Doug's Blog

On the move..

2006-08-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

Head on over to http://dwelzel.spaces.live.com/.

Bluetooth on the Desktop

2006-07-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

I love the Bluetooth capability built in to my car. I get in, it recognizes the phone and everything is handsfree.. perfect!

Why can’t I have the same thing sitting at my desk? I want my computer to recognize my phone and pop up a little message telling me who is calling. Maybe this could be taken a step further and allow me to initiate calls from my computer to my cell phone. I’m sure there are many cool extensions on this idea, but I just want the basics. Why? Simple, I constantly miss calls when I’m listening to music. The only way to get my attention when I’m listening to music is via IM, which isn’t exactly what I want.

I’ve been doing it all wrong…

2006-07-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

Eye opening, but not too surprising: This paper essentially argues that bike commuting isn’t as beneficial for the environment as you might think because it increases longevity, and during that time you use more resources than everyone else who ate sat around eating potato chips and dropped dead early. Combine this with Kate’s recent post about how much energy cars really consume and my world is upside down.

It’s pretty clear to me now that I should stop bike commuting, get a Hummer (actually, probably a Scion) and chow down. It is a relief actually. Every time I’m about to head out for a ride I’m faced with the question: should I ride or stay home and eat jelly beans? In my mind, jelly beans are one of the most perfect foods on earth, right up there with peanut butter (no, I’m not a fan of peanut butter jelly beans). The decision is so much easier now! I don’t have to go out and ride for a few hours just to enjoy some fresh beans. I can grab the jar, head over to the couch and call it a day. Hell, since I don’t have air conditioning, I could even take the jelly beans into my huge air conditioned SUV and drive around for the afternoon. This is going to be awesome.

Mountain Biking

2006-07-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

After almost two years away from the dirt, I finally got the chance to hit the trails last weekend. Boy have I been missing out on some serious fun! Mountain biking is what drew me into this sport, but for some reason I always neglect going back to my roots. I think it comes down to the fact that road biking is simply easier. I can roll out of my garage and get a great ride in. Mountain biking always takes more preparation, as well as a drive.

Anyway, as I said, it was great to get back out on the trail. I went over to Tiger Mountain, which is about 20 minutes from my place. The route there starts with a 3 mile climb up a fire road and then rewards you with a magnificent 3 mile single track descent. This is followed by some more fire road riding and then another few miles of single track to get you back to the parking lot.

Right away I noticed how my skills have changed over the years. I remember how the initial climb used to kill me. In fact, I once wondered if I’d ever be able to make it without stopping. Now I can pull off the climb nonstop without even using my smallest front chainring. On the flipside, my technical skills have definitely deteriorated. I’m more timid on the single track and wasn’t taking the usual risks. It took me a while just to trust the bike’s capability and cruise over roots and small drop-offs.

Let’s hope it isn’t another couple of years before I get out there again..

I’m Going to France

2006-06-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Since it looks like just about everybody is going to be thrown out of the Tour, I’m going to catch a redeye over there and do my part. I don’t need drugs, just an ample supply of Clif Bars.

More Impressions

2006-06-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

My tour of the Microsoft language/tool suite has been continuing nonstop. While I have many more thoughts about C# at this point I figured I’d take a minute to talk about the tools. Like many other people with a Unix background, I’ve spent most of my time with Emacs and make. Only in the past year did I spend significant time with Eclipse when I worked on a Java project. I was extremely impressed with Eclipse and was expecting the same from Visual Studio.

Unfortunately I have been a bit disappointed. I want to be fair and say that I believe Visual Studio is a far bigger and probably better product. My experience is limited to working with Visual C# and comparing that with writing Java with Eclipse. Anyway, I struggled for a long time to find some of the features I was used to in Eclipse and have learned that in some cases they simply aren’t there.

Two that come to mind are “organize imports” and incremental builds. In Eclipse you can simply write code and then hit the organize imports command to have all of the correct import statements added to your code. It is even smart enough to remove import statements if they are no longer necessary. There is no equivalent in Visual Studio. Sure, it has ways to auto resolve types and add the proper using statements, but the functionality is not as slick as that in Eclipse.

I’m still struggling with not having my IDE continuously building my project. In Eclipse I could just write code and instantly know what compiled and what didn’t. In VS I actually have to click Build to get the results. IMO, this has noticeable lengthened the build/compile/test cycle.

I won’t even start on the lack of refactoring tools. Anyway, all is not lost. I figured Visual Studio is a great product and I must be missing something, so I picked up a copy of Visual Studio Hacks and starting poking around the web. The good news is that by adding several plug-ins I was able to reclaim much of this functionality, save the incremental builds. I’m still learning my way around and I’m sure I’ll find more goodies in my exploration.

On the plus side, it is a very stable/fast product. Eclipse was a bit slow and prone to strange bugs. I have encountered nothing like that with Visual Studio. It is always very snappy and I can leave it running for days with no trouble. Now if only my fingers would adjust to the Windows keybindings….

First impressions of C#/.NET

2006-06-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

Now that I've been messing around with C# for a couple of weeks I figured it is time to report on some initial impressions. Today's topic: web services. The quicky summary is that I'm very impressed with the ease of putting together both a simple web service and client.

Writing a class which exposes methods via web service is just like writing any other class. The only difference is that you mark the methods you want exposed using the [WebMethod] attribute. For example, let's start with a very simple, classic example:


public class HelloWorld
{

    public Service () {
    }

    public string HelloWorld()
    {
        return "Hello World!!";
    }
}

To turn this into a service, you only need to make a few changes:


public class Service : System.Web.Services.WebService
{

    public Service () {
    }

    [WebMethod]
    public string HelloWorld()
    {
        return "Hello World!!";
    }
}

The rest is taken care of for you, including generation of the WSDL. I come from a world where you start writing the WSDL by hand and then use it to generate stubs for your service code. Believe me, building services this way is a huge relief.

Now, coming from an environment like Amazon makes you immediately skeptical of anything this automated. You start to wonder if it can really perform and how hard it will be to do anything "outside the box". I'll be honest, at this point I don't know the answers. I do know that I was able to get a service running in about 30 minutes, which is a huge productivity win even if I have to get more hands on later in the development process.

What about the client? Writing the code to call the service is just as simple. Once you have your WSDL generated, you can just point one of the provided tools at it to generate your client code. Out of the box you get a client library that can call the service both synchronously and asyncrhonously. Nice.

New Commute

2006-06-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

Now that I've settled in a bit, I've started bike commuting to Microsoft. All I have to say is... Wow! My commute distance when from 20 miles to 11 and is on much safer, more attractive roads. Yesterday's ride in took 35 minutes, which is about the same time it takes in a car. Of course my commute to Amazon, at 1:15 was better for training, but this fits in with life so much better. I can always make it longer if I really want to.

Day 2.2+

2006-06-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

Grumble.. Blogger totally ate my last post so I'm going to make this one quick.

I'm pretty well settled at this point. The second day included another half day of orientation and then I made my way over to my office. Waiting for me was a very nice Dell system (2 dual core processors) which I spent the remainder of the day configuring.

I wasn't brave enough to install Vista, but I did install the Office 2007 beta and have been enjoying it so far. My officemate pointed out that I installed Office before Visual Studio. That could be a bad sign.

I did in fact install Visual Studio and even took a minute to write my first C# program. I'll let you guess what that was...

Day 2.1

2006-05-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

I am now officially a Microsoft employee! That is a scary thought. It is still hard for me to believe that I actually left Amazon. Even more scary is that it really doesn't feel strange at all. You would think after being at a place for so long that a change would be hugely disruptive. So far.. not really. It will be interesting to see how I feel in the coming weeks.

Anyway, today was fully occupied with New Employee Orientation in which we covered anything and everything Microsoft. Hmm.. well, I guess not everything since orientation continues tomorrow.

In other life transition news, I concluded the day by trading in my single man car (a Jeep Wrangler) for a Volvo. Yes, I think I'm officially a grownup.

New stuff

2006-05-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

I neglected to mention what I'll be working on over there. Well, you can read for yourself. I'll be working to build out Microsoft's Experimentation Platform.

Day 2

2006-05-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

After almost 7 years, today is my last day at Amazon. It's hard to believe so much time has gone by, but it's definitely been a great experience. In a sense I've grown up here, both as a developer and an individual. I started fresh out of school and have gone from writing small scripts to designing and developing full systems. Outside of work I've gone from being a single guy living in an apartment to being married with children and a house (note: ok, I was technically single, but Jen has been with me through all this). Yes, it really has been a journey.

So what's next? Well, I've decided to jump across the lake and join Microsoft. Its going to be a very different environment from Amazon and I'm really looking forward to taking it all in.

Not-So-Smart Phone

2006-05-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

I've been in the market for a new phone and decided to splurge and pick up a "smart" phone. I opted for the Cingular 8125 after reading several reviews and deciding it was generally very cool. After playing with it a bit at the Cingular store I decided to take it home with me. That's where the fun ended.

I was drawn to this model for the full keyboard, data access capability and in particular, the wi-fi capability. Being able to use the nearest hotspot (ie, my house) and not pay ridiculous data prices was very appealing. Anyway, I got home, popped it out of the box and started the setup process. My wireless network isn't the easiest thing to connect to in the world, but I figured I'd be able to work through it. By the end of the evening (like 8 hours after I started) I still hadn't managed to get the thing to connect to my network even though I had shut off every single security measure attempting to make it work. However, it did manage to connect to my neighbor's network. Sigh.

My frustration started with the menus. They made absolutely no sense and I was constantly getting confused about where to find configuration for wireless networks. When I did manage to find the correct menu I could never figure out how to get it to prefer my wireless network. It really had a thing for my neighbor's network.. but not mine. Maybe their signals were more attractive.. hell if I know. I did manage to find the modem configuration which made me feel nostalgic the first time through, but incited rage by the tenth.

