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

As much to document to myself my positions going into the election as anything else (this being a bicycling blog, primarily), I'll stake out my position on the presidential election. Really, this should be no surprise. I'm voting Obama. A sufficient if not necessary grounds for this position is energy policy, and with it, environmental policy. If you read transcripts of the debates, you may not have seen much of a difference between the two major candidates. However, listening revealed a clear difference. When describing his position, Romney would say "Coal. Oil. Nuclear. andrenewables (one syllable)". On the other hand, Obama would say "Of course oil and clean coal (sic) (rushed), but also a focus on the energy of the future... (emphasis)." Is this significant? I say it is. In the Republican National Convention, Romney ridiculed Obama for trying to "pick winners" in the energy sphere by supporting Solyndra, a solar energy company whi...

One concept which comes up over and over is what I call "the elasticity of rest". When I drop a rubber ball from a height h and it bounces off the ground, it will typically bounce up to a height αh, where α I apply (misapply?) this concept to recovery. Suppose when cycling I can average no more than 300 watts for 10 minutes. If I ride at 300 watts, I collapse with exhaustion at exactly 10 minutes. But instead of riding 300 watts for 10 minutes, half-way through I slow to 290 watts for 10 seconds. Then I do my best possible effort for the remaining 4:50. How much less work can I do during that 10 minutes than if I'd stuck to 300 watts? Using the elasticity concept, an elasticity of zero would imply that I do 100 joules less work: all I can do is average 300 watts for the rest of the ten minutes, so the 10 less watts during the 10 seconds I was at 290 watts is lost, unrecoverable. On the other hand, an elasticity of 1 suggests that I can boost the power the rest of ...

Last time I made an off-the-cuff prediction each rider in today's Boulder Creek to Saratoga Gap Low-Key time trial would be passed, or be passed, by around 2 riders on average. That was based on the assumption riders varied by around 0.5% each in the sequence and that riders varied week-to-week by 2%. These were low estimates, I concluded, after examining the data. For this post I actually did a numerical simulation, using numbers derived from Low-Key historical data. For each starter, I generated a normally distributed "true speed", with sigma = 14.4% about a mean (derived from historical data). For each rider, I then ran a "qualifying climb" in which speed varied normally with sigma = 4.2% from true speed (derived from my score history). Note this was based on the old scoring system, % of median, which includes an artifact that some weeks tend to yield different amounts of score spread than others. So it's probably an over-estimate. I assigned ...

The 2012 Low-Key Hillclimbs have reached their fourth week. After two weeks of mass-start, and the third week being a small group start, week four will be an individual time trial due to the relative narrowness and relative flatness of the west side of Highway 9 as it leaves Boulder Creek. We're a hill climb series, not a road race series. There's three ways to do the start: fast riders first, fast riders last, or intermixing the fast and slow riders. We've done all three of these at different points in the past, and this week coordinator Rich Brown has chosen to pre-assign start times going from slower to faster riders. A few riders expressed concern over this, expecting the extended mass of riders to begin to converge, the faster riders gaining on the slower, until a singularity is reached similar to that of a black hole's mass converging on a singular point causing a cataclysm in the very fabric of space-time. Okay, I'm overstating the case, but at least t...

The Low-Key Hillclimbs are now three weeks into their 2012 eight-week schedule and it's a good time to check on how the new scoring code is working. In previous years I scored riders based on the ratio of the median rider time to their time, multiplying by 100. Women were given a boost to their scores to balance historical men's and women's scores. But there were two scenarios which caused problems with this. One was rider turn-out. Montebello, the first climb in the series, historically attracts a broader range of riders than following weeks. Perhaps riders scoring lower in the first week become discouraged, or they ride less and prefer the convenience and more favorable date of Montebello (less off-season), I'm not sure. It would be interesting to research this. But for whatever reason, for riders doing Montebello in addition to other weeks, there's a good chance Montebello was their best score of the year. On the other hand, especially steep and challen...

Strava is brilliant at quickly matching typical point-to-point segments. The speed with which it accomplishes this is simply incredible, with long rides in the segment-saturated San Francisco Bay area getting checked in seconds. It's truly amazing. Part of their approach to this speed is keeping the segment matching as simple as possible. You need to hit the start and end points, but for points in between, there's some wiggle room. This is important because GPS errors mean that a perfect match of a segment is impossible. Additionally, riders may make minor deviations from an optimal route. On wide roads, there's of course different lane choices. But consider a climbing segment where a rider turned back briefly during the climb to fetch a dropped water bottle, or took a brief wrong turn before retracing steps and continuing on the specified route. Most people would agree these trajectories should match the segment. The result of this is the first and final points ...

