Domestique

While others were having dramatic battles on the road--Hernando showing usual modesty while XBunny was blazing new trails--my butt was sore (literally) from riding Slow for a couple hours yesterday. More a bad saddle issue than a bad fitness issue.

And so, today has been devoted to domestic tasks: laundry, cleaning, groceries, etc. One around-the-house job that needed to be done was taking care of the toilet seat. It can be annoying to sit down in the morning and have the feeling that the toilet seat is surfing away from underneath.
The initial diagnosis was that the threads on the cheap plastic nuts holding it in place had stripped, making it impossible to tighten. A trip to Ace and a couple wingnuts later, all seemed ready to go--until the brand new wingnuts also couldn't tighten. The problem was the threads on the bolt, not on the nut.

All I needed was spacers to go between the washer and the wingnut. Hmm...spacers...bicycles use spacers...I wonder if there're any loose parts that would work...and enter today's hero: the Presta valve nut.
Since most Presta tubes now have long stems, I'm out of the habit of threading the nuts back on, so a small collection had started in the bottom of a drawer where I tossed them. Lo and behold, the Presta nuts threaded onto the bolt perfectly.
My bottom is now secure. Further proof of the benefits of cycling.

Herbs 'n' spices

When I was wee, I had great fun raiding my mom's spice rack. Start with a bowl of water, put in some food coloring and some soap for bubbles; then, once the visuals were covered, start addin' the flavor. Cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, savory, sage, thyme, rosemary, oregano, pepper, vanilla, peppermint...all the little magic bottles. And, at the end, I'd taste it.

Without fail, it tasted like soap.

But perhaps the foundations were laid for studying chemistry later in life.



A few weeks ago, when the title of this blog was still "introverts don't say much", and I hadn't written a word, I thought a good way to get writing would simply be to describe that night's dinner. As it is, I seemed to have found other ways to wax prosaic, but in tribute to that thought:

Tonight's dinner

Appetizer
Tortilla chips by Padrino's

Main course

Pan-fried chicken with fennel and thyme
Potatoes with sage and pepper
Broccoli

Digestif

Chilean black grapes

Mmm, full belly...

Huh?

Dear ToC organizer:

Maybe circumstances will bring more to light, but: neutralizing today's ToC result because of a crash 9km from the finish? Um, since when? Is this outright Levi-getting-gold-jersey-in-home-town rigging (good marketing, I admit), or is there a valid sporting reason for extending the neutral zone to 9km from the usual and perhaps already longish 3km? The Disco team doing an all-out chase to try getting Levi back to the lead group indicates that the riders didn't think the results would be neutralized...

Sincerely,
Confused And Suspicious

PS. "As hard as it is to swallow, it's part of racing." BJM's team manager quoted in Velonews. Hmmm, that could've been a quote from Discovery had officials not neutralized the race...

Sunday in San Francisco

Sure, it was yesterday, but my sparse audience needn't hear about what I did at work today...

Stop #1: American Cyclery. Slow needed new dangly bits, and AC had the parts in stock for a 38-yr old internal hub. $6 later and I've got the metal to make Slow move. Some beautiful bikes and old stuff in there too, and the shop is clearly plugged in with the urban singlespeed/fixie trend.

Stop #2: Stumasa of San Francisco, located as if by destiny directly across the street from American Cyclery. An explanatory aside: through blogs, I've discovered to my amazement that there are people who can balance having a job, a spouse, and kids with riding a bike regularly (4/4). I'm holding down 1/4 these days. So, these people and their blogs hold a bit of extra fascination for me--Lauren, Funkdaddy (if you're out there), and probably many more I'm not reading (yet?), take a bow. All right: so through Funkdaddy's website, I was introduced to Frances England's CD of music intended for kids, and increasing numbers of my friends are having children, so I went into Stumasa to get the CD as a potential present...after vetting it myself, of course. Having listened to it in the car on the way home, I'm thinking it's a keeper. Ummm...guess I'll have to buy other copies to give to the kids...(Other thought: growing up is the biggest scam ever foisted on kids.)

