Which Muscles Matter?

“Learn to ride a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.” Mark Twain

If you have ever looked at the legs on “real” (meaning, not me) cyclist, you would likely notice that many have quads the size of my waist. Other than size, there aren’t any other similarities as their quads are hard muscles, and my belly’s more like a couch cushion. Real cyclists have two huge pistons that drive those pedals up and down. If you never road a bike, you might be fooled into thinking that the quads are the most important muscle for bicycling. Believe me, it’s not.

A lifetime ago, I went on a “long” bicycle tour and learned the truth. Granted, it only crossed one state line, covered about 350 miles and lasted just 4 days, but it was to be a multi-day, honest to goodness, bike tour. Spending a summer as a college intern at Marathon Oil in Littleton, Colorado gave me a chance to ride my bike (partway) back to BYU before starting school again in the fall. The summer would be my training time. I just needed a partner.

We had a one year old, Jessica, so my wife wasn’t too keen on participating. This was long before fancy trailers and a good thing. I would likely have died trying to pull my daughter. My younger brother lived at home, owned a bike, and was still erroneously influenced by big brother. Mike soon became my perfect training and tour partner. He didn’t really have any idea what it meant to ride day after day for a few hundred miles and neither did I.

Blaming his school schedule and my work schedule – not to mention my family responsibilities – we didn’t connect too often for riding. We thought and talked about it a lot, but really only did about one training ride per week – most weeks. This was typically on Saturday morning and we sometimes went as far as 25 miles! Putting in that many miles made us feel pretty good about ourselves and on coming home we drank our favorite recovery drink: Frappe.

Actually, no one called anything a “recovery drink” back then and this was long before the Power bar or any other sports bar. Bars were where people drank. However, frappe sounded French – like the tour – so we figured it would likely be good for us manly cyclist. Plus, it tasted wonderful. Now there are lots of different types of frappe, but “our” frappe was a bunch of sherbet ice cream mixed with lemonade or Sprite. Long(ish) rides, frappes for recover every week, and we were ready for our tour.

My loving wife had purchased a seat cover for me shortly before departure. It was a wonderful, soft, sheep skin that stretched across my ever so hard seat. Brother Mike thought it was hilarious and not in keeping with the manliness of a bicycle tour. He was still laughing about it as we mounted our bikes and began day one with a climb over Vail pass and then into Eagle where Gloria would meet us. With Glenwood Canyon being a dangerous two lane road (and pre-bike path), Gloria would drive us to Glenwood for the first night. Then we were on our own until Duchesne, UT.

The next morning I found out the most important muscle in bicycle touring. After struggling out of bed, I went outside to help ready the bikes. There I found brother Mike with a roll of duct tape and a one foot square piece of inch thick foam. He was working desperately, to put added cushioning on his seat. Mike had learned, the very hard way, that the most important muscle in bicycle touring is in fact your gluteus maximus, not your quads. And although the frappe had helped widen ours, it had not helped harden them.

Training now for the Great Divide, we’ve reserved green frappe for St. Patrick’s day. We’ve also done more training rides in two weeks than brother Mike and I did all summer. And, of course, I’ve identified the gluteus maximus as a priority. There are already a stack of tested seats sitting in a box in the garage. Sitting on a bike for 2700 miles, I want to make certain my bike seat and my gluteus maximus are best friends. Oh, and I’m also bringing a case of chamois cream.