Oh, did I mention the help was awful? There was no printed user manual in the box. The device itself has a terrible help system and the real user manual was on the included CD. Of course, by the time I needed the manual I was pissed off enough that I didn't want to install anything on my PC just to read some docs.

So at this point I wasn't exactly a happy customer and I hadn't used any of the device's real functionality, but I had had enough. I pictured myself sitting at some cafe, fumbling around for 10 minutes with this bar of soap trying to get the wifi connection to work and decided it wasn't worth the trouble. I don't travel much so much of the functionality is nothing more than a novelty to me. The next day I returned it and got a nice, simple phone that works exactly as one would expect. Ah.. the simple life.

Crash

2006-05-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

On my way to work yesterday I was stuck in an usually large amount of traffic on I-90. I was minding my own business when I got hit from behind with no warning. The impact caused me to roll forward and hit the person in front of me.

The good news is that it looks like everyone is ok and the damage to my car is minimal. It looks like my rear bumper is crunched and there might be some damage to my rear tailgate. My spare tire mounted bike rack is also trashed. Fortunately there was no bike on the rack at the time. I was planning to bring my bike yesterday but opted to leave it at home at the last minute. Good call!

This is particularly inconvenient since I'm about 2 weeks away from selling the car. Of course, when I hopped out and saw that the car that hit me had logos from a well known insurance company all over it I had a nice little laugh.

Anyone in the market for a Jeep Wrangler? :)

Keep on Rollin'

2006-04-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

Since I have been training less than usual I figure maybe I can just throw money at the problem. I found the perfect thing, ceramic bearings. Oh yes.. for a smidge over $300 I can replace my wheel bearings and for another $200 my bottom bracket can get the full treatment of low friction, ceramic goodness. Yes, this and my ultra lightweight, carbon, aero wheels should fill the training void nicely.

Status

2006-04-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

Normally I'd be writing regularly about the goings on in the NW peloton, but I really haven't been racing too much. I did the first two races of the season and then hit yet another motivational wall. It's been very hard to find balance between family and racing. In fact, just last week I pretty much decided I would hang up my shoes for the season. Now I can't figure out what to do.

I think the weather has certainly played a role. When Saturday comes around and I have the choice between driving 2 hours to race in the rain or hang out with my son.. well.. the choice is obvious. On the other hand, things have cleared up around here recently and I had one of the most enjoyable training rides I've had in recent memory. Additionally, last night I went to a criterium in Seward Park and had a great time. So now I'm all excited about racing again.

The most difficult thing has been accepting that it is ok to not be the best. Ok, I was never the best, but I always felt like my fitness was improving and that everytime I showed up at a race I had a chance at winning. Now I'm less confident. I tend to approach these things with an all or nothing attitude, which probably isn't healthy.

So, I guess I'll just take it day by day. I'll race when I want and try to just enjoy it. This is going to be tough. :)

Mason Lake #2

2006-03-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

This one really falls under the "better late than never" category since the race was like 2 or 3 weeks ago. Let's see.. it was another 4 laps around the same damn lake. My teammate and I were planning to try and early break to see what would happen. Just after the first corner a guy when streaking off the front solo and disappeared into the distance. I wanted to try an early break, but not that early! We figured we'd go for it on the second lap, but unfortunately when that time rolled around the peloton decided it was time to bring this guy back. With the pace we were pushing there was no way we could get off the front so we just took turns working at the front and eventually brought the guy back.

At some point after this a couple guys managed to jump off the front while the everyone else was resting. My legs were pretty cooked so I just hung in until the end... nothing great to speak of except solid training.

Unfortunately I've had to miss the last two weekends of racing due to other obligations, but there are some kickass one day races coming up in the next few weeks so stay tuned.

Season Opener

2006-03-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was the first race of the season!

Ok, I hesitate to put that exclamation point since I came into the day after hitting a real motivational wall. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, but I simply didn't want to ride anymore. There were probably several factors involved: having a baby around, putting in too much base training (I started last September), etc. So, I took (most of) the week off leading up to the race to chill out, relax and figure out what I wanted to do.

Come race day I was a bit nervous. Sure, I had been training all winter, but differently than last year. Also, this was to be my first race since last August and these opening races are notoriously dicey. Fortunately the category 5 riders were split into their own field, so my race was a bit more civilized.

Anyway, the race itself was a 48 mile, relatively flat race around Mason Lake (near Belfair, WA). In the opening miles of the race I felt good, quite good actually. An early break formed that contained one of my teammates so I hung back and did what I could do to slow down the chase. I never thought the break would last long, but it did. Well, one guy did.. all the way to the win. Unfortunately my teammate popped inside of the last kilometer and the field passed him. I went on to finish with the field. Nothing spectacular, but nice to get out and stretch the legs a bit.

Burrrrr...

2006-02-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

It it way colder than usual in Seattle these days, as evidenced by the layer counts for my ride to work this morning:

4 tops (1 base layer + 3 summer tops)

3 layers of foot protection (1 pair regular socks + gortex socks + booties)

3 layers of hand protection (2 pairs of gloves + 1 pair of "outer" gloves)

2 layers of arm protection (long sleeve base layer + arm warmers)

1 layer of leg protection (leg warmers)

1 layer of head protection (balaclava)

1 layer protecting my man business (fortunately the chamois in bike pants are thick so I didn't end up with a little popsicle)

Switching to Vonage

2006-02-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally decided to go for it and switch to Vonage. I don't use my phone that much and the Vonage deal was just too sweet to pass up. I have to give them a lot of credit. The process was incredible simple. I plugged in the Linksys box, set things up on their website and I was off and running. Even transferring my old land line # to Vonage was easy (even though it did take a while). I would have done this sooner if they had offered 911 service.

Anyway, something about the process made me realize that, in some ways, it isn't ready for prime time. It first happened when my wife was using the webcam and making a call. Not surprisingly, the call quality was poor. Well, of course it's poor, I thought, Vonage and the webcam are competing for bandwidth. Then I got the sinking feeling... oh no.. I need to start thinking about quality of service settings on my router. This has officially become much more complex than the average user can handle. They will just think Vonage sucks.

Anyhow, much to my surprise my Linksys router did have QoS features. Nothing great, but enough to say "give the port with the Vonage box high priority". I don't think their implementation is particulary bright either since Outlook loses its connection to Exchange when I made a phone call. Sigh.. but it works and the call quality is fine.

Small World

2006-01-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

In another example proving that it truly is a small world, I ran into the guy that helped me with my bike problems at Babies R Us this weekend. That was a little strange.

Fun with iTunes Video

2006-01-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

I recently got into the whole Lost phenomenon and just finished watching all of season 1 from Netflix. Naturally I wanted to jump right into season 2, but since I came late to the party I missed recording it on Tivo. What was I to do? Normally I would wait it out, but I really wanted to find out what was in that hatch. So, I decided to see if I could find it online.

My first attempt was to find the missing episodes using BitTorrent. It took all of a few minutes to find my fix, but I wanted to find a more legitimate way. Ideally, I also wanted to be able to watch on my TV, not on a computer.

After a little more research I ended up installing iTunes and found that I could purchase episodes for $1.99. I also noticed that my laptop had an s-video output. Score! After a relatively quick download I plugged my laptop into my receiver and sat back to get my Lost fix. The picture was definitely not perfect and the relatively dark Lost scenes only helped highlight compression artifacts, but it was good enough. I'll be purchasing the rest of the episodes I missed right away.

I think (hope) this is the future of content distribution. Obviously it needs to be much easier, but I love being able to get exactly what I want, when I want it. With the introduction of Google Video and other video services, things are going to be very exciting over the next few years.

So, my $2 got me the show I wanted, on demand. Obviously this price includes some cost of distribution, but also needs to take into account that all commercials were removed. I was wondering, why don't they offer free version with commercials included? Since iTunes is handling playback they could even disable fast forwarding. Why not let the customer make the time/money tradeoff rather than making it for them? Besides, you could do some very cool things with the advertisements in the show. Ads could be selected on a per customer basis and the whole show could be woven together just before downloading.. could be very cool.

One final thought. It is amazing (but not surprising) that is it really the content that matters. I didn't need HD TV or 7.1 surround sound. Nope, I just wanted to watch my show and was willing to spend money to watch it at a lower quality.

My wish came true (but with a cost)

2006-01-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

Friday's commute was rain free! Well, pretty much. The streets were wet and I did hit a small shower, but it was a much needed relief. There were even good stretches where the roads were dry.

Life just couldn't be that easy on me though. On my commute home I was on Mercer Island, which is about 17 miles from my house. As I was coming out of an intersection, I downshifted my front chainring and the chain broke completely in half as a link or two went bouncing down the street, never to be seen again. This wouldn't be such a big deal except that I wasn't carrying a chain tool (used to insert and remove chain links). I never thought I would break a chain on the road so I only carry them when mountain biking. Guess I was wrong.

I called my wife to arrange a ride and realized my priority in the household has definitely dropped. I got something along the lines of.. well, the baby just went to sleep and then he needs to eat, and so on. In other words, I was going to be waiting for a while.

I decided to walk up to a nearby coffee shop to wait things out and see if there was a bike shop in the area. As I walked into the parking lot a guy saw me and asked if there was a problem. I explained the whole situation to him and by chance, he was on his way back from a mountain biking trip and had all of his tools on him, including a chain tool. He was kind of enough to let me use it for 10 or 15 minutes while I fumbled in the dark to remove some links from my chain and put it back together. I managed to ride it home without shifting (which could have caused the chain to break again) and I am incredibly thankful for the kindness of this stranger.

According to Jim's fantasy bike commuting score sheet this day would earn me 29 points (30 for the ride, plus 4 for temperature and moisture bonuses, minus 5 for the mechanical).

Please, no more rain!

2006-01-05T22:24:00.000-08:00

I know, I know.. I'm in the Pacific Northwest, what should I expect? I'm just so tired of it. Well, not the rain, but riding in the rain. In my last 2 weeks of commuting I have ridden in rain every single day. Fortunately I had a rest week in the middle of those two weeks so I did get a break, but seriously, it is getting to be a bit much.

