How To Be A Mountain Biker

A Paleo Primer on “Gluten-free” Beer

For many people, beer is the big stumbling block when considering the Paleo diet.

“Can I drink beer?”, with a look of alarm, is the first response one hears (usually from men) when explaining it.

So finding a beer alternative becomes a pretty high priority, for most folks who decide they want to adopt the diet.

I recently encountered a new species of the genus “gluten-free beer” and it was an interesting experiment for me.

My last regular beer…

First, a little background.  Before going Paleo three years ago somewhat against my will, I was a connoisseur of micro-brews and single-malt Scotch, both of which are brewed from barley (generally).  In hindsight the fact that I avoided beers brewed from wheat (weissbeer, in the trade) because they made me feel “not right”, and the fact that the hangovers I got from drinking scotch or beer were far, far worse than from any other alcohol should have clued me in that something was amiss, but I just assumed that it was “normal”.  And it was, for me, but it was not good.

The first sign that something had changed in my diet in a permanent fashion was when I gave my stock of beer and scotch to a friend.  (That friend is now also pursuing a wheat-free diet.)  That gift was prompted by my last attempt to enjoy a regular beer, back when I was gauging my tolerance to wheat.  I wound up waking up in the middle of the night in agony with intestinal cramps.  Not fun; I haven’t had a regular beer since.

Shortly thereafter I realized that I wasn’t a freak: I discovered that Anheuser-Busch, the brewers of Budweiser, had a gluten-free beer, “made without wheat or barley”.  Huzzah!  Redbridge is brewed from sorghum and was introduced by AB in 2006. They were way ahead of the curve…  The taste is a bit different, however.  Within the range of microbrewery beers, I think, but I’m not mad about it.  The Beer Advocate rates it as average, but the user ratings are “poor”.

There are some other sorghum-based beers around, some are better than others.  One of the better ones I’ve found recently (courtesy of my local liquor store) is New Grist, which is a light, summery beer.  The Beer Advocate crowd, with brutal honesty, also gives it a “poor”, and one rater says:

“So hard to rate these gluten free beers.. to be honest they are all bad, but if they were the only option I'm sure they would be fine. This one has a light taste to it that might be good for a summer beer.”

That’s a little harsh.  I’ve given friends these gluten-free beers, and no-one’s made an issue out of it, most people’s reaction is “it’s fine”.

If you happen to be in Vermont, a local brewery called the Alchemist produces a beer called Celia (get it?) which is pretty good, it rises to a stellar “average” with the BA crew.  If you’ve wondered what a brewmaster would make if his wife couldn’t drink beer, this is your answer (she is gluten intolerant).

Sorghum beers solve the problem of gluten by making beer from a grain that doesn’t contain gluten.  But, as you may have gathered, the taste is different.  So it was with great interest that I recently discovered a new variety of “gluten-free” beer, which are brewed from barley, but reduce the gluten content during the brewing process.

I was recently in Nashville, Tennessee attending an open-mic night at a local bar, and had just given the waitress my usual “I’m allergic to wheat” speech when she mentioned that they had a gluten-free beer that they’d just picked up.  Cool!  I ordered a bottle, took a sip, and… Head rush. 

(I’m not actually allergic to wheat, but that’s the easiest way to get them to take it as seriously as I do.)

The first symptom I get when I eat something that contains wheat or barley is a head rush.  It happens within seconds, and may be related to this phenomenon: “Beer's Taste Alone Gets People a Little High”; although that study blames it on alcohol, not beer.  I don’t get the effect with any other alcohol-containing beverage, and I do get it when I eat something non-alcoholic that does contain wheat, like soy sauce.

The mark of a gluten-free beer, in Europe

So I started looking all over the bottle for the “gluten-free” label.  There was none.  I went and spoke to the bartender and the manager, they assured me that the whole reason they’d picked up the brand was because it was gluten-free.  So I went back to my seat (the music hadn’t started yet) and got to work.

It turns out that they were right, and wrong, that this beer was gluten free. 

In Europe, a beer (or a food) can be labeled “gluten-free” if it contains less than 20 parts-per-million (ppm) of gluten.  This beer, Estrella Damm Daura, purports to contain only 6 ppm, and indeed, the beer’s web site states that it’s “A beer suitable for people with coeliac disease…” 

But the bottle in my hand didn’t have the gluten-free label on it.  Why not?

That’s a bit of a story.  It turns out that beer in the United States is regulated by the Department of the Treasury, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), not the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as you would expect.  For further confusion, hard cider (more about which later) does carry a gluten-free label.