Stop #3: a bagel 'n' coffee place on Haight that will remain unnamed. I wanted a quick lunch before hopping back on transit to get to Embarcadero and watch the ToC prologue. It took 50 minutes for me to get a lox bagel and eat it--most of that time spent waiting for the lox bagel. And so, I was late, only to find out that BJM had been 2nd out of the gate. Ah well.

Stop #4: finally made it to the waterfront, watching the speedsters on their high-tech TT rigs. Well, most of 'em; clearly some teams have more bike budget or kinder sponsors than others. Recognized a lot of big names going by, recognized some friends while winding up Telegraph Hill, pointed out big names to friends. One guy from the BMC squad looked so hurtin' with about 300m to go--pedals--wouldn't--turn--over--poor guy probably got the biggest cheer except for maybe Hincapie.

Beautiful day.

Treachery

Today, we say it's like in a movie; many years ago, like in the Bible: a traitor, recognized, perhaps even unwitting, but unstoppable. There are inevitable moments of betrayal coming for us all, beyond our control. A previously warm friendship turns to cold coexistence, stuck in the same room.

It's probably nothing new to anyone reading this. I judge that for the most part I've lived a pretty easy life, with little in the way of responsibility for others' well-being. Having children (speaking globally, here) is an option to change that; less optional is having parents. And my parents are getting old. Old enough that their property is too big for them, old enough that their bones are weakening, old enough that more and more activities will be out of their reach.

The body will always betray the soul.

V-Day thought

Dangly bits are important.

Take good care of the dangly bits.

Without the dangly bits, not everything is OK.

You do not want dangly bits to fall off.

Without the dangly bits, things are less than they should be, and that's Not Good.


Which is a long, cryptic way of saying that Slow lost a dangly bit while I was riding and now it needs replacing if I ever want Slow to shift out of top gear. It'd be nice if American Cyclery in SF had the goods, 'cuz it'd make a good day trip with the ToC time trial this Sunday and all.

Can't stop

If I write them all down, it's out of my head and I can move on:

Best Bike in a Supporting Role


Nominees are:

E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial
BMX bikes, flying. I mean, the poster is a complete icon.

Better Off Dead
John Cusack? Mid-'80s? Can't say I know this one, but a friend made the nomination. Something about "I want my two dollars."...

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
If you don't know it, you should: Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, Paul Newman and Katherine Ross as eye-candy. And Paul's riding and doing tricks on a fixie, thank you very much.

The Shining
OK, it's a trike, not a bike, but it's creepy and you remember it if you've seen the movie.

Les Triplettes de Belleville
The bike probably goes beyond a supporting role in this one, but if I don't include it now, the bike movie agony will go on for another day, and no one wants that. Also, nominated for Best Presentation of a Chemically Induced State on Film.

Easy Rider
Whoops, those things got engines on 'em...though that doesn't stop that one person from posting "biker chick" ads on the BACX mailing list...

OK, that feels better. On with life.

Bike movie doubleheader: When They Were Kings

Quicksilver is on its way. In the meantime, I feel the need to return to a past, more innocent time, when grand tour winners weren't being prosecuted for doping, and we could simply revel in their achievements.

The year: 2003.

The event: The Tour.

Hell on Wheels (Höllentour) (2004)

Wired to Win (2005, IMAX)

The 2003 tour may have been the greatest of those that Lance Armstrong won. Wins 1-4 were established early on in the Tour and held little tension; in wins 6 and 7, his opponents either lay down and showed Lance their belly or imploded, leaving Lance to pick up the yellow jersey at the end of the day. But in 2003, USPS couldn't get a grip on the race, and stuff just kept happening.

Hell on Wheels was produced by Germans (it's in about 5 languages, with subtitles) following mainly Erik Zabel and Rolf Aldag through the 2003 tour (plus lots of Kloden and Vino). The Z was not a factor in the '03 tour, but after watching, I'm much more of a fan than I was--just don't expect profound conversation about anything but cycling. And my interest in Aldag was perked too, even more so when he was picked to lead the New T-Mobile. But great racing footage and the principals are all in there. Wired to Win, focused on Francais de Jeux's Baden Cooke (green jersey winner) and Jimmy Caspar (DNF), tried to be semi-educational, but it's an IMAX movie, so it spent too much time explaining cycling and how nerves work and not enough on the racing. Plus, TV-sized racing footage doesn't look so hot on an IMAX screen.