I thought today would be different. When I went outside this morning it was unusually warm and perfectly dry so I opted for a longer route to work (through Kirkland and Bellevue rather than following I-90 into the city). About 20 minutes in the ride I felt the first drops. I can live with this, I thought.. the roads aren't even wet. By the time I was approaching Kirkland it was full fledged rain, not even Seattle spit.. and I had a long way go to work.

I'm not exactly looking forward to the commute tomorrow.

Hangin' Out on the Early Adopter Curve

2006-01-02T09:31:00.000-08:00

I used to think I was an early adopter. The fact of the matter is, I'm not. Not with most things anyway. For example, I've only started looking at HDTV seriously for the first time and I just set up Vonage. Even though this isn't exactly news, I figured the perspective of these products from a difference place on the curve might be interesting.

Vonage... so far so good. I picked up the trial kit at Best Buy yesterday and had it running in no time. I made a couple of calls and everything just worked and sounded great. I guess you can't ask for more than that. I'll be curious to see how it works when there is some network congestion.

Vonage sounds really great on paper. Good features, great price. So, why did I wait? Simple, 911 service. When I first looked at them a while back, 911 was still in the works. With a newborn in the house, 911 was a requirement, so I waited. I'm still a little nervous about my phone service being dependent on my internet connection and power, but I'm willing to take the risk. Generally, my internet connection is fine and my power service only flickers once in a while. I suppose if anything really goes wrong I can run to a neighbors house.

Next time I'll cover my explorations into HDTV.

Java Schools

2005-12-30T09:31:00.000-08:00

Joel has a very good article on the quality of students produced by schools that primarily teach Java. I couldn't agree more. I interview quite a few people and when I see a resume covered with Java buzzwords I get afraid. I get even more afraid if I don't see some kind of solid experience with C/C++.

I have found that people coming from "JavaSchools" or just a very Java oriented background tend to think through the language rather than theoretical abstractions. For example, they will talk about using a HashMap or TreeMap to solve a problem rather than a hash table or red black tree. If you try to dig in and get them to tell you how to implement a TreeMap, their head usually explodes.

Now, there are a lot of interesting, difficult topics to discuss about Java and that is where I usually like to take the discussion. For example, how does Java manage memory? Most people quickly proclaim: garbage collection! How does garbage collection work? Blank stare. Sometimes I feel lucky if I get through a discussion of what the stack and heap are. I don't understand why people aren't curious about how the environment in which they are developing works..

Another phenomenon I've seen with these folks is framework overload. Whatever the problem is, there is a framework to solve it. Setting up a website? J2EE, Struts, Faces, they shout! That's great. Having a robust toolbox at your disposal is a good thing, but too often I find that people haven't thought about if it is the right tool for the job, or even considered the weaknesses of the tool. Oh, you want to use J2EE? That's cool, what are it's downsides? More blank stares..

The lesson here is pretty simple. Learn the fundamentals and stick to them. Implementations will come and go. Frameworks will come and go. The theoretical foundations you (hopefully) learned in school will hold true for a long time (if not forever) and will serve you regardless of trendy language of the day.

Off Season Training

2005-12-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

Conventional wisdom says that off season training is usually made up of long hours at low intensity. There is usually little to no high intensity work during the off season since you are working on building an aerobic foundation for the coming season.

Last season I worked with one of the coaches from Carmichael Training Systems and followed a program very similar to this. This season I've decided to save some money and go it alone. Joe Friel's Cyclist's Training Bible is a great tool for the do-it-yourselfer since it pretty much lays out a classic program day by day. For the last two months I've been following a program similar to Friel's in which I've been building my aerobic base by increasing my training hours each week for 4 weeks and then falling back to a rest week and starting over.

During this time I've also been incorporating regular core workouts using the Cyclo Core DVDs I mentioned in a previous post. My abs have always been a weak spot and these DVDs have really helped strengthen that area, though my hamstring flexibility could still use some work.

As I head in to the second half of my base training I figured I'd stick with the typical program, continuing to put in lots of base hours. However, recently the creator of the Cyclo Core program started offering a winter training program which challenges the norm and suggests that perhaps you don't need huge base miles. Instead, this program replaces long hours on the bike with some higher intensity work (very focused workouts instead of long, mindless hours of riding) and lots of core exercise.

I have to admit, I am very intrigued by this idea. Long hours on the bike get very boring since my rides are pretty much always my commute. In addition, riding in the cold rain gets old quickly and I find myself looking forward to core workouts. Cycling oriented yoga can be quite fun! So here, in the middle of my winter training I'm totally confused about what to do. Should I go with the old standard or try something new and risk my fitness for next season? At this point I think I'm going to try to combine the two ideas. I'm going to make more time for core workouts (more than the twice a week I currently put in) and still try to get some solid riding time from my commuting. If it doesn't work out, oh well.. at least I won't be bored to tears all winter.

Great Customer Service

2005-12-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

First off, Merry Christmas! There, I said it. I hope I didn't offend anyone.

Anyway, I had another great customer service experience the other day. I've been using a set of cycling specific workout DVDs called Cyclo-Core. The creator of these workouts started offering off season training programs recently. Since I was very happy with his DVDs I decided to purchase one of the training programs, which are offered in beginner through advanced skill levels. Based on the program descriptions I couldn't figure out if I needed the intermediate or advanced program so I dropped him an email. The next morning I found a voicemail on my cell phone from the creator offering his advice on which program to choose.

I was very impressed. Not only did he answer my question quickly and personally, he took the time to call me when I didn't even give him my phone number in my email. He probably had to go back to one of my orders to find my number. Good stuff.

While this may seem like a shameless plug, I will say that the workouts are great and are definitely worth looking at if you want to add some variety to your training program. http://cyclo-core.com/

Training with Power, Part 2

2005-12-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

In my first post I mentioned that heart rate tends to lag behind power output. I found a great example of this from a recent ride last week. During one of my commutes last week I decided to push it on a short hill. The graph below shows the result. The yellow line shows my power output, which immediately shoots up to over 800 watts (this sucks btw, a pro sprinter can push 1500 watts). Notice though that when my power output peaks, my heart rate is still climbing, and continues to climb after I have stopped the interval.

Also notice in the data block at the bottom of the graph are some stats about the ride (this view is a zoom). In particular, notice the energy expenditure for the ride was 1723 kJ. This is about 1723 calories (actually probably a bit more). Using this information I know I probably need to consume 1700 calories in additional to my daily requirement of around 2000 (maybe 2200 or so). Personally I don't really count calories and I highly doubt I eat 3700 calories on these days. I have a feeling I probably over eat on my lower intensity days since my weight hasn't really changed.

I can also take this 1723 figure and add it to my total for the week. Training cycles usually call for increasing the training load each week for about 3 weeks and then taking a recovery week. By keeping tracking of my energy expenditure I can make sure I am pushing myself further each week. It is more accurate than simply counting the number of hours ridden every week.

A Trip to Hell

2005-12-18T10:21:00.000-08:00

This means going to Babies R Us at the Southcenter Mall in the middle of the holiday season. It isn't normally something I would sign up for, but my son opted to time his growth into a car seat perfectly (thanks!).

I dread going to Babies R Us. The store itself is usually fine, but the staff is amazing unhelpful and lazy. I don't even think half of them like babies. I could go on and on about the terrible experiences we had at this place while stocking up on baby stuff, but I'll spare you the details. I will say that yesterday turned out to be more pleasant than I was expecting. Even though the malls were packed, we were able to get in very quickly and the gentleman that helped us select and fit a seat was really great. He seemed to know his stuff and was simply a nice guy.

But back to the negative.. does everyone else have bad experience there or is it just me? And why am I spending so much $$ on like a million varieties of chair? Infant seat, car seat, booster seat, high chair.. on and on... sigh.

Training with Power

2005-12-17T10:52:00.000-08:00

One of the must have items for cyclists these days is a power meter. Even though they still aren't cheap (~ $600-$3k) they offer a view into your training that a heart rate monitoring simply can't offer.

A power meter tells you literally how much power you are producing at any moment. It is a direct measurement of the amount of work you are doing. Where heart rate is influenced by many factors such as temperature, fatigue, etc, power is absolute. Your heart rate also tends to lag behind the amount of work you're performing. The classic example of this is climbing a hill. Even after you crest the hill and head down the other side, your heart rate will still be high.

Building a training program (and there are many ways to do so) allows you to be more precise about your training and gives you better insight into how fit you really are. Fundamentally, in a race if all things are equal, the person who can generate more power will win.

Power meters also help with gauging nutrition requirements and fatique levels. At the end of a ride you can look at the total number of kilojoules of energy expended during the workout. Through a bit of conversion, this correlates about 1:1 to calories and is much more accurate than the calorie estimates given by heart rate monitors. In addition, over the course of a training cycle you can calculate the total energy expended to know if you're really doing the proper amount of work.

On a somewhat related note, I was curious if I worked more during indoor trainer workouts so I looked at my total energy expenditure per hour for both indoor and outdoor workouts and found that I generally expend about 9-10% more energy inside.

Interesting stuff, eh? Want to run out and buy one? :)

Safe Cycling Tips #5

2005-12-16T23:22:00.000-08:00

Tip #5: Drive your frequent routes

If you're going to be riding a certain route frequently, such as your commuting route, take the time to drive it and see what it is like from the perspective of a driver. This is particularly important if you're going to be riding at night. See a road from a driver's point of view can help you know the safest places on the road. As you drive the route think, if there was a bike on the road right now, where should it be so it doesn't get in my way?

Better late than never?

2005-12-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to playing with del.icio.us.. links are on the right.

Safe Cycling Tips #4

2005-12-09T23:13:00.000-08:00

Tip #4: Be careful in crosswalks

Sooner or later you're going to find yourself using a crosswalk. Even in pedestrian friendly Washington I've found them to be very dangerous. For some reason drivers wait patiently for pedestrians, but when you have a bike stuck to your ass you suddenly become invisible. So, make you any cars waiting for you actually are waiting. Make eye contact with the driver and don't make any assumptions that people are looking out for you.

