Dennis B Murphy

Reasons why the Republican House is WRONG about the Payroll Tax cut bill

2011-12-20T19:37:00.000-08:00

Reasons why the Republican House is WRONG about the Payroll Tax cut bill

1. they claim it is causing 'uncertainty'
Answer- there's no uncertainty- everyone on both sides of the aisle insists they want it for all of 2012, so there's no uncertainty (unless House Republicans secretly want to scuttle the tax cut anyway)

2. it's kicking the can down the road #1
Answer- false. It's a two month interim action to facilitate a longer action. Businesses and people do interim actions all the time to get past deadlines or other roadblocks as well as to prioritize

3. it's kicking the can down the road #2
Answer- maybe but.. does the house version of the bill create a PERMANENT payroll tax cut? NO. The Payroll tax cut is only proposed for the year 2012 at which time NEXT December we will be addressing a payroll tax cut issue again. So the senate bill kicks it two months down the road while the house bill kicks it 12 months down the road. The distance is different but a kick is a kick

4. A key difference is the Keystone Pipeline
Answer- this is minute and not worth the delay that is being presented. Agreed the Senate Bill doesn't immediately kick off shovels digging. But I also don't think this has been investigated enough for the following reasons
a) the canadians are trucking the oil now and will continue to- the pipeline won't disrupt their operations
b) why does the "new" piple need to go via a brand new route? We already have a pipeline going from Canada to the Gulf Coast- why can't the Keystone line simply run alongside this existing line. It might also give the oil companies a chance to better review the maintenance on the existing line while installing a new one- (we in Michigan already had a fairly significant pipe break in the Kalamazoo River).
c) a two month delay isn't significant enough to warrant holding the tax cuts hostage

5. Another key difference is the unemployment rules adjustments the House Republicans want to make.
My Answer- I OPPOSE the attempt by the House Republicans to hold a tax cut for 160million taxpayers hostage to social engineering desires that have to be bargained for at the last minute with little debate. The Republicans decried the alleged lack of debate on the Affordable Care Act now are trying to squeak through massive changes in unemployment benefits system in the dark of the holiday.

6. Legislation with non-related features added
Answer- I've LONG opposed the tactic of politicians of all stripes to pile on other features and factors into legislation regardless of its relevance.
Is the payroll tax cut good or bad? If yes- then vote yes or no on that- don't add pipelines and unemployment restructuring and funding for the spotted turtle warbler or grant to the veterans of the lost brigage into the same bill. In my view- a bill should contain only what's relevant to that bill.

Summary- Pass the senate bill- it doesn't un-do or re-do or re-make anything that can't be renogotiated later. So there's no damage to either party's positions on ANY key legislation or positions. However, holding out does damage 160million American taxpayers in an effort to SCROOGE out some legislative victory position at the holiday time

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/20/2554691/comparison-of-house-senate-payroll.html

This article details the differences in the two bills- the House bill is a massive expensive bill of $180billion with numerous non-tax related add-ons. The Senate bill is a modest $33billion bill which mostly focuses on the tax cut.

Vote on the Senate bill and come home for the holidays!

More on the pipeline....
Whether you support or oppose the Keystone Pipeline expansion it is worth noting - and the reference to Lake Huron is particularly apropos to us Michigan residents that, quote,"The Ogallala Aquifer, whose total water storage is about equal to that of Lake Huron in the Midwest, is the single most important source of water in the High Plains region, providing nearly all the water for residential, industrial, and agricultural use. Because of widespread irrigation, farming accounts for 94 percent of the groundwater use. Irrigated agriculture forms the base of the regional economy. It supports nearly one-fifth of the wheat, corn, cotton, and cattle produced in the United States. Crops provide grains and hay for confined feeding of cattle and hogs and for dairies. The cattle feedlots support a large meatpacking industry. Without irrigation from the Ogallala Aquifer, there would be a much smaller regional population and far less economic activity.

http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Oc-Po/Ogallala-Aquifer.html

More on the Keystone aspect of the legislation. The link below is to a map. It should be noted that there is already a Keystone Pipeline (solid orange line).
The proposal is for an additional line which takes an admittedly more direct route.
Some observations
a) I would think that the expansion from Cushing to Port Arthur and Houston don't need to be overseen by the Dept of State- they would have jurisdiction over the portion crossing international borders. So, barring any EPA issues, this tail end portion could begin anyway.

b) As I noted previously, there is already a pipeline. While I don't doubt that a direct route may be cheaper - at least in direct terms of materials (aka pipes and fittings etc), why can't the "expansion" simply parallel the existing line? This would avoid disruption to the people, wildlife etc on the route of the expansion proposed. It would also simplify maintenance oversight since only ONE pathway would need to be monitored not two separate pathways hundreds of miles apart.

http://insightadvisor.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/keystone-xl-pipeline.jpg

Downtime and planning

2011-12-10T13:17:00.000-08:00

I've really taken a down time from cycling. Since Iceman the first weekend of November I've ridden outside only a couple times and not been overly diligent on the trainer. I plan to ramp up training after the first of the year. The rest of 2011 will be just easy and fun biking and I limit any trainer sessions to an hour or less.

I did get a new trainer- an inexpensive fluid trainer which I tried for the first time today. Works well for Spinervals.

I've also begun organizing my 2012 season races and reached a tentative schedule. It may get tweaked somewhat in the next couple months. It's also not as epic as 2011 was since I've decided 2012 will stay local.

Saturday 03/23/11 Barry-Roubaix Gravel Road Race

Sunday 05/06/11 CPS MMBA Points Fort Custer Stampede

Saturday 06/16/11 LUMBERJACK-100

Saturday 06/23/11 CPS MMBA Points State Games of Michigan Saturday (Tentative)

Saturday 07/14/11 CPS MMBA Points Boyne Marathon

Saturday 08/11/11 Ore to Shore

Saturday 08/18/11 CPS MMBA Points Maybury TT

Sunday 09/09/11 CPS MMBA Points Addison Oaks Fall Classic

Sunday 09/23/11 CPS MMBA Points Pando Fall Classic

Sunday Sept/ Oct KissCross Cyclocross

Saturday 10/20/11 Mad Anthony Cyclocross Race

Saturday 11/03/11 Iceman

Iceman Race report and season assessment

2011-11-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

Iceman Race report

I finished my last mountain bike race of the year yesterday up in Traverse City. It was my second Iceman race and I had low expectations.

Having injured myself Sept 18th I was not expecting to do well. I even figured my target should be under three hours. My time last year was 2hrs31mins. I was on crutches for two weeks and limping severely for several more. I didn't ride outside again until last Sunday Oct 30th and in the last two weeks of October only managed four 30-minute sessions on trainer gym bikes.

But the Iceman event was indeed successful. I finished 68th of 127 racers in the Men 51-52 category with a time of 2:26:34. This was five minutes FASTER than my finish last year! I felt good the entire time except for a cramp in my thigh at the last ten feet during a sprint.

The weather was fantastic. At my 9:36am start time the temperature was about 32 degrees, more than ten degrees warmer than last year. I had two bottles of heed (of which I lost one during the event, predictably bouncing out of the lower cage). We started off in the mass group on the pavement in Kalkaska and rolled through neighborhoods and out onto the dirt trails.

I moved along quite well, averaging about 17mph to start. This would drop later, of course, to about 13.2. The course was hard packed in most spots with some of the singletrack being slightly greasy.

The first notable incident occurred in the first 5-6 miles during a slight small climb up a hill. It was short and steep but there was a racer walking his bike uphill. The rider in front of me moved to the left to go around the walking cyclist and as he did so he fell. I moved to the right to continue the climb around him and his tire slid UNDER my rear tire as I passed him and I was spinning my rear tire on his spokes and wheel trying to continue onward and I had to jump off my bike to run up the hill as well. I am sure that rider needed a wheel truing later hahahaha. But that was the only hill I had to walk. All the rest were rideable, though near the end I did use the grannygear on the last couple climbs.

I did get stuck a couple times behind slower riders on singletrack sections and some whipping downhills. This is not uncommon. Some riders have great fitness but lack some skills in the technical weaving portions of the trail. There were a couple of sections which I anticipated such technical single track coming up and gutted past a rider or two in front of me. One notable time I zipped around the racer in front of me and beat him to the hole shot at the singletrack and ended up opening 100 yards on him in that section. He caught me much much later on the course, perhaps ten miles later.

One nice feature this year, though it fooled some riders unaware of the feature, was that the course was guided into the campground finish area through some fenced chutes and then took you back out onto the trails and another hard climb before then again coming back into chutes and the finish. This added perhaps a mile to the course (which was now about 30 miles long). I think some racers went into that initial chute and let their guard down then were somewhat aback having to go back out for more trail and a hard climb. I'd been warned by my teammates who'd pre-rode the finish section.

Finally to the real finish chute, I came into the fenced chutes right behind another racer and as we made a turn I sprinted around and past him and pressed toward the finish tape. But with about 20 yards I saw him out of the corner of my eye on my left surging past me and I stood up to sprint to hold my position which then caused a cramp in my thigh muscle just as I tried to hammer and he beat me to the finish. I wasn't too concerned since you can't really know who all your competitors are but ironically it ended up that he was in my age group and was scored three seconds ahead of me. Darn!

Other than a couple of cyclocross events and a couple of winter races in January or February the race season is over. I will still do some outside biking, but will soon begin to focus on training for 2012.

Season Assessment

So, all in all, this was one of my best ever cycling seasons!

03/26/11 Barry Roubaix: 2Hrs19min for a place of 61st out of 94 Master Men Category
04/30/11 Cohutta 100: 12hours/2minutes, 23rd of 25 in Master Men Category
06/18/11 Lumberjack 100: 11hours/11minutes, 21st of 29 Master Men Category

7/30/10 Wilderness 100 08/20/10: 12hours/0minutes, 27st of 31 Master Men Category

Fool's Gold 100: 12hours/1minutes, 6th of 11 Master Men Category
09/04/11 Shenendoah 100: 12hours/14minutes, 19th of 53 Master Men Category
11/05/11 Iceman: 68th of 127 Men 51-52 Time 2:26 (5 mins faster than 2010)

WOW- Really, I've been now considering what to do next year. What can I possibly put on my calendar and accomplish that can compete or exceed what I've done this season?

I've really enjoyed the overall aspects of cycling. I rode a lot in college on my Puch. When I got a mountain bike I considered myself a "mountain biker" and had no real road riding affinity. But in the last couple years, as I've rode more on the pavement for training, I've enjoyed a more rounded cycling experience. I've had a blast on road rides and doing cyclocross. All this has improved my biking in every way. It's been a great season.

First bike race back since injury

2011-10-30T17:12:00.001-07:00

With one week to Iceman, I got back on the bike outside today. I figured the bone fracture was pretty much healed, but my leg was aching quite badly especially the calf and knee areas which are not near the injury so I think the issue was simply tight muscles, ligaments and such. Stretching and more activity was needed, not less. I started spinning on the trainer and gym bikes a few times the last few weeks. I also returned to using my foam roller. Getting therapy in by riding the bikes or trainers was made a bit more difficult by work travel but the hotels had recumbent gym bikes.

I plan to ride the cross bike outside Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I want to get to the trail and do one lap at Luton.

The race today was the Caledonia Park Kisscross race. I decided to race in the C category instead of my normal B category. Good thing because I was exhausted after this short three lap event. Each lap was 1.75 miles so it wasn't a long race but I rode fairly hard and haven't been on a bike outside since the fall on Sept 18th cracked my hip bone.

I ended up in 4th in the category after the thirty minute ride and really tried to catch two of the competitors in front of me right at the end but just as I stood up to sprint the last 100 yards so too did they. I don't think they saw me behind them but they were racing each other.

The photo below shows me in the middle of the paved path. The two guys I tried to catch are right to the left (though one is not quite visible in the photo because he's behind the front rider in the camera view).

Update on leg fracture Oct 12

2011-10-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

Just left the doc for my follow up. He said healing is going well and the constant pain in my calf and knee are likely due to illiotibial tightness or such due to the injury and lack of activity. I plan to swim and even try spinning on the bike starting this week. I still have difficulty descending stairs normally because it applies weight to the top of the bone.

The visit confirmed it was indeed a crack across the trochanter. He indicated laying that side- left side- though it may present discomfort- actually has the effect of pushing the bone together. What I should not do is side leg lifts (as shown in photo below) as this actually pulls the top of the bone apart from the rest of the femur. The tibial and other muscles, ligaments and tendons are attached to the top at the trochanter and moving the leg in this manner pulls on the top of the bone. I suspect that when I attempted to dismount the bike at the cross race on Sept 18 after falling, that the dismount effectively created a similar motion, stressing the bone and resulting in the POP or CRACK sound I heard at the time.

I am still planning on doing Iceman, though for me it may be more of a timed ride than a race to beat anything- just finishing will be the accomplishment this year, I think.

ArtPrize 2011 a mild disappointment

2011-10-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

Art Prize 2012 was just concluded the winner of ArtPrize 2011 is Mia Tavonatti for her stained-glass mosaic "Crucifixion." This was the most disappointing final of ArtPrize's three years.

Art critics decry the popular vote method of the event. To some extent, this was defrayed by the implementation of several juried awards to given by selected art galleries and professional critics.

But that aspect doesn't apply to the big prize. I've been accused of dismissing her piece because of my 'bias' as an atheist. But it's not that at all, though I think my views clearly allow me to see the pandering this particular piece had in generally more religious west Michigan.

Just because a piece is religious does NOT make it art, much less GOOD art. Inversely, just because it is religous does not rule it out as art. Does anyone not consider Haydn's "CREATION" (a musical piece in which I've performed) as a fantastic piece of art? Or Mozart's "Requiem?" But for every real piece of art that was created for a religious reason or out of a religious base, there are hundreds of pieces which are trite, rote and predictable and pumped out
simply because they are for a religious purpose- the artistic aspect is secondary and often absent.

As an example, as an educated and trained musician, I can understand and appreciate the intricacies and artwork in a complex 12-tone symphonic piece. But a musically untrained or uneducated person may very likely consider it cacophonous and simply noise. Music runs the gamut from simple four-chord 32-beat run-of-the-mill compositions to high, soaring, masterful symphonies to, yes, the more intellectual but less emotionally attractive atonal compositions.

(A recollection from my teen years: My dad, who grew up offending his parents with rockabilly, Elvis and such, would hear my Rush records and complain about "that noise." Yes most people who appreciate rock music would very likely say that Rush is artistic and of course much more complex than the music of Elvis, though Elvis may have a more emotional appeal with the simpler chord and rhythmic structures he performed).

People generally go by the maxim "I don't know art, but I know what I like." There's an inherent gut-appeal to art which should be balanced between emotion and intellect. A piece (of art or music) can be intellectually artistic but not appealing emotionally to a wide range of people.

Artprize is a grand experiment in attempting to bring that balance deliberately to the public with a deliberate public participation in which art galleries never indulge. As noted earlier, this is a bone of contention among professional critics. There are critics that think the "populization" of art diminishes the art and that winning should only go to the one an elite group of trained specialist pick. I don't agree with that. I think all art has a graduated line from the maudlin to the sublime. This one is maudlin- and will only reinforce the snob critics view that "voted"art is lesser art.

I've yet to see one public comment from "voters" about Tavonatti's use of color or shading, or the application of the media to the piece, or the use of shadow and light to reveal something profound. No, voters simply went for the simplistic emotional appeal, clearly culturally influenced, of a crucified Jesus. Little consideration was given to the actual ART in the piece. I have no issues with the media in which Tavonatti works. Clearly in that aspect she's talented (stained glass). It should be remembered she came in second place last year with a non-religious art piece. But there is nothing original or imaginative in her contibution this year it is essentially no different than 'crucifix art' done by artists for 1600 years. In fact she didn't even initiate this piece FOR Artprize as an entry- it was being done on commission for installation in a church- which couldn't pay to finish the piece so she slid it on over into Artprize.

I still applaud Artprize for what it is doing- and attempting to do- which, in my view, is to bring art to a wider range of the population in a participatory manner. I think an unstated or inherent goal is tobring people along- to educate them upward to understand a wider range of art while a the same time educate the artists to also understand that art can be enjoyed by a wider range of people and that it need not only cater to a select group of specialist critics. What I hope does NOT happen is a "safety" trend, where artists just start targeting their works to the lowest common denominator for effect in an attempt to win. Tavonatti's submission this year was just that sort of step- backwards from educational and inventive to predictable and unimaginative.

Bike injury is fracture on greater trochanter

2011-09-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

Just got off the phone with the doctor office-he's reviewed the MRI and there is a slight fracture on the "greater trochanter" (which is the part that actually impacted when I fell) for which surgery is not needed- simply time and ibuprofen and keep the strain off the bone. Typically full healing is 6-8 weeks. No biking for a few weeks, once I am able to I will begin spinning in the house. Iceman is in seven weeks- so this will be close! I will need to check to see the latest transfer date possible so if I don't think I should do the event I can sell my entry.

Late season injury at cross race

2011-09-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

Kisscross had their second race of the season at Grand Rapid's Highland Park- a place I really like to ride.

On lap two, as I turned left up a small hill the rider in front of me slowed on the short steep climb, and I went to the outside to avoid him but this caused me to lose momentum as well. I ended up circling on this turning climb and attempted to make it a second time when I went down hard, very hard, on my left hip. I laid there stunned a few seconds then got up with difficulty, pushed my bike to the top of the slope and climbed on to continue riding.

Three or four hundred yards further the course does another forced dismount. There was a log at the bottom of a steep 40 yard climb. It is ride-able but only if you have no other racers in front of you to prevent a decent momentum bunnyhop. So after the fall, I came into this with a racer in front of me again and I needed to dismount since I would not be able to hop the log and ride up due to the traffic. It was here that I think real damage occurred. As I came into the chute and stood up and began to swing my right leg off the bike to dismount, all weight went to my left leg, naturally, and I heard a "POP" and the strength went out of my left leg and I drifted into the tape as I sat on the cross bar in pain.

I lifted the tape and rolled over toward the parking lot but came across a small (really small) hill but just could NOT get up the hill. I ended up straddling the bike and eventually I had to fall down, painfully, and then could not get back up! Two other racers watching the B race helped me to my feet and I got on the bike again on a flat area, turned in my tag to DNF and made my way to the car. After more assistance from Rick and another racer, including putting my bike on the roof rack, I was able to get into the car and drive home.

After taking a shower, Joni drove me to the hospital for xrays, from which we found no broken bones. Appparently the hip is not out of joint or dislocated either or the doctor in ER would have mentioned it.

The emergency doctor thinks either soft tissue damage or injury, including the possibility of torn ligaments or such. Best case, he said, was simply bruised surfaces of the hip socket and the top of the femur. I think maybe the issue might be that the original very hard fall actually did dislocate my femur from the hip socket slightly, or jammed it. The subsequent "pop" sound as I twisted to dismount actually popped it back into place, but due to the trauma, the whole joint is so sore I can't use it.

More tomorrow as I have an appointment with an orthopedic doctor.

Shenendoah-100 completed- that makes five!

2011-09-06T05:38:00.001-07:00

I completed the Shenendoah 100 mountainbike race Sunday-making that my fifth race in the National Ultra Endurance Series (having completed Cohutta, Lumberjack, Wilderness and Fool's Gold).

The race was as grueling and tough as I remember in 2010. While I was not able to break the 12 hour mark (again) I was able to take 4 minutes off my time with an unofficial finish of 12:14. We also lucked out with the weather. It didn't rain on race day but the area did have some rain the day before. It subsequently rained the night after the race concluded as well. Race day was 90-92 degrees and humid.

The first climb wasn't as tough as I remembered and I rode to keep my average speed at about 5mph at least, sometimes 6mph. The second peak on the elevation was tougher and steeper as you can see from image above, but I made steady progress.

The toughest section, actually, was the peak shown approximately mile 50. This was the longest walking section and really ate into my time. This section has long rocky stretches difficult to ride. This was more difficult with the wet rocks and roots from Saturday's rain. Fortunately no part of the trail was too soaked, with only a few muddy sections. This section of the trail also included a very steep narrow singletrack. It was so steep that if you didn't keep momentum you ended up walking long sections. Even when riding, if you didn't go at least 4mph, your front wheel would wander and the narrow benchcut had a soft outside berm and the tire would go in to it and you'd stall... and be walking. At one point there was a line of riders hiking the bikes up the hill like convicts on a chain gang. Finally, we reached the peak and began the pounding, jarring downhill.

Probably the worst point was the last descent on the BIG climb after mile 80. Jarring pounding rocky rooty downwhill and you are braking to keep your speed under 20mph for safety. Brake pads and rotors heat up so much you can't touch them. Part of the way down I hear an odd "ting ting ting ting" sound. What the hecks? Broken spoke? I had to pull over and check- no spokes. Then I noticed it- My caliper for the front brake was coming OFF the fork! WHAT!? If you know Lefty fronts, the caliper needs to be loosened and removed to take off a tire. You then re-install it and tighten two bolts to hold the caliper onto the fork to engage the rotor. Well, one of the bolts had loosened and the caliper had rotated off the fork and nearly off the rotor to where I only had partial engagement. Since it was loose, the caliper was flopping a bit side to side resulting in the odd sound that alerted me. I pulled my tools and re-installed the caliper and seriously tightened the caliper. WOW- had the whole caliper become loose it would have likely swung into the spokes and "endo'd" me on this ugly downhill. Serious injury avoided.

(Side note- when I finished, Joni told me Michigan racer Mike Simonson had a bad crash while holding a third place spot on the course and was taken to hospital by helicopter- Facebook updates indicate he's okay but still in hospital. Michigan racer Christian Tanguey took first place at the race and for the Men's Open in the NUE series).

Until about mile 45 I was holding nearly a 10mph average and hopes of beating the 12 hour mark. But after completing the steep peak and downhill after that I'd lost quite a bit of time. There was a respite with a long steady climb up again on the last peak. I really wanted to beat last year's time so I rode harder than I did last year, I think and kept trying to keep the MPH up on the incline. In the end I reached the last checkpoint at mile 88 with 12 miles to go at 530pm. As I rode out on the paved section after the aid station I knew I would not make the 12 hour mark because there was no way I could average 12mph that last section given the couple of steep climbs still yet ahead. The little hump at mile 92 is in the woods with the last portion so steep it's a walking section. (We actually do this climb earlier in the race at about mile 12, and it's rideable, but tough, then with fresh legs. But with 90 miles on your legs, everyone around me was walking).

Almost home- the downhill floats onto the two track cutting around the mountain. I was actually catching and passing a few riders the last five miles as we climbed the two track. This two track eventually peaks and becomes a shallow descent which really gives me a break. Small breaks and my legs can motor on so I again did a short climb past a couple more riders, turned left onto the single track which swoops down about 1-1/2 mile through taped lanes into the campground and around a large field to the finish!

As of last week and all but this Shenendoah race on the NUE standings, I am in 9th place, last place of racers that did at least the four qualifying events. Depending on my finish here at Shenendoah (which I guess is 16th or 17th) I will have more points since my worst of five will be dropped. But whether it's enough to move me up to 8th place remains to be seen as I don't know if the current 8th place rider raced Sunday and if so in what position he finished.

It's been a big BIG season for me concentrating on these five events. I will do Pando on Sept 28 and then Iceman in November to complete my mountain bike season which I consider highly successful!

Fourth 100-miler completed-Fool's Gold in Georgia

2011-08-21T04:51:00.000-07:00

First, before the topic of the race, I want to put kudos out to Hiker Hostel. They are linked on the race website. It was a convenient and inexpensive lodging and quite friendly and interesting.

The hostel is a large log-style house of three levels. The bottom level has a rec room and small kitchen. On each wing of the bottom are two bedrooms with large queen size beds. Two couples used these rooms respectively. The main floor has a living room, the owner's bedroom and the official off-limits kitchen (due to health department regulations as this is a pay-for lodging establishment). The top floor has a bedroom off each wing. Each of these has two bunk beds which you pay $17 per night stay and includes breakfast. The breakfast was really good. The hosts got up earlier than normal due to nearly all cyclists lodging for the race. Pro racer Jeff Shalk stayed there with his wife and I was able to meet him at breakfast prior to the race.

I completed my 4th 100-miler yesterday and still can't seem to break the elusive 12 hour mark. I finished at 12hours-1minute! Fool's Gold 100. One can see why it's called Fool's Gold. The Dahlonaga area was the site of the first recorded gold rush in the USA and the two tracks glitter with pyrite. The clay based single track is quite intriguing too, glittering as with broken glass due to the particles of silica in the clay soil.

The CyclingNews description of the course is "traverses the rugged North Georgia mountains with a combination of gravel roads, doubletrack, and classic Georgian singletrack. The 100-mile course consists of two 50-mile loops and totals over 14,000 feet of elevation gain" I think the 14k climbing is what does me in.

I actually rode well the first loop and completed it in five hours 45 minutes. The singletrack actually isn't that rugged- far smoother in most places that at Wilderness and would remind any Michigan rider of Yankee Springs. By far the singletrack was my favorite portion.

The race started at the Montaluce Winery grounds and headed out a paved road which turned to gravel- and then began an immediate long... long.. climb. With a couple short drops in the long climb you can see from the attached elevation that it was about 12-14 miles to checkpoint #1 (which was not an aid station and had no food or water). Right after #1 is a fast descent on gravel roads and some singletrack leading to Aid Station #2. I blew by this the first lap since I had enough Heed and such and began the next climb.

From Station 2 to 3, this is actually a climb around Bull Mountain (as it's called here). The climb is mostly in the single track trails as is the eventual descent. Then you return to the aid station (Station 2 and 3 are the same station, you just come into it from the other side). Then onward to Station 4. It was in this next section the course includes a knee-deep stream crossing. After Station 4 there is more singletrack and a downhill on a gravel road... Repeat for lap 2.

I filled my bottles at aid station 4. By this time I'd gone through nearly all of one bottle of Perpetuem so I had that bottle filled with water. I also filled both Heed bottles with Gatorade- which is what this race had on hand. Remember that Checkpoint 1 has no food or water. It turned out to be a LONG ride from #4 to #2 again and in that period I drained all three fluid bottles and was out of liquid for maybe 20-30 minutes going in to Aid #2.

