On Riding Faster and use of four letter words

I found this article on the relative advantages of Aerobars (also know as Tri-bars) Time Trial Bikes and Time Trial Helmets. Now I'd like to think I am really secure well adjusted individual, but I strongly doubt I'd be willing to wear a time trial helmet. They just look too goofy. Sorry guys, maybe if I came in a close second I'd get a TT helmet.

The following is a joke that's been making its rounds on the Internet, I liked it.

When is @#$% Acceptable?

There are only eleven times in history where the "F" word has been considered acceptable for use. They are as follows:

11. "What the @#$% do you mean,we are sinking?"-- Capt. E.J. Smith of RMS Titanic, 1912

10. "What the @#$% was that?"-- Mayor Of Hiroshima, 1945

9. "Where did all those @#$%ing Indians come from?"-- Custer, 1877

8. "Any @#$%ing idiot could understand that."-- Einstein, 1938

7. "It does so @#$%ing look like her!"-- Picasso, 1926

6. "How the @#$% did you work that out?"-- Pythagoras, 126 BC

5. "You want WHAT on the @#$%ing ceiling?"-- Michelangelo, 1566

4. "Where the @#$% are we?"-- Amelia Earhart, 1937

3. "Scattered @#$%ing showers, my ass!"-- Noah, 4314 BC

2. "Aw c'mon. Who the @#$% is going to find out?"-- Bill Clinton, 1998

1. "Geez, I didn't think they'd get this@%#*^ing mad." Stephen Harper, December 2008

On Various Observations

Yesterday was the annual Christmas party. My employer has a long tradition of really cutting loose at the Christmas party. No spouses and drunkenness is actually encouraged, which for one day a year is probably one of the more sensible traditions. Of course in my case once I felt tipsy, after three drinks, I switched to water, and good thing too - in the middle of lunch a user in Montreal emailed me, they needed help with something. (The flushing sound is my Blackberry entering the Toronto sewer system.)

Anyway I came across this quote in the book I am reading, Nemesis by Chalmers Johnson, "[T]he Constitution did not contemplate that the title Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy will constitute also Commander-in-Chief of the country, its industries, and its inhabitants... The purpose of lodging dual titles in one man [the president] was to insure that the civilian would control the military, not to enable the military to subordinate the presidential office." - US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer (1952).

When I was in Grade 11 I had the chance to take a course on American history - recall, for me, Canadian history was required, not American. We spent a great deal of time looking at the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. It all seemed so convoluted and complex. My impression at the time was, why bother? Now I understand, it took George "dubbya" Bush for me to understand the constitution of the United States. I suppose that is the silver lining of the Bush administration and the Republican rubber stamp congress of 2001 to 2006.

So here is another thought, lately I've been drooling over the Specialized web site. In particular the S-Works Transition. Yes, I want a time trial bike. I also need a hell of a lot of money, guys can everyone hit the ads on my blog, like a million times? (Alright don't waste your time, I need to find a get rich quick scheme, heck, I'll settle for a good scam at this point.)

Maybe I could moon light as a neighbourhood computer guy. Someone taped an ad up on my front door offering a review of my wireless security infrastructure for only, $100, well actually I think it was $99.95 (you know that nickle makes a big difference!) Okay, last time I checked my Masters in Computer Engineering (Computer Networks) was still valid so here let me audit my own wireless security, it's 802.11N, therefore it is inadequate, too bad! (Good thing I don't give a damn.) Guys, who are not computer savvy here is the story, wireless security is a contradiction in terms, you can have wireless, you can have security but you cannot have both, and frankly for a home user, you don't need it. The worst anyone who hacks my network could possibly find is my laptop and on it, my... Resume. *insert sound of me quivering*. I suppose they could hitch a ride on my Internet connection, but if they really want that, just ask, why waste time cracking my WPA or WEP (or whatever the hell I am using) key?

My neighbour suggested I take a part time job at Starbucks, I figured it would take about 600 hours for me to be able to afford that Transition, at 10 hours per week, that is over a year! Does anyone need a computer guy? The more I think about it the more reasonable it seems, people who know me are already bugging me for computer help all the time, this way they won't have to feel guilty about asking for help, they are paying for it and I am paying for my new bike... hmmm. (Maybe if they live far enough away I can ride out to their place and get a free ride in with each service call, sort of bonus, rates are lower for people who include a free hit of Soy Milk with each service call.) ;)

I did have a plan B, win a bunch of races, collect lots of money and then buy the bike, except lets be honest, I'm no spring chicken anymore. At the Christmas party there was assigned seating by table number, I could not make out the number of the table next to the one I was at, not because I was drunk, but rather because I did not have my glasses. I'm getting old, groan! In any case, I don't think I am good enough to win the sort of races that have big prizes at the end, the sort that could ever make a Transition an affordable propostion.