Gmail Clips

2005-12-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

Google just added a feature to Gmail that displays "clips" at the top of your inbox. These clips can be ads, RSS feeds or other stuff. Interesting concept, but I was very disappointed when I dug deeper and found it isn't integrated at all with Google's feed reader. Let me get this straight, I took the time to enter my feeds into your reader (ok, I just imported an ompl file) and over in Gmail you don't even give me the opportunity to select from those feeds? Suppose I think Clips is the greatest thing ever, now my amount of work is doubled.. I need to add a feed in two places. Forget it.

Safe Cycling Tip #3

2005-12-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

Tip #3: Consider the left side of the right line

Huh? I was trying to come up with a catch title so forgive me. The idea of this tip is to consider the situation when deciding to ride on the left or right side of the right (often white) line on a road. I see cyclists constantly hugging the edge of the road and I don't believe this is always a good idea. I think they are afraid of getting hit from behind. In reality, the chances of this are small. You are much more likely to hit a car pulling out of a driveway, and the consequences of that could be devastating.

So, if I'm going down a hill with any reasonable speed I often pull to the left of the line and actually in to the lane. If doing this creates a situation where people can't pass me safely I often pull right into the middle of the line and establish my position in traffic. While going down a hill you'll often be able to go fast enough so people don't get too pissed at you. I do this so I won't smack into the side of a car at 30 mph if someone pulls out of a driveway and it has paid off.

On the flip side, when I'm climbing a hill I will often be on the right side of the line or even on the sidewalk if the road isn't safe enough. My reasoning here is that I'm going so slow I will be able to react to people pulling in and out of driveways.

So there ya go.. enjoy and be safe.

Another close call

2005-12-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

I almost got nailed by a car, again. This time it happened on what I think is one of the safest parts of my commute. I guess you can't take anything for granted. Anyway, I was climbing a steep hill (10+%) on my way home and riding on the sidewalk since I was moving so slowly and traffic tends to fly up this hill. I have an insanely bright headlight and wear bright green and white clothes. Yet, given all of this, somehow, someone decided to turn into a driveway just as I was crossing in front of it. It happened so fast I didn't see it coming, but he stopped so close to me I felt the heat from the engine.

Grrr... why don't people pay attention...

The World is Coming to an End!

2005-12-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

Oh no wait.. it's just snowing in Seattle. Be calm people.. everything will be ok. I'm sure your giant SUV will handle the monsterous 1 inch accumulation.

Safe Cycling Tip #2

2005-11-25T12:08:00.000-08:00

Tip #2: Cars can be your friend

Yep, believe it or not, sometimes the presence of car can (imho) make your riding safer. People are always looking out for themselves, so someone in a car won't do something to jeopardize their safety. Furthermore, drivers tend to respond to other cars. When you are driving, you are looking for that shape, not necessarily that of a bike.

So, how can you use this to your advantage? Imagine you're riding down the side of a road and a car is about to pull out of a driveway in front of you. Chances are if there is car somewhere near you on the left, the person in the driveway will see you and not pull out.

Another example: Sometimes I cross a pedestrian crosswalk on the left side of a busy road. The crosswalk goes "green" just after the left turn lane (two very busy left turn lanes in this case) clears (the cars turning left are going through the crosswalk I'm about to use). During rush hour I see people regularly running this left turn light. If you aren't carefull entering the crosswalk you could easily get clipped by someone running the light. This is another case where cars can be your friend. When the crosswalk signal goes, the left turn is red and the cars coming at you have a green light. Those cars will never go if someone is running the left turn light or in the middle of the intersection. Watching the behavior of these cars has saved me more than once.

Safe Cycling Tips #1

2005-11-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

Now that I've been commuting a lot I've been thinking much more about how to be safe on the road. So I figured I'd put together some of my observations in a series of posts. The usual caveats apply: these are observations, non scientific fact.. use them at your own risk. If you disagree, let me know. :)

Ok, tip #1: Listen

Your ears can tell you so much about what is going on around you. Listen to the cars coming up behind you. Do you hear a diesel engine? If so, be scared. It might be a bus or large truck that takes up a large part of the lane and has gigantic mirrors. Just the other day I heard the familiar diesel sound and looked back to see a huge garbage truck heading toward me. Since the road barely had a shoulder I briefly jumped off into the grass and avoided a close encounter with low flying mirrors.

Do you hear the whine of one of those souped up Honda Civics? Might be a teenager who cares more about looking cool in his tricked out car than making sure you get home safe.

What about the rumble of big knobby tires or the whine of a turbo? You can draw your on conclusions on how to handle these situations, but listen up and be safe (er).

Kissing the Pavement Boards

2005-11-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

I was chucking recently when I read Jim's post about his biannual crash. I've managed to avoid random falls (getting hit by cars doesn't count) up until this point, but on Monday it was my turn. I was commuting to work on my usual route. It was very wet, but not raining at the time. For safety I decided to take a trail instead of riding the sidewalk (on 56th street near costco for you Issaquah people). As I cruised down the trail I was in the middle of a slight bend when the trail turned from concrete to something like a boardwalk. Well, wet wood covered with pine needles doesn't exactly have the grip of concrete and I was sliding along the boards before that thought entered my head.

I picked my self up, sore and embarrassed, verified there was no blood pouring out of me and continue on my way to work. I ended up with a nasty bruise on my hip and some skin missing from there and my elbow, but nothing serious.

Life Simplification, Part 1

2005-10-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

The recent increase in Yahoo! Music prices got me thinking about the various small monthly subscriptions I have that probably add up to a decent amount of money. So, I decided to do some house cleaning. The results so far are:

CTS Coaching: $150/month
Ok, this isn't really fair. I decided to cancel this a while back since it was a luxury and simply isn't worth the money.

Streamload: $5/month
I was attempting to use Streamload as an online backup service, but it was too much work. I'll stick to my home build backup server and DVD shipped to an undisclosed location for backups.

Netflix: Subscription downgrade
I dropped my Netflix subscription from the standard 3/month to 2/month. It only saves a few $$, but I wasn't really using the 3rd anyway.

XBox Live: $6/month
My annual subscription is about to come to an end and rather than renew I think I'll hold off until I actually want to use it again. It is definitely worth the money and I'll use it again once I get an XBox 360, but right now I'm just not playing that many games.

That's it for now. I'm giving serious consideration to give Vonage a try. That could save a fortune on phone costs. I'd love to get rid of the Tivo fee, but that is actually worth it and the "free" alternatives have a high startup cost (new hardware).

Yahoo! Music

2005-10-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

I'm so pissed about an email I got this morning from Yahoo! Music. They have decided to increase their monthly fee from $7 to $12 if you transfer subscription music to a portable device. Unbelievable. Before this, you paid $7/month for all the streaming music you wanted. Included in that was the ability to transfer the music to an approved device. I thought this was awesome and was on the verge of buying a new Creative Micro. Now I have to pay an extra $5/month just for the privaledge of transferring music? I'm thinking about cancelling my subscription completely.

Lately I feel like I've been getting $5/month to death. I have this great plan to simplify my subscription life, but of course I haven't gotten around to it and a lot of people are still getting their $5.

Fun with Tivo?

2005-10-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

Now you can configure your Tivo to talk to an application server and get all kinds of nitfy applications right on your TV. Is it any good? Well, let's see. Last night I set it up, looked at the measly application list and found myself playing Hot or Not on my TV. Yay.

Newreaders

2005-10-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

I've been in search of a new news reader since I have been unable to use Onfolio. Unfortunately, I can't install Onfolio at work (security issues) and running it over VNC to my home machine was getting a bit tedious.

So, when I heard that Google released a new web based news reader I immediately hopped over to their site to check it out. Unfortunately my joy only lasted a few minutes. I quickly realized that while it has a nifty interface, it is missing some key features. In particular, there is no way to mark all (or some) of yours feeds as read. After importing all of my feeds this was exactly what I wanted to do, but came up dry. I went back to the site a couple of times because I was so amazed they didn't have this feature.

Then I remembered bloglines. I used it once, but decided to check it out again. Sure enough, it does exactly what I want. It isn't as pretty as Google, but I can live with that. Funny how Google drove me right to a competitor.

Gulp

2005-10-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

I did it.. I bought a Cycleops PowerTap. After I get it installed and try it out I'll write up a full report.

Survivor

2005-10-07T20:31:00.000-07:00

While watching Survivor tonight I noticed that it seems like players reveal way too much at tribal council. Why would they ever say anything, let alone something revealing? Then it hit me.. maybe viewers aren't shown the true order of events. Suppose the players vote first, then have the discussion, followed by the vote tally. In that ordering players would be more likely to share potentially revealing information since their fate is already sealed. That or it happens as we see it and they really are that stupid.

Season Wrapup

2005-10-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

My racing season actually ended quite a while ago in late July. With Ryan's arrival approaching I decided to stop racing early to make sure I was in one piece for the delivery. I was hoping to get in a few more races after his birth, but I underestimated the time requirements of a newborn (duh). Anyhow, my last race was in late July and since then I've pretty much moved into training mode. Thanks to bike commuting, I've still managed to get in a solid number of training hours.

All in all, it was a pretty good season. I went from the bottom of the field to a top 10 contender in most races, placing very well in some stage races. Unfortunately I also had a few mechanical issues (flats) that I believe cost me some good results. I was thinking about petitioning for an upgrade, but given the fact that I have a newborn to deal with I'm going to hang out in my current category for at least one more year.

In training news, I've officially canceled my membership with Carmichael Training. $150/month was simply too much money and while having a coach was helpful, I think I have enough knowledge to go about it alone now. Right now I'm thinking about putting together a program that combines elements of the Carmichael program and Friel's work. We'll see though.. the season is barely over and there is plenty of time to figure these things out.

