. Not entirely sure how to alter this beer to make it better, but more pumpkin would be a quick fix, or scrap it, make a different fall seasonal, drop the pumpkin and try a different base and call it a holiday ale.

This next one is a bit closer to home, I made it.
\That's my Bourbon Oak Porter, aged several months, I don't have an exact record that I can find right now, but at least four, probably closer to six. Anyway, it definitely got better with age. The flavors blended better and the oaky character that was slightly annoying in the initial tasting has mellowed out is is not a present but not overbearing note that works really well with the rest of the beer.

Now for the crown jewel of what I've been drinking recently: 3 Floyd's Zombie Dust. (You'll have to click on the tap list to see a description of it)

Only available in their brew pub and only in pints and growlers, I was lucky enough to have a friend visiting the area who was kind enough to drink me one. I didn't ask for it, I asked for plenty of other things from them in bottles though (which he also brought) but this was a big surprise. It's a fruity, citrusy IPA that is excellent. It's super smooth, not over the top hoppy, but has a citrusy and almost sticky hop flavor. Much love for damn near everything 3 Floyds does and this is no exception.

Confessions about the wind + homebrew

As I tweeted earlier today: I like the wind. I enjoy riding in it under most circumstances. Sure it is a pain in the ass on my commute, especially in the winter, but all it does is make you stronger. In Iowa we don't have long climbs, nor many especially steep ones. We've got tons of slight rolling hills, miles upon miles of rail trails, but nothing that can really be called a proper climb in the cycling sense of the word. Sure both "coasts" of Iowa boast some steep climbs that last about a mile, but nothing like a serious mountain climb that takes a couple hours to summit. What we have instead is the wind; rarely ceasing, constantly shifting, soul crushing wind. You can eventually summit a mountain pass of any length, nothing you can do other than waiting will shut the wind off.

When I've ridden bikes in other parts of the country, I get dropped on climbs pretty easily, but I can always hang if there's even a mild cross wind. People who aren't used to it have no idea what they're doing and bitch about it constantly. When I was in Morgan Hill, California a few years ago attending some classes at Specialized's HQ, we did a 30 mile ride in the rolling hills surrounding the town. There was a 15-ish mph breeze, and almost everyone was sketchy when it was a cross wind, complained constantly about the head wind and didn't enjoy the tail wind as much as they should have. On the other hand I was fine and held my lines (so did a few others from the midwest), I also provided significant shelter from the wind for many other people. You see, I'm 6'4 with fairly broad shoulders, so I punch a pretty large hole in the air when riding, a hole smaller people can take serious advantage of. This "favor" is one they cannot possibly repay because I get virtually no draft off of tiny people.

People think I'm a bit "off" for liking the wind, to them I say HTFU. A large part of training/riding is preparing mentally for a race/event. Sure the physical work out and condition of the body is crucial, but mental callousing is also crucial, especially if you're like me and enjoy events that are more about finishing than formally winning. A good wind (from any direction) does both. A headwind forces you to push harder and attempt to hold a more aero position for a longer amount of time. This makes you stronger physically and mentally. A cross wind makes you focus more on bike handling and teaches you how to deal with uneven conditions. Cross winds probably do the most for you in terms of being faster than other people in a race. If you can keep yourself on line and in a good place in a cross wind, you'll do well in a race. A tail wind not only makes the ride more fun (holy top speeds Batman), it can also provide a bit of a different work out. It can do this in two ways: first those high speed runs work on power and leg speed. I've spun out on flat-ish terrain with a really strong tailwind. Spinning a cross bike with a 42x11 high gear at 130 rpms and 35+ mph is a killer work out. Secondly a tailwind can allow you the confidence to ride harder into the wind, knowing the ride home will be cake.

Thus ends my defense of liking the wind. Now on to what most of you probably care about: beer.
This is a beer I brewed a while ago, a Belgian style tripel. It has taken 5-6 weeks (I've legitimately forgotten) to properly bottle condition/carbonate. Not entirely sure why, possibly it was too cool after bottling, maybe there wasn't enough yeast in the bottles, but for whatever reason, this was my fourth test bottle, and the first on that feels right. The flavor is about the same as the others, but the carbonation is perfect and it enhances the flavor in just the right way. Hiccups like this are things that make me think about investing in a stir plate for yeast starters, and also a kegging set up, as bottling is a pain in the ass. Oh well, maybe once I find some money I don't want to spend on bikes...

Beer, brewing, and a gear review

To absolutely no one's surprise, I've been drinking. And riding my bike despite sub zero wind chills, and brewing some beer too boot. I've been working through the last little bit of my previous home brewing efforts, the Surly beer I brought back from the Twin Cities, and odds and some of my standard "hey that's a good price on something I like" type beers. Something new was Magic Hat #9 Not Quite Pale Ale.


# 9 is roughly a regular pale ale crossed with a french farm ale. Very roughly. There's a bit of hop and citrus in there but it's a smooth inviting kinda thing, that is very mild and quite good. The flavor is hard to pin down, but interesting and pretty good. I could see drinking tons of this beer on hot summer days.

In my home brewing exploits, I've recently bottled a coffee stout, and I'm preparing to add bourbon soaked oak cubes to a porter to simulate bourbon barrel aging. Check it out:

Toasted oak cubes in some Gladware.

Eagle Rare Bourbon. Why cheap out? Plus, now I have most of a fancy bottle of bourbon.

Cubes soaking in booze.

In a couple days I'm going to dump the whole works into my carboy full of beer, then leave it for a couple weeks, then bottle. From the smell of the porter when I racked it to secondary, this thing should be great. *crosses fingers*

One last thing to write about, and that is my continuing commutes. As I wrote earlier, my gloves had become worn enough that they weren't as warm as I needed. I have found one helluva solution.

Bar Mitts

These things are great. They're like wearing a heavy pair of mittens over your heavy gloves/mittens. I've been able to use these with a light glove when the temps are in the 20s and the wind chill isn't too bad. Below that I've been wearing the Loius Garneau Typhoon lobster style mitten.

Warm, really really warm. Almost as warm as a heavy mitten but with almost the dexterity of a glove. These puppies would be plenty without the bars mitts down into the teens, but with the bars mitts, I've had no problems even when the windchill has been well below zero. I think the record this winter has been set at a -11F windchill, which was, of course, a headwind. The little reflective piping on the glove works great (as you can see) it sadly doesn't look that glowy in normal light, with the flash hitting it though it kinda looks like my hand belongs in the new Tron movie. My only complain with the glove is that the cuff isn't especially long. It's hard to get a jacket sleeve to tuck under it, and pushing it into a sleeve can be a trick too. The shorter liner + longer shell that my old Specialized gloves had was the right solution to the problem. With the bars mitts it is far from a big deal, but solo it could be.