Vinnie Tortorich

“I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like.” – Queen

I was in Beverly Hills the other day and I saw something that’s bothered me from it’s inception, probably back to 2001. I’m not sure why it bothers me. Hell, I’m an American. I believe everyone is free to do what the hell they want. And I’ll never change that belief. But for some odd reason, I’m bothered by the Segway. For the uninitiated, let me tell you what the Segway is. It’s a two-wheeled balancing device meant to be a portable conveyance. In other words, it’s literally for people too effing lazy to walk. Wait a minute, I just figured out why it bothers me. Let’s face it, there are people in wheelchairs who would give their eye teeth to be able to take one step. Yet here we are with perfectly capable people who can’t be bothered with the simple task of walking. Oh, I’ve seen these devices around. They’re quite popular with mall cops and people who work in warehouses…and generally people who have occupations that require their name to be on their shirt. I told you that to tell you this. There is a motorized vehicle that I do like. It’s been around for a long time and it comes in different forms. What am I talking about? Motorized bicycles. You may ask yourself why a guy who’s telling me to save gas and fat push a motorized bicycle. Isn’t that the bicycle version of the segway? No, it’s not. Here’s the difference. First, the motorized bikes I’m talking about have electric motors. There are gas engines that can be put on to convert it, but I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about the electric bike. When I first started seeing these a few years ago, I had the same problem with it as I have with the Segway. After all, isn’t the whole point to get exercise? Then something interesting happened one day as I was coming over the Santa Susana Pass, leaving Simi Valley. A guy caught up with me and passed me on the up-hill. He was wearing slacks and a shirt and he had panniers on his bike. As he passed me, I noticed he wasn’t sweating. Then I noticed something else. There were two big square batteries on the bike. I caught up with him about three miles later on the Woodland Hills side of the valley. I asked him why he chose to buy a bike with an electric motor. As the two of us pedaled along, he gave an answer I wasn’t expecting. He said he bought it to get in shape. He also told me he had lost 35 pounds since starting the regimen on his bike. He saw the quizzical look on my face. I told him about my Web site and the mission that I’m on. I also asked him how a motorized bike helped him lose weight. He said it was simple. The Santa Susana Pass was the only thing stopping him from commuting to work every day on his bike. The hill was too difficult. With the bike he was able to ride the seven miles to the pass, use the assistance of the electric motor to get up the pass, then ride the three miles into work. He then repeated the same thing on the way home. I asked him how long it took to lose the extra 35 pounds. He said less than a year. Then he said something else. He said, “You know, it wasn’t even about the weight loss. I’m physically fit for the first time in my life.” I asked how he could tell. He said a physical showed his blood pressure was down. “The doctor literally said my blood looks younger.” Then he lowered his glasses and winked when he said,”My wife likes the benefits too.” We parted ways a few blocks later. I had gained a new-found respect for the electric bike.

“Am I happy or in misery? Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me.” – Jimi Hendrix

I hate to go to parties. No wait, I was being too easy. I despise parties. Why? I can’t stand small talk. It makes no sense. Someone will ask you about yourself, yet they don’t give a crap about you. While you talk, they try to think of something about themselves. Maybe something they think I’ll care about. Guess what? I don’t. Turns out, I have to go to parties and social events. The fact that I’m on this planet as a human being, I feel it’s important to socialize with other human beings or else I’ll cease to exist or become the Unabomber. I’m not sure, but I think those are the only two choices. The one thing I have noticed about socializing is how everyone loves to fluff up who they are. For example, no one will tell you they collect garbage at a party. They would pump it up and say they are a sanitation engineer. Los Angeles is famous for this. Everyone seems to be a writer, director or producer. There is a story that goes around that a guy kept telling women he was a director because he wanted to get laid. Two things happened. One, he got laid. And, two, he actually became a director. I think people are amazed when they ask me what I do for a living. The reply is, “I ride a bike.” I usually get a perplexed look. They usually reply with, “Oh, are you a pro, like Lance Armstrong?” I say, “I’m a pro, but the difference between Lance and I is he’s fast and I’m not.” I simply teach people how to become better riders and I get paid for it. I told you that to tell you this. When people find out I’m a fitness trainer, the quizzing begins. What do you think about circuit training, kickboxing, high-impact aerobics, krav maga, Boot Camp, etc. I always give the same answer, “It’s all good as long as you do it.” But there’s one that I get that I have a different answer for…yoga. In my opinion, yoga is not physical activity. Oh, it’s physical. You have to put yourself in pretzel-like positions. I’m a big fan of flexibility. At 48, I’m still able to do splits. But make no mistake, this is not physical activity. The key word in physical activity is activity. In order to stretch a muscle, you have to be the antithesis of active. You have to be relaxed. Is yoga an activity? No. In my opinion, it’s the equivalent of getting a massage. It will do absolutely nothing to increase stamina or aerobic base. It will cause little or not muscle hypertrophy. It will simply make you limber and supple, which in its own right, is a plus. But for those of you who will write to me and say, “But I sweat every time I do yoga, therefore it’s physical.” Think again, I sweat when I forget to turn on the air conditioning before I go to bed.

