roadskater.net

You know, even when we do things for charity, it's easy to get competitive. It's easy to think you shouldn't make an effort if it can't be a big one. It's easy to forget that the desire to help is enough. Do a little, or do a lot, but do it when you are inspired!

Spring is here and I'm talking about calories again! It's way beyond time to try to shed some Winter flab, and as I conveniently forget my approximate daily caloric requirement each year, I run to the online daily calorie expenditure calculators. Inevitably I feel like I'm wasting my time and that nobody really knows how close those numbers are. I conclude that if I'm hungry I'm probably losing weight. 

We are not as big as the US so I am not expecting a huge medal count, but I think we are holding our own.  Finally have one for speedskating! Nesbitt in the 1000m.  We will see what happens in hockey.  The Canadian Womens team is looking pretty strong!

[northinsouth has started a new blog and this is the address, plus he pasted the text to share it here too. --roadskater] http://fattrinewbi.blogspot.com/2010/02/first-posting-from-fat-tri-newbie.html is the First posting from Fat Tri Newbie.

Strange weather today: Cold and rainy in the morning, clear and sunny in mid-afternoon, and then a dark and mean-looking line of clouds rolled in just after 5 pm as I was walking across campus. I would have thought a thunderstorm was coming in the summer, but didn't know whether to expect rain or snow this time of year and in this particular (and peculiar) year. We got neither of those:

(Cribbed without shame from Wikipedia.)

Graupel. Not to be confused with Hail or Ice pellets.

A nice little diversion for me from swimming in the shark-infested car dealership lots.

Apolo runs a mile to warm down.

Here's the vid, complete with obligatory techno background.

40 mph? Really?

I just remembered that I've skated on Superbowl Sunday a couple of years in a row, and had made no plans to do it this year. It's nicer outside than it's been most days lately, but that's very faint praise considering what it's been like. Next year, I guess...

So what to do with myself between the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics? Oh look, the America's Cup starts tomorrow!

http://www.americascup.com

Mike Barry, father of pro cyclist Michael Barry, and recently retired builder of Mariposa bicycles, has a neat blog post about the bikes ridden by current racers on cobblestone stages and for daily training rides. He has some good specifics about setup and component choices for classic races such as Paris-Roubaix and relates his experience of riding one such bike on European back roads.

http://bicyclespecialties.blogspot.com/2009/12/bikes-cobbles-and-mudguar...

Here's a quick video I found regarding what to do with good bulbs gone bad. I had noted that compact fluorescent light bulbs are marked as containing mercury, Hg. I wondered what to do if the glass part of a CFL (compact fluorescent light bulb) breaks. Apparently you shouldn't use the vaccuum or even sweep to get the materials up. First, open a window and leave the house for fifteen minutes, then use a stiff card and/or sticky tape as shown in the video. Wow. Well I hope I can remember this. CFLs seem to be worthy even with this mercury hazard, as shown in some of the following links...

Here's a link to a video of a British Heart Foundation skride that one of our new English A2A paceline buddies skated two weeks prior. He and David skated much of A2A together.

For cyclotics and skatemaniacs, if you can handle a bit of funny bad language. Someone has read your minds and seen your relationships and conversations.

I relate to the part about driving many miles to roll a few. If life is not funny right now, check these out...holiday choices...

There's a new ghost bike locked to a sign post at the scene where a hit and run driver killed Summerfield NC cyclist David Sherman. It was dark by the time we could get up there to take photos. The bike uses different sizes of the "Share the Road In Memory of David Sherman" graphic. The top tube says, "David Sherman Oct 24 2009." The seat tube says, "Still Riding...Not Hiding...." The down tube says "'And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.' Please Drive and Ride with Love."

Photos Here...

Here's some info about a surgical procedure performed by an Italian doctor to halt MS. The procedure unblocks restricted bloodflow from the brain in MS patients. 2 years later, 73% of those who had the procedure (65 people) showed no symptoms of MS!!

If you ever consider changing your skating style, adding a few more wheels, and increasing your speed, check this out!

As previously noted, at A2A I was totally unprepared for the scathing speeds most experienced racers attain. I'll do A2A again if I think i can do it sub-6 hours...But I need to know what that speed feels like, and how to work to generated it.

I recently found (duh....) that there are indeed inline speedometers, some of which combine with heartrate monitors. Any recommendations as far as good deals, reliability, and durability go?

I'm still not ready to write about the Carolina Century in all its glory, but I have published almost a thousand more photos from both the 2009 Carolina Century and the Today We Ride for Dave 2009 David Sherman Memorial Ride, so I wanted to share those links.

I can promise better weather for the 3rd annual Carolina Century! It was epic. The Carolina Century photos are a good way to see part of the route, with trees, barns, horses, llamas, a few people and lots of mist inside and outside the lens.