It was at this time the volunteer told me I had 1-1/4 hour to get back to them at Aid#3 in order to make the cut-off or they could not let me go on. Wow- 1:15 to make that trip around Bull Mountain again. Damn. I filled bottles and began riding as hard as I could. But you can see from the image that the first half is tough climbing. Lots of technical singletrack climbing.

To make matters worse, on my earlier lap, I'd been hearing thunder. The sky also clouded over and I thought maybe I'd get rained on. It never happened, but- apparently it rained on the OTHER side of the mountain. So by the time I got to lap 2 and was riding the singletrack it was a slippery clay-based putty. This made many of the uphill climbs on lap two during my Bull Mountain circuit impossible to ride and I was off the bike walking. Eventually I reached the downhill portion and railed in the singletrack just making the cut-off and blew past Aid3 headed toward Station 4 and another cutoff deadline.

This next section was more to my skills in singletrack and I was able to make the cut-off at station 4 and motored on. Eventually the course dumps back onto the same road we took in to the race from the winery and was mostly paved into the finish.

I missed breaking the 12 hour mark again. I think that these courses (Wilderness, Cohutta, FoolsGold and Shenendoah) with their long long climbs just are the one impediment to me as I cannot muster more then 4-6 mph on them depending grade.

Lessons learned. I pumped up my shocks before the event. The rear shock was fine, but the front one I put too much air in and the ride felt like I had the lockout on the whole time- very stiff. I will need to let some out later for the next event.

On the negative side-

First, since aid station #1 was only a checkpoint and there was no water or hydration fluids there it was about 30 miles to aid station #2 and in that time I drained all three bottles.

Second, the race used Gatorade rather than Heed, not sure why, though I don't think it impacted my ride I was a bit leery of the change in beverage.

Finally, post race meal was a bust- literally there wasn't one. All these NUE races have food afterwards even when I've taken more than 12 hours to finish. But at FG, the parking areas were nearly deserted with no more than 15-20 people around, mostly volunteers, and the main tent was closed up and no food. I was a bit disappointed. I found out later from a singlespeeder who'd finished in just over ten hours that the promoter was running out of food at that point. WOW. Poor portion control. There'd always been food at the other events even for thirteen and fourteen hour finishers at Shenendoah. I ended up chucking down my Hammer Soy shake for a quick recovery drink before packing up and heading back to the hostel.

The National Ultra Endurance series will post updated series results later this week I hope so I can see how I stand in the Master's men category. Results for the race are here.

Up next, Shenendoah-100

Ore to Shore

2011-08-15T20:48:00.001-07:00

Joni and I made the drive this year to the upper peninsula for the Ore-to-Shore mountainbike race. Brenden could not go due to a wedding to attend.

Joni and I left Friday morning after attending to some errands and drove straight to Marquette and the ice arena to pick up our registration packages. We then checked in at the Brentwood Motor Inn, the same motel we've stayed at for five of six journey's to Marquette for the race.

We partipated in the event for five straight years (2005-2009) but skipped it in 2010 because Brenden wanted to race the 6-Hours of Pando. Joni has always done the 28 mile version and Brenden changed from the 48 to the 28 once he made the full-time switch to single-speed.

In the past I'd always done the 48 mile version. But this year I opted to do the 28 mile and to ride with Joni rather than actually race the event. Two weeks prior I'd just completed Wilderness-101 in Pennsylvania. Last week I'd done a 137 mile road ride with team-mates. And this Saturday I travel to Georgia for Fool's Gold 100, my 4th 100-miler of the season. So doing a hard race last weekend (Aug 13th) was not in my ride plan anyway.

But we did have a good time. I rode along encouraging her. I had fun chatting with few riders and enjoyed the enthusiasm of the Tree Farm Team and Hella-Bellas as the flamboyantly rode the 28 mile course as a group caw-cawing their bird call and Hockeydaddy shouting revival allelujias. Fun time.

Joni finished with her best time ever at 2hours45minutes- seven minutes better than her best previous time.

We had a quick lunch after the race at The Pasta Shop which makes fresh pasta for their dishes and then drove westward a couple hours to stay with friends Pam & Wayne for the evening, enjoying great conversation, home-made pizza and good beer. This trek to their house in rural Ontonagon area has been a staple of our Ore-to-Shore weekends. (Pam and I went to high school together at Muskegon High School and were fellow french horn players there and at Western Michigan University).

Sunday noon we began the drive to below the bridge and stopped at The Pasta Shop again for an early dinner, stopped in St Ignace for fudge and drove home to complete a fun, relaxing and satisfying weekend of cycling and camaraderie.

Wilderness 101 race report

2011-08-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

Wilderness 101 race report

Last Saturday I participated in my third 100 mile mountainbike race in Coburn, Pennsylvania. The Wilderness 101 is a tough, rugged course encompassing difficult, jarring downhill singletrack, long interminable forest-road climbs and enough rocks on some sections to make a trials rider happy.

I had three goals going into the event
1. Finish
2. Beat last year's time of 12:04:45
3. Finish in less than 12 hours

I accomplished the first two but official timing puts my finish time at 12:00:31- 32 seconds shy of my third goal-DARN! Last year I considered this the ugliest course I've ever riddent, but I
enjoyed the ride this year much more, perhaps because I was under some idea of what to expect.

The course was not exactly the same as the one I rode last year. One long benchcut singletrack climb was eliminated, but I think a different gravel road climb was added in it's place. Also, a
pinchpoint last year early in the race which had riders going across a single track rock field after just coming off a road section was gone. Given these two changes there appeared to be no bottlenecks for masses of riders this year.

A couple notable moments in the race:
a) I was riding near a local rider, back and forth to a large extent. But in the rugged, rock studded downhills he was in front of me and going a few miles per hour slower than I would have preferred, which I thought odd since he was local, I'd expect him to be faster. This happened a couple times, long climb together and he'd go into the singletrack downhill in front of me. So I
vowed to shake him the next opportunity. This arose when the course dumped onto a lightly rolling gravel road where I immediately popped onto the big chainring and cranked away from him at near road-bike speeds. I never saw him again.
b) On one particular gravel road I was moving pretty fast (17-18mph) and caught a couple people and we soon formed a paceline which added three more riders. I was third back in the line and the lead guy pulls off to draft. A bit later the rider in front of me does the same and I just keep spinning at pace and moving fast. But I soon noticed no gravel noise behind me as one would expect and I glanced over my shoulder to find the nearest rider to me was 30 yards back and the rest were nearly 100 yards back. I'd blown away the paceline! Sweet!

At mile 50 I was actually at the five hour mark! I began to have some grandiose thought I'd be closer to 11 hours this year, but the course really kicks your speed when the long climbs are churned at 4mph. The attached elevation graph shows how long (and steep) some of the climbs actually are. The climb at the stop is 7-8 miles long. The course has several 2-3 mile climbs. There's a steep climb in the middle from approximately miles 43 to 48. And so on.... and just for kicks a final 2-3 mile steep climb in the middle of the last ten mile section.

In the end I was 27th of 31 finishers in Master's Men category. Overall I was 260 of 297 finishers (with 82 racers not finishing). But yeah- it was fun, overall. I would come back and do this event again in the future, though because I am already formulating my plans for 2012 and 2013 cycling, events like Wilderness are not part of those plans at this time.

I have now finished three of the five 100 milers I set as goals to complete this year- Cohutta, Lumberjack and Wilderness. Up next on Aug 20th is a new one for me- Fool's Gold in Georgia. That will be followed by my return to Shenendoah on Labor Day Weekend.

Shout out to the two guys from Pittsburgh whom I met at dinner after the race. They said they'd read this blog about Wilderness and were inspired to sign up- though they didn't know whether to thank me or curse me for it afterward hahaha.

I saw many familiar faces from last year's Wilderness and Shenendoah- and will probably see them again at Shenendoah.

Checking out the NUE series standings I find I am 14th place in Master's men with three races. once I get a fourth event completed I may move up a bit in the standings.

Wilderness101 tomorrow

2011-07-29T18:56:00.001-07:00

Approximately nin hours from now I will start my third of five scheduled 100-milers. But today has been a comedy of errors.

I drove part of the way from Grand Rapids to the race Thursday evening, stopping at a Motel6 on the west side of Cleveland. Consequently I arrived in Coburn, PA at the race site at about 1pm! I even got t do a short ride.

However, the comedy-
setting up tent, no stakes. Went to hardware store in Millheim and got stakes- then realized it wasn't my tent. My son and I have the same tents and he borrowed stakes and I put all of them (his and mine stakes) in my tent bag because we needed to replace several wgich were bent. So grabbing his tent bag meant one without any stakes!

Then, pulling out the car to go to Millheim for dinner, flat tire! So I changed it for the donut-spare. While eating dinner I googled Pepboys and found one 20-30 miles away near State College. So I drove there and busy as they were, got the tire fixed. I finally got back to the park where many bike racers are camping abou 915pm.

I mixed my Heed and Perpetuem for the morning. But I missed out on a couple hours of socializing with fellow cyclists- half the reason I chose to camp this year (besides saving lodging costs since its free).

I have decided to camp here tomorrow after the race. Last year I drove part way looking for a motel on the interstate (80) but they were all full and I ended up sleeping in my car. If I camp here I avoid either lodging costs or that.

Update late on race result!

Who really gets hurt if debt ceiling is not raised?

2011-07-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

All the wrangling over the debt ceiling is completely bogus and if the ceiling is not raised will hurt Americans FAR more than passing it and debating budgets later. Republicans apparently think they have clout on this issue so why is it the party that claims to be "for the people" is actually willing to hurt Americans?

Look at this graph of where the debt is owed (data from US Treasury Dept). One of the xenophobic issues raised is how much we owe foreign govts such as China. China is our largest creditor and is only at 8%.

The big chunk is owed to the Federal Reserve and Social Security Trust Fund- essentially intra-govt transfers- shifting money from one column to another. One could argue that the debts to state and local govts are negotiable as they are part of the political process and programs.

However the CRITICAL debts, in my view, are the mutual funds, state-local-federal retirement funds, money markets, etc. These are highly likely to be average American's retirement funds. Not paying this really will hurt average citizens.

Additionally, while complaining about the debt, the Republicans will cost the govt MORE money because if we default, or credit rating goes down and the cost of future borrowing goes up- thereby increasing the debt.

Way to go guys

Debt owed to: in Billions Percent
Hong Kong $121.90 equals 0.90%
Caribbean Banking Centers $148.30 equals 1.00%
Taiwan $153.40 equals 1.10%
Brazil $211.40 equals 1.50%
Oil Exporting Countries" $229.80 equals 1.60%
United Kingdom $346.50 equals 2.40%
Japan $912.40 equals 6.40%
China $1,000.16 equals 8.00%
Mutual Funds $300.50 equals 2.00%
Commercial Banks $301.80 equals 2.10%
State, Local, and Federal Retirement Funds $320.90 equals 2.20%
Money Market Mutual Funds $337.70 equals 2.40%
Private Pension Funds $504.70 equals 3.50%
State and Local Governments $506.10 equals 3.50%
US Households (includes hedge funds) $959.40 equals 6.60%
The Federal Reserve" $1,000.6 equals 11.30%
Social Security Trust Fund $2,000.7 equals 19.00%

Hectic week, exciting week

2011-07-24T19:36:00.001-07:00

Wow what a week

Finish of Tour de France
Wedding in Muskegon
outing with CFI
last mountainbike ride before Wilderness100

whew!

First - le Tour- amazing event, 21 days of pain and energy and drama. I've thoroughly enjoyed my Versus/NBC access I purchased for $30 for the tour which allowed me to watch every stage either live or in replay on my computer. There were days I couldn't watch a stage and I could then catch up on two stages the following day. I may even be tempted to get mobile access if they have a Blackberry app next year! Cadel Evans winning was a surprise, but the Schleck's performance in the Alps the last three days was not. What amazes me is the whole commitment by Fance to shut down roads, post police, etc.! WOW- and what other sport event allows fans so darn close to the athletes? Crazy, sometimes naked, or oddly dressed people running along side the bikers, especcially on the climbs! I will definitely pay for the access again in 2012.

Highlights, in my view, stage 7 end with HTC leading in Cavendish with nine riders- amazing team coordination. Stage 18-19 in the Alps, attacks by Andy Schleck and Contador but Cadel Evans on both days working nearly single handed to pull the peloton along to keep the gaps low and sending the results to be determined by the time trial in stage 20.

http://tourdefrance.nbcsports.com

We double booked our weekend with an outing with our CFI group at the Yankee Springs Long Lake Center and my dad's widow re-marrying in Muskegon on Saturday. We went to Yankee Springs Friday afternoon, but drove back to Grandville Saturday to clean up and dress up, then drove to Muskegon for the wedding. A late return to Yankee Springs (after midnight) meant a short night Saturday as well.

But I got my last mountainbike ride in before Wilderness100 with a lap&one-half at the Yankee Springs course. I think I am ready for Wildeness.

Grand Rapids Urban Adventure Race- What FUN!

2011-07-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

Joni and I participated the inaugural Grand Rapids Urban Adventure Race last Saturday (July 9th). If you are not familiar with adventure races, they usually take place in the wilds such as a state recreation area and involve numerous disciplines such as orienteering, canoeing, hiking, rappelling or climbing etc. An adventure race will have numerous checkpoints at which you get your card punched when you reach them. Some check points will have a challenge of some sort in addition to simply reaching that position. In the wilds, reaching checkpoints is done using maps, compasses and USTM coordinates. The urban approach is a bit lighter. Compasses and USTM were not necessary.

The GRUAR had three categories to enter: Two-man teams, Two-woman teams, and Co-ed. The Co-ed category was the largest participation of all the categories with over 200 of the 350 teams in Co-ed category.

We arrived at the registration area behind the BOB and at the appropriate time were given our maps and packets. The race was to start at 9am. There were two portions- a foot portion (running or walking) and a bike portion (for which we had already corralled our mountain bikes). You could choose to do either foot or bike first, but could not stop at checkpoints for the other - you had to do ONLY bike, then turn in your punchcard, then go out to do the foot portion- or vice versa.

We opted for the bike portion first since we are more cyclist than runners and figured that would play to our strengths. The bike checkpoints ranged from Founders' Brewery, to south near Burton Av, to the middle of Millenium Part Trails, up to Lake Michigan Drive & Valley area. We opted to skip to of the bike checkpoints as they appeared to be outside what we determined was the most effective and circular route to maximize our capture of checkpoints.

We did our first checkpoint at Founder's Brewery. But the second CP we opted to target was problematic and my only complaint with the race. Checkpoint 19 was on a paved utility path just off Wealthy and about 100 yards down the path which was beyond a locked gate. I think that checkpoints should not be in areas that appear to be someplace you should not go. We had to crawl under the locked gate rail and pull our bikes under to and then ride down this path to find the checkpoint marker. The rules stated that you must remain within 100 yards of your teammate at all times but the locked gate seemed to encourage one partner to run down the path to scope out the potential for the marker to be there, since it was an unsure situation going past the gate.

The next checkpoint was easy and right near the Kent Trails path where the footbridge over the Grand River crosses from Indian Mounds Road. However, the manner of the race was that there were so many teams circulating and looking and passing by that if one team found a checkpoint, all the others nearby would converge and take advantage of the find. This played to your team's detriment as well as benefit at times. We found this checkpoint quickly, but then two teams were right there as well. However, we soon got a laugh off this because those two teams blew past us on the paved path in Millenium on the way to the next checkpoint. I called for Joni to stop because they were cruising well beyond where the map showed a CP to be. Sure enough, as I turned around to look back toward the direction we just came I saw the flag which was down in a bit of a gulley and hidden from view if you were traveling west, but fairly easy to spot from the east. And there were no other teams by us so we sneakily took advantage to stamp our card and ride on down the trail to John Ball Park.

John Ball Park had four CPs hidden in and around the wooded area that surrounds the hilltop pavilion and many teams lost quite some time. I had an idea where the most difficult to find flag was as I began to refamiliarize myself with topographical markings that I hadn't used really since 1986 at bootcamp. But as I began to move to where I thought the flag was, another team shouted the find and four or five of us other teams converged to close this CP out on our cards- whew!

Back on the bikes and off to a park north off Bridge and Valley to stamp that CP and also do a challenge. The challenge was a work game where only a few letters were showing with numbers linked to them. Example: A "T" would be above the number "12" so anywhere in the word puzzle that a "12" was present you would place the letter "T." We started to figure out the puzzle in a somewhat conventional manner but within a few minutes I figured out the whole phrase except that I did not know a couple of the specific words. But being a "Tolkien Geek" I knew the main part of the sentence which was:

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road and there is no knowing where you might be swept off to"

This is really a slightly shortened version of the actual quote, but I knew all the words except a couple and we basically finished this challenge in ten minutes. I had to move from Joni's right side to her left because a guy off to my right kept looking at my sheet as we filled in letters- the SNEAK!

In the end we did all but two of the Bike checkpoints, and wanting to get to some of the foot portion of the event we turned in our bike card and corralled the bikes, changing from cycling shoes to hiking footwear and we were off on the next section. The foot portion took us into buildings, up onto the top level of a parking ramp, the fish ladder and the bus station. One challenge was to buy four bus tickets ($6 total if you wanted to do this) and drop them off at Degage Ministry so they could use them to assist people in need with transportation around town. We ended up doing all but three of the foot portion.

We finished the drop off at Degage last, and at that time it was 1245pm with the race stopping at 100pm. If you came in after 100pm your points were penalized. There appears to be some complex formula for determining the placement in the standings with number of checkpoints reached, challenges completed, and time to finish the event. ) Joni and I ended up placing 125th of the 176 co-ed teams that participated.

It was a blast, the event well organized and we would readily do it again!

Online ticketing systems are a complete scam!

2011-06-24T12:39:00.001-07:00

Online ticketing systems are a complete scam!

So I bought two U2 tickets playing in Lansing on Sunday night. $62 tickets with nearly $12 fee for EACH- and on top of that because it is "last minute" in their system they added another $15 'near term" fee.

Now mind you they aren't going to Fedex the tickets to me. They are going to send them to me on EMAIL which I will print my tickets. A $15 email. WOW.

So we thought we might take our son to the concert. I called one of two numbers on the email notification of my original purpose. Talk about a cluster for a process. Apparently there's a ticket broker and there's a ticket Seller- I called the Seller- some company in Toronto and asked first about how to get my two already paid for tickets and also how to buy a third ticket. He told me he would only sell me two- I said I need only one - did he think only couples went to concerts?

He told me to contact the ticket broker whom I called next- I asked about swapping the two I had for three tickets together elsewhere- she said there were no refunds-
I replied I'm not trying to refund them I just want three seats together if possible and it was merely replacing the two I had with two others. No- in her world this was a "return" and I'd need to then buy the other three but since I couldn't do this I'd have to buy three others and be stuck the two- NO REFUNTDS

yeah, I could get a single ticket from her.. at even more expensive fees which would mean that ONE ticket would cost $125. I ended up not doing this.

It's been suggested that (free market) I can avoid ticket fees by getting the tickets right at the window of the venue.

A) this is not always true- if you buy tickets at Devos Place (at least last time I knew) the ticket booth was still run by Ticketmaster and you paid the fee regardless
I saw this same system at other operations as well.
B) I don't consider it a 'freemarket" solution that one must DRIVE to the venue in order to avoid the fee- that may work for a local event, but one is hardly going to drive to another city to avoid the fees-

I am reminded of Pearl Jam trying to help hold the line on fees and ticket prices a decade ago- they were nearly the lone voice in Congressional testimony on the defacto Monopoly power of Ticketmaster at the time-- no other musicians stepped up to help them. Pearl Jam attempted to fight this themselves but had no luck booking venues that were not controlled by Ticketmaster.

To be fair- the company - or rather companies- I just dealt with were not Ticketmaster- but if the gorilla in the room charges high dollars- all they need to do- if even- is charge a touch less- that still isn't really competition

The simple fact is that venues are giving monopolies to the ticketing companies and the venues don't care what the fees are- apparently there are enough of us as suckers (and I certainly was this time) that we will pay the fees and as long as the venue is full and the cost isn't borne by the venue they could care less what fees were piled on.

Frankly this will never change until a few concerts go nearly unsold- it woudl take a near boycott of several concerts.

I haven't been to a concert in years and it will be a long time before I go to another. The whole really complicated and convoluted nature of dealing with two separate companies for the one event and each company pointing me to the other for different aspects of the ticketing process was irritating and frankly disgusting. Their whole system was designed, really. to NOT be of much assistance.

Had I had the option I'd have returned my tickets and just not gone, but they don't really care at this point since they have my money -
I will just try to enjoy the show Sunday and forget how poor the communication, treatment and website treatment was on the way to seeing the concert

Lumberjack 100 Completed!

2011-06-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

My second 100 mile mountainbike race is now in the bag and I consider it a great success.

The Lumberjack-100 is one of the NUE Series of 100 mile races which I plan to complete five this year. I finished my first event at Cohutta in April which I have a summary on my blog here.

I drove up Friday and went directly to the race site to get my registration packet. I also set up my 10x10 for our FoundersAlger team to use as a team tent. Six of us were registered to race.
We also got together for spaghetti dinner later that evening.

I got up at about 515am ahead of my 530 alarm. My hydration and fuel bottles were already prepped the night before so I loaded them into the cooler headed to the race site.

The weather was a bit cool and I began to think I would want my armwarmers and legwarmers. Not so fast as it warmed up quite quickly in an hour or so. The racers all gathered a couple miles down Udell Hills Rd from the BigM parking lot for the rollout start with the pro riders up front.

The pace was pretty good as we rolled through the Manistee National Forest at about 14 mph. The line of riders was long and appeared to be about 40 or so. In fact much of the first lap was a long line of riders. The only opportunities for racers to really go all out or pass was when the course jumped onto the forest road two-tracks. At other times, stronger climbers would power past people in front.

My previous finish in 2009 was on the 4-lap course of 25 miles each. Last year Rick changed the course to 3 laps of 33 miles (approximately). To do so, he guided the race onto the forest service roads which created a faster more open course. This change also added two monster hills on the second half of the lap. These are rideable but take great effort. I rode all hills the first lap, but laps two and three found me opting to walk most of the really tough hills. There were plenty of big ring opportunities on downhills as well as the two-track sections.

I had a mechanical in lap one which would prove to be an omen. My chain jumped between the rear cassette and the wheel spokes. I pulled over quickly and got it back onto the teeth but it did it again as soon as I got on the bike! Arrgh. A whole line of riders I'd spent ten miles passing now streamed by me. I jumped onto the trail as a gap opened and proceeded onward.

As I completed the first lap and pulled into the team tent to replenish supplies I was sitting at n 11mph average! Amazing. Unfortunately that pace would not hold much longer.

I headed out for lap two feeling pretty good and at a decent pace. I slowed a bit on this lap. The aid station was about halfway in the loop at mile 17-18 and I stopped again to refill the Heed and top off my Endurolytes dispenser and pedaled on. In about two miles, a mild disaster hit.

I don't know if one of the numerous sticks littering the course caused this issue or not, but once again, going into a climb, the chain jumped over the top ring on my rear cassette and became lodged between the cassetta and spokes. It was lodged so tight I couldn't get it out by hand and had to open my tool bag to get a small wrench to leverage it out. This took 10 minutes or more. Once freed, I started riding and within twenty feet it did it again. This time it was not so jammed and I got it out by hand and I took the opportunity to examine the derailleur. Either my derailleur hanger is bent or the bottom cog cages are bent but the alignment was really off and when I shifted to the big rear ring the travel was too much, thus allowing the chain to leap off the ring and get jammed. I used a screwdriver and adjusted the stop screw for the derailleur to prevent over-travel. (I also had to spray myself with my small dispenser of OFF since the mosquitos were attacking viciously).

I rode on but the drive train was not 100%. Depending on gear ratio, the chain would be skipping and jumping. I often had to resort to holding down on the rear shift lever to provide some tension to the cable to hold the gear in place that I'd chosen. It was an inconvenience but functional. I rode the remainder of the second lap (10 miles) and the whole third lap in this manner.

Third lap went as most final sections of these event go for me. I hit a small lag in energy for a bit, pedalling on or grinding up hills. But as soon as I had a really great downhill or long stretch of flat trail or winding singletrack I would feel rejuvinated and pour on the extra energy. The last 10 miles were a blast and I moved along at about 14 miles per hour with my burst of energy finishing the race.

Had I not had the tweny minutes of maintenance on the trail I could have likely been under 11 hours. But that's part of the sport. As it was, I finished in 11hrs-11minutes! This was 34 minutes faster than my previous finish time in 2009 of 11:45.

I did get lapped by some pro riders, but not in the paceline like I saw in the past. In past events the pros would come past me in groups of three or four. But this year Christian Tanguey passed me, then ten minutes later another passed, then minutes later another... Apparently the race just blew apart for the pros as Christian rode a rocket. Pro racer Mike Simonson has a good write up on this from a pro's perspective on his blog.

So I did complete two goals- a) to finish and b) to get closer to 11 hours- 11:11 counts for me.

Up next, with a few weeks to prepare, is Wilderness100 followed by Fool'sGold-100 then Shenendoah 100.

April 30 Cohutta 100 Ducktown Tennessee -completed
June 18 Lumberjack 100 Wellston, Michigan -completed
July 30 Wilderness 101 State College, Pennsylvania
Aug 13 Ore-to-Shore Marquette, Michigan
August 20 Fool’s Gold 100 Dahlonega, Georgia
September 4 Shenandoah 100 Harrisonburg, Virginia

Health Care - serfdom vs freedom?

2011-06-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

As the challenges to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) wind through the various courts to likely end up at the right-leaning Supreme Court, a quote comes to mind.

“Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong… Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken,”

Wow- what a socialist big government screed, eh? Not quite. The quote is from Frederick Hayek in his book The Road To Serfdom (Chapter 9).

Yes, Hayek, leading priest of the Austrian School of Economics- the paean to individualism of economic activity- is actually indicating the MEDICAL care is not quite the same as buying cars, peas, or houses. Apparently he does not envision some slippery slope where all activity can now be implemented or regulated by governments simply because society via their government communally decide to pool resources for medical purposes.