Oh, but the race...

1. Big Jan in green (not pink)--sorry, celeste. I don't remember if any other cyclist of note was on Team Bianchi, but I think not. And he got second.

2. The grand tour breakthrough for Vino, Attacking Alexander. USPS couldn't tempo-ride him into the dust that year: his flyer into Gap showed everybody else that Lance could lose, and then they all wanted a piece.

3. Beloki's crash, the same day. Ohmygod it gives me chills. There have been other crashes and there was the massive pileup on day 1 that eventually knocked out Kloden among others, but Beloki's high-siding it on that descent hits at a different level. I think what really does it is the footage of Saiz cradling Beloki's now-shattered body on the side of the road while all Joseba can do is scream. Yikes...

4. Of course, Lance doin' some 'cross racing to miss Beloki, ride across a field, jump a ditch, and get back on. Liggett was blown away.

5. Iban Mayo winning atop Alpe d'Huez. Another threat to Lance...at the time.

6. Tyler Hamilton's solo breakaway, helping him get to 4th overall. With a friggin' broken collarbone. (Again, the commentators point out he did finished the Giro with broken bones the year before).

7. A Frenchman won on Bastille Day. OK, it was Virenque, which throws a cloud on things...but not if you're French.

8. Lance getting pulled down on Luz-Ardiden. Was he starting an attack? Did it finally focus him enough to win?

9. Petacchi didn't finish that year. But his Fassa Bortolo teammate, one I. Basso, got 7th overall, white jersey for best U25. And I can't believe that Petacchi's lead-out train was doing Basso any good in the mountains and GC (note in proof: by stage 8, only 3 FB's were still in the race). I think both Basso and Ullrich had fantastic races, mostly on their own.

10. Jan (again): falling down in the last TT, throwing sparks off the bike as he slides 30 feet in asphalt in the rain, then getting back on to finish the ride. Not enough to win, but still damn tough.

Hell on Wheels covers these moments, and also covers the guys in the bunch. My favorite part is probably when they cover the guys getting spit out the back and swept up by the broomwagon, with some nice historical shots in there. The use of old b+w clips is well done, as is the use of the slightly crazy French historian of the tour. The crews setting up fencing (just like Surf City, only a lot more), the announcers, the RVs in the Alps. And the cinematography includes some absolutely stunning shots. Um, the soundtrack is a little techno, not bad in my world.

All in all, HoW is probably one of the best "only from Netflix" rentals I've had. The only word of warning is that the movie doesn't tell you who the riders are, so non-fans will probably be lost. If I had it at home tonight, I'd be watching it. Aw heck, it's probably all on YouTube by now...

Bikes in the movies 2

Let's flog the subject while it's up...

American Flyers (1985)

1. Kevin Costner (pre-DWW) was actually thin and scrawny, like a genuine cyclist. Don't know about him cycling with the moustache, though. He's thickened a lot.

2. Sort of like Dennis Christopher (who? the designated hero in Breaking Away), David Grant (who? designated hero in A.F.) hasn't been so high-profile after having the lead role. Sort of like Luke Skywalker guy (ummm...name escapes me...).

3. From the depths of the days of Evil Empire came The Russian Cycling Opponent. I recall the RCO having a beard the size of a large wombat. Apparently the big beard is still in fashion for some cyclists. (Hats off to QB for the link)

4. And the nose chick from Dirty Dancing shows up for a bit part.

5. Mmm, the early '80s gym scenes...though how little has changed...

6. Did those leather helmets ever save anyone from anything?

7. If I start road racing this year, do I get a version of 22-yr-old Alexandra Paul as a groupie? Maybe if I do a 3-day stage race...er, and win...OK, dream on. Still, better scenery in this movie than in Breaking Away, on several levels.

8. It's the closest most of our generation will come to knowing anything about the much-lauded and lamented Coors Classic. Well, there are tours of Georgia, California, now Missouri and Utah, but somehow Colorado hasn't got it together. Or is it subtly named something other than "Tour of Colorado"?

