Before I get to the review, a little background on the Aspen Cool Collar. (And no, it doesn’t look like the collar here.) For any of us that have followed the Garmin Slipstream squad over the last two years, we know that the team started using cooling vests (amongst other garments, like socks and gloves) before and after races to help bring down core temperatures more quickly and in theory speed recovery. VeloNews had the story last year.

But like many things that the pros use, few of us have the money or the wherewithal to buy specially designed cooling clothes. Enter the Aspen Cool Collar. In essense, the collar is a poor-man’s version of the cooling vest. It’s exactly what it sounds like – a collar that you put around your neck before or after a race to help bring down your core temperature. The collar is full of chemical crystals that are activated when placed in water for 15 minutes.

Since I knew Page Valley was going to be a hot one (the day topped out in the upper 90s), I decided to use the collar after a warm-up on my trainer and right before staging for the 11 a.m. Cat 3 start. My idea was that I would warm up the legs and then cool the core down with the collar, leaving me warmed up but fresh for the 63-mile race.

A 20-minute session on the trainer was more than enough to raise my core temperature dramatically. Heck, guys just sitting in the comfort of the shade were sweating. I slapped the collar on, not knowing what to expect. If anything, it was refreshing. And it did what it advertised – I felt my body temperature drop much more quickly to manageable levels than it usually does on hot days.

But did it improve my performance during the race? Tough to say, really. I rode well, managing to both close a 45-second gap to the field after a mechanical and stay with the largely diminished group through the finish. All told, it was a great day on the bike, but I also had a solid week of training, eating and recovery, so it would be impossible to link any success during the 63-mile scorcher to 15 minutes with the collar on.

That being said, I see the value of the collar. We’re generally more comfortable when our bodies aren’t overheating, and even a small measure of comfort can go a long way to making you feel better before or after a race. You know that feeling of physical and psychological relief when you dump a bottle of water on yourself on a hot day? That’s basically what I feel the collar does, though I’m sure there’s more science to it than when you just douse yourself with water. (There’s probably something to be said for the fact that you’re specifically cooling your neck, where some of your most important veins are located.)

Whatever the collar makes up for in practical use it loses in quality, though. The thing honestly looks like it was sewn together in someone’s basement, and neither the directions nor the website give any sort of explanation as to how it works and why it could improve your performance. If the maker should know anything about cyclists, it’s that we not only like to use things that improve performance, but we like to know exactly how and why they’re improving our performance. (My Specialized BG S-Works shoes broke down exactly why they would help transfer power better than other shoes. Did I understand most of what they threw at me? Nope. But it was still appreciated.)

Also, the sizing is a little wonky. You fasten the collar using a piece of velcro, but the velcro strip isn’t very long and is located far enough along the collar to seem like it was designed for guys with huge necks. (Apparently it was – the website says it was first made for police officers, thus explaining the sizing.) Cyclists don’t tend to be big, much less do they have large, bulky necks. I ended up having to hold the collar in place with my hands.

All told, the Aspen Cool Collar is entering a market that might soon be the next rage for amateur competitive cyclists like ourselves. (Heck, compression socks were the next big thing for a while, so why not cooling garments?) And it’s doing it on the cheaper end, which is great for those of us not looking to drop hundreds on cooling vests. With a little more emphasis on improving the quality of the actual collar and maybe explaining how it works, I could see the Aspen Cool Collar becoming a must-have tool for local cyclists.

A team car or a teammate is the only way to carry a spare tube, a multi-tool and an inflator. A frame pump is only acceptable if you’re planning on putting it into someone’s spokes a la “Breaking Away.” And if you have a team car, you better have a spare bike and spare wheels, thus negating the need for amateur tools and extra tubes.

On that note, if you ever see me on the side of the road with a flat, please stop. The team car’s in the shop.

When I needed a cages for my bike, I walked into a store and went for what seemed cheapest and sturdiest. I didn’t worry about weight — the benefit of carbon cages is negligible, in my opinion, and just not worth $50 you’d drop per cage — much less whether the cages were retro or made of aluminum or plastic. I just reached and grabbed the Trek Bat Cage, a simple, black hard-plastic cage. These things go for $12 a pop; how could anyone say no?

To be honest, I was a little put off by how snug these things held the bottles at first. The bottles don’t slide out of the Bat Cage — you have to give them a hefty tug to free them from the cage’s hold. But this ended up being to my benefit last year when I jumped into the Poolesville Road Race, my first race as a newly-minted Cat 4. As we hit the gravel section, it didn’t take 100 feet before the large number of potholes sent bottles flying out of cages. I saw guys lose both their bottles in one fell swoop, and with 40 miles to go on a hot day, that’s not a good thing. Mine stayed put, courtesy of the Bat Cage’s proprietary death grip. Best $12 I ever spent, especially when compared to the carbon cages that while may have been lighter, also failed to do the one thing they’re supposed to do — hold your bottle.

