I love my bike.

"Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride."

-John F. Kennedy

West Mandeville Fire Rd., Santa Monica Mountains.

In my opinion there is no single greater pleasure in my life than riding a bike.  As a child I think we all have experienced the feeling of freedom that comes along with your first bike ride.  From that point on we are conditioned to think of freedom and bicycle as synonyms... and pure joy follows.  My best memories with friends as a child and as an individual all involve bikes...  

My first bike.  Peugeot circa 1960's.  Also the first bike of my father, uncle, sister, and cousins... and someday my children.  I was hipster before hipster... check the rolled up jeans and checkered slip on's yo.

... To that end my best memories as an adult involve being with my most loved ones on a bike...

Of the many things people asked me about when I moved to LA, how I would be able to maintain my lifestyle as a cyclist was at the top of the list.  At first I firmly defended my ability to do what I want wherever I am and I was sure I would be able to ride more than I did in MN based strictly on the amazing weather out here.  After all I was only living 8 or 9 miles from work surely there would be an easy route to bike commute.  When I lived in Detroit Lakes I commuted 20+ miles each way on my bike, whats a few miles in some traffic!?  I was wrong.  Within a couple months of living in Hollywood I had found the volume of traffic at all hours of the day and lack of bicycle lanes within the city daunting.  I love urban riding and don't mind being around cars, but it's different out here.  Drivers are different and they have no respect for cyclists or bicycle commuters.  After some time I recognized that I was missing being on my bike on a daily basis so I made a pact with myself to at least park my car after work and bike commute or walk anywhere I needed to go.  It was a start.  I managed to become a strict night rider and even toughed it out through a few wheel thefts.

When I moved to Manhattan Beach biking became easier as I had safe access to the hills of Palos Verdes Penninsula.  Also at the time of my move I convinced 2 of my friends, Matt and Joe, to purchase road bikes so I could have some company.  We have enjoyed months of gorgeous climbs and amazing ocean view descents.  Even though my group riding has decreased my monthly mileage has stayed consistent.  I think I have them to thank for getting me hooked again.

The Switchbacks of PV Drive East... much more fun descending than climbing.

Moving to West LA has allowed me to re-connect with the mountain biker inside of me.  Road biking is all well and good but I love getting lost on a bike.  Not worrying about time, simply daydreaming and paying attention to the trail and trusting my instincts.  2 hours later I come to and feel unmistakably refreshed.  Even though I'm in the most urban landscape I've ever lived I'm only a 3 mile bike ride to a 60+ mile single track trail head...

San Vicente Mountain Park... "This is LA"

A view from Mulholland Drive overlooking Mandeville Canyon Rd.  LA, CA

The trusty steed atop Canyon Back Trail overlooking "The South bay" and Catalina Island.

Now that I'm 100% back into the swing of the bicycle thing... What drives me to continue in lieu of other activities?  Beach tennis is about to start getting in the way now that tournament season has begun but I've been mindful enough to set up a pretty strict cycling schedule to make sure I don't forget about my first true love.  

• Monday nights I spin.  1 hour of warm-up followed by a 45 minute interval spin session with some dude from Compton that knows basically nothing about cycling but A LOT about yelling and good beats so it works.
• Tuesday I spin... it's nice easy follow up and cool down from the weekend and the Monday night slaughterfest.
• Wednesday is Whole Foods hot bar dinner and Yoga night with co-workers in order to let my muscles recover.
• Friday... now that daylight savings time has come I have time to get home after work and grab my Mountain bike for a solid 1.5 hour trail ride before dinner.
• Saturday and Sunday Mornings are reserved for cycling and coffee.  I often complain about the beach tennis community not being willing to start playing on the weekends before noon but the honest truth is that I appreciate it.  Lord knows once I hit the courts with a cerveza in hand there's no way I'm leaving for a sufferfest on my bike!

So this crazy schedule and this post are all because I just signed up for and am looking forward to L'Etape California.  Every year the Tour de France (and now the Tour of California) shuts down its Queen Stage a couple weeks ahead of the actual race for civilians to tackle.  This year L'Etape California is a 105 mile ride from Thousand Oaks to Santa Barbara (Stage 3 of the 2016 TOC).  The ride/race will be punctuated by the famed Gibraltar Road Climb.  This is a climb that I've been dying to do ever since I was having to commute the central coast to help out with one of our northern clinics.  I would drive up Gibraltar Road every Monday morning as a way to give Miley (my Mini Cooper) her fix of tight cornering and quick accelerations.  As I was ripping up the climb listening to Jack White shred some ridiculous guitar solo I couldn't help but dream of climbing this thing in some sort of competitive environment.  I've done the famed Alpe d'Huez as well as Col du Galibier and Col du Telegraph on the tail end of an 80-mile day and now is my chance to have a ball and biscuit with what California has to offer.