Bikes in the movies 1

The year before last, I was rowing with the Los Gatos Rowing Club and tried searching Netflix for a rowing movie. Not too successful...So while Netflix doesn't have many bike movies, rowers have it worse. On to the show:

Breaking Away (1979)

1. Motorpacing behind a semi on the interstate, doin', like, 80 mph or something. Sweet.

2. I know I saw a "Cutters" T-shirt at a 'cross race at least once this fall.

3. Apparently Dennis Quaid, despite not being the bike-riding hero, is all hotness in this movie. The genuinely short 1970s jean shorts (a la Daisy Duke, only on, uh, Dennis) may have something to do with it.

4. The infamous frame-pump-through-the-front-spokes trick by the Evil Italian Professional Cyclist. Wait a minute: why would the EIPC be racing with a frame pump? Did he ask for it back?

5. It's the closest I've ever been to Indiana, 'cept for maybe Hoosiers.

6. Racing on a flat oval dirt track--and the oh-so-painfully-staged sprint finish ("He's behind at the turn, he's come up beside him...and stopped pedalling...still beside him...a hundred yards to go and he looks like he isn't even trying...'cuz he isn't...50 yards to go...40...30...20...now they're both not pedalling...it's a fight to not finish...and our hero finally gets him at the line. What a shocker!").

7. And the real reason this came to mind: an astute Velonews reader pointed out that "Punch-the-Clock/Getting-Married-at-19" Moocher just got nominated for an Academy Award. They grow up so fast...













It's a good movie, really.

Two positives do not always make a positive

I like writing. Spelling, diction, punctuation, structure, and all the intricacies of trying to communicate ideas correctly and coherently to other minds. Writing this post is enjoyable, almost effortless, an self-appreciated creative outlet.

I like data. Numbers, graphs, statistics, lines, trends, and all the information that is provided and can be extracted from data in all its raw and processed forms.

Heaven help me, I hate writing about data. The laborious phrasing needed to lead a critical audience to come to my same conclusion about esoteric scientific points without resort to informal, in-person discussion hurts my brain. Just like that sentence did. Mixing hot carcinogens in lab all day is sooo much easier.

But the writing must be done, and I really should chain myself to the computer tonight to make up for the workday's delinquency.

Two-wheeler #4

All youse folks out there are riding your bikes a lot more than I am, 'cuz I'm scared to be out in the wind and dust which could bugger up my eyes as they're healing. But I may have found a bit of an outlet.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend dug a bike out of a storage closet at Stanford and gave it to me. It's an old English 3-speed of some kind. I was thinking of calling it Humphrey or Reginald or something equally hoity-toity English, but I'm actually just going to call it Slow.

Slow is a bit of a mongrel: he came with a black frame, a blue fork, and a red fender with a Triumph badge on it ("Nottingham, England"). The rear 3-speed internal hub is stamped with a "69", so it was built in 1969. However, the frame serial number on the seat lug is a six-digit number starting with 8, no letters. If Slow's frame is really from the Raleigh factory, that would put its date of manufacture sometime in 1925. Sadly, someone took off the headbadge, so it's hard to really ID the frame.

Slow's cables, brakes, grips, and tires were all in pretty poor shape, so I've replaced those--with no regard to using genuine stuff: the goal is rideability. All went well, except for the shifter cable which doesn't match up with a modern derailleur cable, so for now Slow is a single-speed. Slow also has significant mechanical losses in the headset, bottom bracket, and hubs, so Slow is, appropriately, slow. Slow and I did go on about a 12-mile jaunt up and down the Los Gatos creek trail today that took about 2 h. Some cx-like dismounts on the uphills were necessary; I think Slow is stuck in its 133% "speedy" gear. Need to work on getting that shifting working. For now, riding Slow slowly is good--gotta keep the sweat and dust outta my eyes.

Zap

I wrote this in an e-mail to friends on Jan. 26, describing events on Jan. 24:

Got Lasik?