Some random peeves about the U.S. Presidential (and Vice Presidential) debates so far: The obsession with short-term statistics: jobs since Obama took office, price of gas since Obama took office, etc: what's needed to promote the long-term interests of the U.S. isn't to chase short-term statistics. Investments, for example primary education, typically hurt short-term statistics in favor of a large long-term payback. Want to promote short-term jobs and GDP? Blow out the deficit, cut all education spending, and abandon all infrastructure maintenance. Hmmm... seems like the Bush administration. I don't claim Obama has been inspiring on long-term versus short-term focus, but the repeated attacks from Romney/Ryan using short-term statistics undermines their credibility towards long-range thinking. The obsession with fuel prices. It is a myth that cheap fuel is good. It increases auto use which increases pollution, increases carbon emission, increases road congestion, e...

Yesterday was the second Low-Key Hillclimb this year, up Quimby Road. It was the only one of the first three which I'm not coordinating, so I got to participate. It was a gorgeous day in San Jose, perfect weather for the climb. I'd decided to run instead of ride. Low-Key Hillclimbs are generally about cycling but we've allowed runners in the past, most notably Gary Gellin, then Brian Lucido, and me on a few occasions. Runners add to the eclectic nature of the event. I still remember Gary chugging past me while I rode on the steep lower slopes of Hicks Road a few years ago. It provided added motivation to pick up the pace when the slope relented a bit, and I was able to repass him, but I think it added a lot to the "Low-Key" aspect. There were a few issues. One volunteer was worried that riders were failing to hand in release forms. These are important because even if a rider is a close friend, riding the series for years, it's important to have a pro...

Now it's time for the state propositions. These will probably be tricker than the city ones. Proposition 30 - income tax increase of 0.25% for incomes over $250k to fund schools: Reluctant yes. I oppose targeted revenue. I believe all revenue should go into the general fund. In the end, targeted revenue is generally a deception, anyway, since unless the individual targeted component is more than the entire budget, then funding from the general fund can be reduced to bring the funding for that target back to or even lower than it originally was. Classic case: San Francisco voters decided to send more funding to MUNI so the police increased their fees they charge MUNI essentially taking all of that increased money for themselves. But I think the revenue is needed, especially in an age when the federal government is looking to push more fiscal responsibilities onto states. Proposition 31 - Budgeting rule changes: No. Are you kidding me? I stared at this one for several minu...

Early voting has already begun in San Francisco. Time to crack open the voter information guide and make decisions on the too-many-to-count-on-my-fingers propositions facing the fine voters of San Francisco this year. To honor the futility of it all, I am today wearing my "David Chiu for Mayor" volunteer T-shirt. My vote on propositions tends to be like Governor Brown's view on signing bills: I need a compelling reason to vote yes, otherwise I vote no. So with that, first, the city measures. A - City College Parcel Tax: No. Parcel taxes are regressive, since they tax property independent of its size. B - Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond: No. Park maintenance should be spent out of annual funds, not bond debt. At least with last year's roads bond, Proposition B, which I also opposed, there was the argument that there was a permanent cost to delaying repairs. I'm not going to buy a similar argument for Parks. Don't let the city cop out of its ...

When I designed the team scoring for the Low-Key Hillclimbs I decided to keep it relatively simple: the top 3 scorers from a given team on a given week contribute to the team's score. A small dose of complexity: if a member of a team volunteers for a given week, his median score from other weeks can rank as one of the counting top 3 scores for the purposes of the important overall team ranking, although it will not qualify for the team's score for that particular week's ranking. To get that overall score, the top half of a team's scores (rounded up) are summed. This gives teams plenty of throw-aways, for example when they aren't able to get a full complement of three to the climb. If you're the 4th best rider for your team in a given week your score just got flushed down a big Low-Key toilet. You contributed nothing to a team result. This was intentionally designed to be forgiving to smaller teams. They need to produce only three good scores, and to do s...

A problem with my Interbike experience is I didn't adequately prepare. In retrospect, I should have made a list of must-see booths and made sure I'd tagged all of those. I tried to do a comprehensive scan of the floor, but while this was possible on the ground floor where the booths were laid out in a fairly regular fashion, on the upper floor it was more of a maze, and attempts to systematically search the floor tended to quickly degrade into a random walk. I wanted to see Parlee and they weren't listed. Their new Z0 looks really nice. It turns out they were there, but piggy-backing on the Enve booth, which I also would have visited but simply missed. I really wanted to meet Jason of Fairwheel Bikes. They used to be a regular, indeed a highlight, of Interbike with their project bikes proving that the little guy can nevertheless impress. In cooperation with Brent/Bre Ruegamer they produced some truly impressive weight-weenie specials. But this year Freewheel didn...

