In the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, the main character played by the great Peter O’Toole has a habit of extinguishing the lit matches he uses to light his cigarettes by pinching the end of the match between his fingers.  A soldier named William Potter, watching O’Toole attempts to mimic the trick and shrieks in pain when the match burns him, saying “Oooo! It damn well HURTS!!”

O’Toole replies, “Certainly it hurts!”

“What’s the trick then?” Potter explains shaking his burned fingers

“The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts….” O’Toole coolly replies

I am often asked by fellow athletes “what’s your secret to going faster.” While I usually reply something trite about training smart, working hard, eating right, or having good equipment, I usually play this scene from Lawrence of Arabia in my head.  Some people will understand the analogy I am making. Some will not. A lot of people I know hate to exercise EXACTLY because it hurts. A lot of people I know like to race but are inhibited from reaching their potenial EXACTLY because it hurts.

Having been injured early in the season and being forced to take almost 12 weeks completely off to let my hip heal, I forgot exactly how much pain and suffering is involved in training and racing. Last week I competed in my first open 10k road race in which I was running in first place during the early miles. I had a few people close behind me and the fast pace was foreign to my legs. Filling with lactic acid, my body began to strain against the effort. I was joined at the front by another quick runner and we ran stride for stride for the next four miles. We surged and counter-surged each other trying to find a weakness and to break one another. Finally, I made the conscious decision that I was giving up.

My body wasn’t giving up, but my mind. I was hurting, not bad enough to HAVE to slow down, but to WANT to slow down. I was MINDING that it hurt. I let the other guy open up a gap of about 15 meters when I literally slapped myself across the face. “You have 1 mile to run! You can endure anything for 5 minutes. Run you bastard!”

I bridged up to the other runner and out kicked him for the win.

It was a 100% mental race. My body didn’t let me down, but my mind almost did.

After the race I found myself envisioning this scene from Lawrence of Arabia and remembering that training and racing isn’t easy. It doesn’t feel good. I promise you that this is the same for all serious endurance athletes pushing their limits. It hurts for them to, but “the trick is not minding that it hurts.”

Bi-weekly Time Trial Series

I am trying something a little bit different for the 2013 season – using a recurring local  time-trial series to develop power and technique on the TT/Tri bike. Since getting into the sport of triathlon I’ve always felt like I haven’t been able to get 100% out of my body on the bike whether it be muscle fatigue or position related.  By using a recurring TT series that is held every other week (with a 40km TT added once/month), I am able to monitor pace, power, HR, and nearly every other variable on a consistent course. As they say in business “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Well, I’ll be measuring everything so I’ll know exactly what is working and what isn’t.  My fist 10mi TT was last week and I completed the course in 23:05 (barely faster than my Ironman pace!!!). I am coming back from injury and quickly finding cycling form and this week I finished in 22:00, taking a full minute off my previous best time!

Another nice thing about the time trial is that a local photographer comes out and take pictures of the TT. No matter how “aero” you think you are, until you see a picture of yourself with your head sticking up above your back, you don’t really know! Having this feedback is a great way to hone your positions and work on optimizing your aerodynamics.

So people close to me know that I had a bit of a setback to my season a few weeks ago while training in Australia.  I was experiencing some generalized lower-back/hip pain that was keeping me from training. I was referred to get an MRI to rule out a stress fracture as the chiropractor I was seeing thought my symptoms reflected a possible sacral stress fracture. Unfortunately, the chiropractor was close to being correct. Rather than a stress fractured sacrum, I have a stress fractured iliac wing (pelvic bone). It’s in a non-weight bearing area and I am not sure what exactly is the root cause of the injury, but it meant a flight home from Noosa 4 weeks prior to when I was scheduled to return.

Fortunately, Kristi had already booked a trip to Australia while this was all coming to a head so it was nice to be able to relax a bit with her before heading back stateside.