Why I Bike Commute

2005-08-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

I have been doing my best to commute by bike 3 or 4 days a week. It is a great way to fit in training, saves money and is a good thing for the world. With all the fuss over gas prices, I decided to figure out exactly how much money commuting was saving.

Car (gas guzzling Jeep Wrangler): 18 mpg
Trip: 40 miles round trip
Gas price: $2.70/gal (I put the cheap crap in the Jeep)
Cost/day: $6

So, if I commute 4 days per week, that is $96/month. If I only get in 3 days/week, it is $72/month. If gas is $3/gal, those figures are $106 and $80 respectively. That is a lot of money! With all that savings I could buy some nice bike parts at the end of the year. :)

New Arrival

2005-08-16T01:40:00.000-07:00

This weekend my family got 8 pounds heavier with the arrival of Ryan:

Everyone is happy, healty and doing just fine. I'd say more but boy am I tired!

Yes, I must have this

2005-07-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Beautiful, aerodynamic, full carbon.. finally, Cervelo does it. The Soloist carbon:

http://www.cervelo.com/bikes/2005/SL-Carbon.html

And at a mere $3200 for just the frame, it's a steal!

You Make the Call

2005-07-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

Last week during my ride to work I cruising through a neighborhood in downtown Seattle (near UW). The streets in this neighborhood are very small and you almost never see a car. As I went through a small intersection with no stop signs another biker came out of the street to my right with the intention of making a left onto the street I was on. Unfortunatley, the two of us collided in the middle of the intersection.

I'm not sure who was wrong in this situation. I've looked at various traffic law pages and it seems to depend entirely on when each of us got to the intersection. If I was there first, I have the right of way since I was going straight. But, if he was there first, I should have yielded to him.

It was all very silly and neither of us were seriously injured. Both of my knees and an elbow were torn up and I'm pretty sore and fatigued, but I'm in one piece. On a side note, after the crash I rode another half hour to work and walked in with blood running down both legs. That was interesting. :) Anyway, the other person seemed ok physically, but have some bike damage.

Scary

2005-07-15T09:11:00.000-07:00

A little Thursday night race, nothing big and look what happens.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8558975/

Recent Race Roundup

2005-07-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been lazy when it comes to writing about the racing scene. To be honest, not much of interest has been happening. All of the big stage races of the year are pretty much over and criterium season is in full swing. Also, due to some coming changes (additions) to my family, I'm pretty much wrapping up my racing season. I'm still going to race when I can, but I'm not targeting any more big races this year. Anyway, here's what's been going on lately.

Gig Harbor Circuit Race
Great road race on a 4 mile circuit with a short, steep climb. I stayed around the front most of the day and helped bring in a breakaway or two, but I missed getting in the break that ultimately won the race. On the second to last lap I decided to put the hammer down on the hill to see if I could make anything happen. Unfortunately, nothing much came of it and much to my disappointment I realized I had miscounted the laps when we crossed the start/finish line. We had 2 laps to go instead of the 1 I was expecting. Oh well. My legs were pretty cooked, but I managed to bring it home and get 13th on the day.

Burien Criterium
Early morning, July 4th, downtown Burien, WA. This was a very nice course for a criterium. 4 corners, about a kilometer long with a small hill and smooth pavement. After warming up on my trainer I completed my warmup on the course. Something didn't seem right as soon as I hit the course. My heartrate seemed a bit high for my level of effort and my legs didn't feel so great. The situation didn't change during the race. I stayed with the main group, but just didn't have any punch. It was pretty much a non-event. Later in the week I came down with a touch of illness, so I think I may have been suffering the initial effects during this race.

Broadmark Skagit Flats Circuit Race
This morning local racers headed north to Silvana, WA for a race around a 5 mile circuit on flat farm roads. Most of our 7 laps were fast, but uneventful. I was still feeling a bit off, but my legs felt ok. I pretty much stayed in the group for most of the day to conserve energy, but moved toward the front on the last lap. Actually, coming in to the last lap I was on the front but didn't take the opportunity to try a break, which was probably a mistake. Steaming toward the last kilometer the peloton started to get dicey as everyone tried to set themselves up for the finished. Then, two guys at the front bumped and a huge crash followed. As I went into the grass to avoid hitting someone I remember seeing someone next to me go flying over their handlebars. I got my act together and hauled ass for the finish line, but I'm sure it wasn't an impressive placing.

Kent State Criterium

2005-06-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

The Kent Criterium is the state championship criterium race for senior racers (under 30). The race was a 45 minute criterium on a figure 8 (no, you don't cross each other) course in downtown Kent, WA. I'm not a big fans of crits because they are usually filled with crashes, but I figured this one might be fun. The course was quite enjoyable, but the 8 corners meant passing was difficult since you're always getting ready for another turn. I felt good and was staying toward the front for most of the race, looking for an opportunity to try a breakaway.

Unfortunately with 15 minutes left on the clock there was a massive crash behind me and we rolled neutral for a few laps until the race was stopped. Usually a race stoppage is only a few minutes, but this was closer to 10 or 15. They kept reporting back the condition of the fallen rider: he's ok! ... he's ok, but we think he might have some broken ribs.... he's ok, but he's feeling some numbness in his legs. Great.

When they finally restarted the race they reset the clock to have 10 minutes left. At this point I decided to walk away. A 10 minute sprint with everyone fully recovered. No thanks... I like my ribs and other parts the way they are. :)

How's this for customer service

2005-06-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

The fenders I use are a quick release model made by SKS. They are held on using rubber straps (4 per fender) which wrap around the fork in the front and seat stays on the back. Over time I've lost a few of the straps and others are starting to show their age, so I decided it was time to pick up some more. After coming up empty on the net I ended up on the SKS website and dropped them an email.

I really wasn't expecting a response. SKS is German company and even though my email should have been routed to the right place, my expectation was low. Imagine my surprise when I actually get a response. And even better than that, they offered to send me a new set of straps for free. In disbelief I replied with my address and a couple days later a hand addressed enveloped showed up filled with new straps. I'm impressed.

My Music Solution

2005-06-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

Like everyone else in the world (it seems), I've tried a variety of methods for getting my music to the right place at the right time. For the most part I only listen to music at work. I don't have an iPod and I don't stream music around the house. I actually do own an Audiotron, but that has turned out to be more trouble than it is worth. So my problem is pretty simple, how do I keep my music in sync between work and home?

I've pretty much settled on keeping copies of my entire collection in two places. Streaming music from a server at home simply didn't work, so with one long scp session I copied my entire collection over to work. Now a simple rsync will keep the two collections in sync.

Somehow I wasn't satisfied, I had to take things to the next level. Buying CDs seems so dated to me so I started looking into services like iTunes. While iTunes is very cool, it completely fails in my situation. iTunes wants to manage your music collection, not help you synchronize it across multiple machines. There aren't many other solutions out there that would let me buy music and keep everything in sync across multiple systems. I entertained the idea of getting an iPod and letting that be the master of all music, but I figured I could solve this problem for a lot less $$.

So, I bit the bullet and decided to try Yahoo! Music. It's kind of like leasing music for a month fee (about $7 if you pay month to month). You have full access to their entire catalog (which is good enough for now) and can play any song, any time. You can even download music to your machine, so it can be played when you are offline. On top of that you can transfer music to certain mp3 players (no, not iPods). The only time you'll pay more than your monthly fee is if you want to burn the music to a CD. In that case you pay about $.79/song, or some reasonable price for the entire album.

Yahoo! Music seems great, right? Well, almost. The problem is that it is for Windows only and now that I spend more time commuting by bike, I tend to leave my laptop at home and use a Linux desktop at work. I'm trying to figure out ways around this, but I think I'm either going to have to haul my laptop around today or cancel my subscription.

Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race

2005-06-06T16:11:00.000-07:00

This year the Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race took place the weekend after Wenatchee. I took it easy during the week to get ready for my "A" priority race of the year. The format was similiar to Wenatachee: time trial, criterium, road race. Unlike Wenatchee, Enumclaw is a traditional time based format. Unfortunately, the weekend was a total bust. Here's the event rundown:

10k Time Trial:
Managed 16th place (I always get 16th!) despite having one of my aero bars come loose during the event. A solid improvement over last year's 73rd position.

30 Criterium:
Very difficult to make up ground in an 8 corner criterium, especially when you get a bad start. I finished with the main group.. again, much better than last year.

Road Race:
I was really looking forward to this. The course has a great climb which we were going to do 3 times. At the bottom of the first climb I was midfield. By the top I was in the top 10. Just like Wenatchee, I figured I'd be really strong on the climb. Unfortunately shortly after the summit I noticed my rear tire going soft. The support car was nowhere in sight because the field was so strung out after the hill. Several minutes had passed by the time the car caught up with me and I knew my chances for a good finish were shot so I just rode back to the parking lot and called it a day.

Talk about disappointment. Flats have bitten me in two races this year. I need to find a better racing tire.... or figure out if I'm doing something else wrong. Sigh.

Does this seem strange to you?

2005-05-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

Today I rode to work and left my laptop at home, but connected to work via VPN. So, I'm sitting here at my desk using a remote desktop client to use the laptop sitting in my office back home. Why am I here?

Wenatche State Omnium Championships

2005-05-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

The Wenatche stage race is a bit different than most races. The key hint here is the word "Omnium" in the title. In most other stage races, your time for each stage is added together and the person with the lowest time wins (I'm oversimplifying since there are time bonuses and other stuff). An omnium, on the other hand, is points based. The top 10 or 15 finishing positions (it depends) are awarded points. The person with the most points wins.

The points system can change strategy quite a bit. In a timed event, if a group of racers crosses the finish line together they are all given the same finishing time, with the first few positions being given small time bonuses. This means you can finish a race in a large group and it won't really impact your overall ranking. In an omnnium, every position counts and if you don't have points you don't have a ranking.

Stage 1: 9 mile individual time trial

Nice course with rolling hills. About 23 minutes of suffering gave me a 16th result. 0 points.