Anyone that has ever ridden a bike with me knows that I absolutely love to climb.  When the road points up I'm at my happiest and strongest.  My hopes with this increase in training is that I'll find myself rubbing shoulders with Jens Voigt and Freddy Rodriguez on the final climb of the ride and put them into the hurt locker... unlikely I'll be able to hang with them to arrive at that juncture but just in case I'll be ready.  Along the way and at the sunset dinner on the beach I hope to meet some new and interesting folks to tell you about.  

Despite all the epic-ness that I love to take part in I will never forget and appreciate most the wonderful relaxing rides along the beach or through the countryside.  Some day when I am far too old to climb mountains on a bike I sincerely hope that I still prioritize a morning joy ride to grab a coffee and pastry.

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race."

-H.G. Wells

Home Ownership and The American Dream

While writing this post I found an amazing mid-century art blog that depicted nicely The American Dream that was planted in my head throughout childhood. copyright Sally Edelstein

I'm writing today only because I don't feel like writing.  This is the first week that I've been distracted and unmotivated to the point where I didn't think I would post anything... but it's way too early in the new year to flake on this goal of putting something out there about my life on a weekly basis.  It's been really exhilarating brainstorming ideas and putting them on paper.  A large percentage of what I come up with will never see the light of day, and that to me is the best part. Since I started this process for a goal in 2016 I feel that my mind is fresh and ideas and hopes are pouring out of me.  This week though I just don't want to write.  Therefore I'm going to word vomit for an hour and do more of what I originally intended with this blog... put my thoughts on paper... feelings and recaps of what's currently happening in order to leave the door open for conversation I'm willing to engage in with whoever is actually reading this stuff.

Over the past couple years my parents have gone through a separation and are now officially divorced.  The timing almost identically lined up with when I moved to California, which on a personal note felt a bit odd at the time.  But it is what it is, as they say.  Well, last week my mom, or parents, or however it works, signed a purchase agreement to sell the house I grew up in.  I'm still figuring out how I feel about that.  In truth I've spent less time living in that house than years I have lived other places combined (I lived there from 4th-12th grade).  Eight years full-time and also bits of some summers... but they were obviously some of the most formative years of my life.  The house on Elm St. was full of the best memories.  I was a fortunate kid with an amazing childhood.  My family does not (did not) have what I would now consider wealth in the financial sense but I surely never felt that way growing up.  I was admittedly spoiled, but based on feedback I get from people I meet nowadays I was raised the right way whatever that means.  I suppose this is the point in time when I should thank my parents.  I did what I wanted, had verbal freedoms that now seem shocking (but allowed me to be a free-thinker and ask questions) and I felt loved.  Not so bad, thanks mom and dad.  So yeah, those good feelings are being sold.  Loss and change have become welcomed events in my life as I realize that when approached with an open mind they can synthesize great growth in life.  The house is not the home to my good memories, they happened there, that's all.  Time to move forward.

**Disclaimer, I had finished another significant portion of writing below this and was about to post... and my computer crashed and only the first half of this post was saved (and some major edits of the first part)... so this is the abbreviated, less refined version.  My apologies for the brevity but I'm a little angry about the whole situation**

On the subject of homes:  Owning a home, staying somewhere for a long time and building family and memories the american way... living the "American Dream" is a topic that comes up from time to out here from people in the middle class (if "middle class" even exists out here).  A few of my coupled-off colleagues own homes.  All have dual incomes of... a lot of money... and none live close to work.  Since it's come up recently I wondered, "what would it take for me to buy a home out here (one not located in Compton or South Central)?" and would it be worth diligently saving for?  According to this article one needs a salary of $95,000 in order to purchase a median priced home in LA, which is $482,000 (I've seen figures indicating closer to $570k).  This stat also assumes a 20% down payment!  Think about how long that would take if you are also trying to save for retirement and have some sort of social life.  After reading this I did a basic search for 3 bedroom homes in what I thought were questionable places to live that maybe I could afford.  Here is a 3 bed, 1 bath home in a neighborhood that I would not feel safe in listed for $529k and would be a 1 hour commute.  Yeah... NOPE.  I then performed a search of homes for sale within a 30 minute drive from where I work and I found 2... TWO!  Both of these listings were 2 bedroom condos costing more than $650k.  Looks like I'm not buying anytime soon.

In Minneapolis proper, which as you know being Minnesotan is much more expensive than the burbs, the median home price is $223k and requires a $50,000 salary according to the experts.  I am using Minneapolis proper instead of 30 minute commute cities like Plymouth or Maplewood so I don't skew the comparison too much.  When you put the numbers down on paper it is absolutely crazy to look at cities like LA, San Fran, San Diego, and New York.  In order to purchase a home in these places you either need a massive salary or an inheritance.  It's just the sad reality.

