good MORNING

yeah right - its good but not nearly morning - it was morning at 5:45 when i got up...

This freaking cracks me up! Big up props to Cyclingnews for putting it together.


Pat McQuaid considers action against
riders who break rail crossing safety rules Photo ©: Roberto Bettini

That's freaking CLASSIC... but it totally sucks...

the trains, sure they might be part of the 'landscape' and part of the racing, but WTF? totally stupid to have em decide the results of a race like Roubaix.

Oh and its total horseshit that they aren't gonna alter their decision. Sure the riders must have decided to duck through, but, no there was no train 'yet' and if they waited, boonen would have caught them, and they would have had NO chance in catching Cancellara. its total horseshit.

Not to mention George's bike failure. Okay... if you crash on a carpet fiber lightweight 'climbing' bike... and the headset feels loose... and you are about to go onto a cobble section... whadda ya do? "Oh lets see if it can make it." HUH? yeah... RIGHT... but that's what seems to have happened. And its a strong arrow in my quiver against carbon fiber. Call me old fashioned, but for riders who can't afford to buy a new bike every year or two, or at least a new frame... why risk it? Sure i know dozens upon dozens of people riding carpet fiber bikes and no failures. But lemme ask you, are you feeling lucky? Do you play the lottery? Better odds of the carpet fiber bike failing spectacularly than you winning powerball. Yes, there are plenty of instances of Aluminum or Steel failing spectacularly... it ain't just carbon fiber... and no, my case against it stinks... but... it should at least give pause to those out there thinkin about that frame material.

now... i'm tall right? 6'6"? That's generally considered tall. I'm also skinny. Sure i'm bumping the 200 pound mark, and ya think damn that's heavy... well... skippy, it ain't. I'm a twig... always have been and probably always will be.

Unfortunately there ain't much positive support for skinny GUYs growing up, at least there wasn't for me. Coupled with being a bit too fact hungry, geeky and blunt for my peers, a ripe know it all, added to the problems. Self image. and when i look around, does the media portray skinny guys? Nah. Are they out there? Yeah. Skinny girls? They are worshiped and adored. skinny guys? um... no, the fat ones get the media acceptance. Kinda funny. No i don't have any bias against the genetically gifted who can attain the media shape. I'm just not able to do that. I'm skinny. And well, what precipitated this? Just before i turn around and head home from my bro's house... my wife says "Wow, you are skinny." And all the angst and anquish associated with it as an artistic geeky kid with little athletic ability flodded back. I'm not the best athlete, but i've grown into the cycling cause it fits me well. Being skinny is nice, my knees get nice and close to the top tube, my arms cut less of a swath through the air, the lack of belly fat lets me get nice an aero, the natural lack of extra muscle in the upper torso helps the power to weight ratio, and the constant riding and the recent weight gain has been 100% cycling specific muscle mass increase. My metabolism has always been hummingbird fast, it slowed down to a normal bird at about 25... the transition to a car commuter didn't really change it much, i just re-arranged my muscle mass and 30 pounds in 5 years really isn't that much extra weight in the whole six and a half foot frame i carry. Not sure why i'm getting this all down. Sure yall can call me skinny when ya see me, have feigned ridicule and mock shock at how skinny i am, but i'll expect it and it won't be the same. its when it comes off guard. That and it seems worse when i wear black bib tights cycling. So... no more freaking long thermal weight cycling gear on the legs... shorts and knee warmers only.

There was something else bouncing around in my head but damned if I remember. Maybe when i bite into my nice organic Fuji apple I'll remember. Damn i love those apples. Only one apple i find tastes more to my liking: a Gravenstien.

till i pull my head out of my ass and remember what else i was gonna say - tada for now.. Peace out yall... bros and sis'tahzzzzzzz

A new week.... "Holy Week"

Holy Sh!T its almost Easter! Damn this 'semester' has flown by. And yeah say what ya want but my life is still ruled by semesters.

I posted my saturday comments separately... I think the next major outlet for the writing is going to have to switch to a book. A book about the one aspect of microscopy i'm not super happy with the offerings. Some are too: blah, some are just flat out crappy. Too much, or wrong influences. On one hand some publications have nice review articles that help. But on the other, many people don't read em or understand em. I'd like to make that difference, eventually. Maybe. We'll see. Should help with that 'focus' i think i remebered talking about.

So well yesterday, with my mother visiting in the middle of the tour, she gets the virus... She's at our apartment right now, with a fever. Sucks. At least though for her they don't have a concert today, and she can rest and recover. I just hope she can fight it off as easily as the rest of use did. 24hrs max... Fingers crossed and pray if ya like doing that stuff. me? not quite sold on the whole prayer bit.

I wrote two notes to myself again on the phone. Kinda funny. I always have the phone and now am using that as the notebook. works though....

Two points.

#1 Tuna delima. Tuna are some of the damn coolest fish in the ocean. They are threatened, and they are potentially loaded with mercury and what not. Now the delima is that they taste sooo good. Esp sushi'd. So how to reconcile my gastronomie avec conservation and the right thing? Dunno. On the other hand i like Salmon with sushi (on or in - either way) almost more. So maybe i just stop ordering it. And impress others to avoid it. So AVOID TUNA... and for those with kids - don't feed em canned tuna, more cause the potential levels of toxins are absolutely insane, developing kids don't deserve that toxicity.

#2 Diesel Stupidity. This plauged me on friday. Totally pissed me off. Either someone was being deliberately antagonistic or they really were grossly mis-informed. Sad. Big comment was Nah, diesel's won't take off - they can never pass emissions. That got me freaking ballistic. OF COURSE THEY CAN! Oh the mountains of scientific evidence out there. One log in a medium efficiency wood stove produces more toxins and pollution than my car does over an entire tank of fuell! And soybeans grow one HELL of a lot faster than the tree. When i was driving 40,000 miles a year it would have only taken 25 acres to provide the 800-900 gallons of fuel needed. Sure that's pretty significant, but that's one season's growth. That one log tossed on the fire... well... another way is the cigarette analogy. No i don't smoke and as a cyclist the sheer number of butts i see flicked out the window or laying on the road pisses the freaking hell out of me. If i ever am in the position to watch someone flick a butt out the window and i can get it and get back to the car... i'm flicking it back in sayin "the world ain't an ashtray, use yours!"

TOBACCO CONTROL

[Particulate matter from tobacco versus diesel car exhaust: an educational perspective Tobacco Control 2004; 13: 219-21]

Newswise — The air pollution emitted by cigarettes is 10 times greater than diesel car exhaust, suggests a controlled experiment, reported in Tobacco Control.

Environmental tobacco smoke produces fine particulate matter, which is the most dangerous element of air pollution for health. Levels indoors can far exceed those outdoors, because new engine models and lead free fuels have cut the levels of particulate matter emissions from car exhausts, say the authors.

The controlled experiment was carried out in a private garage in a small mountain town in northern Italy. The town enjoys very low levels of particulate matter air pollution

A turbo diesel 2 litre engine was started and left idling for 30 minutes in the garage, with the doors closed, after which the doors were left open for four hours. The car was fuelled with low sulphur fuel.

Three filter cigarettes were then lit up sequentially, and left smouldering for a further 30 minutes. The nicotine and tar content of each cigarette was 1 mg and 11.2 mg, respectively.

A portable analyser took readings every two minutes during the experiments.

Combined particulate levels in the first hour after the engine had been started measured 88 ug/m3. Those recorded in the first hour after the cigarettes had been lit measured 830 ug/m3: 10 times greater.

The diesel engine exhaust doubled the particulate matter levels found outdoors at its peak; the environmental tobacco smoke particulate matter reached levels 15 times those measured outdoors.

Click here to view the full paper:
219_tc5975.pdf

Ya gotta love that. That's not even with BioDiesel. BioD is even cleaner and less toxic. Unfuckingbelievable. Sure smoking is bad... bad for you, but bad for the environment. gasoline engines have even finer particulates (something the Sierra Club nazi's won't tell you) and if there were no gasoline engines there would be no smog, cause the NOx emittied by a non-Nox scrubbed diesel don't do squat alone. They need the gasoline vehicle emissions to combine with to make the GD pollutant. Alone? Hell its closer to a useable form of nitrogen for plants than the elemental nitrogen.

ya can't improve the effienceny of the gasoline engine to match a diesel. with a ULSD or biodiesel you can put a NOx strubbing system in the exhaust that is more efficient than a Catalytic converter removes CO. not to mention Deisels emit nearly zero CO anyway. Kinda nice.

Using a hybrid system with either engine is markedly improved over not using it. Using the smallest vehicle absolutely neccessary kicks ass. It just pisses me off to no end the amount of outrageous lies that filter around the USA about diesels.

Oh and don't get me started on the total waste and stupidity that the 3,000 mile oil change is.

*deep breath*

I did get out for a ride. did i mention that? it was great, and once again a nice into the wind ride, but coming back against the wind (stronger than last week and more head on) i got home in less time, mostly cause i was racing the rest of the family.
its about 17 miles to my bro's house... most of it on a bike path... numerous stops... and what not... and into a still 15 mph headwind going back... the trip was just under an hour... Sure that's pretty shitty of an average... but that's door to door, stop lights, stop signs, I felt pretty good about it...