Seems this quote is ignored often by the mantra of "free trade" and "freedom."

Up next- Lumberjack 100

2011-06-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

Okay- well I completed Cohutta100 at the end of April- though not quite as fast as I'd liked.
I was four minutes slower on BarryRoubaix than the previous year. Yet through this all I do feel stronger than in 2010 and feel I essentially maintained my biking strength over the winter even if I didn't really increase it. My Tuesday rides with the team on the road go well. Often the B rides break into two groups- a B+ (sort of) and a B-minus and I've stayed in the "B+" pack and rode with the group. I find I can often stay with them on most of the ride, even climbs I used to ALWAYS get dropped on before.

The biggest impediment to getting more ride time has been work requirements the last couple months- two to three day trips frequently since April 17th each week. I have tried to bring my road bike on most of these trips to get a ride in, but when I miss the team rides this does not aid my improvements. It's not the same to ride solo where slacking off can be missed a bit. On the group rides you have to hang with the peloton otherwise you know you got dropped- it's a clear standard.

But we did ride Lumberjack on Memorial Day weekend. We did a short ride while Rick met with the forest service ranger of about 4-5 miles, then did the 33 mile loop with Rick. It's very very do-able.

I have every confidence in finishing. So, my target on June 18 is to try to finish in 11hrs/15 minutes- to take 30 minutes off my 2009 finish time. My secondary goal is to try to get past the second lap (67 miles) before the pros lap me. (In previous years they passed me at mile 52 one year and mile 58 another. I need to ride a bit faster then to meet this secondary goal).

In normal 100 milers (one big 100 mile loop) I start with two Perpetuem bottles and two Heed bottles. I fill the Heed at aid stations and use each Perpetuem for 50 miles worth of fuel.

But for Lumberjack, with three laps, I will make THREE bottles of Perpetuem with 33 miles of fuel and keep the extra bottle in my tent. I will carry two bottles of Heed still, and fill as necessary. Not really much of a departure, but the "carry" will be easier this event.

Stay tuned!

Cohutta-100 completed! Success

2011-05-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

It's now a couple days of recovery and a Founders-Alger-Racing team ride since my first mountain bike race of the season is now history. I call it a success.

I completed the Cohutta-100 in 12hours/2minutes according to my computer. Cohutta-100 is the first race in the National Ultra-Endurance race series of which I've committed to doing five of these 100 mile events for 2011.

The course starts from the Olympic Whitewater Center on a road climb of about 3 miles then dives into the singletrack along the Ocoee River valley and ravines for the next 15 miles. After mile 18, the course hits gravel forest roads for the next 60 miles until finally getting back into the singletrack the last 15 miles. The last mile is again a paved road finish to the chute. The course is shaped geographically like a big OMEGA sign with the tails of each end near the start and finish in Tennessee and the big loop of 60 miles rounding out in Georgia.

I pretty much have my nutrition dialed in. I start with two bottles of Heed and two bottles of Perpetuem (Hammer Nutrition products). Each bottle of Perpetuem (a carb/protein mix) has enough fuel (12 scoops) to fuel me for six hours. As I deplete one bottle during an event I will refill that with either more Heed from the aid stations or simply fill with water. During the event I think I went through about 30 Endurolytes, however. I take one or sometimes two every half hour.

The weather was great. It was 47 degrees in the morning but hit a high of mid-70s by about 200pm. I started with a base layer, arm warmers and leg warmers.

I hit the singletrack and was moving along pretty well. For some reason, during the climb up the road I put a big gap on people behind me and yet had a large gap to the riders in front. Consequently I had no traffic jams in the singletrack for most of my 15 miles there. I did catch a couple people and pass them in technical sections and was also in turn passed by others. But it was very different from 2010 where I was behind a train of riders for miles and we could not effect a pass on the lead (slower technical) rider(s).

I lost one water bottle in the first seven miles. My lower bottle cage is susceptible to the bottle bouncing out and I forgot to zip tie it. But it was a Heed bottle so I was not overly concerned since the temperatures were not hot and I had time to the heat of the day to deplete one of the two Perpetuem bottles and fill with Heed at aid stations. That said, I deliberately filled bottles at each aid station. I also don't utilize drop bags, instead I carry everything with me.

You'd think that the two track fire roads would make for an easier course. You'd be wrong. First, during much of this portion of the event, there was significant and seemingly interminable climbing. Second, the crushed gravel was really loose this year- or at least seemed much more loose than in 2010 and I suspect much of it was recently applied by the forest service and state maintenance and not yet "ridden in" by jeeps, trucks and other ORVs.

I reached mile 30 with an average speed of 10.7mph and was feeling pretty good about my pace. But a quick glance at the attached elevation you can see that the from approximately mile 30 to mile 55 was nearly continuously climbing. During the next couple hours watched my average miles per hour steadily drop until it was hovering at about 8.8 which is what I finished the event averaging. The climbs had to be done nearly always seated. Standing to pedal in many spots simply caused the back wheel to spin on the loose terrain.

Finally reaching checkpoint #3, which is where I dropped last year due to the freezing thunderstorm, I had about 3 miles left to that last big peak after which there's be approximately ten miles of nearly continuous downhill. But these were not easy downhills. While I did reach, at one point, 37mph as a max speed, most of the downhill was on that loose stone which meant I only felt comfortable feathering the brakes and riding usually down the hill at about 24-26mph. Then there was the corners, as the road swept around the side of the mountains. In these turns I brought my speed down to 15-17mph and could still feel the back wheel want to slip a bit. I was using Kenda Kwicker tires, low profile with some cornering tread. Likely had I used my Kenda Karma's I'd been able to eke out a bit more speed on these turns, but not much. (At the finish I saw one young man with his face nearly so bandaged as to have on a mummy costume. I suspect he hit these sharp gravel stones face first on one of these segments- not pretty).

By 300pm I'd rolled the armwarmers down to my wrists and the legwarmers. I didn't feel overheated, at least in my chest and back, though I was wearing a base layer, but the sun was baking my thighs especially on the long slow climbs so rolling them down below the knee allowed some air to my legs.

Within the last 16-18 miles I finally hit the last of the singletrack. I still had energy to gut out the shorter "Michigan"-like climbs, and began flowing through the woods. There was a few technical sections but mostly hard packed singletrack. I caught four other racers in this woods in this last segment. one guy was wretching and when I asked how he was feeling he said dehydrated. I ended up giving him my bottle of water. I still had a 2/3rds full bottle of heed with less than ten miles to go and so didn't feel I'd be shorting myself into the finish.

The singletrack comes out onto pavement near the control unit for the dam and I rode across the walking bridge that spans the rocky Ocoee and turned right onto the pathway which led about a mile to the finish line and was a flat finish.

http://www.usmtb100.com/

http://newleafadventures.com/Cohutta.html

http://www.hammernutrition.com/

http://www.trailheadbicycle.com/storage/COHUTTA_BIGFROGRESULTS_FINAL5.xlsx

Ready for Cohutta-100

2011-04-29T18:42:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks have been brutal. I've been going non-stop since April 15th.

April 15th was Friday- then night Yankee registration closed. I then had more Yankee time trial work on Saturday and the race on Sunday for which I got up at 6am. An urgent work trip caused me to have to drive 7+ hours to Kentucky right after Yankee, arriving there at 130am. Three long days and a drive back to Michigan on Wednesday.

Then, a few days off on that next weekend then another Sunday night drive back to Kentucky and another three long days with a drive back Wednesday night home... whew!

One day in the office at work on Thursday (yesterday) and I got home, packed my bike gear and after dinner with my family drove south to Tennessee for the Cohutta100 race.

I got here at about 6am, got my race kit from the promoter and went to the hotel. Dinner at a nearby restaurant was fine and I am all set. The bike is dialed in: tire pressure, bike computer, front and rear shocks, etc.

I stopped at the local grocery stores to get a bite for breakfast and mixed my starting race fuel. The new Hammer Blender Bottle worked GREAT, by the way, as I found mixing my Perpetuem.

Race starts 7am

Decline in America...neoliberalism at fault

2011-03-31T16:29:00.000-07:00

I've been arguing for a long time now that the trends since 1980 have NOT benefitted American citizens. In a nutshell, my argument is that from 1946 to the early 1970's our nation had the longest run of economic expansion which included an ever larger middle class. This occurred all while we had fairly high corporate taxes, fairly high progressive income taxes as well as a fairly generous welfare state. But since the mid-70s and most definitely since 1980 a new economic paradigm arose. There's no doubt that the doubledigit inflation of the 70's sparked a review of the economic policies this nation operated under. But, ultimately, the cure seems worse than the disease. Les Leopold on Alternet makes pretty much the same argument and effectively produces some data to show it. "From 1947 to 1975, our output per worker hour grew by more than 75 percent. At the very same time, the real wages of the average worker rose by nearly the same amount..... Since 1975, productivity increased by nearly 180 percent – meaning that we almost tripled what we could produce per hour of labor. But unlike the post-WWII period, it wasn’t shared. Here are the brutal facts: The average real wage of the non-supervisory production workers (which comprise 82.4 percent of total private non-farm employees) actually declined by 9 percent between 1975 and 2010. Meanwhile the top 1 percent saw their share of national income rise from 8 percent in 1975 to 23.5 percent in 2005. More amazing still, the wage gap between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker jumped from $45 to $1 in 1970 to an unbelievable $1,723 to $1 in 2006 ........" Gotta hand it to neo-liberalism.... Read more HERE

BarryRoubaix -First Race completed

2011-03-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

My first bike race of the season is now history. I completed the 34 mile Barry-Roubaix Killer Gravel Road Race on my Cannondale CrossBike. I finished with a time of 2Hrs19min for a place of 61st out of 94 men 50-plus. Overall I was 246th out of 441 racers. It was a cold cold morning as the waves of racers numbering over 1100 participants began rolling out. The entire course was hard packed and fast. Even Sager Road, which last year was sandy and slow for many racers, was so packed that there were few soft spots. About one hour in I could taste ice forming in my Heed bottle it was that cold. But neither of my two bottles froze. I rode with four layers: a base layer, jersey, team insulated jacket and team windbreaker. My toes still got cold even though I had the neoprine boots over my road shoes. I felt I was stronger on the climbs this year and rode up most of them fairly steadily, but somewhere along the way I lost some time since I didn't beat my last year's time of 2:15. In the end I must not have rode quite as hard as I could but the air was so cold I think I was overly concious of the cold air on my lungs. Thirteen other FoundersAlger racers also competed for a great team turnout- and some fast finishes.

Epic bike computer issues!

2011-03-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

Epic bike computer issues!

Okay.. so I decided this year to NOT get a GPS as they would be unreliable for mileage in the type of events I do. The decision was to go back to Topeak for a bike computer since I really liked my Topeak Panoram I used in past years. But- I have FOUR bikes and didn't want to get four computers. But if I got added mounting kits, I could move my computer from bike to bike. Given that two bikes are 26" wheel mountainbikes and the other two are a road bike and a cyclocross bike, I could effectively use "bike one" and "bike two" across the two platforms.

However, I could not find the additional mounting kits for the computer at any retail outlet. So about Feb 21st I called Topeak directly and ordered three additional mounting kits and the wireless computer.

Two weeks later the gear had not arrived. So I called Topeak and the man I spoke to said he saw no record of my order but would check into it. The next day, I called again and he said- the order will arrive in two days.

So I was excited when the package arrived at the house.. yes, in it were my three mounting kits and... the TPC-16 computer... NO, NOT the right one!

The TPC-16 is the wired computer V10c.

(Note,, I wanted the V12 wide screen but was told all the wide versions were obsolete, though they are still on the Topeak website).

So in the V10-family there are three versions
V10 - wireless speed/mileage
V10c- wired speed/mileage with wireless cadence
V10x- wired computer

I wanted the V10- wireless speed/mileage which is TPC-15 model.

I called Topeak and explained they sent the wrong item and I paid the $5.60 to ship the wrong one to Massachusetts.
Five days later, the new one arrived. I anxiously opened the package and found I had received..... wait for it.... the exact same TPC-16 wired computer I just SENT BACK!

I called again... this time they are Fedexing the -hopefully- correct one to me which should arrive tomorrow.

I want to get it on the cross bike first for Barry Roubaix, then begin installing the other mounting kits to the road bike and mountainbikes.

stay tuned

Austrian Economics ignore real world of externalities

2011-03-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

I follow the Mises Institute on my Twitter account. Rest assured it is not because I want to display any affection for their misguided philosophies. Simply put, I like to see what the "opposition" is saying, the better to oppose their arguments and the application of their philosophy to public policy.

And make NO mistake! The Mises Institute, the web-mouthpiece for that strain of libertarian Austrian school of economics, is indeed a PHILOSOPHY.

A key position of the adherents to the Austrian School is that their views are "simply economics" and not "political." This is disingenuous balderdash. First, one cannot separate economics from political philosophy. Economics may have some mathematical aspects to it, but deep down, economics is a HUMAN activity and the application of economics to real life is done so VIA a philosophical outlook, a political position.

One of my primary complaints about the libertarian/Austrian view is their application to "externalities." This view has infused much of the so-called free market Republican Party approach to economics as well. So it was quite interesting to see the Tweet from Mises today which presented an article 'Accounting for the Unaccountable: The Case of Externalities Predrag Rajsic ( http://mises.org/daily/5085 ) and The "Externalities" Argument by Stephen P. Halbrook ( http://mises.org/daily/1360 ).

Simply put, in economics, an externality is a cost or benefit not reflected in the price of a good or service.

Rajsic expends a lot of text giving some ludicrous explanation of why we cannot or should not attempt regulate for externalities

"I will use the basic truth that human knowledge of the relationship between one's own actions and other people's well-being is always incomplete to show that there is actually no limit to expanding the list of actions that create unaccounted external effects in societies" (P Rajsic).

He then goes on to blather about how if you get up at 600am instead of 530 and you miss a traffic light, etc., etc. In effect, a veritable "butterfly effect." This is pure misdirection at its best.

From Rajsic's point of view, presented by way of his butterfly-effect analogies, since human beings have imperfect knowledge and are not omniscient, there's no way we can even begin to plan for externalities and any possible costs associated with it. But since he uses completely non-economic analogies to illustrate this position I too can do the same.

Two good examples are military operations and manufacturing. We grant that human beings are not perfect and not omniscient. However, any credible society would rightly fault a general who did not do his utmost to plan his battle operations by taking into account all feasible enemy operations and tactics as best as possible. What if such a general said "heck, we can't possibly know what the enemy might do because we are imperfect human beings, so let's just attack and charge blindly since the "market" of the battle field will give us the right result"? We'd fire that general and probably courtmartial him! In manufacturing, you try to figure out all the ways a part can be produced incorrectly via a PFMEA (Process Failure mode and Effects Analysis). Defects still occur, but we don't disregard the initial activity of creating a PFMEA simply because we can't know every possible failure that might ever occur because human beings are involved in producting the parts.

Additionally, Rajsic complains that because we can't know all, if we intercede (via government regulations), we can't know all the possible side effects of our intercession. This is certainly true. But once again, I refer to the above paragraph. A general might commit an action base on the knowledge he had which resulted a battlefield victory but also resulted in civilian deaths. While our military might strive to limit such collataral damage, certainly in some cases, depending on the collateral costs, we could say it was an unfortunate event but in the end necessary to achieve the resulting victory. (This doesn't of course necessarily sooth the grief of the survivors of the collateral damage).

But let's address a real-world externality- the effect of CAFOs (concentrated Animal Feed Operations). These can be cattle, hog or chicken operations, but what is crucial about this is that these operations have been documented often to create damage to their surrounding environment by manure run-off and pollution. You buy your ground beef at 98cents per pound. If many of the CAFOs were required to contain manure and dispose or treat it, this does indeed add cost to their operation, thus that cost is passed on to you as a consumer of the ground beef. But at 98cents per pound, you do not see the COST of the manure pollution- THIS is the externality here. The cost in this case is borne by the neighbors of the CAFO in polluted lakes and rivers, contaminated ground water and perhaps smelly air.

Clearly we have a problem here, right? Pollution, odors. But how to assess or evaluate them?

According to Haddock, this can be solved and resolved via property rights. "In the property rights solution to correcting externalities, one is made to pay only for physical harm done to another's property."

In short, ONLY an individual property owner can lay claim for damages against another owner. Any "common" lands (or lakes, rivers, streams) can't really be used by government to lay claim (or enact regulations) because imperfect human beings cannot "... make an interpersonal comparison of utility."

As with much Mises type thinking, this position is simply kicking the can down the street. If a group of people (legislators, regulators, etc), are not capable of assessing a utility value, then how would a lawsuit be settled if the issue were simply between two neighboring landowners? Each of these human beings would be assessing his damage or utility and a jury (or judge) would also have to evaluate the damages or utility as well. In short, we as people are constantly evaluating utility and damage (or benefit) of a multitude of actions and processes daily. It's part of how we function as people- and as a society. We do this regularly even when an actual value can't be ascertained- such as voltage (his example) or dollars. Notice the author uses are really objective concept (voltage) rather than what is really subjective (value, i.e. dollar impact, perhaps).

In fact, both authors claim to be assessing ECONOMICs but in each case, their arguments descend to non-economic examples and analogies. In no case do they actually use an economic example to buttress their argument.

Ultimately, Mises advocates completely MISS the mark. Their argument as it appears in the two linked essays amounts to one huge contradiction.

Because humans are imperfect we cannot know everything, Thus we cannot know all facets of an externality, Thus we cannot apply value or utility to an externality.....

Contradicting.....

.....Externalities can only be settled by two property owners who would assign value to their respective positions.

But how can they assign value when humans are imperfect and thus can't apply value to an externality?

So even the property rights aspect fails under Mises. Additionally, it ignores the real world (as much of Austrian Economics does), if one posits a single landowner or small group of property owners against a multinational corporation. Under my CAFO example, these owners could sue for damages to a lake they all own property around, but if their assets to sue are minor compared to the vast resources of an Archer-Daniels-Midland, victory would be unlikely and the property owners now suffer from polluted water and depreciated land. (And don't even consider the related issue of conglomerate-friendly legislators passing so-called tort reform which might limit costs to the corporation from a lawsuit).

Finally, since only individual property owners can "suffer damages," commons are not protected and cannot be protected because we cannot assess value to their utility. Human beings, being imperfect, simply are not, according to Mises, capable of assessing that they would rather have CLEAN water then polluted water- or CLEAN air rather than smog.

Haddock's final sentence is revealingly dismissive and ignorant.

"But it is precisely because externalities cannot be revealed through human action that they are irrelevant to the study of economics. As such, the idea of externalities cannot result in any additional knowledge about economics."

Externalities can and DO become revealed through human interaction. We "reveal" these daily in our lives, much less on a societal level. We assign value and utility, even if not directly monetarily, to many different facets of human society.

Mises thinkers simultaneously want both sides of the argument- "we can't know, therefore don't act" and "we can know, but only individually." In the process of reconciling this contradiction, they ignore the very nature of human societies and how we interact and behave. In other words, Austrian School ignores reality in a drive to advocate an idealistic, yet inapplicable, economic philosophy to human society.

For more on how Austrian economics views externalities- see this article "Public Goods and Externalities: The Case of Roads" by Walter Block
( https://mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_1.pdf )- in effect- All roads should be private and government should not be building roads- interesting article which also lays out absurd comparisons in order to make a point.

The Founders wanted gridlock? uh-NO...

2011-02-15T18:37:00.000-08:00

The Founders wanted gridlock? uh-NO...

One of the recent refrains is that Americans want gridlocked governemnt.

Actually, this is a recurring refrain whenever an election results in divided government such as congress under one party and presidency under another, or on house of Congress under one party and the other house controlled by the opposing party. We hear it at least every few years after a often contentious election.

Pundits (more on these folks later) often say not only that Americans want gridlock but the Founders BUILT gridlock into the American system of government. Really?

If one actually REVIEWS history one would find this assertion completely FALSE.

Granted, the Founders did create a system of CHECKS & BALANCES- remember that phrase? They did not intend to build GRIDLOCK into the system- they simply didn't want one branch gain too much power over the other branches as they experienced with a King who could run roughshod over his legislature. (Sidebar here- it must be noted that England in 1776 was a constitutional monarchy. While it makes great propoganda to cite the mean evil King George as a tyrant but remember "no taxation without representation"? Clearly Americans KNEW their home country had a representative government- it was just that Americans weren't able to participate. This LINK shows the many Acts of Parliament that were passed by BOTH houses of Parliament and signed by the King. So we weren't being oppressed by a tyrant- we were being oppressed by, essentially, a DEMOCRACY!).

Anyway back to the issue- IN the construction of the Constitution, America Founders did NOT initiate a system of GRIDLOCK- they simply initiated a system of Checks & Balances.

So why has this concept morphed into the assertions Americans want Gridlock? Actually, Americans do NOT want gridlock. Not now, and not in 1789.

The Constitution- so beloved by Tea Party and rightwingers- apparently more than we liberals love it (at least they would have you BELIEVE that)- was created not for GRIDLOCK but to IMPROVE the effectiveness of government. Yes, you read that correctly. The Constitution was implemented because the current form of government under the Articles of Confederation was completely INEFFECTIVE.

So Hamilton and and Madison, among others, began agitating for a stronger- more effective- central government. (George Washington was a major mover behind the attempt to replace the Articles government because his veterans were not getting paid. Britain left but the colonies were not one nation, but rather 13 principalities governed by a confederation that was ineffective.).

Americans don't want gridlock- they want effective (and yes probably efficient) government, but not GRIDLOCK. People that rejoice in gridlock are typically people that
a) don't like government and would rather have less of it- i.e. they don't really want our CONSTITUTIONAL government- the really want an Articles of Confederation govt.
-or-
b) don't like the particular party in control - in this case the complainers mostly don't like Obama. Before that it was Clinton.

For those of the (b) variety, we don't usually see them complain about government ineptness when government is run by their choice of party

Latest rightwing scare for Health reform bill- doctor shortage

2011-02-14T14:39:00.001-08:00

From the WSJ: Experts warn there won't be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under the law...... The greatest demand will be for primary-care physicians. These general practitioners, internists, family physicians and pediatricians will have a larger role under the new law, coordinating care for each patient

The DUMBEST thing is that the rightwing is making an issue of this.

So what? we need more doctors- big deal- so let's get 'em trained. Getting people more access to doctors means we need more doctors... simple math- not brain surgery!!

But apparently, in rightwingworld, it's merely enough to cite an ISSUE (doctor shortage under new law) to imply that the LAW itself is the problem. (Hint- lack of insurance coverage was the problem).

People currently NOT insured now begin to go to the doctor- isn't that what we want? People to get treated , hopefully preventatively or early in an illness or disease? We now can get people that don't have insurance through their jobs into the same insurance based system many of us, you and I, take for granted having insurance by way of our jobs

As of 2005, 45.8 million uninsured individuals in 2004, or 15.7% of the civilian non-institutionalized population lacked insurance coverage. The vast majority of the uninsured are working individuals or the children of those who work.(8) In 2004, almost half of the uninsured (46%) worked full time, and another 28% worked part time or for part of the year. Many of the uninsured worked for firms that did not offer coverage, or if their employers offered coverage, they either were not eligible or did not accept the offer.

YES Thanks to Obamacare for doing the job it was supposed to do. The law insures more people thus giving them an incentive to go to the doctor that they currently don't have because they lack insurance-

HELLO- yes- the law is a SUCCESS !!

You can all stop your complaining now.

Reagan Fraud and Republicans are 1800s Whigs

2011-02-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

From the Mises Institute, interestingly enoug. Excerpted. Read full article at the link.

Reagan has been a master at engineering an enormous gap between his rhetoric and the reality of his actions..His soft-soapy voice appears perfectly sincere as he spouts the rhetoric which he violates day-by-day (Rothbard)

the conservative party, the GOP, remains the more devoted to mercantilism, welfare statism, and war of the two major parties. Throughout the '70s and '80s, Republicans depicted the philosophy of their Democratic opponents as "tax and spend, tax and spend." But in fact, it is the Republicans, the conservatives, who are the biggest taxers and the biggest spenders of all.

The years since George Herbert Walker Bush have seen nothing that might make one wish to revise or soften this statement — for George H.W. Bush's son, former Texas governor George W. Bush, who won the presidency in a hotly contested election in the year 2000 and was reelected in 2004, had spent more federal money by the end of his third year in office than Bill Clinton, the "tax-and-spend" Democrat who preceded him, managed to spend in a full eight years.

Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz noted late in 2005 that "many of contemporary conservatism's central ideas and slogans renovate old Whig appeals," and that "the [George W.] Bush administration's political and ideological recipe was invented … by a nearly forgotten American institution: the Whig Party of the 1830's and 40's."

How, Rothbard wondered, could a libertarian consider himself a man or woman of the Right, when "everywhere on the Right the 'open society' is condemned, and a coerced morality affirmed. God is supposed to be put back into government. Free speech is treated with suspicion and distrust, and the military are hailed as the greatest patriots, and conscription strongly upheld. Western imperialism is trumpeted as the proper way to deal with backward peoples.

http://mises.org/daily/5009/The-Reagan-Fraud-and-After?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d4c1c3caee114a4%2C0

Federalists Vs Whigs writ modern

2011-02-03T15:34:00.001-08:00

A recent internet exchange has prompted me to consider what the so-called TeaParty/Republican/libertarian crys of "THE CONSTITUTION" really mean. I've concluded that most of them do not actually want to live under our Constitution. What they want, really, is an "articles of confederation" federal govt with the veneer of a Constitution.

Many of the "rightwing" (which I will use for shorthand for the above noted views) cry limited govt, strict adherence to the Constitution, etc. They often cite Jefferson with regards to these claims of "original interpretation." They also claim that if you want to know the intent of the founders one should read the Federalist Papers. Oh the irony.

The irony was that Jefferson was an agrarian, Articles of Confederation supporter that with all his brilliance could only foresee an America dominated by small landowners. He wanted a weak central government and only grudgingly accepted the new Constitution.

