Happy birthday blog!

Yesterday, my blog turned one year old.  The blogger.com system keeps statistics about blog use and views, some of which I will share for this post.

First, though, I wanted to share an image I put together tonight.  It shows (approximately) where I have gone within the USA in the last year.  The last map I shared on this blog generated some heated debate on Facebook, far more discussion than all my previous posts combined had led to.  As a result, I'll likely do more with maps this next year, but for now, I'll stick to a bit of retrospective on the last 12 months.

In the above map, there is no line-type/color for November.  I was in the UK and Europe for the entire month of November 2010.  The lines coming and going from Atlanta, Georgia represent my outbound and return trips from the US to Manchester, England.

Here are a few statistics from the blogger.com dashboard and my own comments about them:

3665 page views - My first thought was about 3400 of those are me, but I set a browser cookie so visits from my computer are not counted.  Otherwise, Linux probably would not be sitting in 5th place in the operating system of viewers category.

Top 3 posts, by numbers of page views:
A bit of recap - 9-Feb-2011 - The title pretty much says it all.
First Post! - 29-Aug-2010 - Evidently, I create descriptive titles.
Germany and Monday racing - 9-Nov-2010 - This post covered my trip to Ilmenau, Germany and some Monday night track league racing at the Manchester velodrome.

Top referring site:
www.facebook.com - No other site even comes close.

Top search keywords:
"11 pack" of beer - This is interesting, but also makes me wonder, who are the people out there searching google for 11-packs of beer?  Then again, who wouldn't?

Other amusing search terms:
track karl - This one seems kind of obvious.
trackkarl - This one is pretty obvious too.
"how many engineers" chocolate - This one is less obvious.
"queue for the toilet" - The joke about a guy in Berlin catching his belt in the bathroom door evidently made its way somewhere.
4 runner crankshaft bolt - I guess I have helped someone, somewhere, (beyond my teammate) better understand how to deal with a 4-Runner crankshaft bolt.
 af on my ups tracking - I have no idea.
innovation beer pack - Sounds like somebody is up to something... good.
air compressor quick release hose - Maybe I am contributing something worthwhile here.

Top 10 countries by page views:
#10 - France - Interesting.  I'm not sure if I really know any French.
#9 - Singapore - Odd, maybe they lost their toilet?
#8 - Russia - I don't think I know any Russians, but evidently some of them like reading my blog.
#7 - South Korea - A friend from Boulder was in South Korea for some of this past year.
#6 - Canada - My aunt and uncle live in Canada, and I met some cool Canadians on my trip to the UK last year.
#5 - Iran - I'm quite sure I don't know anyone living in Iran.  Maybe they needed help fixing Toyota 4-Runners?
#4 - Netherlands - I think I'll visit the Netherlands on my next trip to Europe.
#3 - Germany - I met a handful of Germans last year, and had a wonderful time both in Ilmenau and Berlin.  If I can swing it, I'll try to make it back for a Christmas market again this year.
#2 - United Kingdom - I met lots of Brits during my fall track racing and travel adventure last year.  I'll visit again this fall for some wrenching and cheering at the masters world championships in Manchester, and then I'll be off to visit a few of the places I missed out on last year.
#1 - United States - Given my country of origin, this one makes sense...

That is all I have to say about the first year.  This morning I bought tickets for another trip to the UK and Europe, so I'm setting myself up for another round of adventures.  Until next time, keep your heads up and the rubber side down.

Where the money goes, geographically

In light of recent news about federal spending, revenue, deficits, debt, and various political candidates' ideas about how to best handle these issues, I thought it would be interesting to create another blog post.

The map shown below depicts the 50 states in the US, colored to indicate the relationship between federal taxes paid by the populations of those states and the federal spending in each state.

If one considers federal taxes an investment, each color represents, in essence, a different level of return on investment.

When television pundits or political candidates refer to "redistribution of wealth" like some Boogey-man, this map shows (for the 2005 fiscal year) where the wealth is coming from (states colored in blue and green) and where it is going (states colored in orange and red).

Hopefully this provides some food for thought for anybody contemplating or debating the US government's finances.

A bit of down time

I've been a bit slow posting updates this summer; lots of traveling, riding, racing, and a bit of work here and there has kept me plenty busy.  On the way home from work on Friday, I realized it had been a while since the last time I had a whole weekend in Boulder, with no specific plans.

How long ago was it?  I couldn't recall.  Upon returning home, I went digging through my training log and determined my last "free" weekend was March 19th and 20th.  Yikes!

This weekend I spent some time downloading pictures and video from my camera to my laptop.  Some of the media was from way back in June.  Here are a few of them:

Black Dog Road is an exit from I-35 in southern Minnesota.

Can you tell an engineer uses this table?

In July the local grocery store had a special on California-grown artichokes, so I picked up a few.  I was pleased with the arrangement of artichoke leaves in the discard bowl after eating, so took a few pictures.