Somehow I will make this dream of mine work, I'm just not sure how.

On winter

I hate winter.

No let me be more blunt, in hell they used to say you would get to shovel coal, in Canada, we shovel snow. At least it is warm in hell!

Yeah, I threw my back out shoveling what could charitably be called wet slush last night. Of course I was smart to do it then, had I waited until this morning the walk would have been a sheet of ice, but my back is killing me.

Of course the pain in the back is small potatoes next to a much big problem, I still have only two options for getting to work, well only one option really, take public transit or walk. Obviously I walk.

I have only way way to keep going through this evil white cess that falls from the sky, think of green trees and open roads, I like Warden Ave from about Major MacKenzie north to Vivian (actually I have never used Warden North of Vivian, but I should try it out some time). Elgin Mills, East of Leslie is a nice road. One of my personal favourites though has to be South bound on 9'th line south from Aurora Road. Every time I do 9'th I've had a monster tail wind and it's a slight downgrade, makes for a steady big ring hammerfeast almost all the way to Main Street (Stouffville Rd.). I say "almost all the way", because first you have to circle Musselman lake, which is itself a worth the ride.

I miss the warm weather. On the other hand, assuming we get decent weather starting in April, I have only 112 days of this crappy weather left... One hundred twelve, ouch.

On Riding a really old bike and stress

As I have already documented my Coppi is getting a repaired. There is a crack in the rear drop out. I just spoke with the place that is doing the job, what they are doing is:

1. Remove, saw off, the old drop out at the chain stay and seat stay.
2. Weld on a new drop out.
3. Repaint.

Except for one itty bitty little detail, the new drop out has to be shipped from England and will not arrive until Friday. So I have two choices, ride Erin to work or take the Street Car. I have decided to wake up a half hour earlier and walk! (Not a snowball's chance in hell I'd dare risk hurting Erin in this crappy weather.)

Hey Brian, if you are reading this, that offer on your old Rocky Mountain still stand? (Insert sobbing nosies right here.)

Alright here is a totally unrelated thought. Lately I've been thinking a lot about what Georg wrote on my Blog. (For those of you who missed that exchange, count yourself very damned lucky - according to Lesley that was some of the most entertaining reading she ever got from my blog actually. If you really want to read it, see here, here and here.) For myself I cannot bring myself to re-read those posts, it is too painful for me. I think back to what I was trying to say and it occurs to me, I still do not believe that my fundamental message was that unreasonable. A sport, that I used to participate in has some very serious issues, unless those issues are resolved that sport will continue to contract and wither. (I went on to be quoted by Peter Doucet in Speed Skate World, when I said that frankly the momentum to keep things crappy is so great that I just do not see these issues ever being resolved.)

That Georg was upset is certainly his prerogative. Perhaps my language was harsh or in some other way I was a jerk. (I know I can be a rude and abrasive prick even when I don't mean to be and I know it comes through in my writing sometimes.) What got under my skin though was the whole anonymous posting bit. Georg was offended because of what I wrote, I was pissed because someone called me names without have the balls to put sign a name to their writing. (Later by examining the web logs I was able to confirm that every one of the anonymous posts were from Georg. The joys of being a computer security analyst by day.)

Anyway I bring all this up because I often wonder why Georg wrote what he did. It just was not like him, was I that offensive? One person actually wrote to tell me they agreed with what I said, so could I really have been that mean? It just did not add up. Since then I have speculated at no end to the cause of that angry anonymous outburst. I have figured on a few possible explanations. One theory I like is that Georg, like the rest of us is stressed over the economy and dumped on me - I like that theory because it relieves me of being such a monster of bad writing that I am responsible for his tirade. Since I cannot exactly go up to the guy and ask what inspired it I guess I'll never know for sure.

Since then I've had more economic stress, no my job is, so far, pretty secure, but a number of Lesley's co-workers were just downsized. Needless to say, she feels awful for her friends. How do you go about comforting someone who is feeling stress at the thought of loosing their own job, concern for friends who lost their jobs and guilt for having a job, all at the same time?

I read recently that a very decent man in the BCC recently lost his job too. What do you say to someone in that position?