I suppose my cage did stand between me finishing in the race and dropping out  in a fit of dehydration. The Bat Cage proves that sometimes simple and cheap is exactly the way to go when it comes to some accessories for your bike.

The hot weather is now here with a vengeance, so I wanted to lead off the first of an episodic new series here at the DVR site on the mercurial art of training, preparing, and executing your stuff on Race Day. Today is all about hydration.

Too little can badly impair athletic performance by inducing dizziness, raising core body temperature, and increasing heart rate. This all adds up to less than optimal performance. Drinking too much, a condition known as hyponatremia, is also possible but for practical purposes less a concern on the bike – how many water bottles can you carry? – than it is for runners tempted by all those handy water stations. So let’s focus on the big picture: How much water do you need?

Each rider is different, so the best approach is to perform a few “sweat tests” under varying conditions. I recommend separate tests for trainer sessions and outdoor workouts, with periodic retesting as the outdoor temperatures rise and fall. Simply weigh yourself before the workout, keep track of the liquid you consume throughout, then weigh yourself afterwards (be sure to jettison those heavy sweaty clothes first). Note the duration of exercise. Oh yeah, try not to pee throughout; you don’t want to have to measure that, now do you?

Subtract your post-ride weight from your pre-ride weight to get water weight lost. Multiple this by 20 [the training literature can be a bit vague here, with suggestions of 16 – 24 ounces, so I split the difference] to get the approximate number of ounces needed to close that gap. Add in the amount of liquid consumed during the workout and divide by the number of hours spent exercising. Now you’ve got a useful rule of thumb of ounces per hour for similar conditions.

NB – Total weight loss of 1.5% or so is OK but anything over that should be addressed in future training sessions.

Here’s an example from a few weeks ago on the trainer:

• Pre-ride weight: 151
• Post-ride weight: 149
• Fluid consumed during exercise: 3 large bottles, or 72 ounces
• Duration: 2 hours

Here goes:

• 151 – 149 = 2 pounds lost to water weight, or 40 ounces of liquid
• Water consumed = 72 ounces, rough equivalent of 3.6 pounds
• Total recommended consumption = 72 ounces (consumed) + 40 ounces (to close gap) = 112 ounces
• Divided by 2 hours yields 56 ounces per hour, the equivalent of 2 1/3 bottles per hour.

Now that we know our liquid requirements, we can start to think about the age-old cycling question: So what should we put in those bottles anyway? Stay tuned.

Bananas: Nature’s candy. Easy to carry (tell me that God didn’t make ‘em to fit in a jersey pocket) and even easier to eat, bananas are absolute staples on training rides. It’s pro to carry them and even more pro to eat them while riding.

Oranges: Not nearly as easy to carry or eat (not to mention the sticky mess that inevitably results), oranges have still shown up stuffed in the jersey pockets of guys on the team. Watching someone un-peel and eat an orange while on the bike makes you feel like something of an amateur if you’re eating a banana.

Oreos and Fig Newtons: We rarely eat these off the bike because they’re mostly empty calories. But on the bike, empty and delicious calories are exactly what most of us want.

Homemade Bars and Wraps: Some of our more cost-conscious and enterprising team members just make whatever they’re going to eat on the ride. Diverse granola-style bars have made an appearance, though their consistency often leaves something to be desired. They’re either frozen solid and barely chewable or aren’t held together at all. A more successful homemade treat that has come along on rides involves a banana drizzled with honey and wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla. (Need ideas? Check here and here.)

The Usual: Of course, none of this isn’t to say that we don’t pack the usual gels and energy bars. We almost always do. A favorite making its way around the team is Gu’s Blueberry-Pomegranate Roctane gel, and Clif Bars of all flavors are a sure bet.

Ummmm…Other: These are the foods that we pick up along the way on our longest training rides, usually 100-milers out to Sugarloaf and back. They’re the foods that possess no real nutritional value but you find yourself eating after 60 hard miles just because you can and you really don’t much care anymore. Fried chicken, pork rinds, Twinkies — you name it and we’ve probably eaten it.

It’s something of a slippery slope, really. As you’re introduced to one metric, it suddenly begets another. And another. And another, to the point where you’re obsessively assessing your training rides and races based on any number of factors. The best way to avoid caring about wattage is to simply not care about speed. Just stick to perceived exertion and you’ll save yourself tons of time and mounds of money. But I’m already half way down the slope, hurtling towards what has become a must-have tool for many of my teammates and companions on the road — a CycleOps PowerTap.