This doggy looks tired.

On the way back to Colorado from a late-July and early-August trip to California, I stopped off for a night to visit my sister at UC Davis.  She was looking after a dog for the weekend.

I spent a few days in southern California, training at the Home Depot Center velodrome, preparing for US elite track cycling nationals (to be held there at the end of September).  The same weekend I was there, the 2011 CrossFit Games were held right across the street, so I checked that out too.

In the vendor area, Reebok set up some CrossFit challenges, one of which was a 250-meter rowing race.  I tried it out to see how I stack up against other CrossFit rowing enthusiasts.  I was a long way from posting the best time of the weekend, but was satisfied with a sub-41 second 250-meter effort.  The video documentation is below.

Until next time!

Winning

This week I had a chance to race twice on weeknights; a criterium here in Boulder on Wednesday evening and then track league in Colorado Springs last night (Thursday).

The criterium on Wednesday was a combined category Women/3/4/5 affair on an American football-shaped course in an industrial park a few miles north of Boulder.  I won a pair of primes during the race, and then attacked with a lap and a half to go with a buddy following my wheel.  A lap later, we were well clear of the field, and rolled through the finish taking 1st and 2nd easily.

Overall, the race was pretty slow, but it felt good to get out and race on my single road bike (this was only my 3rd single-bike road racing event of the year).  Next week, I think I'll step up and ride the Pro/1/2/3 race which promises to be longer and a lot faster than the 3/4/5 race.

Track league on Thursday was a slightly different format than usual.  Rather than the normal three races on the program, we had a sprint tournament and a points race.  I was running late, so did my warmup on the infield track, and then rode the flying 200m time trial in an 86" gear, nearly bouncing myself out of the saddle in turn three.  Before the first round, I changed into a 90" gear.

In the first round, I was matched up with a rider who was very closely matched to me in the flying 200.  He managed to jump me with a lap to go, but I was able to follow and then take a run on him going into turn three.  I took that ride by a slim margin, but enough to advance.

In the 2nd round, I was paired up with my friend and former teammate, Mike Giem.  The race played out similarly, but with Mike holding me off by about half a wheel diameter, moving him to the semi-finals and sending me to the 5th-8th final ride.

In the 5-8 final, I attacked in turn two on the first lap and opened a healthy gap into the stiff headwind on the back straight.  Danny Hiller lead the chase, but the other three riders' hesitation prevented them from receiving any draft benefit from riding behind me.  I stayed clear to take 5th place.

A 30-lap points race with sprints every five laps capped off the night.  The wind picked up, causing the tempo of the race to vary between blazing fast on the home straight and nearly stalled on the back straight.  After the first point sprint, I bridged up to the two lead riders and rode with them until the 2nd point sprint where I took maximum points.  With 20 laps remaining, the field caught us, and I sat in to recover from the solo bridging effort.  In doing so, I missed some key moves, and wound up not being in position to contest any more of the sprints.  The points from the 20-to-go sprint put me into 5th place; not the greatest result I could hope for, but ok after a hard week of racing and travel.

June adventures

As I promised last time, I've had a handful of adventures since the last blog update.

At the beginning of June, track racing season started here in Colorado.  The first Thursday night went well, with a pair of top-3 finishes.  The following Tuesday, I was back to the track for more racing, knowing I would miss out on the 2nd Thursday night.

On the morning of Wednesday, the 8th, Aaron Trent and I loaded up my car, and set off to drive from Boulder to Indianola, IA.  On Thursday, we visited with my grandparents and went for a road ride on some flooded bike paths between Indianola and Carlisle, IA.

Then on Friday morning, we packed up the car again and drove north in I-35 to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for the 2011 Fixed Gear Classic at the National Sports Center Velodrome in Blaine, MN.  Racing began on Friday evening, with the keirin and scratch race for the men.  My legs did not respond well to the driving on Wednesday and Friday morning, so I was relieved to have a rain delay that pushed the remaining races from the session to Saturday morning.

It turned out my legs did not really begin to come around until Saturday afternoon, so the keirin, scratch, and sprint qualifier rides were a bust for me.  The sprinters who did not make the top-8 were given another ride, a 1-mile scratch race, to sort out 9th and lower places.  I went into the short scratch race with a solid plan, and was able to ride away from the other competitors.  My legs were back!

The endurance side of the program included a points race on Saturday afternoon.  I qualified comfortably in the heats, and then put myself on the scoreboard with an early attack in the final.

After the rain delay on Friday night, we were treated to nice weather and fast racing for the remainder of the weekend.

On Sunday, we raced two Madisons, a tempo race, and a handicap race.  The handicap did not go very well, and the Madisons were an exercise in torture, but the tempo race was arguably the highlight of my weekend with a powerful move to bridge to the lead group and then late attack where I broke away from the remaining field and finished clear of everyone, accumulating enough points for 7th place.