Jefferson's views continued with the presidency of Andrew Jackson who was of the same political party that Jefferson founded. These Democratic-Republicans were in opposition to the Federalists of the day. The Federalists favored a strong central government. Interestingly, one of the key Federalists was Alexander Hamilton, widely regarded as the author of the majority of the Federalist Papers. Hamilton spent much of his time as a public servant in effort to create a stronger central government.

Wasn't Hamilton ALSO a Founding Father? Jefferson was the author of the poetic document that was the Declaration of Independence. But writing a declaration is not the same as actually and practically implementing a government.

Jefferson, though a strict constructionist, also ignored this principle in the Lousiana Purchase. Is there ANYTHING in the constitution allowing the president to purchase more land? NO. Yet no one today would argue it was a mistake. Had we stuck to strict construction, arguably we would NOT be the nation we are now

Economics- an opposing view

2011-02-02T05:13:00.000-08:00

I am going to put a plug in for my friend Christian's blog

http://www.defuncteconomist.com/
Christian is an econ prof at GVSU and a smart guy, though we disagree greatly on economics philosophy

Expand your mind!

The Future of purchases...mobile money

2011-01-29T12:03:00.001-08:00

The transition in money...

I just don't like carrying all those various rewards cards around for coffee shops, auto parts suppliers, grocery stores, etc etc etc. It involves a complete second wallet. It's useful to get these cards since you do get some perks, free stuff, etc., eventually from being a loyal customer.

Anyways, Starbucks has created a mobile version- an app you download that links to your loadable Starbucks card. The app allows you to reload money the card from your phone. More importantly, you open it when you make a purchase and click the "PAY" button and a barcode pops up- the Starbucks cashier scans this barcode and the money is pulled from your Starbuck's card account. You can even later check the balance of your loaded card from your phone.

I tried downloading the app from the Starbucks website, but could not get it to work. A week of email exchanges with the customer service department was unhelpful. They had me go to a weblink and send them the results which would indicate which web browser I was working with. Their results, supposedly, said I was using Mozilla. NOT TRUE. I just updated my BB software to 6.0 and it does NOT include Mozilla- I only have the Blackberry browser. As a test, I used the same "what version" site on my laptop which I know only has Microsoft Internet Explorer and it also came back saying I had Mozilla. Clearly something is wrong with this tool used by Starbucks.

After a Google search I came across a thread in the CrackberryForums discussing just this issue with numerous people complaining the new app would not load to their phones. One respondent put up a link to a previous version of this Starbucks app as the solution to this problem. I downloaded and tried it today at my local Starbucks here in Grand Rapids and it worked.

Here's the app link officially on Starbuck's website:
http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-apps/starbucks-card-mobile-bb

Here's the app that worked for me:
mobilecarddownload.starbucks.com/downloads/bb/4.5/release/MobileCard.jad

And on to the future....

People in Japan have been able to make purchases using "electronic wallets" from their phones for a decade. I can now see various stores and outlets creating such applications, but really- are people going to want to load numerous apps on their phone for various stores but then also have to load money on to each of these applications, spreading your cash around letting various retailers hold your money? I doubt it.

So what is the solution?

Making your phone a "mobile wallet" poses one clear risk that I think will doom it to American consumers- security. Should your phone or the app get hacked your whole financial system is at risk. What might be more acceptable is a Paypal like system firewalled from one's actual accounts. I can envision a "Visa Mobile" or "Mastercard Mobile" in which you can load funds to your mobile app/card, maybe even offered by your bank rather like a pre-paid Visa or some such. When making purchases, retailers would scan the barcode on your phone to get paid.

I would like such an application especially when biking. I don't usually carry my wallet, though sometimes I take a credit card or some cash. But I almost always carry my phone. Under such a mobile payment system I could forgo the cash or card when biking.

Great speech on House floor by Rep Anthony Wiener

2011-01-19T17:12:00.000-08:00

Quote:

United States Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is quickly becoming known as one of the most forceful speakers in any debate on the floor fo the House of Representatives. Today Rep. Weiner took to the floor to oppose the Republicans effort to repeal the health care reform package passed last year. The most humorous part of Weiner's remarks came at the beginning when he suggested a drinking game to go along with the game (video to the left),

"First they start by making stuff up. You have to wonder if any of them actually read the bill. 130,000 new agencies, not true. New IRS agents, not true. Death panel, not true. Members arent' covered, not true. No tort reform in it, not true. You know I want to just advise people watching at home playing that now popular drinking game of you take a shot whenever the Republicans say something that is not true, please assign a designated driver this is going to be a long afternoon."

Weiner went on to say that the Republican "replacement plan", which still has yet written, sounds an awful lot like the health care reform bill they are repealing. The GOP has proposed closing the "donut hole" in Medicare Part D, covering pre-existing conditions, and giving incentives for businesses to provide insurance. As Weiner points out those provisions are currently included in the health care reform law.

http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-national/rep-weiner-d-ny-suggest-drinking-game-for-gop-lies-video

Idiot Savant Supreme Court Justice

2011-01-04T19:39:00.000-08:00

Idiot Savant Supreme Court Justice

Reactionary Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, during an exchange in the January 2011 issue of California Lawyer Magazine he discussed the 14th amendment with regards to sex discrimination in the light of his alleged "originalist" view of the constitution.

[Question:]In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?

[Scalia:] Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. ... But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society.

Hm... So, per Scalia, we are completely bonded to the interpretations of the Constitution ONLY if those interpretations are effectively reflective of the mores and knowledge (and perhaps technology) available to the writers of the document?

WOW... Following Scalia's logic, you have a "right to bear arms" under the second amendment, but we cannot let the Constitution reflect the wishes of current society, so you can own a gun, but ONLY if it is a muzzle-loaded flint-lock. After all, the writers of the 2nd Amendment had no concept of semi-automatic or full-automatic weaponry, or bullets or magazines.

This guy is one of the two worst justices on the current bench.

2010 ends with a whimper

2011-01-01T08:34:00.001-08:00

So much for ringing in the new year! A cold moved in on me early afternoon and by evening I thought my head would explode. We stayed up to watch the ball drop on TV and went to bed shortly after midnight. Fitful sleep as I tried to keep my head elevated.

On the plus side of the day- I upgraded my Blackberry operating system last night. The improvement means I can now access my blog and post entries on my phone which the older BB web-browser would not function for some reason. I also have full functionality with my banking too. The older browser did not facilitate the "dot-asp" pages used on my bank's website.

I will now be able to post race updates from the road rather than wait til I have computer access.

Having a cold has squelched my weekend riding plans.

Happy New Year- welcome to 2011

Assesssment of 2010 Biking season

2010-12-27T07:11:00.000-08:00

Assesssment of 2010 Biking season

I spent some time the last two days also updating my website. I reFreshed it to make the appearance more like that of this blog as well as to update the biking pages.

Goals for 2010
1. increase VO2Max- Results- in 2011 I need to re-take the VO2max test
2. complete four 100 milers- Results- - completed two, DNFd two due to weather
3. beat my Barry-Roubaix time- finish in less than 2 hours- Results- - beat my last year's time by 15 minutes

Race Results
27-Mar-10 Barry-Roubaix- 21st of 26 racers in Expert 50+, took 15 minutes off 2009 time
24-Apr-10 Cohutta 100- DNFd at 50 mile mark due to weather
05-Jun-10 Mohican 100- DNFd at 37 mile mark due to weather
10-Jul-10 Boyne Challenge Marathon XC Race 5th Place
31-Jul-10 Wilderness 100- 12:04:45
05-Sep-10 Shenendoah 100- 12:17:44, overall 400 of 650 racers, Master's Men 19 of 36
26-Sep-10 Pando Challenge MTB Race 8th place
22-Oct-10 Mad Anthony Cyclocross-27th of the 81 racers in C-category, 43rd of 65 racers in B category
04-Nov-10 Iceman- 2hrs-31minutes: 49th of 123 men in my age group, 2317 men racing. I was 1209th finishing ahead of 1708 racers
Sept-Nov Kisscross- participated and did fairly well in all but one event

First, as to goals, I won't know about my VO2Max until I take another assessment at Health Motions. I plan to do this later in the . I suspect I did not move the needle on this one much as I did not do the interval training over the 2010 year that is needed to affect this aspect. I didn't beat the two hour mark at BarryRoubaix, but the course was longer. I did beat that course by a 15minute difference over last year's average MPH factor.

I did not complete four of the 100 mile races, though I am sure I can physically do it. Cohutta was derailed due to the risk of hypothermia and Mohican... well, let's just say Mohican is NOT a rideable trail in rainy weather. I already registered for Cohutta for 2011 and will plan on taking a rainjacket on the race next April which WILL result in a finish. Boyne was HARD and I was last place and it took my 2-1/2 hours to do the five laps. That is purely a CLIMBING deficit on my part for that event.

After I finished Wilderness, I vowed to NOT race it again, but am looking to do it again partly due to logistics (it is closer than some other events) but because I think I can do the course faster now that I am familiar with it. Same with Shenendoah, my goal next year is to complete both in less than twelve hours.

Cross season started late September and I was able to do all but one of the kisscross races (missed my favorite at Caledonia due to work travel). I did fairly well in this series. I also had a blast at Mad Anthony and will return to that event next year too.

Finally, my first Iceman! I missed my target of 2hrs 20minutes by 11 minutes finishing at 2:31. I had to constantly remind myself to ride harder. I am too used to pacing myself for the 100-milers and needed to stay on top of a thought process to just ride harder for this shorter course at 29 miles.

I've somewhat backed off training and riding in December in part due to the weather as well as the holiday schedules and plans. But I deliberately dialed it back as well since I think we all, as competitors regardless of sport, need a bit of occasional downtime. I will ramp up and hit the training harder after the new year begins. I plan to hit intervals hard. We are also considering joining the local Y which would provide some weight training as well.

All in all, my biking vastly improved from previous seasons. I am faster, though still pretty much one of the slowest on the team (LOL- I get faster and they all get faster). But for the shorter races such as Kisscross, MadAnthony and such, I can discern a distinct improvement in my speed or pace or placement in the pack.

I also tentatively plan to buy a road bike in 2011. I have been using my cyclocross bike with road tires, but really like the CAAD-10 Cannondale road bikes. I have done enough road riding and training the past two seasons that it is cost justified to get a pure road bike. It will save the wear-n-tear on my cross bike as well, which now needs new chain and cassette before the next BarryRoubaix

See you in January 2011 !! HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR CELEBRATION.

2011 Mountain Bike Race Schedule (Tentative)

2010-12-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

I've plotted out my tentative schedule for 2011.

03/26/11 Barry Roubaix
04/30/11 Cohutta 100
06/18/11 Lumberjack 100
07/09/11 Boyne
07/30/10 Wilderness 100 (tentative pending decision to do Ithaca)
07/31/11 Ithaca 6/12 Hour
08/13/11 Ore2Shore
08/20/10 Fool's Gold 100
09/04/11 Shenendoah 100
09/25/11 Pando
11/05/11 Iceman

The decision to do Wilderness depends on whether Joni and Brenden decide to do Ithaca. For a couple seasons (though not this past year 2010) we went as a family and all three of us did the 6 or 12 hour version of the race. If they opt to do it this year I probably won't go to Wilderness. However, if they opt to not do Ithaca, I will put Wilderness on my schedule and try to finish FIVE of the 100-milers in one season. The decision I also need to make is whether to do the 48 mile Hard Rock at Ore2Shore or the shorter 28 mile Soft Rock one week prior to a travel to Georgia for the Fool's Gold-100.

Decisions, decisions.

GoogleSync problem- thousands of duplications

2010-12-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

GoogleSync problem- thousands of duplications

So, I upgraded my blackberry a couple months ago. What I should have done is the normal back-up and sync from the old one to the new one and I'd have had no issues like that I am about to describe. Instead, opted to use the Google Sync to sync my calendar and contacts to my new phone- this created big issues, though not at first.

There are two issues with Google Sync - at least in my experience. One is with the syncing CONTACTS and the other with syncing CALENDAR. I separate them because they seem to have different root causes though I am not sure what those causes are.

Contacts.
I synced the contacts and found many many many many- okay, MANY duplications. I mean literally a hundred entries for many items. 6000-plus contacts were loaded to my phone. Not only were there hundreds of duplications, but far too many entries were also completely incorrect. Example, say I have friend Joe Smith. His entry now merged with another and he is now Joe Smith with a phone number entry for Consumers Energy and their address.
I spent much of the last month trying to correct these one by one because I had some new entries that would be lost if I nuked my contact list- but in the end, yesterday, I did just that. I used a Blackberry Desktop "back up and clear" mechanism and cleaned out my address book. I then loaded what was mostly my old address book from my computer into the phone. There will be a few recent entries that are now missing and a boatload of work contacts now in my personal phone. But this was the most efficient way to clear thousands of duplicate and erroneous address entries.

Calendar
This was the most curious. Long before I ever GooglySync'd my contacts, last May, I had downloaded GoogleSync to my other phone and used it to sync my Blackberry calendar to my Google Calendar- it worked great. But for some reason, after I got my new phone, the calendar sync duplicated numerous calendar entries on both the phone and the google calendar. Example- I had an entry in there for team rides every Tuesday night. For some reason, however, every Tuesday at 600pm, I had team ride entry over 100 times! Note- this happened whether or not the calendar entry was recurring. I had reminders for a friends birthday date- it was duplicated over one hundred times.

A couple of my favorite TV shows (Bones and Fringe) are on Thursday so I blocked out an 8pm-10pm calendar entry on Thursdays and when I last looked, it was duplicated on Thursday 64 times. So when the alarm would go off to remind me of these appointments, it would be buzzing for five minutes alerting me to all 64 to 100 or more "appointments" I had at that exact time.

So ODD!

I ended up blowing away my calendar in the same manner as I did my address book to clean it up. I also disabled the wireless sync. I also deleted ALL entries on my google calendar because the online version suffered all the same duplications as the phone.

I put one appointment on the google calendar and will now enable wireless sync and see if that issue happens again.

If anyone has thoughts on this, I am all ears.

Insurance reform from Republican...sort of-

2010-11-27T07:04:00.000-08:00

Michigan Lt-Gov-elect William Calley this week issued a plea to pass "insurance reform" which would, essentially, mandate that insurance companies take on autism patients. The move is necessary, he says, to save Michigan taxpayers millions of dollars that the state now pay. Mandating insurance companies to take on these pre-existing conditions would only raise premiums for all insured people by less than one percent, according to Calley.

Irony.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Calley's proposal doesn't eliminate the cost from taxpayers- it simply shifts it from direct tax dollars covering the costs (which can reach $50,000 yearly for some families) to the taxpayers via their insurance premiums

Calley has a child with autism so the issue is near and dear to him personally.

Don't think I disagree with him. In fact, the principle of the issue is what is at the ROOT of this blog-post.

The fact that an "insurance mandate" will only raise premiums a minuscule amount by spreading the cost across a wider payment pool (or shift it in the "ledger"- which is the actual effect).

Now compare this to the issue of the new Health Care mandate by the federal govt. This mandates all people get insurance, mandates that pre-existing conditions get covered. Now, very likely a high percentage of pre-existing conditions will necessarily entail outlays by insurance companies (much like Calley's autism initiative). But the federal bill, by covering essentially everyone and spreading the costs- doesn't necessarily entail guaranteed money outlays by insurance companies for every person covered. So under the federal law, the pre-existing conditions feature is diluted by the wider pool created.

Calley's initiative does NOT get diluted by a wider pool, merely shifts the cost from the taxpayer to the....... taxpayer (via premiums).

Don't get me wrong, I support the INTENT of his initiative, but I think the better option would be for Calley and Rick Snyder to:
A) pull Michigan out of any lawsuit against the federal law we may be part of,
B) lobby the federal govt to include autism coverage in the federal insurance mandate

Michigan DNR Park&Rec Passport

2010-11-26T12:29:00.001-08:00

My wife and I both have December birthdays thus registration dates on our cars- when I renewed registration for 2011 I ordered up both with the new DNRE Park&Rec Recreational Passport for the $10 fee each. My son's car didn't have it for his June renewal so I put both up below for comparison.

Really? that tiny letter "P" ? UH?! Some members of the political establishment wanted the opt-in option- but seriously- in order to police entry to the parks are we really going to have our DNR staff peering at every plate with a magnifying glass- given the numerous ways in which plates are mounted on the variety of vehicles- in order to discern this small letter?

So far, per the DNR Parks director, no details of the percent of automobile registrants has been provided by SecState. Note- the ability of the DNR to meet budget funding requires a certain percentage of participation at the $10 rate vs the previous window sticker fee of $25.

I will be curious to see how participation levels fare- as well as how the DNR is really going to ensure that the people that paid for the stickers are the ones using the park- vs the "no P" users...

Iceman report- fun event!

2010-11-07T07:37:00.000-08:00

This was my first ever Iceman race, despite racing mountainbikes for eleven years. Iceman is accurately described as a road race on dirt. In past years, I didn't have the overall fitness and pace to be able to do such an event with a modicum of success. My skills previously were mostly in the technical mountainbike sections. But my steady road training the past couple seasons has really contributed to my ability to maintain a steady pace on open sections.

We drove up Friday night and by 7-8pm were suffering very slick roads from just south of Cadillac until we got near Kalkaska, where it completely cleared up. Saturday saw mostly clear skies and a very cold crisp start. The course was reported to be very slick and hard-frozen for the earlier waves of riders who started between 8am and 10am. For racers starting later, as I did at 1101am, with the temperatures warming slightly and thousands of tires chewing the trail, the singletrack sections became especially greasy and muddy. The pros (who started at 230pm) came in completely mud covered and reportedly approximately ten minutes slower than previous years. The course was also allegedly a mile or two longer which contributed to slightly longer finish times all around. The sandy sections weren't quite as reported in the past, due to the cold and moisture- the thousands of riders packed it down pretty well.

Having not raced the event before, I was "unseeded." Iceman promoters decided to seed racers based on previous results. This was an attempt to put all the faster racers out front and the slower racers to the back. Even with that seed method, racers reported traffic jams in the singletracks. I was unseeded and started in a wave of other 51-52 year old racers. I found myself, over the course of the race, passing numerous racers. I'd catch a small group of racers on an open section, ride alone for a stretch and then catch another clump of racers and work to pass them. All these racers were, like me, doing Iceman for the first time, but I suspect they don't have as much racing experience as I've been able to accumulate.

The race started in Kalkaska and after a short road section dumped into a two track section. I suffered a mechanical here- my rear brake stuck and I was riding with the resistance of the brakepad slowing the back tire. I had just passed numerous riders and had to pull over and jiggle the back brake mechanism to release the pad as they passed me. I jumped back on the bike and soon caught the riders again. The brake would stick a couple more times during the race, but I rode through it and jiggled the brake lever and after a few yards it would release.
Most of the course was two track. Often there would be a "singletrack" but there was plenty of passing on the grassy shoulders as this track wove across the upper Michigan plains. There were a few miles, in broken segments, of pure "wind through the trees" singletrack. These were the muddy sections, but not impossible. It was in these areas that the true mountainbike skills (or lack of) were evident with less skilled riders often plugging the course and a line of racers behind.

I didn't find the course that difficult. The singletrack was only slightly tricky due the slipper mud, but they weren't that long of sections. The single track sections were all only maybe a half mile long at most, with most of them far shorter. There were a couple climbs that I did walk. These climbs were pretty chewed up and loose. I rode with Kenda Kwicks and the loose climbs were the couple of sections where a more aggressive tire would be beneficial. But all in all, with the hard packed two tracks and terrain, for this first event my lower profile tires were the right choice. In a drier, more sandy day, aggressive tires would be better overall. Next year I will bring both sets and choose the set most applicable to the event.

I finished in 2hours31minutes. I had set a goal to do it in less than 2:20, but missed this by eleven minutes. I suspect if I had been seeded up in the earlier groups I may have been able to take ten minutes off my time by avoiding some traffic and also having less slippery singletrack. But all in all, I consider my inaugural attempt successful as I was 49th of 102 men in my group.

*(correction Nov 8)- after reviewing the Gault results online, I find I was 49th of 123 men in my age group. Also, I calculated the total male racers, including the pro category, at 2317 men racing. I was 1209th and finished ahead of 1708 racers

We also had family obligations on Sunday so we drove back Saturday evening to Grand Rapids. Now that we are familiar with the locale, the logistics and the event's party atmosphere, next year we will plan come earlier on Friday and stay the weekend to Sunday afternoon.

Here's to 2011 !

The Founders Alger team had great turnout and four Founders Alger racers garnered podium spots for top-3 finishes and three racers took the special "under two hours" Tshirts with podium winner Jeremy just missing this by 32 seconds!

Jeremy Karel 2:00:32 3rd of 83 Men 25-27
Gabe Niehof 1:55:34 2nd of 113 Men 30-32
Josh Hogeterp 2:12:34 16th of 113 Men 30-32
Shawn Crowley 2:21:23 28th of 113 Men 30-32
Matt Remelts 2:14:56 18th of 81 Men 35
Brian Walquist 2:04:57 16th of 115 Men 41
Wade Bagnall 1:53:42 1st of 87 Men 44
Dan Jelens 2:36:34 40th of 82 Men 48
Tim Curtis 1:56:48 1st of 102 Men 51-52
Rick Plite 2:09:59 14th of 102 Men 51-52
Martin Hall 2:15:50 26th of 102 Men 51-52
Dennis Murphy 2:32:26 49th of 123Men 51-52
Paul Poplielarz 2:08:15 11th of 99 Men 53-54
Ralf Sharnowski 2:08:08 10th of 121 Men Clydedale 40+
Ernie Stafford 2:44:26 55th of 121 Men Clydedale 40+

Full results here: http://results.active.com/pages/displayNonGru.jsp?orgID=216362&rsID=102755

Iceman coming up!

2010-11-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

In eleven years of mountainbike racing I've never been interested in going to Iceman- it just wasn't a race that attracted me, though I know it's a huge event. Part of my reticence was that I am not that fast- certainly not a sprinter and would likely get blown out by all the fast guys in my group.

But I was "pressured" by our team captain to give it a shot this year hahahaha- not really. But this was the year for new things (several out of state 100-milers, Mad Anthony, more cross races) so why not!

Getting the bike ready Friday, pack the gear and head to Traverse City. I am in a non-seeded wave starting at 1101am.

My goal is to average at least 12mph which would be 2.3 hours- so I am going to try to finish in 2hrs20mins or less!

We'll see how that goes!

Mad Anthony Cyclocross

2010-10-23T20:47:00.001-07:00

I went to Detroit today to try the Mad Anthony cyclocross race. The race is held on the site of the historic Fort Wayne right on the Detroit River across from Canada. The fort dates back to the pre-Revolutionary days. (If you are unfamiliar with cyclocross racing, check THIS wikipedia or google cyclocross videos).

I decided Friday afternoon to do both the C and the B race. I was a bit concerned about racing just the B event since this was a USAC-licensed event, the rules are that when you are lapped you must drop out and I didn't want to drive over to get lapped and pulled from the event. Looking at last year's events, team captain Rick placed approximately 23 of 25 racers that were considered finishers with a dozen "lapped" riders behind that. If Rick was close to the bottom and I am slower than him, I was concerned about holding my own on this event. So, to make the drive worthwhile, I opted to race BOTH the C and the B race. I figured I'd be fairly safe racing C and finish the event. Then, racing B, I'd get a couple laps in and if pulled, I'd get some mileage anyway.

Turned out they didn't pull racers, but they did post results with those "lapped" racers as a lap down. Turns out, I wasn't in that category in EITHER race!!

The course was approximately 2.35 miles long starting inside the fort and making a quick hard right on the outside moat to circle the west and north side of the wall before turning back and heading up on the grass. The course had one long stretch of pavement fronting old NCO housing units, up on the grass after that, followed by a hard run-up hill and down onto a long long packed gravel flat stretch around a soccer field. The NCO-road and this packed gravel really favored the sprint roadies who churned out RPMs to press a lead. Back to the fort, we'd ride in the south and east wall moats and into a tunnel in the wall which lead into the center fort parade ground where some tight turns in the center led to a couple tough climbs which most riders actually had to run up. A final turn and over the barriers, up&down a hill and through the chute to start all over again.

Joni and I drove over at 7am, reaching the fort at about 930 to get in line to pick up registration and paperwork. The registration was swamped so they moved the C race back from 1030 to 1045.

There were 81 "C" racers- quite a crowd! The C race was not divided by age or categories- just 81 racers all competing against each other- and that didn't count the women who were also out there as their own group. Founders-Alger-Racing teammate Scott Thenikl was also there for the C race. The crowd took off, turned out of the fort and made that hard right turn into the moat. After the next turn in the moat a rider went down and the crowd split around him and I surged around a couple riders after we passed the downed racer. I rode pretty hard and the C race ended up being only three laps for just over seven miles in that 30-35 minute event. I saw quite a few racers behind me during the last couple laps. I finally finished and looked at the clock as I crossed the finish line at 32 minutes and some seconds. Scott came across the finish line a couple minutes later. I ended up at 27th of the 81 racers with many of them at the bottom counted as "lapped" and thus down a lap in the results. Scott was 30th of the 81 C racers.

There was a fifteen minute or so break and the B races started lining up. This also looked to be quite a crowd. Results showed it to be 65 racers. This B race was not divided by age or USAC category- so I was racing USAC categories of 2, 3, and 4. This was the race I figured I'd be really out-classed. Turns out I held my own. The race ended up being 5 laps which I completed in just over 55 minutes. I rode as hard as I could and got passed at one point by speedster Mackenzie Woodring of the Bissell team, one of west Michigan's fastest women racers. She was on a mountainbike. She was shouting out encouragement to a woman Fusion team rider and I tried to hang in there with them on a paceline but they all pulled away from me before we hit the fort's south moat.

So I focused on the nearest male rider and tried to close the gap over the course of the next lap. I did eventually pass the nearest one and over the course of lap four and five increased my lead by a huge seven minutes (which surprised me). I crossed the finish as the announcer indicated I was the last "**official" finisher to garner a 43rd place of the 65 racers in the B race. (**Results posted later, though, indicated one more "official" finisher after me- he finished at 62 minutes - the seven minute gap.

All in all a successful race- I went there with the modest goal to do decent in the C event and to try to hold of getting lapped in the B race and exceeded both goals fairly well!.