Stage 2: 30 minute criterium

Was going well until the last half of the last lap when there was a crash in front of me and I barely missed going over the bars myself. 0 points.

Stage 3: Road race

I love the road race at Wenatche for its epic climb. I've been climbing well lately so I was hoping for a good result. The race started with a loop on the time trial course, giving us a nice warmup and then headed into the mountains for a 12 mile climb. The climb quickly shredded the field and by the midpoint I found myself among a select few at the front chasing down an early breakaway.

We caught the break at the summit and started the long descent. Of course, on queue it started to rain immediately as we started descending. Flying down twisty, wet mountain roads at 50mph was one of the scarier descent I have done, but we made it down in one piece for a flat run to the finish line. There were only a handful of us at the front for the run in to the finish and I ended up with an 8th place finish, giving me enough points for a 13th place overall result.

The crit and TT could have gone better, but I was really happy with my performance in the road race. If I had a better sprint I probably could have picked up a few more positions. Oh well.. pics can be found here.

Lake Sammamish Trail

2005-05-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

I was thrilled to open the local paper (err, local paper's website) this morning and see this article. Yep, it looks like the Lake Sammamish Trail is finally going to happen! I'm thrilled.

When this is completed I'll be able to ride from downtown Seattle to my house and only touch a few miles of road over a total of almost 40 miles. Unfortunately the first version of the trail will be gravel, meaning I'll still be riding on the road for some time to come.

Masters State Championships

2005-05-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, my team co-hosted the Masters and Juniors state championship road race. My primary role was to offer any help I could in supporting to race, but I got the opportunity to compete as well.

My first activity of the day was to act as a corner marshall for the morning races. This basically involves standing around somewhere on the course and closing corners to traffic when the race comes through. Pretty uninteresting work, but it's amazing how irritated some people can get when you stop them for a minute to prevent them from running over some 15 year old kid on a bike. Don't get me started...

While I was manning my corner I got the word that I'd be able to race. I rushed back, changed and jumped into the back of the lineup with absolutely no warmup. Given how little prep time I had, I wasn't expecting much out of the race. I was hoping for a nice ride on Sunday afternoon. Yeah, right.

The course was a 10ish mile loop with 2 climbs. We did 4 laps for a total of 42 miles and, do the math with me, 8 climbs. When I saw the first climb approach it looked like a wall, but on the way up I found myself passing groups of people without too much effort. On the second climb, even more. By the time we completed the first lap, I was up front. I managed to stay up front for the remainder of the race.

About half way through the last lap, the pace picked up and everyone started jockeying for position. I held my place up front and ended up finished with the group in the final sprint. I think I let a few positions slide because I don't take as many risks as others in the closing miles. The lesson here is that I need to defend my position better until the very end unless I'm willing to take those risks.

More Walla Walla Fun

2005-04-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

A few pictures have surfaced from some of the more interesting events at Walla Walla this past weekend. First, we have the crash of one of my teammates. In the first picture below, he's the guy in green about to go over. Notice his front wheel is pointed completely to the right. This is something you want to avoid. In the next shot he's flying out of the right side of the picture. Fortunately, he was ok.

And finally, here are a bunch of us waiting out the storm that ultimately cancelled the road race:

Tour of Walla Walla

2005-04-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

This weekend I headed down to Walla Walla for the appropriately named Tour of Walla Walla. The Tour is a 3 stage race consisting of an individual time trial, road race and criterium.

The fun started Saturday morning with an individual time trial of 5 miles. Each rider went every 30 seconds. My start time was 08:14:30. How's that for accuracy? Anyway, I did a good warmup and got in line a few minutes before my start time. Once the fun was underway I tried to make sure I didn't push too hard and explode. I focussed on finding that point of suffering that you can maintain for more than a minute. Fun sport. In 12 minutes and 24 seconds the suffering was over. I rode back to the start area and starting resting for the afternoon's 57 mile road race.

Around 1pm that day I headed back to the start area and began another warm up ritual in preparation for the road race. I checked the result sheet and found I finished 21/100 in the time trial. I was about 30 seconds behind the leader and going into a long road race had a shot at a good overall result.

For the opening 20 miles or so my teammates did a great job of keeping me up front and protected from the wind. When we hit the first climb the field started to splinter a bit, but I stayed with the lead group through the climb. As we descended at speeds approaching 50mph we were hit with fierce cross winds that tossed our bikes around and a light rain that made you wonder just how fast you should be entering the corners. Fortunately there were no incidents.

After calming down and regrouping from the descent we found ourselves in the midst of a lightning storm and the kind of rain that made you wonder when the hail was going to start. The race director pulled up next to us and said the race was being neutralized (no competition) and we were going to head to the next town to find shelter. So, for the next hour or so the tiny town of Waitsburg, WA found itself host to hundreds of racers waiting out the storm. Unfortunately, and for reasons I don't know, the road race was ultimately cancelled and we had to ride back to the starting area (about 16 miles). No official results for the road race, but quite an afternoon!

The next morning we had a 40 minute criterium on the streets of downtown Walla Walla. I think everyone had too much energy remaining from Saturday's events because the crits (all of them) were just out of control. Ours was fast and furious until a bad crash at the midpoint stopped the race while an ambulance was brought in to clean up the bodies. On the restart and remaining 20 minutes I lost the good position I had at the beginning of the race, but finished with the lead group.

In the final standings I finished 15th overall. My best result to date. Even with strange events I had a blast this weekend and remembered why I enjoy this sport so much.

Pictures are posted here.

Seward Park Spring Classic

2005-04-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

This weekend was supposed to be a pretty intense weekend of racing, but unfortunately it didn't work out that way.

On Saturday, I was planning to attend the Tahuya-Seabeck-Tahuya race. This has been rated the best race in Washington, and at 65 hilly miles, promised to be grueling. I've been battling a slight ilness for weeks and have noticed my motivation slowing a bit. I woke up Satuday to pouring rain and gave in. The idea of riding that far in the rain with no teammates had me thinking, "why do I do this?". I didn't even bother with my 3.5 hour training ride Saturday, I just threw in the towel.

I was feeling a bit more motivated Sunday morning, so I headed to Seattle for a criterium at Seward park. It wasn't raining and one of my teammates showed up. I also think I might have recruited a new teammate. Simply put, I had a blast. Having a few friends and decent weather really made all the difference. I suddenly remembered why I enjoy this sport. Hell, I even had the motivation to throw in a training ride after the race.

As for the crit. I started off exactly as I did last year, by getting flat on the ride to the race. Yay, panic! I got that fixed and headed for the lineup. Last year I let myself slip back and got dropped when the field started to string out. This year I stayed up front for the duration of the event (40 minutes). On the last lap I missed the led out acceleration by a hair, but stepped on the gas and managed a respectable finish -- top 15 I think, but the results are posted past top 10.

Ok, I think I have some motivation back, now back to training. :) This is probably a good thing since next weekend is a long stage race.

Cool Firefox Extension

2005-04-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

This one could prove to be very useful -- resizeable text areas. Get it here, try it below.

Findory

2005-04-09T15:08:00.000-07:00

The news folder in my RSS reader essentially never got used. There was always too much in there to read so I just went to cnn.com once in a while to get caught up. Out of curiosity, I decided to try out Findory to see if it could manage the daily flood of news. I signed up on the website and subscribed to several personalized RSS feeds in my interest areas.

I have to say that so far I am impressed. After clicking through on just a couple of articles the feeds started to morph toward my interests. For example, the only sports I really care about are cycling and formula 1 and that is pretty much all Findory shows to me. Now I am regularly going through my news folder since virtually all of it is relevant. My only complaint is that there are still duplicate articles. Sometimes the the same article appears in different categories or the same material shows up from different sources. It is a minor inconvenience.

Anyway, Greg has definitely done some nice work, so go check it out.

Campy electronic group

2005-04-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Cool article about Campy's prototype electronic group.

I think this is a very cool idea. Not that cables are bad, but there is a gee whiz factor about this. Hopefully they can work out all of the kinks.

Power Meters

2005-04-05T08:35:00.000-07:00

I really want to invest in a power meter, but I am completely torn on the models available. There are 3 main contenders: SRM (~$2000), PowerTap (~$900), Polar (~$350).

I'd love to get the SRM, but it is simply out of my price range. The PowerTap unit is built into wheel so it is easy to transfer between bikes, but probably not something to race on (unless you build it into a race quality wheel, which I wouldn't). The Polar unit goes with the Polar heart rate monitor I already own. It attaches to the bike, which means I could race with it, but couldn't easily transfer it between bikes.

I would get the Polar in a heartbeat (ha!) if it wasn't for some questionable reviews I have read. The measurement method it uses is more error prone and it is generally considered to be less accurate. People have also claimed that it can be difficult to install and keep working, but I don't necessarily believe that.

So, it's down to choosing between the PowerTap and the Polar. The Polar is significantly less money, but I don't know if I want to take the risk on an inferior product. I'm confused.

Leg Shaving

2005-03-31T08:42:00.000-08:00

Came across this amusing tidbit in this week's RoadBikeRider newsletter:

So why do cyclists shave? Should you? Let's examine the pros and cons.

Pro: The Crash
You'll wish you'd shaved when some ER intern who hasn't slept in 29 hours starts wire-brushing Route 66 out of your gams. Believe me, extracting gravel from flesh is worse with hundreds of tiny, dirty, grasping hairs in the way.

Con: The Hassle
It's tough enough brushing your teeth and combing your hair every day. Do we really need one more item on the personal-grooming agenda?

Pro: The Rub
If you get massages -- and you're a sore, lactic-acidy fool if you don't -- you need bare legs. Why? Massage oil + hair = Superfund cleanup site.

Con: The Look
You're wearing shorts at the family picnic when soused Uncle Sal the Teamster wonders aloud why (a) you shave your legs, and (b) any grownup with a driver's license rides a bike in the first place. Go ahead, you explain. I'll be over by the potato salad.