Anyway - so begins the week. So begins the week.

*sigh*

Saturday

Once again I find myself sitting here with a sleeping daughter. The rest of the gang of family and visitors are off on an adventure. And I have a nice bit of peace, listening to the youngest’s breathing, so rhythmic and sweet as she recharges the incredible batteries, also the live BSO family concert with Keith Lockhart broadcast from Symphony Hall. The rain is coming down in a pretty massive flood; the streets outside here are pretty well filled. The standing water makes me feel not so guilty about not riding right now. I may miss the whole weekend, but there’s a chance I can make it up sometime this week. I’m trying not to let riding and ‘training’ dictate my life or hang over my head. Okay – Keith is talking about Mozart, and well its freaking distracting. Okay – back to the music. I’ll save my critique of Mozart for later. I’m definitely a Beethoven fan, and not really all that impressed with Mozart’s stuff. Sure it was prolific and load of catchy tunes… but there is something in Beethoven and Wagner’s music that is so much deeper, more meaningful and compelling.

But for a rainy Saturday afternoon, Mozart is a pleasant diversion from the other radio presets on the tuner.

Art in Science. Science in Art. How to best demonstrate the whole interrelationship between the two. Its somewhat a driving force for me. The art in science, and science for me really is a microscope. Taking images with the microscope, how do you best reconcile or educated scientists with a myopic vision of their immediate needs that critical review of their images and a comprehension of how the interplay between space, form, and color dramatically affect the perception and interpretation of their work. And when you swing to the digital side of things, why the entrenched relationship with 512x512 pixel data? Not to mention the complete shunning of 12 bit images in favor of a disturbing 8 bit data set? I hope to at least make an impact at the workshop I’m giving in May, but that’s for a different audience, not the audience at the hallowed Ivy halls I’m associated with now by employment. It is a quest, a focus for me, and a challenge. One I need to really make my own. How to make it happen? Well a bit past the 6 months here and things are, well things, I’m making progress with some more receptive students, but the strong tendancy to publish at all costs is difficult to overshadow with the importance of quality ‘art’ (images).

Complex challenges are life. People can ignore them, and those with limited mental capacity typically do quite well shopping at wallyworldmart driving their *really really cool hummer* and don’t get the overwhelming impact their obsessive consumptive greed has on the world, locally and globally. Its frustrating.

I had a thought about writers. And journalists, and Mikey F may or may not agree, but I’d pose a hypothesis, they write not cause they are good at it, but cause they don’t want to or ‘can’t’ do something else. Now I’m sure lots of people will, who write, take objection with the can’t. And I think rightly so. I said it and thought it but without thinking it through. Thinking it through though is a process. Not all processes should be as exposed but this one was. Patty O’G says it best, why hang up the pen only to have to work? The writing here lately has helped me focus and explore the written word. Part as an art form, part as an introspection, and yes I still like the title of this web log. And yes due in large part (completely) to Solobreak’s comments about the origin of blog, I just find it more veritas to use web log rather than blog. It’s a log on life in the massive servers at the new online giant. Maybe someday I’ll transfer it all to my own server/domain. Maybe. But being the economically uber conservative that I am (translate: cheap bastard) free works really well. I just try and make an offline copy every now and then. So writing, now where was I? Right, the art form of writing. The natural art of communication. Even just communicating to myself, the ability to sit and focus, without commercial breaks, email popping up, phones ringing, microscopes breaking… its nice to just sit. Sit and think and write. Sit and ponder why I never really got hooked up and on the bikemag board, like I did at TDIclub, or TSP… I think the answer really is… what? I dunno. Well cause I was focused then, on a car. I don’t regret it, I relished the opportunity to focus and learn. Add to the understanding and it provides more information/knowledge to draw on. Now, the shift of focus is a bit heavily back towards bikes. And things are different now. Rec.bikes still ruled the ‘net’ as the online source for stuff. Now there are all those forums, the blogs, the discussion groups and what now. Things changed since I was as *in* to the bike scene as I am now… if that’s what ya can call it. It being me as a part of the bike scene. On one hand though hard core commuter, definitely qualifies, potential cross racer… certainly qualifies… annoyance at The Hub, maybe that doesn’t but at least I’m showin up at a shop now and then…

Oh well – gonna say ciao! Peace out… spread the love

Me Want

majortaylor

Thanks to smart ass loud mouth Bruce (his words not mine) for the link to ANT's stuff....

Holy schnikieees I'm in love.

okay - i have another confession

I actually bought something for the bike that wasnt a Mr. Tuffy (still embarassed to say i'm runnin Mr. Tuffies and wire beads on the P-Mount), or a bike tube...

I broke down and bought a set of SKS Race Blades. I might have mentioned it - i dunno, but they showed up last night and man o man... sooooooo cool.

No i haven't bothered to put em on yet - soon as i get 30 seconds of peace and quiet.

but its supposed to rain sometime today... and i left the other "fenders" (or excuses for them) at home... so they'll be on...

I've go this feeling that ol'Mikey F don't take praise or critisim well...

looks like from this post so far its gonna be one of my more "classic" posts, than the more recent lengthy verbosity. At least i'm old... and amazingly i've finally started chewing through that last remnant of gut that i gained from all the time in the car in michigan... i may have to start eating enough calories to ensure i ain't one of those 6 pack abs guys... and by eating i mean drinking and calories i mean beer. or not... so little time for drinkin... work, rides, kids, dishes, cooking... yeah i'm the dishwasher and the cook in the house... damn straight. Obsessive scientist type... the kind that says "why by this pre-mixed powder crap... i'll get the individual stuff and make it my way, BETTER!" Key there is 'better' it might actually NOT be better but i've gotta try... Way back in the day as a wee-pipsqueak grad from UBI... a few mechanics told me not to bother rebuilding a freewheel... i said why not? "its not worth it" and no - i thought i knew better, and i rebuilt freewheel after freewheel (discarded junk ones) until i got it down, which oil or grease to use to hold the bearings in the race... just how to get the body back on and keep the pawls, springs and bearings in place... and those pesky feathery thin washers... my first one i mangled one up and didn't think much of it... well - it didn't work so good. All that practice was well gained when it came time to keeping my 6 speed dura-ace going long after the world switched to 7 and then 8 speed. 6 man, yeah... its all i needed. absolutely positive, crisp shifting... i accumulated old unwanted 6 speed shimano freewheels, typically 600/ultegra indexers... put new cogs on, when shops still had bins of individual cogs getting my perfect straight block... i still don't get why mt bikers or roadies need an 11 tooth... almost the stupidest thing in the biking world, its right behind BioPace and unround rings... a straight block of 13-18. That shit is old school. Mikey Freaking F is definately justified as not being old school. Why? cause he's got new school stuff handed to him to get in magazines, and he ain't gonna write about something he didn't ride... cause that'd be stupid and now worth a stack of Mountain Bike Action magazines...

How'd i get back to talkign about old school... and where'd these words come from? Dunno.

Anyway - Old School: Two types, by choice, by economics. Choice, you deliberately hunt Ebay for shit you SHOULD have bought when it was new, or for shit you wore out but cause you are old school you don't want something too new... Economics, you don't got the cash to be new school so you keep riding the old shit and use the creativeness frugality thrusts on you to keep your rides ridable...

crap there i went and blew a few words more than i intended... its a hybrid day - hybrid short one line paragraphs,,, and one big fat windbag section...

and a whole fart load of missspellings i'm guessin ...

oh well... *shrug*

peace - with those on the road that are too stupid to understand

shit... i was gonna close with a cool link!
This new pushbike fad... would be great to load the kids up and drive em around... downside: can't pass long lines of stopped cars... and with few good bike paths it can be slower going around than a normal bike...

i'm embarassed

no point to hide, cause lining up at a race in your group is... well rather telling about what Cat you are liscensed in. And no, i haven't renewed, but my expired liscense is still Cat5. blame it on my lackluster Collegiate carreer, the total aversion to crit racing and my immaturity of going out hard strong and alone (no team) in my C races back in the day (before Ds were invented). Blame it on my legs, my brain or what not. That and when i got to michigan, i was riding alot on the road but really really diggin Mt. Biking. And i mean loving the poop out of it. And being as there were no hills i had to re-learn road style, but Mt Biking was still mt. biking and it kicked ass. a kickass handful of amazing trails all withing 1.5 hour drive and the further ones, Ft Custer and what not really do kick some serious ass. The Pato trail i think is the one i lived for. 12-15 mile loop IIRC (no i'm too lazy/busy to google it - someone can and correct me if you are feeling curious) and it was supa killa. I did a handful of timetrial races and what not - was so stoked when i was able to race in the Clydesdale class (200+ pounds). Cause on the Mt Bike, when turning, and all that, the difference between me and my friends who were 150 pound little guys... The same little 'runts' that i could ride off my wheel on the road bike could dodge and weave around the trees like freakin English Sparrows, leaving this big ugly buzzard (me) to try and get through without clippin my head or shoulders on the damn trees (which i did plenty of times - ouch). This is really one where the mass side of the equation is critical... acceleration and change in angular velocity... lower mass is helpful... Esp when riding on freaking tires designed for those little pipsqueaks... Soo look for me lining up having fun with the squirrels and noobies, until i get my shit together enough... hopefully my slow deliberate progress will land me with enough fitness to move up this year... to the old fat slow group... and maybe next year or the year after i can move up again to the older fast as hell group and aspire to be pack fodder for the likes of Gunner and Co (Eric and Dave as well it sounds like)...

