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

Yesterday I read Dan Wuori's article on VeloNews , a partial response to Mike Rosen's opinion in the Denver Post: Bicyclists take backseat to vehicles . There's an all-too-common argument made which is "car drivers pay for the road so have higher priority". This goes way back. It's simply incorrect: direct fees from car ownership don't cover the cost of the roadways, which are subsidized by the general fund. And in any case driving is externality-rich, so even if the fees covered the roads (which they don't) from an economics perspective they should additionally cover the externalities (pollution, congestion, road damage, CO2 emission, wildlife destruction; I could go on), and by any reasonable anslysis, especially in the United States with fuel taxes lower than they've been since at least before the 1970's in a percentage basis, they don't come close. But it simply doesn't matter. It's all a red herring. Because we don...

The baccarat problem got me thinking about the random walk problem, because each of the three times in my game I reached the $200 betting limit my revenue became a random walk. At this point the problem was: which was going to come first, was I going to get into the black on $200 bets or was I going to burn through all of my cash? This is a random walk: my revenue bounces back and forth, an approximate 50% chance of each, and the game ends when I reach either of two targets: $200 above where I started (between $5000 and $6000) or $0. Many years ago, I can't remember when, I encountered a problem in random walk probabilities which was: suppose a robot, starting at x = 0, steps either in the +1 direction or the -1 direction, at random, for infinite time. What is the probability he never returns to 0 after his first step? Wow -- this is a heady problem. It always seemed to me the probability was zero: surely in infinite time he has to eventually reach all points of finite x. ...

I was reading the first pages of Casino Royale, not the Daniel Craig film, not the David Nival film, but the Ian Fleming novel. In the Daniel Craig movie, James Bond plays Le Chiffre in a high stakes poker game. The film is perhaps the most loyal of any Bond film, rivaled only by Her Majesty's Secret Service, in adherence to Ian Fleming's books, and not too surprising, these are thus two of the best bond films made. Craig is certainly a great Bond but neither of the films which followed, Quantum of Solace or Skyfall, was in the class of Casino Royale. Meanwhile On Her Majesty's Secret Service starred Roger Lazerby, the only one-timer (unless you count Niven). While he was young and energetic, a striking contrast to Roger Moore, there was still a reason Lazerby never returned. So the conclusion is clear: Fleming wrote some solid books. The earlier Casino Royale, the 1967 film starring David Nivan (who was actually a serious candidate to play Bond in Dr. No) was a come...

Last time I analyzed some data from DC Rainmaker, probably riding around Paris, where I was surprised to find that he would have experienced less lateral chain deflection on a 1×11 set-up with a 44-chainring and an 11-25 cassette than he did with a compact 2×11 setup with 34-50 in the front and 11-25 in the back. This is because the 34-50 is a relatively wide chainring range, and one ends up having to chose between cross-chained options on the front: big ring with large cog os small ring with small cog, neither of which is a good choice, just to hit the mid-range of gears. Meanwhile the 1×11 is optimized for the mid-range. But what about rides with extreme terrain, climbing and descending? Here mid-range may be hardly used, spending most of the ride either in low climbing gears are large descending gears. Fortunately the second example I found, this time on the Di2Stats sample page , was highly representative. It's epic: a 60 mile ride with 9600 feet of climbing and descendin...

There's been an almost religious response to SRAM releasing 1×11 for the road. I find this puzzling, as to me it represents a valid choice for riding where super-wide range gearing isn't needed. And in the vast majority of the United States, the idea regularly riding extended steep climbs is at best a fantasy. It's restricted to European bike tours, etc. 1×11 provides basically the same gear spacing as 2×8, which honestly back in the day was fine, although also not for everyone, and those who wanted more went to triple chainrings. Today a lot of those who used triples back then are fine with wide-range 2×10 and 2×11 options. But if you want to avoid dealing with a front shifter, and maybe save a bit of weight, 1×11 can be an attractive choice. I was riding with an old colleague from Stanford Cycling, Mark, who's been riding SRAM 1×11 on hilly San Francisco Bay area rides and he loves it. But then he started racing with 2×6, and so learned to ride at a somewhat w...