So the current question then, is do I care about the "American Dream?"  No I don't... not at all.  Until someone asks me about home ownership or other materialistic things I don't care.  If I don't care until someone else imposes the thought on me it can't be that important to my personal happiness.  In that way I feel that Corporate America really controls what we consider happiness more than we'd like to think.  If we are not aware of what messages we are being fed it's very easy to water the seed.  So many of our ideals and things we've been told to pursue or obtain so we will be "happy" are just planted ideas to make others rich.  We are all suckers at some level and one truly American value is consumerism and the belief in upward mobility of the middle-class.  Corporations have long taken advantage of that in advertising and firmly planted this idea in our culture Post World War II.  Evaluating how I have felt over the years in different living situations, and having been a home owner, I feel as though home-ownership may be one of those planted ideas.  If you have the means to own a home and want one... then do it.  Purchasing a home, if you've done your due diligence, is likely better for your finances.  Just don't believe purchasing one will lead you to happiness or stability.  If you can't afford to buy a house, cool.  Think about how much stress you are saving yourself by not having to worry about fixing a roof after a hailstorm or leaks in the foundation.  There are pro's and con's to every situation, bask in both.  Most importantly, remember that when you die none of this stuff really matters.  So to that end, I'm just happy milking my 400 square foot studio apartment for all $1200/month that it's worth...

"...it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

-George Carlin

**warning: vulgar language**

#foodtrends

"Mind-Opener" coffee to start the morning at my favorite post-ride, pre-beach tennis stop, The Source Cafe.  Hermosa Beach, CA

... So, understanding everything I wrote in my previous post also understand that I love experimenting with how what I put in my body makes me feel.  No carb, low-carb no gluten, organic, vegan, paleo, raw... wine vs. beer vs. scotch vs. no booze ever?  What makes me feel the best on the day-to-day and what seems to be the best option for me and my family long term?  I mean, I am in the trending capital of the world, it's only fair that I get caught up in some of it, #amiright ?  Below I will be touching on a few of the topics that I am currently interested in and experimenting with.  Any of these trendy things I'm willing to dive into must fit within the construct of "Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants."  As a very logical person with a strong scientific background I refuse to get wrapped up in nutritional and herbal supplement quackery.

Bulletproof Coffee (BPC):
The first trend I'm into is the easiest to follow and easiest to understand the logic behind yet gets a lot of flack.  "Butter coffee" is a newer trend and one that I'm starting to become a believer in.  I've been drinking and making my own daily cup of BPC for over one year now.  The basic recipe is very simple, if you don't dive too deeply into what the Dave Asprey (creator of BPC) disciples will preach.  My recipe is 1 Tbsp coconut oil, 1 Tbsp of butter from free range, non-GMO, grass fed cows (ensuring better fat content).  The original BCP recipe is:

• 8-12 oz coffee Bulletproof branded coffee.
• 1-2 Tbsp purified medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) oil.
• 1-2 Tbsp of Kerrygold grass-fed, unsalted butter or ghee (What's Ghee?).
• BLEND the contents for emulsification (taste).  Stirring makes it less appealing to certain folks... not me. 
• Basic nutritional content:
• Calories: 250-450 depending on amount of oil/butter added (my version is about 300 calories).
• Fat: up to 50g in total all of it being saturated (mine contains about 30g).
• Vitamins/nutrientients: butyrate (short-chain fatty acid), omega-3 fatty acids, linoleic acid (CLA), beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin D, vitamin E

There's a huge debate about whether or not this is a healthy thing to be doing.  People are planted firmly on one side or the other.  Since it's that time of the political cycle just think about it in terms of Republican v. Democrat and you'll understand how ludicrous and unfounded most of the arguments from both sides can be.  I believe that it's good for me... and probably bad for people with a standard American diet.  The calories and fat content provide very little to zero benefit if you are eating a bowl of cereal along with it.  BPC is in my opinion a great option if you eat a diet heavy in vegetables and relatively low in carbohydrates... and if used as a sort of meal/breakfast replacement (meal replacement is a contentious subject on many levels).  The basics are that if no sugar is available to us for energy in our blood, our body is very efficient at converting fats to energy.  By using fats instead of sugars we reduce the insulin spikes and fluctuations in blood sugar that lead to tired feelings.  We need calories, but where they come from has a big impact on how we feel... this is not breaking news, Dave Asprey just found a new way to tell us.