After a few months of planning and pre-op, I went under the laser on Wednesday. I got a touch of Valium and a few eyedrops first, and without my glasses on, things were kind of bleary, but there are still memorable moments. Getting led into the operating room, handed a teddy bear, and into the chair--just like the dentist, right? Until you get rotated into position and they put in the Clockwork Orange-like eyelid restraints. I could sort of see the suction cup come over my eye, then schluck! the world goes dark as it grabs on. A little whining sound--they're separating the epithelial layer from the cornea with a knife--before the world comes back, and you're looking at it through a little bit less eye than you were before. Then the blinking orange light, follow the blinking orange light, which eventually develops a purplish halo. A clicking noise and the sound of a fan: the laser is vaporizing my cornea, and the fan is to remove both the vaporized detritus and the smell of burning flesh. A minute later, the lights go away, and the surgeon is replacing the epithelium with, well, sort of a small version of the rubbery spatula you'd use to get cake batter out of a bowl. Then, eye #2--again, the suction cup appears and schluck! the world goes black, only this time it's followed by a sound not unlike a dentist's drill, more like a power tool: they're cutting sideways through my cornea. And the cornea is made of tough, tough stuff. Again, follow the blinking orange light, don't even think about looking any other direction because here comes the purple halo and the clicking and the little fan...This time, to replace the flap of my cornea that was removed, the surgeon uses what I perceive to be more of an optical squeegee to get all the wrinkles out.

And in less than ten minutes, I stand up from the chair, give back the teddy bear, and am led from the operating room. The world is fuzzy, like I've just woken up from falling sleep with my contact lenses in, but I'm not wearing contact lenses. After wearing glasses for 25 years, this is sort of profound.

Recovery's a bitch for the right eye that only had the outer epithelial layer removed, which is expected. My left eye, which had the classic Lasik procedure done which involved cutting a flap into the cornea, is giving me no grief whatsover, especially in comparison to the right.* However, in less than 48 hours, the right eye has improved significantly. It may also help that I have a Vicodin prescription for the next few days...to go along with a regimen of four different prescription eyedrops, as well as artificial tears. Ooo, and I get to Scotch-tape eye shields to my face when I go to sleep at night--now that's sexy.

Yesterday and today I'm spending at home, as the right eye can spazz a bit if I move and do too much, but here I am typing an e-mail relatively comfortably. I've driven myself to the optometrist for checks twice, without driving erraticly--but this is California, erratic driving is par for the course, so no one would think much of it if I did.

And I can see.

*The average cornea is ~500 micrometers or 0.5 mm thick, and the correction to my right eye (-8.00 diopters pre-op) required the removal of ~100 microns of tissue. Since the flap they cut for Lasik is ~120 microns thick and you want to leave a backstop, classic Lasik wasn't going to have much wiggle room, so instead I elected for the Epi-Lasik procedure that essentially burns in from the front. The disadvantage is the more complicated and pained recovery, but if it wasn't for that, ophthamologists would like to do the Epi-Lasik procedure more often as it avoids the potential for complications from the corneal flap.

food rant 1

Online radio lets me listen to the same radio station that I listened to when going to college. Today the DJs were babbling about the price of tortillas in Mexico being affected by the price of corn which was being driven up by projected demand for corn for fuel ethanol. At the time, I thought it was the DJs digging up crazy stuff from the back pages of the tabloids.

But the Washington Post seems like a credible source, like in this article.

So the American demand for corn to make ethanol is making it difficult for poor people in Mexico to eat healthy food (yes, tortillas are apparently healthier than the alternatives). I guess more careful analysis is needed to figure out how much is due to actual supply/demand adjustment and how much is due to speculation and corruption. If it's real, it is an amazing demonstration of the unpredictability of interrelated events and unforeseen consequences--I was about to type "of the consequences of globalization", but my jury is still out on globalization.

Still, the Corn Economy baffles me. Depending on who you believe, it may or may not require more fuel to make ethanol than could be replaced by the ethanol (implying just as much if not more CO2 goes into the air if a car runs on 100% ethanol)--who knows whose data is objective. It seems clear that corn-for-fuel is being pushed by farmers, ag-businesses, and their reps in government--oo, lots of subsidies for one side and votes for the other and they all get to have a back-slapping happy time--but do they have any concern when, if ever, it will do me any good?