The difference is a key one, and (for once) a very logical decision made by the TTB (PDF). (Although why this would be covered under the “Homeland Security Act of 2002” is a mystery… Was Al-Qaeda attempting to poison us with mislabeled gluten-free beer?)

“Currently, there is no FDA regulation that defines the term “gluten-free.” In the preamble to a final rule on the declaration of ingredients on food packaging published in the Federal Register of January 6, 1993 (58 FR 2850 at 2864), FDA advised that the term “gluten-free” could be used in the labeling of foods, provided that when such claim is used, it is truthful and not misleading. Generally, and absent regulations to the contrary, FDA stated that it would regard a claim that a food is “free” of a substance as false or misleading if the food contains that substance.”

The TTB looks to the FDA for guidance on the meaning of the term gluten-free.  Since it’s not defined, they decided that beers like Daura could not use the term gluten-free, since they’re not.  They’re gluten-reduced.  Close, but no cigar.  When Daura was originally launched, it carried a label that said gluten-free, but not any more.  So is it, or is not “suitable for people with coeliac disease”?

Back to the FDA:

“In 2004, the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004 (FALCPA), (Public Law 108-282, Title II) was signed into law. Section 206 of FALCPA required the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue a rule to define and permit the term “gluten-free” on the labeling of foods. Accordingly, on January 23, 2007, the FDA published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register (72 FR 2795) proposing to define the term “gluten-free” for voluntary use in the labeling of foods. Under the proposed FDA rule, a product may be labeled as gluten-free if it does not contain any of the following:

1. “An ingredient that is a prohibited grain (wheat, barley, rye, or crossbred hybrids of those grains);
2. “An ingredient that is derived from a prohibited grain and that has not been processed to remove gluten;
3. “An ingredient that is derived from a prohibited grain and that has been processed to remove gluten if use of that ingredient results in the presence of 20 ppm or more gluten in the food; or
4. “20 ppm or more gluten.”

That makes sense.  Now under that ruling, you’d think that Estrella would have gotten back the right to label Daura as gluten-free, right?  All they have to do is prove that their beer has less than 20ppm of gluten…

Well, that appears to be the sticking point.  The FDA hasn’t issued a final definition of “gluten-free” that would include foods made from wheat or barley but with the gluten removed, because:

“FDA recognizes that for some food matrices (e.g., fermented or hydrolyzed foods), there are no currently available validated methods that can be used to accurately determine if these foods contain < 20 ppm gluten. In such cases, FDA is considering whether to require manufacturers of such foods to have a scientifically valid method that will reliably and consistently detect gluten at 20 ppm or less before including a ‘gluten-free’ claim in the labeling of their foods….

“…In other words, a scientifically valid test is one that consistently and reliably does what it is intended to do.”

And we don’t have one.  So:

“Many alcohol beverage products subject to the FAA Act are produced without any ingredients that contain gluten. For example, a wine fermented from grapes, or a vodka distilled from potatoes, may be “gluten-free” if the producer used good manufacturing practices, took adequate precautions to prevent cross-contamination, and did not use additives, yeast, or storage materials that contained gluten. Under this interim policy, TTB will allow the use of a “gluten-free” claim in the labeling and advertising of such products. As always, it will be the responsibility of the importer or bottler of the product to ensure that the claim is truthful and accurate. TTB has further determined that it would be inherently misleading for products produced from grains containing gluten or their derivatives to make a “gluten-free” claim or a claim of specific gluten content levels absent a means to verify the accuracy of that statement through scientifically validated methods or other reliable means as might be revealed through FDA rulemaking.”

Regulatory bodies have many issues, but it’s tough to argue with the stance TTB is taking: prove it’s gluten-free, or don’t say it is.

Given all that, did I take a second sip of the bottle of Daura?

I did.  I finished the bottle  The things I do for science.

I felt like crap.  Got the droopy, tired feeling that I get after the head rush.  That lasted for an hour or so.  And it’s obvious enough that people ask me if I’m feeling OK.  Then I got some intestinal cramps, minor ones, but still…  I did not get diarrhea the next day, so that’s a plus.  Now mind you, this was the first barley-beer I’ve had in almost three years.

