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The 2022 Humana Game Changers Awards honors one of our own – SPBC member Rosie Ray!

On May, 25, 2022, Humana, presenting sponsor of the National Senior Games, recognized 12 athletes who exemplify healthy aging and provide encouragement, motivation and inspiration for all seniors to start with “healthy” as Humana Game Changers.

We are proud to congratulate one of our St. Petersburg Bicycle Club members, Rosie Ray, as a recipient of the 2022 Humana Game Changer Award!

These award-winning athletes participate in various sports, including running, swimming, bowling, cycling, pickleball, tennis, racquetball, softball, volleyball and track & field. Humana Game Changers demonstrate how regular physical activity can positively impact overall health and inspire others to pursue a healthy lifestyle – no matter their age or athletic ability.

Thoughts from recipient Rosie Ray, St. Petersburg Bicycle Club and St. Pete Mad Dog member: 

I cannot tell you how happy I was on this day at the National Senior Games.

The reason I was so honored was for the work I have done – and am doing - with my recently-deceased dear friend, Wendy Johnson. We started on July 31, 2002, and carried on as the Chair and President of the St. Pete Mad Dog Charities - Robert Ray Defibrillator Fund, a 501(c)3 corporation.  

As many of you know, the St. Pete Mad Dogs and our community in Pinellas County and around Tampa Bay raised the money to put defibrillators into the parks and recreation department’s swimming pool/recreation centers.  

Another family from Largo stepped up to the bar and put defibrillators in the police cars so that they, as first responders (as they were when hubbie Rob was lying on the pool deck) can save lives.    

As a result of the publicity Humana is sponsoring, I am hopeful that we will bring the Charity to life again and start a campaign to put the defibrillators in outdoor locations so that Sudden Cardiac Arrest will save more lives.

Best regards and love to all, Rosie

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Ride of Silence

On Wednesday, May 18, the St. Petersburg Bicycle Club participated in the worldwide Ride of Silence for 2022.

Both St. Petersburg Bike Club members and the greater St. Petersburg cycling community joined in the ride - a short (7-mile) slow and silent funeral-style processional.

The annual Ride of Silence is an international movement that honors cyclists killed or injured while riding on public roadways. It’s designed to raise awareness that cyclists, too, have a legal right to the road. 

The St. Petersburg Bicycle Club thanks Ken Fong at Northeast Cycles, 1115 4th St. N. in St. Petersburg, for donating the Ghost Bike for our 2022 Ride of Silence event.

View the St. Pete Bike Club Ride of Silence event

Aches & Pains: A Pain in the Butt
by Coach John Hughes
Road Bike Rider Newsletter

I went to the ER at Mercy Medical in Durango, Colorado, less than 1,000 miles into the 1996 Race Across AMerica. They peeled down my shorts, looked at my butt and said, “Your race is over. You have second-degree burns on your buttocks.”

A second-degree burn is through the epidermis and into the dermis, the thick layer of tissue that forms the true skin. I didn’t care what second-degree meant, all I knew was that it hurt like hell!

The day before it was 108F (42C) and I was racing across the desert down on my aerobars with a great tailwind. Concerned about saddle sores, I’d put a black gel-filled saddle pad on the bike. The pad heated up and literally burned my butt!

While it was definitely an unusual way to be afflicted, I was certainly in good company as a road cyclist suffering from saddle-related discomfort.

Saddle Discomfort/Sores the No. 1 Roadie Affliction

A Question of the Week posed in the past was, “What is the Biggest or Most Common Physical Issue that Affects Your Riding?” RBR readers responded:

Saddle Discomfort / Saddle Sores – 135 votes, 20.5%
Upper Back, Shoulder, Neck Pain / Discomfort – 115 votes, 16.8%
Numb / Painful Hands – 108 votes, 15.9%
Something Else – 97 votes, 14.6%
Lower Back Pain / Discomfort – 77 votes, 11.5%
Cramps – 74 votes, 11.0%
Hot / Painful Feet – 62 votes, 9.1%
Nausea – 3 votes

In recent columns I’ve already discussed cramps and nausea because of inquiries from individual readers. Today, I describe the various types of butt problems, how you can avoid them and what to do if you suffer from saddle pain during a ride. Future columns will discuss the other problems.

Butts Are Like Faces!
Riders’ butts (and sitting area, in general) are as different as riders’ faces. This column discusses the general types of problems, causes and solutions to sitting-area afflictions. If you suffer from pain in the nether region, hopefully you can use or adapt one of these.

Types of Saddle Sores
Saddle sores develop in five different ways, several of which may occur at the same times:

Sitz bones. Pressure on your ischial tuberosities reduces blood flow to the skin, depriving the skin of oxygen and nutrients, resulting in pain. In one study of amateur endurance
cyclists, over 70% of the seat-related discomfort was due to pain around the sitz bones.