Pro: The Other Look
Shaved legs make your muscles appear bigger. Other riders think you're serious. Maybe they won't attack you on Vomit Pass. If they do, you'll glance at your bulging quads, get inspired and hang on.

Con: The Con
You and your hairy legs show up for a group ride. Somebody snickers. On Vomit Pass, you attack. The snobs are too stunned to respond. You break away, leg hairs waving goodbye in the breeze.

Updated Team Website

2005-03-30T08:27:00.000-08:00

I think I finally beat the demons of CSS positions and browser compatibility that have been making updating the team website a very painful process. The updated site is now live:

http://www.mobilemoneyracing.org/

Snohomish Road Race

2005-03-28T22:30:00.001-08:00

Saturday's event was a road race near Monroe, WA (which isn't too far from Seattle). My race was scheduled for 4 laps around an 11 mile course with rolling hills and one nice little climb.

Unfortunately the wet weather has returned to the Pacific Northwest and Saturday's forecast looked dreadful. I woke up to windy, wet conditions (the weather guy actually got it right!), packed up my stuff and headed for the course. The first problem of the day happened on the drive. Somehow I made a wrong turn and ended up arriving late. By the time I registered and got dressed it was 9:15. We were scheduled for a 9:35 start and I had done absolutely no warmup (usually a warmup is 30-45 minutes). To make things worse my bladder wasn't cooperating and I had to choose between the bathroom and a warmup. I opted for the bathroom. And with that, I went to the lineup in the cold rain with absolutely no warmup in my legs. This was going to be fun.

Somewhat luckily there was a neutral rollout of a couple miles from the staging area to the race course. The lead car kept the pace high so we wouldn't get too cold, which got my heart pumping nice and quickly. This was the extent of my warmup and the race commenced at the best of the largest climb (ok, it wasn't big in the traditional sense, but the biggest on the course). Did I mention this was going to be fun?

After the initial surge up the first climb (and listening to my body saying "What the fuck are you doing to me?") the peloton settled into a reasonable pace. Sometime on the second lap I felt a squishyness in my rear tire. This could only mean that I was loosing air. We were still climbing so I kept going for a bit because the wheel car was nowhere in sight, but when some of the bigger downhills came into the picture I pulled over and waited for a wheel change.

Obviously, following the change I had been dropped from the peloton, so I put the hammer down to see if I could catch back up. As my heart rate soared into time trial range I couldn't help but remember how much I hate field tests. :) I passed several people that had been dropped by the peloton. A rider from another team hopped on my back wheel as I passed him but didn't have the strength to take a turn leading, so I ended up hauling his ass around for 15 miles or so. At one point there were three of us working together, but in the end I couldn't catch back up and finished up the race behind the main field (not exactly sure where).

I'm kicking myself for using my good racing wheels/tires in a wet race. The night before I was looking at my heavy duty training wheels and a feeling that I should use them, but didn't listen to it. Somehow I think the heavier tire wouldln't have flatted. I have yet to get a flat on them in all of my wet weather training. Duh. Ya know, it doesn't matter how much lighter the race wheel is if it doesn't stay inflated. :)

Oh, and after that effort in the soaking rain I pretty much felt like I had been run over by a truck for the rest of the day.... ok, and Sunday's training ride wasn't too much fun either.

Snohomish Road Race

2005-03-28T22:30:00.000-08:00

Onfolio Release Candidate Available

2005-03-27T22:29:00.000-08:00

You can download it here.

Degreasers

2005-03-27T19:55:00.000-08:00

Normally I use a bio degradable (citrus based) degreaser for getting grime off of my bike. Today I decided to try out a White Lightning's Clean Streak product. My bike was especially grimey after a long ride in the rain, so this was a good test for the product.

The results were astonishing (I'm sorry if I'm starting to sound infomercial-ish). I've never seen something remove grease and grit like this. My rear cogs are shiny as if they were brand new. No scrubbing required. Just spray this stuff on and everything rinses off. Of course, it is not bio degradable and I think I probably killed a salmon stream or bald eagle's nest. Kind of scary actually.. I'm going to go now and make sure the rest of my bike hasn't dissolved.

CTS Field Test

2005-03-26T16:48:00.000-08:00

On Friday I was scheduled for another field test. I hate field tests (hate!). It is just a complete suffer fest, performed twice. In case you don't remember, the field test is two 3 mile time trials separately by a 10 minute rest. The time time trial is an all out, eye crossing effort. Did I mention I hate the field test?

Thursday's workout included a few short sprints to prime my body for today. It must have been the time of day (early morning) or what I had eaten (just a Clif bar), but I couldn't get my heart rate up too high. I was worried I wouldn't perform well today.

So, I made sure I was properly fueled and headed out to the course during the afternoon. As I settled in to the first interval I looked down and saw my heart tick up to 180 and then peak out at 181. That was pretty good. I have never seen it that high in a field test before. It looked like I was maintaining an average of 179/180 for the duration of the test, but it started to drop toward the end and my
average turned out to be around 176.

After a 10 minute break I started the second interval. My HR was running a bit lower, as I would expect, but seemed pretty good. I ended with an average of 174. Both numbers are about where I was for the last test, so I guess that means everything is ok. I really hope I don't have to do another one soon.

West Lake Sammamish Parkway

2005-03-23T16:43:00.000-08:00

Came across some very interesting information about the safety of West Lake Sammamish parkway and future plans for bicycles on this stretch of road. This is definitely worth reading if you cycling in this area.

Low Key Weekend

2005-03-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

Even though there were two races on the calendar this weekend, I decided to take it easy and stick to training. Saturday's scheduled race was the third of the Mason Lake series. Frankly, I was getting tired of riding around that damn lake so it was easy to say no. Sunday's event took place in Sequim, WA, which is a ferry ride plus a decent drive away. I probably would have had to get up at 5ish to pull that one off and I wasn't up for it.

Unfortunately, both of my training rides took place in the nasty wind and rain that has returned to the Seattle area. On Saturday I didn't put on my rain jacket soon enough and ended up quite soaked by the end. On Sunday I was about an hour and a half from home when the rain hit and I realized I had forgotten my rain jacket. The two days of riding soaked in the freezing rain took a lot of me. Maybe I should have gone racing after all.

In other news, I updated the team website with a new design, so check it out if you get a chance.

Mason Lake Road Race #2

2005-03-13T22:37:00.000-08:00

Saturday was the second of the three race series at Mason Lake. As with the others, this was mainly a training race for me. I find passing on the course very difficult and the race isn't long enough to really spread out the field. Having no hills doesn't help with the separation either. Anyway, it was quite fast like last week and I finished with the main field. Fortunately there were no crashes at the end, although I did just miss one at about the mid point of the race and had to play catch up for a few minutes.

I did manage to capture some HRM data this week and some more pics can be found here.

Flickr

2005-03-13T21:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I started playing with Flickr. I'm still grokking the whole photo stream thing, but so far it is pretty cool, especially when combined with RSS. Anyway, my photos are here.

Julich's Cervelo

2005-03-13T21:03:00.000-08:00

You'd think that winner of Paris-Nice would be riding the finest machinery money could buy. Not so for Bobby Julich. He was cruising along on a relatively normal aluminum Cervelo Soloist, not one of their fancy carbon frames.

The Soloist is a very affordable frame (~$1500) and also happens to be Cervelo's only "aero" road frame. Combined with the Zipp wheels, I wonder if it was really a significant aero advantage. Hmm... maybe I bought the wrong frame. No no, it's the engine that counts. I have to keep reminding myself of that.

Anyway, I came across this bit of info over here.

Compact Cranks

2005-03-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

Pez has a great writeup of FSA's new compact cranks. Particularly interests are the facts about their use in Europe (very popular).

Mason Lake Road Race

2005-03-05T21:16:00.000-08:00

For many people, myself included, today officially opened racing season with the Mason Lake Road Race. Mason Lake is situated southwest of Seattle in the Hood Canal area. For the curious, here is a Google Maps link to play with.

The Cat 4 race started at 9:30 this morning and called for 3 laps of the 12 mile circuit around the lake. I think the race went quite well. The pace was absolutely blistering. We covered the 36 miles in about 1:26, giving an average speed of above 25 mph. I felt good and managed to stay with the lead group despite several breaks in the peloton. Unfortunately, with about 2km to go on the last lap I got caught behind a crash in the lead group and wasn't able to catch back up. Ah well.. it was the first race of the season, and is pretty much a training event, so no big deal.

Next weekend we'll be back at the same location, but will do another lap, for a total of 48 miles. Should be fun! I can only hope the unusually warm weather around here sticks around.

Amazon Prime Impressions

2005-02-20T20:11:00.000-08:00

Now that I've been using Amazon Prime for a while I've noticed a few things. I don't see much of a difference in my purchasing behavior when it comes to things like books and music. However, I've really enjoyed having Prime for consumables. I buy as many consumables as possible from Amazon. Everything from mouthwash and dental floss to trash bags and dishwasher detergent. The prices are reasonable and it cuts down on the size of grocery store trips. Anyway, before Prime I would leave a few consumables in my cart and use them as filler to get over the $25 threshold. Even while doing this I tended to forget things. Prime has changed all of that. Now, as soon as I realize I need something I hop online and place the order. No batching, no waiting, no thinking. Notice you're out of trash bags as you're putting out the garbage? No problem. Hop online, click a few times and it's taken care of. Very nice.

Why Cyclists Wear Black Shorts

2005-02-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

Ted passed on this hilarious link:
http://www.alivewithlove.com/cyclists.html

The Unthinkable

2005-02-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

[ reposting ]

It's hard to believe. I still haven't quite internalized it myself, but it happened. I was hit by a car. Here's how it all went down.