So what does does an athlete do when their life gets turned on it’s head and you go from training 30+hrs/week to 0hrs? Well, I’d be pulling my hair out had Kristi and I not just moved to Sacramento. Kristi finally got the dream job she has been pursuing the past several years and we were delighted to get placed in Sacramento.  It will be a great place to set our roots, train, and EVENTUALLY start a family.

I’ve been able to channel all of my extra time and energy and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) towards finding us a new home in the greater Sacramento area. My goal? Find something close to Kristi’s work that is also great for a training location. Two things that are a little tough to reconcile – especially considering there are very few pools open 12-month/year in the area.

The timing of our house hunt is a bit interesting as I think we have stumbled upon the start of a new “housing bubble” just starting out… The combination of a few factors, detailed below, indicate our house hunt will be rather intense….

Here is a little bit of research and information I’ve been able to find about Sacramento and its real estate market.

Picked up some new shoes for the 2013 season, some Bont Vaypor Premiums.  Here are my thoughts:

Stock Vaypor Premium

Before I get to the review, I have to explain why I am training and racing in the Bont Vaypor, technically a pure road shoe vs. the Bont Sub-8, a pure triathlon shoe.  That is an easy question to answer. I truly believe that ALL long course athletes shoes be training and racing in pure road shoes.  Tri-shoes ALWAYS make a big compromise in fastening and tightening, just so the athlete can enter and exit their shoes 0.2 seconds faster.  For ITU racing, this might make sense, but for long course athletes that are going to be spending 4-7hrs in their shoes, having a shoe that fits comfortably, that allows your foot to be wrapped securely is well worth the extra second or two they take to put on.  For short course athletes, Bont makes their Sub-8 triathlon shoes which is one of the top tri-specific models on the market.

In my case, Bont made me a set of custom Vaypor Premiums which took a stock road shoe and added the heel strap from the Bont Sub-8 triathlon shoes. So I get to have my cake AND stuff down my face too!

Bont Vaypor Premium w/ Customer Tri Strap

So on to the review already!

As some of you might know from my recent Twitter posts it has been raining EVERY.SINGLE.DAMN.DAY in Noosa since I’ve been here.  I was praying that I wouldn’t have to get my beautiful new silver Bont’s dirty and wet on their very first ride, but it wasn’t to be.  First ride in the Bont Vaypors? 7 hours baby, in the pouring rain.

Yes, it is a horrible idea to ride in new cycling shoes for this duration, but there are a few caveats. First, I have custom Amfit orthotics that I take from shoe to shoe so this prevented most transition issues a cyclist would normally have.  Second, all Bont cycling shoes are moldable which means that the day I got my shoes, I was able to put in them in the oven for 15-minutes to soften the carbon fiber resin that molds around the shoe. I was able to wrap the foot more securely in some parts, while able to push out areas that might dig into the foot. This is a great feature that Bont offers.

Over the past two weeks of riding in this shoe I made a few mental notes of things I wanted to highlight in this review.

Stiffness

Okay, look, all top-end cycling shoes are stiff these days. They are all made out of great carbon fiber and when people usually first take them shelve at their local bike shop the sales rep will say: “Try to flex the sole of that shoe. See how stiff it is!” Some manufacturers even associate a number with how stiff these shoes are and every year their shoes get “magically stiffer” in a grand marketing scheme to sell more shoes. “This year our shoes are going to an 11 in stiffness! Try to flex that sole! Last year was only a 10, the 11s are so much stiffer!!”

The point I want to make here is WHERE the shoes are stiff. Having a stiff sole is great, but it does nothing if your arch and foot aren’t supported and your foot collapses on the pedal stroke.  The thing that separately Bont from the competition is that rather than having a carbon sole that is bonded to a textile upper, the Bont design wraps the carbon around your foot. If you have a good, custom insole, you can heat mold the sole so that your feet are perfectly supported throughout the pedal stroke.