Reading that bit from Dirt Rag (the 2003 article) kinda made me feel better about only having one bike, and having one that is a total coblered together beast, not one bit except the POC stubby linear pull shitbrakes from Tektro and the tiny chainrings. And i think even i've got enough bits kickin to make a back up - nothing nearly as glamorous or historical as Marro's pit bike... but heck who knows what the year'll bring... maybe treefarm or one of the other tall freaks will be unloadin a cross bike next season...

I'll pop some more shizz up later - maybe...

peace out ... for now

what a day

Got the presentation done - went well - audience was a bit subduded - kinda like the shitty 1/2assed crappy trashcan worthy digital projector they had there for me to use.

Why the FUCK can't anyone have a GD computer projector that is FUCKIN worthy of displaying images AS well as the damn laptop? They can't even TOUCH the CRT display - pisses me off... The crux of all my presentations is the images - and often they are single R or B or G images... but usually both and often grayscale... shouldn't be a problem, right? as you may guess - WRONG.

and other people are shocked when i'm bitching... they are like 'oh well it works for us'

WORKS FOR YOU? cause you are blind, don't give a shit or have no expectations for perfection.

grumble grumble

okay - now for some hysterical news: Just like on Dateline's pimpin old perverts show we've got this... Homer-land Security fer farks sake! This dude should serve time with a dad in the pen with a teenage daughter that he isn't allowed to see on the outside... Sick freaking "Press Secretary"

WTF? Oh and he's just being put on "Administrative Leave?" Of course until they've (homer-land central) conducted a full invesitgation... Sure lemme hear on Drudge of FauxNews that its a Democratic smear campaign...

Some freaky evolution guy in michigan told me to check out FatCyclist's stuff... i did - not the same draw for me as a few of the locals (solobreak, kerry and co) and the established guys like big jonny and no i'm too lazy to wiki style link em all (GD 32sixteen for now making me associate linkin words with wiki - GD=god damn... not like in Derek's which is General Discussion). Anyway... maybe i'll add that to the list of hey lemme check it out...

maybe not...

something else i think... Oh yeah... this: Penn and Teller's show (that i can't watch cause its on showtime and i don't get cable/sat TV, not that i could watch it if i did cause i'd prolly NOT pay for that 'premium' channel anyway) its about Gun Control. Freaking BRILLIANT. Donna matta what side ya on on the topic - its well worth the 30 minutes (if ya have a good broadband connection) to watch it (its a google video link).

Well its about the time to make like a tree in spring and leaf. I love that expression as a botanist but it makes me groan and go - gimme a break when i hear it... i love the dichotomy... kinda like a 7th chord... definately not right but a great conflict of emotions.

oh and it was snowing today... then it was raining when i walked down to the lecture... now it's mellowed out a bit and even warmed up... perfect for riding home... except of course that the Freaking GD wind is straight out of the north... headwind all the way... WHOOO HOOOO...

I need a Beer... The PBR i had last night was dated May 5th 2006... so what's 112 days before that? well may 5th is day 126... so... damn some time around christmas... this beer is OLD... fark ah well its still a PBR - the beer the penny pinchin trendy messengers have been drinking for 30 odd years... or should i say the NON-Trendy ones... the ones with local messenger bags and twiggy pysiques....

alright - i'm out... and with that - peace to yall... and if ya are chatting inappropriate like with a 14 year old girl - may YOU get run over next time... spare good people like Bill Corliss, Kendra Payne, and the long long long list of people nailed by busess or cars this year so far...

F* Yeah

everyonce in a while you come across a bit of writing that makes you go F*ck Yeah! (using the * cause the word ain't burried in the text).

And this is it. Thanks to Google and Gunnar... i stumbled gloriously on this article


Revel in it ya Cyclocross Freaks!

‘Cross is for Yuppies
by Nick Verstain

My cyclocross race was postponed on Sunday—because of snow.
Now that makes about as much sense as postponing the Kentucky Derby because there was horse crap on the track.

‘Cross is supposed to be done in snow, rain, mud and ice. We’re supposed to pretend we’re in some Godforsaken burg in Belgium, tramping through the drizzle and dung for an hour, then washing up in a freezing stable with a bucket of ice water between our knees.

But in 2003 in America the Bootiful, we’re sitting at home watching the NFL while a perfectly good ‘cross course sits covered in a delicious frosting of precipitation. I shouldn’t be surprised. This wimping out is just another chapter in the yuppie-ization of cyclocross. Might as well pass out the brie and chardonnay, boys. Add another $200 in chi-chi Paul parts to those $3,000 cross-specific bikes sitting in the warm garage, snuggled next to the $50,000 Lexus SUV. Go to the Internet and buy another pair of $179 Assos bib knickers.

Put on your Bose anti-noise headphones, ‘cuz here comes the sermon. Back in the day, which was about five years ago, we would have not only had the damn race in the snow, we would have ridden our bikes to the course. And we wouldn’t have worried about a little moisture corrupting the integrity of our SIDIs and skinsuits because we’d probably be wearing Sorel boots and red-toed socks. With tights under knee-length shorts. And a hooded sweatshirt, dude. And must I say it: platform pedals.

In those not-so-old but very good days, ‘cross was not a weekend holiday in honor of St. Mastercard, but another tribal celebration that involved a bunch of guys and gals tooling around a muddy park on pieced-together rigs, hooting and hollering and falling in the slop and puking the leftovers of Saturday night’s revelry onto the mulch under the kids slide at City Park.

There were organized races, but the goal wasn’t a spot in the USAC rankings or even a check for a couple hundred bucks. Our patron was Saint Gunnar of Shogren, the coolest biker to ever wear a mullet. C’mon, admit it: there is no better hairstyle for a bike racer or hockey player than a damn mullet. Short on top fits under a helmet and long in back just looks good. The burr-cut X Games skateboard wannabe look is fine if you’re getting strapped into the electric chair, but there’s nothing like a mullet blowing in the backdraft as you glide over the finish line.

Gunnar Shogren showed us how to do it with style. West-by-God-Virginia style, with a rusting van full of Pixies cassettes, bike parts and a tandem sleeping bag. Before the races began, Gunnar would be out with The People, giving tips on how to negotiate the creek crossing or carry your mountain bike over the barriers.

Yes, there were barriers. Big ones. Too damn big for the latest Hot Todd to bunnyhop. Part of ‘cross is carrying the damn bike over the damn barriers. Trix are for wabbits. ‘Cross is for men and women who believe in the triumph of pain over style, that if you suffer enough at the steel plant or Wal-Mart or the bike shop, you’ll be rewarded or at least not slapped in the face by some Mountain Bike Action twit. The Slick Ricks who hop their 4-pound frames probably bunnyhopped over Algebra and honors English. ‘Cross is the sport for all those lunch bucket guys in South Boston or Oakland, PA or Dublin or Ghent, poor saps who needed to race to pull themselves out of the drudgery of a potato field or a Chevy bumper factory.

They don’t need to pull that old F-150 into the parking lot full of Acuras and Expeditions and Cayennes and feel bad because their ten-year-old battered and nicked Bianchi frame isn’t high-gloss and tricked out like a $1000-a-night hooker. So what if they ain’t running Candys and TUFOs and don’t have six sets of wheels in the SUV, two for every possible weather forecast.

There’s a class war going on in America and I’ll be damned if I’ll let it kill ‘cross like it has killed mountain bike racing. One of my best friends, a guy who makes his living writing about cycling and should know better, is showing signs of the disease. After every ‘cross race this season, he’s in the bike shop the next day, tweaking and freaking his rig because he can’t admit that he’s getting beat because he’s friggin’ slow. His Cannondale XR800 used to be his pride and joy: a bare-bones frame, Shimano 105 and a set of Speedmax tires. Now it looks like a sad moose weighed down by redundant brake levers, anti-chain suck devices, carbon chainring protectors and a Ti-railed saddle from Italy. He’s not buying speed, he’s investing in excuses.

And get this: he has a cyclocross coach. That’s like admitting you use Viagra. He’s huffing and puffing on a trainer before races, trying to get his heart rate purring to perfection before the start of the race. He’s drinking Echinacea and OJ instead of Excederin and Red Bull. He used to worship Gunnar and now he won’t even admit that he’s been to Morgantown.

Gunnar is out there, folks, He’s keeping it real for us. You gotta believe that there’s more to bikes than spending money, that there’s more to fun than funds. We can turn the tide by taking back ‘cross. One mullet at a time.

Well, whadda ya know

I think i'm feeling better. So far. It was a touch and go last night, but i think i pulled through okay.

A bit weak from lack of caloric intake, but on the whole, not too bad.

Simple day today - it rained on the commute, sort of. It was dumping on us waiting at the bus stop, but when i got outside to ride to work. It had stopped raining and had gotten a bit foggy. To the point the glasses were collecting so much mist i had to tip em down a bit to see better. One of those days that ya get soaked even though it isn't 'raining'.