After being away for a week and spending my time running (in between eating all that yummy holiday food) I was anxious to get back on the bike. So, Thursday morning I set out for a loop around Lake Sammamish, a route I am intimitately familiar with. About halfway around the lake I was at the 1 hour point in my ride and was looking forward to enjoying my PowerBar went it all went bad. As I was approaching an intersection with no light I noticed a car was starting to make a left right in front of me. The road had was a slight downhill at this point and was wet. I figure I was doing at least 20 mph. When I realized the driver didn't see me it was already too late. I slammed on my brakes, but my wet rims weren't providing much stopping power. The car continued to turn and I knew was about to happen. I slammed into the front of the car and landed next to the driver's door.

Right after hitting the ground I got up, did a quick survey to make sure everything important was still attached (it was) and looked back at my bike. It was lying at the front of the car literally in two pieces. The frame had snapped completely in half. I was in shock at the severity of the damage and amazed I wasn't in a similar condition.

Fortunately, a FedEx driver was at the intersection and witnessed the whole event. She immediately called 911 and stayed with me until help arrived. After going through the usual book keeping with the police I went to the hospital to get checked out, just as a precaution. Turns out I am just fine. I have some bruises on my left side (the one I landed on) and a nice dent in my helmet (never leave home without it!), but that's it. I am very lucky.

So what now? Well, I'm not going to let this stop me. In fact, I borrowed a friend's bike and was out riding today. I've also started shopping for new bikes... but that will be the topic of another post. In the mean time, here are some pics I took of the bike after the accident (and you thought camera phones were just for identity theft and dirty old men):

Camera Phone Pics

2005-02-12T21:50:00.000-08:00

Jeez, sorry about the crappy camera phone pics. Been playing around with Flickr a bit. Unfortunately my camera phone isn't very high quality and the lens tends to get covered with pocket lint. Oh well.

Dinner on lake washington

2005-02-12T17:43:00.000-08:00

Track Changes

2005-02-12T10:12:00.000-08:00

The more time I spend in software development, the less time I spend actually writing code. Now I spend time thinking about code or designs or other high level things that are somehow less rewarding than actually sitting down and typing some code. Inevitably this means I spend a lot of time using Word (hey, I should really switch back to TeX if I want to feel like I'm coding). I think the track changes feature is simply great and use it all the time, even for documents I'm working on solo. It got me thinking, why not have a "track changes" like feature in your development environment? It would certainly make code reviews much easier. The reviewer could simply edit the code and add comments inline. All comments would be stored with the code itself. IMO, this would be much more convenient than conducting code reviews via email. Perhaps some nifty GUI that I'm not familiar with has this feature, but if not, it probably wouldn't be terribly difficult to build.

HID Headlights

2005-02-11T11:48:00.000-08:00

I use a high end HID headlight for riding at night. If you've seen cars who's headlights have a blueish tint and are very bright, then you know what I'm talking about. My bike headlight uses the same technology. I got it because I sometimes ride on roads and trails with absolutely zero light.

However, once in a while I find myself getting yelled at by other bikers. Last night, on a trail, some guy screamed at me "Your light sucks!". I guess this is the cycling equivalent of flashing your high beams at someone, or more likely, giving them the finger. I assume people aren't happen that my light is so bright. Did I violate some kind of biker ettiquete? What are the unwritten rules on this one?

Amazon Prime

2005-02-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

If you have a second, check out the new Prime program over at Amazon. For $79/per year you get free 2 day shipping and overnight shipping for $3.99. Plus, you can share the membership with 4 people. There no minimum bar to get the deal, as with the $25 free shipping. Just join and 1-click your heart out. I joined... we'll see if it is worth it.

Cannondale R5000 Impressions

2005-02-01T15:40:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't make a good bike reviewer. Many of the bikes I've ridden feel the same to me, so I'm clearly not good at picking up the subtle differences. That said, I have a few thoughts now that I've spent some time on my new bike.

Not surprisingly, it is light and stiff. Acceleration and climbing are very good, which you would expect. The Arione saddle is extremely comfortable, though I can't tell if the carbon seatpost does anything to dampen vibration. I do know I have far fewer saddle sores than before. :) The carbon cranks feel stiff and I there is no derailleur rubbing, even during heavy acceleration.

However, the shifting performance is the stand out feature. The 10 speed Dura-Ace drive train is simply amazing. Shifts are so effortless that you might forget you're actually pulling a cable. The best part is that this is even true for the front derailleur. A light one finger click will lift the chain on to the big ring. I still have to look down to convince myself it actually happened.

CTS Field Test

2005-01-29T21:49:00.000-08:00

Today my training called for a "field test". This is essentially a check in point to see how your training is going and is used to help set parameters (mainly heart rate limits) for your upcoming training.

The test consists of two 3 mile time trials separated by a 10 minute break. Each 3 mile interval is an all out effort and is complete misery. Percentages of your average heart rate from the intervals are used to set the heartrate limits for your future workouts.

I wasn't expecting to do that well since I haven't been working the upper ends of my aerobic capacity over the winter. Boy was I surprised by the results. My average heartrate over the first 3 miles was 174. I managed 172 when I did this test in the fall. The second interval was the real surprise. While I only managed 169 last fall, I came in at 175 today. I have no idea how that happened, but it looks like I recover much better than I did last fall. I'm looking forward to see what my coach has to say about the results.

Exercise by driving?

2005-01-26T18:17:00.000-08:00

The goverment recently changing the amount of recommended daily exercise to somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes (I think it was just 30 before). Given that people can't even get 30 in, I have no idea why someone would think they would do more. Well, I guess it's just a recommendation. You don't have to believe it will come true to recommend it. :)

Anyway, the usual slew of article on creative ways to add "exercise" to your life has followed this announcement. Of course, exercise is rarely defined and usually seems to mean something better than sitting on your ass.

An article I came across today was a real winner. The author suggests he doesn't have time in his busy day to hop on a treadmill and suggests ways to get in some exercise while shopping. A little extra time paying, a slightly longer walk from the car and the time will start to add up. The best recommendation was to actually take a longer route to the store since driving is apparently more active than sitting on your ass. Don't even get me started on this one.

So, take the few minutes here and there you add to your shopping trip and guess what? You could have gotten your ass on a treadmill and actually sustained an elevated heartrate that would have resulted in more than additional pollution. Damn are people lazy.

Staring out the office window

2005-01-24T13:55:00.000-08:00

Customer Service

2005-01-21T21:19:00.000-08:00

I've had the pleasure of dealing with the customer service departments of several companies lately. I'll bypass all the obvious material in this one and comment on the new voice enabled phone systems they all seem to have. Rather than punch numbers to navigate the menus, now you have to say the number, and pretty much everything else. I found this to be not only more time consuming, but a potential privacy problem as I rattled off various account numbers. Great. Do they really think this is better? Who did they study that was more productive with this system?

Now whenever I have to make call I have to go find an empty office so people don't overhear anything they shouldn't. Meanwhile, I'll listening for any interesting calls at the office with a notepad handy. :)

New Bike

2005-01-15T19:23:00.000-08:00

Due to an event which I'll post about soon I have been in the market for a new bike. Even though I'm partial to Cannondale I thought it might be wise to broaden my horizons. I looked at Trek, Jamis, Scott, Cervelo and others. What I noticed across all brands was that in the $3000 price range you can either get a carbon frame or high end components. I struggled with this decision. I've ridden aluminum for years and have no complaints, but then again I've never ridden carbon (or much else for that matter). Another factor that matters to me is where the frame is maufactured and how long the warranty is.

With these contraints in mind I was quickly back down to Cannondale and Trek as leading contenders (because their frames are both made in the US). Ultimately I decided to go with a Cannondale R5000. It is their top end aluminium frame with a full Dura-Ace group. Trek had a nice model with a carbon frame and full Ultegra 10 group, but it was quite a bit more money. The Cannondale was about $2600 and the Trek was $3200. I didn't think it was worth the extra cash for a carbon frame.

When the weather gets better around here I might actually take it for a ride. In the mean time, here are some pics:

Dogs

2005-01-11T19:38:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you meet a nasty dog while on your bike?

I haven't had many encounters with them. The occasional chase, but nothing of note. Last night was a bit different. Once again I was riding around a small lake during my ride home (also the site of my Creepy Night). The road around the lake is small and completely dark. It is a residential area, but the houses are set back enough that the road says virtually black. As I came up a small, steep incline a dog from the house I was approaching came tearing out and stopped at the end of his property, facing me. I stopped in my tracks. The dog was pretty large (could have done some damage) and was barking and growling. There was no way I could sprint past him because of the incline, and since he wasn't backing down at all, I just turned around and went a different way.

What would you have done in that situation?

Discovery Trek Madone

2005-01-10T09:21:00.000-08:00

cyclingnews.com has a nice writeup and some shots of the new colors for the Discovery Channel's Trek Madone.

CTS Update: 1/7/2005

2005-01-07T20:58:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted an update of my training with CTS, so here we go.

From October through December I was in a transition phase (the program is broken up into phases, each with different goals). My training was lighter it was generally pretty relaxing. Everything was eventful. I still rode a decent amount, but notably less than other times of the year (no complaints here!).

Now I've moved in to the foundation phase of training. The main goal for the next few months is to build up my aerobic endurance by putting in a lot of miles. When the racing season is a bit closer this will transition to more intense training and I'll start to work on race specific skills. My training is starting to pick up, peaking out at about 15 hours on the bike during 1 week this month, which doesn't include weight training sessions. Most of my rides are categorized as "EnduranceMiles". They tend to be on the longer side (1.5 - 4 hours) and have a max heartrate that gives me enough room for difficult climbs, but doesn't push me into my red zone. For me that heart rate is 156, but my average heart rate for these rides is usually significantly less.

The rides usually include some type of exercise to perform during the ride. Right now I'm mainly doing muscle building exercises on the bike (such as climbing a hill with a ridiculously hard gear). Again, these exercises will shift to the more traditional interval and other lactate threshold enhancing exercises when racing season nears.

So, that's where things stand. All I have to say is that I'm thankful for living in a relatively temperate climate where I can still ride outside several days per week in the middle of winter. I have no idea how people in cold climates do it. After an hour on the trainer I'm ready to go crazy.