Chafing. Friction between the inner thighs and groin and the saddle causes red, inflamed skin breakdown.

Crotchitis and crotch rub. Crotchitis is a group of skin problems in the groin that can cause great pain in a female cyclist’s life. Crotchitis is basically a form of diaper dermatitis between the vagina and the anus, a red, tender, itchy, eczematous rash. This condition is almost always compounded with a yeast infection, and almost always responds to steps to maximize dryness while riding and medication to kill yeast.

Folliculitis and furuncles. Folliculitis is an infection at the base of a hair follicle, and a furuncle, or boil, is a collection of pus, an abscess. These infections usually occur in the groin.

Skin ulceration. If the outer layer of the skin is damaged, bacteria may enter and infect the deeper layer of skin, forming an abscess.

Mercy Medical was concerned that my second-degree burns would get infected. I went twice a day for a week to soak my butt in an antiseptic bath.

Bike fit — The first step in avoiding pain in the butt is a good bike fit:

Your weight should be properly distributed between the saddle and the handlebars. With your hands on the brake hoods your torso should form about a 45-degree angle with the top hood.

Your saddle should be at the right height so that your hips aren’t rocking, which causes friction.

If one hip drops more than the other hip as you pedal, then that leg may be shorter than the other one, making that side of your butt more prone to pain.

Saddle choice — Because your butt is individual, your saddle should be the right one for you:

It should be the right width so that your sitz bones are supporting you, not your crotch. Specialized makes a tool to measure the width of your sitz bones (see photo, above).

The curve between the nose of the saddle and the broader part you sit on should accommodate the width of your thighs. Although a wider saddle may seem more comfortable for the butt, it will increase friction.

• It may have a cutout. For women, a cutout may reduce problems with abraded soft tissue. (You can learn more about women specific issues related to saddles in this Bicycling magazine article.)
• A cutout may reduce pressure for man who is developing an enlarged prostate.
• It should be lightly padded if your problem is pain under your sitz bones. However, heavier padding will allow your butt to rock, causing friction.
• It should be smooth enough so that you slide easily without friction.

Get the saddle that fits you, rather than a lighter one. Even if it’s a heavier saddle, pain-free riding will let you ride more, have more fun, and get fitter!

5 Star-Rated Helmets
By Jim Dodson

Selecting the best helmet can be confusing. One place to start would be the expert ratings by the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab. Overall factors to consider when choosing a bike helmet are: 1) good safety score 2) light in weight 3) ergonomic fit 4) good ventilation and 5) bright color for high visibility. I would personally only look at their list of scientifically evaluated five-star-rated helmets. Included in that list are four major types of bike helmets:

MIPS stands for multi-directional impact protection system and has found application in over 120 helmet brands. It’s a patented system that adds a low-impact or friction layer between the head and the helmet, acting as a cushion against the brain rotating or smashing against the skull. Since most bike crashes don’t result in head-on or direct impact, MIPS is designed to protect against rotational motion from angled impacts.

WaveCel is a cellular copolymer material that’s built up one layer at a time, then glued together to form the piece that lives in a bike helmet underneath the hard shell. WaveCel doesn’t just crack and absorb energy the way a foam one would. Trek’s Bontrager helmet design resembles a honeycomb with a collapsible structure that flexes and moves in all directions on impact, meaning the helmet absorbs the direct and rotational force. It purports to reduce rotational acceleration by 73 percent, lowering brain injury risk by over 30 percent.

Advertised as “the ultimate damage control system,” a Koroyd helmet’s welded tubes crumple instantly and consistently on impact, absorbing maximum force in a controlled manner and minimizing energy transferred to the wearer’s head. It also features advanced breathability and cooling. Air flows consistently through open cells, while hot air from your head can easily escape. Koroyd features the world’s thinnest walled tubes, resulting in a structure which is 95 percent air. This reduces weight and improves safety without compromising on safety.

About five years ago, the manufacturer Lazer started working on its own rotational protection system. With KinetiCore, the helmet structure is composed of blocks that compress or break, absorbing the forces of an impact in an effort to keep them from reaching a rider’s head. They are made of the same material as the bulk of the helmet and molded into the helmet during the manufacturing process. The blocks extend down toward the head and are tallest around the top of the head and get progressively lower to the sides, front, and back. KinetiCore is also lighter than other systems as it does not require any additional material within the helmet. KinetiCore doesn’t obstruct airflow, so the company’s new helmets have excellent ventilation. The new lids also use less plastic, in some cases as much as 24 per cent less.