There's recently been a big story about how Lance Armstrong's biological passport blood values from 2009 were "consistent with doping". My response was "this is news?" It was news back in 2009, when Lance was boldly publishing his blood values on-line to prove his cleanliness, perhaps thinking people would pay attention only to that his hematocrit was well under the 50% limit, until it was pointed out by Jakob Mørkeberg, a Danish researcher, that the blood values he was posting appeared consistent with doping. His response: "What do you call a guy who graduates last in the class in medical school? Doctor." Funny, dude, but it did nothing to address the analysis. You don't need to be a medical expert to see something was amiss. Here's a plot I made at the time: Lance came out of the second rest day that Tour raging. A year later, out of contention, he came out of the second rest day fatigued and uncompetitive. Lance skipped hi...

As we approach October, my anxiety level always rises. The Low-Key Hillclimbs loom. But somehow it always comes together, and this past Saturday was no different. We had perfect conditions and essentially no conflict as our group of merry climbers tackled the traditional series-opener, Montebello Road. It was good to see a lot of returning faces, and a good number of them were looking noticably leaner. It's great to see when people come in, lighter and fitter, and take minutes off their previous best times. It's also great seeing how much the junior riders improve, which they always do. I mostly milled around during registration, answering questions while a fantastic group of volunteers signed in riders. Then we organized a neutral roll-out to the base of the climb, started the timers with a honk of the car horn, and drove up the hill to the summit for timing. Timing went exceptionally well. Howard is a pro with his stop-watch. Others recorded rider numbers and t...

In addition to equipment, there were service providers at Interbike. Here's a few which caught my attention. The Guru bike fit rig. First, bike fitting. The news was that Specialized bought Retul, then in return Cannondale bought Guru. I stopped by Guru's booth to see if they were dropping their bike line, including the Guru Photon, which at one point was my dream bike (until I started reading reports of them breaking). Guru had some slick software which took contact points and referenced them to geometry from a range of commercially available stock frames. This seemed nice because a rider who was considering custom geometry could select from a stock frame which came close to "ideal", whatever that is. Different brands follow different trajectories through fit space. For example, considering just stack and reach, at a given stack different bike brands will have different reach values. And when you consider seat tube angle, head tube angle, bottom bracket ...

A nice thing about running with GPS is the ability to go back afterwards and try to analyze what happened. Did I go out too hard or too easy? Was there a particular section of the course where I had special difficulty? First, results. I finished in 41:46, 33rd overall out of 1653, 32rd overall out of 727 males. I can't complain about that. But I need to remember a large number of the runners were just out there to enjoy the day and the views, not shaving seconds. In cycling a power meter is really nice for pace analysis, but in running we only have pace and road grade. These are usually fairly good because running pace isn't as dependent on external conditions such as wind and surface quality as is cycling, but even a few % difference in speed-at-a-given-effort can confound trends in effort due to fatigue or loss of focus. On Bridge to Bridge of the more than 1600 runners, 20 others are listed on Strava as having done the run with me. To get a match, they need to ha...

I've been training for the Califoronia International Marathon (CIM) in Sacramento, California on 02 Dec, focusing primarily to this point on endurance. When two weeks ago I was able to do a 19.6 mile run then follow it up the next day with a 7.5 mile run, I decided my endurance was on track, and I could indulge in a race to check my speed. I saw the Bridge to Bridge had changed its traditional 12 km long course to a "certified" 10 km this year due to construction. I couldn't resist, as I've got a goal of breaking 40 min for 10 km (I guess 48 min for 12 km would also qualify, but that's less likely to happen): I registered. The race started at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, around 4 km from where I live, so I decided to run to the start as warm-up. This is the most warm-up I've ever given myself in a running race: in the past I've taken the approach that miles running take more out of the tank then the advantage gained in priming the engine, ...

There were plenty of trainers to catch the attention. So many, in fact, that I found myself who buys these things. Riding an indoor trainer is something I have to drag myself kicking and screaming to. I admit part of this may be that I don't have an optimized set-up, with preferably a heavy-duty fan and direct access to fresh, cool outdoor air. But a big part of it is I'm so spoiled: living in the San Francisco Bay area means access to world-class cycling routes. When the weather isn't to my liking, I switch to running. But for many people, a trainer is the only way they're going to get the experience of climbing 1st category climbs, or riding without the interruption of traffic signals or heavy traffic. For these poor, wretched souls, being able to escape the drudgery of riding in a small room without stimulation may be worth the considerable expense of some of the latest virtual-reality units. The first such trainer in my experience was Computrainer. They...