I often think about economic downturns. I have a stupid question, when did we as a society decided conservatives were better at running the economy? Look at the American example, in the last months of every long term (i.e. 2 or more presidential term) Republican administration since World War I there was a major economic contraction. At the end of the Harding/Coolidge/Hoover period (1920-32) the depression, after eight years of Ike a mini recession. By the middle of Nixon's second administration the seeds of stagflation were already sown. Regan/Bush Sr. had the recession of the early 90s. Now Bush Jr. has given us subprime disaster. Here is the best part, every single one of these disasters can at least to some extent be blamed on the presidential administrations I just listed. (Well maybe not so much Ike, but then he was a moderate conservative, had a moderate policy and resulted in a moderate recession, unlike say, Bush Jr.)

Here is another scary thought, I did not once look up Wikipiedia, or anything else for any of the above paragraph. I need to get outside more. A challenge, if you are bored, name all the presidents of the United States since Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt that is, yeah I really need to get out more, I got them all, even, Taft.

On shout outs and silly mistakes

I had to connect to the office to perform some backups - it used to be an automated process but a "bug fix" made the automated part of the process break, so now every Sunday at 0100 I am connecting to work to start servers up. (I have got to fix that.)

Anyway first, I am surprised nobody pointed out how careless I am, 2 by 6 is 12 speed, but 3 by seven is 21 speed, only back in the days when I was young and horses had yet to be invented I don't think there were all that many seven speed cassettes. This is why I kept saying 18 speed, because road bikes were 2 by 6 mountain were 3 by 6, not 3 by 7.

Also, not that it matters, and it is rather obvious, my spelling is pathetic. But I will point out Dura-Ace is spelled Dura-Ace, hey its just a product name, but still I can Google Shimano. Now that I've done just that, has anyone checked out the DI-2? It looks stupid crazy expensive, massive overkill and waaay cool. On the other hand, one thing I really like about riding is it is entirely a human thing, every part of a bike is being moved by the rider. This electronic control system puts some tiny portion of the effort on the grid and that just seems wrong to me.

Now I was reading over Eric's blog and even if you don't skate it is easy to say the version 5.1 skate boot is really a thing of beauty. I have to admit, if I owned skates that looked that good I'd be really hesitant to use them because I wouldn't want to scuff them up. Well done Eric!

On an unrelated note, I noticed someone from Whitchurch-Stouffville, or at least their ISP is in that area, was reading my blog. Hello who ever you are, can I just say I really like riding through your neck of the woods, but damn Stouffville road is not a bike friendly road at all.

Finally I am putting out a call for volunteers, I need someone to drive or take notes, which ever, sometime during the Christmas weekend. I want to drive the route around Lake Simcoe and I think it best if someone is with me to help me firm up the route. If you think you can help out, drop me a line or post a comment.

On old rides

Back in the spring of 1994 for reasons I do not remember my dad decided to buy me a new bike. He wanted me to buy a mountain bike but even then I wanted a road bike. In those days, like now it seems, mountain bikes were the rage, much like comparing the number of cylinders in a car, people would compare number of gears, (only in those days it wasn't 2 by 9 or 3 by 10, it was called 12 speed for 2 by 6 or 18 speed for 3 by 7).

An aside for anyone who is not an avid cyclist 12 speed or 18 speed is a lie, because there are really only a few unique gear ratios. For example use the big ring in front and a larger gear in back is a lot like the small ring in front and a smaller ring in back. In my experience, I only use perhaps four to six gears on a long ride, and when I am just going to work, on my good bike, Erin, I might use two or three gears, on my old beater bike, I hardly shift the gears, ever.

Anyway returning to that spring of '94, Dad and I went to the bike store, Sport House of Canada, they closed up more than ten years ago, I remember I was admiring the road bikes and Dad was pushing me for mountain bikes, the proprietor, Louis knew my dad well, he had been a customer at Sport House for years before I was even born. Well when Louis (who I should probably add was Italian) found out I like road bikes he became ecstatic and sat me down on a used white Coppi. It was remarkable how willing dad was to listen to Louis sell, well dad really, on that Coppi. To be fair, dad had (still has come to think of it) a Coppi just like the one at Sport house. The one Louis showed us was about $250, far cheaper than the decent mountain bikes and it was made in Italy - an important selling feature if the seller is Italian.

Obviously dad was sufficiently sold on that Coppi that he bought it for me and I loved that bike. I rode it to work at the pool every day that I could in the summers of 1994 and '95, except when I drove (being 17 and having a licence meant the car was always preferred but sometimes not available). In 1996 I was lifeguarding at the outdoor pool when the back wheel seized up, I recall I was able to ride to work but I just could not get the poor thing to carry me to Sport House to get fixed. Ultimately I had to walk it all the way from St. Clair to about halfway between Eglinton and Lawrence because the back wheel was so bad. When Louis saw what happened his fear was the cones were ruined and he would have to send away for new cones from Italy.