I strick out with Fléche-Wallone so I'm going to try again here with Liége-Bastogne-Liége. There's a lot of favorites so the best approach is to eliminate some then deal with the rest. The new course doesn't favor Simon Gerrans and combine that with his inferior fitness so far this year due to his early season crash and despite winning last year he doesn't deserve to get on any top-5 lists. Vincenzo Nibali is strong so far this year but he was no weaker last year since he won both the Italian national championship and the Tour de France. But in 2014 he finished 31st here and there's no reason to expect him to suddenly place top 5. He's going to try some sort of crazy attack but the race is so controlled recently that's only a long shot. So no to him. Phillippe Gilbert was certainly strong at Amstel Gold but then he crashed hard enough to destroy his bike at Fléche Wallone. The older you get the harder it is to recover from crashes so while he says he...

Fleche-Wallone used to be my favorite classic, despite the lack of distance. The finish made my legs hurt just watching: the cruelty of the finish being SO close yet almost unreachable. A war of attrition ending in a head-to-head test of suffering. “Back in the day” it was essentially always a small group, for example 2, arriving at the base of the Huy the last time. And with the shift to pack finishes, you can see a jump, starting in 2004 when Rebellin won, in climbing speeds here. It used to be 3:10 was typical, now sub-2:50 is common and it’s never as slow as 3:00. You don’t see the agonizingly low cadence as riders fatigued from riding in a break push their oversized gears up the impossible slope, pushing threw the wall of pain to reach the top before the other guy, then collapsing just past the finish. Good stuff. But now it’s become a virtual pack sprint. Basically the riders with sufficient near the position spin their little gears up the hill and someone wins. It’s still an e...

I love VeloViewer , which does amazing things with the Strava API. In this case, it plots my accumulated over the course of each year in each of various activity categories, like cycling, running, walking, and hiking. I am interested most right now in running as I prepare for the Ohlone 50 km. This first plot shows total distance (km) running per year since I started using Strava in late 2010: There's three periods where I've managed to sustain a relatively rapid rate of distance increase. The first was towards the end of 2012, when I'd decided I was going to run the California International Marathon. That didn't quite go as well as I'd hoped, with leg problems kicking in near mile 20. But from the plot it doesn't seem like there was a shortage of training: I ran close to 1100 km starting in September. But the marathon caused damage. I tried to continue running after, but I just couldn't get rid of the nagging pains and stinging numbness I felt at th...

GT has come out with a really cool new bike, the Grade Carbon, which is designed to the "all-road" model for bikes able to handle paved roads, dirt, gravel, and trails. That starts with a bike designed with tire clearance first (35 mm), then with a frame design with compliance as a first priority. So GT builds into the frame exceptionally flexible seat stays to provide suspension for the rear wheel. It also has swept out handlebars, which I'm tempted to call novel. Tire clearance in the rear means long chainstays, and the Grade Carbon has by today's standards exceptionally long ones, at 430 mm. It also has a really slack head tube. One issue with "endurance" bikes is always geometry. Numbers are here: Here's a comparison of the GT Grade to the Trek geometries: The GT Grade is very close to the Domane 6, which is considerably more relaxed than the H2 (it's sort of an extrapolated H3). By the way, those diagonal lines show the effect of 1 ...

It seems every time I do a trail race there's something I forget. So I'm making a list: Clothing: trail shoes light socks compression calf sleeves (I don't know if these do anything, but maybe) underwear compatible with running (some, err, rub the wrong way) running shorts: super-short won't work well but extra-long shorts waste energy: you've got to lift that material every foot stride. I like pockets for stuffing gel wrappers. Body Glide on nipples and other bits which may abrade. technical running shirt (these do tend to abrade somewhat, hence the previous. sun screen everywhere which might get exposed something to wear over running clothes before or after race running cap contact lenses belt for holding water bottle. optional pouch for belt: good for storing Clif Bloks, Endurolytes. Possible light gloves and compression forearm sleeves if it's cold Make sure laces are tied well. I generally leave my laces knotted and slide shoes on off, tied. I like th...

Last year I did the Inside Trail Racing Woodside Ramble 50 km and it was for me a very successful race. That race was broken down into 6 segments: up Huddart Park, along Skyline Ridge, down into Wunderlich, back out of Wunderlich, back along Skyline Ridge, and down Huddart Park (with its infamous mini-climb just when you think you're close to the finish). That's two primarily-climbs, two primarily-descents, and two rolling sections. I'd trained hard for the ride, ramping up my distance as I should have done for my previous long races, both marathons, none of which went as well as I'd wanted. The key for me is to get solid blocks of consecutive long days, for example 10 miles or more four days in a row, to really build endurance for the longer distances. And for trail races it's important to train hilly trails, not just flat runs. This year my running suffered from the distraction of the San Francisco Randonneurs brevet series, first the 200 km at the end of J...