Joni and I drove around downtown Detroit for a little while as the A racers were on their last lap before deciding to eat dinner at one of the race's sponsors- Los Galanes in Mexican Town. The food was really good. Joni had a chicken mole' dinner and I was able to order a vegetarian stir-fry cactus dish. ( I like fried cactus too ).

The fort is a completely under-utilized property! If it could be really utilized it could be Detroit-area "Mackinac Island" with recreational activities too! Joni wandered the fort and the old structures taking, taking photos as I raced. We will definitely return next year.

Results here and hereL:
http://www.cyclocrosslounge.com/MACX_Results.pdf
https://www.usacycling.org/results/?permit=2010-3124

The results for the B race have me listed twice- once as number 61 and as number 314. Since I registered for two events it threw them for a loop and the BIB 314 wasn't used- and it shows as DNF, but I used number 61 for both events.

Photos below:

Mission Trails ride #2

2010-10-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

I took another ride out to Mission Trails this morning. I encountered Jaime on his road bike- he is the guy that loaned me the mountainbike. He was on a morning road ride. We rode in the same direction for 3-4 miles and he turned off northward as I proceeded west toward the trails.

I took my first tumble today, climbing a small rise in the embankment. Not familiar with the trail I failed to shift down quick enough and stalled on the climb. I put out my left foot to dismount to walk the last few feet to the top, except- when I put my foot down on the grass- there was nothing underndeath it! It was that long grass that basically hung over thin air- I fell over the left side and down the embankment about five feet, landing on grass and rocks. No injuries, however, just a scraped elbow and cut finger on a sharp rock.

Here's a photo of the "Pooh Forest" segment of the trails. Big guys like Rick, Ralf and Ernie would NOT be comfortable in this section.

Rick asked about mileage- it's tough to determine. I asked three different riders at the trail head and got three different answers. But there appears to be 10-14 miles of trail at least. However, I rode some of the loops farther out from the trail head today and they are definitely not maintained- really overgrown, likely not ridden as much as the loops closer to the parking lot.

There is apparently controversy on this land as well. I tried the link to the local mtb organization but their site is down, so I googled their cached site. Apparently the local govt authorities "leased" the whole property to a gun club for ONE DOLLAR! WTH?!

Photos from the cache shows many cyclists with signs protesting at a city council meeting.

The city said they didn't "know" about the biking and hiking at that land unit since the Parks&Rec board was only an advisory board and didn't tell the mayor about it. Really? I'm not even from the area and I KNOW about these trails yet we are to understand the mayor and city council don't know about a regular hiking and biking location on city owned property that actually has a parking lot and a kiosk sign with a map? Really?

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a strong mountainbiking culture here in the lower Rio Grande valley- there seems to be limited trail opportunities as well as clearly civic institutions don't recognize mountainbiking. Most cycling I've seen here is road riding and I've not found another mountainbike location nearby in any research I've done.

Texas biking and flying the Founders Alger flag!

2010-10-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

My job requires periodic trips to McAllen Texas where I drive across the border to the supplier in Reynosa Mexico during the work week. I've wanted to bring a bike - road or mountain- but the cost of shipping or flying a bike is so expensive that it has always been prohibitive even for the few times my trips are more than a work week long.

I came up with an idea to buy a bike at a pawnshop just to have something to pedal, but three outlets I stopped at didn't have a bike in my size to make this a viable option. Then, one of my contacts at the supplier, who is also a supplier, told me Tuesday he had a mountainbike I could borrow. He brought it in Wednesday- a Raleigh. I took it for a tune up ride Wednesday night.

Today I rode it out to the Mission Trail system in Mission Texas, a nearby town to McAllen. The ride out was ten miles. Once at the trails, I rode the mountainbike loops. The trails also have a single out&back paved track too.

Mission Trails can be considered the Texas version of Bass River. There is not much elevation but the trail builders put in a whole lot of mileage in a confined space. The only significant climbs are on the outer boundaries north and south when they run the trail up a short steep incline onto the levee that borders each side, after which they dive the trail back down into the Texas scrub.

Clearly the foliage is different- notice the cactus. And it's funny to see little desert lizards scooting across the trail instead of chipmunks.

The tread is hardpacked and fast, though, and mostly clay based. You can see some severe tire ruts in a few sections where someone had ridden the trail when wet and the clay set up. But erosion isn't really an issue here.

Cactus is, however. At one point, I had some foliage stuck to my front wheel and it was whipping around on every revolution, so I pulled it off the tire and heard a faint "phttt" sound as a small amount of air escaped. I held my breath but no instant deflation occurred. I considered I might have a slow leak, so I continued my ride for another half hour before heading back to the hotel.
So far the tire is holding so perhaps the air that escaped when I removed the cactus thorn was simply air trapped between the tire and tube- meaning the tube is not pierced.

I plan to ride Sunday as well, though I am torn. There's a 35 mile road race in Edinburg which I can't really enter since I didn't do the time trial today and am riding a mountainbike instead of my road bike. The event is at 730am, so I think I will be better off doing another ride out to the Misson Trails and forgo the road event, even as a spectator.

KissCross season began

2010-09-20T20:22:00.001-07:00

Last week the first Kisscross races started. It's a tough type of racing for me as I am not a sprinter.

The first races were held at Plaster Creek Park- one on Saturday night and one on Sunday morning. I fared poorly on Saturday night, finishing 28th of 28 in B-masters. Sunday was a bit better with a finish of 26 of 28, though I think I should have been one spot higher since I think at least one racer quit one lap too soon.

This past Sunday was a much better course for me. Plaster creek was mostly flat and wide open, with very little technical riding. Sunday at Highland Park saw a course very technical with multiple tight turns, a tricky off-camber outside curve and a tough no-momentum climb after a left turn. I ended up riding hard and garnered a 24th spot in a 29 B-master field.

Jack Kunnen took some great photos including this one I purchased

photo of me at Shenendoah-100

2010-09-18T10:52:00.001-07:00

Shenendoah follow up- results linked

2010-09-13T21:02:00.000-07:00

The Shenendoah 100 results are up on their site. I don't think I did TOO badly.

They have my official time at 16 seconds sooner than I initially noted- 12:17:44 !

My position overall in the race was 400 out of 650 racers. (There were 541 finishers 109 DNFs overall).

In the Master's Men specific category, I was 19 out of 36 (30 finishers and 6 DNFs).

Big Kudos to Christian Tanguey- Michigan based racer who beat the leader of of the NUE series by FIVE MINUTES! WOW

Ticket dismissed, but issue FAR from over!

2010-09-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

If you reading this you may already know I received a traffic ticket on my bicycle the evening of Saturday Aug 17th. Ironically, this was after attending BikeStock in downtown Grand Rapids (a celebration of bikes use in city environment) and also shortly after Grand Rapids announced "Complete Streets" and was designated a "bike friendly" city.

Anyway, I appealed the ticket and prepared a 10 page presentation with regards to the issue. I went to the hearing this afternoon prepared just in case, but the officer did request the dismissal and I got my paperwork and I asked if I could talk to him in the hall afterward a minute and he agreed. It turned out to be a waste of time- the officer is simply a lost cause.

First I apologized if I came across as combative that evening but I was an inherently assertive person. I then offered him a copy of the presentation which illustrates the safety aspects I was using for my defense- he did not take it.

As I tried to discuss the situation for an educative aspect, I explained that I understood how from the city ordinance he would take the position he did but I didn't believe the city ordinance as worded was meant to restrict a cyclist's safety. He brushed off my comments (as well as a question of who I should see if I wanted to get the city's ordinance amended) with some generality about cities don't have follow the Michigan Motor Vehicle code because traffic is tighter in the city, etc. He followed that up with "I followed you for some time and I don't know if you were haveing a bad day, or was ticked off at the driver behind you......" WHAT!? Where was that coming from? I realized at that point that this guy was a completely lost cause. This officer completely off on this whole issue. Had he simply stuck to the "right to the ride" as a legal arguement, I would disagree. But when he began imparting some emotional aspects that were pulled out of who knows where? He completely lost all standing for respect.

Not only did he NOT understand cycling safety- he didn't WANT to understand cycling safety. On top of that, he was attaching some motive or emotion to my cycling actions which he couldn't possibly know. He saw me move on two occasions into the middle of the lane (and back) during a bike ride in a tight city street and somehow he was able to magically know I was angry and perhaps exhibiting a one man "critical mass." On the contrary, we had had had a great time
that day and the only SPOILER of the entire day was getting a ticket from two resource-wasting Grand Rapids police officers.

We separated and I immediately went to the Grand Rapids City Hall. I went to the 6th floor to see the legal office to ask about how to initiate a proposal to have the ordinance amended. (More on that later and you will see my point). The city's attorney on staff said that I could put it in writing and have it entered to the city commission meeting and/or present it at public open comment time of city council meetings. Thanking her I left and as I was about to leave I decided to heck with that! Grand Rapids just got a "bike friendly" designation. Grand Rapids just initiated Complete Streets. I went into the mayors office.

The administrative assistant was sitting at the front desk and I explained the entire story to her. When I explained it occurred on Wealthy St she just exclaimed "WHAT?" apparently knowing how congested that road is. She also asked for the officers name and badge number. I told her it wasn't about getting anyone in trouble but that I didn't think the city ordinance was written in such a manner as to be valuable. She insisted so I gave her the information.

When I told her that during the stop on the evening of BikeStock that at one point for TWENTY minutes we had two police officers there dealing with issuing two lycra-clad cyclists a ticket she rolled her eyes. Clearly not a good use of police resources.

She ended up taking my phone number and a copy of my presentation. Here's the city ordinance and the state motor vehicle code that corresponds.

City Ordinance
ARTICLE 8. BICYCLES*
*State law references: Authority to regulate bicycles, MCL 257.606(1)(i), MSA 9.2306(1)(i).
Sec. 10.131. Manner of Operation.
(1) Bicyclists. Operators of bicycles on a public highway shall be granted all of the rights and shall conform to all of the rules herein established for the operation of motor vehicles including the direction and instructions of police officers, traffic control signals and devices applicable to vehicles.
(2) Number of riders. A bicycle shall not be ridden by more persons than the number for which it was originally designed and manufactured.
(3) Drive to right. Bicycles shall be operated as close to the righthand side of the roadway as possible, and in single file only.
(4) Erratic driving. No operator shall cause or permit a bicycle to curve to and fro.
(5) Hand on controls. The hands of the operator shall be on the handle bar at all times except when he or she is in the act of signaling.
(Ord. No. 75-7, 1-21-75)

MICHIGAN VEHICLE CODE (EXCERPT) Act 300 of 1949
257.660a Operation of bicycle upon highway or street; riding close to right-hand curb or edge of roadway; exceptions. Sec. 660a.
A person operating a bicycle upon a highway or street at less than the existing speed of traffic shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except as follows:
(a) When overtaking and passing another bicycle or any other vehicle proceeding in the same direction.
(b) When preparing to turn left.
(c) When conditions make the right-hand edge of the roadway unsafe or reasonably unusable by bicycles, including, but not limited to, surface hazards, an uneven roadway surface, drain openings, debris, parked or moving vehicles or bicycles, pedestrians, animals, or other obstacles, or if the lane is too narrow to permit a vehicle to safely overtake and pass a bicycle.
(d) When operating a bicycle in a lane in which the traffic is turning right but the individual intends to go straight through the intersection.
(e) When operating a bicycle upon a 1-way highway or street that has 2 or more marked traffic lanes, in which case the individual may ride as near the left-hand curb or edge of that roadway as practicable.

If you notice, the city ordinance references State law 257.606. This is NOT the vehicle code related to bikes, but rather the legal authority granted by the state for cities to regulate bikes. The city then writes its own ordinances under that authority, but they aren't making these up out of thin air, but rather using the state codes as templates.

So the city ordinance merely says "Drive to right. Bicycles shall be operated as close to the righthand side of the roadway as possible, and in single file only" whereas the state code states "ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except as follows:" with caveats that are specifically SAFETY related that follow.

It is inconceivable, and clearly the officer does not understand this, that the city could write a more restrictive ordinance which would, if followed by the letter prevent a cyclist from actually riding SAFELY. The sentence "be operated as close to the righthand side of the roadway as possible" should not, can not, mean we must adhere to an imaginary line along the curb regardless of what other aspects of the riding are involved. He seemed to focus only on the "debris, potholes" aspect of our conversation and overlooked my other generalities of "other safety reasons" that I mention because he specifically said "I know there were no potholes on Wealthy" -- as if THAT would be the ONLY reason I should deviate from riding as close to the right as possible?

So, while the ticket aspect is over, the issue is FAR from over because clearly we have law enforcement that do NOT understand the legal rights as well as the actual ASPECTS of riding a bike in the city. I expect to hear from the city and will also follow up as the need arises because now I am somewhat angry.

Shenendoah 100 race report

2010-09-08T09:12:00.001-07:00

I completed the Shenendoah 100 Mountainbike race in Virginia last Sunday Sept 6th in 12hours-18minutes. I missed my secondary goal of completing it in under 12 hours, but in hindsight, the course was almost designed to slow me down.

The trail consisted of some paved road, quite a lot of crushed gravel two-tracks as well as some technical single track loaded with rocks- both on the flat and on descents. Additionally, there were a couple sections, one was really long, bench cut climbs in which the trail tread was barely wide enough for a racer to push his bike along side him - which was a necessity as I will explain later.

The aid stations were laid out as follows:

#1 Tillman Rd. 10 Miles

#2 Todd Lake 31 Miles

#3 Dowells Draft 45 Miles

#4 Braley's Pond 57 Miles

#5 Picnic Area 75 Miles

#6 Todd Lake 88 Miles

The race started with over 700 riders heading out of the campground in the pre-dawn light down to the paved road and to the edges of the George Washington National Forest.

Usually with a group this large a strong climb will thin the pack out, but everyone was fresh and you can see from the profile that the first climb was small. I was probably in the middle of the back part of the 700 racers, with perhaps 80-100 behind me and approximately the same immediately in front as the course swept to a flat spot off the gravel road and immediately bottlenecked at the entrance to the first singletrack section.

This section was very technical with rocks, interrupted by flat dirt trail on a narrow bench cut and eventually looped around the hillside to begin what was climb number 2 on the eleveation profile. this was a steep steep climb up to the peak at Mile 18, approximately. This whole section was rideable for a decent technical rider- of which I consider myself one. However, that would be predicated on you riding alone, or with a couple buddies and everyone keeping 10-15 yards between you to compensate for everyone's change in speed or momentum as one negotiated the rocks or granny-geared up the steep climb. Unfortunately with nearly 200 racers strung out wheel-to-wheel, as soon as any rider lost momentum and dabbed a foot or came off the bike, the whole pack behind were forced to do the same. So what entailed was a miner's hike, with a long line of cyclist pushing their bikes up the steep incline which was barely wide enough to accomodate rider and bike side by side. To make matters worse, if one encountered a flat-ish spot and attempted to start pedaling, the slow speed might cause you to wobble or veer and if you tire caught the outside of the bench cut- it was NOT firm and the tire would slip off the edge. Either you got your feed down fast or risked tumbling down the steep embankment.

We eventually reached a short paved road section. In the middle of this, at approximately the 20 mile mark, my chain snapped. A first and would lead to a minor comedy of errors. I moved to the side, flipped the bike upside down and pulled off the seat bank to dump its contents- 2 tubes, three air canisters and nozzle, and my Park Tool pouch- no chain tool- AARRGH! Another rider stopped and pulled out a chain tool but as I started to work it, I noticed I didn't really need it as the way the chain snapped I needed only pull off the remaining half of a link (the other side was gone) and I could simply install another Sram Powerlink- of which I had three spares. I handed him his chaintool and repaired my bike and repacked the seatback, but as I did so, on a whim, I check the Parktool pouch- and there was my chain tool -DOH! I thought I'd simply stuffed it in the seatbag, not also in the pouch. Whew! In any event, 40-50 or more riders now passing me whom I'd likely have no chance to catch later

Eventually the climb ended and we started a descent in the technical single track as well as eventually dodged onto some gravel pathways before starting the next climb. During the course there was very little downhill two track. The typical pattern was long fire-road climb, fast technical singletrack descent, repeat. A few singletrack climbs were included as well as some really sweet flowing singletrack that would be a familiar feel to Michigan rider who has ridden BigM, Hanson or Boyne

The singletrack was so technical that at one point, at a really awesome, but treacherously tricky bounce down over some odd shaped and placed rocks, I heard the rider behind me exclaim "DAMN!" I wasn't sure if he was exclaiming regarding my ability to negotiate it as quickly as I did or was simply struck by the feature itself.

There were two fairly long road sections- one longer than the other- which started on pavement and eventually went back onto the crushed gravel roads. Five of us got on the pavement together the first time and four of us immediately formed up a rolling paceline, hugging the side of the road way as cars passed. We clipped along at 14-1/5 to 15 MPH eventually picking up a fifth rider we'd caught (but dropping one of the original four). This really saved a lot of energy and allowed us to move quickly. The second time on the road, there were eight of us and we caught another rider- coincidentally the same one we caught the first time, and he tagged up and the line cruised along but eventually broke up into a group of four and five respectively. I was in the lead group and as we started a slight grade when the pavement ended and the gravel started, I endeavored to maintain a 12MPH pace and moved away from the rest of the road fellowship. As I passed another rider he formed up behind me and I tried to keep the pace but after almost a mile I moved over and he went ahead. He was a machine- turning RPMs to continue at 12MPH steady on the gradually increasing grade. I finally could not keep pace so I slowed to drink some Heed and he kept going the last hundred or so yards to the top of that section of road, whereupon he promptly stopped and fiddled with his camelback. I motored on.

On it went, UP down UP down. Here was were a brief period of discouragement set in. As we approached the next aid station, I had been riding for just over 6-1/2 hours and my computer indicated 40 miles. WHAT! I can't be THAT slow! However, one rider I discussed this with said his computer showed 56 miles and that the next aid station #4 was coming up. UH? Later, as I watched the computer, it continually shut off at speeds of 2mph which was all I was getting on some climbs, unfortunately. My conclusion was that the walking sections early on and a few of the really steep slow climbs were enough to cause it to go into off-mode by itself and only come back on if it sensed a slight uptick in speed. Very frustrating, and essentially it became a CLOCK. So my idea of monitoring time and distance to know when to push myself, borne of my experience at Wilderness100, was basically shot right out the window!

Beginning at approximately the 57 mile mark (aid station #4) we began the long long long- oh, did I say LONG? climb up to the 80mile mark. Racers were calling this the "soul crusher" With the exception of a couple minor little dips downward in the gravel road (and one quick downhill), it was almost a continuous climb for 24 miles!!!

Finally, after nearly crashing into the US Space Station, the peak was reached and I wish I had had one of Tony Newton's Summit Flags! We then raced downward again for nearly a continuous downward slope of ten miles to a couple more little peaks. The climb at mile 93-94 was one we'd done before and completely fooled me. We were on a gravel road and circling up the hillside and several riders before and after me were starting to walk. I continued in the granny gear (walking actually hurt other muscles). Finally I saw the trail go into the singletrack and I shouted "we're here boys!" because I thought it was the last singletrack down into the campground and the finish........ BUT NOOOOOOOOOO, it was simply that last section again at mile 93-94 leading to false hope hahahaha.

Eventually it dumped out onto the two track again and after only a short ride did climb over the berm and drop down into the campground.

So I finished in 12:18. Very exhausting. Interestingly, as I cleaned up, at dinner and had a Dogfish Ale IPA, there were riders finishing in the dark with lights on at nearly 14 hours! (If you reach the checkpoint #6 (mile 88) after 600pm, they make you stop unless you have lights for the remaining 12 miles.

But as to "designed to slow me down"... I liked Shenendoah much better than Wilderness, which I thought was deliberately planned to create too many walking sections. Probably nearly 98% of Shenendoah is rideable, but not with the pack of riders one part of during a race. The reason I know this isn't an ideal course for me is that a) the long climbs are necessarily slow for my climbing ability- I knew this going in, b) the sections that are ostensibly rideable become NOT rideable in a pack of the last 200 racers. So right away not only is time sucked out of the pace by the climbs, but I lost much time walking so many sections and there were not enough 10-12 MPH downhill sections to allow time to be made up.

I am ambivalent about coming back to Shenendoah. On the one hand I think I can beat the 12 hour mark, even with the restrictions of the climbs and walking, now that I know what the course - and if I have a decent computer perhaps (or GPS). The campground is really a great location. The event was an EVENT- even more so than Wilderness was (both are operated by the same promoter). They fed us decent food both Saturday night before the race (spaghetti) and Sunday after the event (veggie burger for me, with pasta, fruit and dessert).

The hard part was the drive there. I came in from the north via Morgantown WV and ended up on some snaking roadways up and down the county for 1-1/2 hours which can take longer if you get behind slow traffic on the steep grades up and down. I took a slight southerly route out- going to Staunton Virginia to reach an expressway sooner -Interstate 81 to I-64 west. I-64 took me to I-77 north all the way to the Ohio Turnpike. The mileage was a bit longer but didn't seem to take as long as well as being a more relaxed ride with more amenities on the drive (aka Starbucks hahahaha).

Repeating Shenendoah will be a consideration for 2011, but may depend on other factors and races I decide to do.

Beck Rally- how many people were there?

2010-09-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

The supporters of rightwing blowhard Glen Beck - as well as the blowhard himself- insist that there were "hundreds of thousands" of attendees at the rally.The so-called "liberal media' seemed to echo the larger estimates without so much as a fact-check. Only CBS had the journalistic integrity to actually use science.

But I found a great layman's explanation of the issue on the MMBA forum here by Mr OPJones... smackdown on the ideologically blinded........

StumpMonkey wrote:I have seen arial photos and there were 100's of thousands of people there. The entire mall is full.

Mr OPJones responds: Science, it's a mother fucker.Beck rally crowd size by the numbers. Experts hired by CBS say that Glenn Beck's rally this weekend drew 87,000 people, plus or minus 9,000. Glenn Beck, meanwhile, says the real total is somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000. And not to be outdone, Michele Bachmann claims more than one million attended.So who is right? Well, it's an in exact science, but let's take a look at numbers and make our best guess based on the available evidence.

For starters, let's look at images of the rally. From these photos we can see that virtually all of the crowd was situated along either side of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. There was a light smattering of people around the World War II Memorial at on the Washington Monument side of the pool and another collection of people just north of the stage off the western end of the pool.We know that the reflecting pool is 2,029 feet long and 167 feet wide. On the south side of the pool, people were generally gathered in an area no more than about 300 feet wide and on the north side of the pool they were gathered in an area about 150 feet wide. That means people were gathered in roughly 900,000 sq. ft of space along the edges of the pool. To take into account the area around the World War II Memorial and the area just north of the stage, we'll say that the Beck rally crowd occupied roughly one million square feet of area.

Now, using a figure of one million square feet for the rally space, let's go figure out what sort of crowd density Beck's estimate implied and what sort of crowd density CBS's estimate implied.CBS put the range at between 78,000 and 96,000. That means on the low end, CBS is saying that each person occupied roughly 13 square feet of space on average. On the high end, they are saying more like 10 square feet. Beck, meanwhile, is saying on the low end that each person occupied about 3.3 square feet of space and on the high end that they occupied about 1.7 square feet of space.

To recap:
CBS low-end (78k): 13 sq. ft. per person
CBS high-end (96k): 10 sq. ft. per person*
Beck low-end (300k): 3.3 sq. ft. per person
Beck high-end (600k): 1.7 sq. ft. per person

What would those numbers mean in real life? Let's look at it a couple of different ways. First, let's assume each person was was in standing in the middle of a perfect square and that nobody else was inside of their square. What would the dimensions be of each person's square?* CBS low-end (78k): 43 inches by 43 inches* CBS high-end (96k): 38 inches by 38 inches* Beck low-end (300k): 22 inches by 22 inches* Beck high-end (600k): 16 inches by 16 inchesNow let's translate this to something most of us have experience with: airline seats. An airline seat is typically about 19 inches wide and there's about 31 or 32 inches between each row. Roughly, that's about 600 square inches or 4 square feet.

So given that, how much area, in terms of airline seats, was the average person occupying according to these estimates?

CBS low-end (78k): 3.1 airline seats of area per person
CBS high-end (96k): 2.4 airline seats of area per person
Beck low-end (300k): 0.8 airline seats of area per person
Beck high-end (600k): 0.4 airline seats of area per person

Now go back and look at those pictures again, and look at how much green there is -- some areas (like the southwest corner of land next to the reflecting pool) are virtually barren. But for Glenn Beck's estimates to be right, the average person would need to be crammed into the area taken up by less than one airline seat! Indeed, his most agressive estimate assumes less than half of an airline seat per person! To put it another way, to imagine Beck's high-end estimate, imagine a plane where two and half people were sitting in every passenger seat. With that in mind, the CBS figures seem quite reasonable. Obviously, they can't be an exact figure, but they seem pretty close to accurate.

Cartoon from Atlantic Monthly

2010-08-19T07:27:00.000-07:00

Wilderness101 recap

2010-08-01T20:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I completed my first 100 miler mountainbike race after getting derailled on the first two due to weather. I had hoped to do the Wilderness101 course in less than 12 hours, but more on that later.

I left Grand Rapids for Pennsylania Thursday night and stopped in mid-Ohio at Motel6 for the evening. Saturday I completed my drive to Coburn and Millheim. Coburn is where the race started and is about 2-1/2 miles south of Millheim, where I'd rented a hotel room.

The Millheim Inn was a classic "rooms upstairs, pub&restaurant downstairs" and all the rooms on the second floor shared a communal bathroom. Inexpensive and decent. I checked in (at the bar) and then drove to Coburn to get my race packet which included a nice shirt, hammergel-filled flask and number plate.

Back in Millheim I had dinner at the Elk Creek Cafe where I ate a black bean burrito (really more of a wrap) and a Hairy Johns Ale- for you Founders fans, think Curmudgeon.
Up Saturday, off to the race.

The race started at 7am on the street and rolled out for a mile or so and then began a long long long - yes LONG climb- the first of many. I was concerned because their website indicated cut-off times for each segment and the first checkpoint at Mile 19 was 9am. I made it
there at 836am and felt pretty good. Checkpoint/aid station #2 was at the 40 mile mark which I made at 1130am. Then the REALLY hard stuff began.