Tons of guys in the Mid-Atlantic racing scene have these. It’s hard not to get into a conversation after a race in which wattage isn’t mentioned. (If someone is throwing out watts, don’t respond with your heart-rate. It sounds dorky.) Anyone who has one and also has a blog is bound to post their training and racing files for all of us to see and judge. But given the cost of a good wireless PowerTap, those alone are hardly good reasons to get one.

I’ve trained over the last two seasons according to feel and heart-rate, and things have gone relatively well. But the more that I train and race (and the older I get), the more I realize the value in fine-tuning my regimen to best exploit my strengths and target my weaknesses. Just having a PowerTap alone won’t do this, but having a PowerTap and really understanding how to use it will. I’ve seen teammates delve into the science of power like medical students dive into their studies, and the results have been obvious. I’m not fooled into thinking that a PowerTap alone will make me a faster rider, but it will at least make the path to becoming a faster rider that much more clear.

I’m not yet sure when I’m going to invest in one of these. They’re expensive and I don’t know that getting one in the middle of the season will do much for me in coming races. But I’ll eventually be rolling with one. Speaking of, anyone have one they’d like to part ways with? Cheaply, or better yet, free? Hit me up.

That was essentially what motivated my purchase of the Giro Convert sunglasses. I don’t have the money nor the patience to have multiple pairs of sunglasses for different occasions, so I needed something that would work well on and off the bike. Something practical and stylish yet geared towards what cyclists need most — glasses that are designed with cycling needs in mind.

On the cycling side, the optics are fantastic. My vision isn’t at all distorted while wearing these, and I avoid the dreaded headache that comes from wearing sunglasses that slightly morph what your eye is seeing. The glasses fit extremely well, even for a person with a face as wide as mine is. (Go ahead, make jokes.) They don’t squeeze behind the ears, and they offer just enough space around the temples so that they can easily fit around a helmet strap. The only downsides are that the lenses are not replaceable and the relatively snug fit across the front of the face can mean that those of us that sweat profusely (yes, that would be me) sometimes struggle with the lenses fogging up or beads of sweat getting stuck on the bottom inside rim of the lenses.

On the non-cycling side, they look normal. Take these off after a race, wipe ‘em down and put them back on with your street clothes — no one would know that you’re a bad-ass amateur cycling enthusiast. (Hmmm. Doesn’t sound so cool when you say it out loud, does it?) Best yet, they come in a variety of normal colors. No Atomic Orange, no Plum Purple, no Grotesque Yellow — just black, silver, white, grey and brown.

In summary, these are great multi-use cycling glasses. This isn’t to knock good Oakleys, mind you. Teammates Tony and Jonathan swear by the Oakley Radar, and from what I know these things are pretty much as good as it gets in terms of technical wear. (And, I should add, both of them look pretty rad wearing them.) But they’re not your day-to-day sunglasses, at least not for me.

Finally, I think a shout-out is due to teammate Tim B., a faithful adherent of Rudy Project sunglasses. Due to a recent mishap, though, he’s had to go in the opposite direction and wear normal sunglasses on training rides. Instead of choosing something that could pass as cycling wear, he broke out the Jersey girl clubbing glasses. It’s quite the spectacle, but he deserves props for bravely rocking those abominations around us.

Shake Your Head, Lots: You have to act like you don’t know how getting dropped could happen. Was it the bike? The wind? Were my cleats loose? Did I buy the wrong flavor gel? Ask yourself, “How could a finely tuned machine like myself not be hanging with the pack?” Remember, getting dropped is never your fault — so make sure everyone knows it by shaking your head like you have no idea what just happened. (Shake extra hard if there’s a photographer around.)

Step Off Your Bike in Disgust: When you do finally pull into the parking lot or pull off onto the side of the road, step off the bike like it’s the one to blame. Remember when David Millar tossed his bike over a barrier and into a field in the 2008 Tour de France when his chain broke in the final miles of stage he might have won? You want to do something like that, except without the whole throwing the bike thing. (It’s simply foolish to throw your only bike and then have to sheepishly retrieve it when you realize the error of your ways.) Act like the bike let you down. Push it a little. Sigh a lot. Do the head-shaking thing described above. You didn’t get dropped, after all — the bike just didn’t respond to your fluid pedal strokes and hammering power.