Still it felt great to be on the bike. Played around a bit with pedaling uphil with one leg... even in the 'weakened' condition it was pretty smooth, i could definately feel the surge on the down stroke when the quads engaged, but it wasn't a massive one, and with the idle foot sitting on the rear wheel QR the feeling of accel was very noticable. No real decel felt, just the wee surge. With the trailer QR and the hook up attached i've got a great foot rest... maybe i'll add this to the diversity of playing with pedaling form. I think in the first edition of my bike commuting i never was this concious of form. I just rode the bike. pushed the pedals. Maybe cause for a long time i used a set of Suntour XC-Pro grease guard platform pedals with toe clips... and now i'm exclusively SPD.

I broke down and ordered fenders for the bike. Woulda bout them from the Hub if they were in stock but that REI dividend, and the 20% coupon that expired Sunday were too much of a swan song, and i broke down and ordered some SKS race fenders in black. Neither the cross or the P-mount have fender eyelets and well i've seen em on a few messenger/commuter bikes around here and they look cool at least. gonna give em a try. can't work worse than the retarded fender setup i've got now.

Oh and a few things - How old is your beer. VERY important to know:
this post helps (i'm gonna hold of hard copy/quoting cause a certain Dave in Germany said i write too much).
Check it here!

and Un Pimp your ride... i've only seen the third one on TV... its no where near as funny as #2...

Un-Pimp Your Ride I, II and III. The new VW Golf ads. These ads crack me the hell up every single time. EVERY SINGLE TIME. "Representing Deutschland, yo." AHAHA.

That was pimped from Limon's blog. Who i stumbled on from Fixedgear's post of this. A magnet? does it work? Granted traffic around here is heavy enough for that not to be needed but it'd be sweet to have none-the-less. I just wonder about the efficacy of it. And it is a delima, but in general i'll wait for a car to show up to trip the light before blasting through.

Its part of the gotta follow the rules ALL the time part of riding i do. stop at stop signs, red lights and what nots. Yeild when appropriate all that shit. All that shit that i see tons of pompus cyclists deliberatly ignore cause they feel that on a bike they are better than a car.

Having an elitest attitude, and a devisive nature is the wrong course for peace and reconciliation. How can we expect the motorists in cars to give cyclists respect if 'we' as cyclists are constantly blowing the rules and flaunting obnoxious behavior (running reds, and what not).

Anyway... Oh i was reading around and got to Meg's page and the name Gunnar Shogren was like.. hey - that's way more familiar than any normal name... sort of the name that says i 'think' i've got a personal connection/meeting thing to go with it more than the 'cyclist name who has had cyclingnews coverage.' Just strange cause i can't place it other than Michigan somehow.

*shrug*

time for food - and some fresh air...

gonna redeem some Antonio's points... but looking at the card - sumbitches only give you a free slice of cheese, or 1.75 towards any other slice... damn freaking cheap bastards... that's like less than $0.18/slice i bought... oh well - its better than a kick in the pants.

Peace Out

palate cleanser

There are three perfect shapes, as defined by someone: a hull of a boat, a violin, and a woman's body.

And yes i know who said it:

Edward and I both agreed with the view of a Greek friend of ours, Jean Varda, who was fond of saying there were three perfect shapes in the world ... the hull of a boat, a violin and a woman's body.
Charis Wilson

I just wanted to rephrase it.

And say, its dated, horribly. esp in light of current american standards... boats around here are rarely the sleek gorgeous forms of old, or of sail power. When all ya need to do is add more horsepower you can overcome any uglyness. IE the Mustang for example (yeah the car - i'm switching metaphors).

The woman's body 100 years ago was a more perfect from, free from the irregularities induced by american eating habits... and the desire to pump full of silicon or McDs. The ideal still exists and like the hull of a boat, prime examples are not the norm anymore.

Comes down to the violin. Fortunately the bastardized grotesque electric fiddles are an exception and the beauty of the instrument is well represented.

pissin in cornflakes

Forgive me Bill for using that to memorialize you. But when i read about what happened over at Velonews my day took a bitter awful turn.

This is the story posted at Velonews:

You just never know
Dear Fellow Riders,
This year winter in North Utah was quite tough and very unpredictable for riding on the road. Finally, Saturday morning was the first promising morning for a group ride.

My good friend and neighbor Paul Moote, from Mad Dog team, sent me an e-mail about a group ride and I sent his message to my buddies. Bill Corliss met Paul and I at my house and Paul drove us to the meeting place in Lehi. We were planning a very nice 90 mile ride by Utah Lake, to Eureka and back through 5 mile pass.

The entire group had ridden this route many times. The trip to Lehi took about an hour and 15 min to drive and on the way we were having great conversations, especially about our kids. I have three - two teenage girls and little son - Paul has six kids from 8 years and up to 20 and Bill and his wife adopted their 12-year-old boy from a foster family a little over a year ago. It was a very nice conversation, especially interesting and inspiring to hear Bill talk about his experience with his little boy who went through a real hell in his short life and how Bill and his wife were dreaming on raising this special guy and making the rest of his life special.

Upon arriving at the meeting spot, Bill and I quickly rode to the Coffee shop. Bill bought me a coffee and I promise that it will be my turn to buy after our ride. We came back to the car, changed and by that time all other friends had gathered together; our friends from Mad Dog team with whom Paul and I just raced the 24 Hour of Old Pueblo: Chris with his wife KC and Adam; my good buddy Dave Reynolds and Adam invited a new guy Alan.

The group was a good, strong group of eight and every body was excited for the first long spring ride. We quickly lined up on the road: Paul was first and I was on his wheel. After setting good pace, Paul went to the back and I started pulling the group. I thought that I should keep pulling for a while as the road was narrow with busy traffic.

Then all of a sudden, I was passed by a construction truck with trailer full supplies for concrete framing. The truck immediately went to the right and stopped. The Driver jumped from the truck and yelled something about the accident that took place behind me, I immediately turned around; from this moment on it was absolute nightmare and I'm still in shock as I write this message.

None of you need to imagine it. Bill was on the road, still clipped in to his bike, hands on the bars, helmet on the side, blood from his head and he was DEAD. My good friend had died instantly.

Paul Moote witnessed this tragedy, as he was on Bill's back wheel, in the strong cross wind, with heavy construction debris; Bill rubbed the rider's wheel in front of him and crashed to the pavement, as the Dodge pickup and trailer passed by, unknowingly crushing Bill.

In a tenth of a second, the world lost a great person, dad, racer and mentor. The road was narrow, there was a strong crosswind and construction debris littered what small shoulder was available, so many obstacles could have kept this tragedy from ever happening. The truck was traveling too close to the riders and should have yielded a few feet which could have saved Bill's life.

Our community lost one of the most caring, loving, intelligent persons many of us will be lucky enough to know and call a friend. Bill Corliss was a friend to just about every one he ever met. He was originally from Michigan and was a graduate of the University of Michigan. He worked in the bike industry for over 20 years, working with companies such as Schwinn, Vetta, Sports Instruments and most recently was the Director of Electronics Development for Bell Sports.

Back in the 1980's in Michigan as a member of the Wolverine Sports Club, "Wild Bill" mentored new members to the club and the sport of cycling. He continued giving back to the sport he loved and most recently was a mentor of the Park City Cycling Academy and a member of the Cole Sport Cycling Team. Bill recently placed seventh at the Masters National Championships in Park City. Bill loved the mountains and the outdoors. His hobbies also included Nordic and alpine skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, running, skating and walking his Huskies.

Bill was also very active in bike advocacy. He fought hard for bike lanes and state legislation that would make the roads safer for all cyclists.

This tragedy is a reminder that bike safety and advocacy still needs a great deal of improvement. The Bill Corliss Bike Advocacy Fund has been set up to continue Bill's love of cycling, bike safety and new rider mentorship. Donations can be made at any Frontier Bank.

Bill leaves behind his wife Deb, 12 year old son Jordan, parents Bill and Jessie and two Husky puppies, Boris & Natasha. Bill touched all of our lives and will be sorely missed.
Boris Lyubner
President
The Endurance 100
www.theE100.com

Bill Corliss was our rep in michigan from what i recall, the memory from the days in the shop are marred by the beer and burger lunches and long drawn out rides... I'm pretty sure he was our rep. Even having a tacit, barely know the guy kinda relationship, it is a stronger bond than say any one of the other cyclists that get taken out. That coupled with the fact that he was a father, make it especially hard.

Reading about things like this make it hard sometimes to keep riding, make it hard to carry on as a cyclist. I almost feel the most for the rider who witnessed it all. And I hope the guy driving the construction truck and trailer feels the same pain. It is a different kind of tragedy than the Doc in Cali who was crushed by the tree, and strangely there is a giant chasm between the two. I can't really reconcile the difference. Both are tragic losses of human and more specially a cyclists.

