On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

After it passed both houses of the California state legislator, SB910 ( see this web site ) has been sitting on Governor Brown's desk for several weeks. A mere formality? Maybe not: word is that the AAA and the California Highway Patrol are both actively lobbying for the governor to veto the bill. I've been a big fan so far of Governor Brown, and have supported some of his vetos so far. But vetoing this bill would be irrevocably sever my support for him. As I've described before, none of the arguments which have been made against this bill hold water. Indeed, CA is being left behind as Nevada's 3-foot passing law just this week went into effect. Passing such a law has ceased to be a statement of progressive advocacy of cycling as transportation and is more and more becoming simply following the herd. So if the arguments proposed against the bill don't hold water, why the continued resistance? Simple: the AAA and CHP are both organizations of drivers. ...

Okay, my chance to vent on some political issues right now. There's been a lot of talk about the federal government, the Tea Party, and spending on pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure. "There's no federal interest" the Tea Partiers will say, and the democrats and their supporters foam at the mouth in return: "what? There's no federal interest in children being able to walk or bike safely to school?" Yes, that's correct. What's meant here by "federal interest" is that the states have the obligation to take care of their own citizens. However, when there are issues in which a state would be obligated to look out for the citizens of another state, that's a federal interest. So for example if there's an interstate highway going from state A to B to C, and state B were to decide it didn't want to fund repairs, then that would affect states A and C. So the federal government funds that highway. So the federal governm...

A few posts ago I posted a plot of VAM numbers for Cobo in the Vuelta stage up the horrific Angliru climb. Of course, Cobo went on to win the race. VAMs are difficult to assess. More relevant is power: in particular, watts/kg. Making liberal assumptions, I tried to come up with a W/kg estimate of Cobo on the climb (or in the early bit, the leader of the group containing Cobo). Here's the result (power at the crank, not hub, assuming 2.5% drivetrain losses): Impressive for sure, but still generally below the Armstrong-era "6.7 W/kg" attributed by Coyle to Ferrari.

Fremont Peak last year versus this year were two very different races. Last year, it was a steady tempo on the lower slopes. I stayed with Carl Nielson as long as I could, until I felt myself going too far into the red, and had to back off. This year, a moderate pace leading up to the steeper climbing was shattered when Kieran Sherlock launched an attack at the front which strung out the group. Most riders responded to this acceleration, but I chose instead to settle back into what I felt was more sustainable. Kieran had done the same thing on Wednesday's Noon Ride up Old La Honda: a hard acceleration right from the beginning. He's faster than me, that's all there is too it. My PR up OLH is 16:49, and that's a mediocre time for him these days. What I'd hoped is I'd be able to pull back some of the other riders. And I did, a few, but not as many as I'd thought I would. I crested the top of the climb just behind a Dolce Vita rider, having passed a...

Since Tam was canceled for today, I decided to make a run at my Strava PR for Camino Alto. Virtually all of my existing Strava times for the climb are on my Ritchey Breakaway, a relatively light bike in the low-17 lb range with clincher wheels, but with the Fuji I place weight at a priority. For Mt Tam I had my Reynolds 35-T carbon "road race" wheels (with Veloflex Record tires), not my lightest configuration but with the Garmin 500 checking in at 12.5 lb -- still pretty good. So I decided to risk taking these tires across San Francisco and into Marin for the climb. Ironically the worst road I ride glass-wise, not even close, is Central Expressway in Mountain View which is typically part of my commute. The streets in San Francisco, despite a serious problem with cars getting broken into, are fairly glass free. It's because the streets here get swept once or twice per week, while once glass is on the Central Expressway shoulder, it's there for months. So I'...

Two years ago, Mt Tam Hillclimb canceled due to the fabricated state budget crisis. Last year: I was traveling in Italy. Tomorrow: Ready to go! But then Mt Tam canceled again (this time due to forest fire risk from forecast dry lightning). I'm stunned. I'd updated my racing license ($60), paid my $35 entry fee, refrained from running this week, done a shake-down OLH on the Fuji on Wed, and even eaten pasta tonight.... all for naught. Except perhaps for Fremont Peak on Sunday. Last year I posted a profile for the Fremont Peak Hillclimb, which this year is the day after Mt Tam's scheduled date... a new back-to-back schedule for two rare hillclimbs on the NCNCA schedule. I don't know if I'll make it, but a comment on that profile: Fremont Peak from San Juan Baptista ( Motionbased:mooseman ) And again here's the grade extracted from that profile, which I've convolved with a Gaussian of standard deviation 100 meters, to keep the numbers signifi...

Arguably the most epic stage of this year's Vuelta was Sunday's race to the mighty Alta d'Angliru , arguably the toughest steep climbs in professional bike racing. Here's a profile of the climb, from Climb by Bike : In the stage, Geox's Juan José Cobo climbed away from the group of favorites, including Team Sky's 1-2 in overall GC, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. Some argued that it was a sign Cobo was dipping into the special sauce, a result too good to be true. While I realize VAM is subject to many sources of variability and is hardly a valid test of doping, I can't resist running the numbers here. Fortunately I managed to take time splits for each of the final 10 km for Cabo or the group containing Cabo, although I had to guess a bit at 6 km to go, where Cabo was trailing Anton. I guessed that Cabo was around 5 seconds behind here, although I didn't see this explicitly on the Eurosport coverage which I was watching on the web. These time...

Today, encouraged by the temperatures in the 70F's being reported for the Diablo summit , in striking contrast to the bone-chilling fog of San Francisco, I put on a jacket and rode to BART. I heard the announcement for the Pittsburgh-Bay Point train I wanted as I reached the top of the stairs, so I ran down the stairs in my cycling shoes and, after a few contact fouls with people leisurely walking the opposite way, got onto the train only 5 seconds before the door shut. Ironically BART to Pleasant Hill takes about the same time as it would take me to ride out to the Golden Gate Bridge. Then the suburban-timed traffic lights from there to the base of the climb are no more delay than the riding the pedestrian path across the Golden Gate Bridge. Despite this for a long time East Bay rides were all too rare for me. Instead I bundled up against San Francisco and Marin's summer chill and rode north. But I've been riding Diablo more recently, trying to work on my extended...