On Monday morning, Aaron and I packed up the car again and drove north-west on I-94 from Minneapolis to Fargo, ND.  My grandmother had a list of maintenance tasks around the house, which we were able to (mostly; a part for repairing my grandfather's grandfather clock is on order) complete by mid-day Tuesday.

We took in a taste of local color, going to the saloon in Abercrombie, ND for dinner on Monday night and then to the Sons of Norway lodge in Fargo for Tuesday lunch.

On Wednesday, we packed up the car again and in one long haul, drove from Fargo all the way to Boulder to conclude a week-long whirlwind racing tour of the mid-west.

On Thursday, the 16th, we drove back to Colorado Springs for more racing at the velodrome.  Aaron and I teamed up for Aaron's first official Madison race, marking a milestone in Aaron's development from paralympic time trial racer to all-around track racer.  Good stuff!

My aunt and uncle from Texas made it to the velodrome on Thursday night, so after the race we went for dinner, and then Friday morning we embarked on a weekend tour of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.  Friday saw us visit some of the Colorado Springs area tourist attractions that I had never visited, despite living in Colorado Springs for three years.  We drove to the top of Pikes Peak, visited the Miramont Castle museum in Manitou Springs, and took the official visitor tour at the US Olympic Training Center.

Then on Saturday, we headed south past Fort Carson and made our way to the Royal Gorge, where we rode the incline railroad, the gondola, the skycoaster, and walked over the highest suspension bridge.

After leaving the Royal Gorge, we drove through Salida and Buena Vista on the way to Leadville, the highest town in Colorado.  Then on Sunday morning we drove from Leadville over Independence Pass to Aspen, walked around there in the morning, ate lunch at a restaurant in Glenwood Springs, took in the sights while driving I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, stopped in Vail for a short walk-around, detoured through Breckenridge, and then made our way back to the front range and ended the day in Boulder.

After nearly two weeks away from home, I had a day to take care of logistics, and then turned around on Tuesday morning, the 21st, and made my way to Augusta, GA for paralympic road racing nationals.

Kevin, who I trained with in Wisconsin over Memorial Day weekend, and I teamed up to ride the tandem time trial and road race events at nationals.  We wound up finishing 2nd to the defending national champions, Dave and Clark, in both races.  This was a good learning experience about tandem racing, and boosted my motivation to build strength on the bike and refine my technique to become a better tandem pilot.

The road race podium at paralympic nationals; Dave and Clark (1st place) are marked men with a couple of up-and-coming rookies looking to raise the level of American tandem racing. 

For now, I'm back in Boulder, but already beginning to plot my next adventure.

The new season is upon us

It's Thursday.  It's June.  It's time for track bicycle racing season in Colorado!  The Colorado Velodrome Association summer track racing league starts tonight.  Therefore, it is time for tea to provide some pre-race caffeine.

Some PG Tips and a little light reading get me ready to race.

A month has passed since my last post.  What have I been up to?  Lots and lots.

During my trip to California at the end of April and beginning of May, I finished up the 6th and final week of CrossFit competition.  I performed the 6th workout at CrossFit Santa Clara.  It went well, with a small incremental improvement over what I did here in Boulder at the beginning of the week.

Near the end of the trip, I raced the Friday Night track event at Hellyer Velodrome in San Jose.  It was my first track racing since traveling from Manchester back to the USA, and my legs felt pretty good considering the months off the track bike.  In the 5-mile scratch race, I won Matador of the Night for being the most aggressive rider.  For being Matador, I took home a nice bottle of Chilean wine.

Upon returning to Colorado, there was a day to do laundry, pay bills, check the mail, and then turn around and head to Colorado Springs for two weeks at the Wounded Warrior Games.  I was brought in by Team Navy/Coast Guard to help out with the cycling team and pilot a tandem for a visually impaired rider, Dan Peters.

The first week we had a training camp with daily rides at the Air Force Academy and the 2nd week was the competition.  With the exception of tandem pilots who could be civilians, the athletes were all military veterans.  At the end of the week, Dan and I took gold in the tandem road race with Dan really stepping up his riding to a higher level after falling ill with bronchitis earlier in the week which took him out of a couple of the track and field events.

After the conclusion of the Wounded Warrior Games, I headed back to Boulder for some more engineering work.  Then on Friday last week, I caught the bus to DIA and flew to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a long weekend training on the tandem with another visually impaired rider who I will race with at Paralympic road racing nationals later this month.

We put in about 145 miles on the tandem in three days and experienced all the weather that eastern Wisconsin could throw at us: sun and wind on Saturday, rain and hail on Sunday, and then breeze and heat on Monday to cap off the weekend.