Then, a few days later, I got an asthma attack, when running a race.  I had more of an attack that afternoon, when mountain biking.  A couple of days later, I got a massive pimple on my nose.  I haven’t had an asthma attack in warm weather in years, so long I can’t remember when.  I haven’t gotten a zit in years, since before going paleo.  With my daughter, I can tell how much wheat she’s been eating by her skin and her allergies (which have continued to be minimal).  So both those effects are a red flag to me.

Now you might say that asthma’s to be expected, it’s spring time.  But I’ve not had a hint of allergies since then, even though it’s gotten warmer since, and everything is now blooming.  There are tons of anecdotal reports of exercise-induced asthma resolving on a gluten-free diet, and:

“The recent literature underlines the frequency of wheat allergy in exercise-induced anaphylaxis. The initial symptom reported by our patient was an allergic reaction related to exercise that progressed secondarily toward chronic urticaria without a direct relationship to exercise. Through the positivity of the oral challenge test and the effectiveness of the elimination diet for wheat flour, we documented the role that wheat allergy played in provoking his symptoms, both chronic urticaria and asthma. The elements that initially led us to the hypothesis of an allergy to wheat flour were based on the frequent implication of wheat flour in triggering exercise-induced anaphylaxis and on the analysis of the food survey, which revealed a large consumption of wheat flour.”

Urticaria is a skin condition.

There are, as it turns out, lots of other accounts of people having bad reactions to Daura.  But some folks report that they’re fine.  This is not surprising.  As Chris Kresser pointed out recently:

“Here’s the crucial thing to understand: Celiac disease is characterized by an immune response to a specific epitope of gliadin (alpha-gliadin) and a specific type of transglutaminase (tTG-2). But we now know that people can (and do) react to several other components of wheat and gluten — including other epitopes of gliadin (beta, gamma, omega), glutenin, WGA and deamidated gliadin – as well as other types of transglutaminase, including type 3 (primarily found in the skin) and type 6 (primarily found in the brain). (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

“This is a huge problem because conventional lab testing for CD and of gluten intolerance only screens for antibodies to alpha-gliadin and transglutaminase-2. If you’re reacting to any other fractions of the wheat protein (e.g., beta-gliadin, gamma-gliadin or omega-gliadin), or any other types of transglutaminase (e.g., type 3 or type 6), you’ll test negative for CD and gluten intolerance no matter how severely you’re reacting to wheat.”

Wheat-Germ Agglutinin (WGA) is toxic to 100% of people; and there’s Lord knows what else.

So it might be OK for celiac disease (although that remains to be seen) but it’s not OK for me.  I think that if you have any reaction to any wheat-related grain (wheat, barley, rye), you shouldn’t ever eat any of it.  But it’s a difficult thing to figure out what products made from wheat still contain a hazardous amount of wheat.

I just learned that my favorite vodka, Kettle One, is made from wheat.  It was, ironically, a martini made with Kettle One vodka that introduced me to the notion that the hangovers I got from beer or scotch were not from alcohol.  (Meaning I could drink enough alcohol to give me a hangover, but it wasn’t nearly so bad as the wheat poisoning I’d been suffering from.)  And I’ve continued to be able to drink Kettle One, and will continue to do so.  I have no adverse reaction to it whatsoever.  Vodka’s so purified that it’s pretty much just water and alcohol, but be mindful if you try it.

Mmm…

So I’ll pass on the Estrella Damm Daura, thanks.  And you know what?  It wasn’t all that great.  (Despite winning awards as “Best Gluten-Free Beer”, the critics at the Beer Advocate rate it a slightly higher “average” than the gluten-free beers discussed before.)  Drinking that beer made me realize that I much prefer the hard cider I generally consume as an alcoholic beverage.  I really don’t miss beer that much, after all.  I certainly don’t miss the side-effects.

(Estrella makes another beer, by the way, which is called Estrella Damm.  That beer is not claimed to be gluten-free, only the Estrella Damm Daura goes through whatever wizardry they’re using to attempt to remove the gluten.  So if you want to try your own experiment, make sure you get the right beer!  Hat-tip to GlutenFreeBeer.org for the info from the TTB.)

Runner's Knee

As I detailed in this post, I had a bout with Runner's Knee (patellofemoral syndrome, to address it formally) a couple of years ago.  I attributed it in part to the shoes I was wearing at the time.  What I've since come to realize is that those overly-cushioned shoes merely exaggerated poor form.