Two severe climbs of what seemed like MILES of up and up and up and up- on fire roads, separated by bumpy, dusty downhills that were about 45 degrees or more in slope. You could literally bounce off the course and crash if you didn't ride the breaks often.

Another feature of this course was the rocks- one could scarcely call them "rock gardens." Here in Michigan we may have a rock garden feature for 20-30 yards? No, on Wilderness, it was literally a rock ride for hundreds of yards. If you lost momentum bumping and hoping and pedalling over the rocks, you had no choice but to dismount and walk the remainder of the section even if it was another quarter or half mile. There was NO place to get remounted and pedal again. This type of terrain feature occurred repeatedly over the rest of the race.

There was a few spots where you got on pavement or tight packed gravel/dirt and could rocket at 25 mph or more. These were a welcomed respite. I crashed between aid stations 3 and 4 a couple times, really more of slide-outs while breaking on the fast downhills and loose gravel trail. I also had to stop on some of these to let riders by mostly because my hands were so sore from gripping the handlebars and feathering the brakes. During all the jarring riding, my seatbag tore loose, I lost one much needed water bottle and the hammerjel flask fell out of the frame-mounted holster I had it in. I had to stuff the seatback in under my jersey to carry it until checkpoint 4.

By the time I reached checkpoint #4 at about 430pm,for some reason I thought we needed to be at the last checkpoint (#5) by 530 or we'd be pulled from the race. (The actual time is 730, but I didn't remember that). So I filled bottles, got another bottle to replace the lost one. I also used the seatbags velcro strap to reattach it jimmyrig fashion to my seat so I didn't have to ride with it under my jersey which impeded my pedalling. The only problem was that it swung wildly because it wasn't fastened to the seatpost and counterswung to pedal strokes. But I had only 26 miles to go (and 13 to Aid Station 5). So I got on and pedaled.

I must have gotten a second wind because I really started hammering and as I flew through the first relatively smooth singletrack I overtook two other racers and blew by them as we dismounted for obstacles. I had the 530 cut-off in my mind. The lead in to the last aid station was about a mile of two track and I was barrelling down the road at 20-22 mph and flew through the checkpoint. My secondary goal, besides finishing, was to finish in less than 12 hours. It would not happen. First, there was one last monster climb- a steep grade of about 600 feet of elevation. Not much but quite a bit at that point for my poor climbing ability. Then, after another fast downhill, there was another rocky mostly unrideable section along the river which I walked about 90% of. Once this was over the rest of the course - approx five miles, was smooth riding. But I'd lost too much time over too many hills and rocks and arrived at the finish at the 12:04:45 mark, missing my secondary goal by just under 5 minutes.

Lessons learned? I need a computer on my bikes. I HATE riding blind. My mindset for such rides is I need to know where I am and what the time is relative to the course. This lets me know if I need to ride a bit harder or can (or should) still pace myself. Not knowing where I was in the mileage a few times I am sure I held back from riding a bit harder.

All in all, except losing the one water bottle and riding about 40 minutes with all bottles empty was a minor issue. I am able to do the race just relying on my own bottles and the aid stations and don't need to do any drop bags, which some racers utilize. My hydration/nutrition regimen is mostly dialed in with my Hammer Perpetuem, Heed, Hammerjel and Endurolytes. (Actually, for this event, I mixed in four scoops of Heed to each of my Perpetuem bottles as added electrolytes).

Ultimately, all in all I am glad to have challenged myself, but I don't think I would do Wilderness again. Not counting the fire-roads and two tracks and road sections (all necessary to string a 100 mile event together), there was SO much of this course in the woods I would NOT consider mountainbiking. As I noted above, it's one thing to have rock garden features throughout a course. But hundreds of hundreds of yards in section after section......? It's almost like the course was designed for excess. Want a rock feature- we'll give you rock features! Want a fast downhill section- here ya'go... a couple miles of jarring downhill! GRR!

WHEW.

After the race, I cleaned up, at dinner onsite (what I could eat-my stomach never really handles much food after an event) and then hit the road. I wanted to get to Interstate 80 and a few miles west before grabbing a cheap motel. It never happened. I drove and drove, stopped at three major exits and checked motels and all were FULL! What? Finally, desparation led me to go to Hampton Inn. I figured they'd be more expensive and more likely to have a room. No such luck- FULL. The desk clerk informed me that they didn't know of any vacancies until Akron, Ohio which was two hours west. The next exit had a small independent motel and I thought they might be off the beaten path and have a room- but the neon No Vacancy dispelled that. I ended up using the truck stop restroom to brush my teeth and remove contact lenses. I then parked in a far away spot in the truckstop lot where there was less light, crawled into the back seat and slept fitfully for six hours before my drive home

Ultimately, though, a successful weekend.

Wilderness100 upcoming

2010-07-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

My next big challenge for the mountainbike season is Saturday (July 31) with the Wilderness 100 in Pennsylvania. My first two attempts were derailed by weather (Cohutta and Mohican). This weekend promises to be much better. An email update from the promoter notes "No rain in sight and temperatures in the low 80's should add to a super fast, super sweet course."

I read the rules and am a bit concerned by the possibility I may get pulled from the event, however. Per the chart here, I could be in trouble depending on the climbing. I put together a graph based on the mileage between stations and the cut-off times the promoter indicates- this gave me an idea of my necessary minimum speed. But when compared to the elevation it looks daunting for me given my slow climbing pace.

Start to Aid Station #119 miles
(need to ride approx 9.5mph)
9:00 AM- Cannot proceed past Aid Station #1

Aid Station #1 to Aid Station #2
21 miles
(need to ride approx 7.5mph)
12:00 PM-- Cannot proceed past Station #2

Aid Station #2 to Aid Station #3
20 miles
(need to ride approx 8.2mph)
3:00 PM-- Cannot proceed past Station #3

Aid Station #3 to Aid Station #4
14 miles (need to ride appox 7mph)
5:00 PM-- Cannot proceed past Station #4

Aid Station #4 to Aid Station #5
15 miles 1.5
(need to ride approx 10mph)
7:30 PM -- Cannot proceed past Station #5

Aid Station #5 to Finish 11 miles

Ticketed by police on my BICYCLE

2010-07-18T05:50:00.001-07:00

Joni and I rode our bikes downtown to Bikestock yesterday afternoon. Bikestock2 was an event to highlight advocacy for better integration of cycling in urban planning, bike safety, etc. So it was ironic that 830pm we were pulled over and I was ticketed by a Grand Rapids police officer for "not riding far enough to the right"

We left the GreenWell restaurant on Cherry and rode down to Wealthy to check out some condos that were mentioned to us. We then turned west on Wealthy to start our ride back home to Grandville. The intent was to take Wealthy to Market and Market to the start of Kent Trails which would take us into Grandville.

If you are not familiar with Wealthy, our initial travel was on tight lanes with much parking and the road is brick. A while later it opens up somewhat, though there still can be parked cars and you approach the area of Mary Free Bed Hospital and a roundabout.

Well before this, perhaps by Lafayette or sooner, the road grade becomes a descent, gradually becoming steeper into the roundabout.

The officer pulled us over after we'd crossed Division St by blaring his squawk box and using is microphone to tell us to stop riding. He got out and walked up to us and asked "Do you know the rules about riding bikes on the road?" I replied " know the state law, is there some local ordinance I violated I don't know about?" He repeated his question and I gave a general answer about riding as far to the right as practicable, not riding two abreast in some situations, etc.

At this point he said he followed us for some time and that on two occasions I "blatantly swerved to the middle of the lane" to keep a following car from passing. I was somewhat surprised at this.

First, his assertion "blatantly" seems to be a very weighted adjective. Second, how does he know the car was even going to pass? or wanted to? Joni was several bike lengths behind me and the car didn't try to pass her.

I replied that if I moved to the left at any point it may have been to avoid an obstacle or some such. "Was there something you avoided?" he asked? I couldn't say at the moment but partly because he didn't exactly tell me where I supposedly "swerved" so I could either remember or go back and look. He also asserted Joni didn't swerve correspondingly.

Eventually a second officer showed up. They were talking. The second got in the first officers car, while the first went over to the second policeman's vehicle. All in all, the overall impression I got was that he simply wanted to issue a ticket, wasn't sure what law or ordinance he could cite, called in another officer to discuss, they got on the computer and had some discussion and eventually he printed off a ticket on his dashboard printer.

He said he cited me for two violations, but I could only discern one from the ticket (failure to ride as far to the right) but will need to check the ticket when I call in to dispute it.

The Grand Rapids ordinances reference the state Motor Vehicle Code but are not worded the same way. The state law says one must ride as far to the right as "practicable."

Here's the city ordinance:

Sec. 10.131. Manner of Operation.(1) Bicyclists. Operators of bicycles on a public highway shall be granted all of the rights and shall conformto all of the rules herein established for the operation of motor vehicles including the direction andinstructions of police officers, traffic control signals and devices applicable to vehicles.(2) Number of riders. A bicycle shall not be ridden by more persons than the number for which it wasoriginally designed and manufactured.(3) Drive to right. Bicycles shall be operated as close to the righthand side of the roadway as possible, andin single file only.(4) Erratic driving. No operator shall cause or permit a bicycle to curve to and fro.(5) Hand on controls. The hands of the operator shall be on the handle bar at all times except when he orshe is in the act of signaling.(Ord. No. 75-7, 1-21-75)

Here's the state law:

MICHIGAN VEHICLE CODE (EXCERPT) Act 300 of 1949257.660a Operation of bicycle upon highway or street; riding close to right-hand curb or edge of roadway; exceptions. Sec. 660a.A person operating a bicycle upon a highway or street at less than the existing speed of traffic shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except as follows:(a) When overtaking and passing another bicycle or any other vehicle proceeding in the same direction.(b) When preparing to turn left.(c) When conditions make the right-hand edge of the roadway unsafe or reasonably unusable by bicycles, including, but not limited to, surface hazards, an uneven roadway surface, drain openings, debris, parked or moving vehicles or bicycles, pedestrians, animals, or other obstacles, or if the lane is too narrow to permit a vehicle to safely overtake and pass a bicycle.(d) When operating a bicycle in a lane in which the traffic is turning right but the individual intends to go straight through the intersection.(e) When operating a bicycle upon a 1-way highway or street that has 2 or more marked traffic lanes, in which case the individual may ride as near the left-hand curb or edge of that roadway as practicable.

Without knowing where exactly he refers to the incident, much of Wealthy is not easily passable in a vehicle. It does open up after Lafayette and as one nears Prospect- there's plenty of room. It may be in this area he is referring. Cars do park along side here so a photo of an empty street and then saying I was in the "middle" of the traffic lane would not be the same as asserting I was in the middle of the lane at a couple of discreet points in time with cars and other issues to deal with on a descending road. Anyway, shortly after Lafayette, as you approach the roundabout, the road opens up to a legitimate two lanes.

I pulled some screenshots (below) from Google streetview. The photos do not do justice to the amount of cars parked alongside the road. The first photo shows most of the tight Wealthy road. As we get through photos two & three you can see the road open up.

Prior to the crack laden section in photo three, the road is smooth asphalt from recent construction but there are at least one or two of those holes you get when they re-pave and leave a two-three inch deep, seven inch wide round hole for pipe access (gas, water, etc). You can see one of these holes in the photo. The Prospect intersection has the construction barricade.

I also do tend to move left a bit as we approach intersections to prevent cars from doing that "quick pass and right turn" which often results in the cyclist hitting a car broadside.

Photo four is a shot back up with the Prospect intersection at the left. You can see the descent started some ways back, though the officer said the road didn't start going downhill until after Prospect. Clearly perception in a car is not the same as on a bike.

More to follow- stay tuned

Boyne Marathon elevation

2010-07-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

Someone posted the Boyne GPS on the MMBA forum so I jpg'd the elevation- he was a sport rider and did three laps as shown below- add one more peak and descent for my fourth lap- UGH!

Boyne Marathon update

2010-07-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Boyne Marathon CPS race was a grueling event!

Experts rode four laps of eleven miles and the course reportedly had 1800 feet of climbing per lap. Brent Walk,m promoter of FunPromotions, put together an interesting course. All of the course was on trails we've ridden before, but Brent linked and looped sections together to create an inventive and interesting course that in some cases felt like a new or different race.

I was off the back after a mile into the event from my four other competitors. My goal was to ride to finish and perhaps maybe catch a trailing competitor in the last lap. This did not happen, however.

Lap one, nearing the end of the lap, there is a quick downhill and up onto the side of the last mountainside singletrack which I was enjoying for the severe off-camber and technical features and then I noticed two mountainbikersdown on my right zooming down a bike path parallel to my ride. I thought either they weren't racing (recreational riders) or they or I was on the wrong section- it was me! Second lap around the entrance to that last singletrack section was visibly blocked. There had been an arrow at the bottom of the downhill but you are going so fast you miss it easily. Several other racers reported doing this same off-camber section including Brenden.

Lap two saw a crash while cornering close to a tree to avoid a sandpit. I banged my knee pretty hard and had pain trying to pedal. This occurred near the water station and major road crossing and when I got there, I considered DNFing since my knee was hurting and as I pedaled down the road a hundred hard to DNF, the pain seemed to go away and I determined to turn around and finish.

Lap three was the most painful. On one climb, I missed a shift down and tried to stand up to pedal the climb causing my right calf muscle to knot up severely. I tried to unclip but instead tumbled over and unclipping on the fall, tumbled over down the small hill clutching my calf in agony. I laid there trying to relax the knot for a minute before clambering up and walking the last section of that hill.

The thought of dropping crossed my mind again as I rode through the chute but I stopped at my tent to get more Endurolytes and fresh bottle of Heed. I went through less than a bottle on laps one and two, but on three and four I needed to re-fill at the aid station, draining the bottles less than five miles into the lap! I used up 12 Endurolytes on the first three laps and still suffered that third lap cramp.

Results are not yet posted online but I think I am still 5th of five racers (unless someone DNFd) in Expert 50+ category with almost 5-1/2 hours for four laps.

Brenden raced his new Redline 29er Singlespeed bike for the first time, taking a 5th place spot in a field of seven racers in Sport/beginner Singlespeed in a two lap event. He also missed the last right turn onto the paved golfcart path which may have cost him a spot in the standings.

State Games

2010-06-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

The State Games of Michigan were held today around the greater Grand Rapids area with various athletic activities such as rowing, fencing, boxing, rugby and mountainbiking. The State Games contacted the western chapter of the Michigan Mountain Biking Association to operate the mountain bike race which was held at the Cannonsburg Ski Area. The course there normally isn't conducive, in my opinion, to a cross country race, though Fun Promotions holds an endurance event there annually. But the chapter members managing the event plotted out an imaginative course which allowed the racer groups to spread out before hitting the tight single track. The course also snaked through the skills area (avoiding the actual stunts).

It was a very hard five mile course. There wasn't much recovery from the multiple climbing portions. I raced expert for five laps. I was gradually slower each lap but ended up in third place ( of three hahahaha) but perserverance counts!

Next up, tentatively, Boyne Marathon on July 10th.

Michigan State Games

2010-06-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

The first State Games of Michigan opened tonight. I entered the expert category for the mountain bike competiton held at Cannonsburg Ski Area. I didn't know when I entered, but apparently in other states, this has been held for years. Califofornia will get 35,000 entries!! Michigan has over 3500 this weekend, with 130 of them competing in the mountainbike competitions.

Opening ceremonies mirrored Olympic type ceremonies with parade of athletes, speeches and a torch lighting. This was followed by Matt Garaud, an apparent American Idol contestant ( I never watch it ). His music was Motwown influenced and I did like a couple of his own original tunes.

Most events are held tomorrow (Saturday June 26). The mountain bike races start at 10am with experts racing at 12230pm.

2010-06-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

Mohican 100- yes I keep calling it MUDhican- which is exactly what it was.......

Teammate Martin had sent me a great glowing description of the Mohican trails. I didn't see THOSE trails, but I saw glimpses of what could be potential of those trails.

I got to Loudonville Ohio Friday evening and got my race packet. I'd been in Ohio all week for work and it rained every day in central Ohio. As I got to Loudonville, it was raining once again.

I had dinner then checked into my inexpensive motel which was five miles from the start of the race, which was downtown Loudonville. The finish would be at the Mohican Adventure resort which was about two miles west of downtown Loudonville.

I set the alarms for 6am but woke up at 4am and tried to get back to sleep but the residents of then next room were stirring at 430-500am anyway so sleep was difficult. I got up at about 515am and dressed and packed, departing the room and arriving in downtown Loudonville about 6am under a light drizzle of rain.

I had dressed with legwarmers, armwarmers and a base layer. Rain looked imminent at any time but the temperatures were well into the 70s so I peeled off the base layer and warmers. I was glad I did because I never got cold during the race.

The race started at 700am with 600+ riders heading out of Loudonville on the paved roads north straight up a steep climb. Once out of town there was a left turn onto a country road about a half mile, then a sharp right onto a short gravel track and ........ a standstill! The course there immediately funnelled to a singletrack which began with a sharp drop and very few riders were actually trying to ride it. As we stood there, the guy in front of me was puking four or five times and explained it as nerves and adrenaline. Kinda funny.

Once into the singletrack we began some of the most torturous racing/riding I've done in all my mountainbike riding life. The trail soil was a churned, pasty pancake-like paste of material which gummed up your tire tread and cause the back wheel to slip constantly. Any downhill was impossible to take at any decent speed since the greasy slipperiness of the trail would make stopping or turning completely difficult if not impossible. Steady grade uphills were almost impossible to ride due to the back wheel slipping. The technical sections were hazardous as wheels were slipped and thrown sideways on any angled root or rock.

I've never walked so much in a race as I did Saturday. Curiously, and I wasn't the only one to notice this as RBS racer Art Fleming even said the same thing, there were numerous- numerous- hike-a-bike sections that would not have even been rideable in good weather. Some of these were well over 100 yards long.

I got to the first aid station (approximately mile 20) in THREE HOURS. Keep in mind, as a frame of reference, I rode the first 18 miles of Cohutta singletrack in two hours. It had rained the night before at Cohutta too. But Mohican trail did not drain and was a saturated paper-mache tread. I drank some water at Aid #1 and let more air from my tires which started at 45lbs. I was surprised to see pro-racer Danielle Musto show up. She was having much difficulty with her rear derailleur.

Back on the course, more mud, then- yes- more mud. There were a couple spots of road and gravel two track, then.............. more mud. And yet, more mud..............

At one point we crossed a creek which was about knee deep and I dunked my bike in and washed the mud off the drive train. It was a short-lived cleaning since as soon as you got out of the creek, you had to hike the bike up a hill which again could not be ridden given the conditions. After this 100+ yard climb on foot, you could re-mount the bike for......... more mud.

Aid station #2, I arrived at 100pm. Six hours of grueling riding in slippery, tread-clogging riding I'd gone 34 miles- REALLY! This aid station had a power hose, so I hosed down the bike and cleaned the drive train. I filled both Heed bottles, which I'd emptied in the last ten miles. Danielle was working with a mechanic on her bike, still experiencing drive train issues, unfortunately. She's quite fast and I know if it weren't for the mechanicals she'd have contended for podium.

I rode out the continue the race. Another walking climb due to the mud, some riding in the mud, a turn and a climb. I paused a mile or mile-and-a-half into the next section and took out the laminated map and directions of the course. Description for the 100 miler's read "enter the Mohican State Forest......." UGH. More singletrack, MORE MUD.

I hesitated for four or five minutes, undecided as to my decision, then turned back to Aid station #2. My right leg (ITband area) was getting achy from pushing the bike through the mud, I was six hours in and only 34 miles, there were no significant sections of road or two track on the course and more singletrack at the less-than-six-miles-per-hour pace meant a long long long day of riding. Additionally, the race has cut-offs and if you don't pass certain stations by a certain time the pull you from the course anyway.

I evaluated the fact I could ride for nearly 80 or 90 miles and get pulled to DNF anyway. I then turned the bike around and headed back to the aid station. I cleaned the bike again, told a volunteer I was dropping and road the gravel and paved roads back to the Mohican Adventure resort- all road riding which took me about a half hour.

I then rode the two miles further back into Loudonville during which a complete thunderstorm blew in again. As I was getting drenched (and inadvertently cleaned off of the mud), I knew I'd made the right decision about dropping out.

I ended up cleaning off the mud, packing my gear and going to the race headquarters to eat my post-race meal, then drove back to Michigan.

All in all, I don't think I will try Mohican again. I am definitely going back to Cohutta, but I won't commit to Mohican. Give the cost and time to do one of these events, I want to go to a race that is rideable even in inclement weather because once you pay for the event you gotta do it - or try it- even in bad weather. Cohutta is rideable in even a downpour- I'd found that out in April. But I don't want to commit to another Mohican effort if the weather becomes uncooperative and then have to try an impossible course.

Interestingly, pro racer Jeff Shalk took over eight hours to finish Mohican this year. Last year the winner finished in about 6-1/2 hours.

Ready for Mohican 100

2010-06-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

Okay- Mohican 100 tomorrow. A bit nervous and the week since Sunday was frantic.

Last Sunday went to FtCuster with friend Steve to ride a few laps- rear chain skipping often. Steve and I tweaked and tweaked and only seemed to make matters worse. And the rear derailleur cable was getting frayed. No bike shops open on the holiday weekend, so I stopped at Dick's Sporting goods and bought three derailleur cables and housings sets. Monday tried to install and it appeared the cable was TOO SHORT- aaarrgghh!.

Had to travel for work last week but found a bike shop on my route and bought extra long cables just to be safe- Tandem cables hahahaha. But as I drove Tuesday I re-thought my issue and determined the housing was simply too long. So I cut 7 inches from the housing and threaded the cable through- ta-da! Plenty of cable! I lined up the travel on the derailleur with the set screws and tightened the cable - and left the barrel adjuster in mid- position so I can adjust up or down as needed (Thanks to Steve for barrel adjustment advice and tips).

I went for a tweny mile ride on the mountainbike Wednesday and sure enough, the chain still skipped in the smallest cassette ring. Turn out the barrel adjuster... less skip... turn out a couple more turns- no more skip.

Bike is tweaked and ready for tomorrow- tires at 45psi, all new drive train (chain, chainrings and cassette) and brakes tweaked to close stop positions!

We'll see how it goes!!!!!!!!

Tea Party mass protest in North Carolina

2010-05-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

enough said...............................

Photo of me at Cohutta

2010-05-07T06:16:00.000-07:00

Photos were taken by Blue Basin Photo after about 14-16 miles of the singletrack- this section was a 'flat rock' section with water running across it- easily rideable though I know some racers fell if their tire got caught in a gap.

Up to this point we'd been on the east side of the Ocooe River on the singletrack and after this photo point, we took a left hand turn across a pedestrian bridge and began riding the singletrack on the west side of the river until Checkpoint#1 which was at about mile 18 and at which the trail began to be two-tracks.

Cohutta photos

2010-04-28T17:23:00.001-07:00

Me at start- Whitewater Center building didn't show up in background

Danielle Musto clearing a puddle

Some of the two track

Rocks at Whitewater HQ

Cohutta 100 full report

2010-04-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

Well, my first big race, the Cohutta 100, was a mixed success. While I didn't finish (for reasons to be detailed below) I do feel I am stronger now than last year at this time- and the Cohutta100 is a completely do-able event for me, though I didn't finish this year. I will be back next year with slightly different (wardrobe) strategy.

Strategy- nutrition, bottles and clothing:

I did pick right for my bottles/nutrition. The aid stations served Heed, my beverage of choice. So I decided to take two bottles of Perpetuem (for fuel) and only one bottle of Heed. I figured I could fill the Heed at the first aid station if I was low. Additionally, as I depleted my perpetuem, I could use that first empty bottle to fill a second Heed if needed. But with temperatures at 61degrees, I wasn't getting overly thirsty, but sipped steadily. I did deplete one bottle of Perpetuem in the first 50 miles of the race- exactly how I planned.

I did carry some of the snack sized Raw bars as well as single serve espresso- Hammergel. I also carried 20 Endurolyte tablets. I went through 10 of those in the first 50 miles, also exactly as planned. Considering the first half of the race was likely the hardest with the long muscle-stressing climbing, I think the number of tablets was good for the temperature. If the weather was hotter, I would likely want more Endurolytes.

Clothing- this is where my strategic decisions failed. I started with my base layer and jersey, arm warmers and leg warmers. I opted NOT to carry a rain jacket, though thunderstorms were predicted for the afternoon, because at 61 degrees I figured the temperatures would be okay and I thought the weather would hold until later in the afternoon that what actually occurred. More on this later...

The race started at the Ocoee Whitewater Center- home of the 1996 whitewater Olympic events. Very scenic and beautiful. The racers started at 700am up a 6-8% grade paved highway on the right lane and shoulder for nearly two miles after which a volunteer directed traffic into the trees. A short stretch and it was singletrack for the next 16 miles. This was some of the most technical and challenging singletrack I have ever ridden.

I let some faster riders go in ahead of me to the singletrack, then found some of them were slow in the technical sections. There were a dozen of us weaving wheel to wheel through the trail much slower than I could actually ride. After about a half hour of this, I requested a pass from the two riders in front and darted around them. I put a lot of distance from them and never saw them again until later in the race where the climbing became the key factor. Some other riders also passed them and caught me in the single track a few miles later as well. I did stop to take a couple photos in this first 16 miles. Hopefully they turn out on the disposable camera I had purchased.

This single track section was dotted with bridge crossings- and since it had rained the night before, the trail and wood on the bridges was wet and slippery- a situation familiar to any Michigan rider whose ridden or raced Addison Oaks or Stony Creek. As you know, one must ride across these wet muddy bridges and not make a turn on the wood- yet not one of the Cohutta bridges were you able to ride into the bridge straight on. I crossed all but the last one without incident. On the last, the back tire came out from under me but I was able to put my left foot down and keep from falling.

I suffered my only "fall" in this section, really more of a slide-out, as I approached a rutted, eroded downhill I chose too late whether to go right down the middle or ride up on the top and the wheels slid out from under me to the right and I skidded on my left hip and elbow- no hurt, but I lost my bottle in the lower cage (more on the bottle cage later).