We've gotta ask Patrick O'Grady to add a panel for Bill. He's got a great series started in the book... this could ad a great memorial panel.

peace out, and be careful out there... crosswind, debris, and trucks... not so good

dynamic plans

meaning - as my wife was barely over throwing up all day friday, we didn't load up the BioDiesel machine and head north to New Hampshire... we stayed home, did load after load of laundry, and cleaned up the place. A much needed day, and we got the second of the big things hanging over our head taken care of, the taxes. Sort of. Well we paid the crazy part timers at H&R Block some cash cause well.. it was one way to get it done. And to get the stuff finished up was a good thing. Much relief. While extremely dissapointed not to have gone to see everyone up at the HO5Gs, the day was much needed. Alas, no ride. And so by about 4pm i stopped into the office with the youngest to check some email for potential Sunday rides... much to my dismay, nothing. Turns out if i'd come back and checked at 8pm I would have found a perfect ride to join. As it was, i took off after the girls went up to the Wrentham outlet mall for some shopping. Just myself, a nice mellow slowish ride down the East bay bike path. Part of me was thinking, should be some great people watching. Well i was the only one except two small sweaty women running that had the minimal kit on. They were running in jog-bra and shorts, (and had very good form BTW), and i was riding with just a shortsleeve jersey and shorts. Of course i took off at 11:30, and tootled down to Warren, popped off the bike path for a 30 mph interval to the stop sign, before crusing on to my bro's house. Chatted there for a bit, say my youngest niece (damn she's tiny) and had a GreenRockLight. Maybe not the best thing, considering i had a big bowl of Mueslli for breakfast at 8am and that was it. Anyrate, i grabbed the pedal wrench from storage so i could swap the 747s off the p-mount and put them back on the Cross bike and the Ultegra spds back on the p-mount. Rode back into the wind the whole way. And yes... i'm the one blasting people here for taking off on a ride with the wind, and that's what i did. But i was alone and could ride at my own damn pace. Two or three good intervals under the belt and a whole ride focused on form, balance between quads and hammies nice smooth circles. The timing of the ride might have been better for the first bare skin ride. See i'm one of those pastey white welshmen... Taning just ain't my style.


see? Nice eh? Well my arms are worse, and i'm stuck wearing the shortest of short socks cause that's what i had on and the ankles are a bit tender. Okay so the picture sucks... you try taking a picture with sub par lighting in a hurry with your pants around your ankles...

okay - so maybe that wasn't the best visual to include.

On a different weather note. I knew it would get cool again. why? Cause sunday after the ride i decided that with the first ride sans winter gear would be the end of the mountain man beard. So i shaved back to a trim goatee... and what happened? its gonna maybe snow tonight and get in the 30s for an overnight low the rest of the week. Fun freaking stuff... oh well and oh the time change aslo was a factor in contributing to the loss of my 'winter coat' now to make my wife happy completely, i need to find some stylist to trim this hippie long hair of mine. By summer i should be back to the #2 from the barber, but between now and then i'm gonna hold on to the longish locks.

The funny thing, maybe suprising, is that i felt the ride more than normal in my legs. Could be the lack of riding, or could be the solid steady solo riding with no draft rest, no descent rest (very flat michigan-esque ride). That and finally i got a ride in. Finally.

Oh and the time change sucks. Back to being a challenge to get the oldest up and fed and off to the bus stop. But it wasn't bad, she did get up, she did eat breakfast and get into the uniform before the critical departure time of 6:59. Oh and we had fun walking, we tried walking like the youngest has been lately. She's stompting (little L), knees coming up and feet straight down. I dunno what she's doing that, maybe from playing outside at daycare? but it's funny, and rather loud. its pretty entertaining how much noise a little 25-30 pounder can make stomping around on a wood floor. She was amazing everyone at the playground yesterday (after the ride, while the sunburn was developing I took the girls out to play). She climbed right up to the top of a slide that was roughly 7' tall. maybe 6'8". Tall enough that i could reachup and help but not see the top. And she did it over and over and over, by the last time she wasn't using her knees to climb up at all. Ah the fun times... We just need some rain to clean up the sand and playground. The Rain needs to wash the tinyiest bits of dust back down into the ground... it is just damn dry 'round here.

Oh well - so begins another week of fun...

the last day of march....

Okay - gonna edit and add this:
Ergomo Pro
COOOOOOL stuff and it'd work perfectly with the Q-pro and the octalink BB...

mmmmm POWERmeter... MUST..... NOT......GIVE.....IN

(no worries - i'd buy a second cross bike AND a more robust commuter before a power meter) its just damn cool to get all gadgety about stuff....

and this starts the post i started this morning


Trying to judge if i feel markedly different now that the house has sold and we've managed to move on. Hard to tell. It was great opening the bottle of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin that we chilled back in Michigan when the first offer was accepted. Little did we know that the first offer would fall through, the second offer made it farther, at least that made it to inspection. The third was a major emotional roller coaster, the buyer had a bad lender and bad advice and offered 18% lower than asking after we'd already lowered the house price 10%... we got her to come up abit, then her lender crapped out and then she got a real lender and then she got fired from her second job and well - there ya have it the deal fell through. So on to #4... So this one ultimately was the final. That's good. But, we got to inspections, and well the weather conspired to take the remaining measely 3-4% equity we had left in the sale price and dump it in the basement. It rained for two days ontop of the frozen ground PRIOR to inspection. Whats that mean? A wetter than normal basement. What did that mean? Well the inspector said we needed to put a trench drain system in to alleviate the hydrostatic pressure (i think that's his word choice) that was forcing the water up through the basement slab. But he thought just the unfinished side (laundry, furnace, waterheater side) would need it and that's only 54 linear feet and the buyer agreed to split the cost. Cool. But that wasn't really where the whole 3-4% went. See on Monday, the drain/sump system guys came out to do a few more measurements and well it rained more than an inch (and yes despite the rain, the ground was still frozen) that morning heavy heavy rain all at once. And poof - we had standing water in the basement were in the 4 years we were in the house we never did. It sucked. Well the house NOW has a complete perimeter system 104 linear feet that the buyer didn't think she needed to contribute anymore. We got lucky, our agent was able to keep the deal together and well, it finally sold. And while we didn't get any cash back out of it, meaning we eat the couple grand in a few major issues we fixed recently, and we eat the 10 months of writing checks for the house... we are Free. Free from the constrains of home ownership, and esp absentee home ownership. Thus completing the process of moving out of michigan and to rhode island for this amazing job (where the phone hasn't stopped ringing all morning) that started in January last year.

And to make the last day even better, i'm out of coffee here at work, but have emergency back up Folgers stuff (and this time i didn't add too much but it still tastes like crap, just not bitter strong crap), and i didn't toss the lock in the bag this morning so i can't go to WholeFoods (university heights one) and get more, well i suppose i could put the bike inside somewhere by the carts... anyway oh and my wife seems to have finally picked up the puking virus the girls had for a while. No freaking fun.

I got in pretty early this morning despite all the fun at home. Solobreak's got a fantastic entry today. Sounds like a roadtrip road to try out. And I watched The CALL from Pirelli films this morning... damn cool movie. Kinda took a long time to build it up but it was worth the wait.

Stopped at The Hub yesterday, and man - do i miss wrenching, just working on bikes, makin em function properly. Routing the cables the right way, using the proper tools, debating hair-spray vs alcohol... (for Mt.Bike grip install). Seein what $400 bones will get ya nowdays (hugi hubset wheels, chris king headset, thompson seatpost, Kore skewers on a Jamis full sus mt bike with a shitty oldschool manitou fork). Just flat out sick i tell ya. That and my P-mount crank or BB is kinda messed up... getting increasing chainring deflection... and i'm not thinking its a good thing. My luck what ever it is will give way when i'm just getting to the top of Tower Hill Road... I suppose i could actually look at it... we'll see maybe i'll get a chance to.

Oh and i'm jealous of those IF guys... hell i'm jealous of all those guys out there getting new road bikes to start the season. But, i know, i should be content with the kit i've got, it works, i love riding. Maybe it was easier to deal with the old when more than a grand a month was headed to a vacant house we owned. Now its time to start funneling that cash towards the debt and a down for a home out here somewhere... such is life, but now, we have shed the shackles of Michigan and are free!

peace out yall

It...is... TRUE

Free - free from the chains that held us to Michigan. Gone is the house... Sold. Not our problem anymore.

FINALLY - I get waves of school-girl giddyness washing over me when i think about it.

and the sobering thought of trying to find a place in Rhode Island will set in sooner than later, but at least... ITS SOLD!!!!

SOLD!

GONE!

AT LAST... almost 10 months of paying mortgage and utilities on a house that we weren't living in.... it is over...

*DEEP BREATH*

phew... I NEED A BEER or CHAMPAGNE or SOMETHING celebratory!

so where did i leave off

i have no idea...

what a total clusterf*ck the day turned out to be... and here i am, at work a bit early and no chance in hell to get caught up...

no chance... and i'm gonna be selfish and self centered and check anyone's updates till later... if i have a chance. chance chance chance chance... Luck, odds, some day i'll win.

I spent the whole night in very strange dreams about the closing today. Its supposed to go off at 9am. The agent is supposed to call when its all over. if this actually happens today, i will be shocked, stunned and amazed. And one lucky guy. the dreams bugged the shit outa me. Totally vivid and completely ambiguous except it was definitely about the closing. Curious enough the one part i can remember is having to ride down a ramp system way up a few stories that was maybe 6' wide and with a 1' high railing... I'm tall, if ya hadn't figured that out and one fear that i have sometimes is heights... esp when center of gravity is in effect. I have no problem rock climbing or what not... anyway -

freaking interruptions, one of the things that broke yesterday (big scope) may not have broken or maybe it did. Insane though... very insane.