For your enjoyment, watch this snooze fest.

“Just wrap your legs ’round these velvet rims and strap your hands ‘cross my engines.” – Bruce Springsteen, “Born to Run”

At the beginning of May I sold my Triumph motorcycle. At the end of May I picked up a brand new Ducati Streetfighter. I love my new bike, but I noticed almost immediately that the bike had a tuning problem. It did a lot of spitting and choking between 2,500 and 5,000 RPMs. I figured it wouldn’t be much of a problem to get it fixed after my first oil change. The guys over at Pro Italia, where I bought the bike, kind of laughed the problem off and told me to thank the tree-huggers over in Europe who have passed laws to choke down these beautiful machines. I took offense to this. I guess you could say I’m somewhat of a tree-hugger myself. I also asked the folks at Pro Italia if they could fix the problem. They said, “Sure, as long as you shell out $2,500 for a different set of pipes and an after-market ECU (engine control unit).” My first statement back to them was, “My bike is under warranty, I’m not going to pay you a dime.” They replied, “This is an after-market part. You have to pay for it.” I just laughed and said, “You can either fix the bike or take it back.” They rolled their eyes, but fixed it, without changing any parts. The fact of the matter is, there is a way to fix the bike under warranty. But they don’t want to do that. They would rather up-sell you. It’s somewhat of a win-win for them, and a lose-lose for me. I didn’t stop there. I went on to investigate these after-market parts, and I learned a lot. Number one, the parts are made by the bike company, Ducati. Number two, the parts are specifically made for track use only. What does this mean to the real world? Basically, once they put these parts on, your motorcycle is no longer street legal. When I asked the manager at the dealership about this, he laughed and said, “But everybody does it.” I told you that to tell you this. I spend most weekends every year on my bicycle. If you want to triangulate where I am on the planet, I’m generally somewhere between Woodland Hills, Malibu and Santa Barbara. Because it’s such a weather-friendly place 12 months out of the year, it’s one of the most scenic places on the planet. It would stand to reason that on any given weekend, hundreds of motorcycles pass me as I ride through the mountains. You know what most of them have? Loud after-market pipes. From my small investigation, this means, if you have a carburetor, it would re-jet it. If they have a fuel-injection system, the ECUs would have to change. In simple terms, this means every time you hear a loud bike, not only are they causing noise pollution, but also air pollution. And all of this, just so they can feel better about their small cocks. I guess the bigger question is, why does law enforcement turn a blind eye to it? Hell, they like to hand out tickets. It’s basic revenue in most places these days. Is it not easy enough for them to figure out who has loud pipes and hand out citations? Oh, and by the way, just because everyone does it doesn’t mean it’s right.

“I would trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday.” – Kris Kristofferson

I regret to inform my readers of a tragic loss. Today ultracycling has lost one of its own in a cycling accident. Jure Robic could very well be considered one of the greatest cyclists to ever straddle a bike. He’s won what can be considered not only the toughest cycling race in the world, but arguably the toughest event, period, the famed Race Across America. He won it a record five times. I don’t know much about the details, as the accident happened in Robic’s homeland of Slovenia. He’s survived by a wife and at least one child. In a sport that’s generally riddled with doping allegations, Robic was a clean player. He was loved and envied by all. The very last time I saw Jure was as he rode through Borrego Springs, California back in 2008. He didn’t look like a man in the first hundred miles of a 3,000-mile non-stop race. He was riding with the intensity and voracity of a time trialist. That image will live with me forever. Jure, you will live with me forever.

“I gave up cigarettes for my New Year’s resolution, but it didn’t give up smoking” – Blues Brothers

