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

Last time I wrote about my Low-Key jersey design , which I previewed with the Pro Cycling Manager "shirt" 3-D viewer . I've used this before for various jersey designs I've done. Most are based on the 2009 Pro Cycling Manager templates, which are half the resolution of the 2013 standard. However, they all work fine on the previewer and, I assume, the actual game. Here's a summary. Broccoli Man This was a fun design based on a "superhero" who featured in some on-line videos a few years ago. Metrigear I was a big fan of Metrigear, and I did this design based on the art on their website. They were since bought out by Garmin, who already has a great jersey design with their pro team. Team Roaring Mouse This is my bike racing team. I did a design proposal for the team. The proposal was rejected, which was a disappointment, but the design that was chosen turned out to look really good. Weight Weenies Of the designs shown here, this is the on...

I was working on a jersey design for Low-Key Hillclimbs using a mixture of template files which correspond to pieces of fabric. The templates are good because they have a roughly 1:1 correspondence to fabric area and are thus a good reference for the jersey art department to render final artwork which will be printed on actual fabric. I used a combination of templates: a jersey template from Voler and a shorts template from Jakroo . I really like Jakroo since they have good quality stuff available in a great range of sizes with pricing which forgiving to low-quantity orders. Indeed their small "slim-cut" jersey fits me great: no excess but comfortable, exactly what you want for a racing jersey where "excess" equals needless wind resistance. Additionally, unlike Voler's version, I find the pockets a useful size. I love my Jakroo WeightWeenies kit I received as a gift. Here's some designs I came up with for Low-Key (the kit info page is here ). I d...

It was suggested I make a post of posts with the most pave views. Easily enough done... rank Entry 1 Scott releases 2014 Addict Ultra Limited: World's ... Apr 1, 2013, 3 comments 2 Cervelo R5-CA geometry Mar 16, 2011 3 Strava Suffer Score decoded Aug 9, 2011, 32 comments 4 Tour test of "aero" mass-start frames Feb 7, 2011, 15 comments 5 Scott Foil wind tunnel test of aero mass-start fra... Apr 16, 2011 6 Berner 15-T derailleur pulley upgrade: an analytic... Aug 2, 2010, 6 comments 7 VeloNews aero wheel ranking formula Jul 29, 2010, 4 comments 8 Power comparison: Vector vs Powertap vs Quarq Aug 11, 2013, 5 comments 9 Garmin Vector released: L-R power balance comparis... Aug 9, 2013, 3 comments 10 Chris Horner on Sierra Road: power, speed, and equ... May 23, 2011, 13 comments The most popular was an April Fools joke w...

Veloclinic has come up with a very nice power-duration curve, overcoming the obvious short-comings of the critical power model. The critical power assumes there is a fixed capacity energy source (anaerbic power) and a rate-limited power source (critical power). The fixed capacity source can be spent as quickly or slowly as wanted, while the rate-limited power source has infinite capacity. The result is infinite power at zero duration, and finite power out to infinite duration. Both of these results are obviously false. But the assumption is the model sort of works for some duration of efforts. Veloclinic's fix is simple: each energy source has a both a finite capacity and a finite rate. So for short durations, the anaerobic energy source becomes rate-limited, while for long times, the "aerobic" energy system becomes capacity-limited. The key to this is coming up with the analytic form for "rate-limited". I played around with this myself at one point. E...

Going into San Bruno Hillclimb this year I knew I was underprepared. I'd barely ramped up my climbing fitness during the Low-Key Hillclimbs, showing some signs of speed at Lomas Cantadas (week 7), then exposing my weakness on the dirt @ Montara (week 8), then the following Thursday, Thanksgiving, paying for a lack of endurance @ Mount Hamilton (week 9). It was all a bit sobering. That launched me into a December full of travel: San Francisco - Philadelphia - Albany NY - Philadelphia - New Jersey - Philadelphia - San Francisco in two weeks. In addition to the planes and trains, I squeezed in some decent-quality running. But running isn't the same as riding, especially since my running is adaptation-limited at the moment. On the positive side I felt some running speed returning at the end of that period. My return to San Francisco on the night of the 27th allowed for just a few days to prepare for San Bruno. Due to commitments of visiting family, I ran, then later hiked,...

As the year ends, it's time to check on my post rate for 2013... I plot the accumulated posts per year by month: 2013 is a purple line. There's a weak period following my injury in June, but then I had a burst of inspiration, and I ended up right up there with 2009 and 2011. 2010 was the most productive year, whereas 2012 was a slow year. Here's the totals by year, along with a trend line I established last year, as well as a revised trend line: 2013 was tied with 2009 for 2nd most after 2010, while 2011 was only one post less for 3rd. I recovered from the reducing post trajectory I seemed to be following last year. The new fit uses a somewhat different formula consisting of two components: a hyperbolic tangent for the upward transient followed by an exponential decay. My 2012 formula uses a linear ramp for the upward transient, but hyperbolic transient is better, as it saturates: posts = 169.2 tanh [ 1.13 ( year - 2007.89 ) ] exp [ -0.063 ( year - 2007.89 ) ]...

It's approaching the end of 2013, and it's time for some New Years resolutions. I used to be against New Years resolutions, because I felt if there was something worth doing, it should be done immediately, not held off until New Years for the purpose of providing a resolution. Indeed, that may be true, but it's still worthwhile to take time to reflect at the end of the calendar year and think about changes worth making. So with that in mind, some resolutions: to eat more apples to get my hair cut -- it's getting long to work from home more often. This requires definable goals for the day. I spend too much time on the Caltrain commuter rail. to ride from home to work at least 52 times during the year, barring issues such as the injury which got in the way of me doing so this year. This is not a top-priority goal, as riding to work gets in the way of other goals, such as running at lunch, or going to yoga class after work, since it gets me to work later. But 5...