Soo following up on Solobreak's comments to yesterday's post... i'm actually wondering about Zinn's math, and wondering if it is actually his at all, based on the way the article is signed Dave or specifically:
Now do you see why folks plunk down $5000 to ride easily destroyed carbon wheels? My own crusade against rotational inertia motivated me to re-appropriate a discontinued 650c tri-bike for climbing purposes. I find the combined effect of wheel/tire weight savings and reduced moment of inertia (related to radius ^2) save an entire Hummer's worth of effort over my mountain course of choice.
David

See? That's the last Paragraph in the article which i appear to have not linked previously (i'm a DOOOOOOFUS - because either i linked it and can't find it on my own web log OR cause i didn't actually link it). Also supporting the thought that maybe he DIDN'T write that is the crazy notion that Zinn would have a 650c wheeled bike at all...

The notion of minimum wheel weight is great... and yeah i think maybe a heavier bike weight would be fantastic, but i'm a bigger guy and benefit less by having uber light parts than say a marco pantani or kerry l! Make them all use a one-design wheel. Or give them options. Force them to use a reliable equal weighted wheel and have random equipment checks and all that.

Just what we need - to add freaking MORE UCI regulations and UCI police... Patty O'Grady's stuff from years ago about the Obree stuff comes to mind.

Anyway back to that article in VeloSpews:
Still don't believe me? Try another experiment. Ride up your favorite mountain pass with a pound of fishing weights in your jersey pocket. Then do it again with the weights mounted out on the spoke nipples. You won't need a stopwatch to figure out how much the second configuration sucks.


I'm laughin my ass off (LMAO - but somehow i wanted to write it out) at that... a pound of fishing weights in your pocket or on the rim... Ya know... get some of those splitshot ones... the big ones... that i used to bite on to the line, hmm maybe that explains alot about fishing, stupification by using your teeth to secure the splitshot so the slip sinker stays in the right place.... back to the splitshot - get say 32 of them if ya got a nice 32 spoke wheel... and put em there just inside of the spoke nipple... They should clamp on nicely with no damage with a set of slipjoint pliers (slip - slip... get it... nevermind). Better yet... do that clandestinely to solobreak's wheels when he's not looking... maybe if he's riding with a little tiny rider he can use the splitshot idea to compensate for the total and complete lack of draft he gets... And you can be sure, next time i'm at a place that has fishing tackle... i'm gonna be looking for some big splitshot... cause it'd be freaking hysterical!!!

Oh i kinda left off at racing age, my bro got all confused and then i did and it was funny, except he didn't get it. I said, yeah, I'm 35. He said, no your not. I was very convinced i was... GD racing age. I haven't even sent in cash to the loonies at USFC/USAC (talk about identity crisis) and i'm thinking in terms of how old i'd be at 'worlds' (yes... i think i've lost it).

Two minutes... in two minutes the closing is supposed to start... I NEED MUSIC...

and today... I'm gonna be back to my old favorite from the summer at the old job:
king.org
something about listening to the DJs that i grew up with, hearing the weather from SEATAC airport, even if it's only 6:01 am there... the time change is strange... oooh BBC news is on there now... great... Chucky Taylor is headlining it. Interesting. Now there's a Rhode Island guy. I wonder if he was captured in a hole like Soddomizer Hoisinsane. Oh good i feel better, that Jill Carol girl is free and #2 story. News is depressing... phew, they are done.

Here, a bit of a personal anecdote from the ride home yesterday. Tooling along down the road, pseudo drafting down hope, the guy in the Chevy Luxury 1500 truck i'm following suddenly sees me and seemingly for no other reason accelerates, and to my surprise my jump is enough to not let more than a foot open up... and we're moving cause i'm in the 50x13 and spinning... Power is great, but power plus a high cadence kicks serious serious ass. It just surprised me that i was able to jump the way i after about just over 1 mile of high intensity and mostly going up. validates my effective rest! (yeah right). I'm slow and i know it, but this is a case in point where i find little bits of improvement.

Was it solobreak or some other type of individual that i've run across recently saying that cycling is a series of small improvements over years. That may be about right. And why lots of people just throw money after money at it. Hey if i spend money on bike parts instead of time on the bike riding, maybe i'll get faster. BWAHAHAHAHAH sad thing is... its true... while new bikes certainly are nicer to ride, and may give you a bit of improvement in the club Testosterone rides it ain't in the long run gonna be as helpful as gaining that improvement by sheer hard work and attention to the machine pushing the pedals.

The problem, people. There are FAR FAR FAR too many stupid people. And man do i get frustrated by them, and then equally impressed by intelligence. When i meet a genuinely smart person i feel batter about the human race.

Sure smart people do stupid stuff - Billy C from ar-kansas - he'd be a good example of a smart person who did stupid stuff... monica wasn't that fugly... He was just stupid in some respects...

Like most gifted people. The gift comes at the expense of some other capacity. Those child prodigies for example, their gifts come at the cost of a childhood and usually social skills. Or the brilliant mathematicians who have a hard time reading and writing words, but can listen and draw with absolute precision.

Well...

that covers about everything, probably more than once...

Damn - just read DC... Freaking YEAH - April ROCKS:

If you're like me, and it frightens me that some of you are, then you're excited about April.

This is the king hell month of cycling. Never mind that dull waltz in July (which, admittedly, is going to have more action this year than in the last five combined) April is where it's at. We got the Tour of Flanders coming up on Sunday the 2nd. Gent - Wevelgem gets us over the midweek hump on the 5th. Then it's right into Paris - Roubaix on the 9th. Amstel - Gold on the 16th, Fleche Wallone on the 19th and Liège - Bastogne - Liège on the 23rd.

Are you fucking kidding me? April is the shit. We got it all in four weeks. March madness my ass. I'm talking 'bout the Spring Classics. The races for the hard men. Big guy that can pound it across windswept cow tracks and cobbled tractor roads. Ah, it's going to be great. Just great.

It is going to be a very interesting month.

Big Guys... not those little climbing types... the hard men... the tough guys... cold shitty awesome weather for riding... Separate the fairweather fruits from the ones with a tough shell around their nuts!

okay now i'm gonna say peace out, unless i find something else just as profound

now for something different

which of course will backfire...

I'm gonna try and get a bit written before reading the rest of the world that i find interesting

and while waiting for a notary public to come back for lunch - i had a few ideas - things i wanted to say, but DTBL (damn the bad luck for the internetedly challenged), i didn't have my handy dandy moleskin notebook in my pocket. Soooo i flipped open the cell phone and wrote myself a memo... getting not so bad at the Abc thing on the phone pad... not media generation good, but considering i don't send en much i'm easily impressed...

okay here's what it says:

Runners form - Cycling Blog Similarities - Zinn on 29er Debate - Racing Age

okay - first one... its gotten nice enough that the sensible warm weather lazy people are out running... The fairweather crowd. Like in cycling, the people who only get the bikes out when the temps rise about 60.

These are people out there with the shittiest strangest weirdest running styles imaginable. Its unbelievable. When i ran cross country and track our coach was all about form. Form, focus on your arms, listen to your feet, no if your shoes make noise when they hit the track/road/trail that sound is wasted energy and wear and tear on your body, arms swing in the direction of momentum, not across your body, watch those elbows... relax that upper body, relax the face... don't waste muscle contractions where you don't need them...

and on and on and on... shuffle runners make me laugh the most... why the fuck don't you just walk... you'll go just as fast, maybe even get a better workout, long striders are funny, cause they typically take lots of breaks.

Anyway - i just had to vent about funny looking runners... i should just stop along the boulevard one day and take pictures of examples...

or not... maybe i'd be tempted to just take pictures of the women runnin in uber thin pink addidas shorts, with the black thong... kinda funny - when the black string dissapears half-way down the ass... maybe it was just he contrast with the pink shorts and her skin... who knows... going from that visual to...

(damn elipses - i love em)

Cycling Blog Similarities.
Esp with the 29er debate, when Cycling news 'broke' that story, everyone jumped on it... Big jonny (at DC), nick at 32sixteen, the guy that started it and i assume countless others... me included. it would be a worthwhile waste of time to go through and compile all the blog entries related to say that specific topic and see the range of comments... but i'm not gonna do it unless i am sitting a home with internet and nothing to watch on TV while the girls are taking a nap... and at this rate i'm gonna start taking naps WITH them...

okay that lead to me thinkin about Zinn in relation to the 29er debate following the whole tech article he posted yesterday. And i got to thinking - i should send off a letter. I really should. And i did...

next topic - oh one interjection... i should really include Patrick O'Grady in the list of authors... its different though - he's an artist and a true comedian... up there with Bill Waterson and gary larson.. and yeah - i'd like to add him to the table, but then it'd be a big ol' boring industry thing and i'd be outnumbered... no fun for them... or maybe we'd all just consume enough to make it so... i'd imaging me, mike and patrick might easily overwhelm lennard and dawn with consumtion....

(to be continued at some point later today)

- one spam bot post... deleted...

one day spent like a fucking maniac - hours wasted cause i can't find shit and when GD solutions don't fucking work...

maybe i'll get to the rest of my list later - but tomorrow ain't lookin any better... i somehow managed to double schedule myself! YIPEE
farkinheck

peace out pimps!