When I was a kid there was a chicken stand in the country known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. I used to love going there, mainly because I grew up in a Mayberry type of town. We didn’t have fast-food restaurants. Back in those days, Interstate 10 almost went from coast to coast. There were a few breaks. One of those breaks in I-10 was between my town and Baton Rouge. Therefore, Baton Rouge wasn’t the 25-minute drive it is today, it was more like 50 minutes. It was were my parents would do most of the back-to-school shopping. As a kid, I didn’t care much about school shopping. But I sure did love going to Baton Rouge. Why? They had places like McDonalds, Burger King and, yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken. I remember these places as being a real treat. We would only have this once or twice a year. Somewhere along the line, Kentucky Fried Chicken ceased to exist, they started calling it KFC. They tried to sell it down the street by saying kids like to nick everything and shorten it to initials, kind of like BFF. But I got news for you folks, KFC has been around for longer than BFF, and much longer than texting. You might ask yourself why a company with such lucrative branding connected to it change its name. I’ll tell you why. It had the word “fried” in it. Once we decided to become health-conscious as a nation, we couldn’t eat fried food anymore. But you know what we could eat? KFC. Before you start scratching your head, let me help you out. Yeah, we’re that dumb. I told you that to tell you this. KFC is at it again. Here’s why. We’re a nation of dreamers. Hell, we’re Americans, we think anything is possible. You can’t tell us no. We don’t accept no. We want what we want, how we want it and when we want it. And we want it in large quantities. Why? Cause we’re Americans, that’s why. I said it before and I’ll say it again. We love to eat things with total impunity. Tell us what we can eat in unlimited quantities. That’s what we go for. And that’s what Atkins has been selling for years. Have all the bacon you want. Have all the fat you want. Eat protein til you can’t take a dump. We love it. We love Atkins because he tells us what we want to hear. He told us that until his own arteries clogged up and killed him. But you know what? It doesn’t stop us Americans. Now Kentucky Fried Chicken (oh, I’m sorry, KFC) is stealing a page from the Atkins playbook with their new menu item, the KFC Double Down.

Hell, KFC is no dummy. They use a term commonly associated with gambling, yet another addiction of Americans. And we can’t figure out why Europe hates us. For you uninitiated with the Double Down, let me tell you what’s in it. By the way, I’m not making this up. On the bottom you have a deep-fried piece of chicken, followed by cheese, the Colonel’s special sauce, bacon, then another deep-fried piece of chicken. I want to repeat, what you just read is not a typo. This is the actual dish.

The company is banking on this product so much that they’re paying college girls to wear “Double Down” logos on their ass, like Juicy Couture and Pink Couture.

“Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.” – Bruce Springsteen

Seems like they’ve re-invented the wheel…again. I said 20 years ago around the first time I saw rolling luggage that if we weren’t the laziest people on the planet before, we’ve definitely achieved it now. How lazy do you have to be that you can’t lift up your own luggage and carry it? I remember telling my friend at the airport that day that this was the beginning of the end for fitness. We had found another way to not do something physical. But then it got worse. Not only did big bags have rollers on it because let’s face it, even I can understand a 50 or 60 pound bag having wheels is a good idea. But carry-on luggage with wheels? Are you effing kidding me? We’re literally turning ourselves into veal. Then when I thought it got as bad as it could possibly get, it got worse. Last year, Tallulah, Serena’s daughter, who I get to influence once every other week when she’s living with us, had a book bag. Guess what it came with? That’s right, wheels. Isn’t it bad enough that we’ve cut physical education out of schools? It was once five days a week, then one day a week, then one day a month. In most cases in the public school system, it may be one day a semester or one day a year. Now we’re further harming kids by not even letting them lift their books. A lot of things are different from when I was a kid. We didn’t even have back packs. They used to literally sell a big thick rubber band with a metal hook to wrap around your books to carry them home. Now we have every device in the world to carry more books than ever before. Yet our nation becomes dumber every time I look. I told you that to tell you this. What does this have to do with cycling? Everything, especially if you are talking about performance. There was a time back when modern-day bicycles didn’t even have brakes. As a matter of fact, in the early running of the Tour de France, they couldn’t include the Alps because the riders had no way to break their downhill speed. There was something else different about bikes back then. They all had fixed gears. Put simply, you couldn’t stop peddling. The bike wouldn’t coast. I read an article once from the early 1900s, which came out shortly after the free wheel was introduced. This meant the bike could coast. The wheels would keep turning as the pedals were still. The whole idea behind this article was that riders would become lazy. They would begin to lose the muscles cycling offered for the legs, along with suppleness. You know what? It was right. There was an old practice of the Italian cycling team coaches, and in some cases still today, where cyclists ride only fixed gear bikes in the off season. This was to gain back what we call their spin. As a matter of fact, a great example of a fixed gear bike is the Johnny G Spinner made by Schwinn, which is the bike used in most spinning classes. Was this method of building a stationary bike an accident? No. When Johnny Goldberg invented the spinner, he was into ultracycling. He was looking for a way to stay in shape once the sun went down, without staying outside. I’ve personally been a fan of fixed gear riding in the off season since the early 1980s, when I started riding. It was a method used by some of the better cyclists around New Orleans. I figured I had to adapt pretty quickly to be competitive. It worked. I think as Americans we are always to eager to point a finger when something goes wrong. Why is America the fattest, laziest nation on the planet? It’s easy to point the finger at McDonalds, they’re on every street corner. Maybe we can point to technology. When I was a kid, to watch a different TV program, you had to get off the couch and change the channel. That’s no longer necessary. Every building didn’t have an escalator or elevator. There was a method we used called stairs. If I wanted to get somewhere as a kid, I either hoofed it or rode a bike. We didn’t have Segways.