Well, RK is back.  This time, however, I've been doing most of my miles in minimalist shoes like the Vibram FiveFingers Speeds, or barefoot.  I've had many successful miles in the Speeds, in the VivoBarefoot Ultra, and barefoot this summer.  I've increased my mileage, as I did the last time RK appeared, and this time I think it's safe to say that while the shoes, even minimalist shoes, accentuate the conditions that lead to RK, they're not the cause.  RK re-appeared on a 10k run in the Speeds, by the way.

When RK first appeared switching to Vibrams from the NB MT100s was enough to make it go away.  That's clearly not going to work this time.  So what could it be?

It's got to be form.  Today I went for a 10 mile Maffetone run, 5 on road, and 5 on trail.  I wore the Speeds, as it was in the low 30s F at the beginning of the run.  RK appeared almost immediately on the road stretch, but went away when I got on the rougher trail sections, only to reappear on the flat parts of the trail.

As I've posted before, I've been working on form issues on my weaker right leg.  While that leg is not 100%, it's much improved, and running on the trails I ran today is where those issues first appeared.  The right leg was good to go today.  One of the key suggestions Lee Saxby gave me was to press down on the big toe while running.  This resolved the metatarsal-cuboid joint pain I was having almost immediately.

So once I got back to the road section (after stubbing my second toe on my right foot nicely on the trail: blood from the nail, but no break: thank Heavens for shoes sometimes...), I took off my shoes for the 2.7 mile run home.  RK continued to bother me, even barefoot.  So finally what I decided to do, as an experiment, was to exaggerate the toe-press.  Basically, I was running on my big toes.  This forced my left foot inward.  My right big toe and foot have straightened much more than my left, and I have much more trouble flexing the left big toe down, so this seemed like a pretty good approach to take.  My hypothesis is that the feet should be doing pretty much the same thing, so if one leg hurts and is working differently from the other, try to make it the same.

Running on the big toes was kind of an odd feeling, and a bit of a strain on the calves, including a nasty pull in my left calf I suffered a few weeks ago while mountain biking.  I probably ran about 1.2 miles on my big toes, until I got home.

RK is completely gone in the left knee.  It feels great.

Your mileage may vary. :)

P.S.  I forgot to mention one of the key hints: I've been getting pain in the tendon under the second toe on the left foot during runs.  Lee had said that people often put too much pressure down on the second toe, which is why pressing down on the big toe makes a difference.  You're shifting the pressure to where it ought to be.

Run the Farm Race Report

Muscoot Farm

What a great race.  The farm in "Run the Farm" is the Muscoot farm, a county park in Westchester County, NY.  The creators of the terrific Leatherman's Loop race also run this one, and it shows.

I ran Leatherman's Loop this spring, and it was the most fun race I've done.  Never got around to writing a race report, however.  Micah True (Caballo Blanco) also ran the race, along with a whole bunch of other lunatics.  You've got to love a race with a mariachi band at the bottom of the toughest hill...

Leatherman's is a 10k, this was only a 5 miler, but the relationship between the two race becomes clear as soon as you start running.  These are real trail races, the terrain is difficult, injury is a real possibility, and the folks who lay out the trail like steep hills.  Godino's Grind, named for the founder, was the worst of the lot, and I walked the bulk of that hill, as did most folks I saw. 

I like to run hills, and I live in a hilly area on top of a hill, so most of my regular runs are hill runs.  The problem this creates for me is that I pass people going up and down hills, and get passed on the flats.  This race, therefore, was tailor-made for me: there were no flats.  It was all up and down hill; I don't think there was a single flat stretch in the entire course.  Pretty cool stuff!



Hope with her medal

 They also had a kids' mile race prior to the start of the 5 milers. They had 320 kids race!  100 under 6 years old!  All the kids got a terrific medal. Hope ran her first race, and I hope will want to do another.  Emily Snayd, who put together the Merrell Barefoot event in NYC was also there with her family.  She ran with her kids, and her husband ran the five-miler.  In the Merrell Barefoot Sonic Glove.  Merrell eats their own food.

Minimalist running really pays off in a trail race.  Trail running barefoot-style teaches you to be light on your feet, and keeping your feet under your center of gravity reduces the chance of slipping out.  Which, in my book, means I could pass everyone when they slowed down for stone walls and muddy stream crossings.  I just bounded across, not needing to slow down, since slipping and falling was not something I was really concerned about.  The only time I've fallen since going fully minimalist two years ago was when I've stubbed toes or tried to slow myself by using my heels. 