When you break down the claims made by Dave Asprey about the amazing benefits of BPC (not limited to muscle building, improved cognition, fat burning, increased metabolism) it's pretty easy to see that he is a great pitch man that knows how to market products and make a lot of money.  The theory and marketing behind BPC bothers me because he focuses on the individual nutrients as the reason for its benefit and not the basic and proven calorie/carbohydrate/caffeine argument.  Yes, he promotes ketosis but he also spends a lot of time, in my opinion, over-glorifying his versions of the products necessary to make BPC.  As I eluded to in my previous food post I believe the focus should not be on the specific nutrient but instead the goodness of the whole product and lifestyle that leads to obtaining that nutrient in your diet.  If we ignore the big picture we contribute to a lack of understanding of what is truly happening with our bodies on a macro level.  Oh well, it works for what I want and I eat a nutrient dense diet so I'm likely safe from the legitimate downside concerns.  Bottom line: I feel significantly better and less tired throughout the work day when I am in my BPC routine.

Ketogenic Diets
This is really surface level explanation of why people talk about ketosis because I don't have the time or energy to write a chapter on how our body brings Acetyl-CoA into mitochondria and I also don't think you really care.  But it's important to understand that we don't need sugar to survive, our bodies have been adapted over millions of years to figure out how to utilize whatever we ingest as well as stored energy in adipose tissue.  Just know that depending on how active we are in a moment of time and what we are ingesting (or not ingesting), our body (mitochondria) is getting energy from these 3 sources:

• Glycolysis- breakdown of glucose (sugar).
• Protein catabolism- which leads to gluconeogenesis and glucose production by the liver.
• Fat catabolism- this is where believers in ketosis want us to live most of the time.
• In this state fatty acids are converted to ketones which can be used by the brain and other cells for energy.
• To get to this state you need to consume less than about 50g of carbs per day. 
• If you are doing cardiovascular activity (HR of 50-80% of Max) for more than 30 minutes you have likely changed over to a fat burning state.  This is why body-builders walk briskly for long periods instead of running.  They don't want their heart rate too high to the point that they are in an anaerobic state (ketosis needs oxygen).

I won't get into it too much here but there is a severe lack of attention paid to ketosis as therapy.  There are some papers out there (ketosis therapy) but MD's and nutritionists that I work and speak with still do not have a grasp on what it entails and who it is good and bad for.  A very small sect of the nutritional and medical (obviously mostly endocrinologists) world is diving into ketosis and I hope that there's a legitimate explosion of long-term research.  So much money in America is spent on attempting to prove the easy way out (pharmaceutical) of disease because drug companies pay for and profit from this proof.  Maybe the food industry needs to put more money into health research of what they are producing.  I make that statement without having an actual idea of how much of a coconut farmer conglomerate's $$ goes into health studies.  Food is therapy.  The lack of food therapy in a treatment plan is either the fault of the MD that does not push it hard enough or because they are not convinced a ketogenic diet is strong enough for their patient to treat ailment X.  From my experience the reality is that most western medicine practitioners don't know/understand the basics of nutritional ketosis much less other food therapies.  Making sure to spread the blame appropriately the patient that demands their MD pulls an easy-fix to the problem they are having out of their butt because they don't want to work for their health is just as much if not more to blame... let's call it the "invisible hand of the health market."  Ketosis is the theory behind what Bulletproof and Dave Asprey are spreading.  Ketosis is also whats behind Paleo (basically for the layman) and The Atkins diet.  So, it's not really trendy, it's just re-packaged and re-visited trendy... kinda like hipsters.


For further reading on this subject go read what Dr. Peter Attia has to say.




Gluten Free:

I believe in being mostly gluten free not because I think gluten should necessarily be eliminated from our diet... but a lot of the foods that contain it should be significantly reduced in order to reduce overall calories and carbohydrate load in the American diet.  Two of the healthiest and longest living populations in the world (Sardinia, Italy and Loma Linda, CA) eat a moderate amount of foods that contain gluten.  Therefore, I don't really think you can vilify gluten as much as we do but there is a strong argument about the inflammatory properties of gluten in our body.

I became obsessed with this topic after I lost 20 pounds in a month due to intestinal distress back in 2009.  For a while we thought I may have celiac disease or something.  After a lot of diagnostic tests including a colonoscopy and endoscopy (YAY!) it turned out to be a stomach bug that messed with my intestinal flora.  When I recovered from it I couldn't digest food very well, particularly dairy and gluten.  Slowly as the flora in my intestinal tract recovered I was able to tolerate those things more but still struggle to this day.  If by eliminating gluten I can reduce my overall daily amounts of carbohydrates, then my energy levels will stay much more consistent.  When I'm not trying to get into ketosis I get plenty of sugar in the form of root vegetables and fruit.  Really, I don't need breads or pastas for any nutritional benefit.  For holistic health purposes, though, I walk once a week to Amandine Patisserie for my fix of endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin.  The chocolate almond croissant should never stop trending!