Over the weekend, I finished reading Helmet for my Pillow (pictured at the top of the post next to my cup of tea), a memoir written by a US Marine who fought in the Pacific theater in World War II.  The timing for reading this book was oddly coincidental since I participated in the Wounded Warrior Games in the middle of May.  Reading a first-hand account of our country's most significant military engagement of the last century that carried a most gruesome cost in terms of lives was an interesting contrast to helping wounded veterans, many of whom have participated in a lower-intensity but already longer-running conflict that is reshaping the world for this century. 

On a lighter note, last night after work, I hopped on the bus to Denver and checked out an improv comedy show at the Bovine Metropolis.   A CrossFit friend was performing with a class of students who were capping off their studies and evolving into full-fledged improv practitioners.  Everyone beware the Great White Swordfish.  It is fast, amphibious, walks around on four legs like half a tarantula, and is being pursued by a harpoon-armed man with vocal-chameleon-like accents and mysterious organized crime connections.

With the Colorado track racing season starting up today, it's going to be a busy couple of months, so I can't make any promises about when the next blog post will come.  However, I can guarantee some interesting adventures between now and then.

2nd Criterium of the Year

On Sunday I rode my 2nd criterium event of the year in Livermore, California.  It was another combined Cat-3/Cat-4 race, so there were over 90 riders signed up and the announcer said 88 who started.

The course was roughly triangular, with 3 90-degree turns and a couple of gentle turns on the straights.  Each lap of the course was 1.2 miles, and the "back straight" had a bit of a headwind during my race.

Here is the start of the race, in perfect California springtime conditions.

 The race started off briskly, and with so many riders, I wanted to stay as far forward in the field as possible to avoid any trouble/crashes.  Early on, I created a solo move, and dangled off the front of the field for a short while.

My early move was short-lived, as one would expect with a field of nearly 90 riders.

After being caught by the pack, I maintained a position near the front of the field.

In order to protect a position near the front of the field, one must sometimes take a pull on the very front.  That takes some energy, but maintaining a position in the top 10 or so riders is worth it.

Unfortunately, there was a crash which required a rider take an ambulance ride, so the race was neutralized and the remaining riders were re-started.  Here I am, back at the start line.

Back at the start line, I joked with the motor ref (his wheel is visible on the right edge) if I would have time to call my insurance agent and change to a health insurance policy with a lower deductible before the race restarted.

Once the course was clear of emergency vehicles, we were started again, with either 5 or 6 laps to go.  There was much confusion about this, both before we were restarted, and after we rode through the start-finish area a lap after restarting.

At the re-start, I was near the back of the pack.

I moved back up to the front of the field after the restart to stay safe and keep a close eye on dangerous moves.

A lap or two after the restart, there was a prime lap, where the top rider on that lap would take home a bag of coffee or some such prize.  I wasn't terribly interested in the prime, until two riders from the same team took it and then started pulling away from the field.  At this point, I decided, it's go-time!

I bridged up to the two riders, let them know we had a sizable gap, and encouraged them to keep driving the pace.  I rotated through and all three of us worked well together.

At this point, the late breakaway was established.  Whether we could have continued to work together and held off the field is a question that will remain a mystery.  I'd give it about a 25% chance we would have stayed clear and battled it out among the three of us for the podium spots, and about a 75% chance that a few riders in the pack would bury themselves to bring us back.

This is where the probabilities in bike racing become interesting.  Assuming a flat probability distribution of winning among riders, in a race with 88 starters, each rider has about a 1.13% chance of winning.  Being in a 3-man breakaway with a 25% chance of staying away results in about an 8% chance of winning.  If the gap between the breakaway and the field becomes insurmountable, then the probability of winning goes to 33%.

While turning myself inside out to bridge up to the breakaway, I was not doing any statistical analysis of the odds of winning in a variety of different finishing scenarios.  I was simply reacting to a gut feeling that said this move was where I wanted to be.  I didn't know who the other riders in the break were, but my split-second assessment of the other two guys and my history finishing bike races in small groups told me this was a really good place for me to be.

At any rate, with a lap to go, the officials told us to neutralize because there had been another crash on the course.  Arg!!  This was a serious frustration for me, since by neutralizing, the field would catch us and then the finish would favor a rider who had been sitting in, following wheels, and saving energy rather than turning himself inside out trying to make a breakaway stick.

After neutralizing, I find it interesting to look at the elbow angles of the three of us in the breakaway compared to the riders in the field.  We have sat up while they are still in racing positions, making sure they catch us.

After the neutralization, we were re-started with two laps to go.  I had enough steam to make one move to the front, took a pull, and then was off the back for the last lap and a half.

As one of the Colorado race announcers often says, in order to win a race, you have to risk losing it.  I took my chance with the breakaway on Sunday, did most everything right, but it didn't work out like I hoped.  However, I am making progress in terms of my racing technique, so that win will be along before too long.