Lennard Zinn.. another tall freak like me

Dat guy... i like him... except i'm not so much like him as i am envious of him...

This is a great little Tech Q&A today... if Vnews wasn't publishing online - i can't imagine what i'd be missing...

Next to Zinn, there are really two other cycling 'journalists' (okay add one more for Delightful Dawn), that i really really enjoy reading. Mike Ferrentino, Maynard Hershon. Bob Roll doesn't count - he's just nuts... but a good read.

Mike's kinda like the second coming of Maynard. About a decade separates the two of them... and damn - its kinda funny - i did a very quick spell check using my fav: google... and damn if i didn't find Mike has a Wikkepedia entry. I've called that source on of the biggest sacks of shit over at Derek's place, a fake fact source. Some stuff is good, some is total shit... looks like Mike ain't so happy with it and what the hell do ya know - he's talking about it today... kinda funny cause google linked first to this one with a pic of the man in some styling Swobo gear... but then i said damn - that's cool - now i can get more of the grimey dude... and today... look at this... too gd funny... i tell ya - we must be long lost brothers or something...

Sumbitch (mike) was up for Cross Nats IIRC and sumbitch didn't bother to look me up to have a beer... Gonna be looking to score an audience with the king (of cycling prose).

Maynard is pure old school. There's an unnoficial home page (damn my spelling sucks today - fuckit - i can read the shit and i ain't getting paid to post so fuckit). Haven't read his stuff for a while... But who else could have so eloquently described how to Half wheel someone using eddy mercx as an example!?

So there ya have it - Lunch? On me? With Lennard, Maynard, and Mike... toss Dawn in there for some lively medical advice and her award winning smile and size contrast for me and Lennard...

Back to that rotating weight stuff...

My wheels are probably costing me about 4 hummers (the truck - the lennard article - nevermind).... brass nipples, wire bead tires, mr. tuffies, heavy ass oversized tubes, 25c conti ultrasport tires... but as i've said before - that's good. If i train pulling 4 hummers then when its just me... well... i should be a bit quicker...

whatsitdoforme? unmotivates me to get the light weight bike out... i read Kerry's comments about the superfastest bike and how amazing it is and a joy to ride... and i think, yeah, i know the feeling. But i'm just as happy to be on this paramount, with the eight-speed down tube shifter... the 50 tooth ring, the NiteRider Ni-Cad waterbottle battery and everything else that's heavy on it. Makes me think that if i can do okay on that i should be much better on a fast one.
(if i write it enough it MUST be true)

spelling - i suck at it - but half the problems are just fingers getting in the way... i was gonna rant about it but - i don't care, well not true - people with spelling hang ups entertain me... i think its very funny to be festidious about spelling... esp in an informal sense when the conveyance of the informations still happens...

well - there i added to the heap at Bikemag's forum... wise move? I dunno... I've gotten one or two letters pub'd at Bikemag... and one that i wrote after last time, but never quite got around to emailing... or transcribing from my scribble pad... not that it makes me anymore reputable or nuttin. Ah well - what the hell - we'll see how it all shakes itself out...

now if that damn service engineer would just show up already... gotta get working on the damn scope and stuff...

but here's a joke that just popped into the email... not as funny as this one:

Bubba and Junior were standing at the base of a flagpole, looking up. A blonde lady walked by and asked what they were doing.

"We're supposed to find the height of the flagpole," said Bubba, "but we don't have a ladder."

The woman took a wrench from her purse, loosened a few bolts, and laid the pole down. Then she took a tape measure from her pocket, took a measurement & announced, "Eighteen feet, six inches," and walked away.

Junior shook his head and laughed. "Ain't that just like a dumb blonde? We ask for the height, and she gives us the length.

Bubba and Junior are currently doing government work supervising the reconstruction of those New Orleans Levees.

but worthy of posting anyway... esp in light of all the phun stuff jonny's been posting about over at DC lately (its a totally rehashed joke but still amusing)

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike
English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

"House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa."

"Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz."

A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups,
male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether
"computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the
feminine gender ("la computadora"), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is
incomprehensible to everyone else;

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible
later retrieval; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half
your paycheck on accessories for it.


(THIS GETS BETTER!)


The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine
("el computador"), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE
the problem; and

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a
little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

okay - i really hope to be celebrating around noon on thursday... sofar - sogood - the freaking albatross is about to be tossed...

mushy brain is spreading

i didn't ride this weekend and i think it is contributing to my grumpy 'tude and a mushy brain. its just not falling into place...

even the concert at the peace abby (while great) didn't fire up the weekend. it was a great concert - anyone should try and hit a Magical Strings tour show. its a fantastic environment and definately a night of music worth every penny of energy to get there...

changing the tires over to the summers on the Golf didn't even make me feel that much better... i think dumping over the 3/4 full cup of sip 'n dip coffee didn't help matters... i needed that coffee...

That comment by Greg about the fixie not being a good way to learn to pedal... may have some element of truth, but... i wonder... if it worked for Walden and the wolverines... I dunno.

Solobreak's kinda mimic'n my thoughts... that or i'm just empathizing or using the 'rest' rational for light duty 'training' right now. Each week is one week closer to Cross season and one less week i have to get miles under the belt... each week spent like this last one... is probably a whole host of places lost in the races...

but... i keep tellin myself that this year is the first one back and i don't really care what i place... so... it helps mentally a bit, but this weekend not getting out didn't help much.

That and thursday when i mentioned i was feelign blah... i had the damnest best GD ride home... freaking flew... felt great, loads of extra power, green lights and only one really pissy obnoxious car.

This coming weekend looks like crap as far as getting a ride in - gonna be in East Hampten NH for a big TDI event, and sunday? May meet up with Magical Strings sat night and hang out just outside of Keene, in Marlborough. But probably no bike.... so i'm gonna try and get out maybe for a morning ride or two maybe tomorrow or wed... or try to do it every morning... i dunno - just damn hard finding riding time these days... esp trying to get a full day of work in.

gotta see if i can find something positive to say - The nice organic Fuji apple from my home state tasted super yummy just now... it goes well with coffee... what doesn't!?

It was stupid in the 90's

and it still is...

Biopace vs Q-rings... can anyone tell me the difference besides weight and 26 years?

Rotor rings claim first road win

The elliptical chainring renaissance continued in Portugal a couple of weeks ago when Sergio Ribero of Team Barbot-Halicon scored the first professional road race win by a rider using Rotor's

elliptical Q-rings. Ribero took forst place in stage 1's uphill sprint finish, and followed it up three days later with second in stage 4 to finish second overall in the four-day race.

Developed as a ligfhter and less expensive alternaitive to Rotor's canm-action crank, Q-rings are claimed to heklp reduce the effects of the 'dead sport' in a rider's pedal stroke by effectively reducing the size of the chainring at that moment, lowering the gear the rider is pushing and speeding the foot through the point at which little or no force can be applied to the pedal.

More info: www.rotorbike.com/Q/home.htm

stupid stupid stupid... pedal faster, like Lance...

Solobreak got me all teary-eyed... i miss that 13-18... sort of... I've got the Chorus freewheel hub still... and the 3 or more 6 speed freewheels kicking around with matching chains... not to mention the 6 speed Dura-Ace downtube shift lever set... and the 6 speed Suntour bar-end shifters (and the 8/9 speed D-A ones that i used on the cross bike before i got a second hand STI set).

Bikes are cool but i need a new one... the Paramount... the one i'm riding now, with the goofy partly effective fenders, the Open CD rims... the frustratingly limited tire clearance...

maybe i'll grab a heavy ass surly cross frame and a set of 700c flip-flop fixie-single rear wheel to start with...

or not...

thanks for stopping by Jill! hope ta see ya around to give me another kick in the pants when i get a bit emotionally charged and somewhat one sided... sounds like you are used to kicking guys named Geoff around (me=Geoff... Ge part of GeWilli... ah nevermind)

in honor of that Rice puddin lover in Portland OR:

peace out

(for now)


see told ya - i'm back - and this time with a quote for Solobreak:

"I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer? We are getting soft...as for me, give me a fixed gear!" - Henri Desgrange

there's even more cycling quotes than the ones i posted a while back...
So Solobreak - do you have an excuse for gears?... I don't *LOL*

me me media generation thoughts explained

continuing the comments started in response to Jill:

yikes - maybe i did just say that...

scary. no i think they are loosing critical skills. I see it in my generation and all the generations quite honestly.

But like the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, the gap between those who have the ability to focus concentrate and communicate will do the best.

I'm sure as all generations have proven, those in that age range (the M generation) will fit the mold and make their current skills work for them.

Here's a good summation of what someone else said that i think fits what i and so poorly trying to communicate...
Its an except taken from an article written for the Hawthorne Valley School News. Titled Parzival: Pierce Through the VEIL by Eric Müller

Parzival grew up in the seclusion of the forest of Soltane, away from the customs,traditionss and rules of the court, and its codes of chivalry. This, in the end, gave him the forces to find the grail, and become Grail king. And it is interesting to note how many great individualities who have brought something new into the world have had a unique childhood, often at one remove from the reigning conventions of contemporary life: the Buddha, Zarathustra, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington Carver, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, or Rudolf Steiner. Waldorf Schools are a Soltane of sorts, protecting the students from an increasinglychilde-unfriendly world, while simultaneouslynurturingn and strengthening their multiple faculties.