Again the Merrell Barefoot Trail Glove was my shoe of choice, and again it was flawless.  Love those shoes.  Hope wore the Pace Glove.  While the TGs are my favorite trail racing shoe, I don't run in them much other than that.  So the poor things go from muddy races to the washing machine, and then off to the next race.  They still look brand new when they come out of the washing machine.  I felt slightly guilty putting on spotless shoes this morning, but I got over it.  I've still not gotten a single blister from them.

For fueling, I did my usual drill of coffee with grass-fed cream, and nothing else.  This time I also skipped dinner the night before, having only a small piece of meat at a party I went to.  Lots of energy during the race (more on that below) and wasn't even thirsty afterward.  This is the first race I've run where I got to the finish line and wasn't the least bit interested in water.

A few notes on training for the race.  I didn't.  In fact, one could argue that I counter-trained.   Last Saturday I ran 11 miles barefoot at my Maffetone heart rate.  Then on Sunday I went mountain biking with a bunch of cross-country racers.  I didn't even bring the HRM along for that one, as it was a social ride, and I'm not going to let trying to train to be a better runner rule my life.  So I rode hard, the dog ran hard, and we both crashed in the afternoon.  (The dog also did the 11 mile run, also barefoot.)  I managed to get a little running in during the week, and decided, against all good planning, to repeat the 11-miler the day before the race.  Yeah, I know.  But I had no chance of winning it, so who really cared. 

One of the things Lee Saxby had told me to focus on was pressing the big toe when running.  This worked miracles on my weak foot, clearing up the pain in that foot in a few days.  And last week I focused on this during the run.  This week, of course, I forgot, and overdid it on the second toe on the good foot.  I may have pulled the tendon under the second toe, or something, but it's not happy.  Pressing the big toe down is the only thing that helps.

So I arrived at the race limping and having done 11 miles the day before.  At a slow Maffetone pace, but still.  Brilliant planning.  I decided to give it my all, what ever little bit that happened to be.



So off we went. (Yes, they started the race with a cow bell.) I'm pretty sure we ran up hill for the first 2.5 miles.  There were a couple of downhills, but that was only so you could run up the other side.  I started off strong, and pretty quickly started working my way through the crowd.

I never stopped working my way through the crowd.  Typically I find a pace group, run with them for most of the race, and then crap out and get passed at the end.  This time I expected the same thing to happen.  Oh, and I'd forgotten to bring my Garmin, so I had no idea where I was in the race.  But, I had decided to give it my all.  I kept passing people, picking them off on the single track.  I got passed myself a few times, but the pooped feeling never arrived.  In fact I ran a hard race at the end against a woman I'd been switching places with for the second half of the race.  I decided there was no way she was going to beat me, and put the hammer down.  I crossed the finish line at a dead sprint, with that woman right behind me.



Goofy picture

 The Maffetone heart-rate training I've been doing seems to be paying off.  I've never had that kind of energy in a race before, and it was all hills!  The results haven't been posted yet, but Emily told me I finished pretty early in the crowd.  We'll see.  But this was the first race I've ever done where I felt better at the end of the race than I did at the beginning.  Legs feel great.  Even the second toe feels OK, as I was focusing on the toe-press for the entire race this time.  That was easy, as it hurt when I didn't.

So a great race, and after the Paine to Pain half marathon of a few weeks ago, I'm feeling pretty good about my training approach.

Oh yeah, no crash after the race, and absolutely no carb cravings.  The fat-burning approach seems to be working so far.

And the nice thing about running these small local trail races: I ran into a family we're good friends with.  Dad ran, Mom ran the race with the kids, who did really well.  It's a great sport.

P.S.  Results are out.  I ran a 9:13 pace, which compares with the 9:06 I ran in the recent Paine to Pain half.  I would like to have seen a faster number, but then it was a much hillier course.  Tough to compare one trail race to another else, since the courses are so unique.  But what's important is feeling so great during the race.

Oh, and pressing the big toe as I'm walking around has got the sore second toe almost back to normal.

P.P.S. Here's the elevation profile for Paine to Pain:

Paine to Pain Half Marathon Elevation Profile

And here's Run the Farm:

Run the Farm Elevation Profile

So I guess 7 seconds/mile pace difference isn't all that bad...

"Bones and Cyclists"

Fascinating post by Joe Friel:

"In recent years there have been a number of studies showing that osteoporosis and osteopenia may well be associated with riding a bike. A quick check of PubMed found the following recent studies, most of which seem to support this possibility. There are some very interesting conclusions here for road cyclists, mountain bikers, triathletes and runners. Following the citation for each study is the quoted conclusion from the authors followed by my comments..."