Liege-Bastogne-Liege is the oldest of the professional bike racing "classics", the first of the hilly classics on well-paved roads which bring out a fresh set of specialists after Paris-Roubaix wraps up the cobbled classic season. CyclingNews reports that the 2015 race will be 10 km shorter than last year's edition. This made me wonder what the historical trend has been for this course. Has it experience a decline similar to what we've seen in Tour de France stage lengths, or an overall increase similar to that of Milan-San Remo? The answer is the latter. Distances overall are at a relative historical high. Even the shorter 253 distance for 2015 is solid by race historical standards: But longer race distances don't mean slower speeds. Here's the trend in average kph of the winner. There was a big increase in the early 1930's with the introduction of derailleurs into pro racing, then in the 1990's with another sort of technological improvem...

After predicting we'd see the only SRAM-using team in the World Tour, AG2R, on SRAM 1×11, I started to have my doubts as the days ticked by approaching tomorrow's Paris-Roubaix and I saw nothing. Well, I finally saw this photo from VeloNews of AG2R's star rider, Johann Vansummeren . Nobody seems to remember this guy won the race in 2011. Anyway, while I don't see his chainring, I clearly see shifting paddles on both brake levers. So it seems AG2R is going for a "little" ring, typically a 44, which they won't really use. My picks for tomorrow remain: Bradley Wiggins: He's taken a very analytic approach to preparation, including extended time riding at the front in the races leading up to Paris Roubaix to build form. His approach has been extremely successful in the past, as he's accomplished pretty much everything so far he's sought to accomplish. He needs to arrive in the velodrome solo and that requires some team support but he has Ga...

BikeRadar announced that Trek is releasing an aluminum version of their Emonda frame. The frame is listed as 1050 grams unpainted. This is curiously less than the Emonda S series carbon fiber frame, and comparable even to the Emonda SL frame. Here's a blog post where an Emonda SL was weighed at 1040 grams . So only the Emonda SLR is substantially lighter. Adding paint the the Emonda ALA aluminum model would likely increase it to closer to the Emonda S, but brushed Al frames look pretty good. Trek Emonda Al Criterium racers get excited over Al frames because they can be made very stiff and yet there's less concern about crashing them than expensive carbon fiber. And with a bike like the Trek coming in within a pound of the lightest commercially available carbon fiber frames, the weight difference on anything other than extended climbs is almost trivial. Indeed the Cannondale CAAD-10 has such a dedicated following that Cannondale sells it with near-top-end components...

The San Francisco Randonneurs main brevet series consists of 3 monthly rides: the 200 km at the end of January, the 300 km at the end of February, and the 400 km at the end of March. Each of the rides begins at the San Francisco side of the Golden Gate Bridge and extends northward into Marin. Each course effectively extends the preceding one further north, the primary exception being that the 200 km route includes an exceptionally scenic loop onto Point Reyes which the other two miss. But there's still substantial course overlap. Since I did the 200km and 300km brevets and finished both many hours before the time cuts and without serious physical problems it would make sense I'd go on to do the 400km. I'd never ridden that far in a day before and this would have been a chance to extend my previous limits, always a satisfying accomplishment. But the 200k and 300k didn't go as I'd hoped. In each, I became substantially fatigued half-way through, demoting my ridi...

The San Francisco Russian River 300 km brevet was on 28 Feb. It's taken me awhile to do the report, which is, I freely admit, on the long side. I just read another blog post on this same ride which was 6 or 7 sentences long, depending on how you count. For a great report (with photos) of the worker's ride two weeks earlier, see Platty Jo's blog . In any case, here's what I wrote. I wavered going into the 300 km brevet. The theory is the progression of brevet distances is supposed to prepare you for the each one in turn, but ramping from 200 km to 300 km to 400 km to 600 km represents increases of 50%, 33%, and 50%, well in excess of any training plan I've seen. This sort of progression is good for behavioral adaptation more than physical, of boosting your confidence and teaching lessons in pacing, nutrition, hydration, and preparation. For physical adaptations more than this is needed. For example, after a week of recovery from the 200 km, you've got tw...