A new study finds interesting information on the time of life that obesity may affect a woman's chance of developing Multiple Sclerosis. In studying data from 200,000 women over 40 years, researchers found that obesity in late adolescence and early adulthood (18 to 20 years old) doubled the chance of developing muliple sclerosis later in life. 

...a surprising finding was that the results showed a significant link to
increased MS risk only from obesity during adolescence, but not during
childhood or adulthood.

I have been out of touch for a few weeks after some long distance skating and the prep and skating and wrap (still ongoing) of our Roadskater.net team charity efforts. Last night was the awards dinner for the Tour to Tanglewood, and it was a transitional day for several reasons, all good. Then I came home wanting to get some computer work done and maybe watch some tele, mostly something meaningless and useless.

According to the front page at http://www.colbertnation.com/home, Olympic ice speedskater Joey Cheek is scheduled to be a guest on The Colbert Report this evening on the Comedy Central network.

"I got another plan, one that requires me to stand.
On the stage or in the street, don't need no microphone or beat. And
when you hear this song, if you ain't dead then sing along. Bang and
strum to these here drums til you get where you belong..."

That's a great workout song. I plan on listening to it alot before the next A2A.

So, obviously I need to improve my speed technique. What are y'all's thoughts on this here series of tutorials?

http://www.nettracing.com/pict/inst/step1.htm

What went right –
1.    Knee and hamstring insertion rehab – man, I was sure, 3-4 months ago, that this was going to trip me up. Never hurt. Yay me.
2.    Low back – Never hurt once, all day. Thank you, kettlebells.

What to change –

Lots of skaters have asked how the Carolina Century compares with Athens to Atlanta in terms of distance and elevation. It's hard to say but my impression has been that:

After skating Ragbrai 2009, A2A called my name.  My body wasn’t conditioned to go hard for 4+ hrs.  I was uncomfortable on Atlanta’s rough flats without a Chuck.  I signed up for 38-mile. 

_Plan
The long hills and the number of skaters made time-based goal impractical.  I sought ways to win the 38-mile race, which included Dillon and Chance Martin.  They were among the top skaters of their generation and raced as teammates for Powerslide.  I averaged 1 practice per week, usually short and unfocused.

Here are two graphics I made to compare the 2008 route and the 2009 route for the Athens to Atlanta (A2A) Roadskate, for anyone who is curious. I imagine a very few people will be intensely curious. The first graphic shows the changes in elevation profile and distance for 2008 and the 2009 detour. It takes a little over 5 seconds to switch from 2008 to 2009 and then it should repeat to infinity and beyond.

Results are already posted for the 2009 A2A. http://a2a.net/

Sorry. Too exhausted to write anything coherent right now! Good job everyone and thanks for coming to do the event.

Hi. Here's a noisy but perhaps useful video of the detour around the problems on Cruse Road. You definitely don't want to go there! The first turn is a right onto Old Norcross Rd in or just after a Construction Zone on Herrington. At the end of the video, you'll be set to turn right onto Pleasant Hill Rd., opposite where you would have come in from Cruse Rd.

You can try the Roadskaterdotnet youtube channel to see if the files have uploaded (there will be 3)...
http://www.youtube.com/RoadSkaterdotNet

OK, coming down to the wire - everyone got your Ziploc's packed?

I just got off the phone with the proprieter of Skate Escape - there isn't much parking around his place, and he was very clear to NOT leave stuff in your car there, as break-ins are frequent.

If you need to get from Atlanta to Athens or vice versa, Southeastern Stages can get you there. They're bookable directly or by way of Greyhound. If you know of more buses between Athens and Atlanta (such as from the Atlanta airport to the Athens bus station, please feel free to add them here.

For those skating Athens to Atlanta, there are buses available on a2a.net and these are your best bet and a good value as I recall. However, if those don't work for you, perhaps these will.

OK, off to find Atomic Fireballs, and a few more things

1. How MUCH do you need to label your Ziploc bags for the checkpoints? First AND last name, or what? Eebee, I read how someone stole a bunch'a your stuff one year, do I need to double up for theft?

2. I'm at the Days Inn on Finley in Athens. Anyone else?

Here is more data from the road between Volvo Trucks N.A., Greensboro, NC and Tanglewood Park, Clemmons, NC in the 2009 Tour to Tanglewood for Multiple Sclerosis. When I make elevation profiles, I like to force x and y to 0 because it helps me see how hilly the event is more accurately. You can make almost anything look hilly by setting the y-axis max/min to the elevation max/min. To make it better, I should probably plot all events on a 110-mile scale or some such (considering Carolina Century at 102 is usually the most I'd try in a day), but I don't yet really like how that looks.