Review

If your belly started grumbling at the title and you were reminded of excruciating pain in your stomach the last time you skipped a meal... or your inner eye saw Tibetian, ascetic monks in near-Nirvana meditative state nearly starved to death... - that is excactly how I felt about intermittent fasting as little as 3 months ago! I thought Ramadan was crazy, and the people with their Spring fasting fad as well! How could you go without food for more than 6hrs? How could you go to sleep hungry? Why would you want to do that anyway when we have foods in abundance?

It was therefore with great resistance that I read about intermittent fasting ("IF"). A fasting method involving different approaches. It denotes anything from skipping a meal, reducing the eating window to 6-8hrs, or going 24h without food once a week or every other day. But slowly I began to except the advantages:

A recent article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition gives a great overview of these benefits which include

• decreases in blood pressure,


• reduction in oxidative damage to lipids, protein and DNA,


• improvement in insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake,


• as well as decreases in fat mass.

Besides that don't forget:

• it will give you more flexibility in planning your days (remember, sometimes you just don't know how to fit in a healthy meal...)


• it is a time gainer (I'd calculate 1h/meal, with preparation - that's 3h per day without considering doing the dishes)


• some fitness sessions (in the fat burning heartrates) are known to be more effective on an empty stomach.


• It's natural! Our ancestors had to skip a meal every now an then - either because they were out on the hunt - or nothing was about.


• A lot of times the food that is at hand is so unhealthy there is no way skipping it could ever do you more damage than eating it! (Yes, I mean that drive-thru or that hot dog stand you pass at lunch!)

Personally I just wanted to know if I could do it and how I felt doing it. And ok, maybe

Since the end of June I have tested the Ergon BD2 backpack (12l, Size: Ladies S, color: team green). I initially got it for hauling my camera gear, hoping to find a medium-sized backpack that doesn't kill the trail fun when packed heavily - and I haven't been disappointed! 

The shoulder harness features a movable ball joint and the weight is mainly on your hips, not the shoulders when you wear it. Therefore it doesn't jump off your back in the curves or bumpy trails as other backpacks do. (This phenomena has recently been very adequatly described by Seb as: "like a monkey on your back trying to throw you out of the curve.") - Not the Ergon!

I packed it with up to 8kg and it did quite well considering. You do have to give it some time until you figure out the correct adjustment of shoulder strap height and hip belt tightness. If worn too loosely around the hips it can shift out of place and stick consistently to either your left or right side. Even then with the movable link it doesn't limit your range of motion at all! Serpentines, high speed curves, steep trails or steps/stairs - no problem for a BD2. It feels like riding with no backpack most of the time.

So, I did promise a while ago I'll give you another rant about girl colors on cycling gear. And the glove you see we've already discussed. Like I had predicted the light blue color not only looks dirty after a single spin in the woods - it also fades to a brownish-grey due to the dirt and washing. How can anybody think this is something I can use on a bike?

Ok, the top color might not be that tragic if it weren't for the inside of the glove hand: it's light grey leather. Or used to be - now it's a greyish black because every once in a while I had to pick up my chain or something similar. So I again state: Girl colors are unhandy. Want another one? Well take a look at these grips:

Or: How to spray-paint your bike to pimp it.

Beginning of story: He needed an orange bike for the bike tour his party does as a campaign. Rather than buying an old stud or ruining a new one I remembered this baby:



My old road ride has been used as a city bike and locked to places where nicer bikes get stolen. The pink is ... nah ... let's say unfavorable. So why not make it orange? But there are a few things to think about when doing such a big color change... First I had to clear the bike with it's previous (and still somehow) owner my dad... then came the details: how and how much will we change to orange?

Yes, they don't want us to shave. And they don't want our money. How stupid is that? Or are they making enough and don't care?

I ran low on my blades and needed to get new ones - easy, not? Well, that's what I thought so too initially... - Last time I needed blades I stocked up on them, figuring they were cheaper in the U.S. That's not the case. These things aren't even cheaper in Spain or anywhere I've been on my travels. How do people with wages around 3$/hour fund shaving?

Well, we could just go with the cheap blades, but ouch -

• Back in the Saddle: Contains a wicked segment of my favorite Trial rider Ryan Leech. Made by the same people as ROAM, just a couple years earlier. Same nice cinematography and excellent shots.

• Kranked 6 Progression: Ok music, the DVD comes with a soundtrack CD included. If you want to see tricks and trails you never have before, try this one! Look out for a stunning 360Ã

Right now I'm chilling in the mountains. Not that much snow here either. No new news from my injury, the muscles actually feel pretty messed up by the therapist's massage the other day... So not riding or doing other sports I have a lot of time on hand to do some reviewing. So here you go, the second part of Bike DVDs. To watch when indoor riding or whenever you feel like it. (Find the first part here)

Yeah, and before I go: Merry Christmas and thanks for reading/commenting my blog!

To my dear friend and companion I grew so close to the last two years.

You rode many miles with me. You put up with long and exhausting hours, showed great spontaneity and flexibility. As long as I fed you well with batteries you were the one that lugged me home when I couldn't go any farther. You got over crashes clinging to the handle bar and gave my workouts some numbers.

A lot of people think the time on a hometrainer is boring, and a 2-3hour 8o workout is impossible. Not if you know how to spend your time! A list of things that shorten that ride on your hometrainer, spinning cycle or cycletrainer. And a first review of some Bike DVDs.

A review. To start off: the movie did not live up to it's expectations.

Do you still surf with the Windows Internet Explorer? Then read on and I hope this is the last post you'll read with IE! - I have been using Firefox for 4 or 5 years now and it's just loads better. The newest reason and trick first:

1. To keep up with your favorite blog (hint, hint, hint) use it's feed. In Firefox just click on the image you see in the adress line. This adds the livefeed as a bookmark. Now you'll always know when a new post has been published.