Comfort

Having the carbon wrap around your foot also allows you to not have to buckle the straps down so tight around your foot.  You can leave the buckles loose on a Bont and still have as much security as other shoes that are strapped down hard. Not having to strap the foot down as hard makes a difference in triathlon when after a 180km bike, we have to strip our stiff shoes off and transition to a rubber sole with laces. If our feet have been winched down for 4+ hours running is going to HURT!

One thing that is worth noting about the Vaypor is how the buckling is configured.  The main closure mechanism is an asymmetrical buckle that tightens mainly over tarsals in your ankle vs tightening over your foot.  With the Vaypors buckled down, my foot felt nice and relaxed which the tarsals of my foot had enough security to jump out of the saddle and really pull up on the pedals. It is a unique and nice feeling, especially late into long hard rides when your feet swell a little bit and can get squished.

As for race comfort, these shoes feel fine sans socks and I haven’t had any problems with the shoes being wet for two solid weeks so don’t worry about them getting wet at aide stations.

Carbon Wrapped Goodness

Customizability

A huge differentiator between Bont and its competitors is it’s array of custom options. If you have some neanderthal-like club feet that don’t seem to fit into any shoes comfortably, you can have your feet “cast” at a custom Bont dealer and Bont will actually make a custom last of your foot. If you are like most people, a good custom insole is usually enough, and combined with Bont’s moldable carbon resin you can get a great custom-feeling fit.

But it doesn’t stop there.  You want custom colors, Bont has them. You want a triathlon strap on the back of the standard road shoe, Bont can figure out a way to get it done… I’d like to see you try that with another “main” brand. Good luck.

In addition, if you are a fan of Speedplay, Bont offers custom options for a direct mount 4-hole design which allows you to remove the Speedplay 3-hole adapter and drop a few mm from your shoe stack. If was riding Speedplay, this what I would ride.

Weight

While the Bont Vaypor is extremely light, lighter most top-tier road shoes, it isn’t the lightest.  But then again the Vaypor is a do-everything shoe so you wouldn’t expect it to be the lightest. It’s closure mechanism adds a few grams, but that extra security is worth it for long flat time-trials and road racing. Some people say that weight isn’t that important for a road shoes, but I highly disagree.  I think any time you can remove weight from a system, especially when it is rotating at 80+rpm, you’re going to save energy.

If you demand the lightest shoe out there, Bont makes their Zero model, which has the same base as the Vaypor, but with a lace up closure system and a nifty aero flap. This is the shoe of choice for Bradley Wiggins, last year’s Tour de France champ. The Zero will be improved upon for 2013 but replacing standard laces with a BOA closure mechanism… This could be a great option for triathlon as it is uber-light and very aero.

Wiggins Prefers the Bont Zeros

Sex Appeal/Visuals

The only differentiator between the Bont Vaypor and the Vaypor Premium is the material of the upper. The Vaypor Premium has a sexy woven textile finish that looks like chromed carbon fiber.  My favorite thing about this textile fabric is that it looks great even after hundreds of miles of riding in the rain.  Last year I busted out a brand new pair of high end shoes for Oceanside 70.3 and they were literally trashed after 90km of riding. They literally looked like crap. The Bont’s finish allows me to continue to be looking good while riding soaked and dirty roads. I highly recommend this silver-premium finish if you want really good looks combined with good durability.

X-Factor

The thing that strikes me about Bont is that while the Vaypor seems to do EVERYTHING well, they have different top-end models that focus purely on weight and aerodynamics.  Whereas most companies have one singular “top end model,” Bont has four! First, Bont has the do it all work horse – the Vaypor. Second, Bont, has the lightest shoes out with the Zero (soon to be Zero+ with a Boa closure mechanism). Third, is the Chrono with is an all out time-trial shoe that has actually been banned by the UCI for being too much of an advantage (but has not been banned by triathlon!).  Lastly, Bont has their new Vaypor+ which is essentially a regular Vaypor with a non-assymetical ATOP-dial closure system.

These things are all over Noosa. They eat everything in sight and make the craziest noises. Plus their head and neck look 10x too big for their body. Clearly they are more badass than the Honey Badger….