I think these 8-18 year olds of the M- generation aren't choosing this media lifestyle, i think the parents are failing them miserably. The parents are so wrapped up in their blackberry, the headline news feed, the constant barrage of media on demand that they don't allow the children to bechildrenn. And to grow and develop in the best way.

I don't think its the choice of the M-generation, i think the parents are condoning the behavior, buying cell phones and ipods andcomputerss and DVD players.

It is an extension and natural evolution of the DVD player in car. Gosh we wouldn't want to try and keep thechildrenn engaged ourselves while driving! The horrors, we could never gab on the cell phone while driving the kids to school and running over their teacher.

I expressed remorse that these kids will enter university/college with underdeveloped communication skills for the sciences and humanities. Moving on in life without the model of healthy family interactions. And people wonder why the divorce rate is up?

As a father of two, its all i can do tonurturee my girls. We eat dinner together everynight. The oldest even helps make it occasionally. We play together and when in the car, we talk, sing, laugh, or just observe the world around us.

If you are fixated on a DVD screen you might miss the Deer in the woods, or the crew team on the water as you go over a bridge. You might miss the colors of the leaves as the change. Might? You will. You will miss the birds, the Hawks perched in a snag waiting for a meal to move in the median of the highway.

Last night for example. I looked out the window and saw the most amazing Skunk. YES a skunk. It was nearly completely snow white on top, with the smallest of smallest black spots over his haunches... whole tail white. Why did i see it? The TV wasn't on, i was curious to see what i might see outside. Not concerned with sending a text or downloading the latest song.

It just is frustrating. Sure i'm the walkman generation. I know the addiction and the pleasures of personal music. But the iPod has made it crazy worse. 95% of the people walking around are absorbed into their own world. The Walkman was great. You had to carry the tapes, and the batteries wore out fast. The iPod lets you walk and listen to anything, a whole freaking suitcase full of cassettes. Now don't get the idea i don't like music.

music-is-heartbeat-of-life.html

not my mosteloquentt or wordy elaborations but the essence is there...

What are we loosing with the Media Generation? We are reducing the numbers of amazing artists, musicians, and thinkers. Maybe we are creating a massive pile of multi-taskers... but... there are a few things multi-tasking is not good for, raising kids is one of them.

Jill, thank you deeply, for the critical kick in the pants... I'm still slumbering in theoppressivee nature of the previous university, the discouraging writing. Here it IS better. But not 100%. But then again, people get into universities, not always on their merits.

It was a tough morning with the girls though, the oldest wasn't feeling great, but that meant my wife drove her to school (too late for the bus). And i hitched up the trailer and took the little one to daycare. It was fantastic. She had a blast, and i got a great 1.5 mile extra interval on the way in to work. I can't wait to pick her up this evening. Might just have to make a habit of that! Maybe we can get out a bit early and do a few laps around the boulevard before daycare once it warms up in the morning.

I need to cogitate a bit more on the whole media generation, but as always it falls on the parents. The parents who do a good job, take action, set boundaries - create individuals like Jerome Bettis. That guy could have been just another thug like the kids his age in his neighborhood... but his parents took a role in his growing up.

TOOK A ROLL... not here - go play with your friends while mommy and daddy watch TV, or get stoned, or have a life of our own....

Or here - watch tv... while we are at home, in the car, on the airplane... i don't have the patience or the skills to raise you properly and interact with you because it doesn't fit with my lifestyle.

Fortunately there are exceptions, lots of them, but i fear that there are not enough. That is what scares me. Not the kids so much, they'll figure out what they have to or the mass of them will change the workplace/society so it fits their needs and abilities.

I am old, but not THAT old yet... And the biggest problem with the term global warming is that take last winter - when it was wicked cold in the Northeastern US for a very very long time, people were unable to understand, "If its this cold how can there be global warming." "What a bunch of hippie liberal scientists." *shrug* that's my problem with the term...

Oh and Ernst Haeckel is one incredible scientist, artist.

stay tuned for my next lopsided incompletely explained lunatic ravings...

it must be the cycling... all that exercise... the disconnect from the car... the constantheightenedd awareness of everyminutiaea that is happening around me on the bike... that or i'm just nuts

a busy slacker

i've got one seriously stimulating project coming down the pipeline...

and a boat load of stuff going on - sucking my time... and the thoughts just backed up... mental constipation induced by external forces... to be crass and crude - a mental butt plug... but i must be on a liquid diet cause its not causing anything but a small bit of remorse. And that i think is good - not feeling like being anchored down to writing everyday...

uh oh...

One thing i really wanted to get out is writing quality, style and readability. The most frustrating thing is reading a peer reviewed publication article that is absolutely crap. Crap to the point that the language is distracting from the subject.

My theory goes along these lines... Kids don't know how to write and the same attitude regarding respect (lack there of) is destroying written language. I'm not talking about the "media generation" that is getting the hype and news as of late. I'm talking about the 20-30 year old kids writing... Its very unsettling and depressing in a way. Esp in the sciences. I came to expect it from the students at the thrid tier public university in michigan that i was working at. I expected the students to have poor writing skills, to have challenges expressing themselves in concrete and meaningful, without excessive modifing, ways. The pure ignorance about phrasing kills me. Sure, i'm not the best example, but i should put effort into writing and let yall (meaning me) be the judge of that. And to some degree the more patient entries are close to how i'd be happy to turn in the story to an editor. Two articles in very particular drew me to this frustration. I won't link them, even though they are both online for fear of one coming back and reading my comments. While i find the writing equal to fingernails on a chalkboard - i want the person to find out from me in person so they can get the physical impact and the emotion of support that can be conveyed in person but not as effectively in writing. Writing however can convey emotion, but, more, what i am saying is that the instantaneous feedback i get while talking - the emotion in the eyes - the ability to say what's needed to soften eliminate the blow to the guy that often can happen unintentionally with writing. And esp off the cuff quick writing.

And the media generation - scary as shit. It scares me more than Global Climate Change (global warming is a hippie liberal uneducated reactionary term that is a mis-nomer and leads to irrational and unbased dismissal of the hard and good science that the Climate Change is based on, no offense meant to you Kerry -if you make it this far-, as i can understand emotion can cause slips in language and i've often refered to it as global warming in off the cuff remarks, more because its a term people are familar with). Damn that aside ( ) should be its own comment section.

This media generation. This 8-18 year old batch of kids hooked up with pure bits and bytes connectivity but little real personal creativity. What's next? People will wind up like Demolition Man's Sandra Bullock character (Denis Leary kicked ass in that - i like that guy - he's funny). Digital imagry is critical, for science. What happened drawing and physical forms of expression. It doesn't just develop your drawing skills. It develops the creative thought process. Music much the same way. The physical aspect of creating music and practicing and perfecting it goes far beyond sampling someone elses stuff and making it your own. I really don't want to read most of their writing... well i've seen some of it and its scary. Can they focus on one task and one task alone?

FUCK - sorry - i get a bit expletive now and again, but i'm hypersensitive when in the presence of kids. And i'm talking hypersensitive like OC... although... i'll have a mental lapse when emotion overcomes me. damn freaking interruptions...

Bullet list: BMC Road bike in Pez... ME WANT... Carbon Nanotubes are WICKED cool to the max... i've worked with a bunch of microscope imaging of that stuff and its flat out GD amazing...

Waldorf Education... damn fine stuff... its the next deliberate destination to my media generation 'discuss' (rant) above... hopefully i can get to it later...

cycling...

ALMOST GOT DOORED this morning.. fun stuff... fun stuff...

yesterday was feeling very flat - today a bit as well - accounted for by two things - i'm slightly more dehydrated than normal and tired. I've mentioned the importance of rest for good cycling, and i'll say it again and again and again. Rest is critical... those twenty something kids have dynamic cellular function that requires less rest than us old farts in the mid thirty range.

Shit - gotta run - time is up... and vanishing...

A friend said - if you have time to web log or post you either have too much responsibility or not enough... i'm now teetering on the edge of falling head first into the too much side of things... not sure i'm like'n it but the job is WELL worth it... esp with the project i alluded to to open up...

i think the plug fell out... ewwww-yuck

Tuesday Bike thoughts

gravy train:
pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=3866

yeah... a link - power and all that - maybe best read today again and then commented tomorrow - but i feel no need -cause it says it all there- and its how i've been calc'n power anyway, grade, wind, hill the like can get ya rough power #s... so... no computer on the main steed now... now what to do [smirk]

and...

if this isn't the most beautiful Ebay posting:
ebay.com/CAMPAGNOLO-C-Record-Delta-brake-set
i dunno but it does JUSTICE to those brakes....

gorgeous hunks of aluminum...

freaking gorgeous...

and in about 20 minutes i get to clock my CD time... can i make it home in under 8 minutes? When i started it was 12 minutes or more at max effort... and when ya add the stop lights and stop signs and variability in all that - its rather significant... best time to best time... dunno if it means i'm any faster...

oh and that pez article... one 'sprinter' guy here - was completely all over the road, and watching his form all i could think was man - stop wasting all that power - make it work FOR you... the guy's bike was nearly horizontal. A bit of standing out of the saddle bike rock is one thing... but it doesn't really make you go any faster....