"...Essentially, running, even if mixed with cycling as with triathletes, seems to maintain or even improve BMD."

All forms of exercise are not equal.  Your body expects certain inputs, both in diet and activity, and if those correct inputs are not provided, the system will go awry. Our bodies evolved to run, and running promotes bone density. Cycling provides most of the input of running, minus the impact. It appears that's an important loss.

I don't bike on the road, only off-road. Good news for me:

"Three groups were studied: 16 competitive mountain bikers, 14 competitive road cyclists and 15 recreationally active men (control group). [Bone Mineral Density] was significantly higher at all sites in the mountain cyclists compared with the road cyclists and controls. Mountain biking may not have as deleterious an effect on BMD as road cycling. The study also suggests that it may be more beneficial than being “recreationally active.” This may be due to the need to dismount and run with, and perhaps even carry, the bike over challenging sections on the course."

It may also be attributed to the fact that mountain bikers fall a lot. I broke three bones in my first 12 months of mountain biking: two ribs and a nose. 

(And then three more bones (toes) in my first year of barefoot running.  This is more bones than I've broken in my entire life.  It's definitely occurred to me that I may have been undergoing increasing loss of bone density, as I've had lots of falls from motorcycle riding and roller-blading, and never any breaks.  The dietary changes I've made should resolve that.)

From a Paleo perspective, carrying things through the woods is something that would have been a daily occurrence.   Mountain bikers also take a lot of shocks just riding along, despite the suspensions a lot of the bikes have.

I'll also note that our Paleo ancestors had significantly denser bones than desk-bound weekend warriors like myself.

P.S. I'll note there's an interesting parallel between barefoot-style running and mountain biking in this study.  While barefoot-style runners were probably not included in any of the studies (a safe bet), both barefoot-style running and mountain biking involve low-impact exercise.  In barefoot-style running, the low impact is guaranteed by using your body's suspension system properly (no heel-striking), and in mountain biking it's provided by the bikes' suspension and tires.  So hard shocks like those occuring when heel-striking should not be required for increased BMD.

Mountain Biking in CT

Crazy stuff...  I'm in the yellow shirt.  The guy with the camera is known by all as "Psycho", and I make no attempt to ride everything he does. ;)


Wilton Woods 10-30-2010 from dfrancefort on Vimeo.

I'm wearing these shoes, and they're terrific.  Enough room for your toes to curl as you're terrifying yourself. ;)

Mountain Biking in my New Shoes

My friends are nuts. ;)

Minimalist Mountain Biking Shoe

Sometimes, you have to wear a shoe.  When I mountain bike, three pieces of safety equipment are mandatory: shoes, gloves, and helmet.

My first pair of mountain biking shoes were cross-country racing shoes, with a narrow, deep sole.  They may be great for cross-country racing, but for the rocky, gnarly trails I ride in Connecticut, they were a ticket to a sprained ankle.  I'm still trying to get over the last sprained ankle...

My most recent pair of mountain biking shoes were some platform-style free riding shoes, which did great, and were similar in shape to a Munson last.  But the sole delaminated after my last ride.

I wound up getting the Specialized Tahoe as a replacement shoe.  They also have a Munson-last shape (why is it mountain biking shoe companies get it?), and they have a reasonably wide footbed for stable landings.  I think I got last year's model, which has a velcro bit across the top of the laces.  They fit great, and didn't make me hate the fact that I was wearing shoes for a several-hour ride.  On a side note, the last two mountain biking shoes I got were 9s, these were a 10.  Part of that is that I want more room, part is that my feet are definitely bigger now.

I don't know if they're zero-drop or not, for a biking shoe it's not all that important, IMHO. If you're running up a hill, you don't notice the heel, and if you're running down a hill... You're mountain biking;  why are you running down a hill?

P.S. Here's a link to the new version of the Tahoe.



404

The link to the old version leads to one of the funniest 404 errors I've ever seen...

Mountain Bike Cross-training

Went mountain biking with a friend at Trout Brook this morning.  Mountain biking may be the perfect sport to cross-train with barefoot-style running.  I've found that running in Vibrams makes me better, more fit, and develops my reflexes for mountain biking, even if I don't do any mountain biking.

I can get on my bike after a few month off, and it's like I hadn't missed a day.

Mountain biking, on the other hand, works the hamstrings hard, which hopefully will help me in my speed work.

The nice thing is you can do both on the exact same trails, and it's a completely different experience.