Get Your Story Straight: Your friends, family, teammates and sponsors will want to know why you ended up DFL or DNF. You need a good story, and quick. It’s not lack of fitness — it’s that you did so much pace-setting at the front that no one could possibly expect you to finish. It’s not because you couldn’t hang — it’s because this race isn’t really important to you because you’re in your transition/build/any other category from the Joe Friel book. It’s not because you’re not strong — it’s merely that you’re a crit specialist, so road races don’t play to your explosive capacities very well. (Adjust this one accordingly. Get dropped in a crit; it’s because you’re a TT specialist.) It’s never because you were outmatched — it’s because everyone was riding far superior equipment. So superior, in fact, that it’s probably considered cheating. Come to think of it, they did cheat. They attacked in the feed zone. After a crash. While you were going back to the teamcar to get water and food for your team. Cheating bastards.

Promise Revenge: With blame assigned elsewhere, promise to come back next year and show everyone what’s up. Let your challengers know that everything that wasn’t your fault anyhow will be corrected and overcome as you solo to victory. And when registration finally opens next year, conviniently book a business trip for the same weekend as the race. Revenge is cooler if you just talk it up and don’t actually have to make it happen.

If you think of a shoe as a basic platform from which the energy from your legs is translated into the pedals, you’d want to make sure that the platform is as stiff as possible. As trusty as my old Specialized shoes had been, the plastic sole had just enough give that I knew that plenty of energy was being lost in the flexing. Since I didn’t want to run the risk of a knee injury like Corey suffered when he switched over to Sidi’s, I decided to stick with Specialized and look at two of their carbon-sole models — the BG Pro and the BG S-Works.

It wasn’t a very long debate between the two — the BG S-Works won out, mostly because the innovative Boa rotary closure system (basically a high-grade steel shoelace instead of the standard straps) felt like it applied pressure more evenly across my feet. Like Corey, I had some grief with the standard straps on the BG Pro, feeling like they caused awkward pressure points and numbness along the top of my foot. The Boa system really allows you to ratchet down the shoe fit, and the stiff-as-a-board carbon sole allows for a seamless transfer of power from your legs into the pedals. I also like that higher-end Specialized shoes allow you to add or remove inserts for a better fit. (I changed the main insert for one with a more pronounced arch for more support.)

Maybe the only downside to these shoes is that there is a surprising amount of wiggle room in the toe-box, a strange phenomenon for a shoe that otherwise wraps around your foot.When I pull up on the pedal, I don’t often feel like my toes are taking any of the pressure of the effort. A neutral insert or two could probably resolve the problem, though, again speaking to benefit of having shoes whose fit can be customized with relative ease.

I’ve been extremely happy with these shoes, and since Corey is again on the market, I’d happily recommend them. They’re not cheap — they go for $300 — but Specialized will let you try the shoes for 30 days and return them if you decide they’re not for you. The shoes ended up being for me and I was able to snag them for less than retail, so all in all, I’ve got nothing to complain about.

Specialized BG Expert Road Shoe: Can you say “Cat 5”? I can, and this was the shoe I used for my first road season. They are pretty much what you would expect from mid- to entry- level shoes. They use velcro straps, there’s no fancy micro-adjusting buckle system, and the soles are plastic with a carbon fiber bed where the cleat mounts. Needless to say, they were not especially stiff, but they got the job done.

Sidi Genius 5.5 Carbon: Picked these up in the off-season on the recommendation of several of my teammates. My first impression was fairly positive. The fit was snug yet comfortable, the teeth on the velcro straps preventing slipping, and the ratcheting mechanism was easy to adjust while riding. My almost immediate second impression was,“Holy crap, why does my knee hurt so much?!?” Only a few days after my first few rides on the Sidi’s I was left with debilitating medial knee pain, several appointments with a sports medicine physician, two-and-a-half months off the bike and three months of physical therapy. Bottom line is that some riders are OK without the 1.5mm varus wedging that is built into body geometry shoes; I am not one of them. The shoes went on eBay and I went looking for other options.

Specialized BG Pro Road Shoe: Decided to go back to Specialized brand shoes, since I was not about to risk injuring my knee again. You stay with what you know (or does not injure you), right? The sole is full carbon and the shoes are both light and stiff. One new feature I noticed was that Specialized put a hard plastic mount on the inner sides of each shoe. Using a screw, this allows the rider to adjust the position of the top strap. In theory this is a great idea. In practice, after about 10 miles of riding, the plastic starts to painfully crush into the navicular bone. I’ve tried adding some padding to the inside of the shoe, but once again, I am not altogether stoked on my shoe options.

So, I’m still left wondering what will work best for me. There’s always the option of upgrading (again) to the primo S-Works shoe, but that’s a decision I haven’t made yet. I’m sure some of my teammates can weigh in with their reviews on that particular piece of footwear, but in the meantime, you can call me “Mr. Sensitive Feet.”