It turned out the back axle was broken, it took Louis a few days to get her all fixed up but at least the cones were fine. Well I continued to ride the Coppi, and in the late spring of 2000 that bike saw service as the aircraft used by Air Cole.

Well when we moved to our new house I needed a way to get to work when it rained because it was too far to walk. So I pulled the Coppi out of the basement and started riding it. Before I go any further I think I better compare a bike that is probably close to turning 20 with the sleek Carbon Fibre beauty (AKA Erin) that I also own.

The Coppi has friction downtube shifters and regular handle bar brakes. Erin has STI (or Index Shifting) shifters and brakes. The Coppi has a steel frame, Erin is carbon fibre. The Coppi had a free wheel cassette with six gears, Erin has a modern ten gear cassette. When I bought the Coppi the pedals did not clip into anything, as I wrote earlier that was upgraded, from day one the pedals on Erin were clip in pedals.

That old Coppi was starting to grow on me again, make no mistake, I still love riding Erin, she's smoother, faster and waaay easier to change gears on. But at least now that the I am clipped into the Coppi I feel like I can actually get some real speed happening, which is nice considering the Coppi is for winter and lousy weather riding.

Anyway about a week ago I noticed that pedaling was getting harder, and there was funny noises coming from the cassette. I didn't want to bother with it because the weather was lousy, I was still getting to work and home and the garage is a cold place this time of year. Finally on Thursday I got fed up, getting anywhere was becoming painful, so I took the Coppi to Cycle Solutions around the corner. It took all of about three seconds once I was in the store to figure out one issue, half the sprockets on cassette ring three were rubbing ring four and the other half were rubbing ring two (actually a lot less than half on each, many of those teeth hand somehow chipped right off!)

The mechanic, Terry (sorry if I misspelled the name), took off the wheel to get at the busted free wheel cassette. As soon as the skewer was out of the hub he noticed that the axle had free play, remember what happened in 1996, and how long it took to get a new axle I asked if it was broken, in dread. No, the axle was still holding, but the hub needed to be repacked. I started talking to someone else when Terry started cursing, a part of my hub had disintegrated, around the axle, hence the funny noises and the difficulty peddling. A new hub and labour would exceed the cost of a new wheel, the Coppi got a 700x25 wheel with a modern cassette. (But at least I could save the tube and tire! On the other hand a similar failure on a car would easily cost over a thousand dollars to fix, I was still at only about a hundred bucks.) Then just as Terry mounted the wheel more cursing, the frame was cracked right in the rear drop out.

I am lucky, really, I am, if that crack were on Erin I would have one course of action, cradle my head in my hands and sob like a little girl. As it is, the Coppi is not carbon fibre, she is a steel frame, and there is a place where even as I write these words the rear drop outs are being removed, no doubt with a very large saw and new dropouts are being welded on. All in I expect the repairs to cost me the equivalent of taking the bus to work for two and a half months. That Coppi is an old bike, things break, of course I would rather spend the money on something else, its almost half the cost of a Durace double chain ring for Erin, or a decent bib shorts and jersey. But when I consider what $250 buys in terms of auto repairs and upkeep, well its hardly any question why I love cycling.

On more economics.

I found the following video, if you have 50 minutes of free time it does a pretty good job explaining what money really is. I don't think most people understand that money is not real, I know I certainly did not know that.



In honour of my thirty first birthday, yesterday Lesley bought me some compact florescent lights at Bestbuy, she bought herself a Guitar Hero game, with the guitar. She asked me if I wanted in on that, she was going to buy a two guitar set, I told her if I am gonna play the guitar again I will go pull my old Seagull out of the basement, get the fretboard sanded down and get some glue under the bridge, then I'll play a proper guitar. The guy in line in front of me nodded in approval. I guess I should buy a tuning fork though.

The truth is though, what I really want is a better computer for cycling. When I was in the Bestbuy I asked if they had any Garmin Forerunner 705s, the guy showed me Garmins for driving with. Apparently the thought of using a GPS for something other than driving escaped the management at Bestbuy.

Here is a really silly question, why are power meters so expensive? All the power meter is doing is measuring the force applied by the cyclist at some point on the drive train, is it really that hard to put a force meter somewhere? Come to think of it, Shimano could probably build one right into the rear derailleur without much effort, after all there is already a spring in there. Or maybe some sort of spring loaded chain link, a mirror at both ends of the link and an LED laser on the chain stay ought to do the job for one heck of a lot less than the $2,000 cost of a powertap. I'd go patent my idea, but truth is I'd rather see some engineer see it, get inspired and build the thing, I don't need the money, I just want a power meter that isn't going to leave me in the poor house.