The photo inserted here is from the Cohutta race website- this "flat rock with water" section was really really cool- I rode it without incident.

Aid Station #1 ended the singletrack riding for the next 50-60 miles at approximately mile 18. I got to this 18mile marker in two hours, averaging 9mph in the singletrack. Had there not been so much traffic the first half hour or so, I could have ridden this section faster, but I suspect traffic will be there next year as well- it's the nature of the mass start and pack hitting the trail the way it does.

What followed next after Aid Station#1 was 35-40 miles if incessant two-track jeep-road CLIMBING. Grades of 6-8-10% at least in many sections. Climbing is my weakest riding attribute and I knew going in based on the race profile this would be a difficult section. I used the granny gear often. My key concern was the constant stress would inflame my thigh/ITBand. So I endeavored to reduce stress by simply spinning in the easiest gear possible. I made it to Aid Station #2 at approximately noon for a 39 mile marker. The next aid station was about mile 49-50 (which I would reach at 130pm).

Here's a graph of the elevation- I added the approx locations of the aid stations 1, 2, & 3

About a half hour after passing the second aid station, the sprinkling began and the wind picked up drastically. Up to now I had considered myself overdressed with the legwarmers, armwarmers and base layer. Not for long. Temperatures dropped about 10 degrees to 51 degrees and the rain began coming down in sheets. I was at high enough elevation that I was riding in the clouds (or fog) at times it seemed. The few downhills that occurred, which would have been fast descents, became treacherous riding with rivulets of water running down eroded cracks in the dirt, sheeting water coming down from the sky and visibility reduced to maybe 100 yards!

By my estimate, it would be approximately 1245-100pm, I was completely cold, my fingers gripping the handlebars like claws and I could barely get enough energy to my hands to shift. Luckily I can work my brakes with one finger (THE finger hahahah) so that wasn't an issue. Another rider caught up to me and we rode together for a while, both voicing hope for the next aid station to be coming soon. He stated he was dropping out and was in survival mode. I stated I wouldn't go past Aid Station #3 either. The cold was so deep I was shivering as I rode and the muscles and such in my legs were getting really tight from shivering. He rode on ahead and reached the station about 10 minutes ahead of me.

I reached Bubba's Cabin (Aid Station#3) at 130pm. This was about (almost) the 50-mile mark. I'd reached the halfway point in 7-1/2 hours, riding 1-1/2 hours in cold drenching rain. Due to the climbing, I don't think I would have been significantly faster, but had the weather held, I am confident I'd have reached this point by 100pm, at least. According to other racers and the volunteers, there was one more peak to climb- the last peak on the elevation graph- and then it's much downhill followed by another significant singletrack section which the graph indicates is very much like the first portion. Judging from other rider comments, I think an 11hour goal is not out of reach for me on this event- at least in good weather.

Lesson's learned and stategy for upcoming races and next year's Cohutta100:

First, the bottle kept popping out of the lower cage on the rugged sections. If I use this for a spare bottle next year or later this year I am going to get a velcro strap made to lock the bottle in. I can then stop, unstrap the bottle and replace it with an empty or spare and re-strap it in.

Second, get a biking-backpack- one that cinches down good and doesn't bounce around when riding technical sections. I don't want to use a camelback. Even in hot weather the most I'd need is one more bottle (of Heed). But with a backpack, if there's a HINT of inclement weather, I can pull over and get raingear on, put away extra gear if overheating, or have a spare jersey and gloves. (At Aid Station #3 I had contemplated going out again after I'd warmed up but my clothes were soaked and the wind chilled me immediately when I went outside and I shivered severely. A warm dry jersey may have been enough to get me to the finish yesterday. A rain jacket would definitely got me to the finish).

Some of these ideas will vary minutely depending on the course and weather. But I feel confident in my ability to complete the 100. I felt pretty good - in terms of strength and endurance even as I dropped out- the chill being the primary impediment this past race.

Next up: Mohican 100 in Ohio.

I will post a link to photos later as I get them developed. At one point I rode through a puddle and decided to photograph the next rider through so I got off the bike and aimed the disposable camera, two riders coming through, and I snapped the photo as the first rider exited the puddle- Danielle Musto! I couldn't have planned that better! She was riding through on her way to a first place finish in the 65 mile version of the event.

I think I need a new chain- the chain skipped a bit on the rear cassette in the middle of the gears. I tightened the cable up the day before the race, but the skipping persisted. Not a show stopper- I knew it was skipping a couple weeks earlier but with Yankee to manage and work travel, I had zero time to get another chain and I did not want to make some equipment change I could not try out extensively before the 100 mile race. So minor chain skipping which I could accomodate- the devil I knew- was better than making a change and having greater issues from new equipment.

2010-04-24T17:38:00.001-07:00

Cohutta fail! Dropped out at halfway mark due to freezing rain thunderstorm- lessons learned. Course is definitetly do-able!

Bike repairs from Barry

2010-04-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

After my successful BarryRoubaix race, I've begun concentrating on ramping up my mileage for the April 24 Cohutta-100. But before that- Yankee Springs Time Trial. No, I am not racing but am chairperson for the event. We had a committee meeting to begin driving the activity - only 14 more days!

I got a new derailluer for Brenden's cross bike, but as we tried to install it, it became clear the hanger was still a bit bent (or the frame is) from the damaged done on the Barry-Roubaix race. Brenden asked why we couldn't just convert his bike to a singlespeed cross/road bike. No problem for me!

So back to Alger bike shop, return the derailluer and buy a chain tensioner, rear singlespeed ring and spacer kit. Back home- installed and successful. No more gears!

MMBA April Fool's - Good one webmasters LOL

2010-04-01T08:41:00.001-07:00

Clever April Fool's joke by our Michigan Mountain Biking Association webmaster(s). Good one.
Anyone familiar with the recent antipathy and ongoing disputes of equestrians and bikers at such notable locations as Fr Custer will see the humorous irony here.

Barry-Roubaix report- successful event

2010-03-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

A successful BarryRoubaix race. This Killer Gravel Road race grew from a couple hundred racers in 2009 to perhaps 700 racing this year! Awesome job, Rick!

The race also changed start locations which made the race 4 miles longer- 35 miles rather than last year's 31.

The race was a mass rolling start behind the county sheriff cruiser which slowly increased speed as we rode through the village on a paved road. The sheriff then pulled off as the racers took a right onto the first gravel road.

The race has numerous tough climbs- a couple are nicknamed "the wall" so that gives you an idea of steep they are. As with last year, the mountainbike riders had better gearing for steep climbs, but were at disadvantage on the fast downhills and swooping hardpacked roads.

Of note was Sagaser Rd- which is effectively a rutted two track with a lot of sand in the middle. The pack of riders was still fairly tight as we entered this "mountainbike" portion of the race and many non-dirt riders clearly had difficulty negotiating the sand and leaves and many riders bailed off their bikes to walk. I was behind several other riders and worried that they would do the same, which would bring our ride to a halt and force me to have to walk a portion as well, but though the lead rider in our small group slacked off speed a couple times- he kept spinning away and we all rode on around other dismounted racers without having to put our feed down as well.

It wasn't until the last four miles (on pavement of Gun Lake Road) that I noticed my rear shift cable frayed- which accounts for the shifting problems I had during the ride.

My time last year was 2:09 for 31 miles which meant an average speed of 14.42mph.
My target was to at least do this well which would have meant a finish time of 2:26.
I ended up with a finish time of 2:14:50 for an average speed of 15.56mph.

I think I am still far down in the finish list near the bottom for the Expert 50+ category, but am very satisfied with this result!

Edit: Race results posted I was 21st of 26 racers in Expert 50+

Brenden raced a geared category since his Cannondale-29er wasn't ready and used his cross bike. Unfortunately, and we don't really know why, his derailleur jinked and wrapped around the cassette- UGLY. So he was a DNF for the race.

Edit: There were some great photographers on the course
Here's a few links ( I need to decide if I want to get one of the photos or not from them)

Steve Balogh's #138 photo
http://sb.smugmug.com/Sports/Cyclocross-Other/2010-Barry-Robaix/11643267_oKaft#821816461_pJ9Nh-A-LB

Hay's Photography #323
http://www.haysphotography.net/Sports/Bike-Races/Barry-Roubaix-2010/11654423_59Wu7#822143583_GWTDn-A-LB

Jack Kunnen Photo #9114
http://www.jhkunnenphoto.com/barryroubaix/hae96247#hae96247

HansNyberg Photo#254
http://tenmilemedia.smugmug.com/Sports/Road-Racing/2010-Barry-Roubaix/11651365_i25oA#822113619_jeKEj-A-LB

2010-03-27T10:40:00.001-07:00

Finished BarryRoubaix 11minutes faster than 2009. Time of 2:14:50
More later on blog.

Weekend update

2010-03-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

Friday, I did a spot on Yankee Springs Time Trial on Shelly Irwin's local WGVU radio show- promoting the event.

Saturday, we had a family event in Muskegon where my nephew David (sister Denise's middle child) received his Eagle Scout award- big achievement!

Sunday, well, was a different bike ride- I did my first ever road race, though to be fair, it was a time trial with racers departing the start line individually at one minute intervals. I completed the 17+ mile course in 58min32seconds.

The course was an "out&back" starting at Fisk Knob Park- the highest point in Kent County and ending back at the park after a loooooonngg climb as shown by the graphic below.

Official results are here. I was 10th of 11 racers in the 50-54 age group.

Brenden and I did a short 10 mile or so ride on the cross bikes utilizing some of the gravel trails in Millenium Park this evening. Team ride Tuesday evening.

The week will culminate Saturday at the Barry-Roubaix Killer Gravel Road Race!!!

Bike Race season just got SERIOUS

2010-03-15T17:49:00.001-07:00

I am now launched! This will definitely be the most varied and different race season I've had in 12 years.

First, I registered for the Fisk Knob Time Trial- which is a ROAD race! I don't think I would like a regular road race, packs of riders cornering- whew! A time trial seems more comfortable for me, but it's still a road race. (The weather also appears ominous as well).

Second, the next week is the BarryRoubaix gravel road race. Last year I did the 31 mile event in 2hrs9mins. This equals 4.16 minutes per mile. The race this year is 35 miles due to a different start location so I need to do the race in at least 2hrs25minutes to match last year's pace.

Finally, I launched on the mountainbike race season- I registered for the Cohutta-100. This is one of the NUE Series races (of which Lumberjack-100 is a part). I completed Lumberjack last year, but my ambitious goal this season is to do FOUR of the NUE races: Cohutta, Mohican, Wilderness and Shenendoah.

Cohutta 100 Tennessee April 24
Mohican 100 Ohio June 5
Wilderness 101 Pennsylvania July 31
Shenandoah 100 Virginia September 5

Along the way will be a few other events such as 12 Hours of Ithaca and Ore-to-Shore.

Training has been tough with much work travel. A week in mid-December, 2-1/3 weeks in December, 2 weeks in February and a week (last week) in March- to McAllen Texas to cross the border each day into Reynosa Mexico at a supplier location in the industrial park. For "training" I've been running on the hotel treadmill a half hour each morning then follow that with my calisthenic/stretch regimen.

I didn't ramp up a fitness regimen as much as I'd like in Dec-Jan-Feb, but I think I am in better shape now at this time in 2010 as I was last year at this time in 2009. I've done more fitness work over the winter than I did a year ago, I am eating better and I am still 165 lbs- last year at this time I was almost 180.

Reynosa is getting to be pretty bad- as many Mexican border towns seem to be with the drug violence. Co-workers have reported hearing gunfire and grenades heard when working in the plant which is occurring downtown in Reynosa, a couple miles away. The week before I got there, a Mexican supplier to our local plant there had his SUV hijacked at the intersection near the plant, yanked out of his car at gunpoint. I found myself leaving plenty of space in front of me to ensure I didn't get boxed in if someone was behind me, allowing me availabel maneuvering room if necessary. But it was not necessary. I left the plant each day between 500-600pm and was in the USA before dusk.

I will likely have future trips to Reynosa and would like to bike while there, but the cost of shipping a bike (on the airline or otherwise) is fairly expensive, especially if a trip is only one week. But I found a pawnshop that often has mountainbikes for sale. I checked it out Thursday night and the bikes run about $50. They are in rough shape (old Diamondbacks, etc), but with my own pedals, would be sufficient for week of evening riding. The guy at the pawnshop said I could even "pawn" the bike back when done at the end of the week- which could mean a pretty cheap ride for a week.

Now to go mount my road tires on my new Electric Blue Velocity rims! I got these so I could put road tires on them, and keep my cross tires on the stock rims that came with my Cannondale Cross-6 bike. No need to pull tires for each event, just swap wheelsets.

Who Knew I was such an enemy of America?

2010-03-10T20:07:00.001-08:00

2010-03-07T17:53:00.001-08:00

Coffee Party- sounds like a rational non-hysteria driven group
http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/

Trails found near McAllen!

2010-02-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

My next trip to the Rio Grande Valley was sooner than I expected. I was just here Jan 4-20 and didn't expect to be back until late Feb or early March, but circumstances necessitated this trip on Feb 1-12.

Hotel living can be wearing. My usual routine is disrupted, my usual diet is disrupted.

But the trip has had plusses. The tasks at work are progressing positively.

I've endeavored to eat a bit lighter this trip- restaurant portions can be larger than one normally eats. The supplier plant also feeds people heavier. They've been getting me lunch but it's typically HUGE- salad, rice, mixed vegetable mix, and a soup! All I can really eat at lunch is the mixed vegs.

The weather here was very very rainy Tue-Wed-Thur. Friday was beautiful, blue sky and T-shirt weather as was Saturday. I tried to find someplace different to eat Saturdaynight and was recommended to go to the Patio on Guerro. I looked at the menu and no vegetarian dishes were listed, but the hostess said the chef could make a vegetarian dish. The chef actually came out and took my order personally and then delivered the dish- really good- tossed linguine with grilled asparagus and with spinach, summer squash and slivered almonds. Excellent.

I've decided to be MORE assertive and picky at restaurants from now on. If they cannot make something off-menu, I won't eat there. And frankly, to the non-vegetarians, if the restaurant is incapable of making an off-menu plate- maybe YOU don't want to eat there either because that means they probably either have really poorly trained cooks/chefs- or their food is pre-cooked and packaged and probably kept in hot pans.

I wandered up and down 17th St in McAllen for an hour or so- this is a nightclub district with some really cool looking clubs. I left before 11pm, just as the district was really getting busy- car to car down the street. There are about three blocks of clubs and bars- sort of a "Chicago Rush Street" or the club district in Georgetown (outside WashDC).

One club caught my eye and I looked inside- pulsating club music, laserlights, fog machines. The Kai Club. Apparently the club gets some "world famous" DJs- one was advertised on the door - Miss Nine (not that I would know who famous DJs are - hahahaha).

I got up Sunday morning and did another 30 minutes on the treadmill and followed up with my stretches and situps and pushups- My lower back is doing much better than in December with the sustained therapy.

I tried to find a New York Times sunday paper at Starbucks on Sunday, but no papers (later, driving around and a stop at the Barnes&Noble revealed no NYTimes arrived in the area today).

So I got a coffee and headed out to find the Mission Trails which were listed in a tourist book at the hotel.

The Mission Trails is a bike&hike area out near Mission, Texas that has a paved path and some dirt trails as well. I walked a half mile or so down the paved trail- The paved trail is about five miles long but doesn't loop around- it's out-n-back according to one cyclist I chatted with, making a ten mile ride if you do the whole length. The dirt trails remind me of our Bass River- low elevations and winding in a fairly small are of land. The tread is clay based from the appearance.

Now that I've found this bike area (since the roads here are not some place I'd like to ride), I will endeavor to bring a bike the next time I have to do a two week trip here (one week wouldn't justify the expense of shipping the bike). I can bring my lights and ride the paved path at night (though technically the park is "closed" one guy involved in the trails here said they ride at night all the time).

Week two here...
Rained most of the week- rainy and 50 degrees.

Friday got wrecked- I was supposed to fly out at 6am, but due to weather in Dallas, the flights were cancelled and I was stuck here an extra day.

Weather looks good for Saturday but my weekend is blown. We had opera tickets for Friday night already paid for- changed to Saturday at no cost, but with a 4pm arrival to Grand Rapids and 7pm opera, I won't be able to go to the Grand Rapids Bicycle Film Festival

Jan 31st-MMBA Expo and Anniversary

2010-01-31T17:08:00.000-08:00

Jan 31 was our 23rd anniversary.. Joni and I celebrated low-key. I got her flowers, she got me a movie and the Beatle's Revolver (UK version) CD. Sunday was spent at the MMBA Annual Meeting and Expo-

The Expo was a good event! Held at the MSU Pavilion, there's a portion that can be used for dirt. A team from the MMBA put in a dirt BMX-like track. I think next year it will be even more popular now that people had a chance to see it.

The standard displays and vendors were present, but the highlight was Dave Wiens- pro mountainbiker and six-time winner of the Leadville-100 (whose attempt to win a 7th was the subject of the movie Race against the Sky in which Lance Armstrong won- Dave had beat Lance the year before during his sixth win).

Here's me and Dave- great guy and a cycling inspiration!

16 days on the border

2010-01-09T15:54:00.000-08:00

Work travel was required right after the holiday. I was in McAllen Texas the week of Dec 14-18 visiting a supplier and my manager called the last day. We discussed upcoming launches in January and it was decided I needed to be here Jan 4th and stay for two weeks. But a change in a customer visit meant instead of flying back to Michigan Jan 18th (Friday) I stayed until Jan 20th (Wednesday).

Each day we go though customs at the Kika de la Garza crossing (from Pharr, Texas) which is also the only truck crossing into Reynosa and essentially goes right into the industrial parks. (There is another crossing west which goes right into Cuidad Reynosa's downtown district, but it is not only out of the way, it's busier and also more dangerous. It was shut down in early December due to guns/grenade battles between the drug cartels and the Mexican army). Each day we cross back in the evening to the USA. It was busier the week in December than it has been this past week probably due to the many Mexicans that come shopping in the USA over the holidays. I also noticed increased traffic on weekends and the hotel has a large number of Mexican families that come over for the weekend.

The first workweek over, Saturday was a later start to the morning. Colleague John and I took off after breakfast to South Padre Island. John had been there but I had not. I took some photos and posted them on my website. The island is actually quite long, but the main road down the center simply deadends and the rest north (when viewed on Google satellite) is beach and dunes.

There were many "snowbirds" there and RV parks everywhere around Port Isabel which is the last town before you cross over the causeway bridge to the island. We had lunch at Blackbeards ( a longtime local favorite restaurant ) then John then drove back to McAllen via highway 43 through Brownsville to US-83.

We did find a great brewpub here- the Piranha IPA at BJ's Brewpub is almost as good as Founder's IPA.....(almost) :)

Saturday evening I went to Home Depot- I needed to get some files or rasps to be able to do a rework operation on some plastic housings Monday.

The next week went fairly fast- the customer visited Wednesday and many of the programs I worked on were advancing to better operations, but opportunities always arise (hahaha) and new issues arose on Thursday and Friday.

Saturday Jan 16 was a lazy day- I was tired out and slept in, wandered to Starbucks for coffee, watched a movie on TV, went back for more coffee and sat outside to read Zizek. The temperatures were about 70 degrees.

Saturday night was BORING- after dinner I surfed the computer and the TV- absolutely terrible viewing choices on televison. Then, a brainstorm- too late in this long stay, though. The rooms here are suites- so there's a bedroom (with a standard TV) and a "livingroom" with a large LG flatscreen. This HAD to be a modern TV right? Sure enough- there were alternate inputs in the back of the panel. I plugged in a two-way audio cable from my laptop and put Mediaplayer on and tuned the TV settings to the alternate input- ta-da! Music! Now I need only get a external monitor cable from a Radioshack and I can watch any of the movies I have on my laptop. For future trips I can also bring a DVD (or buy one I would like to have) and play them on the laptop to the television. Wish I'd thought of this 12 days ago- UGH!

Sunday: I've only seen THREE real cyclists since I've been here. Last week during the evening I saw a woman on a mountainbike on the outside of the metro area. Just a few minutes ago, I saw two roadies riding in front of the hotel- but today (Sunday), the traffic is really light. Lazy day- I got coffee and a NYTimes at Starbucks in the morning- I am saving the paper for my Wednesday flight. I went back later at 11am and sat outside in 70 degree weather while I read Zizek's "Violence." A couple hours later John, Jamie and I drove to South Padre Island for a dinner and short sightseeing trip. The weather was much better than the previous weekend when were were there and the temps were unseasonably freezing.

Monday I overslept, but still made it to the plant at 9am. Worked on a few issues and came back to the US side at 5pm to meet up with the customer representatives at the plant.

Tuesday was plant visit, which went well. I then crossed the border for the last time this trip. I am now packed. I printed boarding passes for the flight tomorrow morning. I've got the Sunday NewYorkTimes. Flight is 645am.

Time to come home. I will likely be back here in a few weeks.

Good news about Health Care Insurance/Cost Reforms

2010-01-05T14:43:00.000-08:00

Found on line- Good news about Health Care Insurance/Cost Reforms

Huffington Post

Conservatives can rejoice -- Rush Limbaugh recently left Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu hospital with a clean bill of health. Despite complaints of sharp chest pains, Limbaugh told reporters that after he went through an angiogram, doctors "found absolutely nothing wrong. It was a blessing. No arterial disease, no coronary disease whatsoever." Moments later, Limbaugh turned his praise of the hospital's service into his latest proof that the current American health care system is working perfectly. "Based on what happened to me here, I don't think there is one thing wrong with the American health care system. It is working just fine, just dandy, and I got nothing special," Limbaugh continued.

What Limbaugh didn't realize, SEIU's blog points out, is that the Hawaiian health care system is one of America's most progressive. So progressive, in fact, that Hawaii has been exempted from some of the terms of the Senate health care bill because the current system's requirements go above and beyond the ones federal legislation would mandate. Furthermore, Limbaugh's saviors at the Queen's Medical Center are represented by the Hawaii Nurse's Associations, which, according to SEIU, offers benefits and protections similar to those of a labor union. The anti-reform talk show host is working to deny more people the same type of "confidence-inspiring" medical attention that made him "thankful to be an American."

and more.....

Baltimore Sun

Health care reform found an unlikely champion in bombastic radio talkmeister Rush Limbaugh over the weekend. After suffering from chest pains while vacationing in Hawaii, he was checked into Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, and upon his release declared himself and the health care system in sound working order.

Of course, it's safe to assume that multimillionaire celebrities probably get pretty good health care no matter where they are, but it's notable that Mr. Limbaugh was in Hawaii, a state that has adopted health care reforms not unlike those President Barack Obama is seeking and are now pending in Congress. Since 1974, Hawaii has required employers to offer relatively generous health care benefits to their workers. Rather than drive up the cost of health care, it's had the exact opposite effect. Health insurance premiums in Hawaii are among the cheapest in the U.S. -- astounding considering that island consumers tend to pay more for everything else, from groceries to gasoline, than their mainland counterparts.

To Mr. Limbaugh, that kind of mandate and government intrusion must surely smack of socialism. But it's hard to argue with the results. Because so many people have health insurance, Hawaii's hospital emergency rooms aren't swamped. Indeed, studies show people living in the state use fewer health services, not more.

Health care in Hawaii is far from perfect. Like other states, Hawaii has a growing number of uninsured (employers don't have to provide coverage for those who work fewer than 20 hours per week). But while Mr. Limbaugh isn't employed in Hawaii and therefore didn't benefit directly from the 35-year-old reforms, the hospital that treated him so successfully has. Provider administrative costs in Hawaii are among the lowest in the nation. Small wonder that the hospital could afford to provide such satisfactory service -- even to someone who denounces the policies that have made Hawaiian health care a success.

2010-01-03T12:57:00.001-08:00

Great weekend- saw the movie Nine, did a NewYearsDay (freezing) bike ride and som XC-skiing!

Ready for spinning

2009-12-31T20:53:00.000-08:00

Today was fairly lazy but yesterday was busy.

On Wednesday, I changed both Brenden and Joni's rear tires on their cross bikes from cross tires to road tires and moved their trainers indoors. I then spent the afternoon re-arranging the upstairs bedroom. Once completed, I was able to take both Joni and my trainer and bikes upstairs. Today I changed my rear cross tire out for a road tire.

Spinning starts in 2010 in earnest!!!

Sunday weather was great for skiing

2009-12-28T07:36:00.000-08:00

I bet the downhill skiers had a great day too, but the powdery weather was excellent for cross-country skiing Sunday. Pigeon Creek in Ottawa County is our favorite location to go skiing with the groomed trails, some technical sections, and a ski lodge which has hot chocolate! Here we are wearing our Sun-Ice ski jackets we got at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary

Sean Goldman and the legacy of Elian Gonzalez

2009-12-24T06:20:00.000-08:00

Sean Goldman and the legacy of Elian Gonzalez

In 2000, the Clinton Administration's justice department (under Janet Reno) ordered an early morning raid by INS agents to retrieve young Elian Gonzalez and return him to Cuba to his father.

Elian's mother, her boyfriend and several other people had fled across the straits from Cuba to Florida with several perishing in the ocean, including Elian's mother. Elian survived. His father telephoned relatives in the USA to tell them she had taken their son without his consent.

A battle developed - driven mostly by anti-Cuba-govt politics- as the US Govt sought to get the boy returned and court documents were filed. Ultimately the courts ruled the boy should go back to his father and the Supreme court refused to hear the case.

A dramatic pre-dawn raid added to the drama and seemed like serious overkill at the time when presented on the news, but the family holding Elian had told a US Govt negotiator "You think we just have cameras in the house? If people try to come in, they could be hurt." The dramatic raid was designed to reduce or eliminate the chance of injuries and fatalities during the retrieval of the boy. (INS and other investigators later claimed some of the people in the house had criminal records and illegal weapons).

The Clinton administration was roundly castigated by conservatives and Republicans for returning the boy to Cuba and even attempted to create citizenship for the boy by Congressional act. But there was a larger issue at hand here.....

Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction

The USA was a signatory to this 1980 child abduction treaty. At the time (at any given time) hundreds of US american parents are battling with overseas nations where their estranged spouses have fled with children born of their union. American courts often gave legal custody to the US-resident parent so the foreign-national parent flees with the children.

Clinton returned Elian because if we flouted our signing of the Convention, we would have no legal or moral standing for all the parents who were attempting the legal retrieval of their custodial rights.

This can be a messy process- a recent Atlantic Monthly article illustrated how some nations that do sign the Convention still don't have a smooth process for adhering to the law- and the article describes one former army special forces officer that specializes in "retrieval abductions" - only doing so when he knows that the parent contracting him does indeed have legal custody from the USA. The article describes one such recovery in Costa Rica

Forward to Dec 2009- and sean Goldman- Sean's father David Goldman spent much of the last five years fighting in American and Brazilian courts for the return of his son. The boy’s mother, who was then married to Mr. Goldman, took Sean to Brazil in 2004 for a two-week vacation but kept him there, divorced Mr. Goldman and remarried. After the mother died last year, her new husband, a prominent Brazilian lawyer, and the boy’s Brazilian family insisted that Sean should stay with them in Brazil. The chief judge of Brazil’s Supreme Court, however, ruled this week that the family had to return Sean to Mr. Goldman. On Wednesday, a federal court in Brazil gave the Brazilian family a deadline of Thursday to turn Sean over to Mr. Goldman, and lawyers for family members indicated that they would comply. The family delivered a 9-year-old boy to his American father in Brazil on Thursday, ending a five-year custody battle. Sean Goldman was brought into the U.S. consulate by his maternal grandmother and his stepfather, making it into the compound's front door as scores of reporters and cameramen tried to get close. His father, David Goldman, was waiting for him inside.

Five years, but the rule of law won out after the highly visible issue of a small cuban boy in 2000

Bike Shoes for sale

2009-12-22T06:53:00.000-08:00

I got these a year ago at the MMBA expo but they don't fit my feet well, so I've never worn them except for one bike ride on Kent Trails.

8-1/2 Specialized

Selling for $20 and will post on the MMBA classifieds forum

Week's travel coming to a close

2009-12-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

It's been an interesting week travel to McAllen Texas to visit a supplier facility across the border in Reynosa Mexico.

My plan was to fly down Monday and arrive at about 1130am, check into the hotel, then visit the plant in the afternoon. I'd spend Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday there and the morning of Friday after which I'd catch an afternoon back to Grand Rapids via Dallas (more on Dallas later). Things didn't go exactly as planned. What does?

Flight in Monday was uneventful from Grand Rapids to Dallas. The flight from Dallas to McAllen is about an hour and we were in the air nearly that long when the announcement came that McAllen was fogged in and the plane could not land. We ended up routing to Austin to re-fuel. Once there, they did find they could fly back to McAllen, which we did. A one hour flight became a longer than three hours and by the time I checked into the hotel, it was after 230pm. (My colleague Bob flew in Sunday via Houston and could not land. The plane returned to Houston where he was forced to sleep in the airport for a morning flight back to McAllen. Another colleague flew out Thursday and ended up stranded in Houston due to delays in flights and she missed her connection to Grand Rapids)!

The McAllen Airport is about the size of Muskegon or maybe Lansing - but far busier!

I tried to connect with co-workers to get across the border not realizing at the time how cumbersome a process this was here in Reynosa. My previous border experience was 2005 and 2006 at Del Rio Texas to Acuna Mexico and it wasn't difficult at all. Apparently Acuna/DelRio is far far less busy than Reynosa. The crossing here has two large bridges with a third under construction and they are often packed. My coworkers reporting waits in line of up to two hours!

So I settled for logging in on the computer and doing work from the hotel.

It rained every day here until Thursday afternoon. Tuesday, we got across into Reynosa and John, who was driving a small Jeep, dodged huge holes in the flooded streets because it was raining so hard. The weather broke Thursday afternoon and today it is blue sky for my flight out.

I opted to not go back into Reynosa this morning because I did not want a delay at the border to cause me to lose my flight home. So I again worked from the hotel.
Now I sit in the airport on wifi listening to Collective Soul on my Blackberry as I wait for the 315 flight to Dallas. Dallas Airport (DFW)- I like Dallas far better than Houston. When I book flights I go through Dallas rather than Houston for two key reasons: (a) it's laid out better and better organized, (b) better shops and stores in which to browse while waiting on a layover and (c) better food! Houston's "food court" is worse than eating in a mall- far worse and the fare that they do have is terrible! Dallas has far better restaurants, especially for me as a vegan/vegetarian, it has a Bennigan's which has a black bean burger.

I had tried to rent a bike here for my visit but the one link I found online that rents bikes in the area had not responded to my emails. I brought lights in case I had the opportunity to ride at night. But with the weather this week it would have been wasted anyway. On my next trip I will try to take advantage of the very deluxe fitness center that is available - the hotel has a affiliation with a private fitness center that is very very nice.

The good news is that the iliosis pain is about 90% gone. I've diligently done my stretches, foam roller and heating pad in the morning and night. Interestingly, I am most sore and stiff in the morning after sleeping.

We didn't go into downtown Reynosa during our visit- the plant is in an industrial park on the east outskirts of town. John said a week ago or so, they could hear gunfire and grenades from the downtown area due to a battle between police & army and drug cartel members. The Mexican army caught three guys with C4 explosives and a vehicle full of weapons about an hours drive into Mexico a few days ago as well.
Mexico has a tough task ahead with the drug cartels and US addictions (and policy) aren't helping them squelch the criminals. Maybe some legalization would depress narcotics prices and help make peddling drugs less lucrative?

time off the bike and back pain

2009-12-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have worked to stretch and alleviate the pain I was under following last Sunday's final cyclocross race. A bit of recent research indicate the issue is iliopsoas- all the symptoms are described there. I had the same issue at the end of the 2008 season which I believe was caused by many hours of riding to improve my cycling. I found a good link (below) on the condition and the steps to alleviate it, many of which I was doing intuitively, but perhaps not completely accurately.

http://www.julstro.com/cyclists_1.html

http://www.julstro.com/cyclists_2.html

In any event- it has now been a week without riding and I need to get back in the saddle this week

Last Crossrace

2009-11-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

The last Kisscross was held in Holland today at a stadium. The course planners set up a spiral in the center of the football field which was pretty cool. It rained really hard during the C race (1100am-1200pm) but stopped by noon when we B racers started. I had my best finish in a cross race this season, I think, finishing at 22nd out of nearly 40 B-Master cyclists. I was almost 21st but a competitor really pushed the last 100 yards on the road segment to the finish line and passed me just before the flags- Dang!

Needless to say, the event was a muddy mess. Also, my lower back was really hurting. It was okay on the bike but really hurt when I had to dismount to climb steps. Once finished, every time I coughed my back would spasm. I am on a heating pad right now trying to alleviate the pain.

Birthday party day...

2009-11-14T13:03:00.001-08:00

Joni's been planning the party now for weeks and weeks. My 50th birthday celebration- though it's actually three weeks early. She was trying to avoid the holidays. So she rented a hall and organized food. I wasn't allowed to see the decoration so there's likely some embarrasing old stuff around LOL

Went to Luton this morning with Rick and a couple other mountainbikers. We build a log-over on the Black Loop. I was the first to ride it during construction since I had my bike shoes on. Not a difficult obstacle, but we tweaked it with another log to make it a bit easier after my initial try. We then rode a loop. 71 degrees today - WOW!

Now off the the party!

Busy week and return to training

2009-11-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

Well, after a month away from steady riding I began my training rides again. There is a small amount of lingering congestion, but not too bad.

I went last week and rode a loop for about an hour to create a training loop. I then drove it in the car since my Garmin is JUNK (JUNK GARMIN JUNK - I'll never buy another) and found the loop to be 16 miles.

So I can do one or two loops of the same route depending on how I feel or what time it is. Yesterday I rode it counterclockwise, then reversed when I got to the end and rode clockwise. This really effectively makes it one long 30 mile ride rather than the same 15 twice. I am also keeping my lights charged as they will be needed even for one loop regardless of what time I get home.

Saturday I rode at Ft Custer. Joni and I did the Green Loop after which, while she rode the Yellow Loop I did the Red and then 2/3 of the Green again. Beautiful weather!

I've also been diligent about my stretches to keep away issues with leg tightness and ITBand issues. I've been back on the foam roller at least once per day as well.I've been working in some pushups and situps as well and plan to do a running loop of a mile to two miles a couple times a week most likely in the more inclement weather.

Joni is busy planning the big party- whoo hooo! Not that I really need it and my birthday is actually in December, but she chose mid-November to avoid the holiday conflicts in most people's scehdules.

So a busy week is in order. I will be on an MMBA board meeting call for a short time Tuesday, at a CPS meeting in Novi Wednesday, party on Saturday and Kisscross race in Grand Rapids on Sunday

Protein 101: Dispelling the Myth Surrounding Meatless Meals

2009-10-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

People always ask me, when they find I am a vegan, "where do you get your protein?" - as if Americans are protein deficient (insert eye-roll). Anyway, here's a great article excerpt and link:

http://civileats.com/2009/10/27/protein-101-dispelling-the-myth-surrounding-meatless-meals/

..what about the claims that we need to eat animal proteins because they contain certain “necessary” amino acids that vegetable proteins don’t? Professor Nestle replied: ..all proteins are made of the same amino acids. ALL. No exceptions. The difference between animal and vegetable proteins is in the content of certain amino acids. If vegetable proteins are mixed, the differences get made up. Even if they are not mixed, all you have to do to get the right amount of the low amino acids is to eat more of that food. There is no ‘need’ for animal proteins at all.

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On a different note- a good article and video here on Genetically modified foods

http://civileats.com/2009/10/14/kitchen-table-talks-what-you-need-to-know-about-genetically-engineered-food/

proponents try to dull the concern by stating that man has "modified" his foods for millenia... but what they miss is this- it's quite different to breed maize, for example, with heartier forms or more tasty forms until one gets sweet corn. It's quite another to INSERT into the genome of sweet corn the genes from an INSECT, for example. On what evolutionary planet would an INSECT gene get into the DNA of a PLANT that we would eat?

Revising 2010 events

2009-10-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

Reviewing my potential events for next season and the February 24Hrs of OLD PUEBLO in Tuscon Az- I don't think this will be a feasible race for me at that point in time. Flying is approx $1200 round trip not counting bike transport costs. Driving is 2000 and would take 30 hours and nearly $500 gas not counting time off and race fee etc... I will probably will scratch this from the schedule

2009 assessment, 2010 goals

2009-10-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

While I'm off the bike for a few days due to illness (bronchitis and a cold) I can take a bit of time to assess my 2009 cycling performance

I had fairly narrow goals for 2009, though I modified them somewhat as the season progressed
My initial 2009 mountain bike racing schedule and goals were:
1. Complete Lumberjack 100
2. Race La Ruta
3. increase speed and endurance

My racing schedule for 2009:
Barry Roubaix Killer Gravel Road Race 3/28/09 25th of 29, 2hrs/9min
24 Hours of Boyne - solo 8 laps, 75 miles, 2rd place
Lumberjack-100 6/20/09- success 11hrs:45min
12 Hours of Ithaca 7/18/09- injury shortened event
Ore to Shore Mountain Bike Epic beat my best time previously with a 2009 finish of 3:39
12 Hours of Pando 8/15/09- raced solo-FIRST PLACE! 22 laps
12 HOURS of Drummond Island 8/29/09- did not race
12 Hours of Hanson Hills 9/12/09 - did not race
Pando Challenge CrossCountry Race - fifth place

Assessment: I did indeed complete Lumberjack- This was my primary goal of the first part of the season. I also had a secondary goal to complete it in less than 12 hours, which I did- finishing in 11hours/45minutes.

But with regards to La Ruta........ I also raced at the 24 Hours of Boyne but stopped at the 11 hour mark. It was a mixed success. I had more laps in less time than I did in 2008 when I was forced to quit due to injury. So this year I stopped because I felt my ITBand getting tight. So I was mildly successful to have done more laps in less time before pulling out of the event. But the climbing at La Ruta, the climbing at Lumberjack, and my overall speed quite early in the year told me I'd never be capable of accomplishing a La Ruta event this year- perhaps ever.

Another smaller goal was to be faster at Ore-to-Shore, with the secondary goal to try to reach 3-1/2 hours in that 48 mile race. I was close. I beat my previous best time and was only 9 minutes off the time to reach 3-1/2 hours.

Another highlight of the season was a stellar performance at the 12 Hours of Pando with a first place finish - out-gutting it with three other competitors to do 22 laps to their 21! Very gratifying.

I also had a VO2Max test which showed me the limits of my physical capabilities as well as a small window of opportunity. My aerobic threshhold is right up against my VO2Max. One's VO2Max is the wall above which you can't put any more effort past. Ideally there should be some space between them- and it is into this space you reach physically to sprint or gut out a tough climb. Unfortunately for me, when reaching into the space between AT and VO2Max,..... well, there is no space. Though genetically limited to a large degree, there is some room for movement and I will be working on intervals and sprints to move my VO2Max out a bit above my aerobic threshhold.

All in all, 2009 was a very successful cycling season. I lost nearly 25lbs, rode my bike more than I did in the previous years, and peaked well on a couple of self-critical races!

But what's on tap for 2010? I don't think I will target La Ruta. I've decided I should drop it off my list of goals permanently, though it seem to stay in the back of my mind all the time.
Here's mLy tentative schedule. Joni thought I'd done too many of the same events over the last 11 years. Maybe 2010 the right time to shake it up a bit?

An early season race, 24 Hours of Old Pueblo in Tuscon affords some travel time and would encourage winter training. Then there's the four "100's" -- Cohutta, Mohican, Wilderness and Shenendoah. These are in the same NUE series as Lumberjack. But I am confident I can finish the events- the key will be working on the speed to finish more quickly.

I also would like to do the 12 Hours of Cranky Monkey which is held on the USMC base of Quantico, where I was during Officers Candidate School in 1986. I think Brenden and Joni would like to see the area while I race. The Chupacabra a 48 miler in Jaurez Mexico and is basically optional. This schedule might change a bit between now and 2010.

February 24Hrs of OLD PUEBLO (Tuscon)
March Barry Roubaix Killer Gravel Road Race
April Cohutta 100 (TN)May Mohican 100 (OH)
June 12Hrs of Cranky Monkey (Quantico)
July 12Hrs of Ithaca
August Wilderness 100
September Shenandoah 100 (VA)
October Chupacabras (El Paso Tx)

2009-10-10T12:59:00.001-07:00

12 Hours of Addison bust

Yeah right- 5 laps, 3 hours, greasy trail, hurting ITBand...... Leads to poor performance. Oh well.

Eating meat destroys the environment

2009-10-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

A blog post by Joshua Holland noted that an article from The New Scientist: "Meat is Murder on the Environment- A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home."

This is among the conclusions of a study by Akifumi Ogino of the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan, and colleagues, which has assessed the effects of beef production on global warming, water acidification and eutrophication, and energy consumption...

Their analysis showed that producing a kilogram of beef ... is responsible for the equivalent of the amount of CO2 emitted by the average European car every 250 kilometres, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Hat-tip to Ezra Klein, who anticipates the inevitable cries that these kinds of studies set the stage for the proverbial jack-booted thugs to take away Americans' God-given right to a nice Salisbury steak:

As always, the issue isn't that people shouldn't eat burgers. They should just know what's entailed in eating that burger. Plenty of folks are appalled to see a living room light left on but would never think to trade the cheeseburger for a grilled cheese.

Miss you....

2009-10-08T05:18:00.000-07:00

Obituary

"BUD" BERNARD MURPHY,Muskegon: Bud was born in Muskegon to Bernard and Lorraine Brott on September 29, 1937. He passed away at home on Saturday Oct. 8, 2005 at age 68. He was surrounded by his loving family and passed on peacefully knowing he was loved and respected by a large family, lots of good friends and co-workers. He had been fighting lung cancer for the last sixteen months. Much support through this time came from the Hackley Cancer Support Group, that he enjoyed so much.

After working for 28 years, Bud had retired from S.D. Warren Sappi in 2001. Since that time he enjoyed traveling with friends and family, playing lots of golf and attending as many football games as possible. He graduated from Muskegon Heights High School in 1955. Bud had five children and twelve granchildren. His son Dennis, wife Joni, son Patrick Anderson and Brenden Murphy. Daughter Jan and husband Bill Griffiths and their children Liam, Kyle and Jennifer. Daughter Glenna, husband Al Storch and their children Caitlin, Brian, also infant son Kevin who passed away July 21, 1988. Daughter Denise, husband John Nichols, sons Logan Murphy-Nichols, David and Joshua Nichols. Son Jeffery who preceded him on June 18, 1995 at age 23. Surviving Jeff is daughter Tiffany McEachen.

He married Cheryl Hopkins on March 17, 1983. His parents both preceded him. He is survived by his sister Darleen Robert Schmidt from Fort Wayne, IN., his mother-in-law Lorena Coe of Spring Lake, his sister and brother-in-laws Duane and Earleen Sprague of Port Orange, FL., Marcia and Gene Renouf of Grand Haven, Darryl and Bonnie Sprague of Muskegon, and Sandra and Art Hanson of Spring Lake. He is also survived by twenty eight nieces and nephews and their spouses and children. Aunts and uncles, Viola Six and Robert Hickel of Muskegon, Bob and Lola Brott of Kent City and Dolly Nyblad of Grant, and many wonderful friends, neighbors and his dog "Murf".

Visitation / Service- Visitation and services were held Monday, October 10th at 2-4 & 7-9 PM at Clock Funeral Home - Muskegon

Service was held Tuesday, October 11, 2005, 2:00 PM at Clock Chapel

Miss you dad

Cross Race #3

2009-10-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

KissCross' third event was in a Grand Rapids city park- Highland Park- downtown. There were 38 racers in the B-masters group. The first four laps were fine with no rain, but a sleeting cold rain started on my lap five and continued for the rest of the event. The course was one mile long so it was a hard 8 miles at race pace. I finished in 21st place out of 38 racers.

Now I'm tired.... LOL

Debacle at Pando

2009-09-28T04:58:00.000-07:00

My race yesterday was NOT as good as I'd have liked. It was a rare cross country event for me, short at about 25 miles (six laps) at Pando Ski area. It's the same course I captured first place with 22 laps last month. I knew I'd be in the back of the pack right from the start as the course as usual goes right up the ski hill. But I figured over the course of six laps I might be able to catch at least one, maybe two, of my competitors as they began to drag later in the race.

Lap one went well and I headed out for lap two. Nearly a mile into the second lap, I thought I needed to go through the chute to have my lap counted, and I had not, so now I am thinking I won't get credit for my first lap and I went of course trying to find a shortcut back to the start to do the chute. I got a bit lost, couldn't find a way back and decided to go back on the course where I left off and keep going. I would ask at the end of lap two if my first counted or I needed to do the chute. Worst case is I lost lap one and would just DNF. So I get to the top of the hill at the end of lap two and - NO - I didin't need to do the chute! so I went off course for nothing and lost perhaps ten minutes! UGH!!! I finished the event in last place with a time of 2hrs/13mins. That's still really good at 22 minutes a laps! But the nearest competitor was only 7-8 minutes ahead of me in the timing- I likely would have caught him. DANG IT!

So much for racing short on sleep. A bit of turmoil at home, house guests and a broken car window kept me up until after 100am and I got up at 730am to fix the window. Joni's driver side window would not roll up all the way- somehow the rubber trim stripping that is supposed to be on the outside edge was inside the window track and as it rolled up, it began to bind and meet resistance from the trim. I could see by peering down inside the door this was the issue and not accessible without taking the door panel off. So we put a sheet of plastic over the door and open window and went to bed. I got up to my alarm, dressed and went to work on the door. Removing the panel was a bit more difficult than I imagined, but I was able to do the whole task in about 45 minutes and headed up to Pando for the bike race, stopping to get coffee and bagel on the way. I don't know if the trim will stay in place permanently, we need to roll the window up and down on a nice day again with plenty of time to repair it as I did Sunday if it doesn't. In the meantime- no rolling it down!

2009-09-22T19:46:00.001-07:00

Short ride tonight at Luton to dial in tweaks on Brenden's single speed. Pando race Sunday

Weekend updates- Irish music galore

2009-09-21T05:09:00.000-07:00

Fairly busy weekend- but fun.

I got back from my work trip late Friday night- which meant I missed the Founders race team party at Rick's. Saturday, after a jaunt to the farmer's market and the grocery store, we went to Muskegon for the Michigan Irish Music Festival.

The Michigan Irish Music Festival was a very well run event! Bands on three different stages, all the stages and seating were covered from the potential for inclement weather or simply to be ih shade. We paid $15 to get in. A three-day pass was $25 so I think next year we will just get the three-day pass and then go to whatever events and bands we want. Next year's festival is already in my Blackberry!

I mostly went to see the band Solas- I'd been listening to them since they formed up in 1996 and have four albums already. They have a new one out which I have yet to buy.But at the show, they had a DVD/CD combo for sale. Like many bands, Solas has had some personnel changes over the years and the "Reunion" CD and DVD was from a live performance in the last year that included all the various members that have come and gone. We listened to the CD on the way home, though I have yet to watch the DVD.

We also saw the Makem & Spain Brothers- great harmony, as well as the popular pub band Craic Wisely (whose devoted fans are called craic-heads - prounced crack-heads LOL ).We listened to a bit of Natalie McMaster and her husband on fiddle, though Joni thought it was a grating sound after awhile.

Sunday Joni and I went for a road ride on the southbound Kent Trails to the M-6 bike path. What a noisy ride with the expressway right there. It has some decent hills for climbing and descending on pavement, but otherwise not a very peaceful ride. Also, when we got to Clyde Park, the connection to the path on the other side of US-131 wasn't very clear.

But back to the workweek!

VO2Max is maxed out!

2009-09-14T06:22:00.000-07:00

Busy busy weekend!

I took a vacation day on Friday to get in a dentist appointment in the morning. I then zoomed out to the Ski Area to help Rick set up the first Kisscross race course.Then off to Health Motions for my VO2Max test at 300pm

Results for the races can be found on the KissCross website, but I didn't do too bad. Races were held on Friday night under the lights and then again on Saturday morning.I was 27th of 36 B-master racers (ages 40 & up) on Friday night and on Saturday I was 15th in the same category out of 19 racers.

Sunday we traveled to Addison Oaks for the CPS race- I didn't participate but Brenden was competing in Singlespeed and took off strong- apparently he was riding in third position among his competitors when his chain came off and he crashed.. he ended up walking out as a DNF- we need to put another tensioner on the dropouts opposite his chain- I think his wheel is slipping just a bit and allowing the chain to come off the rear teeth under pressure. But it's hard to work on his bike and tweak it when he never rides it- he last rode it on Aug 8th at Ore-to-Shore!

But my big event was my VO2Max test on Friday afternoon at Health Motions- very very informative and it also graphically illustrates why I get dropped on team rides and races.

Essentially, for those that don't know, you have an Aerobic Base (mine is at a heartrate of 138bpm). This is your "endurance" base. And there's a range in which this base operates- mostly in heart rate zones 1 and 2. Up through zone 1 and up to your AB (aerobic base) is when you are burning mostly fat for energy and less carbs. Once you pass your AB, you begin burning more carbs than fat. Burning fat is the better option as it produces less waste product, but carbs are essential for extended physical activity and the waste just has to be accepted.

But then there's the anaerobic threshhold. It is at this point that you get beyond burning both fat and carbs. This is the point in which your body does quick surges of energy (whether to leap away from danger or to simply surge over a climb on a bike race). These quick surges need instant energy and cannot be performed by fat or carb burning parts of your metabolism because they take too long to process and the need is immediate. So it is in the space between Anaerobic threshhold and VO2Max that you utilize this "surge" type of energy.
VO2Max is the most energy you can put out- as the trainer at Health Motions noted- it's basically the "size of your engine." It is the point where you cannot put out any more energy even if you wanted to.

My problem is graphically illustrated below. My AT (anaerobic threshhold) is at about 155 hearbeats per minute- anything over 155 is that "quick surge" response.But my VO2Max is at about 159-160bpm! For my performances on the bike- when I surge to climb that hill to keep up with the team (or a pack on a race) I am already maxed out.

If I had a wider gap between AT and VO2max- for example, let's say AT was 155 but VO2Max is 165, I have room to surge the hill, get a small recovery and surge the next hill, etc. (Or simply climb a long long hill). But I can't- once I surge up a hill to stay with the pack, I am maxed. I hit the top and they are already over the hill and still using their available VO2max capability to effort out a continued pace to keep the group rolling.

There are limitations to moving out the VO2max line physically and genetically, but it can be moved to a small degree and that is my task over this coming winter- to build leg strength and do intervals. The Intervals will move the VO2 max line out (how far is not known) and the leg strength exersizes will simply give me power to climb hills, for example, by expending less fuel and helping stay away from that AT and VO2Max threshhold.

This will be a big challenge to train that hard over the winter.....

Bike work in limbo

2009-09-06T08:07:00.001-07:00

Well, my first instinct to get brake cables for the road bikes proved true- though I didn't BUY them- DOH!

I shorted my planned ride yesterday- which was the right thing to do. I rode from home in Grandville out to Luton- easily 25 miles, maybe more. Joni met the there to ride the trail. (The Black Loop is sweet- though not yet finished as some benchcuts are needed- but the trail is rideable).

But rather than ride home, which would have meant getting to the house fairly late in the afternoon or early evening, I opted to ride back with Joni in the car.

I wanted to work on Joni and Brenden's cyclocross bikes- swapping brake-interrupters and taping the handlebars. I bought used interrupters from a fellow MMBA rider via the classifieds forum for $10- these would fit Joni's smaller diameter bars without spacers.- The wider diameter will then be installed on Brenden's bike, which currently do not have interrupters.

I got the newer interrupters installed on Joni's bars, but when I cut the brake cables to reinstall through the housings, it naturally frayed the ends. So, before I can finish her bike and complete Brenden's I need brake cables. oh well.

Team ride Tuesday, cyclocross Friday & Saturday.

So now, full maintenance won't be completed until Wednesday night- I nee